That is one thing that I did not expect on a mission, is how many friends you make out here!!

Hey everybody!  thanks for the emails (except for ross, he forgot this week haha)  but it sounds like you had a lot of fun at the Rugby tournament!!  I wish I could've seen that soooo bad!  I'm not sad that I missed out on the seafood buffet though.  I eat it quite a bit here and it's not as bad, but I definitely don't look forward to eating it still.  Anyways,  This week was another great one!  Tuesday we were on exchanges with Leiden.  I went with Elder K again and we had a great time.  We talked more about sports, but realized that we are way behind and don't know anything anymore.  I can't even name one starter for the Jazz right now haha but I can tell you that Ajax is in first place in the dutch soccer league (obviously).  They are like the miami heat of the Netherlands.  But FC Twente which is in Enschede where I first served is in second place!  Club Brugge is also in second place in the belgian league.  Neither of the leagues are all that great, but their national teams are both awesome this year!  I don't know who to cheer for in the world cup this summer!  I guess it depends where I will be serving this summer, because if I was cheering for Belgium in Holland, I would probably die!  Sorry I got off on that tangent, but back to Elder K, we taught another lesson to brother De V.  He is the inactive who wants to come back to church.  We had another good lesson.  We had given him a Liahona last appointment and he told us that he read through some of the talks and really liked them.  I found out a lot about him this lesson.  I found out that we have the same favorite Book of Mormon Prophet, Nephi, and so I switched up our spiritual thought and shared a few scriptures about Nephi and what kind of man he was.  He really liked it.  He is still planning on going to the talent show and we are so excited for the branch to see him because they will do SO good at fellowshipping him.  We are also excited about the talent show because us four missionaries are going to perform!  I will be on the piano, and the other three will be singing 1000 miles by vanessa carlton hahaha its gonna be like the clip off the movie white chicks.  We hope that we can make the branch laugh :).  Elder K and I had a great exchange though.  We became good friends and sealed our friendship with a nice mountain dew and pillow talk that night.   That is one thing that I did not expect on a mission, is how many friends you make out here!! 

Wednesday we spent some more time preparing our segments that we are giving at zone training.  This zone training we will be doing so many role plays!  We have 1 1/2 hours set aside to practice 5 different role plays that will be lead by me, Elder Cooper, Sister S (the sister training leader) and the two district leaders.  I will also be talking about the word and the power of the Gospel based off of David M McConkie's talk in the last GC and I will be talking about Observing and Obtaining, basically two different ways to learn.  I am very excited and I hope that they will all learn something from it.  That night we had an appointment clear out in Wervershoof with a part member couple.  The lady is a convert who is from Ukraine, and the man is a really nice Dutch man.  They met online and got married and are now living here in Holland.  The lady is a great member, and even though there is still a big language barrier, she comes to church every week.  Her husband drives her (40 min) to church and sits in through sacrament.  He feels very welcomed by the branch and in his own words, he feels "like one of the members".  We are going to slowly work with him and help him actually become a member!!!  We got a really good relationship with them and got a dinner appointment with them for next week, and the branch president and his wife will be there too!  it's gonna be awesome.

Thursday was a pretty crazy day.  We accidentally booked two appointments at the same time, and they were our two most important appointments too!   We didn't want to cancel one, so we asked the Den Helder Elders to help us.  We came up with this big plan on who is going where and when and where we would be meeting up.  We only had one phone that night though because one of the Elders took the companionship phone to another city on exchanges.  I was with the Hoorn elders , and elder Cooper was with one of the Den Helder Elders.  After our appointment we went to the station to meet up, but Elder Cooper and the Den Helder Elder wasn't there.  We looked forever at different train stations, and we couldn't call them because they didn't have a phone.  We finally got a call from the other two Den Helder Elders (there are 3 missionaries in Den Helder), and Elder Cooper was up in Den Helder.  Haha they were waiting at a different train station for a long time then finally just took a train to Den Helder.  It was just a big misunderstanding that led to us driving around looking for two missionaries at 10:30  at night.  The funny thing is, is that one appointment didn't even go through, so we basically went through all that trouble for nothing!!  It was a good memory though, and that's pretty much how a mission goes haha it can be very hectic at times.  The appointment with the M's went awesome though!  our relationship is continuing to grow, and now we are working on starting to teach them, especially the middle child. We asked her to go to FHE in Amsterdam tonight, but she has a big presentation she has to give in school tomorrow.  She said next week for sure though, so we are very excited for that!!  They are seriously one of my favorite families that I have met on the mission. 

Friday we were on another exchange with the Amsterdam Elders.  I was in Amsterdam with Elder L  He is a farmer from northern Arizona, and he also played football in highschool and they ran the option too, so we talked a lot about that.  ahaha it was good reminiscing about high school days.  We also had a great day though.  We taught C.  She is a recent convert who I gave the baptismal interview too.  She is doing soooo good right now and has given three referrals to the elders there.  They are teaching 2 of her nieces right now.  We taught them when we were at C's.  She is going to be a strong member and bring many to the Gospel.  It was nice to go over there and teach her and her nieces.  We also had a spiritual lesson with a less active guy.  We taught him the importance of keeping the commandments.  We had a good talk with him and then shared Mosiah 2;41.  The Spirit was SO strong after we read that with him.  It was a great short lesson that was lead by the Spirit.

Saturday we met with the sister training leader and talked a little bit more about zone training and getting everything planned for that and then we went to a members house to help her with her yard.  She has MS and has a hard time getting around.  She LOVES doing yard work but she has a hard time doing it.  We went over and helped her a lot (I realized how much I miss working in the yard with dad).  She made us Chicken Enchilladas for dinner, and they were legit.  This member grew up in California her whole life and she is an awesome cook.  It was the first REAL mexican food that I have eaten in over a year!

Sunday was a great service.  There were a lot of people and good talks as well.  Afterwards was an activity for the youth and young single adults from Den Helder, Alkmaar, and Haarlem.  There were about 20 people there, and L came as well!  We had a lot of fun with all of them and ate some lekker bratwursts.  That night we had a dinner appointment with one of my other favorite families on my mission, The De B's.  We ate even more over there and had a great time.  We are trying to get R to go to EFY this summer.  he always says, "Ik zou lekker in bed blijven liggen" or, "I would rather lay in bed." haha we will get him to go :)  It was a great evening to finish off the week.  Elder Cooper and I are in love with this branch.  There are SUCH good people here!  Transfers are coming up in a couple of weeks, but I hope that I stay in Alkmaar.  I would serve six months here, but I would love that!  I could serve here even longer than that.  We both have a feeling that I will be leaving though...  I guess it is the Lord's will, and I will be happy wherever I go.

Today we had our zone pday!  We organized one to help create more unity in the zone, and that's exactly what it did.  We went to the beach just north of Haarlem, and there is this cool bunker museum there!  There are a ton of bunkers from WW2 right on the shore.  It was fun to run around in there.  It turned all that history into real life for me, and it was cool to see.  After that we ate sandwhiches and played some football on the beach.  Don't worry guys, I still got it in me ;)  haha no but we all had a good time, and everybody LOVED it!  It was a huge success.  This week is another busy week, but I am excited to see what it has in store for me.  I love you all so much!  Nog een fijne week verder!
Veel Lief,

Elder Bishop