Elder Hayden Lott: First Son, Whitewash

Hey Everybody!

So this week has been just about the most packed of my mission so far. I guess I'll start on Tuesday night. That was my last day in the beautiful city of Brugge. We went back to the apartment, I finished packing, then we started our trek towards Roosendaal. (Because I was training and needed to be in the Netherlands super early for some training meetings we got to sleep over the night before, and when I found that out I suggested Roosendaal, which worked out perfect!) Anyways, so we started our way there, but got caught up at a few stations along the way which was a blessing in disguise because I got to call a bunch of people that are in Belgium both in Brugge and in Leuven before I left, so that was good. When we finally arrived in Roosendaal late that night we had missed the last bus to the apartment so we had to call the Elders to get directions, and ended up having to walk with my luggage and bike for like 45 minutes. Oh well, that ended up paying off later this week, knowing how to walk home that is. On Wednesday morning I got up and left with another Elder who was training, and Elder Groesbeck actually then already had his companion, because he was serving here in Roosendaal, we just kinda switched! Anyways, we got to Leiden and went through a couple of training meetings and then got to go meet our greenies! And... my first son is... Elder Higham! He is from Red Deer, Canada. He ran in High School, played a little BBall, and has quite a bit of greeny fire! So needless to say, like father like son ;) We've had a ton of fun the last couple days getting lost, looking up investigators, and getting to know the ward. We go to the Breda ward, and this ward is awesome! It is probably the strongest and biggest ward I've served in so far (80-100 active). Our ward mission leader is awesome, and looks like we'll be getting fed 5-7 times a week so they take care of us really almost too well. Our apartment is super nice, it has 2 floors! But although the other Elders left us with a pretty decent work load, they left the apartment a mess! So that has been our P-day today, cleaning. It's doing a lot better though. They did, like I said, leave us with some good work though. This will be the first area I don't have to build from the ground up to get things going so that is good. We have about 3-4 solid investigators and a couple less actives we work with regularly so that is good. Also, Elder Higham speaks French! So we´ve been looking up French speaking investigators out of the area book and seeing some success with that. I'll be his French greeny and he'll be my Dutch greeny and everything will work out ;) Cool things though. Everything is going well. Learned lots of lessons and all. I just really need to catch up on sleep though. I've been up late planning and doing various other things pretty much all week but other than that, everything is great!

Love you all!

-Elder Hayden Lott