May 2, 2016

Just like I anticipated last week, all stereotypes, prejudices, and negative reputations about Den Helder are hereby shattered, crushed, ripped apart, and burned. This place is phenomenal. I feel bad and even guilty having called it an armpit at all, even if it was a joke. It's that great.

Transfer day was gnarly. Late trains made us barely catch all of our luggage inside, mean Dutch conductor tells us that the bike cards we bought are not correct and instead of paying the difference we get kicked off the train (typical), and I was abandoned at the rainy Leiden train station with 3 bags and a bike that I couldn't take all at once, but couldn't in 2 trips because if you leave anything unattended in a train station here you are a terrorist. BUT I finally managed to get to the office and grab Elder Penman, after getting an unexpected encounter from Morrel Cook and Aubrey (tender mercies) then we made our merry way to Den Helder. 

Koningsdag: Amsterdam was a party. Beautiful weather, we have a big, chill district and gave away between 100 and 150 Books of Mormon in all different languages. It was way fun. My camera battery was dead... but I will get pictures from Penman's camera.

In short, Den Helder is full of beach houses, old sea museums, and fields and fields and fields of tulips. It's fantastic. We bike down south to Julianadorp where members live, and it's full of tulip fields. It looks like the pictures you see online where the ground is painted with a brush. It's so neat and smells nice.

In the month of April, there were 6 baptisms here in the branch. So sick. 4 are from a family of 6 where the mom was a member, and 2 are actually refuges from Iran, who are the coolest people ever and were persecuted and had to flee Iran for being Christian. We have been partying with a lot of recent converts and it makes church so fun because the branch links on to anyone that comes so they can grow.

There will be neat stories to come of them. I love them so much. Familie Boerlage has ALix and Wim, the parents, then Martijn, Eric and Julian are twins and Isabella whose nickname is Mouse. Then Hosein and Roja are the married couple from Iran, and they are having a baby in JULY. THE WEEK BEFORE I GO HOME. So I'm pumped.

We have been able to knock a lot and even harvest new investigators, one of which has a faith blog of 45000 followers and loved our appointment and what he learned about the truth from the church. So hopefully those 45000 followers get some true things about us.

Today we are headed to a place called Anna Paulowna, a city just 2 train stops away, for the Bloemenbollen Dagen or the Tulip Bulb Days. So we will see tons of tulips today.

It's a wonderful place here at the Kop van Noord Holland.

I only took videos of the tulips this week, but I will take pictures today. But these are our stomping grounds on the dunes and coastlines here. 

Gestuurde liefde uit de Kop van Noord Holland,

Elder Trevan Scott Reese