Eli Mail 8/24/15 (Spijkenisse, Netherlands) Letter 52

Well this has been your typical crazy transfer week in the Belgium/Netherlands mission! What can I say? Getting new companions, lots of traveling, figuring out new schedules, and finally settling in. This transfer day broke a new record for me. I wasn't home until 10:15 p.m.! This week was very successful and fun, especially with two new companions.

Early this week it was the bittersweet last couple of days for Elder Drinkwater. We visited a number of members and said good-bye, and I was just so impressed by how sorrowful he was leaving his first city. For clarification, it is sad having to leave, but his pure love for the members here in Spijkenisse was very special to see. Makes me want to love the people around me even more. Tuesday evening came and went, and as we arrived home we realized we had forgotten to visit the cool part-member family that we work with, Frank den B and Zr. V. Frank is just a normal guy, born here in the Netherlands and super receptive to spiritual things despite not being a member. He's a quieter type, but very personable and funny. Zr. V is a member from Costa Rice and was found a long time ago by knocking on her door. She always jokes, because wherever she goes the Church usually follows one way or another. Late that evening Elder Drinkwater called them and told them he would be leaving the next morning. To my surprise, they promptly replied, “we´re coming,” and they showed up at our door to wish Elder Drinkwater good bye. We had a nice conversation, and it was a nice surprise for Drinkwater´s last day.

I arrived in Rotterdam Centraal at 10 a.m. and started the long wait for my two new companions, Elder Henrichson and Elder Shelton. Elder Shelton was training, so I knew it would take a little while before they would actually leave Leiden because of legality stuff with the 25 new missionaries. So, I spent the whole morning/afternoon sitting on a bench and helping missionaries with their luggage occasionally. A wrench was thrown in the day when someone jumped in front a train between Rotterdam Centraal and Den Haag, so all trains were at a still stand for over an hour trying to get things back in order. It is of course a very sad thing to hear, but it was very eventful because it just made things even more exciting and crazy trying to get people to their new cities and so forth. But eventually, after an evening with the Schiedam Elders because the wait was so long, my new companions arrived around 9 p.m.! So, there you have it: my craziest transfer day yet.

The rest of the week was pretty normal. It has been really fun doing “firsts” with Elder Henrichson. For example: his first street contact, first door, first dinner appointment … the list could go on. We have been doing a lot of walking, because we don´t all have functioning bikes yet. So, I have really enjoyed swarming people on the streets in our, as Elder Shelton calls it, “tripanionship of destiny.” I am excited for this transfer. We work pretty well together and talk about all sorts of interesting world events.

At our routine dinner appointment on Thursday with the Pieplenbosch family I shared a Spiritual message that turned out to be very spiritual and applicable to them. In my studies I am busy reading the Book of Mormon now, in Dutch. It´s so awesome reading it in a different language. Different scriptures stick out for me when reading it in Dutch. But I shared with them the first two verses of 2 Nephi chapter 2. In these verses Lehi is addressing his son Jacob who was born in the wilderness. What was very cool is in verse 2, which paraphrased Lehi addressing his son, by saying that despite being born into such harsh conditions, having such a rough life, it will be for your well being and will strengthen your relationship with God. After talking and explaining the two verses we opened it for a discussion.  We asked for similar experiences where, despite hard conditions or because of difficult circumstances, they were able to draw closer to the Lord. And one of the family members said something that I have been thinking about a lot this week. He said, as translated, “We should be creators of our own circumstances, not creations of our circumstances.” So, my hope for everyone this week is that we can be agents and be 100% responsible for the results we get in life and, through that, draw closer to the Lord. It can be very tempting to push the blame on someone else, blaming our outside circumstances, looking outward when we should really be looking inward. I love this principle. It is scattered throughout 2 Nephi 2 –  being our own agents instead of being objects or "creations of our own circumstances." That's one of the great blessings of the gospel: we not only become fully responsible for our own actions but we have the difficult but incredibly rewarding responsibility to do the will of Christ also.

You are all in my thoughts and prayers daily.

Elder Eli Andrew

Eli Mail 8/17/15 (Spijkenisse, Netherlands) Letter 51

Hey everyone! Elder Drinkwater and I just completed one of my craziest weeks yet on my mission with all the stuff we had going on. Everything held out for us and planned lessons went pretty smoothly and according to plan. So, that was a really cool blessing.

On Tuesday I got to go on a long awaited exchange with Elder Shaw, an Elder from my MTC group. It was really fun to be reunited and have a day to work together. We taught a few lessons that day, including one to an old lady Dutch lady that somehow let us in on a bell-up a few weeks back. She has actually read from the Book of Mormon and just loves the paintings in the inside cover. We had a very funny moment in the lesson when we were going over the testimony of Joseph Smith. She turned to pictures in the front and pointed her finger at the painting of Joseph Smith. She then proceeded to tell us how handsome she thought he was, and Elder Shaw and just exchanged glances, not really sure what to say. She then looked up at both of us and said, "Well, I can say that, I am an lady, but you guys can't because your boys." The simplicity of her statement was quite hilarious, and I couldn't argue with that.

This whole week we have had a huge focus on E, whose baptismal date was for yesterday. His story is pretty incredible, too, and I have a bit of personal tie into it also. For readers while I was in Zaandam, you may remember me talking about P and J. Long story short, we helped P receive the Priesthood, which he used to baptize his wife J. And this reactivation of P and the eventual baptism of his brother S got their father and mother coming to church again. And during this process, P (senior) starting talking about the church with one of his co-workers. That got his friend interested, who we have now been teaching for the last couple of months. So, it's incredible to have seen the chain of events because of a simple, single act, a missionary doing a less-active look-up. So, yeah, teaching E has been a real treat. He has lived his whole life up until now as anti-religious – completely against it. But as time went on, talking about it with his co-worker Mormon friend, his heart was softened, and his interest became peaked. He ordered a Book of Mormon online and the missionaries followed up. Since then, he has been actively seeking and feeling the promptings of the Spirit in his life. His change has been indescribably remarkable, and having a front row seat at the greatest miracle of all, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, has also changed me. During one of our last lessons before the baptism he said in his prayer he was thankful that although he has gone about his whole life with "his eyes closed" he was thankful now for the insight and enlightenment and real happiness he has begun to feel. His sincerity and desire are really what the scriptures describe as the "penitent of heart." He had a hard time getting off smoking, and he is surrounded in a work environment where everyone smokes and drinks coffee constantly, but he is becoming a shining light to everyone around him. He is a real example to me, and I am so blessed to have been able to take part of such a cool experience. His baptism was so cool; the whole ward basically hugged him afterwards.

There is so much more to tell about but so little time. I suppose you will all just have to read it in my journal after my mission or something. In closing, transfer calls rolled around again. Elder Drinkwater will now have a fun ride down to my “greenie” city, Genk, and I will be now put in a trio here in Spijkenisse with Elder Shelton and a greenie. It will be interesting for sure; knocking doors and talking to people with three will definitely overwhelm Dutch people, so I am pumped for that. Our apartment is pretty tiny, too, so accommodating will be a unique challenge. But, I have no other feeling than enthusiasm.

The work is rolling on, love and miss you guys a lot.

Elder Eli Andrew

Eli Mail 8/10/15 (Spijkenisse, Netherlands) Letter 50

Hey, everyone! So much has happened these past couple weeks I am not sure where I want to start! And the fact that it is August already? Nuts. But things are humming right along for us here in the little dream city of Spjikenisse, and Elder Drinkwater and I are rocking it.

To start, I would like to talk about Spijkenisse in general. I like comparing it to a doll house. Everything is just "cutely" close together, and there are lots of "dolls" just wandering around the doll houses, minding their own business. Most church members live in a biking radius of 10 minutes; it's ridiculous! Not to mention we have our own stand-alone church building, which is quite impressive for a city like this. Size means nothing though. I have served in pretty small cities my whole mission – it's my specialty. These past two weeks have been pretty busy, with a number of people cycling through our teaching pool and lots of member visits, including two really cool people we have with baptismal dates! (Very exciting!)

This past Thursday we had a very interesting morning. A week or so prior to Thursday Elder Drinkwater and I went to a place called "Nieuw-Beijerland" to do some proselytizing. It is a little town located on the edge of my street maps, and we were hungry to do some exploring. We mounted our bikes and left Spijkenisse into the open, flat fields of the Netherlands. Upon our approach to the town I noticed a fairly large river that split the land in two, making this town more exclusive. But to my surprise there was no bridge across the river! Instead, there was a large ferry that floated about 20 meters from one side of the river to the other, carrying cars and bikers across one trip at a time. I was a little stunned, but we patiently waited for the ferry to make its way back over to us, and we boarded. As soon as we got on, a toll lady came up and asked us each for 80 cents. I was baffled! I had to pay for the trip, too? Just to get across the river? Long story short, the town residents want to keep themselves separate from Spijkenisse, so they refuse to have a bridge build. Apparently it keeps crime rates low, too. Weird. We finally crossed and took a look around the town, talking to people the whole way along. At one point I stopped a larger, bearded man with a death metal t-shirt on before he took his cart in to go shopping. Upon further inspection, this man was actually quite open and had even received lessons from the J-dubs in the past. He said that he investigates everything, and with that we happily testified and introduced the Book of Mormon to him. After a half-hour conversation he gladly shared his address and phone number, although he stated he rarely picks up because he never hears phone calls or his door bell ringing. We shook hands and parted ways. One morning last week at around 10:30am during studies I felt like calling him. We had had his number for a while but still hadn't given him a try, and I wasn't all too eager to cross a ferry anyway. But I acted on it and dialed his number, and to my surprise he answered! He was still very positive, and we made an appointment for this past Thursday. We proceeded to teach him a few points of the Restoration that morning, and we got into the "nitty gritty" things about what faith is, how do we grow it, and why do we need it. He is your typical 30-year-old-geek-living-alone-and-loving-it type guy, but he loves listening. And although he is very scientific and a brainiac, he wanted to have the faith and belief he saw in us, and that was cool. He also has three albino, female pet rats, with long nasty tails and red eyes. Elder Drinkwater kept exclaiming, "So cute!" in Dutch while I just shivered and folded my arms, making sure they didn't touch me.

This past week I also had a great exchange with Elder Childs. It's fun being in Rotterdam, and the zone leaders apartment has a fantastic view of Rotterdam and the famous Rotterdam bridge (look up a picture, it's cool!). And ironically enough, the apartment is also a five-minute walk away from an enormous Muslim mosque. But Elder Childs and I had a great time walking around together proselytizing and finishing off the night by surveying the city and its people with binoculars from the fifth story apartment. Quite entertaining.

PHOTO CAPTION: Rotterdam Bridge (from the internet)

The work is going great here in Spijkenisse. We are teaching this awesome member referral named Edwin. I forget if I have mentioned him before, but he is your typical, middle aged Dutchman with a very sensitive spot for the gospel. He is crazy about Elvis, too, and the walls of his house are just covered in Elvis memorabilia. His baptismal date is this Sunday, so hopefully we can get things in order for him, finishing off the last few lessons and so forth. He is such a cool miracle, and more will be on him in the coming weeks.

The summer is rolling on here in the Netherlands, and I am learning a lot out here and really enjoying stretching myself physically, mentally, and spiritually. I love you guys and enjoy reading your personal letters.

Love,

Elder Eli Andrew

PHOTO CAPTION: Beware Netherlands cliché.

PHOTO CAPTION: With Kenny at his baptism. Eli returned to Deventer for it and was a speaker.

PHOTO CAPTION: Flaunting a lekker Belgium waffle.