Holland!

Hey everyone, How are you doing? Things are going great here in Holland. We have been staying each night in an old castle here. It is really really cool. I’m staying in a room with 7 other girls. One night I went exploring w/a few guys and kinda illegally got into some places. Pretty exciting! We have had 2 concerts and been site seeing a couple times in Haarlem, Amsterdam, and Leiden. We are going today to see more of Amsterdam*. Wednesday we are going to move on to another place to stay. We travel everywhere in 2 buses and have had some exciting rides with STORY TIME! Not quite like the Sanctuary story time, but it is good anyway. It seems like I am dropping and breaking everything! Ok, well only 2 things…. My cell phone broke into 2 pieces in the airport and I dropped my metronome and it doesn’t work now, although I think it’s fixable. I’ll tell you more about the trip when I get home, b/c I don’t have long. I’ll try to call sometime but the lady with the cell phone left this morning but maybe her husband is keeping it here, I’m not sure.

*Ok so I tried to send this email before we left for Amsterdam, but couldn’t get the internet to work. We spent all day site seeing. It was quite an adventure. We first went to an art museum and saw all kinds of paintings by famous people such as Rembrandt and Vameer or something like that. Lol anyway then 3 other girls and I got lunch and froze (it was very cold today, I wish I would have worn my long-johns!) as we walked along to meet up w/some other of our group at Ann Frank’s house. I think that was my favorite place to see. It really made me think about how important it is to have a walk with God, because some day very soon we could have to hide because of our faith. It also went along very well with what I read in Desire of Ages this morning. I was reading about John the Baptist and how he had been proclaiming Jesus’ coming and preaching about Him and everything, but when he was in prison for a while he began to doubt. It is so important to really have something to base your faith off of, otherwise you will not be able to stand through hard times. John kept remembering the prophecies and when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove and that helped him to keep his faith.

Food here is good—especially if you like bread…. LOTS of it! That is pretty much what we eat. It is nice to get to a market sometimes and get some fruit or something, but I know I will be more than ready for a good salad when I get home. We’ve also been having some fun playing hacky sack (spell?) and throwing Frisbees. It’s too bad that I’m not recording all my exercise for Fitness for Life class, because we walk enormous amounts every day. Oh well….

I would write more, but tomorrow we are going to tour in Belgium and so I need to get some good rest. J God bless you all. You are in my prayers. Laurel wanted me to tell you that she didn’t die, and neither has anyone else! Yay. See ya!

~Shama