All the departing missionaries bore their testimonies, I got a little emotional bearing mine and it hit me so hard that I am gonna miss my mission SO MUCH!!! I love it out here, and I can't believe I'm almost done.

Hey guys!  Thanks for all the birthday wishes!!!  I don't feel 21, and I can't believe I was barely 19 when I last saw you guys!  I love hearing about Thanksgiving and what you all did.  I love the Holiday season, and I am looking forward to spending the rest of it with you.  I also had a great week this week and I can't believe how fast it went by.

Last Monday was a great P day.  We went to the St Bavo Cathedral in Haarlem.  It is MASSIVE and beautiful.  It also has a massive Organ.  The church was built in the 1500's and the organ in the 1700's.  It was the biggest organ in the world at the time.  Handel came to Haarlem just to play that organ, and Mozart also played that organ when he was 10 years old.  It's a white church and the ground is covered by tombstones.  It was really cool, and you guys will have to see it when we come visit here.  That night we went to Sister Den B's with the sisters to have family home evening.  She is an older member of the church and one of the sweetest ladies I've met.  Her husband never joined the church, but she wanted her kids to join and she heard something about the importance of family home evening when she joined 50 years ago, and she promised herself that she would have family home evening every week.  Her kids are all members of the church, but her husband never did.  He passed away and her kids are all moved out, but she still remembers the promise she made to herself and she still has family home evening every week, even if it's just her.  When we heard about it we decided that we would go with her every week.  She really appreciates it and it's a lot of fun talking with her and hearing all her stories. 

Tuesday We went to Alkmaar to run through our musical number that we would perform at the Zone conference the next day.  We got it down really good that morning and then all got Burger King together for lunch haha.  We went back to Haarlem that afternoon and had a nice lesson with A and C.  We didn't have a lot of time though, so it was more of a nice visit.  We then had to catch a bus to our dinner appointment.  Our dinner appointment was outside of Haarlem in a small town called Aalsmeer.  Guess where we had to go through to get there?  Yes, Schiphol International Airport haha.  I could only think about picking you guys up there in just a couple weeks!  Not gonna lie, I got pretty trunky haha.  We caught another bus from Schiphol to Aalsmeer and had a really nice dinner appointment.  The family is a nice young american family.  We walked in the house and the kids were running around and the movie Elf was playing in the background.  As if I wasn't trunky enough!!  haha it was a nice dinner appointment though and we all had a lot of fun!  They are one of my favorite families in this ward.  It was a nice day.  We got back a little late and went straight to bed to get some rest for the next day.

Wednesday was the big day.  We had Zone Conference in Rotterdam.  We had to leave at 7:30in the morning to get there on time.  It was a great Zone Conference though.  Elder Moriera was presiding.  He is an area 70 from Portugal and just happens to be in Elder Silva's home ward haha.  He was awesome though.  I learned a lot.  After lunch we were able to perform our musical number.  I don't know if I already told you, but we did a medley of Joseph Smith's first Prayer and O My Father, and we did it to the tune of Homeward Bound.  I was on the Piano and Elder Silva, Elder Cooper and Elder Hunter sang.  It was INCREDIBLE!!!  The next speaker (President Robinson's first counselor) couldn't speak because he was crying too much.  It was very spiritual and we were all very pleased with how it went.  After we performed all the departing missionaries bore their testimonies.  I got a little emotional bearing mine and it hit me so hard that I am gonna miss my mission SO MUCH!!!  I love it out here, and I can't believe I'm almost done.  My trunkiness that I had the previous night was totally gone.  I didn't want to leave.  I really am gonna miss my mission. A lot.  It was a nice Zone Conference though.  After the conference President came up to me and told me that Elder Moriera liked the musical number so much that he wanted us to come back the next day to the second zone conference and perform it again so he could film it.  We were happy to do it even though we had to cancel appointments with two of our positive investigators.  We called them and rescheduled for the next week.  I was pretty sad we couldn't teach them this week, but then the thought came to me, "I can touch the hearts of two people tomorrow, or I can touch the hearts of 100 missionaries tomorrow." That made it a little easier haha.  So we got home to go to sleep and then woke up the next morning to do it all over again.

Thursday the Zone Conference was in Zoetermeer, which is a little closer to Haarlem.  So that was nice.  I think the zone conference the second day was even better.  We performed again and it was just as good as the day before.  It was nice to be able to see that whole mission those two days though.  I saw a lot of close friends before I leave.  After the conference we had a dinner appointment with the R's.  It was fun to be over there and get to know them.  They have two younger kids and we shared a cool spiritual thought especially for them.  That's something I learned on my mission, if you want to get in with a family, go through the kids haha.  The parents really appreciate it.  It was a lot of fun getting to know them though.  After that we met our ward mission leader at the grocery store to buy a few things for our activity that we were throwing Saturday night.  We were both SO tired while shopping with him haha he even said something about it.  I really like our ward mission leader though and we were all getting excited about the activity.

Friday was our day for appointments.  We had an appointment with F first.  He had just received the Aaronic Priesthood and he has been making SO much progress.  It has been awesome to help him along the way and see him grow and see the Gospel Change him.  We taught him about missionary work, and it was a nice lesson.  After that we went to another recent convert who is less active to do some service.  She is renovating her appartment and we had to scrape all this wallpaper off her wall.  To be honest, it was pretty miserable haha I swear that's the kind of stuff they do in prison haha.  It was good to help her though.  She really appreciates it and she has been coming back to church these past few weeks, so we think it is helping.  After that we had an AWESOME appointment with A and C.  We talked more about baptism and told them that they weren't gonna be able to make their date on the 6th cuz they need to go to church.  They were pretty sad about that, but they understood.  We then talked about Fasting and the power of Fasting.  WE committed them to fast with us the next day.  They were gonna fast and pray to set a new date to be baptized in the beginning of next year.  It was awesome.  They were really excited about it haha.  They have also made a ton of progress these past few weeks.  When we first got there they were kinda questioning baptism, but now they want it so bad!  We are really tight with them and I think that has helped.  We also invited them to our activity that next day and they were excited to come :)

Saturday was a busy day.  We met our ward mission leader and the sisters at the church at 10:30to start cooking.  We were having a thanksgiving dinner/talent show for our missionary activity.  We prepared the turkeys and got them in the oven first thing and then we made sweet potatoes, greenbeans, cranberry sauce (I made that and not gonna lie, it was really good haha), we had mashed potatoes of course and carrots, pumpkin pie and chocolate cake.  It took us all day to cook and set everything up.  I'm pretty sure that was the worst possible day to fast, ever...  Haha Elder Silva and I were dying in the kitchen.  6:00 came around and more people showed than we had expected!  A and C were there too.  We broke our fast with the feast and had a talent show to entertain us.  It was a huge success!  A and C LOVED it!  F came and did a talent.  It was really good for him and it meant a lot to him.  an investigator of the sisters came too and there were some non member friends who some members invited.  It was awesome.  Everyone loved it and we strengthened our relationship with the ward.  It was also nice to have a thanksgiving dinner.  I didn't get that last year.

Sunday we woke up and we thought we were gonna die.  haha we were so tired!  It was a nice church service though and we didn't have to do anything, so we had nothing to worry about.  We had correlation after church which is Always fun.  After correlation we had to catch a bus to our next appointment.  We walked out of correltation and it was POORING rain!  Typical Holland.  It was strangely kinda nice, just knowing I would only get so much dutch rain haha.  We had a good 10 minute walk in the rain to the bus stop.  Not only was it raining, but it was freezing cold, about 3 degrees celcius.  We finally saw our bus coming so we stood up and waved, but the bus just kept on going...  What the heck?!  We had to walk to the station which was another 10 minutes.  We caught another bus and showed up about 20 minutes late to our dinner appointment, but we called in advance and she was fine about it.  We had a nice dinner with Sister C and the sisters.  She made cheesecake which is my absolute favorite!  We got home a little late last night and went straight to sleep.  It was the perfect ending of a great week.

Today has been a great birthday so far.  I woke up and made us some real dutch pannenkoeken (Pancakes).  we came to the church and I practiced the piano while Elder Silva emailed, and now I am emailing.  When I started emailing some alarms went off outside.  I remembered that every first Monday of the month at 12:00 they check the alarms for the dikes around the countries.  Then I remembered that Elder Silva didn't know that yet :)  I ran into the other room of the church and yelled at Elder Silva to get his stuff.  He got a scared look on his face and I told him the dikes broke and we need to get outta here.  Haarlems right on the coast so it was an emergency.  haha he ran into the other room to get his coat and bag and we headed for the front door.  The alarms are really loud and pretty scary.  I couldn't hold back the laughter anymore haha it was SO funny!!!  He thought it was pretty funny afterwards too.  I then told him how they do that the first Monday of every month.  Anyways, we will probably just explore Haarlem today and take some pictures.  We have a dinner appointment tonight and then we will buy some cake for tonight.  It will be a great day :). 

I can't believe I am in the last full week of my mission!!!  We are really busy and I think it will be a really good last week.  I miss you guys a ton and I am so excited to see Mom, Dad, Ross and Lainey NEXT WEEK!  I love you guys so much.  I hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Bishop

PS sorry, my camera converter cord just broke so I can't send any pictures...  At least it happened at this point on my mission haha.