July 28, 2014

I cannot believe how fast this week went by. I feel like I was just sitting here maybe 3 days ago, but here I am and it has been a week! Unreal. It doesn't help that we had a weird week with Zone Training, and other unexpected things in the way. It was a week of doing a lot, but the numbers didn't show. Sometimes that happens, and you just gotta keep your head up, and realize that sometimes you sacrifice numbers one week, so you can have good results in the weeks to come. We still had a great week, and had lots of cool experiences.

Last Monday, for -Day, we played Axis and Allies with a member for 5 hours. That was ridiculous, but he deserves it. He does a lot for us. Like pick us up at 11 PM at night when we are 1 hour away from home, and no buses are running. Yes, he deserved our P-Day haha. I will never, ever play that game again. So frustrating. I was America, and still got owned. Since when does America get owned? I'm a disgrace lol. Still a good day, and we were able to teach a good lesson afterwards with the member present.

Tuesday, we had a good day doing look ups, and finding new people to teach. We had an incredible lesson with our investigator, Burt, and he is making a ton of progress. He came to church and enjoyed it. Stepping out of his comfort zone, and will be baptized on September 6th.

Wednesday we did service all day for an investigator. We attacked his back yard with shovels and sledge hammers, to do some weird things that he wanted to get done. He is kinda a hippie, and he loves spiders, so he catches spiders in "his" forest nearby, and brings them to his back yard. If anybody knows me, this might've been my least favorite day of my mission.... haha not really but it was vreselijk! He also is a famous trumpet player, so he always goes off playing music and it is so interesting haha!

Thursday was the big hump day, and I celebrated it with Elder Claflin by going to Zone Training! What a good day, and I learned a lot. The focus was on Losing Ourselves from Luke 9. It totally was a great way to start the second year, and refocus my mind and set new goals. Elder King and Elder Muse are the ZL's and they both are great missionaries. Lucky to have them as Zone Leaders. At night we went on Splits with the members, and Elder Knoops and I, and Elder Holt went to look up in actives. He is a missionary giant, and just wants to give all day everyday to doing missionary work. He is hands down the best example of a member missionary I have ever met.

Friday we weekly planned, and traveled far away to get two baptismal forms signed. We traveled 2 hours or so, then could only stay at the house for 10 minutes, and had to leave in order to catch our bus home on time. That is the story of Genk. Super different than anywhere else I have served! Our day was over after that. A little frustrating haha.

Saturday, exchanges with Elder Krebs. He is in our four man, so we just split for the day. We had a good day, and saw cool miracles. This guy at a bar flagged us down to talk, so we chatted with him for 45 minutes, and supposedly he is the king of Genk. We then went to look up some former investigators and had a good time doing that. He is a huge ute fan, so we always have fun conversations ;)

Sunday was a great day! Church is always a good time, and the spirit is always strong. After church we went to look up a former, really far away. Nobody was home, but we had the opportunity to walk around and talk to everyone. Found two really cool potentials from the country "Georgia", and a Jehovah Witness stopped us to talk, then she bashed. Pretty funny. It makes me really grateful to know without a doubt that this is the true church, and I'm really grateful for how WE do missionary work. That was our whole day. Traveling. But, talking to people while traveling is super effective, so it's never a bad thing.

My mind is lost as I think about this past week. It feels like a blur, but I am looking forward to this next week. It is potentially my last week with Elder Holt which is a bummer, but we will find out on Sunday when they do transfer calls. We are going to work hard, and love it.

This week, I studied a lot about the story of King Noah, and Abinadi. I love this story, because it proves to me how just bearing testimony, to even the most wicked person in the city, can effect anybody around. I doubt that Abinadi knew that Alma would take his testimony, apply it, and become who he was. Imagine if Abinadi wouldn't have done that? Alma wouldn't be Alma, which means we also wouldn't have Alma the Younger, which means we lose one of the best missionaries of all time. I'm grateful for testimony. A simple testimony is something that nobody can deny. I loved that with the Jehovah Witness. She could deny our doctrine, or the fact that the Book of Mormon is scripture, but she cannot deny the witness that we have of the truthfulness of the Gospel. Testimony is our most powerful weapon. Use it. Who knows, maybe you can have an Abinadi type of influence.

I love you all so much, and I hope that you have a great week. Make good choices, and enjoy your last few weeks before school :) Tot volgende week!

Veel Liefde,

Elder Elkins