On... Friday I think it was when Sinter Klaus and
Zwarte Piet showed up in the boat to Nederland! They had parades with a
bunch of Zwarte Piets and Sinter Klaus haha. Little Kids were dressed up as Zwarte
Piet...it was really funny. I feel sad over how people think it is
discriminatory. I feel like Zwarte Piet is more loved by the people here than
Sinter Klaus and this is a tradition that's been going on for a long, long
time. I learned that Zwarte Piet doesn't represent a person coming from
Africa but one that goes down the chimney for Sinter Klaus...something like that.
Anyways....I am not a fan of people trying to change Zwarte Piet. We
didn't have time to go and see the parade...just the kids and families going to the parade/festival. We went and helped a member cut vegetables and stuff
to help her prepare for her birthday party she was having and then after that
we had to go to Zwolle for the evening. Sometimes you just don't have
time to see the cool things as a missionary. In fact...even our pdays have been
short this transfer and today they will be even shorter as we serve the members
of our wards. It's all good though. Sacrifices are a good
thing.
This week for my year mark I'll be heading to Brussels, Belgium! We
figured that since we have had short pdays and we would be losing even more
than usual today, that for my year mark we would go do something cool...something
like a cool restaurant or museum or castle or w.e....turns out we'll be going
to Brussels in order to get our drivers licences that day. It'll be nice
going back to Belgium and really nice to see Brussels again! It's a whole
new world there. Way more French than Dutch or Flemmish. It's kind
of crazy thinking that almost a year ago I was getting ready to be set apart, and
then heading to the MTC. It trips me out every transfer when new
missionaries come in. I remember when I first came in... remember the
mission leaders... realize that they are either home now or almost home... and
realize that the new missionaries are going to start looking up to the me as I
looked up to my mission leaders. So weird. I was reading a talk by
Elder Dube this morning as I was doing some bathroom reading. He
talks about how he was working on a plant field with his Mom or something and he
looked back and said to his Mom, ''look at how much we did!'' she didn’t reply
so he figured she didn't hear. He repeated what he said then she told him to
not look back at what you’ve done but to look forward at what you are still to
do. Something like that. That kind of hit me. I've done a lot
of looking back at what I've done. It makes me feel like I have
accomplished things. Time to start looking at what tasks are in front of me and
looking to accomplish them. I guess if we always look back at what we
have accomplished...we'll be missing some pretty important lessons and experiences
as we work to succeed the tasks at hand. I'll have to think about that
more. Three cheers for scripture studies!
Earlier this week we went to visit a friend of the church who had joined
the church about four years ago. They met with the missionaries for three
years or something like that. They are now in-active. Sucks but it
happens. We got to see them finally, after trying to set something up for
the past two weeks. We had a really good time. The choices that
they have made in life have left them with becoming a parent. It's really
cool for them. They asked what we wanted to talk about with them.
After thinking about it, the Spirit just informed us to ask them
what they wanted to talk about. Boy....did they have some
questions. The first was about baptism for babies. They knew that
baptism was required to go into Heaven and they wanted to know if the baby
needed to be baptized. I love situations like this. So many times I
have learned that if I put in a really good scripture study and I treasure up
the words of Christ, that I will truly be given the words of what to say when
they are needed. We ended up reading Moroni chapter 8 with them.
After the Sprit testified to our friend the truths of this, they moved to the
next question. Again, the words of guidance were given. Sad to say
that I also experienced that people will only hear what it is that they want to
hear and if they are not willing to accept or listen to the truth, they will
not understand it. I wanted to dig deeper into the question that he posed
to us. I realized that I could know more about the question than I
did. So...for the next day I worked on becoming more acquainted with the
truth of the question and where to find it. Had a lot of cool experiences
this week with my studies and not only studies, but diligently studying and
using all of the books of scriptures to find the truths. I have
experienced the power that comes from seeking the truths from the Bible, Book
of Mormon and D&C. What a good feeling it is to have these
testimonies. To have the words of truth in such a magnitude that if we seek to
obtain and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we will not be left with
questions in the end.
We went on exchanges with our missionary friends this week.
The Elder who I served with for the Day and I had a really good day. We
talked with people but it didn't feel like we were contacting just to
contact. It felt like we were contacting because we really cared for
these people. I made a goal to not just go through the routine of
contacting. Sometimes missionaries can get stuck into a routine to the
point where the sincerity of the message is lost. I wanted to apply what we
all learned from each other last district meeting. That being listening. Everyone
has experiences in life that have helped them or are helping them to find the
truths. As we discussed contacting/finding new friends who are seeking
the truths, we ended up speaking about listening to what people were saying and
discerning how the Lord has been preparing them in order to share with them
things that are personally for them. Now was the time to apply what I had
learned at district meeting and work to help my missionary friend do the
same. We ended up having really good conversations with some
people. We are seeing a friend, hopefully this week, who we met that day,
we ended up giving out 2 Book of Mormons and for the people that declined...we
still felt successful because we knew that what we shared was working inside of
them and that the experiences that we shared were going to be on their
minds. We felt the Spirit work through us. We ended up meeting a
man who loves Canadians and Canada. It's nice to be Canadian. We
ended up losing track of time. At 3 oclock we head to an Albert Heijn to buy
some snacks. As we biked to the grocery store we saw an antique shop and
decided we wanted to go in the antique shop after we bought our food. We
did just that. There were so many cool things here.....man....clocks from
1700's...guns that pirates probably used
(I have no idea I'm just trying to give you a picture of how old they
are), really cool dressers...paintings....things like that. We
found a box of random things...including some mini Dutch Bibles. We found
one from 1884. I asked the dude how much it was (the one Bible for
15 Euros) and the conversation somehow lead to Fryslan clocks.
He showed us around the entire store, taught us some things and we just had a
cool time learning about this dude’s hobbies and how he got to where he was
with his collection. The Spirit made us aware of how this man was
prepared to hear Gospel. We shared a little bit about the Book of Mormon
in the way that he needed to hear it. He and no other. We shared
our experiences with it and asked if we could give him one. I feel like
if we didn't make it personal for him and invited him in the way the Spirit had
showed us...he would have said no. He is Dutch after all....they are really
good at knowing if you are sincere and they like things to be of personal
worth. The way we invited him was so cool. He ended up giving us 2
Bibles; the one I wanted and another for 10 dollars so that we both left with a
Bible. His words were, ''om uw dienst'' or something like that. I
think that means, ''For your service''. Super cool day. We taught 2
lessons and learned a big lesson on listening. To listen to the people, to
gain a sense of a love for who they are and to see how they have been prepared
to hear the gospel. To invite and share in a personal way according to
how they had been prepared.
This week we are pretty busy and I hope that we will have time to get
all we want to get done, done. We will be losing a full day which is a
bummer but it'll all work out. Things are going will in Overjissel.
It's a nice place. The ward is really fun. I haven't been fed like
this since San Diego...we're eating at members’ houses almost every
night! We're building relationships with them and hopefully we will be
able to find people who are looking for the Gospel so that we can bring
missionary opportunities to the members so that they can catch the fire of sharing
the gospel.
I'll do better at making photos this week. I've been still getting
used to things here but I did make a photo today of my companion and I because
I knew you would like one! Love you guys and until next week.
Elder Holt
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