Week 96 - Victory is Striving and Continuously Trying

So it happened!

We had our transfer calls last night and I'm happy to inform you that your boy will be finishing his mission in the city of Antwerpen!  And as a bonus...I get to stay with my baby boy Elder McBride!  We're pretty excited!  

We have gone through another ''sifting process''.  We have been trying to figure out who is ready and willing to accept the love of the Lord, in His way, and have again not so many people to teach.  It's sad because you don't want to stop seeing them but we can't gain them a testimony.  We can help them gain one and if they don't want one...there's not much we can do but pray for them and hope that things will change in the future when the missionaries return.

We've been finding some pretty amazing potential friends.  The problem is catching them at home or finding time to visit them all.  We're using the tram and bus system which isn't as fast as having a car it's been worth it because we meet friends on the transportation or on the ways to our appointments.  We just need to pray fervently and live that prayer in order to give it all to our Master and let Him do what we can't.  It's going to happen.  

Our ward has been doing so great!  They are wonderful people and surprised us with Belgium Chocolate and some sloppy chicken joe mix with a fresh bottle of Tabasco sauce.  Gosh.  I love all my wards and I know that the Lord provides the wards and members that I need at specific times.  I love them all.  I know that things are going to blossom this transfer.  We've done some weeding...now it's time to plant and nourish!

It's not what we get that makes us happy... it’s the effort that we put in. Sometimes it's hard to remember that but that's something I hope we can always remember.  We can do really good and do what we should or try to do what we should but sometimes it just doesn't turn out to be what we were working for.  The joy that we had while trying is then lost and we fall into a sense of sadness.  Let’s kick results in the butt and off the stage and just remember that our joy comes from our effort.  While I was speaking with a member of the Temple Presidency, he shared with me the thought that, ''Hell is going to be coming face to face with the person you could have become.''  We do not become the people that we can be through results...we become them through our efforts and constantly exerting our efforts more and more to keep giving and giving.  After all....if it was based on results...we would all fall short and not receive the eternal happiness that is offered to us. It doesn't matter what you get...it matters how hard you work and give of yourself.  God needs brave people.  Bravery does not come from winning the battle...it comes from learning as we go through our battles.  I pray that we will always know that the Lord is with us. He smiles upon us as we strive to give our best.  As we work to become the people we can become and smile and find joy in our efforts...we will overcome the feelings of discouragement that we receive if we do not achieve that idea of victory.  Victory is striving and continuously trying.  Strive with Him because He strives with you.  We can strive with Him as we read and take in the words of His called servants, our leaders, bishops, stake presidents, scriptures and prayer.  Why strive alone when you can strive with your friend?

Love you guys!

Elder Holt

Week 95 - Power House Planning

Hey guys!

Well another week gone by.  This week was a little weird.  We got training on the coming transfer and trained on what President and Zuster Bunnell would like us to teach the missionaries for the coming transfer and also because next week will be the last time that I'll be writing about transfers. This last transfer has gone by pretty fast and it seems like time has been against us!  It's a bummer!  Elder McBride and I have learned a lot as we've gone through the 12 week program (a program to give new missionaries a general concept of missionary work).  Heck, I wish that I watched it again a while ago.  We learned about planning this past week and I had no idea that there was so much I was missing when it came to setting goals and making plans.  We applied it and feel ready to take on the coming week!

It's been great serving with Elder McBride. This young man is filled with talent and is an example of taking on the challenges that lay before you with the desire to overcome them.  He's learned Dutch super fast and is really good at noticing what he wants to improve on.  He's also an amazing artist which is great because he has had many opportunities to share his talents and to use them to fulfill his purpose.  I feel like we'll be doing another one and that he'll finish me off but you never know.

So our teaching pool has come down to 0 friends who are progressing towards anything this week. It felt like those we were teaching when we first got here were not showing us or the Lord that they were willing to find the answers they said that they wanted.  I am pretty dang sure that they want the answers but they just didn't put forth that desire into action.  It's a bummer but we know that the Lord did not send us to this area to not teach or find.

This past week we did our ''Power House Planning''. We did our very best to follow the PMG guideline for planning and also what was taught in the District videos.  We assessed our area, what we had been doing, what was working, what was seen as time not well spent and what we felt was what the Lord wanted us to do with His time that He had given us.  We made our plans for the coming week and had a few days to get started early.

While on exchanges, I was serving with a young Elder in Antwerpen.  We had planned to go look up a friend who showed interest in what we shared and invited us over to their house when they got back from vacation.  As we traveled to their house, we opened our mouths and spoke to people we came across.  At one point, we got lost and looked in our map book to find out where we needed to go.  Just our luck, our map book was missing the page we needed. Haha. We decided to do the next best thing and started asking people on the street or sitting in the patios at bars.  At one point we had 4 people trying to help us (all of them seemed to have a different or better wa,y haha) while 2 others looked it up on their phones. Eventually we got the directions, thanked everyone for their help and headed off.  As we walked, we started knocking some doors.  It wasn't really a thought like, ''hmmm...should we knock doors?'' No, it just happened without thinking.  Within the first couple houses we came across a person who invited us inside.  We ended up sharing with them the message of the Restoration and also what we did as missionaries.  No words can describe what had happened during this appointment.  I don't know where to begin.  In the end, we invited this person to be baptized by someone holding the proper authority of God if they came to know that the Book of Mormon was true and they said, ''I don't need to pray about the Book of Mormon.  I know it's true because I know that you two were sent here by God to help me prepare to see Him.''  We encouraged them to prayerfully read the Book of Mormon and have made that a priority but it was nice to be answer to a prayer and to see the joy of an answer in one face.  We can all be answers to prayers...it just takes us going out and reaching out to others.

Two funny points of the week.  We went to get our haircuts today...the barber forgot that Elder McBride paid and was not happy about us leaving.  It didn't help that there was a huge language barrier because this worker didn't speak a lot of Dutch or English.  We ran with a man who was trying to get to the Jain Temple before it closed.  There was a crazy delay with trains around antwerpen which caused this man to be late.  He asked us what bus he needed to take to get to the Jain Temple so we went with him.  Showed him the Halte and then ran with him to show him how to get there. Sometimes, missionary work can be so interesting!

Elder Holt

Week 94 - teaching, playing, serving

Yessssss, another week down in the history books.

We had a crazy busy week.  We got to meet and start teaching a new friend of ours.  To make it interesting we taught them in a restaurant/lounge setting.  He had a lot of concerns and liked how the missionaries have answers to his concerns that others can't seem to answer.  I thought it was most amazing how we planned our lesson before we met him and it ended up being exactly where his concerns seemed to be.  It was a good lesson and we will be seeing them again in the coming week!

One of the main reasons why we were so busy this week is due to the awesome Arts Festival that was held at the Antwerpen Church building this past weekend.  We handed out flyers, invited people, got the tents set up, and then spoke to people as they attended.  Elder McBride is an artist guy and sketched portraits of people while the bands and musicians played for an audience.  I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of that night.  We were pretty dang busy.  It was a huge success and a lot of people showed up.  A solid amount of food was gathered to help an organization collect foods to send to the camps that are housing refugees. This coming week we are planning on serving some of these camps in order to do all we can. 

It's been crazy how time flies.  I'm sorry I won't be writing a long letter.  I spent most of the time sending pictures that were over-due and we had a zone P=Day today where we played sports with all the missionaries in the Vlaanderen part of the mission.

I've made a goal to have a meal or a drink with a Jewish person.  Antwerpen has a large Jewish community.  I have so many questions because there are a lot of different types of Jews and I think it would be so freaking cool to get some time to chat with them.  So wish Elder McBride and me luck.

We have an amazing ward.  It's sad that it's so big which makes it hard to get to meet everyone and develop a friendship with them.  We've made a plan that we're hoping will help us get to know them better and also help them all get ready for the temple trip that is on November 11th.  What a date, I know. 

The trams were a bit messed up yesterday which made it really hard for Elder McBride and me to get home.  We didn't make it home after church haha.  We ended up in a part of the city that we had never been to, played basketball with some kids by the tram halte and then caught the tram back to the church.  It's always nice to just be able to get along with people you don't know and have a good time.  I think they were shocked that a short white kid wearing suit pants, dress shoes, a white shirt and tie wanted to play ball with them but luckily they didn't judge me and let me play.

We did a cool activity this week.  We wrote a thank you letter to our Saviour while one of the sisters played some songs on the Piano.  After we all had finished our letters (this was a spiritual thought that was done after dinner) we talked about things and then just couldn't help but be silent.  It was more comfortable to sit there in peace and silence than it was to speak.  We eventually started speaking more and more but it was almost as if we were whispering.  The Zusters had a friend there who is now working towards a baptismal date.  It was so cool to hear and feel her words.  Tears were shed and we all got to spend 30 mins or so just realizing how great life is with the Gospel.  Being able to eat with our member friends and then having a lesson with this new friend of ours was a special moment and helped me see how much of an impact the members had made for this friend.

Love you guys, Elder Holt

Elder Holt and Elder McBride

Movie debut

The MTC District re-united!

This is a P-Day that we spent in Brugge.  It was really nice when we left Antwerpen so none of us thought about umbrellas.  My tie was silk and would have leaked all over my shirt so I had to go tie-less

Just a normal day in Belgium

Kanaal in Brugge

These are your beloved Antwerpen Missionaries!  We have a total of 6 that serve this ward.  It's so great

These were the conditions during a weekly planning! 
We had chips, NONO (which is a delicious juice) and some nice natural lighting

Week 93 - Heroes

We had a good week of being able to find people that are willing to have us in their homes...we just need to get back to them and let them hear the message that we share. We were taught by President Robinson about getting back to people as soon as possible and we're going to focus on getting back to people quicker in order to help invite them to experience the joys of the restored guide to a happy eternal life.

Antwerpen is filled with more diversity than I have ever experienced.  We've met people who speak languages and are from countries that probably 80 percent of the people in the world have never heard about.

Last night we had a fireside that went over ''heroes''.  We were given a list of 4 questions that we were to answer that helped us think about what makes a hero, who personal heroes are, who scripture heroes are and why we answered the way we did.

I noticed that with many of the heroes I thought of, they all started somewhere they didn't want to be due to life events or choices that had occurred in their life.  They were faced with decisions to change personally and then needed to go through a process of daily self-evaluation and changes.  It took time to change but over time, they became a better and better hero as long as they stayed true to the good morals and intentions they had when they decided to put others needs before themselves.  This was a reminder for me to everyday self-evaluate what I had done and experienced throughout the day and determine what I wanted to change for the better before I brought it to my Father in Heaven. 

We all go through the similar stories of the heroes we read, watch or hear about.  We all start in a place where we want to make changes and then we have been given the power to judge and decide what we are going to do about it.  Maybe the comics, book, film or drama writers didn't know what they were doing, but they were teaching people about the enabling power of the Atonement as we go through the process of repenting and the power and joy that comes from our efforts as we give it all we got. He will help us make the changes we seek for.  We accelerate this process as we do a self-evaluation and then bring that to the Lord with ideas we have to change.  It's a sweet thing to teach yourself how to notice changes that will help you become the hero that the Lord can use to help His people.

We are all heroes...we may not feel like it...but others do.  We may not see it or feel it...but there are those who see our hero attributes because we are all sons and daughters of a living God who loves us and never leaves us alone.  He is always with us.  You are a hero and all heroes seek for improvement...and the best improvement comes from the melody of Jesus Christ - your Saviour.

Elder Holt