Friesland is VERY beautiful. haha I am very lucky to be serving here. It has a lot of nature and heritage. Dang...its kind of hard to describe. haha I've been trying to learn some Fries while being here. I use to think that Fries was a dialect of dutch but apparently it is an entire different language, I have learned to say "how is it going?'" and Bye. Its kind of hard learning more due to the fact that I'm trying to adjust to the difference is dialect of dutch from that of Genk. It is a lot easier to understand the dutch here though, which makes me super happy. haha people have asked if I have grown up speaking dutch with my parents and are always super kind by saying that they cant believe that I've been speaking dutch for a little more than 5 months! Really good encouragement. Nederlanders are really nice people. One thing I love about them is how they say how it is....or atleast how they think it is haha. They are really honest with you, whether that be a good thing or not. haha so funny. They canals.....man these canals....
So I have a new companion who has been out for 4.5 months...my first companion that is younger than me in the mission. He is the guy that is constantly looking to serve people. He is the guy that you pass by on the street who says hello and makes your day. He is a really loving guy. His name is Elder Thom. He is a Surinamer. Which is awesome because his mother language is Dutch. It is a different story not working with missionaries who have been out longer than I. It is taking some time to learn the role and to figure things out. I am extremely happy to be serving with Elder Thom and am excited to learn as I work with him.
I am serving in another branch. This branch is bigger than the branch in Genk and also have amazing members. haha just my luck, I was asked to give a talk on my first sunday. It went really well and people thought that I had been in Europe speaking dutch longer than I have. The work is different here. How we get around...the time that we have...things like that and it is going to take some time adjusting. I came from a city that was extremely busy to a city that is ready to pick things up. I guess the hardest part is that I dont know the city, I dont know the branch members and I dont know the people that are seeking to learn the Gosepl from us. But...thats where time will come into play. We just got a new Branch Mission Leader yesterday...he jsut got back from his Mission one month ago...the trippiest part is that he served in the Ireland/Scotland mission......haha I told him that I had a cousin serving there, told him her name and he said that he served in the same zone as her! I cant believe how small the world is serving a mission haha. I am excited to work with an RM as we do our best to build the Lord Kingdom here in Friesland.
It is nice to be progressing in the mission. Of course it is sad because 9 months have already flown by....but I must say I enjoy be given new tasks and new oppotunities to learn and meet new people. Its sometimes nerve racking to take the lead but I take great comfort in the example the Christ set for us. He did everything our of love and for the benefit for others. Everything he did was not for him. I have realized this a coupld times on my mission but as the mission goes on, this thought becomes more and more of a reality. Serving for the best interest for others sometimes means I have to keep my mouth shut, suck it up and let it go. Sometimes it means not being able to hang my wet clothes up to dry and find a new creative way to dry them. Ether 12:27 is the scripture that I have read this weak that has stuck with me. Later on in the same chapter in verse 37. It reads, ''...And because thou hast seen thy weaknesses thou shalt be made strong...'' .
Time and new situations have helped me to see the importance of noticing my weakness's for myself. Especially in the places that I thought were my strongest. It is one thing to change because someone has pointed something out and we accepted it. I feel like as we learn to recognize and accept our weaknesses by ourselves, we will become that much stronger in becoming the people that we were set out to become. Its a good time to be on the world. Yes there are a lot of sad things happening but we live in a time where we are blessed with the restored fullness of the Gospel. We live in a time where the Lord knew we could succeed and he chose us to be here at this time to help him serve His children.
On another note....we have had some interesting experinces. Yesterday we were looking up some people and knocking some doors and we got into a house of a lady who had interest. I guess she suffers from a mind sickness becuase she totally forgot who we were and was gettting worried. She called to her husband who was preparing herbal tea for everyone....we had to go get him....this couple is people 85-95....we told him what was up that it would probably be best for us to leave. haha he apologized and said that sometimes she is good and others not. As we said goodbye this sweet older lady was mumbling things like, ''people are going to steal from me....I dont trust anyone....who are these people...I dont know you...''it was sad but it was also tad humerous. A few days ago we were walking the streets and were street contacting. There were a lot of people who reminded me a lot of my brother Grayson haha This really made me miss him. They had long hair...some curly...they had heavy metal band shirts on...some people looked like the people you would see on the movies going to a rock concert. We followed the sounds and the crowd and came upon a heavy metal rock concert being played outside. We got a lot of funny loooks haha I mean a lot...Especially when they would stare at your tag and you take it off, show it to them closer and ask if they could read it. They could not beleive that we were walking around in the crowd we were. Some people were really happy and nice. Some not so haha but we kept it cool. The people who started off tryin to chirp us ended up feeling bad and probably didnt expect us to be so cool about it. In the end we would end up being their friends. We even had people stand up for us. It was a really cool experience. They would say they were impressed in how good the language was and we would get to throw in how we get the help we need from Christ as we strive to help him. Charity and humility. ohyeah and it turns our Megadeath was playing.
Love you guys,
Elder Holt
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