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