I'm Finally Here!

I am in the Netherlands, doing real work and going real places!  It is so amazing here! Even better than I imagined.  It is so pretty here, everything is so green and diverse, even though it is super small and everything is close to each other.  Our first day here we got picked up by President and Sister Robinson and the APs, had a quick time to get our luggage put away then were swept off to a quick orientation meeting.  Because there was so much to do in only a day until we would get our trainers and head out, we stayed in a hotel next to the airport which was pretty cool.

Elder Lott will serve in Ommoord with Elder Chantry as trainer.

The reason I say that this country is pretty small is that on that first day we ended up taking a train from the Amsterdam airport to Den Haag to sign some paperwork and other things and it only took like 20 minutes.  If you look on a map of the Netherlands they seem like they are a ways away.  Crazy stuff. I don't remember much else from that first day because at that point I had been up for like 3 days straight without sleep and was just about ready to pass out.  I remember the bed was super comfy.

Elder Lott meets Elder Chantry  Click here to see Elder Chantry's blog.

Click here for more pictures from the Mission President's wife. (For pictures of Elder Lott, go to the post: Transfers from the MTC, Monday, September 22, 2014)

The next day we woke up, had some more training, and then got our first call letters and trainers.  My first call is the the area called Ommoord.  It is kind of funny that it is called that because Ommoord actually has like 2 percent of our actual area, but oh well.  We are the Elders for Gouda ward.  Just for an easier reference point, we are just outside of Rotterdam.  It is very cool here, there are lots of classic dutch parts of our area and lots on new parts too.  Because we are right outside Rotterdam, we have an even more culturally diverse area than most of the Netherlands. The ward is mostly native Dutch, but there are some German, and Russian, and even Americans thrown in.  We have already contacted people from Suriname, Slovakia, Russia, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Brazil, Bulgaria, and countless others.  It is way sweet, and eye opening.  So I am actually in a trio, my trainer is Elder Chantry (he has been out nearly 2 years, this is his last transfer, he's from Washington state.) My other companion is Elder Johnson, he has been out about a year and is from South Jordan, Utah.  (Click here for Elder Johnson's blog.)  They are both really great and have been fantastic examples to me so far as how we can work hard and also have a ton of fun with it.  It has been really cool having all three of the major spectrums in one companionship. (2 years, 1 year, pretty much nothing).

Train Station

Funny Sign - Rough translation: Kids that jump will be sold to the circus

Sent no information with this one - somewhere in Rotterdam.

This week we have had a series of what my companions have been calling 'greeny miracles'. I think I'll only share one for now.  We were out contacting in the morning, the first morning since I got here, and we were walking around a lake a little ways from our apartment.  We decided to go back for lunch and ended up contacting this lady called P.  She is from Suriname, but has lived here for a while and was just walking home from a long time at work. As we began to give her a card that would direct her to go to mormon.org, we prepared to start just moving on but then she started asking questions.  She wanted us to tell her more about the church, because a friend of hers that was a member of our church had invited her to church fairly recently.  We were very excited and started to tell her some about our church, she ended up asking questions that where nearly perfectly aligned with the first discussion, we ended up walking and teaching her all the way across a huge park, and by then we had already taught her the first discussion.  At this point it was time to part ways so we gave her a Book of Mormon, and she gave us her info.  She said she would read and pray like we had asked her, she also asked if we could come teach her son, because he could use this message. This is a crazy miracle in many ways.  First of all, because what are the chances of running into her in a huge park along some random path, also because she was simply amazing, and apparently people that receptive don't come along very often, let alone in the Netherlands. It has still been too short of a time to see what all will come of this, but we are hoping that this will lead to great things!  To give everybody an idea of how rare this is for our mission, we have been asked to share our story in zone training next week, and we don't even know what all will come of it yet!  It is truly a miracle no matter the outcome though.

Geese/Swans:  We weren't feeding them.  They were just really territorial and came over to run us off...
it worked after they began hissing at us.

My First Bike. I bought for it for 175 euro, but by the way you can't pay here with cards, Mom, you have to
take money out from the ATM so I took out about 200 euro. Also, reason I say first is odds of getting it
stolen on my mission: fairly high.

What to do with only two bikes:  We only have two bikes right now because Elder Chantry has
been a ZL and had a car.....

Sent no information with this one - somewhere in Rotterdam.

Our Studying Desks:  Ha ha, this is the only room I can take a picture of because the rest of the rooms
in our apartment are too small to fit in the range of my camera (can't back up enough).

Sorry for how crazy this email has been, I can't really focus I'm just so excited and happy!

I love you all!

Good luck til next week!

-Elder Hayden L. Lott