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| Elder Bishop in Amsterdam |
Saturday was a nice P day. We went to the city center in Amsterdam and walked around. It's too bad all the prettiest areas are filled with red lights and coffee shops aka weed shops. We don't go to those areas even in the day time, but that whole city is beautiful and there are plenty of areas that we could go to that were really pretty. It was nice just to be out and enjoy a nice day in Amsterdam. That evening we watched the Saturday morning session of General Conference. It was soooo good and got me excited for the next day.
Sunday we were back at the church at 11 for the Priesthood session. Afterwards, we taught a recent convert, G. She is a cool YSA girl who loves the Gospel. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she remembered it really well from the first time she was taught that lesson. It was a nice review though and a spiritual lesson. After the lesson, we ate a sandwich really quick and then watched the Saturday afternoon session at 2:00. After that we ran home and I cooked for 6 Elders (All the Elders in Amsterdam). We cooked some rice and chicken with a nice asian sauce over it. It was pretty good if I do say so myself haha. My specialty is spaghetti though. Elder Alston and I can make some pretty mean pasta with the right ingredients. I will have to make some for you when I get home :). Anyways, we got back to the church just in time for the SundayMorning session that started at 6:00. I LOVED General Conference! It was really good for me. Self improvement is something that I am big on, and I learned a lot about self improvement through General Conference. They talked a lot about goal setting, personal responsibility, accountability, and improvement. It was good for me as I come close to the end of my mission. One of my big questions was how I can keep this rate of progression after my mission. I got a lot of different insights and answers. I really enjoyed Elder Eyring's talk about confirming revelation. It was a great conference and I look forward to watching the Sunday Afternoon session, eventually.
Monday was our office day. We were in there FOREVER!!! We had a really long meeting with President. They are pretty concerned about making sure we leave the new mission president with a good mission. That means we do a lot of planning. A lot. We planned out the idea of what will be happening in the mission for the next year. It was really confusing, and after 4 hours we were all exhausted. It has been pretty cool to work with President and help him implement this new training plan that mission now follows, and help prepare the mission for the new president and make sure it is a smooth adjustment. After our meeting we had to organize a lot of other events going on. The biggest one was Temple Conference coming up next week. it was a late night in the office, but we got a lot done.
Tuesday we drove down to Antwerp for their district meeting. Afterwards, I drove back to Amsterdam with Elder Bosco for an exchange. We got caught up in some traffic and had little to no time to work. It was too bad, but that's how it goes. We rolled with the punches and made the best of it. We had some really great conversations in the car ride, and if nothing else came from the exchange, at least we became good friends. I really like Elder Bosco. He is a great missionary and we have similar personalities, so we can connect on a lot of different levels.
Wednesday we drove back to Antwerpen to exchange back and then Elder Alston and I drove to Gent to do splits with them. We got to Gent around noon and actually had a nice missionary day. I worked with Elder Hills. He has been out about a year and he is a great missionary. He is from Ogden area and likes sports and classical music! haha We talked a lot about both throughout the exchange. We had a lunch appointment with a member and then an investigator came to the members house and we taught him a lesson. He is pretty interested, but his wife is of another christian faith and holding him back a little bit. We had a nice lesson about "The Gospel blesses families" and how he can be a good example for his wife, and as he lives the Gospel we teach, his wife will notice a difference. He really enjoyed the lesson though. Afterwards, we went to a little town called Laarne. It is a cool town with a really big, old castle right outside of it. We looked up a recent convert and referral there. The referral wasn't there, but the recent convert was. We had a really good talk with him and got to know him better. He has a strong testimony and told us his story. His family was against him joining the church. He joined anyways and they disowned him. They don't talk to him anymore and he is on his own. He is about 30 years old and decided to move to Utah to meet new people and start up his business there. He loves the elders, and I think it's a good option. I just hope it works out alright. He is a nice guy though and they set another appointment with him to eat dinner. After that, Elder Alston and Elder Goff picked us up in the car and we went to a dinner appointment. It was a really fun dinner appointment. The mom is from Nigeria and the dad is Belgian. They are a funny couple and we had a lot of fun. They loved elder Alston when he served there before (he started his mission in Gent), so it was cool for him to be back. We had a fun night that night and then left early the next morning.
Thursday was a crazy day that was unexpected. We left Gent that morning planning on just going back to Amsterdam and working in our own city for the day, but on our way back we got a call. A sister in Apeldoorn needed a transportation card to get around with trains, trams, and buses. Her's didn't work and they needed it asap. We changed our plans to drive to the office then drop it off to them. We got stuck in traffic between Gent and Antwerpen, and that took forever! But we finally made it back to the office, four hours later, to get the transportation card for the Apeldoorn sisters and then we drove to Apeldoorn. We got them the card and made it back to Amsterdam that evening after a total of 7 hours driving. We had a nice dinner appointment with an american family who lives here for their work.
Friday was our zone leader interviews, so you know what that means? MORE DRIVING!!! Elder Alston and I both hate driving and we do so much of it. We drove to Utrecht then to Apeldoorn, Arnhem, Antwerp, Leiden, and then back home to Amsterdam. That filled our whole day, but it was actually very productive. We got a lot of insights of where the mission is at and where the problems are and how we can fix them.
Today was our P day, but something came up and we ended up not getting a P day haha that's why I'm emailing so late. It all started last night while driving home, we remembered that there was gonna be a sisters conference the next day in the mission home. All 42 of the sister missionaries were gonna meet there and have a conference. We realized that would take a lot of setting up for just president and sister Robinson to do, so we called him last night and asked if we could help set up that morning before it started. He gladly accepted, so we showed up at 9 this morning. We got everything set up and ran to the store to pick up something Sister Robinson forgot. We got back about 5 minutes before the conference began and there were so many sisters there!!! It gave me a headache being there for just a couple minutes haha. President wasn't expecting it to be so crazy either, so he asked us to stay and help. So there we were, in the crowded living room in the mission home at 10 am on our P day, President and Sister Robinson, 42 sisters, and me and Elder Alston. We were in the back corner listening for the first while, and then we got lunch prepared, fed the sisters, then cleaned it all up afterwards. We felt pretty out of place the whole time haha. It was a long conference and we didn't get out of there until about 4:30. President and Sister Robinson really appreciated it though. It was their first Sister Conference and I don't think they knew what they were getting themselves into haha. I also don't think they could have done it alone. After we got done, President came up to us and told us it was inspired that we called the night before. They really appreciated it and we were glad to help. Our logic was, we would rather be good assistants than have a good
P day haha. So ya, that capped off the crazy week! Not gonna lie, I miss the weeks filled with biking and finding and teaching in one area. I love my responsibilities now and I have learned so much from the opportunities I have been given, but I am glad I don't have to end my mission like this. Only 2 more weeks and I will be off to my last city for my last 6 weeks. I am so excited!
I love you all so much and hope you have another great week!
Love,
Elder Bishop
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