wait it snows here?

Week 2 in Amsterdam was pretty cold, to be honest. But it was good we are still finding lots of people and being able to teach a bit too. We got rained on a ton the whole week and then it snowed about 3 inches yesterday so that was cool. I had fun riding my race bike in the snow with skinny tires haha. It actually didn´t do too bad. Also on Sunday, we had stake conference and the ward had rented a huge bus to take all the members here so we got to have about an hour bus ride to the conference with the members. It was a really good chance for me to get to know the members a lot better. There are some really cool people in our ward. Plus lots of Spanish speakers so that is fun. On Saturday a member took us out to eat for his birthday at this super fancy all you can eat place. It was awesome, It was super nice he took us there. We ate so much food haha. But other than that it was a pretty normal week, teaching lessons and talking to people about the gospel.  

Also here are some pics from elder Furniss and me with an investigator one of a street in the centrum and then us in our study room. 

Is there sun in this country

Hola, so now I´m in Amsterdam. It´s a pretty cool place. It is super old. way different than being in Rotterdam where none of the buildings are more than about 80 years. Here everything is way older. We aren´t usuaslly in the city itself much though. We work a lot more on the outskirts of ttown. There is a pretty good pool of investigators already and me and Elder furniss (My new comp) have already found a good amount more haha. The ward is pretty cool, tons of people were gone yesterday so I didn´t meet everyone but it seems like a good ward. There are lots of spanish speaking people in our ward too so it will be fun to be able to use my spanish a lot. We also have a couple spanish investigators here who I´ll get to teach in spanish, I am super excited about that. Also I can´t remember if I said this last week or not but we have a whole house now, A dutch house which is smaller than american houses by far. But still it is a house. Also there is another missionary companionship that lives there with us too. It´s a good time. In the mornings we all run to the church then play ping pong for a bit and run back. It´s great. It has been cold though haha. On saturday I think I had the coldest day on my mission so far. I don´t think I got warm again until I took a hot shower the next morning. I can tell it is going to get colder too haha. Normally it wouldn´t be so bad but as a misssionary we are outside most of the day and it gets a little chilly after a while. Also the sun doesn´t come up until about 9 and then it gets dark again around 4 or so. It is a bit strange. I can not imagine being somewhere really up north. Sometimes it feels like the sun never evn came up haha. It´s all good though. Anyways See you next week everyone. 

,Elder Harding

010 to 020

Sup homies, So this week was a really good week. We found lots of people and even got to set up a baptismal date with a couple investigators so that was super cool. I´m sad I don´t get to stay and teach all of the people we found, But elder dial will do a good job. I´m getting transferred to the city of amsterdam! I don´t know how many of you have heard of it but it´s a little city in north Holland that is famous for a lot of things that may not be appropriate for missionaries. But I will be moving there on Wednesday so exciting stuff. It did make this last sunday a little sad. I had to say goodbye to a lot of people I have really gotten to be friends with. But so goes it. Missions seem like they are just a whole lot of goodbyes sometimes. Sorry for the short emails lately, I always end up procrastinating this until last minute so I have not so much time. But I will send some pics from last week to make up for it. 

Tomorrow is P-Day (Explained) 11/20/17

So last week I forgot to explain my title, so in case anyone was wondering. Elder Dial and I have this saying that every single day we just say that time goes so fast tomorrow is basically P-day. So we always say that and it´s always funny on sunday because then tomorrow is actually p-day. Anyways this week was good. We found four new investigators so that was nice. Also we just talked to tons of people. I honestly feel like we did way better this week at being missionaries so that was nice. But other than that this week was pretty normal. Anyways I don´t really have anything else to say haha. have a good week anyways

Tomorrow is P-Day 11/13/17

Wow this week went by really fast, so we started off doing a service project on monday for about 6 hours, then tuesday to wednesday I was on exchanges with the zone leaders So I was in rotterdam south for 2 days, it was fun. Everyone always says south is the more ghetto part of the town but I honestly don´t really feel like it´s any different from where we live. Then thursday we got to go through the temple! That was super cool. It was awesome to go through it in dutch. I actually understood about 90 percent of what was going on so that was nice. then after that we had zone conference and it was good. It always is good to go to those. It helps me stay more motivated. Especially with how cold and dark it has been lately haha. Then on friday we were on exchanges again with our district leader. It was funny so elder dial actually went with the district leader and I just went with his companion who just got here from el salvador, So we were walking on the street trying to talk to people and after a while he just looks and me and was like "Elder, this is hard. No one here even stops for a second to listen to us" It kind of made me laugh because I felt like after a while I´ve just kind of gotten used to how the people are here, but I do remember when I first got here how it did kind of suck, but once I really got into it It becomes totally worth it when we actually find someone who is willing to learn. Also I gave a talk on sunday, that went ok. I didn´t have as much time to prepare as I would of liked so I feel like i could have done better. Oh well though there is always next time. Also this week I repainted my bike and stuff so I´ll send some pictures of that. 

Peace out, Elder Harding

Nov 6...No Group email.. portions of Mom and Dad's emails

So haha, elder Dial got hit by a car. That was crazy. We were riding bikes home and it was dark and the roads were wet, so I was riding behind and elder dial was riding in front and he was going kind of fast because he just bought this sweet race bike. It looks a lot like dads but it has automatic sram shifters, I have no idea how it works but it´s cool. anyways we both have lights on our bikes so the car totally could see uus because they are really bright but this car comes flying by us and then just pulls over right in front of elder dial and slams on its brakes. So elder dial brakes but can´t stop because the roads are wet and he slid sideways then just smahsed into the back of the car. He didn´t even fall over though. He like rode to the front of the car and glared at the guy then drove off hahahaha. He´s ok it was just crazy though. I´m glad it wasn´t me because I don´t have any breaks on my bike so I would have died haha. It´s cool though.

So normally fast and testimony meetings are awful in our ward. Basically everyone just gets up and tries to show how much better they are and tell everyone they need to repent. It´s hard to watch honestly. But this week was really god. Honestly it was the most spiritual fast and testimoney meeting I´ve ever had. Everyone just was up there talking about missionary work and how much it has blesed them to have the gospel. It was cool. I even went up and bore my testimony. (I know shocker) I also have to give a talk this week so I figured I´d practice haha.

Lately we have been having a difficult time finding new people to teach, we have 2 people who are progressing and doing well but other than that we don´t really have a ton of people. We had tons of potentials and stuff but now we have kind of sifted through all of the lazy people.  So now we should have more time to go finding which is nice because we have had zero finding time lately. But the 2 people we have who are solid are Erwin and Ray. Erwin is a dutch guy, kind of a recluse but he can for sure talk for hours. It´s hard to teach him sometimes because he gets off on weird tangents and it is hard to bring it back to the gospel. but he is sincerely interested and does want to progress further. Right now we are just having  a bit of a hang up with smoking. His excuse is that he thinks prescription drugs can be just as bad as smoking so he doesn´t see why he should quit. He also said he doesn´t know that the word of wisdom is an inspired law, but it was good he said that because then we challenged him to live it and pray about how he feels to see if it is insprired and we totally caught him where he couldn´t just argue his way around us. So we will see how it has been this week haha. Ray is a Chinese student who has been meeting with the missionaries for two years and he has finally decided he wants to get baptized. but then his parents were super not supportive and told him he just needs to finish his studies then leave back to china and get a job. But we are working with him still. It´s hard to tell him to just not listen to his parents but really if he actually wants to get baptized and fully understands what it means that should be more important to him tna anything else. 

te amo, Hijo

It's Dark

So this week we had the time change, before it wouldn´t get dark until around 6-7 in the evening. Well now it gets dark at around 4. So ya that is not my favorite to be honest. I feel like I never see the sun anymore haha. But this week was pretty chill. Just kind of a normal missionary week. My companion and I did a service project where we got to cut down a tree and then cut it into tiny pieces. That was pretty fun. Also we got to do a skype lesson with one of our investigators to soem chinese members in another city. It ended up being a really good lesson for him and I think it helped him a lot to realize what the gospel does for people. But ya sorry it´s kind of short this week but here is a before and after picture of the tree we cut down and also a picture from zone p-day a few weeks ago that I just got

I hear the ocean is quite nice this time of year

hello, This week was pretty interesting. Week had quite a few ups and downs. So, on tuesday we had an amazing lesson with this couple from india and they were asking all of the right questions and felt the spirit so strongly ( or at least I did) and then later that night we got a really solid referral. So tuesday was great. Then wednesday we had two lessons planned. both of them went not so great. One was a word of wisdom lesson with a chain smoker who has been making tons of progress but does not think he should quit smoking if we are still allowed to take prescription drugs because they are both bad for us. The other was with a newer investigator, he has a crazy story but anyways he doesn't really like dutch people. Our joint teach happened to be dutch and he kept talking bad about people from Rotterdam the whole lesson. We didn't realize our investigator had such a strong distaste for Rotterdam people. But ya that lesson did not go to great. Then on Thursday Elder Dial got a package from his gf back home so he was all happy about that, then later that same day we had to use the computers and he checked his email only to see that she'd broken up with him that same day. That was rough... Also directly after we had a lesson with our guy on baptismal date. Well he said his parents in china were super against it and he didn't want to worry them a ton... so for the moment he isn't on date. We will work with him though. We did have stake conference this week though. It was actually really cool. It's fun to see so many members there and stuff. Plus the talks were all really good. It is a little different than stake conference in Utah, Dutch people are very direct haha. It's kind of funny sometimes. Also yesterday we got caught in the pouring rain in the middle of the city with just our bikes haha. We got soaked. but it was all good. Anyways haha that was this week. Oh also last monday we made mussels haha, we saw them on sale for 3 euros for 2 kilos. So we thought why not. I had no idea how to cook them haha but we just put some garlic and oil and butter and other spices. Also a non alcoholic beer. Then we boiled them for a tim until they all opened. It actually turned out pretty good. I was surprised at how good they were haha. Also neither of us got sick or died. so that was exciting haha. Also one day this week we jsut randomly saw this bright green parrot looking bird flying around by our house. so that was cool. Itried to get a picture of it but idk if you can really tell. anyways until next week

Sincerly, Elder Harding 

Heeft Uw wat tijd om iets kort te lezen?

So this week has been good. So have all of them. We have finally started pick have the work pick up and ended up¨teaching a lot this week which was super nice. I love it whne we can get some good teaching in. The transfer ended this week and it looks like I´ll be staying in Rotterdam again. That means I´ll do 6 months in my first city. Pretty crazy. So funny story. We have been doing this cool thing lately where we go around with a page from the book of mormon and ask people to read a little bit then answer a few questions. It works really well... if the person will actually read it haha. We had one guy he other day and we asked him if he had a minute or two to read a short piece out of a book. All he did was look at us and yell "Bibliotheek" then walk away. That means library ps. But it was just funny to see some of the responses people give us other than no time haha. Also there was a Europe conference this last sunday from Elder Ballard. I don´t know if anyone of you guys saw it but it was really good. He talked a lot about miracles. Miracles have not ceased. it is so cool that our heavenly father blesses us with Miracles still in this day. So ya, Miracles still happen to us. Anyways I hope you all had a good week

Hasta luego, Elder Harding​​​​​​​​ 

de politie klinkt zoals

Hola, So we had an encounter with our neighbor below us yesterday haha, It did not go great. So apparently the missionaries in our apartment about a year ago were super loud or something and since then our neighbors have hated the missionaries. So they have came and yelled at us a couple times for random things. (We do actually try to be quiet though) But yesterday morning we were walking down to go to church and the guy was standing there and just starts yelling at us that we can´t wake up at 6.30 on sunday because everyone in nederland has to be chill and rellaxed on sunday (He didn´t say that exactly but I don´t know how to translate rustig properly) So we told him it was a rule that as missionaries we wake up at that time everyday and he said he was going to call the police haha, I don´t know what he was going to tell them, but I told him he could call the police and we would glady talk to them, then he just gave us a frustrated look and said we were devils. But ya fun fun. We are pretty quiet and honestly not even home that much so I´m not sure what we are doing that he hears so much. But anyways haha other than that it was a fairly normal week. We did a lot of teaching though so that was nice. We have been trying to incorporate the ward a lot more with our investigators so we have had a lot more joint teaches. It really helps so much to have members there. The investigators actually see that we have normal people in our church too, not just weird American kids with sup par dutch. Also something that has really impressed me this week is how much the lord answers prayers. I have always known that but sometimes I just forget to make use of it. Even just for little stuff if we pray about it and do our part we will get an answer. Also here are some other pictures. I don´t know if any of you have seen bike racks like these before but they are all over here and it amazes me how many bikes there are in this country. This one is a little empty but normally they are packed full, also we found this crazy slide that looks like you´d die if you went down it you would die. I don´t know if you can really tell from the picture though.  

tot volgende maandag,

Elder Harding

Conference and Conference again

So this week was a bit strange because we had general conference and zone conference almost back to back. So our weekend was very busy. Other than that this week was really good. It was interesting watching conference from a missionary perspective. I feel like I was able to take a lot more from it than normal so that was cool. We didn´t have tons of success this week but it happens. Some weeks are good and some are not. it´s kind of like Elder Uchtdorfs talk about light. Sometimes we are in a shadow and just need to wait and be patient. Anyways sorry for the short email this week.

Sincerely, Elder Harding

Here are some pics of me by erassmuss bridge and a turtle we say the other day

The Mystery of Jacob 4

Well, The sun finally came out again, this week we actually had super nice weather. Which was good because we were outside a lot. This week was good, the last few weeks it´s felt like every single lesson we had was falling through, but this week we had about 60 percent or so go through. So that was super nice. It always reminds me that we do actually help people sometimes and not just annoy them by knocking on their doors. We did have a pretty stereotypical cool missionary experience that I will share though. So we had a lesson, but the guy wasn´t home. Our backup plan was to knock this street close by. Well it was a really big street. We ended up knocking the one street for almost 3 hours. After about 30-40 people saying no and the other 60 or so people not being home, someone talked to us! It was kind of weird at first, we could tell there was a pretty big party or something that was going to happen there in a little bit but we decided to knock it anyways. First thing this younger girl answers the door (probably around our age) and she just says oh no we don´t need to talk to you guys, then she half shuts the door and we could hear someone else asking who it was and the girl just says oh it´s the Jehovahs witnesses. So I said "oh no, actually we are the mormons" and the other lady ,she turned out to be the girls mom, opened the door again and was actually super interested. She said she was raised Catholic but never really had a personal testimony of it. She said she has been searching for something that she feels is true though. so we have an appointment with her this week, hopefully all goes well! It was just a really cool experience for me about how we just have to endure sometimes. She was literally the very last door on a street about a third of a mile long and everyone who had answered before said no. If we had decided that it wasn´t worth it to continue we never would have had success. So that was cool. Another thing I have been trying to figure out lately is Jacob 4. A couple weeks ago our bishop told us to go study that chapter, he said "there´s something going on there I haven´t quite been able to figure out". So the past week Elder Dial and I have spent a lot of time reading Jacob 4 and the chapters surrounding it. Definitely interesting, but I still have no clue what the bishop was hinting at haha. It probably just takes someone smarter than me to figure it out. But that has been our big joke this week whenever we don´t know something. The answer is in Jacob 4. Anyways hope everyone is having a good life and such. Sorry I have been terrible at taking pictures lately. Maybe next week

Peace out, Elder Harding

Did I Mention It Rains Here A Lot!

So last week i think I said something about the rain. Well just so everyone knows it hasn't stopped. I have gotten caught in the rain more times in the past 2 weeks than probably my whole life before. It's always funny when we go knock and peoples doors and it's pouring rain, they give us some pretty strange looks haha, some of them even talk to us. This week was busy though. I went on exchanges with the zone leaders for 2 days, so that means Elder Dial went to another area and one of the zone leaders came here for 48 hours. It was good. It helped me realize how much more I have to learn and how much I can improve. Especilly in my language skills haha. I have gotten to the point where I can explain most things I want to say and be understood, but i still say things totally wrong. Then on Friday Elder Dial went to Brussels for some paper work stuff so I got to work with another random missionary for a day. That was pretty fun. We actually found someone too so that was sweet. There are always people out there who are ready to hear the gospel. Even if they don't know it yet haha. Sorry this is kind of short, Also I forgot to take pictures this week. Oh well.

Sincerely Elder Harding

it rains here, a lot

So this week was very rainy, I think I have seen the sun maybe 5 times for a brief moment since tuesday. Other than that it has been raining fairly hard pretty much the whole time. So that has been fun haha. I also am training now so I have been 'in charge'' everyday. That has been pretty fun. A little stressfull sometimes but it's all good. My new companion is pertty cool. he is from idaho, so still a mormon state, But so far so good haha. He said it's hard to understand the people here because in Belgium they talk so differently, So I have to pay really close attention to make sure I understand everything haha. it has helped my dutch a lot though. Also Elder Lowder is gone so I have to translate for one of our investigators who doesn't speak dutch during the gospel principles class, That was pretty cool. It is super hard. But ya this week was good. Just more teaching people and trying to help them come closer to christ, you know, the usual missionary stuff haha. I sucked at taking pictures but I do have a couple, these are from the past little while that I havent been able to send. anyways till next week

Elder harding

"Hippos can run up to 40 miles per hour" -your Irish Grandaddy

Well well well, Fancy meeting you all here on this fine monday evening. Normally it´d be morning but we had some lessons then so our schedule is a tad bit weird. This week was crazy. We had 2 exchanges and a zone conference so that means that I was not in rotterdam working for 3 whole days this week. It doesn´t feel like I was even here at all. But it was good. The Zone conference was really good. We had Elder Saban our area 70 come and talk to us. He is a really cool guy. He seemed super genuine and just like he knew what he was talking about. It´s nice to have that sometimes. The main thing I got out of the conference was that as long as we are working hard and doing our best work we will be blessed. I feel like that sums up just life pretty well. Sometimes there are trials but we just have to do our best everyday. Also, We got our transfer calls this last saturday. That was crazy. So I will be staying in Rotterdam and finishing the training of Elder Dyle who has been here for one transfer. I have only been here for 2 so this should be and interesting little while haha. Elder Lowder will be going up to gronigen and co training a brand new elder with someone else, He will also be a district leader there and none of them have ever been there befor eso that means that they are whitewashing the area. which is also crazy. We have been looking up lots of people since Elder Lowder is leaving. One of them is Billey. He is a 65 year old irish guy, he has been drinking a lot for most of his life, sort of a functioning alcoholic. But we have still been helping him get his life together. His househas gotten 10x cleaner since we last went there so that is a positive sign. He is a bit of a ranter though. Today he got going off on animals for a bit. one of his quotes was that hippos can run up to 40 miles per hour. He also always tells me that he is like my irish grandaddy because he is the age of my grandfather haha. We do talk to him about gospel stuff too, he just gets sidetracked sometimes haha. (P.s. I don´t think Hippos can run that fast) But ya. This week was pretty good. Crazy to think I´ll be the one in charge of rotterdam here pretty soon. I guess I am ready haha. I understand most of what is said. Still not all by a ways, but most of it. I´ll let you peeps know how it goes next week haha. 

Peace out, Elder Harding

Also Elder Lowderturned 20 a couple of weeks ago, we baked him a cake today and it turnedout amazingly. Also a picture of Elder Lowder and I at church with this guy Ricardo who recently became active again. And some pictures of my bike and I by Erasmus bridge. 

Ik was vergiftigd

Hola or hoi as people say in the Netherlands, The weeks just seem to go by faster and faster each time. This week was good we did quite a bit of service. First we did service at a food bank which we do most every week, there we make crates of groceries and then they give them to low income families and stuff like that so we were there, Then we helped this guy Billey paint a room, His life is kind of a mess. He had some accident 30 or so years ago and now he just lays at home and drinks and all that stuff but we are tring to help him get his life together and help him fix his house up at the same time. It is filthy, but it gets cleaner everytime we go over there so that´s good. He said we are the first people to come in his house for 14 years. I don´t know how true that is but it does look like no one else ha been there but him and his cats haha. Then on friday and on saturday we helped this guy Miguel move. He has a crazy situation, So he is kind of an eternal investigator. He does want to get baptized but he can´t because he lives with his girlfriend who is actually a member and they want to get married but they can´t because she doesn´t live here legally. So what he is doing is paying a lawyer to help her get legalized but he has like no money and his old house was littlerally falling down. The dining room was about a meter below the rest of the house on one side and their bathroom was also way lower than the rest of the house. But he also hadn´t payed the rent on his house in over a year so he was getting kicked out and didn´t know where he was going to live. We were over there for dinner and told him about fasting and told him we would fast with him to find a house so we all fasted. The very next day a wardmember called him and found him a house that was wihin his price range and everything so that was totally awesome. So then we helped him move and he has a ton of stuff, but not really useful stuff just lots of junk and knick nacks. But we were super happy he found a place to move to. He has fed us every single week since I have been here and he even gave Elder Lowder and I each a tie this last wednesday so that was super cool. Other than that this week was pretty much normal, Just lots of teaching the gospl and knocking doors. I did get food poisoning on sunday so that was fun. I only threw up a couple times and felt like I was dying all sunday but it´s ok because I feel much better today haha. But ya that´s most of the highlghts from this week. Oh also on monday we had zone P-day so we went and had a BBQ at the senior couples house and went and played soccer and stuff. It was pretty fun.  

Till next week,

Elder Harding

Who Needs the Metro?

This week was pretty good, not too much different from every other week I have had here as a missionary haha. we did some lekker knocking and taught a bunch of lessons. It´s been a little annoying lately we find investigators and have a super good first lesson with them and then they just dissapear and we can never find them again. We had proabbly six or seven lessons fall though this week and that was a little frustrating though. We did have a super good lesson with this guy Mohamed though (we actually have 2 investigators named Mohamed right now) But he speaks hardly any dutch and no English. He mainly speaks arabic but we gave him an arabic book of mormon and an arabic pamphlet and went through it with him and answered all of the questions he had. He seemed super interested and really liked the idea of modern day prophets so that was really good. I also got to go down to Belgium and fill out some more paperwork so I could live here. It was cool because all of my MTC people were there and it was fun to see them again and see how they´re doing. Plus I got this awesome sandwhich and waffle. So that was good. But anyways on saturday we deided to bike to our dinner appointment and then to a lesson. We knew neither of them were very close but we still wanted to bike because it normally takes about an hour on public transport. Well we just mapped it out on the computer. Turns out we biked more than 30 miles pn saturday haha. So that was way fun. I love biking here it is just flat the whole time. There are litterally no hills in this whole country. Anyways here are some pictures from my week. Remember the church is true and all of that fun stuff.

Peace,

Elder Harding

The 010

Hello Hello, How is everyone in the real world? Our week was pretty good here in the north part of Rotterdam. This week we went on exchanges, So I got to go to Gouda for a day (yes like the cheese) That was pretty cool. I was with Elder Calmez who is from Aruba. He speaks spanish, dutch, englsih, and papiementos. So that is pretty cool. At one point we were on the train and every single one of those languages were being spoke at the same time and he could understand them all. So that was pretty cool. Also when I was on splits with him we gave this german guy a blessing. But he didn´t speak dutch so we did it in english and since I had the best english I got to give the blessing. It was actually a pretty good experience and I was happy I got to do it. It is crazy to think that we get the oppertunity to give people revelation from God and tell them things from him. Pretty crazy once you actually think about it. We also had a lesson with this Older Jewish lady, Her name is Marcella. She kind of reminds me of an older female captain jack sparrow haha, But we met with her and her husband and her husband was a pretty funny guy. I will quote some of the conversation for you people 

Marcella speaking to her husband "See I told you these were nice boys!"

Husband "Well what did you expect me to do, kill myself?" 

Later he started making jokes about hitler and me and Elder Lowder weren´t sure how to handle that because theyre all Jewish and stuff. Also Elder Lowder and I cooked some pretty good foods this week which I will send pictures of in a bit. Saterday was kind of a bummer, We had 3 lessons planned and all of them fell through, Then we found this one potential and started talking to him, It was all going good until his father came out and yelled at him in arabic then pulled him inside and slammed the door on us, So that was a bummer. Also someone threw a water balloon at us from the top of a building, They missed of course. But ya we left after that haha. All in all not too bad of a week.

Peace out, Elder Harding​​​​​​​​

Here is a picture of some Hebrew Candy Marcella gave us, some food we made, Elder Calmes and I, and a picture of my bike I made I can´t remember if I sent one last week