Looks like I finally have to do my spring cleaning...
Yes, that is code for packing up and moving again! I'm heading to the lovely city of Den Haag or The Hague as they say in English. But this is a real city. It is on the coast between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and happens to also be the 3rd biggest city in the Netherlands after the two I just named. It has over half a million citizens which makes it about the size of Antwerpen (Antwerp) but its in the Netherlands so that means it actually has a good public transportation system. Belgium is the worst for transportation... side note Elder Dearden gets to learn what that is like because he got sent down to a very very very small town in Belgium. Good luck bro! Another interesting fact is the city has more foreigners than Dutch people.
As far as the church in Den Haag, I get the chance to serve in the largest ward in the mission. It has 150 active members. To give perspective the branch I was just in has less than 10 active members. So that is huge and we have 8 missionaries in the ward boundaries because of it- 6 elders (another side note my old comp Elder McBride just got transferred there as well) and 2 sisters. So this is going to be a huge change! My companion is Elder Davidson. He lives in Provo but was born and raised in Kazakhstan till he was adopted or sponsored at age 8. Very interesting character and will be getting to know him better.
The week was alright: The less active Esther we have been working with surprised us on Wednesday because she had her boy friend and a counselor at the appiontment. her BF lost 30 pounds of stress on us because he thought us teaching her would impact their relationship and the councilor thought we would make her stop taking a few medications and change her life style. Basically they made the decision that we can't teach anything that is going to change her life or the relationship so we aren't going to teach her much anymore and the Branch President said to just let her find out at church in the investigator class about the law of chastity and see if she wants to change when that happens.
Bianca, the lady we met with last week, was cool and is down to read the Book Of Mormon, we are doing service with her on Tuesday which will be a chill way to end my last day. She told all her friends and family members that she was meeting with us and got some negative feedback so I'm hoping they don't discourage her before we meet on Tuesday, but she told us all that and didn't seem to care about what her friends say and is still open to learn more.
We got to do service moving tons of furniture with an organization that helps refugees and poor people in Holland. It was really sweet. It runs like salvation army or the Deseret Industry where people donate all their old stuff but then they give that stuff to the people who have nothing. It made it really special because some of the people serving there are also those benefiting from it, and they have amazing stories of running from abuse and war in Syria or Iran. Oh yeah, i listened to a lecture series the other day about Islam/Muslims and if you look at the origins of their religion Muhammad has a vision and the things in his vision are actually very much inline with our gospel. Fun facts. Now I'm learning a bit more about the dead sea scrolls ( just another hour long lecture series to listen to) and its also very pro-LDS doctrine including temples, prophets, and eternal marriage. And people think that a 20yrs old could have made all this up... nah not possible... :)
Check out the photo of my shoes, working hard ;)
--
Elder Talyon Anderson Perry
Belgium/Netherlands Mission