I promise that if we believe in something and then we work for it, then that belief turns into faith, and with faith, anything is possible!

Elder Bishop and Elder Bourne

Hello!!  sounds like everything is going great back home and the kids are excited to be out of school.  I can't believe they are already done!!!!  CRAZY!  quick shoutout to Ross. His ceramic pot looked incredible!!  nice job man.  Meleese is super pregnant but still healthy so that's always good to hear, and dad cleaned all 500 shed antlers out of the garage this week!  That's what I call productive.  Speaking about dad, and before I forget, I have a question to ask you.  So they are going to be making a few changes to PMG pretty soon and they are going to be focusing more on families and family history.  I noticed in the last general conference how president Eyring shared a story from his family history, and I would love to read some stories about my ancestors.  I know that dad has a lot of stuff back home and I don't know if mom does or not, but I would love some cool stories to read at night to learn more about my ancestors.  They are really motivating stories, and it would be cool to share some with people here.  So could you please send me some stuff?  Thank you!!!  Anyways, I will get started with the great week I had in Apeldoorn.

Monday was a nice pday.  We played basketball with the Apeldoorn missionaries and went to family home evening.  It was nice to get out and run around.  Tuesday was our Zone Conference in Apeldoorn.  our zone and the Amsterdam zone met together and President and Sister Robinson and the assistants gave a great conference.  The theme was raising our expectations.  We read a lot in Jacob chapter 5 and I learned a lot about my purpose of being here on Earth at this time to preach the Gospel.  it was a good training, and that night we worked hard trying to get some things going in Apeldoorn.

Wednesday I was on exchanges with Elder Bean in Hengelo.  He is knew to the area.  He did what we call whitewashing, where the two elders leave and area and two new ones come.  He whitewashed Hengelo with Elder Goates!  I trained Elder Goates back in Brugge, so I am excited to be with him again.  He is a great missionary, and so is Elder Bean.  We got along right off the bat.  he is from Southern California and is really good at basketball.  he is planning on playing at BYU when he gets back.  We had a good day and I showed him around a little bit and brought him to some former investigators' houses who I taught a year ago when I was there.  I took him to this lady's house.  Her name is M and she was really cool, but then she just fell off the face of the Earth.  We knocked on her door and she answered and remembered me!  I asked her how things are going and what was new and she had a baby since I was gone!  That's when you know you've been on your mission for a while...  She was really positive though and told us that she is always trapped at home with the baby now and said we could come whenever.  Haha I may have added the "trapped at home" part, but I just wanted to scare Meleese a little bit.  Hopefully that will be someone to help the Elders get stuff going in Hengelo.  It was a great exchange though and I think Elder Bean enjoyed it as well.

Thursday we were on exchanges again.  I was with Elder Bitters this time in Apeldoorn.  He is also a great elder and we are good friends.  We had a busy day with appointments! FINALLY!  We taught a dutch student.  He is searching for direction in his life and thinks he can find it through religion.  We had a good talk with him and he brought up the concern that he wants to believe but he doesn't know how.  We read Alma 32 with him and explained to him that he needs to plant that seed of faith or the Book of Mormon, and he needs to nourish it.  He needs to read about it and pray about it and come to church.  He will feel good about it all and then the seed of faith will grow.  He is willing to try, and this week we are gonna teach a killer plan of salvation lesson.  I think he will really like it, so I am excited for that.  We also taught our other  investigator.  he has a hard time understanding.  He is the kind of investigator who says he believes in the Book of Mormon and I asked if he has read from it at all and he says he hasn't.  He is kind of oblivious, but still positive and he knows a LOT of people and has people over at his house all the time.  So we are still working with him and hoping to get some referrals from it as well.  it was a great day of missionary work and it is continually progressing. 

Friday we took advantage of our car and drove around outside of Apeldoorn to look up some formers and less actives and referrals.  We drove to Deventer and Zutphen.  They are both really pretty and really old cities.  We didn't have a lot of success though.  Nobody is ever home!  We did get a hold of the referral over the phone though and he said we could come back next week.  That night we had a dinner appointment with the Deventer Elders at the V's home (He is the guy who is really smart and looks like his dog).  We got there and they were wondering what we were doing there.  They totally forgot about our dinner appointment!!!  Haha they felt really bad and we told them it was no problem, but they insisted that we stayed and they went and bought us take out.  it was a good night still and Elder Lee and Elder Tjong Ayong are sooo funny! 

Saturday was also a busy day.  We had a first lesson with this lady from Peru.  She is so prepared!!!  As we got to know her she told us that she has lived here for 6 years, but she had the feeling to get married and have a nice family.  She married a Dutch man who isn't religious, but he supports her and she told us he will come around soon.  She has a 5 year old daughter who is really sweet.  She told us she was raised catholic, but Catholicism in Europe is a lot different than Catholicism in South America.  She didn't like that and stopped going.  She said she is searching for the truth, and she will know through the feelings she gets.  She said if she feels good about it, then she will join.  And to make it even better, she lives less than a five minute walk from the church!!!  We were surprised and excited at the same time.  The only thing holding her back is she says that she is really busy and that's not really her top priority right now, but we managed to get a return appointment and committed her to read from the Book of Mormon and pay attention to her feelings.  it was a great lesson, and she is a positive new investigator.  We got a new Senior Couple in the mission to be over the YSA center in Deventer!  We have been waiting forever... but they got here on Saturday and we met them at the Apeldoorn church right after our lesson.  Their names are Elder and Sister Kleijn from Ogden Utah.  He was born in Amsterdam though and moved to America when his parents joined the church.  he only 8 when he moved, but he served a mission here too and so his Dutch isn't too bad.  We drove them to their new house in Deventer and helped them unload.  They took us out to lunch and we showed them around.  it was fun and they are really nice people!

Sunday was a cool day.  We started off at church of course, but after that we had an open schedule of finding and look ups.  Sundays are always the hardest days for me to do missionary work.  They are so different out here!  Back home I would come home from church and eat a nice big meal with my family then watch some football with Ross and take a nap and then wake up and eat more food!  Haha it was so relaxing and nice and I miss that.  That's why it's hard for me to get out and do missionary work when I am already exhausted from the whole week, and it's even harder when we are getting doors slammed in our face for hours straight.  it was a pretty trying 4 hours, and Elder Bourne and I had to keep each other up.  We got back for dinner and made a nice spaghetti meal then back out for the night.  We were on the bikes and looking some people up.  One of the guys we looked up lived in a very Muslim neighborhood.  He lived in an apartment complex where all the doorbells are at the bottom outside of a locked door and then the person lets you up.  When the guy didn't answer we rang a few more bells who weren't Muslim (You can usually tell by their name for example, B. Ali).  We found a name that looked Spanish and rang it of course, number 62.  We told the lady about the Book of Mormon and she let us up.  We went to number 62 and knocked on the door, but nobody was there.  We knocked again and nobody came to the door, so we went back down to the doorbells and rang it again.  She answered again and said she would let us in.  We went back up to 62 and the same thing happened!  We were so confused!  We went back down and rang her bell for the third time.  This time she came down herself.  We were all confused, but then she told us she lived in 52, not 62.  WE RANG NUMBER 62!!!! I am 100% positive, and I have no idea why the lady from number 52 answered.  She was Muslim, but didn't practice.  She was really interested in the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ and she wanted us to start teaching her!  She gave us her address and told us to come over whenever.  It was a cool miracle.  I don't know why or how number 52 answered when we rang 62, but I believe that this lady needs to hear the Gospel and is ready to hear it!  I learned yet again why it's important to endure to the end. 

Today was pday and we played soccer as a zone!  We invited a less active member who plays for a club here in Apeldoorn.  He was SO excited and he killed it haha.  it was a great zone pday and my soccer skills are improving.  Nederland and België WC 2014!!!! 

it was a great week with a lot of success.  It is nice doing exchanges more so we always have somebody in our city.


I promise that if we believe in something and then we work for it, then that belief turns into faith, and with faith, anything is possible!  Kevin Garnett said it best after winning the NBA Finals for the first time in his career with the Celtics, "ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!"  Look it up on YouTube if you want.  Haha I love you all so much and I hope you have another great week.

Veel Lief,
Elder Bishop

Voetbal

Elder Bourne biking into Heaven