Eli Mail 10/30/15 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 58

Happy Halloween everyone! What a nice little perk to having preparation day on Saturday and being able to celebrate Halloween. It is occasionally getting nice and brisk here in Leiden. I am loving the leaves falling on the ground and that freshness fall has. It is fantastic. These past two weeks have been really cool. I have had a lot of fun with my companions Elders Cook and Evans as we run the supporting "engine" of the mission and seeing really special miracles in the work.

As I said, a lot has happened these past two weeks. First I would like to talk about the events of this past Sunday. It was a pretty normal church service. We are doing our best to chat it up with members and keep building relationships and laughing with them. It's pretty great. It is a perfect ward to have a three-man companionship, too, because a good chunk of the ward consists of widows, so we can visit them without having to worry [about propriety]. We drove to the office as normal afterwards to prepare lunch. We made bean soup out of a can, a new Sunday afternoon favorite Elder Cook and I have discovered, and we then proceeded to make plans for the coming week. After a pretty productive planning session the late hours of the afternoon starting to creep on us, and we were all pretty thirsty to get of the office and proselyte. We scheduled a few look-ups of a few investigators we haven't had contact with in weeks, and to our pleasant surprise both people we looked up were home and let us in to teach them. The first appointment we had was more of a discussion, but it was cool to follow some advice our mission leaders have been giving us to spend more time getting to know investigators. As we get to know our investigators and learn how to be ourselves around them, teaching them and discerning their needs will become more natural and less robotic. That goes for all activity in the Church and in life. Making personable people connections goes a long way. It is very easy as a missionary to fall into traps of becoming a little robotic – just teaching and losing some of the personality of it. I am definitely guilty of that sometimes.

So, this investigator's name is S, he is from Africa with a Dutch woman. S met with missionaries one year ago, and we were the first ones to make contact since then. His girlfriend isn't religious, but she participated in the discussion anyway. S is from Sierra Leone and told us about his experiences in the civil war back in the 90's. The girlfriend also talked to us about the beauty of seeing life around the world, she has made it a priority to visit countries around the globe to experience how people live (although she hasn't been to America yet). We did a lot of listening and answering questions, and we did get a very good discussion about life. I am always looking for ways to not only be able to testify to others what I know to be true but to do it in a way that is meaningful to them. In the lesson I testified about God knowing us and knowing our situations, and I hope to make lasting impressions on others by discerning what they need to know, and helping them feel it. S has the Book of Mormon, and we were able to leave with prayer, a very spiritually uplifting way to leave the house.

The other teaching opportunity was with R, a 19-year-old biology student that a couple young kids had referred us to. It was late Sunday night, and we knew she definitely had work to be doing and had most likely just spent the weekend with her family back in Rozenburg (Spijkenisse area!), but we decided to look her up anyway. We pushed on her bell in the student complex and almost immediately the bell buzzed, and we quickly went to grab the door before it locked again. She was very surprised it was us at the door, and we tried to joke about being "unexpected" and she was nice and let us in. We chatted it up with her for a while, got caught up with how she has been doing and, again, I tried to take more of a personal interest in her and her desires rather than just trying to cram an entire lesson in or something, and it turned out great. It naturally led to a discussion about Christ and his gospel and we shared the video "Because He lives" with her. It was a really powerful way to lead each of us, three in a row, to testify about the living reality and personal application of Christ's ministry and Atonement and to re-invite her to begin reading in the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was strong as we closed with prayer. We also invited her to our "games night," a fun evening of snacks and games Elder Evans has been putting on here for the “JOVOs” (jongevolwassen, or in English, YSA "young single adults"). She wasn't able to come that following Tuesday, but she still texted us, telling us that she was disappointed about not being able to come. So, by the time the evening drew to a close, Heavenly Father really blessed us with a couple great lessons with still open future teaching possibilities.

Yesterday was a really fun day, too. I may have mentioned this in previous letters, but I will repeat it just in case. Almost every Friday we get to go to Brussels because of the need to be legal, not only the Netherlands but also Belgium. Hence, the need to do sign-in work in the Brussels town hall. And as office missionaries, Elder Cook and I love taking the young missionaries out early enough before the town hall appointment to go walk around and explore Brussels (I am sure you all remember my excitement when I was new in the mission), so it is cool to again be a part of that experience. Everything was going as planned, but the time really started to tick, and before we knew it, it was 1:45 and we were going to be late for our 2 p.m. appointment! The young missionaries were all laughing in the back, being goof balls, but Elder Cook and I were all business up in the front weaving in and out of traffic to attempt the GPS scheduled arrival time. To make things even more complicated we had a senior couple who were following us because they couldn't get the GPS to work, and like you would expect we lost them amidst the traffic of Brussels. And to even further complicate the situation our phone was dead, and no one else in the car had a phone either. It was definitely a classic "face palm" moment. We couldn't really do much but continue forward, so we raced to the embassy and saved the appointment, only late by five minutes. During the legality appointment, I tried a number of phones but could not locate the senior couple's phone. Perplexed, Elder Cook reminded me I could just call back to the office and get them in contact with the Hills (the senior couple). It turns out they had already done that and were apparently well on their way there. I quickly forgot about their arrival situation, but then Elder Cook reminded me later that they still weren't here. In a desperate, last minute attempt, I decided to go outside and to attempt to look for them. I had a little prayer in my heart, asking God to help this situation to work out. As I opened the main doors and looked over the railing overlooking the street, I saw precisely at that moment a blue, Opel Corsa rounding the corner with a Dutch license plate. I quickly waved it down and ran down the embassy steps. It was them! It was a great little tender mercy. Just having things work out like that in the last second is a great office Elder miracle. In the words of my companion Elder Cook, "it was clutch."

I love and continue to pray for you all.

Have a great week.

Elder Eli Andrew

Eli's new mailing address, which is the mission office, shows this glass building and the entrance to the right of the bush. (Google street view.)

Here is the Leiden Ward meeting house, where Eli goes to church. (Google street view.)

Eli Mail 10/17/15 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 57

Hello, everyone! It is a cool, misty morning here in Leiden, and I am excited to be cozily confined at my office computer this morning. These past two weeks were busy and decently stressful as usual, filled with office Elder duties, including our weekly or sometimes bi-weekly legality trip to Brussels, all wrapped up nicely with numerous opportunities to continue sharing the gospel message with our fellow men in the "always moving" city of Leiden.

But first off, we recently received three new members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles!! How astounding and incredible it has been for me to have had the opportunity to listen and get to know each of the apostles on a more personal level, simply by listening to their Spirit-driven talks. Although it is a sad event to see three incredible men leave us, what a privilege to see and hear the testimonies of the new apostles in the Sunday morning session! I have learned to love to hear the apostles testify of the living reality of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. That is something we are trying to focus on here with the members. Elder Cook had the idea to come up with a centralized spiritual message for the members, something that we could do to help them improve their lives. We brought the idea up in ward council, and it was decided that we would center our message on "coming closer to Christ." What I have learned from studying this subject is that we can ALWAYS come closer to Christ, there is ALWAYS something we can improve on, and it was cool developing a message catered to this subject. Our finished product wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but we found a great film on LDS.org with every member of the Quorum of the Twelve testifying of Christ. We tied that in with a short scripture and our testimonies, and it is incredible the atmosphere that rests in the members' homes. I would encourage everyone to take a quick peek at this video.

Temple conference came out of nowhere this week! It was special to be able to attend for the third time now on my mission, and it is honestly fantastic that the Netherlands actually has a temple. I take that for granted occasionally. There was also construction going on during our visit, and I recently discovered that the local government finally gave in and sold the church the adjacent field! The church's property line only went out about a meter around the temple, so last year I was shocked seeing Dutch people casually letting their dogs' poop within a 10 feet of the temple. But soon all will be changed and we won't have people and their animals sauntering around the temple. Last note, a crane accidentally slammed angel Moroni! He was decently off-center, but luckily that did not disturb the sacred holiness with its walls. In other news, I was in charge of ordering pizzas for temple conference. I placed an order for 35 pizzas from Dominos, but to my (and everyone else's surprise) they were the 25 cm size, which is barely bigger than those personal pan pizzas you get for reading 10 books at the library. Luckily, I had attempted to order more than needed, which ended up being two "okay sized pieces" for everyone. The life of an office Elder; always learning.

And to my cousin Karina who just recently received her mission call to Denmark: I cannot be more excited for you. What a mission can do is hardly measured in words. As you learn and feel the gospel even more it will bring added understanding and an increased measure of light into your life. And to my cousin Colin who is now engaged, all I can say is, "Goed zo man." 

Have a great week everyone.

Elder Eli Andrew

Eli Mail 10/3/15 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 56

Hey, everyone! Yes, the time has finally arrived: Elder Andrew finally adds another edition to his weekly letters. These past few weeks have just blown past, and I am excited to tell you all about it. I would first like to give a personal "thank you" to all those who have given me so much love and support the last little while. I am super grateful for your supporting me supporting others, if that makes sense. 

Well, the time finally came this past week when Elder Heinricks and Elder Clement, our office trainers, had to leave. It was a little frightening at first – the thought of taking over all the financial affairs all by myself – but I am doing alright in that regard. My job depends on careful mental and time organization. I have a lot of things to do, and the mental organization that has been required is stressful, but it keeps me busy and loving it. This week was transfer week, one very busy week for our office crew. There're all sorts of background operations that take place beforehand – getting accounts set up, getting missionaries legalized … all that jazz. Tuesday morning we "suited up" and three of us headed to the airport in the mission van to pick up luggage. Now, because of the beautiful clear blue sky and Elder Clement's intense fascination for commercial airplanes (he can list off a hundred facts about a plane in the sky – the brand, passenger size, you name it) we actually spotted the Delta flight carrying all the missionaries. So, we had an exciting day of doing presentations for the greenies, going out to eat, and just getting to know them. I valued the experience a lot, and I find it incredible just to be able to be part of their initial experience on their mission and to help let that mission enthusiasm grow. So, I was busy mostly this week preparing for the new missionaries then doing a huge amount of back work to catch up on the usual week's load of financial work.

But amidst the chaos of transfer week, Elders Cook, Evans and I had a very unique teaching opportunity this week. Now, for a little back-story: Last week we went out like normal on the streets, walking and talking, when we stopped two young teenage boys who were midway talking with each other. We started up a conversation, and they shot us down pretty fast with the whole, "I am totally not religious at all" thing. We were just trying to push it a little farther in an attempt to make them think about something deep and meaningful amidst the normal Leiden night life, when Elder Cook implored, "Well, do you know anyone that would be interested?" That's a pretty common comeback for us missionaries on the streets: asking for referrals, and when we did the two looked at each other, exchanged smiles, and burst out laughing as they said, "Yes, we do know someone." We beckoned further, with a "why not?" attitude, and the two happily gave us a number of girl they knew that was supposedly "religious." I was definitely as skeptical as could be, but we called the number a few days later, and Elder Cook found out she had been to Salt Lake before and wanted to make an appointment. I was taken aback a little, surprised that something might actually come from this seemingly not-so-promising number. We showed up for the scheduled appointment, and we taught a really great lesson to a nice 19-year-old woman. We testified hard about Christ's Atonement and the power that it brings into our lives. I hope she felt the Spirit, because I did. After the great conversation about the nature of God to the importance of families, she was especially excited about the Book of Mormon. So, there you have it: just another "mysterious" way in which the Lord works. He tends to be very good at that.

More is to come, but for now I hope you can all share with me the excitement of being able to hear the powerful words of Christ spoken by modern-day prophets. My prayer is that we can all find time this weekend to give an ear to a few sessions and to listen especially to the things the Spirit may prompt us about while we listen. 

Have a fantastic week!

Met vriendelijk liefde en groet.

Elder Eli Andrew

Parent Post

We had a miraculous chance meeting of Eli's former mission president in Salt Lake City
while walking to General Conference. 

Eli Mail 9/12/15 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 55

Hey, everyone! This is a very unexpected email, but guess where I am? Leiden, Nederland! This is quite a surprise, but I have been actually called as an "Office" elder, meaning for the next six months. Elder Cook, Elder Evans, and I will be in charge of everything concerning legal and financial business for the mission. I have been avoiding talking about the subject at all, because it was only speculation by other missionaries. To fill everyone in on mission mechanics, every six months two new missionaries are called to the office with Elder Evans, who has and will be serving his whole mission here (the reason for that, I am not sure, but it is not too important). Normally, every six-month period there will be two companionships in the mission who become threesomes, which happened to be me. Halfway through the transfer (right now) those companionships will typically receive a call if someone is being called to the office, and that was me this past Sunday morning. The call wasn't anything unexpected for me. As soon as we became "tripanionship" everyone started cracking jokes about me leaving, which ended up being true. Initially, I was pretty taken aback, not sure what to expect, but for the next couple weeks Elder Heinrichs will be training me to take over all the finances for the mission. Big job! And for those wondering, yes, we still do normal missionary work, thankfully. So, there you have it. And because of unexplained reasons, Saturdays are our official "P-days" here.

Wednesday was my last day in Spijkenisse. I was trying hard to make the excuse with investigators that I was leaving and to try to meet with as many people as I could before I left. Some went through and some didn't, but one of the great ones was our appointment with Rebecca. Quick fill in, most of my time proselyting in Spijkenisse was either spent pulling over on my bike to start up a conversation with someone, or on the street – both surprisingly effective (when you learn how to do it in a not-so awkward way). And Rebecca was one of those "golden" investigators found by pulling my bike over. She is incredibly open, Christian, and is always checking for her own understanding when we teach a principle. I have learned so much just from teaching others. One of the most powerful ways you can teach is done by asking inspired questions in such a way as to help them discover for themselves the truth of the principle. And that's what it is like for her: she has a questioning, searching mind, and I always try my best to help her answer her own questions. A sister missionary told me once that when we teach and testify about a principle, we feel the Spirit, so with investigators it is the same. We help them uncover truths and feel them. We were planning to teach the third lesson but ended up spending the whole time answering her questions. It was awesome – you can see the light of Christ working in people. 

Tuesday we went to our typical dinner appointment at 6 p.m. by family Van de Pebbel. They live a little ways out, and we travel there by bus. It was rush hour. Everyone was going home after work, and the bus was packed (almost like a Belgium bus!), so Elder Shelton and Henrichsen stayed up front while I walked to the back to find a place to sit. And just like every bus I get on, of course I fall asleep. I was dozing pretty nicely in and out when I suddenly shaken awake and noticed the bus to be a lot emptier than before. I looked nervously around, and my companions were nowhere in sight. I was alone! I sighed, barely able to believe I had really slept through our stop and rushed to the front to speak with the bus driver. I asked her how far away we were from my stop and she let me out on the side of the road. She pointed in a general direction, giving me instruction on where my bus halte was, and I started running through a city I barely knew, trying to find my companions while simultaneously not being late for the dinner appointment. After a brief jog I turned left, having a somewhat vague remembrance of my surroundings, and I cornered the first row of houses. "Marmoot," read the street sign. I was on the right street! I walked a little further searching for the house and rounding the other corner at the same time were my companions! It was a glorious reunion. Being separated from your companion is never fun. We all exchanged smiles, Henrichsen cracked a joke about me "trying to run away," and we rang on the doorbell at 6:02, not a moment too soon.

The rest of the week has been an adventure in every sense of the word. I had no idea what to expect here, but it's a lot of work and responsibility. But I am loving and just accepting the renewed feeling of every new beginning. "What the heck am I doing?!" Lastly: testimony time. One thing I will forever "treasure up in my heart" as the scriptures so firmly decree, is the Word of God itself. Reading the scriptures used to be me trying to just "start a good habit" or "fulfilling an assignment," none of which are inherently bad, but I enjoy now "getting into the scriptures." With a simple prayer and determined heart, finding and learning truth through the compiled, inspired stories of others can be "enlightening" and really joyous. I love a study that I prepare myself physically and spiritually for, and I just dive in. It's like the rising of the sun. Gradually with time (and a little needed effort), God can communicate with us.

I am excited to get to know the beautiful city of Leiden, and if anyone still has more questions about what I do, I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.

You are all in my prayers.

Elder Eli Andrew

Eli Mail 9/7/15 (Spijkenisse, Netherlands) Letter 54

A good description of this week: exchanges. For a number of combined reasons, we ended up having a number of exchanges this week making for constant busyness, a good number of laughs, and the occasional case of sleep deprivation. I loved this week, and it just flew by. Things are starting to cool down here in the Netherlands, and perhaps the chilly autumn months are actually approaching! I had kind of forgotten my desire to slip on a pair of warm, slim, rain-proof gloves that I so dearly love.

Funny things can happen on missions. And we had one of those moments this past Monday. Our recent convert, Edwin, wanted to have us over for dinner, and we gladly agreed. He also talked to us about a movie he had found on the internet, as he has been happily enjoying all sorts of church productions to my surprise. But the film he started describing involved all sorts of weird events, including a plot surrounding Mormon missionaries in Africa and explosives and all sorts of interesting things. I came to the conclusion that we would first have to ask for permission before watching it with him, assuming that it wasn’t "Finding Faith in Christ." So, on Monday evening we scrambled out of the apartment to catch a bus leaving within a few minutes. As almost all of my companions know, I am kind of always "last minute" for things, and we had to pray and walk very quickly in order to catch this crucially important bus. Dutch people hate it when you are late. So, we arrived well, with another member we brought along, and Edwin invited us to sit, so we plopped ourselves down on the couch as usual. After chit-chatting for a while, he asked us again about the movie, and we told him we just didn't get around to figuring it out. To our surprise, he closed the blinds, served dinner on the coffee table, and started rolling the film. I am not sure why this story is worth telling, but I could feel it was Edwin giving us a "thank you" for everything we had helped him with, and for us helping and supporting him as he was so diligently preparing for baptism a few weeks prior. It was a fun evening, not because of the “apostate” watching of a movie, but it made me happy seeing him so joyous about enjoying his new membership in the church.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: I believe “Freetown” is the film Eli is referring to, which follows the faith-filled and courageous story of six LDS missionaries in war-torn Liberia who flee to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to continue their proselytizing.)

 A few weeks ago we were knocking some doors located close to our metro station when we finally struck a little gold with a pretty weak potential investigator that just said to “Come back another time." Well, Wednesday we spent our normal afternoon of doing look ups and just having conversations with people on the streets when I asked Elder Shelton, "Should we look up that weak potential we found?" And as a typical Elder Shelton response, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Why not?" So, we mounted up, all three of us on our silver steeds, and went to the previously mentioned door. And yes, she was home and invited us in! One of the blessings of being in a three-man is you never have to worry about the "three-man rule," because you do have a third man! We entered cautiously into the dark, bare apartment. She told us to sit, and we started talking. To our surprise she was very open, had incredibly accurate ideas about faith despite being from a Muslim background, and had an amazing ability to discern "wordly things from important things" in life. We taught her the first lesson and all had a prayer in our hearts that she was feeling something, and we testified of gospel truth. She listened intently and was very excited about the Book of Mormon. Who would have known! Little miracles like that remind me of the power of the gospel and heart-piercing truth that enters into the sincere heart. One thing I have come to treasure on my mission is the rush of excitement I feel after teaching a powerful lesson, and after that lesson we biked home for a late 3 p.m. lunch, all smiles. 

Friday I got to enjoy an exchange with Elder Fredrico who joined the three-man with Elder Shelton and I for a day. Elder Fredrico is from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and we spent the afternoon doing what he calls "Portuguese finding." Portuguese finding involves walking around apartment complexes, looking at all the names listed we can bell up, and trying the ones that could possibly be a Spanish or Portuguese person. The conversation would go as follows: "Good afternoon, m ‘am, we are missionaries from the Mormon church and we are just talking with people today about faith. I saw your name and wanted to ask you if you speak Portuguese. Yes? Okay, Could I speak Portuguese with you?!" The rest is history and either involves a conversation about how sad Dutch weather is, religion, or that they don't really want to talk. But it was entertaining, I enjoyed it.

Love you guys a lot, thanks for all the support, and don't forget: I love receiving personal emails, so don't be shy!

   

Elder Eli Andrew

Eli Mail 8/31/15 (Spijkenisse, Netherlands) Letter 53

Hey, everyone! Here in little, old Spijkenisse we have reached the wonderful beginning and end of another week! Among notable events of the week, the greatest is our leap in transportation. We have graduated from foot travel to now somewhat decent bike travel, although we will be scrubbing our bikes with tooth brushes and Coca-Cola soon, which cleans a chain incredibly well. And for whatever reason, when you go a little while not biking, it always takes a little while getting your muscles all back into the biking groove. So, that's my analysis for y'all; we are still truckin' along.

We have had some great success this past week, including getting in contact with our baptismal date, Drusella. We have had a regular teaching schedule with her, lessons twice a week, and she has been attending church every week, but out of the blue she just disappeared. We received no answer to our phone calls. She missed church a few times, and when we would drop by there was no response to our knocks. Now, if I had to describe Drusella to my audience, that is not at all the sort of vibe you would get from her. She has an incredibly strong faith, always keeps every commitment we give her, and even cooks us a delicious Curaso rice meal we sometimes take home. But for whatever reason, we were just completely in the dark. Now me, being the worry wart that I am, didn't start panicking, but I was getting pretty uneasy by the lack of any sort of contact from her. But during our emailing last week I heard the phone ring in my pocket, and low and behold it was Drusella calling! It was an awesome miracle having her contact us and solidifying the next lesson. At church this week she leaned over and whispered to me, "Are you people getting the baptismal things ready, because it's almost September already." That one made me smile. In conclusion, our islander friend is still steady as a rock.

Wednesday we had the opportunity to have a member of the Quorum of the Seventy visit us, Elder Timothy J. Dikes. It was a great conference. At the beginning he asked for a raise of hands to see how many of the missionaries were “greenies,” and over half the chapel full of missionaries raised their hands. I don't know anyone here anymore! But his message was very much focused on overcoming fears and doing the work – a great message and great encouragement to keep working hard. He told a story when he served in Germany on his mission, about difficulties he faced, and I think it connected and was exactly what our missionary force needs at this point. Although it was not quite the message catered to me, it still applies.

Lots of good things happen daily here, one of them being the wonderful power of the Atonement. It is so cool to be able to see and become change and to watch as it transforms other people. I love how our message is centered on Christ and the simple but endearing fact that we do have second chances, and that no mistake has to be an end. We had a special dinner appointment with a young, recent convert family that lives close by. I loved hearing their story, beginning when they watched the Youtube channel "Shaytards," ordering a Book of Mormon, and getting two teenagers at the door. I also love the gospel principle that you can start from any sort background, like this family, who grew up with nothing but have now found so much more hope and happiness in their lives. I would encourage everyone to renew that feeling of happiness you enjoy from the gospel, because we all have a right to be happy in this life.

Here is a great video you may or may not have seen, and it is a great even after the hundredth view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S3TI4bYerU

Love you guys,

Elder Eli Andrew

These little kids are crazy about us; they call us "Eldertjes."

We watched the lady make this LEKKER, a little dough patty that she rolled out, pressed in a waffle iron then cut in half and then filled with sweet hot syrup in the middle. (Those are probably the wrong order of events, but it was cool! I had never seen one made by hand before!)

The band back together, for the first time in a year.