Elder Austin Elkins

Hey Everyone! I hope you all had a great, warm spring week.... Well, at least it has been SUPER warm here! Literally hot, and i´m a little nervous for the summer when it´s hot, and humid, maar komt goed eh? I got transferd to Rotterdam South and it is very ghetto but amazing. Walk around and there are thugs everywhere from Surinam, Curicaou, Morocco, and every other place in the world. It is so funny. They are so fun to talk to as well, because they just talk to you like bro´s because they are higher than kites 24/7. It has been a great experience. I will not be going through days today because I don´t have my planner from last week with me and I honestly cannot remember what we did, but I will do my best to tell everything that I remember happened. It was hard to say goodbye to the missionaries and members in Amsterdam. Especially the investigators actually. I´m not worried though, Keith and Danny were prepared to be baptized so they will do that, I know it. There is a huge rivalry between Ajax (Amsterdam Soccer Team), and Feijenoord (Rotterdam Soccer Team), so everyone was begging me not to switch sides and they all bought me a bunch of Ajax gear haha. So funny. Honestly a bigger rivalry than BYU and Utah. It is so funny. I think I will be safe in the ghetto, as long as I don´t wear Ajax haha. So I will not do that. My new companion is Elder Childs. He is exactly like Kevin James, and looks like him too. He is so funny, honestly. He reminds me of Elder Ashy Reinhold and that has brought back so many memories of the good ol high school days! Miss ya man! Before I left, Tim and Vincent took me out to dinner on Tuesday night. They are two amazing friends in Amsterdam and return missionaries and great examples to me. Tim is going to Harvard next month so he will be coming to the states. Wednesday was transfers and that is always stressful to pack and unpack, but fun to see all the missionaries. Elder Childs and I had a good first few days together. We saw some cool miracles and met some inactive members on the street while contacting. Nobody has been able to get in touch with these people forever too! That was cool. We have an investigator named Hernandez. 33 years old from Surinam with a baptismal date for May 3rd. He is hilarious! Surinamers are just bros like Jamaicans. Surinam is a counrty right about Brazil, where they speak dutch. Surinams Dutch is hilarious and I´m trying to mimick it and learn it like they say it. I´ll get it down. We went to teach Hernandez and just get to know him, for me at least. He has been taught everything and loves the gospel and just wants to change his life. He is a typical Southy in Rotterdam. Gangsta! He just wants to change. He failed his Drivers Test so that was hard on him and hurt his trust in Heavenly Father because he prayed really hard for help. Elder Childs is new, speaks good dutch for how young he is here, but of course not enough to converse, so I taught 95 percent of the lesson, but it was soooo cool! I was able to give him scriptures that he hasn´t read before and help him feel more comfort. I shared Ether 12:6, then John 16:33. He was in tears and I just bore testimony along with Elder Childs that everything would be alright. It was very powerful! It has been a challenge being in a new city though. It is hard to go to a new city and finish a training for a missionary and not know the city, the members, or the investigators. Heavenly Father will help me though. We had a good week, and the next will be even better. I need to buy a bike here for sure, but it will probable get stolen. Gelukkig, Elder Corsini, one of my Zone Leaders who also serves in this city, has a brand new bike that he is going to sell me for very cheap. I love him to death! Along with Elder Praag. Praag is someone that would´ve been one of my bro´s back at home playing FIFA with us honestly. We do everything with the ZLs cause they live like 5 minutes away from us. We do mensen 4 dinner appointments every night and just see each other all the time. That is fun, and good to know that they are always right there. 

General Conference was amazing. I hope you all were able to watch it and be able to take new things out of it. Every member is still a missionary. ;) I loved it and was touched by Bednars and Richard G. Scott´s talks. I love them to death! Hollands talk... i think it was... about defending our faith was also amazing, and his testimony at the end was killer. I love our church and am so grateful for the leaders we have in it. I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week. I will talk to you all next week! Till then.

Elder Elkins