Christmas Skype!!

Eli Mail 12/22/14 Letter 23; Eli Bullets 12/29/14 (Zaandam, Netherlands)

Well here it comes – Christmas is already upon us! With the mild temperature and the lack of snow here, I haven't quite been able to feel too much of the Christmas spirit that I'm used to. But, no matter. The street decor and Christmas trees scattered about the city will suffice. We had a very busy week of an assortment of activities, including a Christmas party, and we even got to enjoy doing a little service with our part-member family. On Monday evening we taught Jane and Pieter, the part-member family, and they talked about wanting to take us to their cabin to do some service, which was located in about the only forest in existence the Netherlands. After receiving permission, we loaded up in Pieter's car after our studies and headed out. It was a very pleasant experience. We spent most of the time hauling tiles around and attempting to get the water out of the pipes for winter. Afterwords he took us on a little walk through the forest. We ate while we walked, which included slices of bread with only cheese in the middle and a few clementines, a very simple but surprisingly satisfying meal. We ended up in a clearing, and a wide expanse of flat ground unfolded before our eyes. And we just marveled for a little while. It made for a good day, but it didn't distract me from the busy week of work we had in front of us.

We found a couple of really cool potentials, one including a lady who is currently searching for the right church, and that was special. We have also been receiving referrals from our Facebook campaign, in which people can order a free Christmas DVD and expect "representatives" from the Church to follow up on it. We received one that lives in Monnickendam, a little town located on the coast within our proselyting boundary. Unsure of how to get there and having no maps, we decided to go to Amsterdam Centraal on Saturday and try to find a bus that went there. We did, and it ended up not being a very far bus ride. We watched as the scenery around us changed from busy, city buildings to flat countryside. We arrived there in no time and even found a map located at the bus stop. Having found the street and the right house number, we approached the door and were greeted by an older gentleman. After a short conversation, we discovered that this man has been doing genealogy for years and is very interested in stories of his ancestors (yes, I know: perfect missionary opportunity). He told us a little more and we were able to tie it into the Book of Mormon, which he willingly accepted a copy of. It was overall just a very cool experience, and I'm very excited for a lesson with him planned for January. (Everyone here doesn't want to schedule appointments in or around holidays. Makes it a little hard for missionaries, but it's reasonable).

To conclude, we had a great opportunity on Sunday, and that was to participate in Pieter receiving the Priesthood. After over 20 years of sitting on the less-active list, someone finally looked him up (the missionary that I replaced here in Zaandam). And because that Elder was diligent and spent over an hour trying to find his house and didn't give up, this family has found the gospel and are changing their lives, and Pieter will be baptizing his wife coming up shortly. It's a very humbling experience and missionary work at its best.

Looking forward to seeing my family in a couple days on Christmas, and I would like to thank all those who sent me letters/emails and Christmas packages, they were much appreciated, including the letters from my Seminary class and Young Men's group, glad to hear from you guys. Hope this week is swell. I'm looking forward to it. Love you guys!


12-29-14 BULLETS

Sadly, I don't the time to write a big email this week. Lots to talk about, but no time.

I will update you on a couple of things though. We had a baptism yesterday! Jane was baptized by her husband Peter, and we got to help Peter along the way to getting the priesthood and also teaching Jane. It was awesome, missionary work at its best.

Discovered yesterday that my bike is stolen. I've been very careful about everything, making sure it's safe and locked (you know how I am about that stuff), but nonetheless, it happened. But, I may have lucked out. We called the bishop, and he said there's a bike in the church that I can have free of charge. Such a blessing.

My body has been feeling achy and my throat is suddenly sore. So, like the whole mission and this country, I might be coming down with something.

But I hope that isn't a splurge of bad news. Things have been great. I'm loving it out here, and the Christmas hustle and bustle is fun.

Tell Linus I miss him and hope he gets better soon. I really hope he'll be okay.

Love you guys; have a good week!

Eli Mail 12/8/14 (Zaandam, Netherlands) Letter 22

Oh, man everyone! I'm not even sure where I want to begin. It was quite an interesting week, to say the least, with the start of a new transfer and everything. I hope everyone has been doing well. I sure have been. I've been very much tunnel-visioned these past few months, focusing mainly on the work at hand and the day-to-day activities, taking no time to look around me and enjoy where I am. So, I'm glad I'm finally getting a little bit better at that balance.

Wednesday was supposed to be a pretty normal day, but we got a call on Tuesday during District Meeting from a part-American, part-Dutch family that's in our Ward. Brother DeVries told us that they had a house fire and needed us to come help the next morning for some clean up. It was a rather sad thing to see. Brother DeVries left a bag of camera equipment on this heater thing in his sauna room (they were just using the room for storage at the time) and one of their kids flicked on the wrong light switch, turning on the heater. So, yeah – excluding a few details, that's basically what happened, which led to the combustion of the bag. Brother DeVries quickly attempted to put out the flame to no avail. The flames kept creeping higher and higher towards the ceiling. They attempted water and all sorts of things, but the flames just seemed to inhale everything and spit out masses of smoke. In a last ditch effort, he grabbed his wife's partially wet bath towel and took out the fire. Who knew a bathrobe would save the day? Sister DeVries joked later after everything, sounding disappointed, "Honey, that was my favorite bathrobe!" So, Wednesday we spent the long process of carrying smoke damaged things out the house and hauling them to a storage facility in North Amsterdam. It was rather nice doing service. It changed the pace of things, despite it being a rather unfortunate occasion. That evening we had a dinner appointment set up that ended up canceling last minute, and I was a little annoyed with it since we had no back-up plan. But luckily we powered through it and it just worked out, and we saw miracles because of it. If I remember right, we taught a lesson and gave out two Books of Mormon, which was awesome and very satisfying. 

Friday was very wet. We listened to the wind just howl through our partially cracked-open window and watched trees blowing and the rain whipping around during our studies. We went out anyway, of course, and starting biking through the headwind to do a look-up. Thankfully, the family was home. We were able to talk with Diana, a non-member mom, and her mother, who is a member. I may have mentioned them before, but the whole family is from Columbia, so whenever I'm over there I think of the slight chance that my cousin may have taught them or something. But anyway, we followed up on our praying-as-a-family commitment from the previous month, and it turned out they have been praying as a family and loving it! Super cool to see people progress and find a love for the Lord.

We had an awesome stake conference this weekend. Every ten years the stake presidency of the Netherlands changes, and that was this week. It was super cool to be able to sit back and enjoy. The Church actually rented out a sort of hotel building for it, since this country doesn't have a stake center.

That's all the time for this week! Lots of exciting stuff coming up this week, love you all!

Eli Mail 12/8/14 (Zaandam, Netherlands) Letter 21

Hello everyone! Another week has come and passed here in the Netherlands, and the pace of things is really starting to pick up. Transfer calls were last night and, as I predicted, both Elder Toole and I will be staying in Zaandam for another transfer. He'll be the first companion I've had for more than one transfer. The Amsterdam Elders have an interesting situation, because Elder Tjong-Ayong (my favorite Suriname friend ever!) extended and has only four weeks left on his mission, not even the full transfer, and they just received word that they'll be getting a greenie now between the two of them. That'll make for a pretty packed apartment, with the APs who are already there – five missionaries in total.

But anyway, enough of the missionary transfer stuff. What exactly happened this week? Well, sadly and excitingly, Sinterklaas came and went. All eight of us missionaries in the Amsterdam area were invited to members' houses both Friday and Saturday night, very convenient to not have to be out and about when it was a "feestje dag". Elder Toole and I set off at about 5pm on Friday evening to the Roos's apartment, which was located somewhere in Amsterdam. We ended up doing all sorts of crazy tram navigation, me trying to orientate ourselves on the map and both of us wandering around until we eventually arrived at our destination. The member's apartment was a three-story flat, with insanely steep staircases that led up to a wide open kitchen and living room area. We spent the evening singing Dutch Kerstmis songs, eating little goodies, and doing a bit of a "spiritual" gift exchange in which everything related to a scripture or something like that. On the way home, the tram stopped in the middle of the road and just sat there for a while. It was getting late, and I was pretty anxious, so we got out of the tram to see what was going on. Sadly, some guy was laying on the spoor (tracks), possibly dead/drunk/high – and, therefore, we couldn't move. What seemed unfortunate led us to another exciting adventure of navigating back to station, and sometimes you just have to enjoy the little things like that on a mission. But at both parties we shared "The First Gift of Christmas" for our spiritual message, which is a great, new Mormon Message that came out recently. I'd highly recommend watching it.

http://www.mormon.org/christmas

Exciting news: we finally had a lesson with our Chinese investigator, Alice! She was found and taught for a long time by Elder Tjong-Ayong in a little town called Deventer. She lives in Zaandam, now, has been super busy, but is very much ready to progress. We just sat down and talked with her about how things are going in her life, and she said she received an answer to her prayer, which was awesome. It's really hard to teach Asians because of their very limited knowledge and concept of God, but Alice finally realized it, and now she just needs to know that our church is true. Elder Moriara made an interesting comment about Asian people: a lot of members are a little apprehensive to baptize Chinese people, because they usually go back home. But that's a good thing, he said. When the Lord says every nation shall receive the Word, that could be very well how it works for China – the people come here and are taught and then they take it back with them into China. Cool thought. We have a number of potentials floating around right now. We just need the right opportunities, and we could have a number of new investigators, which is what this place needs. The work is going great, though. I love the satisfaction of knowing that I'm doing all that I can, and it is comforting to know that it is enough for the Lord.

I've started the Book of Mormon again and am now currently in 2 Nephi. I noticed something in chapter five that intrigued me a lot. The chapter starts with Nephi being very depressed and grieved because of his brothers and what's going on around him, but by verse 27 it says, "And we did live after the manner of happiness" or something to that extent. So, you have a very striking difference in terms of how Nephi is feeling and living, within a manner of 27 verses. My challenge is to read what's in between those verses and try to notice what made the difference, between living in sorrow and living after a manner of happiness.

The weather has for sure been a lot more tame this week – not nearly as bone-chilling cold. Still no snow, but I'm not expecting a white Christmas necessarily. I've already been hearing a number of fireworks go off, which makes me excited for the craziness of New Year's and Christmas here in the Netherlands. I love hearing from you guys. Have a great week!

Thanksgiving: Visit to Zaanse Schans

Eli Mail & Bullets 12/1/14 (Zaandam, Netherlands) Letter 20

 PHOTO CAPTION: A visit to a missionary holiday event (last year) by Sinta Klaas and his Zwarte Petes. (Read below.)

Wow! What a week. I hope everyone enjoyed a gezilig (enjoyable) Thanksgiving. Reading emails about everyone’s plans did make me think of all the delicious smells, preparation, and the feeling of the holiday season. But being on the mission for the holidays is something special and unforgettable. We were very busy this week, so I’ll jump right into the events and experiences.

We had a lesson this past Tuesday with a lady who happens to be a former investigator. A couple weeks ago we were biking around, doing work as usual, when we passed by a lady unloading things from her car. As we passed by she said,”Oh, hey, Elders!” Elder Toole and I exchanged confused looks and stopped our bikes. We turned around and confronted the lady who somehow recognized us as “Elders.” Long story short, we made an appointment and found her record later, buried deep in the depths of the area book. So, we had the lesson and just got to kind of know this Surinamese lady a little better. She’s funny, a little sassy, but very down-to-earth and pretty positive about the gospel. For one reason or another, the lesson became very powerful and the Spirit was really strong and the discussion turned towards the message of the Restoration. We both bore our testimony pretty powerfully to her. She was still skeptical and wanted to know if we really did believe all that stuff. This was my response: “I wonder that too, actually, if it all really is true, and I get the opportunity to find that out every morning.” It’s a cool experience to be on a mission, because by simply keeping the commandments and aligning our will with God's, we really can feel of His Spirit and receive answers. So, we'll see where things go, but it made me grateful to have the gospel in my life.

On Wednesday we had another visitation of a general authority! A few months ago we had Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles, and this time Elder Moriara (I can’t spell his name) of the “zeventigers” came to our mission. He told a really cool story of some navigators who years ago were always afraid to sail past a certain cape. This cape had been rumored to be extremely dangerous, with sharp rocks and the actual edge of the world, where you would fall off the face of the planet if you went too far. Crazy right? A silly, preconceived notion that limited them from their full potential. Their travels and journeys were inconvenienced because of a rumor or assumption. He related that to us as missionaries with our proselyting areas. If we hear bad things or don’t expect miracles, we just limit and hurt ourselves. That's one of the big challenges of our mission, especially. A lot of it is mental. The work becomes a lot easier when we accept and acknowledge that the Lord is preparing people and fulfilling His promises. I love the challenge here. Nothing comes easy. You really have to work and have faith if you want to see anything happen. But anyway, those are just my thoughts on our mission in general.

Thanksgiving was good, too! We spent that afternoon mostly knocking doors. The temperature feels like one or two degrees Fahrenheit, but that’s because of how thick the air is here. I've definitely got to get some warmer under clothing too, but for now I don't care; I'm from Wisconsin. We had a Thanksgiving feast that evening at the Church. A member wanted to have one and invited a number  of American members and even some non-members. In place of a turkey we had deep-fried chicken wings. Not bad. There was a huge vat of potato salad and number of other creations. It didn’t quite compare to an American thanksgiving, but I was pleased none the less. We even got to explain a bit about the Restoration to a non-member, which was cool. We have a lot of food right now, too. We got a ton of leftovers from the Thanksgiving, on top of all the other things we've gotten. A member went to Germany and brought us 100 “Pick-ups,” a German candy bar, along with two buckets of chocolate-covered pretzels. So, yeah, we have a lot.

Oh, by the way, Christmas is this Friday, everyone. For some reason, the Dutch like Christmas so much they have three of them. This Friday is when Sinter Klaas drops off a sack of “cadeautjes” and “snoepjes” on the doorstep. So, we’re going to try to avoid knocking doors Friday. People are expecting Sinter Klaas, not two missionaries from America! Another fun fact: in place of elves, Sinta Klaas has servants named “Zwarte Pete.” That just means black Pete. Basically, Sinter Klaas’s servants go down the chimneys and get covered in soot. Hence, the name “Zwarte Pete.” So, you will see random people on the streets dressed in a weird sort of court-jester costume with their face and hands painted black. If you find images on the internet, it will definitely appear a little weird and perhaps racist to any American, but trust me: it's not.

I’ll leave you with one last Spiritual thought for the week. It was a question asked in Sunday school, and it led to a very good discussion. “How can the Atonement become effective in our lives?” I’ve learned for myself and through my investigators that repentance doesn’t just involve acknowledging our mistakes. It is a process, a change of our thoughts, desires, and actions. So, when we look at the Atonement and we want to make it effective in our lives, we first must truly repent and forsake our transgressions.

Ik hou van jullie en ik hoop dat jullie allemaal een geweldige week verder zullen hebben!

Groentjes,

Elder Eli Andrew
Aan de Vaart 18
1506 TW Zaandam
Nederland

CHRISTMAS PACKAGES:

Belgium/Netherlands Mission
Elder Eli Andrew
Schipholweg 66
2316 XE Leiden
The Netherlands

BULLETS – Here are a few of Eli’s comments in some emails on 11/17/14:

·         Yep, that's the building. Only one ward meets there. A little sad, I know, for such a big city.

·         We do mostly door contacting. We have our most success from street contacting, but we just don't have too many good areas for that. Then if you really feel like it, you can do “bell ups,” which is at an apartment complex, and you just ring their number. Yeah, they have a crazy amount of apartment complexes in this country, so sometimes you just gotta try.

·         The weather has been off and on. The rain doesn't bother me much, but the fact that it is now dark at 5 p.m. does. Just since we have to be out and about ‘til 9 p.m. makes it a little more difficult. But, I'm learning to just accept it and plan smart.

·         Speaking of bikes, my back tire was completely flat so I took it in and got it fixed. Spent 35 Euro on new tubes for the back tire, so it’s all ready for winter. Sadly the front tire might need some repairs here soon, but it won’t be too pricey.

·         Yeah, if I knew how to fix my own bike I could save a little money, but for now I'll just go the safer route.

·         Yeah I could be little Dutch books.. I'm planning on buying my favorite John Green books in Dutch and reading them when I get off the mission. If you want the Dutch shoes.. they are very uncomfortable but they're keepsakes for sure.

·         I'm not that that familiar with Zaandam quite yet. We’re on the 3rd floor. I did a tour of the Genk apartment and I'll do one of the Zaandam one too. I’ll just have to send you the SD card when it’s full too, those video files are way too big.

·         Psshh.. nah, members are good about fast and testimony meeting. The missionaries bare their testimony their first Sunday in their new area that’s how it usually works.