Week 3 -- Christmas 2012

Christmas is tomorrow and I’m exceptionally excited. I have this awesome little pile of my gifts and stocking and lekker food I’m planning on eating and opening right underneath our Christmas tree (made from yarn and other assorted randoms lol). We have appointments for dinner for like, almost all week heh. The members are super nice to us. They gave us each a Big box of food and treats at a Christmas concert at the church the other night. :)

   

Here they have two Christmas days, the 25th and the 26th :) the first is like time for families and stuff, and the second is when you go out and visit

friends and all that. I like it :) apparently they do it with other holidays too. Easter, etc. I'm all for it. Heck, if one is good, two is better :D

I got to go on exchanges the other day. I went to Den Haag, with one of the zone leaders. It was a great experience. I definitely learned alot.

We Get to do a service project tomorrow were we work at a retirement home :) gonna sing and stuff. Super cool.

Boy, i wish i could explain all the things that go on here. It's definitely something you have to do to under stand. But the best thing is, i know the Lord is in it.

The other night, my comp. was making a call, and we were standing on a bridge over a canal, with our bikes next to us, and i looked across the canal,

with the lights reflected off the water, (cause its dark here from like, 6pm-9am) and it really just hit me, wow. I'm on a mission. I"m in the Netherlands.

I'm speaking to people in another language and bluffing through my lack of comprehension pretty dang good lol. It's a great thing :) it's not easy, but it's

so worth it. Seeing the people's lives that we're working with, change and improve. Man. it makes it all worth it. That relationship with Christ is worth

more then anything.

There's a quote in our apartment that i like. it says: ''A missionary is someone who gives up his family for two years so others can be with theirs for eternity."

 that's the main goal of all we do :) when you think about it that way, it can put things in perspective dang fast

Sincerely,

Elder Chantry

Week 2

'Wow.

I really have this very strong desire to be able to understand what people are saying. lol like even more then I want to speak. If everyone would speak slow, and clearly, I'd prbly be able to manage lol. But sadly they don't and there are far too many times were i know that they\re saying something important, but no clue what it is :) hehe

        But! I’m making progress. I've been able to take part in quite a few Dutch lessons now, and I’ve been able to set up appointments on the phone :) which is tricky when you have next to know clue what they're saying. However, I manage to work out what they mean (or at least, what I want them to mean lol)

Christmas is coming, here they have two days of it 25 and 6th. And there's been some really great christmas dinners and programs at the church i saw the president and his wife and a branch dinner in Hilversum. And sang in a big concert in Rotterdam with many other elders and sisters.

Things are moving along here. I'm considerabley more aware of where we're going on our bikes now. And i can even lead us to some places :) good thing...

I gotta run, geen meer tijd. but I wish you all a merry Christmas and remember to find something beautiful each day :) something that brings you joy (is belongrijk)

Success jullie!

Elder Chantry

Week 1 in the Netherlands

To my family and friends:  (as if there's someone else to write to:)

Man to say a lot has happened is a sickly gross understatement. It's more change than I've ever had in my whole life (combined;) lol but boy, let me kind of give a run down of what went down:

We flew over the ocean (mind you that's amazing) and I will say I love it on a plane :) it's super awesome being in an awesome plane flying awesomely over the ocean, and seeing cities in Europe at night, super lit up and epic, and the people there give you snacks and food every so often and they're really nice :) I love it hehe (my district thought I was hilarious and liked to watch my reaction as we took off and flew around all awesomely and everything :) anyhoo, enough of that heheh

I didn't sleep at all on the plane, I wasn't tired. When we landed down they checked our passports, then we got our bags and then the mission president with the assistants were right outside and greeted us. Super nice, awesome people. (btw, i stopped capitalizing cause the silly people have the enter button in the wrong place so i keep hitting stupid other things. so i decided it's not important :)..... \

we went to the office and got ourselves checked in. as we did that we broke up and went with the assistants out contacting on the street 0.0 heh.. Not bad lol. I went with elder van overbeek and it really wasn't terrible, It was just clear that just cause I know some dutch words does not at all mean i'll get what they're trying to say. i still can't. not really hehhe. but it's coming for sure :).....

It was funny cause I wasn't tired at first, but as lunch started to wear down, and when we were waiting in the office after my interview with the president, i was suddenly shutting down lol. Nobody could stay awake lol. we got to nap before dinner but even then, after dinner ended, and as the pres talked to us, i couldn't concentrate at all. mijn lichaam (body) decided it was time to shut down and it wouldn't hear any excuses lol....btw, sooooooooo cold. Not at all warmer than at home lol. The wind is evil and comes from dark fell places in the arctic. ....the next day, we had a few study sessions and we met our trainer. mine is awesome. he has been here two (count em) transfers, (about 12 weeks) and now he's training me. He got called to speak Spanish in the Netherlands, and so he's basically fluent in spanish, dutch, and has also learned some french so he could teach an africaan man who doesn't speak the other languages. He is great. I'm lucky to have him.

We’re serving in Almere, which used to be ocean but they drained it away with dikes and built cities on it lol awesome. I'm below sea level right now. This place is sooooooooo flat. it ranges from a few meters above sea level, to 2 or 3 below. that's it. it's crazy.

Everyone one here is stinking Tall. on average, the dutch people are almost all 6 feet i swear. I feel like a stumpy 1 1/3 language speaking american who never has any clue were he's going. like ever lol. .

My first lesson, we walked into a home with about 4 black afrikaan men speaking french. They were eating bread and some sort of chicken heart concoction and they (apparently) invited us to sit and eat with em. I coudn't possibly have felt more out of place like ever in my whole life lol. But we ate (it was kinda good:) and then elder Pimentel (my trainer) taught one in french and i sat and nodded my head when i thought it might be wise to do so (lol yaaa, it was awesome)......

We bought a bike and a coat the first day, cause you can't do nothing without em..it snowed here and for a while there was a couple inches on everything. My companion has bald boy tires so he nearly died several times lol. I got better ones :).....

The District Leader’s companion and I taught a nine year old (with much better dutch than mine) the law of tithing and follow the prophet, while my comp was with the DL interviewing a lady who spoke spanish, for baptism. . It’s gonna be postponed a bit, but they're still on track. ...boy. are you able to get the image a little bit here? it's quite humorous if you can picture it, but it's awesome at the same time. I'm in an apartment with elder shoemaker who is training elder muse (from mtc district) and the four of us have a great apartment right above a McDonalds (but it doesn't smell lol) the food they have is great :) it's very echt (real). I like it :).

i love you!!

First Day in Netherlands

Here are some photos of Elder Carsten's first day in the Netherlands thanks to his mission president's wife.

With President and Sister Robinson

Waiting for the Subway.

                                                        Eating panniekooken in Oude Leiden.





Elder Chantry in the Land of the Tulips!