Weren't the teachers on strike for the whole
summer? What the heck haha. That sucks that their thoughts are not
ovn the ones they have been entrusted to teach. I understand what they feel but
you would think that they would be concerned about the welfare of the future
generation they are teaching. Anyways...I am not a fan of politics and
will move on. Last week at district meeting one of the senior couple
sisters was talking to me about politics...I tried really hard to fit into the
conversation....said something really dumb haha she looked at me with a smile
that read, ''what the heck are you talking about..'' and then said something to
close the conversation and walked to the kitchen. haha I loved it.
It's probably hard to believe but I have another story to add to the
mishaps that the Mission President has heard about Elder Holt. Splendid.
The Tuesday of last week...we left the apartment earlier than usual in
order to go to a district meeting. We left early to see what types of the food
the ducks and seagulls like. We had chips, beans and bread....we knew
that they love bread but we wanted to see if they like junk food or healthy
food. As we attempted to lock our door...we couldn’t find the keys.
Now the doors here are smarter than us people. They lock themselves
after you close the door. Yeah. This means that after we closed the
door....we had lost to the door. He beat us and locked us out. We
looked through our window and there were the keys....no more than one foot away
from us....being blocked by a very clean and unseen window. Needless to
say...we were devastated. Haha. We had no phone so we couldn’t call anyone and
now we were locked out of our apartment. We went ahead with our
experiment concerning which food the ducks liked. They don't find beans
lekker. Well, the seagulls did but they had no idea how to eat them.
None of the birds went for the chips....that was surprising.
Everything likes chips. After we fed the birds we went to catch our bus
to our District Meeting. We got on our bus...sat in it for 5 mins....and
then the worst. We had to use the bathroom. The bus was leaving in
2 more minutes...we had to run around to find a bathroom...found it....but the
bus left us behind. Now we were late for district meeting...we had no
phone and we were locked out of our apartment. It was really easy to get
upset but why would you want to do that? We made it to district meeting only 30
mins late....not too bad. After district meeting Elder Thom and I went and finished
our planned after noon and taught our friends...did some contacting and could
not eat dinner haha. We felt like it would be best for us to head to our
Branch President’s house, whose son is our ward mission leader, to seek for
help. We couldn’t call our last appointment, which was with a member, to
let them know what had happened and that we would not be able to make it to their
house. We finally got the Branch President’s house, told him and his son what
had happened...and they laughed at us. haha it was awesome. We used their
phone to call our mission president...this was the 3rd day in a row that he had
heard from us or about us. We ended up finding a solution and made our
way to another city where missionaries were and stayed with them as our zone
leaders would bring our key the next day....the story is a little more
complicated but that is about it. The woensdag of last week...we got our
keys....and our phone came in the mail! Everything was in order and
luckily still is.
We have continued to get in contact with more people. We have
continued to make appointments and the number of teaching appointments are rising,
as well as the number of friends that we are helping towards baptism. ALL
WITH THE LORD’S HELP. By the end of this week we can potentially be
teaching 8-10 friends who will be making progress in their own conversion.
That is ways up considering we were at 1 a few weeks ago. We had a
few ''unfortunate events'' happen to us this week. haha Sometimes it
would have been easier to become upset, angry, frustrated or anything that
sucks. Either with one another, people on the street, the unlucky things
that just happened. So many opportunities that the opposition
would have liked to use to bring us down as we work so very hard to work our
way up. I don't fully understand why we have opposition. I know
that:
''For it must needs
be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not
so.....righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither
holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be
a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as
dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness
nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.''
Without having ''crappy'' and
''not crappy''...what is crappy and not crappy? I feel like there is more
to the picture than this that I do not understand. I don’t know if I will
ever understand it all, but I have learned and have tried to apply something
that helps.
It is inevitable that we are going to be faced with ''crappy''
situations. Some of us have had to face such situations more than others or in
greater magnitude. But we have all had to face adversity. If we never faced
any...what would a ''crappy'' situation even be? That is what we have
just read and learned from 2 Nephi 2:11. Now the question is, what to do
in these situations? We all have many answers. We all think, see,
react and feel differently. Now that first thought that comes to mind is most likely
different than the other who has also read this. Such answers may have
been; talk with loved ones or friends, pray-talk with your Heavenly Father,
read scriptures, go for a walk, play a sport, go for a drive. There are so many
things and for the most part it depends on what sort of ''crappy'' situation we
sit in. However...I feel like there is one answer that we could all apply
to help us endure through such experiences of sadness, discomfort, loneliness
and/or grief. Let me quote my good friend, Elder Jospeh B. Wirthlin, who quoted
his mother, ''Come what may and love it.''
I came across a DVD box that contained the General Conference talks of
2008. I have particularly paid attention to this talk by Elder Joseph B
Wirthlin. He states, ''...those who are happiest seem to have a way of
learning from difficult times, becoming stronger, wiser and happier...''
As I sit here and write to you, I recall the time when I just got to
Europe. I had not learned or spoken Dutch in 3 months and was sent to a
land where their Dutch was a little different than the Dutch we had learned in
the MTC. I would focus and try to pick up every sound and word that came
out of the mouths of these people. A member saw this. When we were
driving to an appointment he gave me this advice. ''Relax, and don’t worry
about it....be like a baby...'' He went on to say how babies hear sounds
and see reactions and what not. After time these words have meanings.
With more time, these new words with meanings are copied by the baby and
he or she learns to speak. If I was not totally relaxed...I was not at my
happiest. It was difficult to train myself to just relax and not worry
about it but the more I tried and applied, the easier it became and the happier
I became. This made the learning of this new foreign language easier to
learn. The counsel that Elder Wirthlin gives is what I would like to
share with you all this email. Remember that question that I asked
earlier, what do we do in ''crappy'' situations? I hope that can give heed to
Elder Wirthlin’s advice. Love it....learn to laugh. We cannot
control everything but, we can control how we re-act. This time on this
earth is short. We will all return to our Heavenly Father. This
knowledge has helped to me ''love it'' and ''learn to laugh''. Life is a
process of learning. Let us relax like a baby, rely on our Heavenly
Father, love it, learn to laugh, look at the eternal picture, and continue our
life story with a smile.
Easier said than done...I know. But it well never get done, if we
never get started. There have been some ''crappy'' situations but I can
let you all know that following the counsel of one the Apostles of our Savior
works. Come what may and love it. Learn to laugh.
Love you all and until next week.
Love,
Elder Holt
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