Seven days

This has been a busy week, with the usual office busy-ness of Monday, Zone Conference on Tuesday, preparing for the new missionaries arriving next week on Wednesday and Thursday and another trip to Brussels on Friday.

Even though I was not driving, yesterday was still so tiring. Possibly because, as one of the office elders, and the one not driving, I was kind of baby-sitting the missionaries in the van, haha.
Elder Cockbain drove the van and Elder Lind drove the Corsa, with a total of 14 occupants. Two more met us in the central station in Brussels. It was nice getting to know some of the other missionaries in the mission. As there was not much else to do during the roughly 2 hour drive (each way) but talk. And also tell jokes.

Tuesday was great. Elders Van Komen and Lewis (the assistants) gave a training on how to do roleplays and then split us into the two zones (Apeldoorn and Amsterdam) to work with each assistant for a fifteen minutes or so. Elder Van Komen taught about attitude during planning. How we should not come home and get all grungy before starting to plan lessons. Also, about how it helps to mention specific investigators in our prayers and to think about them and learn about them. Elder Lewis spoke about finding people through members. We then had lunch and people whose birthdays fell between january and march were asked to stand and then in one minute each, everyone was able to compliment them. After that, we returned to the chapel to listen to the testimonies of the 4 missionaries who are dying this transfer. (Oh, and just so that no one gets worried, dying is missionary lingo for being released/going home).
After hearing from them, Sister Robinson spoke about the little things that need to be changed in the mission, using the example of a gate on the farm she once lived on, how if it moved just a quarter of an inch at the pivot, it would move several feet at the other end. So some things can be changed just a little bit and the resulting difference will be much bigger. Then President Robinson spoke to us about unity and then the assistants spoke on similar topics (I particularly loved what elder Lewis said about fear and his experiences with it). Read this: 1 Nephi16:29. Just because.

I was kept well occupied on Wednesday and Thursday with preparations for the new missionaries, as well as getting some things ready for the departure of others. While it seemed last week that we would only be getting one missionary next week, their visas came through and we'll be getting 8!