The feeling of introducing one person to the Restored Gospel is definitely worth 99 doors slammed in your face.

Hello!  I come to the library to email every week waiting to see what has changed in the Bishop family, and this week I found out about a new jacuzzi, Rugby Playoffs, and Meleese actually looking pregnant in the pictures. haha I am coming home to a totally different family at the end of this year!!!  I am soooo excited though because they are all changes for the good.  I'm really glad, because you all seem so happy, and that makes me happy.  This week was another typical missionary week, busy, and sporatic.  Those are always the best ones though.

Tuesday we went to district meeting in Zwolle.  Elder Bitters is the District leader there, and he gave a great district meeting.  he is a great missionary and his district is blowing up right now with success.  We went on exchanges with them that day, and I stayed with Elder Ames in Zwolle, and Elder Alston was with Elder Bitters in Apeldoorn.  Elder Ames and I had a great day in Zwolle too.  some of our appointments were cancelled so we spent a lot of time outside on the streets talking to people.  It was pretty crazy in Zwolle because just two days earlier, the soccer team in Zwolle (PEC Zwolle) upset Ajax (Amsterdam) in the dutch finals!!!  Luckily, it had settled down a little bit and we were still able to talk to a lot of people and find a couple people who were interrested.  We also taught a first lesson to this man from Curaçau.  He is a Jehovahs Witness but was open to hear our message.  We taught a really good restoration lesson that was very clear to where he understood the need for a Restoration.  He loved the lesson until the very end when he realized that there must be only one true church and that wasn't his.  He asked us, "So I need to leave behind the Jehova's Witness church because it isn't true?" He wasn't too excited to do that, but we committed him to read and pray, and if he came to know that it was true then he would want to join the restored church of Jesus Christ.  he agreed and we set up another appointment for them.  it was a good day with Elder Ames.  he is a diligent  missionary, and we had a great time together.  Elder Alston and Elder Bitters, on the other hand, had a rough day haha.  they had an appointment in Apeldoorn for someone to come fix our fax machine.  It had been broken this whole transfer, and this is the WORST transfer for it to be broken because we have received over 100 referrals for the zone through the facebook campaign, and we receive all the referrals for the zone through fax.  And so since it hadn't been working, we had to get them through email, and it took a lot of time and it was really annoying.  So even though they had the appointment, we were excited to get a working fax machine so we could send through the referrals faster.  They sat in the apartment with him FOREVER and he could not figure it out.  Finally he told them that he would have to search for the telephone line and they would have to go underground and everything haha it was a big mess, but basically, they had that appointment for a couple hours just so they could make another appointment for friday.  It was a big waste of time and we still had no fax machine.  Elder Bitters was good about it though, and they still had a successful exchange.

Wednesday we went on splits in Heerenveen, and I was with my old companion, Elder Rudolph!  it was fun to be with him again.  We worked really hard and long because their appointments fell through as well.  We went to this really rich area and knocked about 100 doors for a couple hours.  It was brutal.  The people were SO rich and selfish, and they just laughed when they saw us at the door.  One lady was sitting outside reading a newspaper and drinking coffie.  We approached her, and without even looking away from her paper she said to us, "Geen belangstelling" or in English, "Doesn't interest me".  We went on to the next door and got the same response, and the lady outside started laughing at us haha!  it was ridiculous!  We did, however find one man who was interested and accepted a Book of Mormon, and they got his information so they can come back.  The feeling of introducing one person to the Restored Gospel is definitely worth 99 doors slammed in your face.  We had fun with it too and Elder Rudolph and I talked a lot about SUU since he played football there and is going back when I will be there.  That night was a lot of fun.  Those two elders are great and it felt like a night back home hanging out with friends.

Thursday was another great day of finding and teaching.  We were on splits in Groningen, and I was with Elder Knudsen.  He is actually from bountiful, and he is a great elder.  We went to a park in Groningen and talked to a lot of people and a lot of students since there is a big university in Groningen.  We were able to give away another book of mormon to a guy.  We also had a lesson with this guy  from Sierra Leon.  he is CRAZY!  haha he has a totally different perspective of God, and he was going off about it.  The whole time I could only think about the talk Elder Holland just gave about people creating God in their own image, comfortable gods.  He was soooo closed  that we couldn't share anything with him.  it was a crazy place and he was just yelling while his canary was flying around the house haha it was funny, but there was nothing we could do.  I told Elder Knudsen he isn't ready to hear the Gospel yet and they could use their time more wisely teaching other people.  He agreed 100%. 

Friday was a killer day! haha NOT!!!  We had people in our apartment fixing our water system and then the fax machine guy came and set up our fax machine.  We were stuck in our apartment for the whole morning.  We were able to study and do some planning though, so it wasn't a total waste of time.  But after the people were done and our fax machine was up and running, we had to drive to Den Haag to pick up my dutch residency card because my old one expired.  We spent that afternoon driving to Den Haag and back and then went to a dinner appointment that night with a nice older couple in Apeldoorn.  They are a great family and very smart.  The guy looks like Colonel Sanders and is a big time banker in Europe.  afterwards we went to institute with the young single adults to help support.  We had a great lesson though about setting spiritual goals.  I have a strong testimony about spiritual goals as well.  I really thought about them on my seventh transfer back in Brugge, and I set goals for the rest of my mission focussing on the questions, What kind of missionary am I? What kind of missionary do I want to become?  What are my strengths and weaknesses?  How can I strengthen my strengths and get rid of my weaknesses?  I thought about them a lot and prayed about them.  I figured out how I can answer those questions and made goals, and then I took the goals to the temple and thought about them more.  It has definitely pushed me and given me direction throughout my mission, and it has sped up my progression incredibly.  Goals are a catalyst to progression, and I really encourage all  of you, especially Melees, Ross, and Lainey, to think about where you want to be in 5 years, or 10 or 20 and set goals to help you actually get to where you want to be.  I promise that if you do then you will be successful in life.  Don't forget to make them spiritual too.  Converse with the Lord, read your patriarchal blessings and see what He expects of you.  That way, you and the Lord are on the same page and He will help you achieve those goals.  It was a lesson I learned out here that has changed my life and will change my life.  And that was a great institute lesson that reminded me of it.

Koningsdag (Kings Day)

Anyways, Saturday was the highlight of the week!!!  It was Koningsdag (Kings Day), and that is pretty much the party day of the Netherlands!  EVERYONE is outside dressed in orange going to parties in the centrums of every city in the country.  There are MASSIVE flee markets in every city where everyone brings their junk to sell and goes back home with even more junk than they brought.  As a mission, we organized missionary booths in every big city where missionaries stand there with LDS material to give away.  The zone leaders organized them in their zones, and we got one in Enschede and one in Groningen.  We were at the one in Groningen, and it was awesome!!!  There were people everywhere and we gave away 70 copies of the Bood of Mormon!  With that we got four people who gave us their information so they could learn more, and we also handed out hundreds of mormon.org cards.  it was a HUGE success, and the missionaries in Enschede saw success too.  Around 3:00 the people were all getting pretty drunk though, and even though we saw so much success, we got ridiculed like CRAZY!!!  haha SO many drunk people came by and were yelling at us and making fun of us and calling us names.  it was pretty brutal at times and it kept getting worse and worse, so we decided to call it quits around 4:00 because it was starting to rain anyways and everyone was super drunk by that time.  It was a memorable day and really fun actually.  I'm sure the whole mission saw a lot of success as well.

 

Sunday came around before I noticed, and by this point I was SO tired...  Church was honestly pretty boring and it dragged on.  I had to do everything I could to stay awake.  There were a TON of people there though, because we had the Amersfoort ward with us because their church building was being refurnished.  I remembered that Clint and April Miller used to go to church in Amersfoort when they lived in Barneveld.  I met an older lady from Amersfoort and asked if she remembered them.  When I asked her if she knew Clint and April Miller from about 25 years ago, she got a big smile on her face.  I told her they were family of mine and she thought that was so cool.  Her name is Sister Otto and she used to have really red hair.  She told me to send the Miller family her regards.  It was a pretty easy going Sunday though.  We had a dinner appointment with a cool family.  Elder Lee and Elder Tjong Ayong cooked for us all because it was sister A's birthday.  The Deventer Elders, Lee and Tjong Ayong, are really good cooks!!  They made orange chicken and it was sooo good haha and then the sisters, made brownies for dessert.  Since Elder Alston and I didn't prepare anything before hand, we got stuck with dishes afterwards hahaha.  It was a good day though.

Despite all the unexpected

Fax Machine Troubles

craziness, we had a great week, the zone is doing great, and we finally have a working fax machine!  Elder Alston and I always joke about how we just need iPads because fax machines are out of date anyways.  We are having a lot of fun together and making a lot of memories.  I look forward to seeing miracles the last half of this transfer.  I hope you all have another great week though and I can't wait to see what surprises I will hear about next week with the Bishop family.  I love you all so much and can't wait to skype on Mothers Day!!!

Groetjes,

Elder Bishop

The insight that I have gained of the atonement is the biggest lesson I have learned on my mission.

Hey everyone!  I got the package you sent me!  Thank you soo much!  haha now I am prepared for allergy season.  It sounds like you all had a great week swimming in the nice Vegas sun. I can't believe it is that warm there!  I can't complain though because we had a very mild winter here and spring is definitely coming.  I am glad everything is going so great though.

 

This week was soooo busy, but so good!  I was able to go on exchanges in Hengelo and Enschede where I served as a greeny one year ago!  Back then it was just two elders covering those cities, but now after the wave of missionaries, there are two elders in Hengelo and two elders in Enschede.  Tuesday I was in Hengelo with Elder Nielson.  It was so weird going back there, making that same walk from the train station to the apartment that I made on my first day in Holland.  We got to the apartment, ran through our day, looked through the area book to see some former investigators I taught and then made our way out the door hitting the same streets where I learned how to be a missionary.  It was a cool feeling, and we had a lot of fun.  We actually spent most of the day in a city called Almelo about 15 minutes from Hengelo with the train.  We looked up a referral there only to get the door slammed in our face, and then we talked to some people and passed out a lot of mormon.org cards.  It was a pretty good day of talking to people even though we didn't see any big success.  That night we had a dinner appointment with the A family.  They are a family we went to almost every week back when I was in Hengelo, and they still feed the missionaries.  They even feed them the same meals!  haha we had pannenkoeken met gehakt kip en pindasaus (pancakes with ground chicken and peanut sauce on top).  That is not a typical dutch meal haha  but it surprisingly tastes good!  It was a fun crazy night just like old times.  After we stuffed ourselves at their house, we went to a gym close to our apartment to play basketball with some members and nonmembers.  It was a lot of fun and nice to run around again and play sports.  Overall it was a great day in Hengelo.

 

The next day we woke up and took a ten minute train ride to Enschede and worked with the Elders there.  That day was incredible!  I spent most of my time working in Enschede as a greeny, and Elder Alston also served in Enschede before he came to Apeldoorn, so we both knew the city well.  I worked with Elder Torniainen.  He is an Elder from Finland!  He said that he thinks he remembers Elder Bishop from a couple years ago.  He lives in a city called Mikkeri or something like that.  I don't know if Brad knows them or not, but anyways, I was working with him for the day.  I noticed a lot of things that day and learned a great lesson from it as well.  I noticed a lot of things that were exactly the same, and I noticed things that have changed.  For example, Elder Praag and I talked to literally thousands of people there in those 3 months we were together.  A lot of those people were positive, and a lot of those people weren't.  A lot of those people were normal, and a lot of those people weren't haha.  One of the guys we talked to was carrying a microwave around in a shoppping cart.  He was from the Phillipines studying in Enschede.  His name was Ian and he had heard about the church throught the tv show South Park.  He was very interesting, but he wasn't interested.  While Elder Torniainen and I were contacting in the centrum in Enschede, we stopped a student and he told us he talked to some of our friends last year.  It came to me right then.  I asked him if he was the one carrying the microwave in a shopping cart.  We then realized that we had this conversation one year ago!  It was him!  haha he explained to us that he wasn't interested then and he isn't interested now.  he hadn't changed.  But, like I said, I noticed a lot of things that HAVE changed.  Later that evening, we were able to eat dinner with the Van B Family.  I taught J Van B last year with Elder Praag.  We taught her everything and helped her quit smoking.  She was excited for her baptism on July 6 when I left for Brugge in June.  I went back for the first time since last year to see her again, now a strong active member of the church.  I saw her husband again.  He didn't want much to do with the church last year, and now he is also a strong active member of the church.  It was cool because Elder Alston taught and baptized him a few months ago.  Last year we were helping their kids learn who Christ is, and when we were there this week they both prayed a blessing for the food.  The Van B Family has changed since I saw them last year.  I began to realize that the work I do here is a continuous work that won't stop when I leave.  People will continue to learn and grow and come closer to Christ.  They will continue to influence others and help them learn and grow and come closer to Christ.  The efforts that we give can leave everlasting impressions.  I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to leave an everlasting impression on that family, and I am even more grateful for the everlasting impression that they left on me.  It was such a good day to be able to see some of the fruit of my labors.

 

Thursday was also a good day.  We were up in the city of Emmen on splits.  I was working with Elder Blackhurst, and we had a pretty blank day ahead of us.  We planned to look people up who were potential investigators or former investigators, and we also planned to talk to a lot of people outside.  Our biggest goal is that we wanted to teach one lesson by the end of the day.  It was nice to get outside on the bikes again and do some good old fashion missionary work!  We biked a lot and talked to a lot of people.  We looked people up to find all of them not home.  It was a pretty long day and it started raining.  Luckily, we had a dinner appointment with a member that evening.  It was a good break.  He took us to Subway, and that was the first time that I have eaten at subway in over a year, but it was good.  I heard a song in there by coldplay and it sounded really good!  I think it was called magic or something like that.  I realized then how much I miss music haha.  but after our dinner appointment we hit the streets again, biking in the rain, still with no lessons taught.  We looked up a few more people and we finally found someone home!  He was a potential investigator who they found in December.  His name is B and he is from Africa.  He is a really nice guy and we started teaching him the first lesson.  Right at the beginning of the lesson we found out that he is muslim.  That switched up the whole style of the lesson, but we continued to teach him what we believe because he was open to listen.  We started talking about prophets, and then he just went off on all these different subjects.  He talked and talked and talked and he wouldn't stop.  We couldn't tie the lesson back in and it was kind of frustrating.  He was a nice guy, but it was a hard lesson haha.  It was a good day in Emmen though.  We stayed the night there and Elder Alston and I had to sleep on the ground because there were only two small beds!  It was terrible and we both didn't sleep well that night.  It was terrible because we were both so tired that night and even more tired the next morning. 

 

Friday morning we woke up from Emmen and pretty much drove the rest of the day haha.  We stopped back in Apeldoorn to drop some things off and pick up a fax machine for our apartment, and then we had to drive to Leiden to the mission office.  Emmen is right on the German border and Leiden is on the west coast.  We literally drove across the country that morning.  We had to go to the office to pick up supplies for this next weekend.  Next weekend is Kings Day, and it is insane here!  We, as a mission, are setting up booths in all the big cities around the country giving away church materials.  The zone leaders are in charge of getting all that organized in their zones.  We are going to have 3 booths in our zone; Groningen, Zwolle, and Enschede.  We got 180 copies of the Book of Mormon and a ton of pass-along cards and pamphlets.  Our car was packed full, and we spent the rest of the day loading them up and driving back to Apeldoorn.  It was a long day of driving, but it was still fun with Elder Alston.  He is a really funny missionary.

Saturday we had a nice pasenconcert (Easter concert) that the stake put on here in apeldoorn.  It was REALLY well done.  There are a couple of concert pianists in this stake and some really great singers.  I really like how big if a deal Easter is here in the Netherlands.  I think it may be because there is such a catholic and Protestant background here and it is just a part of the culture now.  It was very spiritual, I mean a two hour concert about Jesus Christ? How could that not be spiritual? It was a great refresher that calmed me down from the crazy week?.  Sunday was also a great day.  We had a nice church service.  I met some visitors from America and sat down to translate for them.  They were very grateful and asked where I was from.  I told them southern Utah and their eyes got really big. They asked, where? I told them cedar city and they got really excited and told me they were from st George! Haha it was cool.  They got a pic with me after the service and your telephone number and email, so be expecting something this week.  It was a great Easter weekend though and I heard so many testimonies of Christ, and to end this email I would like to leave my testimony of Christ.  He lives!  I have known that for a long time now and now I know it more than ever.  The Netherlands and Belgium are holy places for me, because I have gotten to know who Christ is and what he has done for me since I've been out here.  I am so grateful for his atonement.  It is my anchor of hope, and no matter what happens, I can always count on him.  Because of his atonement I can change. I can improve.  Through his grace I can be perfected in him.  He has our names written in his hands and his feet.  He knows us personally and he loves us perfectly.  He did all of this simply because he loves us and he loves his father, and I am sharing this because I love him and I love all of you.  Love is the motive! Like president monson said last conference, "love is the very essence of the gospel, and Jesus Christ is our exemplar."  The insight that I have gained of the atonement is the biggest lesson I have learned on my mission.  I encourage you to learn and study of the atonement and the impact that it has in your lives.  

Elder Bishop and Elder Alston

Elder Bishop with the Van B Family

Ik wens Jullie allemaal een fijne en opbouwende week! Dank u voor de briefjes en ik ben heel erg blij om nog meer volgende week te kunnen krijgen.  Ik hou van u,

Veel lief,

Elder bishop

I FINALLY found the perfect person to give the Book of Mormon you sent me with our family photo and testimony!

Hey Everybody!!  thanks for the email and the big news!!  I'm coming home to a niece!!!  I am soooo excited and happy for Meleese and Kevin.  You two will be great parents and I will be her favorite uncle (sorry Ross).  Haha That's crazy about Rugby too!  keep up the great work all of you and keep me posted on everything. 

Well this week was my first week in my new city Apeldoorn!  it is a great area with a lot of trees and forests, unlike Alkmaar with fields as far as you could see.  It is still flat here in Apeldoorn.  There arent many tulips or windmills, so it's not "Ideal" Holland, but it is still very pretty.  Our apartment isn't too bad.  it's the worst apartment I've lived in, but I have been blessed with good apartments, and it's really not that bad.  it's on the top floor of a 5 story building.   Elder Alston and I are cleaning it up and getting things in order.  The Ward here is amazing!  it is a big church building (about half the size of our church building in Utah) but that is big here.  And there is a nice ward with a lot of families and kids.  I am excited to get to know that families here.

Apeldoorn is definitely different than Alkmaar.  it is a bigger zone geographically, and there are more missionaries, so work as a zone leader is also different here, and I am still trying to adjust, but it is coming really well.  One of the differences, for example, is that the area is so big that it takes too much time to meet somewhere and exchange with another companionship.  So we just leave our city and go on splits with them both working in their city.  There are pros and cons to both.  The pros for splits is that you have four missionaries in an area instead of two and you can get twice as much work done.  The cons are being away from your city multiple days throughout the week.  it makes it a lot harder to get things going in your own area.  So since our zone is so big and we do more splits, it is a lot harder to do actual missionary work in our own area, but our responsibility is to sacrifice our success for the success of the zone, and Elder Alston and I both understand that and are both okay with that.  it is actually cool, because we are able to witness a lot of miracles in other cities witht he missionaries there.  I will share a few examples.

Before I run through the week, I need to mention one more thing.  Our mission has been supporting the members with this big "Digital age missionary work" vision.  The members are behind it, well at least the ones under the age of 70 and have cell phones haha, and President Robinson is behind it.  We are focusing our efforts as missionaries to support the members with this as our first priority.  We have an official church facebook page in Dutch that was cleared by church headquarters and everything, and they are running a facebook campaign right now offering free "Finding Faith in Christ" DVD's.  All you have to do is click on the link and order it, and the mission office sends them a dvd within the next couple of days.  This Easter facebook campaign started last week and the mission has already received 250 referrals!!!  our job as missionaries is to go to their houses, make sure they got the DVD, and explain how we share a message about Christ and offer to teach them.  We are seeing MIRACLES with this already!

So having said that, Tuesday we went to the district meeting in Groningen.  Elder Rudolph is the district leader there now.  I don't know if you remember him, but he was my companion back in Brugge.  He is the massive lineman for SUU haha.  He gave a good district meeting, and after the meeting, we went on splits with the Groningen Elders, and guess who I went with?... Elder Toole!!!  I trained him almost one year ago back in Brugge!  He was one of my favorite companions and I was so glad to work with him again.  We had a great day catching up on everything and biking in the rain.  We didn't see much success with the referrals in Groningen that day, but it was still a lot of fun being with him.  He has made a lot of improvements since I trained him, and I would consider him one of my best friends on the mission.

Wednesday we were on exchanges with Heerenveen.  It is west of Groningen.  That was honestly a pretty long day.  Elder Alston was in the car with the other elder looking up some referrals really far away, and I was on foot talking to people and looking up people in the city.  I was with Elder Pugh, and we had a great time.  We got along really well and had some good talks about life, and good talks about the mission and goal setting specifically.  After a long day we looked up the last referral, gave him a Book of Mormon, and set up a return appointment for them for next week!  It was nice ending a long day of walking and talking to people on a good note of seeing some success and scheduling an appointment.

Thrusday was the miracle day.  I was with Elder Bitters in Zwolle, and we had a great day!  They are doing great work in Zwolle right now, and we had three planned appointments with investigators that day.  The first one was with this lady named E.  She is a really cool lady and understands the Gospel.  Her sister is an active member and she wants to be baptized.  The only thing holding her back is her boyfriend.  They have three kids together but aren't married.  He was sitting in the corner playing his nintendo ds.  We was completely silent throughout the whole lesson until one of us said something he didn't agree with, then he would start arguing with us.  Toward the end of the lesson, he asked her, "Do you really plan on becoming a member of this church." She replied, "I don't know yet." Then he just shook his head no and went back to his ds.  It was sad to see that he is the only reason holding her back from baptism and there isn't much we can do about it.  It was still a spiritual lesson, and even her boyfriend bowed his head and said amen after we prayed.  The second lesson we had was with their baptismal date.  He has been taught everything and is just waiting for his girlfriend to come back from vacation so they can get married and both get baptized.  He is a great guy and very prepared.  The lesson was more of a conversation than us teaching him.  The third lesson was with this lady named J.  She was one of the referrals who ordered the dvd.  They called her and she agreed to meet with us, so we went over that night, not really knowing what to expect.  J is from ecuador but has been living in the Netherlands for 16 years.  She has a dutch husband and three kids.  Her husband is dutch reformed and she is catholic, but they don't practice their religion anymore.  She told us that when she lived in Ecuador, her and her mom met the Elders.  She got a Book of Mormon when she was 13 and read the whole thing!  They weren't baptized, but they liked the church.  They lost contact with the Elders, and she hasn't met any since we came.  We had a great talk with her and learned that she believes in God still, but she never reads or prays or goes to church anymore.  Her faith has dwindled and she told us that she wants to gain the relationship with God again and build her faith.  Obviously, we opened up the Book of Mormon to Alma 32 and read with her.  She loved it and agreed for us to come back.  She asked if she could have a Book of Mormon, and I pulled out the Book of Mormon that you guys sent me last fall with your picture and testimony in it.  I had been carrying that copy in my bag for over 6 months waiting for a family who I knew would appreciate it, and I decided to give it to this woman with a family.  She opened up the cover, saw it, and read it, and I explained to her that I was waiting to give it to somebody who I knew would appreciate it.  She was SOO grateful and started tearing up.  It was a great lesson and the Spirit was strong.  A lot of that was thanks to the testimony you shared in that book, so thank you.  I am so excited for the missionaries to start teaching them.  It was such a great day of miracles!

Friday we had to drive to leiden for mission leader council.  It was a good council and we talked a lot about the referrals.  Other than that though, there isn't much to say about friday haha.  Saturday we went over to this inactive members house.  We call him big B.  He is from Ghana, Africa and is really cool.  I told him that my cousin was going to Kumasi, Ghana.  He was really excited and told us about the stuff they eat there!  He said they eat a lot of "Bush Meat" aka rodents.  He told us about this animal called a grasscutter.  It is kind of like a beaver.  He told us, word for word, "Every single part of that animal is tasty, even the poop!" hahahaha.  He wasn't kidding either!  They eat the poop with different herbs and spices mixed in hahahahahahahahaha sorry Layne, but tell me if it's good!  It was a good lesson though and we are working on getting him back to church.

Sunday was a cool day in church.  President and Sister Robinson came as guest speakers for sacrament meeting, and what's even cooler is that their daughter and her family was there visiting them!  I met their daughter and her family and Elder Alston and I translated for them.  They were great talks, and President and Sister Robinson are great people.  it was a good church service to end a solid week.

Later that night we called the zone to follow up on the referrals, and most of the ones they contacted were fairly positive!  The zone got 13 new investigators this week thanks to the facebook project.  We are excited to see where this goes and the success that comes from it. 

I miss you all so much and I am so grateful for the family that I have.  Ik wens u een heel fijne week en ik ben entusiast om weer van jullie te horen!  tot dan!

Elder Bishop

Church in Alkmaar (last area) 

Goodbye Alkmaar, Hello Apeldoorn! New Area and New Goals

Hey everybody!  This week was transferred week, and you know what that means?  It means that this week was crazy!!  haha Despite all the crazy moments, it was still really good!  I like it here in Apeldoorn a lot.  It sounds like everything is going great back home too.  I am so glad Meleese is finally feeling better, and it sounds like the rugby game was a close one!  Those ones are always the best.  Thanks for sending those pictures this week.  Out of all the things that have changed back home, the house still looks the same and that makes me happy :) 

I guess I will start with the beginning of the week though.  Last Monday was very very busy.  The Library was closed so we had to take turns emailing at the church on the slow computer, so that took up a lot of time, and we didn't have a lot of time in the first place that day!  I had to start packing and then the Assistants called me and Elder Cooper to make travel plans.  We had to arrange travel plans for every missionary in the mission!  We had to get them all to where they were going and make sure they had a temporary companion with them at all times.  It took forever, but we finally got that done.  I didn't have any time to pack before we went to FHE that evening in Amsterdam.  L came again, and this time by herself!  it was awesome.  She has made a lot of progress since I first got to Alkmaar, and she really enjoyed it that night too.  It was hard saying good bye to all the young single adults in the Amsterdam area.  I had some good relationships with some of them, and I will miss them.  It was a fun night, but that whole day was so busy, and it didn't even feel like a p day.

Tuesday was also very busy!  We had district meeting that morning in Amsterdam and then got back around 2:00.  We didn't have any appointments that afternoon, so we went and visited some people to say good bye.  While we were visiting those people, I realized why I am going to miss Alkmaar so much.  I realized that it really was a temporary home for me.  The D B parents were my temporary parents, and their parents, grandma and grandpa D B, reminded me so much of grandma and grandpa Bishop.  They were my temporary grandparents.  The M family  were my temporary brothers and sisters.  The Young Single Adults were my temporary friends.  Sister V  R  was my temporary piano teacher.  Alkmaar really was my temporary home. It was hard saying goodbye to all of them, knowing that I probably wouldn't see some of them ever again.  Thank goodness for facebook though haha.  We had a dinner appointment with one of my favorite families that night, the D B's.  It was a lot of fun, and I was glad to spend my last evening in Alkmaar with them.  it was a really hard goodbye afterwards though.  the 14 year old son, and I had a good friendship, and he did not want me to leave.  He started crying after we prayed.  I gave him a hug and told him I would see him soon.  He is an emotional kid, and it has been cool to see him feel the Spirit so strongly and recognize what it is.  The dad told me that there is nothing better someone can do for parents than helping their children, and that's exactly what we did for their children.  I will never forget that family and the experiences we shared together. We got home late that night, and I was ready to go to bed  when I realized that I hadn't even begun packing!!  Luckily, it didn't take too long and I got all my stuff packed ready to leave the next morning. 

Wednesday was transfer day...  I don't even know where to begin!!  haha I don't have time to tell you how it went in detail, but basically, we got to the Leiden station at 9 am and I waited there and helped missionaries depart and arrive until I needed to leave at 1:00.  I left for Utrecht and got there to meet my new companion. He is great and we clicked right off the bat.  We got stuck in bad traffic on our way back to Apeldoorn, but finally got there.  The Zone leaders used to live in Deventer which is right outside of Apeldoorn, and the other Elders lived in Apeldoorn, but we switched apartments that day because the other two elders speak chinese, and there are a TON of Chinese students in Deventer, so we thought it would work better if they lived there and we lived in Apeldoorn.  So me and Elder Alston had all of our stuff packed in the car and got moved in to Apeldoorn that day, and then comes the planning part haha.

Thursday was also very busy with planning and getting things situated for everybody.  Between all the planning we managed to fit in a service project for an older couple and a dinner appointment that night.  Not a whole lot happened on Thursday but it was fun because all six of the missionaries were at both of the appointments, and they are all really cool.  Elder Lee and Elder Tjong Ayong are the other two elders here (They are the ones who live in Deventer now).  Elder Lee is a newer missionary from Singapore.  He speaks fluent English and Chinese, and he is really cool.  He is an awesome cook too, and he makes us a lot of chinese food.  Elder Tjong Ayong is from Suriname in South America.  It is a Dutch colony and dutch is there first language, so he is already fluent, but he got called here speaking chinese.  They are both really funny and they will do well together.  Hopefully the Apeldoorn ward will get a few more chinese members in the near future haha.  The sisters here are sister Brophy and Sister Jones.  They are both really cool.  I was sister Brophys district leader in Belgium and Sister Jones' zone leader in Alkmaar, so I already know both of them, and it will be cool to work with them here in Apeldoorn.

Friday was also busy!  haha surprise.  but we had to take the car into the shop because the last elder in Apeldoorn ran into a pole hahaha.  We were busy with that, but we also had a great dinner appointment with this older couple, the V Family.  They are great people and LOVE the missionaries.  We shared a spiritual thought and when they commented on it, the Spirit was so strong.  They were even nice enough to give us a ride to the shop so we could pick up our car.  It was a good day.

Saturday we had a leadership meeting in Zwolle with the district leaders and sister training leader.  Luckily the car was ready by then so we didn't have to bus there.  That evening we watched General Conference in Apeldoorn at the church there.  It was SO GOOD!!  I came with a few questions and they all got answered.  I really thought about what goals I have for this transfer, and I really want to focus on showing people I love them.  I have gained a lot of love for people out here, members, missionaries, and investigators, but this transfer I really want to show them. That was a big topic in Conference as well!  I LOVED Elder Holland's talk and also Elder Scott's.  It was a great conference and I learned a lot and felt the Spirit a lot.  We spent the whole day at the church on Sunday watching conference.  It was a great weekend.

Today we are gonna get some lunch with all the missionaries in Apeldoorn and then play some frisbee afterwards.  it is gonna be a great transfer here!  Sorry I am running out of time and this week was super crazy to try to explain in detail, so I hope it makes sense!  haha I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Bishop

Last Drive in North Holland

The "Fantastic Four"

Missionaries in Haarlem District

Missionaries in Amsterdam District

Elder Bishop and Elder Cooper (these boys became Great Friends!)