Goededag,
Sounds like there´s a lot happening at home. Everything is going
to be so different! The weather is getting really nice here in Nederland
and Belgium. We can walk around in short sleeves some days, almost all of
the trees are budding and starting to have leaves, the flowers are up and
sprouting and there are a ton of ducks. Speaking of ducks, I ate my first
duck flavoured Noodles and it was delicious. I hope we get more ducks
here.
This past weekend was Stake Conference. Luckily there are a few wards in
Nederland that are a part of the Antwerpen Stake (Antwerpen consists of all the
branches in Belgium) so we all got to go spend a bit of the weekend in
Belgium! Cool side note; Eindhoven is a 4 man and all 4 of us started our
missions in Belgium so we are all pretty pumped to see the friends we made at
the beginning of our missions. Saturday night we went to the Antwerpen Stake
building and Sunday we went to Brussels in order to go to the Brussel Stake
Building for our services.
Saturday’s service which was held in Antwerpen was cool. I got to
see Elder Krebs so we got to sit by one another and we were looking and looking
for the members of Genk...but didn´t find anyone! It sucked.
Luckily...Elder Ames and I were lucky enough to be crashing for the night at
the Genk Elders Apartment so we got to make a couple surprise visits. It
was so cool seeing those people again. So crazy how 1 year was so long
ago and so much has happened but yet it felt like yesterday when I was seeing
these people so regularly. Shoot I missed them. It was so nice to
see them and laugh as we reminisced over the memories we made.
Brussels was cool. It´s a really pretty city and the part we were
in had a really nice feel to it. One of the Elders would say hi to people
but no one would say hi back. Another Elder pointed out that there was a
possibility that they were French and that he needed to say bonjour in order to
get a positive response. Sure enough the first person that we came across
and said Bonjour to responded with a smile and a bonjour.
It was just transfer week and filled. We spent Wednesday in
Rotterdam centraal helping missionaries get to their cities, said hello to
friends I hadn´t seen in a while and then said Good-bye to the ones that were
going home or I probably won´t see again because they will be going home soon.
Luckily Elder Ames and I will be serving for at least another transfer
together! I´m looking forward to it. He is a really dedicated and solid
missionary and I have a lot I can learn from him. We´re looking forward
to making this transfer go down in history.
We got things prepared for the coming zone transfer. We did our
best to create a zone vision while being guided by the Spirit in order to
create goals and things that will help the members of the zone strengthen their
testimonies and faith as well as help them enjoy and see the success they are
working for. We have some amazing missionaries in the mission and some
amazing missionaries in the zone. It´s so cool to see the difference
between them all and see the different strengths that they individually bring
to the table. It´s nice when they share their miracles and you can hear
the excitement and happiness in their voice as they share it. It helps me
learn where true happiness comes from.
Unfortunately, before my mission, I loved to win and I did not like to
lose. This would cause me to have not the best of feelings towards
another individual or to feel jealous of another. haha I´m sure we all have felt
this feeling but this is something that has plagued me. Especially when I
learned that I didn´t want this trait and I would rather be happy for the
success of others but for some reason...the feelings kept coming.
I´ve seen that there is a way to change our nature of heart. One
of the steps is spending the time, energy and thought in thoughtful prayer and
meditation; to think and speak with our Heavenly Father about why we don´t like
these traits or feelings, what we would like and how we would like to feel; to
think about why you would like to have these feelings changed and to think of a
plan of how you can have a change of heart. As we do this, we invite the
influence of the Spirit to teach us and help us develop the strength needed in
order to change our nature and heart. The other step is to catch yourself
quick when you start feeling those negative feelings; to notice them and to
overwhelm them with the positives. Pick out the tiniest bit of the
positives and keep throwing them on the pile of the negatives to the point
where most of the negatives are buried by the positives. A good one I
start at is to see the smile they have to see them as God´s Child. Then I
start feeling happy because of the skills and talents that they have.
Jealousy and holding something against someone suck. I had a good
experience this week where I was asked to do a favour for someone but the
favour was something that was best not to be done. When I replied that I
would not do it...the person got upset and ended up ending the conversation in
not the best of ways. I was pretty dang upset that I was being portrayed as the
bad guy and that I was only doing what I was supposed to and that this person
would become upset the way they did. As I kept pondering about this, I
kept on seeing and thinking more and more negatively about the person until I
got to the point where I didn´t want anything more to do with the person.
I knew that was wrong of me and that I needed to pull myself out of the hole I
was putting myself in. I thought hard and prayed hard and had the thought
to get back in touch and see how they were doing. The more we conversed
with one another the more positive I started feeling towards them and the more
love I grew for them and the more I started to remember that they were just
like me, a human with feelings. A child of God who does dumb things
sometimes and that we learn from these dumb mistakes we do. I remembered
that God has patience with us and always forgives us when we do wrong...so why
shouldn´t we.
Be the one to make the first step and don´t get offended, let down or
discouraged if things don´t go the way you were planning. Pray and do.
Love you all and have a good week! Miss you all and I´m still
praying for Brynn every day! Love you cousin!
Elder Holt
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| Chillen with the beloved Knoops Family |
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