Helloooooo!!! I can tell it's hunting season again when only the girls in the family email me haha. Thanks Mom, Meleese, and Lainey :) It sounds like everyone had a great week though! Shout out to Lainey for making the volleyball team!!! I am so proud of you! I have played volleyball quite a bit on my mission. The tall Dutch people love it. Meleese is SO pregnant, but she looks so good! Make sure you rest those swollen ankles. R.I.C.E. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. I learned more from football than just how to smash into people haha. Mom is busy as ever helping everybody around her. I love you mom! I'm sure Dad and Ross got a big one on the mountain this weekend too. My week was also incredible! Just like all the rest of them. It was also very busy. Just like all the rest of them haha.
Sunday was church which was good. People are starting to come back from vacation and the chapel is more full now. I saw a tourist girl from america walk into church with a dutch guy who looked very confused. I greeted them and she asked if I could sit by them and give him a Book of Mormon. I sat next to them and then talked to them after church. I found out that she was from St. George! haha weird. She and her friend met this guy who gave them a tour of Amsterdam and they invited him to church. He doesn't believe in God and wasn't too interested, but I gave him a Book of Mormon and explained it. I tried making an appointment, but he told me he would call if he had any questions. He wasn't very positive, but it was cool meeting them and talking to her about Southern Utah. I miss Southern Utah... After church we visited an inactive member. He is super cool and we hit it off right when I got there. He opened up to us and told us how he really likes the missionaries, but then they all leave after such a short time, so he doesn't like getting really close with them. We still got really close though and we need to take advantage of that and get him back to church to meet members and get close with the members who will be here for a long time! It was a spiritual lesson though and we still managed to laugh a lot.
Monday was the beginning of our busy week. We were in the office, and it took a little longer to get numbers done because I was still pretty new at it and I had to show Elder Alston how to do it, but we still got done in time for our meeting with President. We planned some more things for our Mission Leader Council and Zone Conferences coming up. It was an effective meeting. Afterwards, we got the announcements written up and organized a mini mission and then began planning for the presentation we would be giving at the YSA camp. It took FOREVER!!!!! As the time went by, President and Sister Robinson left, then the office senior couple, then the office elders, and it was just us in the office. We got the layout made up and created a Power Point. The whole presentation was about mission prep, and we wanted to make it really good because that could potentially help some people decide to serve a mission. And we had to do it that night because we didn't have any more time before the presentation. We got done late that night and drove back to Amsterdam to sleep.
Tuesday we woke up and got ready for District Meeting. We were staying in Amsterdam for district meeting and then exchanging with the Alkmaar Zone Leaders right after. I got to go back to Alkmaar for the day!!! That is probably my favorite city I have served in. It's a beautiful city with great members, and I served there with Elder Cooper :) I was so excited to be back for the day. I worked with Elder Corsini and we started off by driving to this beautiful city called Enkhuizen. We taught a lesson there to an excommunicated member. She is from New Zealand, and I instantly thought of Dad when we were teaching her. She wants to come back, and we had a good lesson with her to help her stop some addictions. Afterdwards, we drove back to Alkmaar and had a dinner appointment with one of my favorite families in the mission, the De Bruijn Family! It was so much fun seeing Sister De Bruijn and Rayco again. They are such good people and we had a great time catching up. I can't wait for you guys to meet them! That evening we went with the Branch President to an aunt of a member in Rotterdam. She lives in Alkmaar and is not a member, but she has had some experiences with some weird feelings in her house. Her sister told her that we could come by and help, so we went by and talked for a little while then offered a blessing on her home. The Spirit was very strong afterwards, and she appreciated it. We got a pretty good relationship with them and offered our help whenever they need it. It was a great night in a city I love.
Wednesday we traveled the whole mission! We had interviews with the Zone Leders and started in Amsterdam. We made our way from North Holland to South Holland and interviewed Rotterdam, then drove down to Antwerp, Belgium. After Belgium we made our way back up to Eindhoven in South-East Netherlands then back to Amsterdam that evening. We started at 8 am in Amsterdam and got back around 7 pm that night. We were exhausted from all the driving and interviews. But they all went really well and it helps unify the mission. We spent some time that evening running through our presentation for the last time.
Thrusday we drove to East Netherlands and exchanged with Apeldoorn Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Bourne, and it was fun working with him again. He is a great missionary and we get along really well. We had an appointment with B. I worked with B back when I was in Apeldoorn, and we had a good lesson with him. He is the inactive member who has contemplated writing himself out. He suffers with depression, but he always feels the Spirit when we come and knows he should come back to church. We had a great lesson with him and learned a lot. It is a work in progress, but I still have faith he will come around. We were able to talk to some people on the street that evening and we met a very positive guy who saw the Elders in Chili on vacation and saw some of the LDS Temples there too. We made an appointment to teach him! It was a cool conversation and we were both really excited afterwards.
Friday we woke up and drove to the YSA camp. It was an hour outside of Apeldoorn in the middle of nowhere! We got there around 9:30 and saw a ton of people we knew! It was fun talking with them and catching up. We got our power point presentation set up for the first presentation at 10. There were about 5 different presentations that morning and everyone could sign up for two. A lot of them signed up for ours just because they saw our names haha. We got to the presentation and there were a lot of people at ours! most of them were girls too haha. We gave the first presentation and it was a hit! They all LOVED it and learned a ton! We had them laughing in the beginning and tearing up in the end. We told them we organized mini missions and if any of them wanted to try it out then talk to us. 2 of them came up to us right after the presentation and said they wanted to serve mini missions. We gave the same presentation for the second time to a different group. There weren't as many the second round, and most of them were english speakers, so we gave it in English. One girl was being dragged in by her friend. She saw us and asked what our presentation was about. When we told her it was about mission prep she sighed and told us that was her least favorite topic about the church. Her friend convinced her to stay though and we gave the presentation. She became very attentive throughout the presentation and we even saw her mouth the word, "perfect" a few times throughout the presentation. She came up to us afterwards and apologized for her attitude coming into it. She then went on to tell us that it was the best presentation she has been to all week, and it totally changed her view about serving a mission. She said it never felt right before, but now that she knows a little bit more about it, she wants to pray about it again and see if she should go! It was incredible! We ate lunch afterwards, and some more people came up to us afterwards thanking us. They told us their perspective of a mission really changed and it seems a lot more do-able now. We got to the lunch room and more people came up to us who didn't even attend our presentation saying how they heard it was really good. We were so pleased with how it turned out!!! Elder Alston and I put a lot of time into that, and it was nice to see that it had an effect on some people.
We got home that afternoon dead tired! We laid down for a little bit and cooked dinner and then planned some things that we need to take care of this coming week. It will be another busy one, but I love busy! I am glad it's pday though. We will be taking it easy and resting up for the coming week. I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week! I look forward to writing to you again next week. It will be here before we know it.
Groetjes,
Elder Bishop
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