Monday, 9 March 2015

Week 67 - Welcome to Eindhoven

New city and new part of life.  Eindhoven is way different than Rotterdam.  It´s more calm and there are more Dutch people.  It´s been interesting getting used to the change form a big city to this.  But it´s going good.  Eindhoven is a 4 man apartment so it´s fun being in a 4 man again.  My comp, Elder Torniainen is such a good dude.  He´s my buddy from Finland.  He was in the group before me so I met him in the MTC and have seen him around the mission through the past months. We usually talk about hockey and now we get to serve together!  It´s sick.  It´s sad leaving Rotterdam and Elder Cook but in life we move forward so that´s what I´m doing. The other elders who live in the house are super cool dudes too.  One of them is on his last transfer and his comp is on his second last....we´re all pretty experienced I guess you could say so it´s fun working and learning from one another. We do a lot of cooking for members here, which is fantastic, but also time consuming...we´re going to be figuring something out so we can accomplish the mission’s goals and get 20 hours of proselyting hours.

The feel of the city is different here.  It´s hard to describe.  Things were so busy in Rotterdam...with all the buildings, traffic and boats but in Eindhoven...there's nothing but suburbs here. It´s weird seeing lawns and grass.  The ward is a good sized ward.  The people seem really friendly and love to smile.  My last comp served here before he came so I got to give everyone the groetjes for him when I introduced myself.  Maybe it feels different here because it´s turning into spring....there are buds on the trees...the sun is getting warmer and it smells like summer at times...especially when people are BBQing.

This week was filled with mixed emotions but again...I got to see that the Gospel is a life changer.  This week my new comp and I were doing some ´´spiritual finding´´.  We came to a street we both felt good about and then both came to the conclusion to hit up a certain side.  We ended up finding 4 new people, in 1 hour, that were open to hear more.  One person we met ended up inviting us over the next day.  It was pretty intense. He’s a big dude...something like 6 foot 3 and he’s got 2 sleeve tattoos. We got to the house for the appointment and one of his friends was there so it was just us, this dude and his friend.  haha the friend was recording us as we came to the table and started asking us questions like, ´´are you guys Jehovah’s Witnesses?  Are you guys gay?  You guys want a beer? You want a joint or a cigarette? `` Things like that making a lot of jokes.  We had fun joking around with them and making sure that we represented the Lord’s Church in a positive manner and then....it came down to doing our thing. 

We started to see, feel and think how the Lord worked with them and we started to ask reflecting questions and hear concerns.  Once the lesson started becoming really personal and went from a joke to something serious...the camera was shut off and his friend even left.  My comp, the Spirit and I were then given the opportunity to really let this man feel the love that God has for him.  We saw a situation start from not really being serious and joking then turning it into a changed person.  The Spirit is real and what a blessing it is to have him by us at all times as we live worthy of him.  After we said a prayer together-it was their first prayer in their life-they were curious and I feel like he felt how the Gospel could help him.  It reminded me that nothing is going to happen or we won´t learn if we don´t do something in order to get these answers or guidance. 

We had to do a lot of planning for the coming transfer again but Elder Torniainen and I, with the help of the Lord, have created a zone vision that we are excited to share with everyone. 

I really need to send the letters and packages I have...I´ll try to make that goal to do by the end of this week.  I´ll send pics next week but know that I love you guys and love serving others.  Whenever you feel down, just go and do something nice for someone else. Maybe a phone call to say hello, write a letter to give to someone...be creative.  We don´t have a lot of time because we scrubbed our house and car down cleaner than a hospital.

Love you guys,

Elder Holt

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