HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER ELKINS!

Hello Everyone! I don't have too much time today, so I'm going to keep this one a little shorter, because we have a really super cool appointment tonight with a members father. I'm so excited! It will be amazing. We had a really good week. First day of Spring here was about 70 degrees and literally so warm. Right now, this country is going crazy because 53 of the worlds leaders are in Den Haag to talk about how they can make the world safer. So weird cause there are military men from the U.S. patroling streets and helicopters and things going crazy. In church, I sat next to a guy from America who is here on business. He said he was from Washington D.C. , so I asked him what he did. He told me that he is in the Secret Service to protect Obama. He is literally one of those guys with the suits and an Uzi in his coat. I asked him if he could get us a dinner appointment with Obama, but he laughed and said No. ;) It has been a good week and full of miracles, once again!

We were able to teach even more, and get even more investigators! I'm so grateful for that! I was on exchanges on Thursday with Elder Johnson, and we saw a lot of success, and had a lot of weird things happen to us. Everything throughout the day was weird, and we had a lot of awkward conversations with people. Sometimes that's just how the Dutch like it though... :) It has been really interesting lately as well with the Priesthood. I havent given many blessings in my mission, until the past 3 weeks. It is exploding! We have been asked like 4 times a week lately haha. I love that, because the spirit is so strong when we bless investigators and members. We taught Danny again and taught him Tithing and Fasting. He was super cool about it and told us that it is necessary and he teaches the same principles to his children about saving their money. He is unreal prepared. Literally cannot believe it. We also have a new investigator name Ale. He is from Italy, and speak barely, literally barely English. He wants us to teach him English and Dutch, so we have been doing that. He is a professional Italian Chef who just moved here. We have a dinner appointment with him on Wednesday. I'm super pumped about that! I'm getting spoiled for my Birthday here this week :) We also had a dinner appointment with an old lady in our ward. She is always super funny. She always talks about the same things with the Sisters and Elders, and they are usual not very appopriate topics. Super funny, but Amsterdam eh? :) Friday we taught Keith the first lesson. He told us he wants to get baptized and keeps telling me he wants to go on a mission and wear my nametag haha. That's super cool! He came to the Young Mens activity on Saturday and we did community service by a bunch of Soccer Fields. He is amazing. It was hilarious. At the Community Service, it was with the Recreational Department, kinda like Kaysville Rec. All of the people that work there in the Park were talking to me and trying to get to know me and Elder Larson, cause we did splits so our companions could go to correlation. They thought I was Dutch, and that was super funny! Then I began to speak a lot more Dutch, and it came clear to them that I was just a 'Super Smart American here for Obama"... That was awesome. On Sunday, after Church, we went to an investigators to see how she was doing. She had two friends over, a Ghananian, and a Surinamer. They are both religous and we asked if they wanted to learn about us, so we taught the first lesson. I got pretty tight with the Ghananian cause on my mission I have been trying to learn a little of multiple languages. I have learned a little 'Twi', which is their language and he calls me his brotha and we just are bros now. The spirit was so strong and they want to learn more! Next Sunday! Martha, Keith, and Sister Grace are amazing. We went over their to just see how they are doing, and she gave us sooooo much food, cause she calls us Angels and Jesus Boys. She loves us so much. Martha is amazing, and it is so nice to realize that people do see us as different people. Set apart. She tells all of her kids to call us Úncle Elskins, and Uncle Enslow, and she makes us call her our sister. It is amazing. Nobody here can say my last name right, that is why it is Elskins... haha. Gosh it has been amazing here in Zaandam recently. We have been blessed, but so have other people. I am thinking that this will be my last week here, but we will find out next week. This has easily been the fastest week of my mission. I cannot believe it. Gosh. 

I'm sorry, I literally have no time to leave a spiritual message, but everyone, be a missionary this week huh? :) Love you all. Thanks for the Birthday Wishes! It will definitely not be the same without you all, but my mission is going to fast and I'll be back for my 21st. Will you all pray it goes slower!? Have a great week! Tot Ziens jullie!

Elder Elkins

Hello Everyone! :) I don't have  too much time on the computer today, so I'm going to keep this one relatively short. I hope you all had a great week! Sounds like life is still going on in America, and that I haven't missed too much. We had a great week here in Zaandam! The work is taking off! :) I'm going to do this one like last week. I don't want to go thorugh the days haha. 

This week started off a little slow, but it was fine. We were stacked with appointments for the end of the week. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. That was nice! On Thursday, We were able to teach Keith. He is the Soccer Player. Gosh! Super amazing. He asked some great questions, and we all felt the spirit so strong. He was supposed to go to Almere on Saturday for the Stake Young Men activity, but he wasn't able to go, so that was a bummer, but it's good! We then went to Ana and Luma's to make dinner for them, along with the Sisters. Ana's cancer is doing good, and she is curing up! So amazing. That is a miracle! This was super fun, and we made good food ;) We then taught Aspacia at night, and decided to make goals with her. Our first goal was that she would come to church, which she did for the first time! That was so amazing. We had other appointments throughout the weekend as well. Literally, on Friday, we had the busiest day of my mission. We rely on public transportation so much to get everywhere, so times can get all jammed up and we rely on bus schedules! That gets annoying, but it seemed to work out this day. After lunch, we were supposed to go contacting, but I had a feeling to go to Amsterdam North, and show up to our appointment 45 minutes early. Before we went to the appointment, we stopped at an inactives. He let us in, and was super frustrated with himself. He has been having it super hard lately, and vented to us. It was a miracle we showed up and were able to help him. He even talked about the harming himself and how he doesn't feel like he deserves anything, because he try's his best to keep the commandments. I felt inspired to share my favorite scripture passage, D&C 121 1-7. This was perfect. He was talking about how God just isn't in his life anymore and how he can't feel his love. This is exactly what Joseph Smith explains in Liberty Jail. That was amazing that we were able to get over there. This kicked off one of the best days of my mission. We then went to Ibrahim, taught the 2nd lesson, and he went off about how the true church needs to have a living prophet.... perfect :) We showed him LDS.org and how he can watch talks from the Apostles and Prophets. He loves it! He watched the Joseph Smith movie like 7 times throughout the week cause he loves it so much. We then had an appointment with Danny! I've missed him! We sat down and talked forever, about Utah, life, his trip, everything! I love that. We went in there with the plan to teach him about BoM heroes like Alma, Ammon, and Enos, and how they are all powerful men, who realized they were nothing without God. Danny is super great, but we didn't know how he was doing with prayer yet cause it has been hard for him to ask God for help. He suprised the heck out of me! He was saying how he feels the Spirit, and how with the Atonement of Jesus Christ, it is possible for him to not have to carry all of his burdens alone. That is progress right there! We then got on topic about Temple Marriage for him and Kim, and we made a baptismal date! Kim will be here in Amsterdam in May, so we decided that we would wait for her. May 11th is his date! So pumped! He told me that he is going to wait for me and Yocom to get back to Utah before he gets sealed with Kim. That would be so cool. He also showed me how he hung up the picture that my mom gave him of Yocom and I on his wall, and then took me to his room and showed me the Christ picture above his bed that my mom gave me. Gosh. This is why I was called here, honestly. We had great dinner appointment later, and our last lesson with 3 new investigators fell through, but we had a great, busy day. I loved it! Saturday, we gave a blessing to an investigator, then had an amazing dinner appointment with Familie Jansen. She collects stamps, and stamped my Dutch BoM with Dutch Stamps! So freaking cool! We had dinner appointments every night this week as well. That was amazing! Sunday, we had church, had two investigators there. Aspacia, and Grace. Danny had to work, and Revalino and Dennis just didn't show up. After church, we had a ward potluck and all watched Ephraims Rescue. I love that movie! Then we went to Luckies for dinner. People are pointing out to me here already that I'm almost at a year! I'm not really, but sort of. That is insane. 8 months! Gosh. Time goes to fast. I would love to provide a spiritual message for you all, but I have no time. I love you all. The weather is lekker here, and the flowers are bloeming. Today for PDay, we went and explored the WWII Bunkers on the shore of the beach with our Zone, then played football on the beach. So tight! You all wish you could be here ;) Love you all! Heb een goede week eh? tot volgende maandag :)

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a great, warm week. We sure did here in Holland. It is warming up and becoming so nice! Today was about 17 or 18 degrees celsius which is about 64 degrees :) It was literally one of the best weeks of my mission. So many miracles, so many new experiences, and so much fun. I'm super grateful for it and for what is starting to happen in Zaandam. I'm going to give this email a little bit differently this time. I don't want to do the day by day this time. I'm just going to tell you guys what has happened in a summary. Here we go!

Well, like I said. Miracles. Danny got home this week, and I sent him a simple text saying I hope he got home safe and had fun. To my suprise, I got the best text in return. " Thanks! It was super wonderful to meet your parents. What loving and warm folks! And because Kim and I decided to go for a temple marriage there is a lot to do for you guys ;) let's try to get together somewhere next week!". Wow. Thats all. I have never been happier in my life. I'm so grateful to work with Danny and see his life changing for the better. He is such an amazing man and he has helped me see why I was called to this mission. He is a big part of that, I believe. That just started off the good week. We taught a lot of lessons this week as well. Elder Enslow and I just pray and pray that we will see miracles and be able to teach lessons, and God blesses us. We taught a family of 6. Martha is the Mom, Grace is her friend, and Keith is her 16 year old son. He is a little bit quiet, but is also the coolest, most polite kid I've ever met. He is also the second best 18u soccer player in the country, believe it or not. 2 years ago, AJAX did a thing to try to find one more kid for their 18u team. They invited 300 of the best players in the Netherlands to come try out and play against each other. It came down to Keith, and another kid. They chose the other kid because they said they want the future Messi, not the future Drogba. This kid is unreal. I will get his last name for you guys next week so you can look up his videos. I sat down and introduced the BoM to him after the lesson, and became his best friend. He left the room and told his Mom that we are angels and that he feels like he has known me his whole life. His Mom thanked me with tears for helping him feel like that. That was one of the most softening moments in my mission. I'm grateful for them. We are going to continue to teach the whole family, and baptize them. We took Chelsea with us. She is recently baptized and was our Joint Teach. This was a perfect joint teach! Martha and Chelsea clicked instantly and she painted Chelseas nails, while I was teaching Keith the BoM and Enslow was teaching Grace. So fun. I will never forget that! I also gave my first blessing in Dutch this week. Wow. I won't say much about it, because it was so sacred, but WOW. Miracles haven't seized to be performed. The Priesthood is real, and I have had a strong testimony of that since I was healed last summer as well. I'm so grateful for it. Ibrahim has problems with both of his legs, to the point where he cannot even walk. He is pretty much paralyzed since his surgery 3 years ago, and he get's a ton of pain from it. After the blessing, let's just say, he is doing a lot better ;) Amazing. We also received a really cool referral this week, and were able to teach more. I'm so grateful for it. This mission is amazing. Still, the hardest thing in the world, but when you go to bed smiling, that is when you know it is worth it. When you go to bed in a bad mood, stressed, you still know it is worth it, because it is for the cause of Christ. ;) I'm just going to tell you my testimony of Prayer. I had experiences right before my mission where ALL I COULD DO WAS PRAY. God Listens. God Answers. I promise you. This week was an answer to my prayers, as well as Elder Enslows, as well as yours. Thank you all for praying. This morning, I was reading an article from Thomas S. Monson about prayer and I read a quote that I really liked. 'A man doesn't reach higher standing, then when he is kneeling", or something like that. This is so true. We can think that we can tough out the situation or solve it ourselves, but until we get on our knees, and beg our Father in Heaven for His help, we won't learn. I testify of that. I love you all. Sorry that this wasn't as long as others, but I hope you know that we had a great week. I hope you all did too! Thanks for everything you all do. Tot volgende week!

Elder Elkins

Hello again everyone! This was a great week! Elder Enslow and I had a lot of fun and were also able to see a lot of success. It is amazing how God answers our prayers and how truly inspired this work is. We literally don't make the decisions. It is all on God's plate, and we are just he forks and knives. I like to think of myself as the Knife though :) It was super fun to see the pictures of Danny back in Kaysville. I'm super glad that he is doing good and that you guys took care of him. I'm especially pumped that he proposed to Kim and now that will push him into the water ;) We will get the job done! I'm going to keep this email a little shorter today. I still love you all though!

Monday - PDay! Went to Elder Enslows District Leader training meeting. Learned a lot and we went to lunch at an amazing italian restaurant "Vapiano". Love it. We went there again today actually haha. Spent the day with Elder Bishop and Cooper. Love days like this! Much needed!

Tuesday - Went on Exchanges with Elder Bishop. We had a really good day and were able to make appointments and find new potentials. We had a correlations pizza party at night with the ward mission leader as well! 

Wednesday - Finally back with Enslow! We had a lesson at 12 with Danny, a non-active, but he bailed so we ended up visiting former investigators and making new appointments with them. We went to Marcels to teach him and make a smoking program, but he is really slow in the head and is not there. It is really sad. I asked him how smoking is going, and he said "better". I asked how many he smokes a day and he told me 25. I asked him how many he smoked before we came and he said 50 every day. 50 cigs every day!? Are you kidding me! These people are crazy haha. It explains a lot, but honestly. He told us that he didn't want our help with it anymore cause it is all he has in life. It is sad, cause it's true. He cannot leave his house cause of his problems. Gosh. That hurts! We did look ups and went to institute at night with the JOVO's.

Thursday - Today, We tore apart out area book because it was raining really hard. We went out and looked everyone up, and made appointments! Perfect! I called an investigator named Eric to make an apointment, and he talked to me for 45 minutes over the phone. It was unreal. He started out asking just general questions about the Book of Mormon, and they were easy to answer, but then he brought up things he has seen on the internet. We all know that that isn't good. Let's say those next 30 minutes were rough, but the spirit told me just to relax and give him certain scriptures to read. Sometimes I forget that it isn't our job as missionaries to answer some of those evil questions that people pose. It was a rought 45 minutes, and after, I was feeling pretty crummy, but whatever! We had a good day after that and taught Aspacia at night. I have a goal for my mission, to love every companion like a brother, no matter what, and to teach in unity with every single one of them. It is super hard sometimes, but Elder Enslow and I had a shot at it tonight with Aspacia. Aspacia hasn't made too much progress, and was frustrating Elder Yocom and I, but tonight was different. She had a light in her eye. We taught the Plan of Salvation. She was interested, and the spirit was there. Theeeee best lesson of my mission. One I will always remember. She committed to read the scriptures, and she has a genuine interest to learn more. Great night. Hate the rain sometimes though hahah.

Friday - Elder Enslow went to Brussels for legality, so I went to Hoorn with Elder Strikwerda. He is a second transfer, but so fun to be with! Hoorn is such a pretty old dutch city. I will sent pictures. We had a great day, and taught the smartes man in the world, I swear. It was all in Dutch as well, and of course, we were both young so it was a little hard to answer his questions is posed, and understand his words he used. This guy has a million books on his walls. You have no idea. We went to the beach and took some cool pictures. Beautiful day!

Saturday - Did a ton of area book look us, got let in with a lady named Martha! This was a miracle. She was getting baptized the next day in a different church, but felt inspired to let us in. She has 6 boys and a girl, and they all were intersted. Such a cool family. She told us that she was feeling weird about the baptism, but we helped her feel at peace with her life. I felt inspired to share the plan of salvation with her because of her family, and that was great. She has been having a rough time for years wondering what would happen if her beautiful family got seperated. It was a great lesson. We went home and did weekly planning after, and then dinner, then went to Joyce, another new investigator. We taught her the Plan as well, and she asked a lot about if there was a heaven. She started crying when she found out that we have peace after this life, because she has a lot of struggles right now. That was an amazing lesson. It has been fun to crank out missioniary work with Elder Enslow. We have had a good week.

Sunday - Good day. Elder Enslow and I had to teach the Investigator class. We taught about Prophets of God and it went well. We had a great day and taught Ibrahim. He has really bad struggles with both of his legs. Pretty much paralyzed, but we watched the John Tanner story with him and will return this week to give him a blessing. I'm super excited for this. This man has all the faith in the world. He is amazing. 

Well, as you can see, we had a great week. God has been touching our lives, and the lives of the poeple around us. It has been fun to be with Elder Enslow. He is a genius with the Bible, and I definitely am not, so I ask him to tell me Bible stories a lot haha. He is also a genius with movies. Name a movie, and he'll tell you like 100 quotes from it. So cool! I have never seen the movie castaway, but he told me the whole movie, and now I swear I could tell someone the plot and even quotes haha. So awesome. We have fun. We are definitely different, but that is good. I'm learning a lot. I enjoy serving him, and try to also help him be better, because that is what we are supposed to do. There is no time to do anything else, but to improve. Just get better :) Well, and Love ;) I don't really have much of a spiritual message this week, except for the fact to tell you all that the church is true. I know that. I love you guys! Hope you all have a great week, and I hope to get super great letters from you all for my birthday ;)

Loves,

Elder Elkins

 

Hey Everyone! I hope that you all had a great week. I sure did! Not much different than other weeks, but that's the reason that is was good ;) I got a new companion, Elder Enslow, and we are going to have a lot of fun. He is a super good missionary and I'm super excited to learn a lot from him! We have already worked hard, and make some great goals for this next transfer. It was way sad to say goodbye to Elder Yocom. Literally teared up at the Station when he had to go to Belgium, but I'm almost positive that we will be companions again down the road. He will do great in Belgium and I am not worried about him at all! The weather is getting a lot warmer. Today was like 55 degrees and the flowers are beginning to bloom! So much for the terrible winter eh!? I'm not complaining :) Well, here is my week!

Monday- PDay, not much done. Just chilled and got Yocom ready to leave. He didn't want to do to much except shop, so that is what we did! We went to Gerphal and Annickas at night to have family night with them. That was a blast!

Tuesday- District meeting, then it was Yocom and I's last day together! Holy cow! So sad, but honestly we both feel that we'll be back together so it wasn't to bad. I'm trying not to keep my hopes up. After that, I honestly cannot remember what we did, because the weeks get so mashed together, but I'm sure we found and then went to the De Nijs' at night. They make the lekkerste food in the world. That was great! Fun day.

Wednesday - TRANSFER DAY! We had to meet everyone at the Leiden station and meet our new companions. I said bye to Yocom before he left, and that was super sad, but I saw a bunch of other friends there so that was great, and I met my new best friend! My companion, Elder Enslow. I had to wait 3 hours before he came, but it was fine! We got all settled in, then went straight to work and contaced and looked up a bunch of former investigators. We had a lesson with an inactive and that went great. For dinner, we went to the church for wijk eten and ate with the whole ward. I love those. We do them every two weeks. Good day.

Thursday - Studies, then throughout the day, we did look ups, and taught Marcel. He is the old guy who is crazy. We dropped him, but felt that we should stop by and see how he is doing. We asked if he wanted to quit smoking and he said that he wants to, so we are going to meet with him this week to make a plan with him this week. That will be interesting, because he has been smoking since he was 7. Honestly, who does that...? Oh yeah, the Dutch!!!! Gosh, oh well. ;) We did other look ups, and found, then came back for dinner and did more look ups after dinner trying to make appointments. 

Friday - Another normal day. We went to Anna and Lumas after lunch to see how everything is going. Anna is still having problems with her Breast Cancer and they might have to do more surgey because she has a lot of water created from the wound I guess...? They are doing great though and are always so fun. They hate the fact that I love to shoot animals aka hunt and fish. The Dutch honestly have no idea ;) We then had weekly planning. Elder Enslow and I went so hard and made some great goals to improve our work and the success here in Zaandam. I'm super excited. Great day. We did a lot of finding today too, and found a great potential named Muhammed ;) So many of those here haha. 

Saturday - Normal day, again! :P Nothing too special happened, except we had some cool conversations on the street with people. We looked up a potential but they couldn't meet then. I wish I had more to tell you about today, but honestly, we just did look ups and went around our whole area today. Still fun! I learn a lot from Elder Enslow because he loves movie making and history of certain movies. Jaws has a really cool history. I suggest you all look it up ;) 

Sunday - Church, then did more look ups, then we went to Lucky's for dinner. These appointments are always fun. She is such a fun lady and we went with the 3 Amsterdam Elders. They are in a three some for now until Elder Sosa goes home :'( He leaves next week. I'm gonna miss him! My Chilean home boy. He makes rap music and beats. He is literally pretty famous too. DJ Urba is his name ;) So sick! We were supposed to have an appointment with Aspacia after, but she ended up not being able to and wij moesten haar afspraak verzetten maar komt goed. 

Well, that is my week. This mission is not easy, as you guys can tell. There is a reason that the MTC concidered this mission the 3rd hardest in the world. I'm so grateful for it though, because I have learned a lot about myself, and others. It is very sad to see all these sad people here in this country who don't believe in God. Most of these people have no conception of what a God means or what that idea can do for them in their life, nor do they care quite frankly. It is hard sometimes to see that. I had a really cool experience about this. We were walking down the street and I saw a mom pushing her daughter in the stroller. I stop her, and ask her " What do you think about prayer... what does that mean for you?" She looked at me, with a light in her eyes and said " actually, I prayed for the first time in my life last night, because I have been having a hard time with my mother lately. " It meant the world for me, because of my testimony, to be able to respond and tell her that I know the God heard her prayer, and that everything will be ok. That was a real eye opener to me about how grateful I truly am to be a member of this church. Not only to be a member, but to also be able to believe that God exists and that he listens and answers my prayers. It is the hardest thing in the world, to get these Europeans to listen to us, but if I can get one person, every day to listen to the message that Elder Enslow and I share, then it is all worth it. I love this gospel. I'm so grateful for it, and I'm grateful to have parents who raised me, and my family right to be able to share it with other people. Thanks Mom and Dad! Love you! :) 

Well, that is my message this week. I love you all and I hope to continue to get emails from you all. Have a great week. I pray for you always!

Elder Elkins