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