Elder Hayden Bishop Belgium/Netherlands Mission: Wonderful Lessons Learned in Apeldoorn and New Changes on the Horizon for Elder Bishop

Tilted tower in Leeuwarden
(supposedly it leans more than the leaning tower of pisa)

Hey everyone!!! I can't believe how busy you all are this week! You are always busy! I don't know if it happened since I left or if I just didn't realize when I was back home. It's good to be busy though, and I'm glad everything turned out alright. This week was busy for us as well. It wasn't quite as crazy as last week, but not having a car in the biggest zone in the mission is definitely inconvenient, and that made it really busy as well. But like I said, it's good to be busy.

So there are two big lessons I learned this transfer, and I will share them through my experiences this week. Monday was a killer day. First off, it was Pday, and I love Pdays. But afterwards, we went to family home evening in Deventer, and we invited J (He is the guy from Sierra Leone who came to church for the first time in 4 years last week.) There weren't a lot of people at FHE, but it was still so good. Elder Bourne and I gave the lesson about trials, and how God will support us through our trials if we stay faithful. We went around the room and asked everyone to share an experience where they saw the hand of God help them through a hard time. J was the last one to go and he shared such a great experience. He told us a story of his family. He was married back in Sierra Leone with a young boy. He was SO proud of his son. He told everyone how he is gonna have the smartest son and the strongest son and he was going to be a lawyer. He was a typical 25 year old dad with a 2 or 3 year old son, so proud of him. One night his wife and son were driving back to see him. It was late at night when he received a call from his mother-in-law. She told him that his wife and son got in a bad car accident. The wife was fine, but the son was in critical condition. A few hours later the son died. J explained how sad he was. He got on his knees and prayed. He told the Lord that everything that happens is for a reason, and he trusted Him even though he didn't know the reason. A few years later he fled from Sierra Leone and lost contact with the church, he ended up in Holland and has been living here for the past 2 years, still no contact with the church. He said it was a very hard time for him. He felt so alone with no son and a wife in a different country. Then he explained in his own words, pointing at Elder Bourne and myself, "But then my brothers found me. They brought me back to church, and I feel at home now. My wife will be joining me next month here in Holland. The Lord has blessed me with miracles through my trials." the Spirit was so strong after he shared his experience. Everyone was in tears. My experience with J sums up the first big lesson I learned this transfer, and that is, as we are diligent and obedient to the Lord's commandments, He will bless us. Elder Bourne and I have been focusing on diligence and obedience this transfer, and the Lord blessed us with miracles such as J. He literally walked in front of us and stopped us. The same goes for J. He has been faithful and obedient, trusting in the Lord, and we were able to be an answer to his prayers. That was the biggest miracle this transfer and one of the biggest miracles on my mission.

Tuesday began our journey without a car. We went up to Groningen to attend their district meeting, and that takes a couple of hours to get there and a couple of hours to get back. It took up most of our day, but we were able to get back for a dinner appointment with the Bishop in Apeldoorn. He is a great guy with a great family, and we were able to correlate with him to help get the members more involved with missionary work with the new stake plan, that is digital missionary work. It was a long day on the trains, but still good.

Wednesday we traveled back up north to spend the next two days on splits with Elders there. Wednesday we were with the Heerenveen Elders. I worked with Elder Rudolph who played football at SUU, so we talked about Cedar City a lot. That day Holland played Australia in the World Cup. It is a mission rule that we are not allowed to knock doors during the games. If we don't have appointments, we need to be inside. Luckily, Elder Rudolph and I had an appointment. We got in there and they had the game going on anyways. It is a bad idea to ask them to turn it off, because it is such a big deal here. The game was almost over anyways so we just watched the last 20 minutes with them. It was closer than I wanted it to be, but Holland came out on top 3-2 against Australia!! Everyone was going crazy afterwards!!! haha it was pretty fun to see and walk through the city afterwards. The appointment was good though and we were able to give some priesthood blessings which they really enjoyed.

Thursday we were in Groningen. I worked with Elder Hulet again. We had a big service project that day with all the missionaries in Groningen and Elder Bourne and me, so there were 8 there. It was a lot of fun and they cooked dinner for us afterwards. I was able to play their piano after dinner as well, and they loved it. It was a good day.

Friday we were on exchanges with Zwolle. I brought Elder Ames back to Apeldoorn with me and we had a couple of good appointments in the morning. Afterwards we got a call from the office saying that they had an extra car for us that we could pick up that day!! Miracle. so we spent the afternoon going to the office and driving back. That evening we had institute, and it was a great lesson. That's where the second big lesson I learned comes in. The institute lesson was about hope and faith. We defined both words. Hope is something we are looking forward to. It is an expectation. Faith is acting on that hope, doing everything we can to make that expectation happen. I never really thought of it that way, but then I realized that my faith grew this transfer because of that concept. At the beginning of the transfer, Elder Bourne and I set goals. We hoped and expected that we could reach those goals, and every goal we set, we either reached it or exceeded it. It took a lot of hard work, but faith is hard work. We acted. We did something about it, and those expectations became a reality. And because of that, my faith has increased. That is the second big lesson I learned this transfer.

Saturday was pretty easy going. We had a big lunch as missionaries. Elder Lee cooked us some sweet and sour chicken which was incredible. We got back to Apeldoorn and did some work there then had a dinner appointment with Sister Stomps. She is an old short lady from Austria and she is so funny. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday was a good church service. Afterwards we were able to teach two lessons, both to two different families. The first lesson was to a religious Dutch family, active Protestants. They were very nice, but felt weird about the Book of Mormon. They didn't want to read it, so we told them to just see it as a history book full of stories, and read it with that perspective. The reason we did that is because once they see that the Book talks about Christ and His teachings then they won't have such weird feelings about it. Hopefully it works. The second family was a lot more positive. The mom is from Thailand and the Dad is dutch. The kids have a Buddhist background but are very interested in the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ. We committed them to read it and pray about it and we will follow up with them next week. It was a great lesson. That night was transfer calls, and I got a call from president. I am being transferred out of Apeldoorn and will be serving in Amsterdam as an Assistant to President Robinson! I am sad to be leaving Apeldoorn and Elder Bourne, because I had such a good transfer here, but I am very excited to be going to Amsterdam. I am definitely a little nervous, but I think everything will be alright. I will be in the office every Monday so my Pdays will now be on Saturday, so you will have to send me an email before Saturday so I can get them. I will be leaving Apeldoornon Wednesday morning. My new address is...

Vogelkersoord 15

1112 ED Diemen

Netherlands

Diemen is a suburb of Amsterdam.

I love you all so much and hope you have another great week!

Groetjes,

Elder Bishop