hey everybody and happy New Years and Happy Birthday Ross!!! It sounds like you all had a wonderful Holiday season with a lot of family and fun. Sounds like things are going great at work and the kids are excited to be back in school, especially Ross haha. I hope Dad and Meleese are feeling a little better though. This week was also an awesome week for me, just like every week. Tuesday was New Years Eve. We woke up and fireworks were already going off by 9 am. We had District Meeting in Amsterdam and afterwards we blitzed the city. That means that we had 20 missionaries split up and talk to people. It was a lot of fun and we saw some success. Amsterdam is a cool city to do missionary work in mainly just because of the irony haha. There are always people to talk to though and quite a few are open. We had to be back in our apartment in Hoorn by 4 pm because it is dangerous. by 6 pm the fireworks started going crazy, then midnight hit and it sounded like Germany was attacking again, and it didn't stop until early the next morning. It was pretty cool. While we were inside we made a ton of pancakes and Elder Farmer made his famous syrup. It was a lot of fun and very relaxing just to sit down and take a break for a second.
Wednesday We did a lot of finding with no luck. The only thing that kept us going that day is the dinner appointment we had scheduled for that night. They are a really fun family and feed us a lot, so we were excited. 6:00 finally hit and we went to our dinner appointment. He answered the door and let us in for a little, but he totally forgot about our appointment! We just played it off like we were in the neighborhood and wanted to say hello. haha we just got some doners that night (turkish fast food) and went home a little disappointed. Later that night the guy called and realized he forgot about our appointment. He felt SO bad and told us to come the next night haha so that made it a little better. So the next day we went on exchanges with the Elders in Amsterdam. I was with Elder Sosa in Alkmaar. I went to pick him up and it was crazy because I had to drive in downtown Amsterdam and it is so busy there!!! with all the trams, buses, bikers, and American tourists, you always need to be watching for something. We survived though and went beck to Almaar and had a good day. We did a lot of finding that day too (we need new investigators bad) but we didn't have any success that day either. But we did have a great lesson with an inactive who is working on coming back to church. So that was good, and then we went to that dinner appointment which was awesome. He cooked a LOT of food because he felt so bad. It was a fun day and Elder Sosa and I got along really well.
Friday we did some planning, finding and had a dinner appointment with one of my favorite families. The mom is the only member in the family and she is married to a tulip farmer and they have three kids between 16 and 23. I like the kids a lot and we get along really well. They are starting to open up and listen to our spiritual thoughts now. We gave a really good spiritual thought about priorities and they all liked it. Hopefully we will continue to see progress because one of the daughters has a lot of potential, and I think she could be baptized this year.
Saturday was another finding day with little to no success, but then Sunday came around, and Sunday always seems to be the miracle day. We had done a lot of finding that week, as you have already read, and we didn't have any success. We planned to set some more time apart to talk to people after church, and we prayed and fasted that we could find at least 1 person who wanted to listen to us. That is the only thing I wanted, is to find just 1 person!!! We went to church that morning and right after priesthood began, one of the members pulled me into the hallway and introduced me to this guy named P. He met the missionaries about a year ago and just decided to come to church! He said he didn't have a lot of time and would need to leave early. I told him that was no problem and took him into the priesthood lesson and introduced him to a cool member who I thought he would get along with. After Priesthood I found out that the member I introduced him to was the Gospel Principals teacher. So us 4 went into a smaller class for the second hour and taught him a lesson. He liked it a lot. After the lesson he texted his friend and cancelled whatever he had planned so he could come to sacrament meeting. After church I talked to him for a while. He was born in Alkmaar and is only 23 years old. He is majoring in Biology and explained that after a lot of thought, everything leads back to the fact that there has to be a greater power, namely God. He is really cool and I found out his parents got married in Las Vegas hahaha. I told him I have family there and go there a lot and he thought that was cool. He said that he would be coming back and he can meet with him again. HEAVENLY FATHER HEARS AND ANSWERS OUR PRAYERS!!! Instead of us finding one person who wanted to listen to us, that one person found us! it was such a miracle and I was so happy!
That night, we got transfer calls from President Robinson. Elder Farmer will be going to Haarlem and Elder Cooper, my MTC companion, will be coming up to Alkmaar with me!!! I am so excited about that! we were really good friends in the MTC and he is a great missionary. We are very similar and we are gonna get this city rolling. I cant wait. I love the mission and I am so excited to see what this year has in store for me. I know that 2014 will be a year that I will remember for the rest of my life. I hope you all have a great 2014! It wont be as good as mine, but it's ok. Try your best haha. I love you all so much! The Gospel is true and God answers our prayers in His own time and His own way. We will need to be patient, but He will answer us. Isaiah 55: 8-9. Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bishop
Tulips we got from the tulip farmer
Alkmaar (cheese city)
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