A Culture of Higher Expectations

The java program for referrals is coming along nicely. Elder Lyman and I have almost made it functional (if not implementable) and will be completing it and then testing it thoroughly during the coming week. 

On Tuesday, we went to zone conference in Apeldoorn. It was incredibly uplifting and educational. Changes are coming, both in the way missionaries find people, and in the way investigators are taught. The arrival of facebook campaigns such as the one for Easter a few weeks ago, has really given a boost to the number of investigators that certain areas have. And when response time improves, those numbers will naturally improve too, as the message reaches more people. The theme of the conference was, at least in part, expectations in relation to faith. How you have to expect certain things to come to pass. Just as, in the words of President Scheltinga, a certain basketball team expected to win a championship, and went so far as to make t-shirts to celebrate that victory, before they played the game. Elder Seiter spoke about safety and emergency preparedness, so I will be building up a 72 hour kit over the next few weeks. Something I think everyone should do.

We delivered supplies to the zone conference in Rotterdam on Wednesday, arriving just on time for lunch, not so accidentally, hahaha. We had a fun time there. The next day, we expected elder Henderson to arrive, but apparently we had all separately misread the e-mail concerning his travel plans and he only arrived on Friday. But we had the day planned out already, so the two missionaries that arrived last week, as well as two others from last transfer came so that we could take them for pancakes and then to the city hall in Leiden to sign them in. Finally, the newest part of the process, we took them to the IND, so that one of them could get registered biometrically. 

Yesterday, elder Cockbain and I went to go pick up luggage from the new elder and the new senior couple and take it back to the office and almost as soon as we got back, we left for Brussels, to help get a bunch of other missionaries legal in Belgium. It was a bit more complicated than normal, but we managed alright. 

We had a good game of football this morning, with 13 players. Hopefully, we can get a better turnout next week: the last time that we will have 9 missionaries for a while. After, we showered and went to the market near the Blaak train/metro station. It was very busy (of course) and we did not buy anything, but it was fun looking around.

I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep

This has been a weird and also very busy week. From several peculiar occurrences at the beginning of the week, to the arrival of the greenies on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, the week was full of interesting experiences. In addition, we only saw president Robinson on Wednesday, because he was busy with interviews on Monday and the greenies came Wednesday (so he did not need to come into the office on Tuesday). On Sunday, we went to the Stigters after church to skype our families. We had a great time there, both talking to our families and spending a fun evening with the Stigters. When we got back to the office, the assistants and president had finished with transfers and we could get everything organised. We also found out who elders Lind and Cockbain's replacements are: elders Lyman and Robbins, respectively (Lyman is a Floridian, meaning I will probably spend around 9/10 months of my mission with a Floridian companion, which is funny). I had actually suggested that elder Lyman might one day be in the office, so that was interesting too. 

We found out on Tuesday that there would not be anymore missionaries in Den Bosch, which was surprising, but it happens. Also, something we knew from Sunday, there would be two sets of sister missionaries in the Haarlem ward: the only unit in the mission to have two companionships of sisters. I thought that was pretty weird. And Tuesday morning, we got a message from the APs saying that elder Melligan and sister Riley were delayed in Texas, due to thunderstorms, and would only fly in on Wednesday. This really messed up the whole plan for that day and the next. But we got them here and trained a bit before shipping them off to their cities. Melligan is really cool: he is from New Zealand and played rugby. Elder Praag arrived about the same time as the trainers, and it is a pity to see him go.

Later on Wednesday, elders Lyman and Robbins arrived, and my current companions started their training. I also spoke to elder Lyman about improving the current referral system, using an online program to send SMSes and java. He seems to think we can do it and I am really excited to get started. We looked into ways to do it and began planning it that evening and into the next two days. We also worked on plotting out the different postcodes that match up to which units. It is a laborious process, but should make future referral campaigns a lot easier, a lot less time-consuming, and most importantly, a lot more reliable. By this morning, we had finished the part of the java program to read phone numbers and names from a spreadsheet and process the data.

We invited the APs to play football with us this morning, so there were 9 missionaries in total, and 4 other people. It was kind of fun. 

APs, office elders and elder Praag (with the cardigan)

Let Virtue Garnish Thy Thoughts Unceasingly

Another tiring week, though not so much as last week, and probably less than next week too, haha. So it was not *that* tiring, if you look at in perspective. I had my first interview with President Robinson (since arrival) on Tuesday, during district meeting and with sister Robinson too. It was good to be able to talk to them one on one, for a change. Mainly since I am the only that rarely gets called in to President's office on Mondays to talk about various office functions: transfers are usually discussed during correlation meeting, as everyone needs to know what will happen. I am so grateful for the Nieuwvelds and Markhams and Howells, as even during weeks when other families are unable to have us over for dinner, we still are able to go to their houses to share a gospel message and a meal and a generally fun time. And hopefully soon we will get referrals from them.

I finally scored a goal in football this week. Admittedly there was no goal at the goalposts at the time. Of course, that was because he had ran forward with the ball and I stole it. So in a way, it was pretty nicely done, even if I do say so myself. Now I can work on scoring while people are moving between me and the goal, hahaha.

We have been listening to a lot of talks in the car, while travelling, and I definitely recommend that, it's really uplifting and enjoyable. Just be sure to choose the right ones. Any general conference talk, of course, but also John Bytheway or other such speakers. Trust me, it's worth it. 

I expect it will not be much longer before my companions get trainees and then they leave. I have at least another three weeks with them, so it will not be really soon, but still sooner than before, haha.

and finally, the scripture from which I pulled the title: “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

“The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth”

The Spirit of Christ is given to every man

This was a busy week. We spoke about a bunch of things on Monday, including the two temple conferences and the transfers in two weeks. And the Emmen elders arrived in the evening, as they are spending the night at our house.

On Tuesday, we were up earlier than usual, to get ready to go to the temple. We got to the temple sometime before 8 and changed into white clothes. The session started at 9 and was over an hour later or so. It was a very beautiful experience and only the second time I have been. It is such a great opportunity for service as well as personal development. Afterwards, we ate pizza at the church building in Zoetermeer (we ordered 50 or so pizzas :o ) and I sat with some of the missionaries that had served in Antwerp: elders Gomez, Carter and Sumter and sister Kohlert. When everything was cleaned up, we set off for Keukenhof: some flower place north of Leiden. Short summary: there were a lot of flowers.

The next day we spent the morning in the office before going to the temple to drive people from there to the Zoetermeer church. We ate pizza again and then listened to a nice dying testimony from elder Praag (who will go home in a few weeks). We then returned to Keukenhof (also to transport people). This time, I took pictures (as my battery was flat on Tuesday). Unfortunately, no one wanted to play chess with me on either day, but I will just have to find someone willing to play chess when I go back after my mission.

Things returned to normal on Thursday and we spent the day in the office. I filled out a form regarding a new apartment in Belgium and started again on preparations for next transfer. Our dinner appointment fell through, so we ate in that evening. Yummy macaroni carbonara.

We left around 9, Friday morning to Brussels with a van full of elders. We met three more at the central station in Brussels and went to go get food. While they took the metro to the commune in Woluwe Saint Lambert, elder Cockbain and I drove in the van to meet them there. We were finished around 2:30 and set off northwards. We dropped off elders in Antwerpen, Breda and Rotterdam, before going to our dinner appointment with the Nieuwvelds for our weekly dose of American pancakes. It was fun there, as always. Such a nice family :)

This morning, Saturday, we played football, as always. There was a bigger turnout than last week: 10 people total. It was also more fun than last week. Afterwards, we went food shopping and then went home to wash. We then hurried to the train station in Leiden to take the train to Amsterdam to meet up with the APs and the Zoetermeer elders. We went shopping with them, going to several clothes and shoe shops: it was mostly very boring, and could've simply gone to two or three shops and I would've had enough. I bought two pairs of football socks for 10E and a hoody for less than 6E, so I was pretty satisfied with my purchases.

 Windmill in Keukenhof

 

Porsche 911

 

Giant chess

 

Elders South and Holt

 

Flowers

 

They all went up in the windmill and left their cameras down below with me and sister Nelson, I think... Have they never met me? Mwahahaha ;)