Yeah,
its been almost a week! The first day here was pretty interesting.
After all of the new missionaries went to the seminars discussing the
rules, proper personal hygiene, how to avoid spreading sickness, we were
given our permanent rooms/room mates. I'm in a very small district (we
have 4) but I've come to really enjoy it that way. Our zone consists of
the Danes and the Swedes. The Danes are a crazy group of guys haha they
have a lot of fun, and know what they're doing. All of them
want to be here so it's good. Our district and theirs are getting along
great. The Swedes keep to themselves a little more. The Dutchies (that's us) and
the Danes usually eat lunch together, sit with each other in devotionals
and hangout before bed.
I have 3 awesome roommates. Elder Strikwerda is
mijne eerst collega, he reminds me
that I work to much sometime and need to relax.
Language class is very, very hard haha. The
first day we were in class they only spoke Dutch.....I am not exaggerating when I say they ONLY SPOKE DUTCH! None of us had any idea
what was going on. At first you can't help but laugh because 1 you're
freaking out because you can't understand them and 2 because it sounds so
different. After we started learning our first verbs and the basic rule
for I, You, He, She, It, We, They, Al,l and listened to our teachers for
hours speaking only Nederlands, we could start understanding them. We
had the chance to teach our first investigator the Friday of our first
week.....and not teach her in English! Nope, we we're to do it in
Dutch. It was extremely hard and humbling. You find out what the
investigator needs but you can't say it to her because you don't know
how! Our first lesson went horrible haha We didn't get to do what we
wanted but we learned a lot. We learned to keep the meeting within our
level of the language. We teach this investigator every day except for Sunday now. The second meeting went way better. We didn't writet out a
lesson plan word for word. We knew what we felt she should hear and did
our best to guide her there. We could actually understand some of the
questions she would ask and we could remember the things we were
taught. We didn't have 5 minute long awkward silences and you could
totally tell that we weren't doing this all on our own. We we're able
to get her to say the closing prayer too. Our 3rd time meeting with her
was yesterday. After 2 days of learning Nederlands we could actually
pronounce our words way better and understand a lot more of what she was
saying and asking. We were successful in giving her a Book of Mormon.
We read some important scriptures with her and then gave her Moroni's
Challenge. Moroni 10:3-5. We then told that we could not tell her if the
BofM was true. We were just there to help. That it was between her and
her Heavenly Father whether this church was true. It's amazing the
insights and teachings you receive while being in here. In 6 Days I
have learned way more than I have in my life when it comes to this
Gospel. My teachers, Brother Robinson, Brother Norton, Brother Morhmon
are amazing dudes. They teach us a lot about the language, how to be a
missionary and how to do it all the proper way and have fun with it. We are
very lucky to have these guys as our teachers. They teach us so many
things and I couldn't ask for any others to guide us in this learning
experience.
A lot has happened and I will write you about
what the stake president assigned me to do (record miracles). One thing that I have learned and has stuck with me was the
talk we listened to Elder Bednar give on a Chistmas Day here at the
MTC. I really wish all of you could watch it but I heard that you can
only find it written. If you have the time read it though. I think
it's called, " Character of Christ" or something like that. Amazing
point of view and a huge eye opener. I love and miss you all but know
that this is a good thing. Say some prayers for me.
-------------Elder Holt
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