6th letter from Hengelo, Netherlands -- Week 42

Temple Conference on Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Elder Ben wearing his wooden shoes

Elder Ben and some mission friends

Keukenhof Garden

Elder Ben  --  Keukenhof Garden

Keukenhof Garden

Elder Ben, Sister ? and Sister Frederickson  -- Keukenhof Garden

Elder Ben  --  Keukenhof Garden

Elder Ben taking a selfie at Keukenhof Garden

Elder Ben praying for the rest of us at Keukenhof Garden

Spidy Huntin' Steenblik on the job!

Hey Everyone!

Wow, what a week! We started the week out with temple conference.  On Monday night we traveled to the mission home to spend the night.  It was fantastic! It is more of a mission mansion.  It is the biggest house that I have been in since I’ve been here.  We got there and Sister Robinson had a nice home cooked meal waiting for us.  We were treated like kings!

In the morning we drove to the temple and had a great session! It is so cool to go through the temple in Dutch.  Afterwards, we went to the chapel to eat lunch.  It was so fun to see all of my friends in the mission that I have missed so much.  We took a coach bus to Keukenhof Garden, a huge garden with lots of tulips and everything.  It was beautiful! We stayed there for a couple of hours and then headed on our way home.  My cheeks were literally sore from smiling and laughing all day! That’s the sign of a good day.  On the way home our train got delayed 30 minutes because a homeless man decided to wizz on the train, but you know what? I can’t blame him! That’s what they get for charging you to use the bathrooms.  Just sayin’!!!!

On Wednesday we made the 2 hour trip out to Winterswijk to get Elder Frisby´s wallet.  We got it, but there was 100 Euros missing, so we traced back what happened.  He left it at the gas station in the bathroom, someone found it and took 100 euros and then put it in the mailbox of the police station.  If you ask me, that is a win! Yeah, they took some money, but at least they had the decency to return it to the police.

We had a lesson with Angela this week.  We were planning on teaching her the “Gospel of Jesus Christ” lesson, but when we got there, we kind of turned into her psychiatrists.  It was actually really needed. She opened up to us a lot because we have built up that trust with her.  Sometimes as missionaries, that is the best thing you can do is just sit back and listen.  Just be there for your investigators and support them in their trials, so that is exactly what we did and it helped her a lot.

On Wednesday I went downstairs to shower in the morning and I saw like 5 little tiny spiders hanging everywhere, so I killed them.  I didn’t think much of it until Elder Frisby came downstairs and started screaming.  He had like 4 spiders crawling on him.  Once we actually started looking at the walls and door frames, they were covered with baby spiders and spider webs!  We spent like an hour blow torching and vacuuming spiders.  What had happened is that we brought a chair in from our backyard when the zone leaders ate lunch with us and it had an egg sack on it.  While we were at our temple conference, the egg sack hatched tons of spiders!

I found out this week that Michael Mestoyan got baptized! Elder Losee and I started teaching him when we were in Leuven.  We worked with the Mestoyan’s a lot.  I am so happy for them! This is exactly what they needed and it’s also a good boost for the ward in Leuven.

We had a lesson with the Torosian’s this week and when we got there, you could just see that they were in so much pain.  They were very emotional and sad and we asked them why.  Since we can’t communicate very well, they just turned on the news and showed us.  There was a big bombing in Syria on the very street where their kids live.  There is no internet there or any form of communication, so they have no way of knowing if they are alive or not, but they showed pictures of the apartment complex where they live and it was in pieces.  It was heartbreaking to see how much pain they were in. We all got on our knees and said a prayer together.  There was a powerful, undeniable spirit there.  Please keep them in your prayers.

Well, I will be getting a new companion on Wednesday! Elder Frisby is going to Zaandam.  I feel like I just met Frisby! This past 6 weeks has flown by and I had such a great time serving with him.  My new comp will be Elder England.  He was in my District my first transfer, so it will be fun to see each other again.

Well, this kind of turned into a novel, but there was just so much great stuff that happened this week! The Church is true!

                                                     Elder Steenblik