Week 24: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Amsterdam is shining with Christmas lights, and people have been really soaking in the Christmas spirit. Sometimes a little too much... Our week was a little slow since everyone has been super busy with Christmas, but we have still been doing great. The Amsterdam ward had an excellent Christmas party, and the missionaries got to decorate it! It was super fun! It was completely filled, and we had to set up a few more tables.

The Skype call with my family was great, but I was very surprised at how fast the time flew! We will still have a lot to catch up on.

​ (Lance didn't have a camera on the computer he was using, so he could see us, but we could not see him :( Instead we saw the cute photo of his 12-year-old self that happens to be his Skype profile picture. ​He held pretty true to the 40 minute rule and we did get to talk for a minute with both his companion and his host, Brother Vervoert​. We also received a package on Christmas Eve from Elder Thornton containing a Belgian Chocolate Letter T!​​)​

Our investigators are still doing well, although they were too busy to meet with us this week... But they are still progressing, and love learning.

I will let the photos tell the rest of the story.

Christmas party set up! I forgot to take photos during it...

Hobo Elder Bartolini... He grabbed a blanket instead of a jacket last p-day, so we just had to take the photo opportunity.

Long story short... Elder Bartolini is a total goofball... :)

On Friday Pedro tried to kill us with a crazy amount of food...

We finished it anyways!

Rob Vervoert and his daughter hosted us for Christmas dinner!

Enjoy the Holidays!
Elder Thornton​

Week 23! Serving in Peru?!

Hola Hermanos and Hermanas!

Things are going great here in Amsterdam! The Spanish/Portugese community is exploding, so I have no idea when Elder Bartolini is going to be able to escape Amsterdam, because we seriously need him here. Our two Spanish investigators are still progressing to their baptism in January (according to Elder Bartolini, because I speak almost no Spanish :) ), and they love church! Said, our 11 year old investigator is doing well, and his Ecuadorian parents are super awesome too! They are super excited for him to get baptized, and when we totally fail at explaining something, they make it make a ton of sense for him. We even picked up yet another Spanish investigator this week, so I am probably going to be speaking fluent Spanish by the end of this transfer :).

Christmas is next week, and if everyone keeps their promises, we are going to have a ton of new investigators at the Church next week! Every we have been trying to contact for the past several weeks has finally decided they want to do something, so that is pretty exciting.


​Elder Bartolini really enjoyed part of my Christmas package :)


Just admiring the Amsterdam landscape... We had to walk down a super long street to find someone, and it was easily the prettiest street that I have ever seen. I took this early on, and I kinda wish I had waited for some of the even better views!

Jamali! He is 8, and he and his mom got baptized a few months ago, so we get to reteach them the lessons every week. We get super delicious Surinamse food!

Vrolijke Kerstfeest!
Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 22: A High-Yield and Low-Maintenance Missionary

Goede Middag!

(Not just hallo, because a grumpy old Nederlander told me it is only for friends and people you know:) )

This week has been going pretty well, and we had Zone Conference with a member of the Area Presidency, Elder Johnson. He was really cool, and he talked to us about how to be "High-Yield Low-Maintenance Missionaries." High yield meaning effective in the work, and low maintenance meaning being obedient, and charitable towards your fellow missionaries. I really enjoyed it, and it gave me a renewed resolution to be exactly obedient.

We also had Stake Conference this week, so I got to see my people in the Haarlem ward! I miss them! The Letorts, and Brother Duineveld to name the ones I knew the best, and also Anna, one of my old investigators. This was her first time in the Church. It is super exciting to see the work in Haarlem and IJmuiden progressing without me.

I didn't take a ton of photos, so I am going to try to get some of the photos from this week from the Zone Leaders. You could put the zone conference photo if you want. Oh, and yes that is half the mission. We are the upper half, and the bottom half contains Rotterdam and Belgium.

Have a great week, and enjoy the Spirit of Christmas!

Love, 

Elder Thornton


​​
A picture we found of Elder Thornton on his mission blog of a Zone Conference in November when they were able to attend the Den Haag temple.

Zone Conference on Dec. 7th. Elder Thornton is in the top right corner. This is when they received Christmas packages that were sent to the mission home. (Ours was full of decorations and a gift to open every day until Christmas, but it sounds like Elder Thornton thinks he is supposed to wait until Christmas Day to open it. Oops!) This is half of the mission!

Week 21! Below Freezing!

Hallo Familie and Vrienden!

It has gotten crazy cold down here! A few days have gotten down to -5 degrees Celsius, which is super cold with the humidity. The smaller canals currently have a thin sheet of ice. I feel bad for Elder Ocampo who is still in Ijmuiden, because it is even colder there because it is a port city right next to the ocean.

This week has been super great! We have been working hard and it has really been showing. We have three people progressing seriously to baptism, although most of that is Elder Bartolini since 2 of them are Spanish speaking and the other has parents who are Spanish speaking, but we do get to teach him in Dutch, which is super nice. His name is Said (SI-eed) and his parents are less-active members. He is 11, and he really wants to get baptized, so that is pretty cool. The other two are Jonathan and his mom, Lilliana. They are from Peru, just like Elder Bartolini. They were all at church this Sunday, as well as a couple others who found the church on their own. We will be meeting with them this next week.

They celebrate Pakjesavond today, which is when Sinterklaus comes and brings them gifts. It is basically the same thing as Santa in America. We get to celebrate it with the Jansens tonight, so that will be super cool. We all drew someones name for the gift giving, and I still need to find a present for Elder Dierden... But it should be a blast!

​Exchanges with Alkmaar! We played some serious games of Uno. I tried to pull a serious face...

​Delicious Olliebollen with cream!

​One of the crazy beautiful parks in Amsterdam. We spent a few hours on the 1st (the church wide service day) picking up trash.

I love you all!
Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 20! #REDLIGHTs

Goede Dag Iedereen!

Amsterdam is still crazy! I think I already have more stories here tha​n​ in my first 2 transfers in IJmuiden. It has been a blast, but I am still trying to figure everything out since it is such a big city and Elder Bartolini is still super new here too!

I can now say that I have been in the Red Light District! We were trying to find a street in the the Centrum, and we started to notice that some of the shops were a little skanky, and then… well, red light district… We got out of there pretty quick...

On the other side of the story, we were looking up people f​ro​m the area book, and we saw two young men in white shirts and ties that we did not recognize. We were a little confused, and then we saw another pair... and then another! We realized that we were super close to the Jehovah​ 's Witness Church, and their service had just ended. There were so many! And we smiled and waved at all of them :) They said "Hallo Broeders," so I don't think they realized who we were :)

Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here, but we had some nice enough members who fed us. Rob "One-Leg" fed us on Thanksgiving, and it was some delicious pasta (I love pasta). He is a super cool member who has some crazy stories.

(Here is a story from Lance's journal he wanted me to put here.) We had a special "Thanksgiving" Lunch with Sister Giok. It was pretty delicious, but not turkey, just a lekker pasta casserole. For some reason her food always kills Elder Bartolini's bowels, so he excused himself right before the spiritual thought. Right as the Zone Leaders started sharing, we hear Elder Bartolini's explosive reaction to the food in the bathroom. It was physically impossible not to laugh​, and we spent the rest of the spiritual thought trying to smother our laughing. It was pretty bad.

We ate a real Thanksgiving Dinner on Saturday with some super cool British members, so that was kinda funny. It was absolutely delicious!

​Elder Bartolini modeling the Missionaries Nederland's favorite cereal

Me on the Tram! (But I think he was just trying to get a photo of the girl in the background :) )

​I totally would take more photos, but I would not know where to start! Amsterdam is so pretty. You could just try looking it up on google images. (be careful though, Amsterdam is known for a little more than their beautiful buildings #redlights)

Have a great week, and don't forget to share the Christmas Spirit!

Love,
Elder Thornton!

Week 19! Amsterdam!

Hallo!

Amsterdam is crazy! It is absolutely ginormous, and I have pretty much no idea where I am most of the time. We have a super "gezelig" (There isn't really an exact translation for that one. Gezelshap means companionship, if that makes anything clearer.) layout in our 4-man apartment. We got our Christmas tree already set up, and it feels just like a house. We live with the Zone Leaders, Elder Dearden and Elder Bruneau.

Elder Bartolini is my new companion. He is from Peru, and he is a really cool and funny guy! He isn't really a lover of the rules, so sometimes we clash a little on that, but I think this is going to be a really fun transfer. When I came in all of our investigators were Spanish, so I am hoping to pick up some Dutch investigators so I can actually do something :). His Dutch is pretty minimal, so I end up doing a lot of the talking on the doors. My Dutch has really gotten a lot better, and rarely do I not understand people.

I have quite a few photos, so I will let them do the rest of the talking.
Sinter Klaus came to Nederland on the 11th, so we were su​r​pri​sed while we were knocking with a hundred or so "Zwarte Petes" ​(I looked this up just in case you are curious like me: The Zwarte Piet character is part of the annual feast of St. Nicholas, celebrated on the evening of 5 December (Sinterklaasavond, that is, St. Nicholas' Eve) in the Netherlands, Curaçao and Aruba and on 6 December in Belgium and Luxembourg, when sweets and presents are distributed to children. The characters of Zwarte Pieten appear only in the weeks before Saint Nicholas's feast, first when the saint is welcomed with a parade as he arrives in the country (generally by boat, having traveled from Madrid, Spain). The tasks of the Zwarte Pieten are mostly to amuse children, and to scatter pepernoten, kruidnoten and strooigoed (special sinterklaas candies) for those who come to meet the saint as he visits stores, schools, and other places.​ Traditionally Zwarte Piet is said to be black because he is a Moor from Spain. Those portraying Zwarte Piet typically put on blackface make-up and colourful Renaissance attire, in addition to curly wigs, red lipstick and earrings. In recent years, the character has become the subject of controversy, especially in the Netherlands.)


I have some super nice winter socks, but everytime I wear them they rip out my leg hairs. So I decided to shave them... I won't be wearing shorts for a while :)



Knocking in Hoofdorp. (Old area)

Last photo of the beautiful Haarlem station :(

​Elder Ocampo posing in the forest on the way to an appoin​t​ment :)

First Photo of Amsterdam! The Centrum is amazing!

Elder Bartolini posing with an extra large leaf :)

I love you all! Have an amazing Thanksgiving!

Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 18: Drum-roll please!

Hoi!

Can you believe it? I have now been in Nederland for 2 transfers! And you know what transfers mean! Transfer calls!

I am going to Amsterdam! I will be serving with Elder Bartolini, an Elder from Peru who ended up serving in Peru for 8 months because of visa issues, so he got here at the same time as me. When I saw him 6 weeks ago, he spoke almost no Dutch, so we will see how that goes. I prayed for a challenge, and I think God took me a little too seriously. He really does have a sense of humor.

I'm a little sad to be leaving IJmuiden and Haarlem, especially the members that I got to know really well. Luckily I won't be leaving too many serious investigators, just Joelle and a few others who we just started with. Joelle is continuing to "observe the water" from the outside, and she didn't have time this week for a lesson, so I hope that Elder Ocampo and his new companion will be able to help her.

On Saturday we had a little miracle. We had a full day planned, but literally everything fell through. Even our dinner appointment with a member... After we finished our missionary made dinner, we were going to finish weekly planning, but I had an impression to visit Thies, a potential who we had tried to contact so many times without success. We biked down there, and he was home! It was the first day he had been home for a while, as he had been in the hospital for the last couple of weeks. I was super grateful, because I was getting pretty frustrated that day with the lack of success.

I forgot my camera today, which is super sad because I had some awesome photos this week. I will make sure to send them next week, along with some great ones from Amsterdam!

I love you all!

Elder Thornton

Week 17: Halloween!

Goede Dag!

To be perfectly honest, I completely forgot Halloween was last Monday until we were biking home. It isn't very big here, so we didn't have very many reminders.

Nothing crazy happened this week, just a lot of biking and finding in the area book. We have set a goal to get 30 hours proselyting this next week, which is 5 over the missionary standards for our mission, so hopefully that will motivate us to really work hard this week.

My Dutch is getting much better. I have had several people this week think I was from Nederland! That made me pretty happy. The language has always been something I worry about, and so I am so happy that God has been helping me.

Sorry this one is short! Hopefully I will have something incredible to share with you next week!

Tot Maandag!

Love,

Elder Thornton

​From his journal this week, since the letter is so short: "There was one cool miracle that I want to remember. We were late for an appointment, and so we were biking pretty fast. It was a pretty rainy day and the leaves had finally fallen. I was taking a corner really fast when my bike just slipped out from underneath me. The wet leaves made a pretty slippery surface and my bike and I just skidded to a stop. My pants were almost rubbed through, but I was almost completely not physically harmed.​ I got the tiniest scrape on my arm and another one on my hip, and that was it. God really does protect his missionaries!"

​View from the tallest building in IJmuiden!

Week 16! "Wilt u wat sla met uw boderham?"

Bonjour! (not Dutch :) )

Things have been a little rough number wise this week, but it nonetheless has been a fantastic week! We have been working pretty hard with the members, getting them excited for joint teaches and that sort of thing. We also have a new investigator with a lot of promise!

Her name is Hanneke Boots, and we found her in the Area Book. She is severely physically disabled, with almost no movement capability, but she is one of the kindest people I have met. She can move her arm just enough to control her wheelchair, and she has a really smart dog who helps her with things like putting on clothes and opening doors. It is pretty impressive. This last lesson she said she wanted to know if it really is true, and then asked if it is normal for someone who is already in a church to convert and be baptized in the LDS church, so she is actually considering it! We hope to set her up with a baptismal date next week!

Joelle is still doing well, but her boyfriend is not being super accommodating, so we could use everyone's prayers.

One really funny thing happened this week. It was easily my most creative contact ever. On the bus you aren't allowed to "direct proselyte", meaning no questions like "Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?" , at least at the beginning of a conversation. You can later on. We had done the lunch for the District meeting, so we had some leftover lettuce, and the guy sitting next to us pulled out a sandwich with only some ham and cheese. The Holy Ghost immediately placed an idea in my head, and I went for it. "wilt u wat sla met uw boderham?" (Do you want some lettuce with your sandwich?) We ended up having a great conversation, and after he got out, a few other people started talking to us.

Sunday was excellent! It started out super great! We missed the bus and it doesn't come very often Sunday morning, so we would have been late. This finally gave me the excuse to bike to church! I have really wanted to for a while, but Elder Ocampo didn't want to . I convinced him it was the only way to get to church on time. We biked through the National Park on the way there and it was super cool! There were some wild horses walking right along the path with us! I love Nederland! It is so beautiful! I had the map out so we didn't get lost and at one point I was looking at it really closely, and I failed to see the beginning of a little island separating the fietspad from the street. I hit pretty hard but I just hopped up onto it since it was just a curb. Had I hit it an inch over either way I would have gone flying, so it was definitely a miracle. Then we sang in Sacrament Meeting (The Elders and the Sisters with Brother Latort playing piano. It went pretty well. Hanneke and Joelle were there!

Have a great week everyone!


Haring with Tim, the Bishop's less-active son! He has been coming to church pretty regularly recently!


It wasn't awful, but I don't really understand why people would eat it... ( I finished it, of course)

New Furniture! In Nederland, people put their old unwanted furniture out on the sidewalk. What missionary doesn't want a free chair? (Our super steep spiral staircase was nearly too small :) )

Fries on P-Day!

The rest of these are P-Day photos in Haarlem. I got sent to the coolest and most beautiful mission ever!






​

Week 15! No Candy!

Hallo jullie! (translation: Hello you!)

This week was pretty great! We had 2 days that we didn't get to work in our area (working with the Zone Leaders in Den Haag, and a full day trip to Brussels for Residency and Driver's License), but we still saw a ton of progress and a few new investigators and potentials.

Joelle, our number 1 investigator is continuing to be awesome! She is following the Word of wisdom, which she has already passed her initial 3 week goal and decided to keep on going, which is so awesome. I made a promise with her that I wouldn't eat candy if she followed the world of wisdom for those 3 weeks, and I ended up forgetting when that was too, which was pretty cool, so I guess I will keep on doing that with her. We taught her the law of Chastity today, and she was very open and willing to apply it in her life. She was going to go right home and talk to her boyfriend and set a goal, so that was pretty exciting. Our excellent joint teach Brother Latort let us use his house, cooked us food, and explained the law of chastity in the perfect way for Joelle. It was pretty amazing!

We are going to kill it this week! Good luck to my fellow missionaries, and for those who aren't missionaries, look for missionary opportunities. Members are the biggest part of a truly converted convert. We emphasize that so much in our mission that we don't even baptize, the members do.

Tot volgende Maandag! (translation: Until next Monday!)

Love,
Elder Thornton

Lance sent home handwritten personal letters to each member of our family! They were so fun and a little silly :) He had a creative salutation (Mom. . .Mom! Mommy, Mom! or La. . .De. . .Kur. . .Col. . .Micah!!- I was just practicing being a dad and not remembering which child is who(: ) and fun way to sign each letter (Elder I-totally-beat-you-in-Minecraft Thornton, and Elder hopefully-I'm-still-taller-than-you-when-I-get-home Thornton). He is still the same great Lance, just a little bit awesomer! One cool thing he mentioned is that he went on splits in Den Haag (where the temple is) with an Elder Richards from Layton who happened to play Lord Farquad when we saw Layton do Shrek in recent years. Can you just imagine Marius and Farquad as a companionship?!!

Week 14! Picking it back up...

Ollieballen! Donuts, but 5 billion times better!

Goeie Dag!

Nederland continues to be awesome! The weather has gotten a little colder, but still not too bad. This week was pretty long, since so many of our previous progressing investigators either threw their Book of Mormon away, or just disappeared.

We don't have any more investigators in Beverwijk anymore, so we don't have to waste our time traveling over there instead of just baptizing everyone in IJmuiden. Micha, our last investigator over there, told us nicely that he threw away the Book of Mormon because it was giving him nightmares about false prophets. Really fun, He still wanted us to teach the Plan of Salvation, but he ended up just fighting us on every point.

We continue to focus on Joelle, who still doesn't want to set up a baptismal date because she feels like it will force her to do it when she isn't ready, which is an okay reason, but I still feel like a date would help her.

Joka believes the things we are teaching her, but she says the things we are teaching her are "te swaar" or too heavy, so she asked for a couple weeks of a break.

Jackie... Her "lovely" husband met us at the door and told us, "We believe in God and Jesus, but no prophets," gave us her Book of Mormon, and shut the door. I am pretty bugged by that, because it sure didn't seem like that was Jackie's opinion.

Elder Ocampo is cool! We are definitely not the same, but we have been getting along pretty well. Dutch is still going great!

Have a great week everyone, and I hope you will take advantage of all the missionary opportunities!

Love,
Elder Thornton

Taking the ferry across the canal



IJmuiden Port Skyline

Week 13! 1st Transfer!

Hallo iedereen!

​(Hello everyone!)​

Some of you may have already noticed, but I finally moved my P-day to Monday, since transfers just occurred and it worked out well. I hope everything thing is going well where you are at! It is going pretty well in Nederland, and I have been growing spiritually and mentally a ton this week.

My first transfer happened this week! ... And I am staying in IJmuiden, but with a new companion! His name is Elder Ocampo, and he is from Texas, but his parents are from Mexico, so he speaks fluent Spanish as well as English. He is way more hipster than me, but we have been getting along pretty well. He is pretty awesome, and as far as I have seen he is a good missionary. I realize now that my previous companion, Elder Stanger, had an abnormal amount of drive compared to other missionaries here, and I am really grateful for that. Elder Stanger set an excellent example for me to follow for the rest of my mission.

With Elder Stanger leaving to be a Zone Leader in Apeldoorn, I have "taken charge" (Belgium/Netherlands Mission lingo) of IJmuiden, meaning I will be the guide since I know the area. With this extra responsibility, my Dutch has exponentially increased, and now I can have normal conversation with pretty much anyone, with both sides understanding each​ other pretty well. Sometimes I have to ask for clarification on a word, but most of the time there is no problem.

Our investigators are doing pretty good! We have starting teaching Jackie, and we picked Joka back up. Joelle is still keeping the Word of Wisdom! Yay! That also means that I still haven't had any candy, but it is definitely worth it.

We taught Luuk, an 8 year old member in our ward, about baptism, and it went really well. It was my first lesson that I "led," and I was really excited about how smoothly it went and how smoothly I was able to say my thoughts in Dutch.

Met Liefde,
(With Love,)​
Elder Thornton

Week 12!

Hallo!

I have almost no time, so I hope the photos can do most of the telling.

I set up a google docs folder for my journal, for those few of you who the weekly email isn´t quite enough. Email me to tell me if you would like me to share that folder with you.

We finally found Jackie! The Filipanese woman from the bus a few weeks ago! We have been looking for forever, and we had pretty much given up when we biked past her. We found out that we had walked past her door several times, and had actually been teaching her next door neighbor. It was pretty cool!

Thank you for the birthday wishes!

Kapsalon! Pretty delicious!

Lemonade stand in front of the Church! Not many people stopped, but we got 47 thumbs up :)

Pretty funny Bellup name

Sunset in IJmuiden!

Pretty church I saw while on splits with the Zone Leaders in Den Haag

Week 11! (P-Day won't actually be on Monday...)

Goede Dag!

I know I told you we were going to change P-Day to Monday, but we realized that we have too many investigators who are only available on Monday, because it is their day off. We visit Beverwijk every Monday, and all of the investigators there, naturally, are available on Monday. So I will still be writing on Saturdays... Sorry...

Anyways... Beverwijk! The Golden City! We have 3 investigators in the same building, and another a little further. And that is only in Beverwijk. We have 6 total progressing investigators right now, and a couple other new investigators. I am pretty excited!

I will share two more super awesome things. We found a Polish man, and he doesn't speak very much English or Dutch, but we were able to communicate just enough to give him a Polish Book of Mormon. We checked back up on him a week later, and he has already read to Alma 25! And he says he loves it! We really need to speak Polish...

Also, Joelle, our #1 investigator, promised to follow the Word of Wisdom! I promised with her that if she wouldn't drink wine at social gatherings for 3 weeks, I would not eat candy for 3 weeks. You have no idea how hard that is going to be. I have a couple pounds of candy from the MTC, and more from a birthday present from the Mission President. But if Joelle can completely change her lifestyle for the gospel, I can refrain from candy.

I forgot the camera chord... again... Sorry! I have some really amazing photos, so next week. I also am going to post segments of my journal, because I write about the same things I want to write in my journal.

Tot ziens!

Love,
Ouderling Thornton

(We don't get to use that title, because it means elder, as in old person, not elder, but a guy can wish) :)
Here's some more from my personal letter. I asked him what his typical PDay looks like:

P-Days in IJmuiden are super busy. We follow the normal 3 hour study schedule in the morning (personal, companion, and language), and we go grocery shopping. We then go do emails at the church. It takes us nearly an hour to get to the church on the busses, so we end up having nearly no free time. Normally after emails we head straight to our dinner appointment. Today we got to play soccer with our zone as a special activity, but that means we had almost no time to do proselyting.

Week 10!

Here is some more info he wrote in my letter:

I really enjoyed your letter! It is a little weird to think that you guys are still doing normal things, and I am being a missionary. It hits me every day that I am a missionary, because it seems so strange. You look forward to and imagine a mission for such a long time, that it is really weird to actually do it.

I am so excited for everyone runningwise! That sounds pretty awesome. Elder Stanger has been running with me a little bit, but not very long or very fast. We do get plenty of exercise walking and biking, but I probably will gain a bunch of weight, because we do have to do a lot of sitting on the bus and during lessons, and the members feed us almost every night.

We are allowed to listen to any music that is centered on Christ, not just motab, so most people just put music on a usb port.

Since my emails are going to be shorter, I think I am going to send excerpts from my journal so I don't have to spend all my time typing out this letter. The Miracle (or miracles) of the week, has to do with bu​ses. We live a whole hour from our church and basically everywhere, so we spend a lot of time on the bus. Often, we miss our bus, and I get a little frustrated because we are late so often. Sometimes, this turns out to be a miracle. Multiple time we have missed the bus, and the one after it had a investigator or potential in it. It has been so amazing, and I know that God can place us in the right place with something simple, like missing a bus.

I think we found Jackie's house! (the Filipino woman) It is in the right area, and has a brand new tag on the door with the correct first initial and a Filipino last name! We are going to check that apartment every time we pass by now.

​​I forgot my cable to the camera, so I will try to send those photos next week.​ Love,

Elder Lancey Pantsy Thornton

Week 9! (I think... I may have lost track...)

Hallo van Nederland!

I love being a missionary! It is crazy hard, but also rewarding enough that you just can't get enough. We didn't have a ton of appointments this week, so we did a lot of knocking. I love it is short amounts, but sometimes it is a little long.

One day we knocked an entire street in a few hours, and almost the entire first half of the street was not interested, and not particularly nice either (which is weird, because for the most part I have found that people here do their best to be polite, even if they have "Geen geinteresseerd.") On the second half of the street we found several people, and had to bring back a Book of Mormon because we ran out. That was a little weird, but so awesome. On this street we found 3 19 year-old boys, who all were interested and took a Book of Mormon. We are hoping to teach them together, cause that would be so cool!

I had my first exhange this week, and I finally broke through the barrier of speaking to people on the bus. I now can have a full conversation with someone on the bus, and for the most part understand what they are saying, which is so cool.

My trainer is super good at Dutch, and I am doing my best to learn from him. I have improved a ton since I got here.

My trainer is super awesome! Elder Stanger is really good at Dutch and talking to everyone. He actually has done musical theater since he was 8, so we have enjoyed that, and he is almost the exact same height and weight as me, to which everyone in our ward has commented on.

Our investigators are doing pretty well. Joelle is progressing, and wants to be baptized, but doesn't want to commit to a certain date. Dionis and Peter did not do their reading, so that is a little frustrating... Joka is from the Dutch Reformed Church, and doesn't really think it is important to change, even though she has asked us to pray with her multiple times. I think we are going to be able to get all of them going this week, with a little help from above.

Have a great week!

Beverwijk! A pretty little pond in our area

Haarlem Centraal! We take our a 30 minute bus ride to IJmuiden from here almost every day. (We are super far away from the church, about 1 hour on the bus, if we time it right.)

My classy companion and I on our bikes. :)



​Vla! Zuster Majors made this pretty awesome vla flower for me at a dinner appointment.

Love Elder Thornton!

Week 8! At least one miracle a day!

Hallo!

This week has been so awesome! I have seen so many miracles! There is a least one that I have to tell you about.

Last Sunday my companion and I were on our way to church on the bus, and we had decided that next time we would sit next to people who looked like they were going to church. As we were getting off of the bus, we helped a woman with her child and stroller. She said "Thank you" in English, so we asked her where she was heading. She said, "I'm looking for a church." AHHHHHHHHH!!!! That was so cool! She and her extremely smart 1 year old came with us to church and stayed for the full 3 hours. We are hoping that she will come back this Sunday, since she did not know her number yet, and the member who gave her a ride home doesn't remember the address (argggg). Keep her in your prayers! We think we know the street she lives on, so we are going to knock it tomorrow. I forgot to mention she is ​Filipino (my Dad served his mission in the Philippines, so that is kinda cool.

Next, I want to debunk a myth. First of all, my mission is not a hard mission. Everyone here is so nice, and miracles happen every day. Everyone may not be ready for the gospel here, but there are so many people who are. We currently have two people who have a soft baptismal commitment (said yes to baptism, but aren't ready to set a specific date yet). They are Joelle, an amazing woman from Kurasao, and Peter, an old man who plays the organ at the Catholic church. We also have Dionis, a woman from Dominican Republic, who was amazed at the first lesson, and I feel like she has a ton of potential.

Another miracle along those lines is Joka, an older Nederlander woman. She has been struggling with her health for a really long time, and she had become very scared. At that moment, we knocked on her door. She invited us in and started sobbing and telling us her story. She has allowed us to come back a few times more, and believes the restoration is true.

The language is coming along okay, I guess. I understand very little details, but most of the time I can understand the general context. I learn more and more every day. Some of you may have heard me at one point or another say that "the weather tastes good"-​ cause it totally does. Guess what! They say "Lekker Weer", or "tasty weather" here. So ​I'm not that crazy!

One more miracle is that some people here really are so prepared for the gospel. We were talking to a man on the bus, and our conversation turned to religion, of course! He said that he believes all of the churches have a "shard" of the truth, which is the metaphor we use all of the time for the reason for all of the Christian churches, and why the true church had to be restored. We got his information, and I am super excited to contact him.

Sorry it is long! I have so much more I want to tell all of you, but I only have time for the most important stuff. Have a great week everybody, and believe that miracles are so real, and can happen to anyone if they believe.

Love,
Elder Thornton