Don't listen to those who say that Europe doesn't baptize, because The Belgium/Netherlands is a baptizing mission!

17 months ago today we said good bye at the MTC! 

Hey everybody!  Sounds like you had a great week full of service, and were very fulfilled from it.  That sounds like a week of a good missionary!  I'm glad you all had those opportunities to serve, and I'm glad you all had fun.  I can't believe this is the last week of school for Ross and Lainey!  Summer is coming fast.  It's coming really fast here too!  Last week was pretty overcast and rainy until Saturday.  And now the weather is incredible here!  There is a whole different vibe in this country and people are outside, and happy.  That makes missionary work a LOT easier and more effective.  So thanks to the weather and a great new companion, this week was really good!

 

Monday was bowling as a district.  The first time must have been a fluke because I lost the second time...  haha it was still fun though.  We went to family home evening that night and had a good time.  It is a great way to build up a relationship with the YSA in Apeldoorn, and they feed us grilled cheese so that is also a plus.  Tuesday was pretty busy being the last day before transfers.  We had our district meeting in Hengelo and got subway as a district afterwards.  Subway is SOOO expensive here!  Afterwards, Elder Alston wanted to visit some mebers that afternoon and he spent time packing so I just spent time cleaning up the apartment, studying, and organizing some things for this coming transfer.  We woke up early that next morning to drive to Utrecht for transfers...

 

Wednesday was transfer day and they are ALWAYS crazy.  The way we do transfers in this mission is via trains.  The zone leaders go to specific cities that are the "hotspots" where everybody meets and then leaves to go to their own cities.  There are three hotspots in Holland and one in Belgium.  The zone leaders make sure that everything goes smoothly and that everybody catches a train to where they need to go.  Elder Alston left for Rotterdam station early in the morning, and I was the only zone leader for a lot of the day.  it was really busy and crazy,and Utrecht central station is one of the biggest in the Netherlands!  After getting some groups of missionaries sent to other hotspots to meet their new companions, I found out the the train company in the Netherlands came out with an announcement that showed on all the screens in all the stations.  it said, "Verstoring, Elders".  or in English, "disruption Elders".  Hahaha!  They said that we were all sending too many missionaries with all their luggage at once and it was crowding all the trains.  They made a rule telling us that we can't send any more than 6 missionaries on a train at once, so we had to split up all the groups.  It was CRAZY!!!  Elder Bourne, my new companion, finally got to the station to help me out.  We got everybody sent off to where they needed to go and then we just had to wait to get a few more missionaries.  We waited FOREVER because they were coming from Belgium, and not only that, but one of the elders fell down some stairs with his luggage at a train station and had to go to the hospital!  We had to wait for him to get checked out and make it to utrecht station.  I was at the train station for 8 hours, and after sending missionaries off (in smaller groups), getting my new companion, waiting to get more missionaries, and then waiting for the elder in the hospital, we finally made it back to the apartment.  We had just enough time to get back, eat dinner, and get Elder Bourne up to date with things going on in Apeldoorn.  Elder Bourne is awesome though!  No, his first name isn't Jason, haha  He is a young missionary approaching his year mark, and I love training him as a zone leader.  he is adjusting well.  We are very organized which will lead to a great transfer.  He is pretty quiet, but really cool and we get along great.

 

Thursday was a lot of planning for the transfer.  We spent a lot of time on thursday getting paperwork organized and buying a few things we needed like folders and stuff like that.  We talked about our zone plan for the transfer and goals for the zone so we know how we are going to accomplish that plan.  We talked about it a lot and came up with something great.  I already told you, but these last few weeks, I have been studying the relation between consecration and conversion.  Sister Robinson brought something up in interviews last week to all the missionaries.  She expressed her concern on how high the percentage is for missionaries who go inactive when they get back home.  She talked about conversion and how we simply need to look to Christ and live.  We need to go to the best sources, namely, the Book of Mormon.  Elder Bourne and I got some ideas from her and come up with a zone plan for this transfer.  It is titled, "Consecrate our service".  We are focusing on obedience and diligence this transfer, that we may become more consecrated missionaries in giving our time, talents, and strength to the Lord in our everyday missionary work.  We have goals that every missionary in the zone will read and study in the Book of Mormon every day, we will read and study the white handbook every day and underline rules that we need to work on, and we will also be calling different companionships throughout the transfer, encouraging them to make a good plan and work diligently the next day, and then report to us that night.  If the zone really focuses on these 3 simple goals this transfer, then we will all become more consecrated.  And the deeper our consecration, the deeper our conversion.  So we also expect the missionaries to become more converted by the end of this transfer.  That is a byproduct of our plan.  We hope and pray that it works well and that the missionaries will become more converted as we consecrate our services to the Lord.  Thursday we also had a correlation meeting with our ward mission leader, and got things organized with our missionary work in Apeldoorn.

 

Friday was a long day.  it was our Mission Leader Council.  We focused a lot on the facebook project and the success we have seen and how we can make it even more productive.  the Easter Campaign was a pilot, and the success exceeded our expectations.  We received, as a mission, 545 referrals.  We have contacted about half of them, and 40% of the ones we contacted were positive.  We got 48 New Investigators from it and 5 are on date to be baptized.  We worked on how we can contact these referrals more effectively so we can get into their homes, give a short introduction, bear testimony, set another appointment, and then leave with the Spirit.  It was a great council, and I learned a lot.  That night we had a dinner appointment with an old lady from Austria.  her name is sister Stomps and she is such a sweet old lady.  She has such a strong testimony!  it was a lot of fun, and all 6 of the apeldoorn missionaries were there.

 

Saturday we were able to do some work in our own cities.  We got a new investigator named F.  He is progressing very slowly and has a hard time understanding everything, but he has a desire to be baptized.  He brought a friend to the lesson and she was pretty interrested as well.  She was a little timid committing to meet with us again, but she has a book of mormon and a card with our number.  Hopefully we can start teaching her in the future though because she has potential to be baptized quick if we start teaching her.  We also stopped by B's house.  he is the inactive who has thought about writing himself out.  I have been praying for him a lot and when we went by on Saturday, he was doing SOOO much better!!  He said he hadn't been depressed at all and his blood sugar has been stable (He is diabetic).  We had a great talk with him and committed him, just like we committed the zone, to read and studay the Book of Mormon every day.  he said he would and we promised blessings like crazy.  it was very spiritual, and I am so glad he was doing better and will start reading again.

 

Sunday was also a great day.  We had a good church meeting and had some more time to work in our area.  Elder Bourne is a hard worker and I am really happy he is.  A lot of zone leaders get caught in a trap where they are so busy all the time helping the zone that when they don't have anything else, they come up with excuses and waste their time instead of work.  I want to make sure that Elder Bourne keeps the mind set where he puts the zone as his top priority and then when he has time, he takes advantage of it and works hard to keep his own city going.  We have been working with that mindset, and we are being blessed because of it.  We put the zone first and got everything organized, and then when we had time, we were outside looking people up, and knocking doors.  We have a couple of new appointments set up next week with some positive people!  I am really looking forward to this transfer.  The zone could potentially baptized 6 people on June 14!  I pray that the people will all go through with it.  We should also be seeing some more success in Apeldoorn this transfer.  Don't listen to those who say that Europe doesn't baptize, because The Belgium/Netherlands is a baptizing mission! 

 

I love you all and can't wait to hear from you next week!  I can't believe it was 17 months ago today that I went to the MTC!  Tijd Vliegt!

 

Groetjes,

Elder Bishop