7th letter from Lelystad, Nederland -- Week 31

District Almere! This was my district last transfer

Toodles to Elder Jeremy DeWitt at the train station

We've got Chef Ramsey up here.. AKA, Elder Steenblik

Heeeeeey Peeps,

So, yet another week here in the Netherlands is in the books!

On Wednesday, we had transfer day.  We got all of Elder Jeremy DeWitt´s stuff and rode to the train station. Transfer days are just insane! You should see the train stations! There are big groups of missionaries with bikes and luggage all over the place, and the train station workers basically hate us. Every time a train comes in or someone’s train arrives, everyone unloads or loads up luggage and bikes and runs through the station to the train.  Elder DeWitt left in the morning on his way to Belgium. My new companion, Elder Blake Alston arrived about an hour later.  

When I was at the train station some of the missionaries who were just in Belgium, told me that they had talked to people on the streets who had seen Elder Ryan Cockbain and me on TV.  Cool right?! I’m thinking that I will win an Oscar before Leonardo does.  Ha.  Sorry, Leo!

This is Elder Alston´s last 6 weeks of his mission, so I will be killing him off.  (That means I will be sending him home.)  I am so pumped that I get to serve with him for these 6 weeks.  He has been one of my role models in the mission.  He seems to know everything there is to know about missionary work, so I will be able to learn a lot this transfer from a seasoned Veteran. He is from South Jordan, Utah.

It has been a slow, but busy week.  Slow because we weren’t able to get any appointments with our investigators this week, but busy because we have been busy looking people up and finding.  Since basically every single door here has been knocked several times before by missionaries and knocked by Jehovah Witnesses every week, we are trying something new.  We have put the bikes in the shed for a while and are going to try walking from place to place and talking to everyone we see on the way.  It has already gone pretty well.  We have found some people by doing that, but believe me, our legs are feelin' it! Wow!!! We are both like, gimping around today because of how sore our legs are from walking around 7 hours a day.  Haha.

We started the transfer off by fasting.  We fasted that we will be able to find the people ready for our message and that we will be able to build the branch here in Lelystad.  In every prayer we say, we have been asking the Lord for a referral.  Even when we bless the food, we pray for a referral and today, we got a self-referral! Boo-Yaah.  We have also been working with the branch president on finding people that we can look up.

We got some snow this week! And by snow I mean like less than an inch, but everyone flipped out. It basically turned into a slippery-snowy-slush.  All day it was just nasty to walk in and everyone was sliding all over the place, but by night it was frozen solid.  The main form of transportation here is bikes, so it was hilarious to watch everyone trying to basically bike on an ice rink.

We made a few appointments this upcoming week that we are super excited about.  We found some cool people and got swollen legs in the process.  We had a pretty great week!

Love you all,

                                                        -Elder Steenblik