April 20, 2015
The last transfer has begun. On Wednesday, Elder
Matos and I hopped on a train heading to Rotterdam Centraal, where Elder
Byers was already waiting. Elder Matos and I said our goodbyes, and my
new companion -Elder Byers- and I grabbed the next train back to
Tilburg.
And so it begins. Elder Byers and I
hit the ground running -- he was ready to work, and I was too. I felt
like some parts of our first day together were straight out of a TV
show. We were walking around the centrum, contacting people, and we
talked to this one guy who was wearing a cowboy hat and looked Mexican.
He spoke fluent English and Dutch and preferred to speak in English, so
we started explaining who we were and what the Book of Mormon was. He
proceeded to introduce himself as John the Baptist. He was dead serious.
"I'm not the same as the one from the Bible; we just have the same
name. Similar missions, though!" He was also religious and tries to help
others. After a long conversation in which he quoted lots of random
scriptures about how great Christ is, we realized we weren't really
getting anywhere, and we thanked John the Baptist for his time and moved
on.
Five minutes later, we're standing at a
crosswalk, waiting for the signal to walk. I was thinking about how
great the weather was (and it was great -- the newspapers called it the
"first day of summer"), when Elder Byers and I were suddenly sprayed by
something wet. I thought a car had used their windshield cleaner at a
bad time or something, but then I saw a younger guy with a look of
disgust staring us down as his friend drove away. Yep, we'd gotten spit
on. I looked at Elder Byers, who had a deer in the headlights look, and
he said, still looking stunned, "it's either Red Bull or Monster. I'm
pretty sure it's Monster." Well, at least I know what the guy spit on
us. I wiped the energy drink from my face...and we pressed onward.
That
evening, we were biking to an appointment. I got a little lost, but we
managed to find the way. All of a sudden, I felt something wet right
above my knee. You know, they say everything that comes from above is a
blessing, but when I looked down at my pants and saw bird poop on my
leg, I disagreed with that statement. In the middle of informing Elder
Byers about my bad luck, I hear a clank and a hissing noise. Elder Byers
says, "I think I just rode over a piece of glass. Yep, my tire is
flat."
And that was the first day of the
transfer. You know, we all have days like that every once in a while.
You just have to laugh at yourself -- I laughed a lot that day. I think
Heavenly Father was just testing me... But, things always get better.
Now, Elder Byers' tire is fixed. My face has no Monster energy drink on
it, and neither does my shirt. My pants are washed. As for John the
Baptist, he's still out there, somewhere.
Welcome
to Tilburg, Elder Byers! Haha. My last companion is a good guy. He's
from Nashville, Tennesee, and he's been on his mission for about five
months. He's a funny person -- we're going to have a good transfer
together.
Being companions with a younger
missionary is always fun -- they've often got that young missionary
spunk, and they are ready to learn. It's also fun to watch the
mistakes... We were in a lesson last week, and we shared a scripture
about the Atonement. Elder Byers was trying to say that it was one of
the clearest scriptures about the Atonement that he knew. In Dutch, you
have the word "duidelijk," which means "clear" or "evident." You also
have the word "dodelijk," which means deadly. You already guessed it --
he told the recent convert we were teaching that it was the deadliest
Atonement scripture he knew. We had to laugh. Enjoy the little things,
right?
I'll go ahead and start wrapping up. The
next day, Elder Byers and I were let in my an interesting man -- kind
of a hippie. We discovered (though he did not say it) that he let us in
because he loved Americans... He listened to us, but told us he didn't
agree, though he did like us. That's when he said, "I won't shoot the
messenger... Actually, that's hard to do here. Firearms are illegal."
Clever.
After we left, we ran into this younger
homeless guy who always stops and talks to us. He seemed to be in a
rush today, but he stopped us and shared a verse from the modernized
Bible he always has with him. In the middle, he gets a call from a
friend, and he says, "politie in de buurt, waar kan ik komen?" ("Police
in the neighborhood, where can I go?") Apparently, he'd been on the run
from the cops. Go figure. At least he thought it was important to make
time for Jesus.
This Saturday (we have an early P-day because next Monday
is King's Day), I'll tell you all about this past weekend -- we had
stake conference in Antwerpen and Brussels. It was a fun weekend.
That's all for today. Have a great week. And hey -- if the police are in the neighborhood, you're always welcome at my house.
-Elder Bonney
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| I promised more pictures of Keukenhof... Remember about how I told you all about the not yet in-bloom tulips? Yeah. |
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| Saying goodbye to Elder Matos in Rotterdam. |
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