Eli Mail 2/27/16 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 69

Hello, everyone! It is Saturday morning, and the sun is shining – two things that make me very happy to start writing this email. Per usual, a lot has happened these past three weeks or so. More than a little weekly email could even start to fathom, but I hope to enlighten you with the small, minor details and some of the more striking moments that have taken place.

If not previously mentioned, our office replacements are here! Elder Gross took a long train ride from Groningen, and Elder Solomon arrived from my former area of Deventer, and we are now a combined force of four office Elders for three weeks. It has been a blast; it reminds me strongly of when I first came in and suddenly I was in a five-man. It is a real struggle (for me, at least) deciding who will take the first shower, but going to dinner appointments as a companionship of four is full of laughs. Elder Gross has been learning well. He has a great memory. It is natural to be overwhelmed, especially since coming from good ol´ missionary life, your main concern being those around you and, quite simply, teaching. But I love how Elder Gross put it: “In normal missionary life you have to find to work, but in the office the work finds you.” That is a very good description of my time in the office. The daily tasks and problem solving have been a privilege to do, and yes it is a privilege. But as Elder Gross finely stated, the work really does find you.

We have also been super busy with our “Lamb of God” DVD campaign. Elder Evans left us and forgot to train us to take over the referral campaigns, so us four office Elders have been scrambling to perform our normal tasks and somehow manage the rush of referrals flooding into the Church´s mailbox. We have tallied 447 logged referrals. I am proud of all of us – we stayed in the office way after normal hours to finally catch up with the load. Another funny note, when the packages were ready for mailing we stuffed every mailbox in the vicinity of Leiden Centraal FULL of the DVD packages. It was hilarious – no one could really put mail in the “overige post” after us.

Elder Cook and I had a cool experience this past Tuesday. Upon finishing our normal office work and after rushing to a dinner appointment of a steaming pot of lasagna, I felt the impression to go look up one of our investigators that we hadn´t seen for a about a week. I had received that feeling the night prior, and the thought kept coming back to me during the day, so I told him I couldn´t ignore it. We left our scheduled plan and headed to Katwijk. We had a few good conversations and finally approached the door of our investigator, J. Turns out he wasn´t there, just his sister who seemed to be having a party of some sort. Confused, we talked to her and she was also willing to talk with us another time and accepted a card invitation, and she also wants to have us over for dinner. After that, Elder Cook reminded me of another investigator that had dropped us over the phone months ago. We got in the car and parked outside where we though the apartment was. As we got out of the car I saw someone approaching us from the sidewalk. I peered into the dark to get a good look, and to my amazement it was our former investigator! The old, kind Dutch gentleman warmly greeted us and invited us back into his house, still apprehensive that we were going to try to convince him or something (silly, I know). He was warm and friendly, but sadly he had dropped his faith in Christianity and was now into Buddism. His neighbor is Jesus crazy though (seriously, her car is decked out with Jesus stickers and her apartment window is flooded with crosses – I´d like to meet her some time) and continues to help him, console, and invite him to Christ. It was a nice lesson, and we shared personal stories through the scriptures with him and left. He didn´t want anything more, but it was a cool turn of events from the evening we had planned. I pray each of us can be sensitive and humble and not to mention willing enough to ask for promptings of the Spirit. Some of the most significant and life changing events in our lives can be missed if we aren´t tuned in enough or willing to act upon those gentle thoughts, impressions, and feelings that the Holy Ghost can bring. I like to think of it this way: the Spirit of God is willing, but are we?

I look forward to the coming period of my mission. Serving in the office has been blessing my life. I am still very imperfect, but I am learning how God learns and works with imperfection. I hope you can all continue to make continual daily progression, and don´t forget to write it down because you will need to remember God in times of need.

Thank you for your prayers, emails, even thoughts on my behalf. I have truly felt those things nudge, invite, and encourage me to keep going forward.

Met liefde en vriendelijk groet,

Elder Eli Andrew

Elder Cook and I helped the Robison's clear out the Hoorn apartment and then dropped off stuff in the Lelystad apartment. Check Google maps for the fastest way from Hoorn to Lelystad. We went over the ljsselmeer land bridge, it was awesome.

Zuster van der Vet! She has been in the Leiden Ward for years, and her parents
sheltered Jews in World War II.

I payed 3.5 for this pitiful sight.

Elder Gross and I with.. a rid-able bike?

Here I am with a kid walking his...pig?

Here's a guy teaching us how they make "klompen." Special machines bore holes inside, outside, and all around a block of wood in order to make the finished creation. He did it within 5 minutes.

Here I am. Same place. One year later. What's changed? I look a little more tired and still need a hair cut. Oh, and I have a stronger testimony too :).

Eli Mail 2/6/16 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 68

Yet another chapter concludes in Elder Andrew's mission. Good thing there are still more pages left to write! Well, this week kicked off pretty strong and has been for the most part just a little exhausting, in the best way possible. Elder Cook and I have been busy doing our best solving problems, supporting President, working hard, preparing to train new office Elders and, of course, also make time to talk to lots of people and have fun doing it.

The events of Monday morning were a little tragic for a financial Elder, however. I made the effort the previous week to finish off my expenses and reports, leading to a casual Monday morning when I only had to hit the "create payments" button and have President sign off on the mission bills. Sadly, sometimes things don’t work out quite that simple. For the first time ever I "created my payments" and awaited a green button, indicating that they were sent to my mission President, but instead I got a red warning reading "payments failed, please contact administrative service." I wasn't even angry about it; I could only laugh at the luck. I spent 45 minutes on the line with a guy in Utah (3 a.m. his time), and we listened and followed his instructions as I sadly discovered the payments I created had gotten stuck in a sort of "limbo," meaning that the connection to the server was lost at the moment I created the payments. But all is well! My IT brethren in Utah were able to manually fix the problem. Just a funny anecdote, where things don't always go according to plan! Perhaps that was a little too much office Elder information, but some IT person out there will understand my Monday morning "face-palm".

This week was spent doing what I treasure most: teaching! Teaching in people's houses, on the streets, everywhere! It is a horrible trend that missionaries have. We are now going to go "finding" or, even worse, "tracting." Those phrases make me cringe inside. Elder Cook taught me this from the start of our time together, and that is: if you have an opportunity to teach, take it! So often us missionaries fall into patterns of just asking for people's information, and it is easy to forget that we are called to teach the gospel! And that goes for non-missionaries, too. When we have an opportunity to teach someone or share something, we should not shy away from the situation. "Breaking the ice" and talking to others about our faith is not in our daily, planned comfort zone. But remember the good feeling after standing up or saying something for your beliefs? That is a feeling we cannot shy away from.

Speaking of breaking the ice, Wednesday Elder Cook and I showed up half an hour late to an appointment to a less active. It was rainy, and we didn't have a GPS with us, so it was the Spirit and our best memory. We did indeed find the house, and the less- … well, I suppose I could say inactive member … came to the door. Upon our initial approach the other week, we introduced ourselves and asked if she was "Hester." Now, Dutch people are very formal, and when we asked her by her first name, she about lost it in surprise that two strangers knew her first name. But we just did our best to connect with her. She said she didn't want us to convert her, a typical denial, but we told her boldly that wasn't our purpose. We instead asked her if she was open for a conversation and a Spiritual thought. She agreed happily to our pleasant surprise, and for the first time in 35 years missionaries were conversing with this inactive member. It was sad to see the choices she had made, with a hard influence of her widowed mother of six who couldn't "do" the Church anymore, leading to decisions that only distanced her further and further away. But I could sense the light that was still remaining in her. She told us about the few rare times she did want to go to church (never did, but felt it) and the positive influence of the Church. We could only bare testimony and listen to her, and it made for a productive, refreshing evening. I am grateful to have met her. She gladly agreed to a return dinner appointment, as Elder Cook enticed her with the idea of preparing traditional Dutch meals for us.

We continue to work hard to teach, find, and baptize here. I like putting "teaching" first, because that is what we have as missionaries have been called to do. J enjoyed our intro to the 2nd lesson pamphlet, J and T (part member couple) continue to astonish me with their faith (T our investigator met with the bishop and explained the deep feeling in her heart to really change, to drop smoking, to get married, and to be baptized), and A read 1 Nephi 2 by himself!

I heard the lucky news Wisconsin got a blizzard. I hope everyone enjoys the dashing snowflakes that always seem to appear late from January into February. Any hope I have for snow has almost completely dwindled here, so I will start reluctantly looking forward to my least favorite season, spring. Please shoot me an email if you want to know why. Today the Assistants, the Leiden Elders, the Amsterdam "crew" will be going to my old place of refuge, Zaanse Schans! Remember those pictures? I have not been to my second city in over a year, so that is something to look forward too!

Thanks for the love and prayers. I also continue to pray for your welfare.

Elder Eli Andrew

Spot Eli in this potluck scene.

Remember over a year and a half ago when Eli was one of these jet-lagged, newly arrived missionaries, eating pannenkoeken with the mission office staff? Now, as one of the office staff, Eli (at far right) does this nearly every month with the eager new missionaries in this same restaurant at this same table. 

Eli Mail 1/30/16 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 67

Had a great, busy week though. Taught some sweet lessons and had great conversations. Ushered in a few new missionaries and had a fun session of missionary work on their first day. It was awesome. We sung "I am a child of God" for a Muslim lady and her kid and have a return appointment. Thursday morning we had to be at the office at 6:45 a.m. with the departing missionaries, so I pulled the couch into the conference room and napped on the cozy office couch until the sun peeked out over the overlooking buildings. We taught a lesson that afternoon with a really open, Christian guy, J. We do a lot with pamphlets and pictures with him, and we all learn something new together and feel the Spirit when we meet. We also gave him a little tour of the Church building, since that is the place where we meet. We talked about the preparation of the Sacrament and showed the other empty classrooms. Nice experience. Dad, your chapel tour had three more people than mine, how 'bout that? These days when I have a minute I have started listening to a lot of Boyd K. Packer talks. He had so much confidence and experience with the gospel and life. I miss him. It is now Elder Cook and I in the office. Elder Evans has left us (RIP, buddy!). We continue to share the gospel message, and I am learning a lot lately about being personable and relatable with those I come in contact with. I am also learning these days about how overcoming fear on a daily basis is an opportunity, not a burden. That being said, we don't have to be necessarily enthusiastic about challenges, but we should be willing to take them head on.

Those are just a few notes from the week, not even a letter really.

I hope everyone can keep steadily growing, little by little, and when we take a step backward I pray we can all take one big step forward. With that balance, we can only keep going forward.

Love,

Elder Eli Andrew

When the van (code name: Papa Smurf) was broken into (see past letter).

Elder Evans is gone! Here is a departing photo with the boy.

Eli Mail 1/23/16 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 66

Hey, everyone! Another week decided to go by again. It’s getting harder to put the brakes on that kind of stuff. I don't have much time this bright Saturday morning, but I do have some thoughts and experiences I would love to share with you all. A correct title for this week's letter would be "Bitter or Better." These past two weeks have entailed a number of good teaching opportunities and a number of learning opportunities, one of which is from a museum we visited this past Saturday.

One pattern that I have recognized in myself and I am sure others too, is having the courage to let go. Letting go – meaning frankly forgiving others and ourselves. Everyone, meaning every person who has or ever will ever walk this planet (except for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ), will have hard or negative feelings about someone else. Like two little children who have a warm dispute with one another, we still do that as God's little children wandering about the Earth. This past week we had the opportunity to visit the "Corrie Ten Boom" house in Haarlem. It was kind of like the Anne Frank house, but much cooler and has a way better story, in my opinion. There was a lot of hiding going on when the Nazis were terrorizing the Netherlands, and in one Christian home they put six people in a very small stow-away room closed off by a home-made wall to avoid slave labor camps. I won't tell the whole story, but one the survivors lived on (they all lived, by the way, despite being crammed and starved in a little hole for 42 hours) and thanked God continually for the miracle in preserving her life. This girl continued her life, forever scarred, but instead of turning inwards and being selfish shared her survival story, leaving the simple invitation to people to believe in God and His miracles among His children. At one point, the tour guide said that she had the choice to either "be bitter or be better" from the situation. This girl could have had been so bitter and full of hate from terrible Nazi war experiences, but instead she gave the glory to God and "let go" of her tendencies to even hold so much as a grudge. How about true character right there? When people willingly choose to release the hard, natural tendencies in their hearts and replace them with love and good works, something incredible takes place in the heart of the individual – namely, solace, peace of conscience, and true satisfaction. It is our choice. Will we be"bitter"? Or do we become "better"? I invite all of you, if you have any hard feelings towards others, even your worst of enemies (as we are always instructed to love our enemies) to pray about them and to reconcile yourself with God about these feelings. I know that Christ can heal every aching wound inside of us. He knows exactly how it feels after all. I have seen that in my own life – choosing to overcome such feelings allows us to remove ourselves from the gloomy past and see the bright new dawn on the horizon, all thanks to God.

This week has entailed a lot of busy office work and good ol' missionary work, of course. My companion and I were sitting the church building at 8 p.m. last week, waiting nervously to see if our lesson with a newer investigator was going to go through or not. Low and behold, it did. J, a 23-year-old Christian guy showed up. He had read and deeply thought about the pamphlet! We reviewed it and taught a powerful first lesson, with a lot of interaction between the three of us, explaining the pictures of the first lesson. He even had the courage to pray for us, the real step of faith from the lesson. In that prayer he said, "Please bless me as I discover this new path the Elders are showing me." That left such a strong feeling when that line came out of his mouth it was hard to open my eyes when we said amen.

Continue to be great everyone, let me know how you are all doing too! I love hearing from you.

Elder Eli Andrew

At the Corrie Ten Boom house in Haarlem.

Eli Mail 1/9/16 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 65

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great week! Us office Elders have been doing well. My companion Elder Evans only has three weeks, but you would not be able to tell. He's great and still rockin' and rollin’.

A number of things happened this week, but I want to highlight the best moments of the week. First off, we had a wonderful little miracle this past Tuesday at our bi-monthly "games night." Elder Evans organized a bi-monthly activity with games and treats and all the YSA kids from around north and south Holland come together to have listen to a little spiritual message and then play board games and similar activities. In the past few months, the attendance has wavered quite dramatically. One time we had around 15-20 youth from around the stake come, and then another we had three. But this time we had a nice average at about six to seven. We did the spiritual thought and then started playing as usual, but during the first initial 15 minutes the phone kept buzzing, indicating received text messages, but I just ignored it. But 10 minutes later an older Dutch woman showed up at the door to the room we were playing with a girl behind her, telling us she had gotten lost on the way trying to find the church. Evidently, one our student investigators read a mass text we sent out earlier that day and went out to find the church by herself! She had gotten horribly lost and had texted us for help, but I had simply ignored the buzzing! I felt so bad, but my companions and I warmly greeted her and we had a good evening of games together. She had wound up by another church, the apostolic church, and her over-sized tandem bike broke down on the way, but she was diligent and showed up! I was very impressed, and it was a cool blessing to see her desire to come to the church on a Tuesday evening just for a good atmosphere and games! It was a great evening.

This week we have done pretty well with the work. Sadly, most of our planned lessons haven't been working out and contact with our solid investigators has been slipping lately, but I am hopeful to keep things on track and make more time to call and visit people. Our legality Belgium trip yesterday became very memorable, perhaps not for the best of reasons either, but memorable none the less. Friday morning Elder Cook and I were trying to think of some way to "change up" the Brussels trip, make it a little more exciting. We attempted to think of some pranks, or anything for that matter, but nothing came to mind so we just carried out plans as normal. We all left at around 9:40 a.m. and arrived like normal around noon in Brussels. After finding our usual underground parking lot, we all piled out and walked around Brussels centrum for lunch, eating fries and waffles as we always do. After about an hour, we all met up again and headed back to the car. I walked over to the side door, and Elder Cook climbed in the front seat, and one of the new missionaries was just staring at his door. Elder Cook saw him and exclaimed, "What the heck?!" I was ruffling around in my bag in the back seat and shot my head to the front of the car at the sound of his surprise. As I climbed over the seat and looked at the front passenger side door I saw glass all over the seat and ground. We had been robbed! Turns out someone smashed in our side window and stole our GPS out of our glove compartment. It was weird, but they left everything else – our gas cards and spare change – just taking the GPS. We spent the rest of the afternoon filing damage reports and then spent a few hours waiting in line at the Brussels police department to report the accident. It was a crazy, weird Brussels trip. Perhaps Elder Cook and I should not wish for more crazy things to happen like that again. We didn't even get to do the legality work either, but it was a memorable trip. Elder Cook miraculously guided us home, from Brussels all the way to Leiden, Nederland, without a GPS. I was very impressed.

Anyway, I am loving things out here! The days are still pretty wintry and dark, but I am finding a lot of joy in what us missionaries do, inviting others unto Christ, and I hope you all continue daily to invite yourselves unto Christ. It will help you inherit what D&C 88:19 describes: "crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father."

Have a wonderful week.

Elder Eli Andrew

Eli Mail 1/2/16 (Leiden, Netherlands) Letter 64

Happy New Year, all! It is officially 2016! Isn't that weird? I am pretty sure I will be writing 2015 on all my notes for the next couple months, just out of habit. But the reality of a bright, hopeful New Year has now sunk in, especially with the Netherlands going explosive on the 31st.

New Year's Eve of course was fantastic. Last year Elder Toole and I flipped the couch in our apartment around facing the big, open windows in the direction of Amsterdam. Sadly, last year I decided to "lay down" for a little bit before midnight and woke up to the alarm at 6:30 that next morning! Elder Toole claims he tried to wake me up, but I just slept through it. This year I did not want to let that happen. We played Monopoly and Phase 10 to pass the time away, and when it as finally time we climbed the ladder staircase to the top floor our apartment complex. Surprisingly, no one else joined us on the top floor, so we got to have the whole space to ourselves. The view we had was great, we had a clear few of the entire centrum area of Leiden, making for a loud, colorful evening of fireworks.

It was a pretty tame week as far as office work goes – nothing too insane other than end-of-the-year deadlines. We had a great time this week sharing the gospel, teaching as we went about, mainly focusing still on a Christ-centered Christmas, but also diving into New Year's resolutions. Speaking of which, our mission did a "mission-wide" goal setting evening. Because of the high risk of explosives on New Year's Eve, we had some time in our apartments, and did enjoy a little time to reflect on a full year of full-time service out in the mission field. I reflected on what went well, where I improved, what could have gone better, and where I want to go. I don't think everyone has to be super extravagant with New Year's resolutions, especially since they tend to sputter out quickly, but the wise words of my former mission president ring in my ears: "Make resolutions simple. For example – to be nicer, to see the good in others, etc. Anything simple and achievable, that will bring you closer to Christ." I am paraphrasing there, but I invite everyone if they haven't already to make one simple, achievable resolution and make it a part of you, internalize it, really work on it and become it.

Among the bomb-like explosives going off throughout the week, we did a lot of good work. On Monday evening after our typical lesson/dinner appointment with a part-member family, we decided to do something we had never done before – work in their area. It had gotten pretty late, and our only option was to knock a few doors. I was pretty hesitant about it, especially the hour of night, but I just set aside my little anxiety and focused on the people we talked to on the doorstep. I noticed, because of our calm and collective attitude that evening. It affected the people on the doors. We talked to an older lady who without us even asking, asked if we could come back another time, and we set a return appointment. Just a few doors further a young family let us in on the door, and we were able to share our testimonies and experiences with faith! I think the real miracle was just listening to the young father's needs. He told us about how horrible this world is and how the only thing he cares about are his kids. So, we talked and testified about hope in Christ and also about the importance of families. They have two toddlers, but both parents drink and smoke. The father at one point neglected our credibility, saying that we were too young and haven't experienced the real hardships in life. We all experience life differently, but again, we were able to share more personal experiences of hardships and then coming through it, thanks to Christ. It made the conversation very "down to earth." I like it. It was a fun little surprise, and they invited us back in the coming week, so I am excited for that!

I wish everyone the best of luck with this New Year and of course, have a great rest of the week.

Thanks again to everyone who sent Christmas postcards, spiritual experiences, and more green hands for my tree. I still don't have a picture of the tree yet, but it is on the way.

Love,

Elder Eli Andrew

The taste off. [Root beer samples shipped from his Dad's root beer shop in Galena, IL.]

Olliebolle is back! Can't complain at all. Battered up, deep fried, and dunked in powdered sugar. 

Had some great conversations one night and posed for a scenic picture in Leiden.

Christmas is wonderful when we're all together.