17th and final letter from Den Haag, Netherlands -- Week 83 (19 month mark today)

Elder Steenblik at the temple (Saturday, January 23, 2016)

Elder Steenblik on church tower in Delft

View from church tower in Delft

Delft

Hey Guys!

Yet another fantastic week is in the books.  On P-day last week our whole district went to the beautiful city of Delft and climbed the enormous church tower.  It was a beautiful clear day, just freezing cold! All of the canals were frozen but sadly, they weren’t thick enough to skate.

We had a super busy week with exchanges Tuesday through Friday.  On Wednesday I went to Leiden with one of my best friends, Elder DeWitt.  We had a great day together.

Ferdinand is doing great.  We taught him the Plan of Salvation this week and he came to church as well. He still has a baptismal date for the 20th of February.

We also got in contact with Boniface who has been on vacation for the past month.  We had a lesson with him this week and read the Book of Mormon with him.  He had been reading it on his vacation.  We set a new baptismal date with him in February as well!

On Saturday we got permission to go to the temple.  It is only 20 minutes away from us and transfers are this week, so we figured we would go before I get transferred! We had a great session.  And the best part was that it was basically a mission reunion for me! There were members there from Leuven, Eindhoven, Hengelo, and Den Haag.  Basically everywhere I have served except Lelystad.  That was a nice surprise.

After the temple we were working with the sisters in Den Haag.  We had just gotten out of a lesson and we were saying goodbye and some guy waked up to us. I thought "Oh no, this guy is gonna come ask us for money."  He started talking to us and was just super friendly.  He said that he believes that there is some sort of God that created everything but he doesn’t know what or who he is.  We were able to teach him briefly about our loving Heavenly Father.  He was super open and interested and we have a lesson with him this week! That was a really cool miracle.

It has been an awesome week and the Lord is blessing the work in Den Haag.  We have been having a lot of success.  Sadly, I will be leaving this Wednesday.  I will miss it here!  It has been a privilege to serve here in Den Haag.  I love this city with all my heart.  Some of the best times of my life were spent in this city.  I am getting transferred to Almere to serve with Elder Smith! Elder Smith is a good mission friend of mine, so I am excited.  I look forward to what adventures Almere brings.  The church is true and God loves you!

                                  -Elder Steenblik

16th letter from Den Haag, Netherlands -- Week 82

Goeiemiddag Mensen!

Well, it has been an outstanding week! We had a lot of appointments and they all went well.

We met with Ferdinand twice this week.  He still didn't understand why he needs to be baptized again because he was baptized Catholic as a baby.  It was pointless to move onto the next lesson if he didn’t even understand the Restoration, so we taught the Restoration as simply and clearly as we could.  He now understands it and he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon, but he is scared to accept it because it is something new.  It will just take time.  He came to church on Sunday again and he went to the English class with one of his friends in the ward, so I decided to join them.  The English class is awesome! It is a group of like 7 African soul brothers haha.  Every now and then someone would yell out a “Hallelujah” or an “Amen.”   I felt like I was in a Baptist church, It was hilarious!

We had a greenie this week for 2 days! There is a priest in the ward named Ian who came on splits with us for 2 days.  He came to all of our lessons and even came to our Zone meeting.

We met with Joyce and taught her about the Book of Mormon.  She is really excited to read it and learn more.  She gave us tons of food again haha.  I love people from Suriname!

The ward here in Den Haag is just awesome! We are doing a 40 day fast with the ward.  Basically for 40 days we have invited a family or person to fast on that day for our investigators.  The ward has been super happy and willing to do it.  It is a very missionary oriented ward.

We are also meeting with quite a few less active members and they are all doing great.  I probably had more lessons this week than any other week of my mission! The work is going great and the Lord is blessing us with success.

Have a great week!

                                       -Elder Steenblik

15th letter from Den Haag, Netherlands -- Week 81

Anja Rebber and Elder Steenblik  (Saturday 01-09-16)

Hey, Peeps,

It has been an awesome week.  We saw a lot of miracles and had a great time working.

To start the week off we looked a guy up named Ferdinand that we had found from our area book.  He was happy to see us and welcomed us in.  He is from somewhere in the French part of Africa, but speaks great Dutch.  We taught him the restoration lesson and set a baptismal date for the 20th of February! He came to church on Sunday as well and loved it.  He is a homie!

This week we had our Mission Leader Council at the mission home.  There will be a lot of change coming in the next couple of weeks when it comes to how things are run.  Basically instead of going on 20 exchanges a transfer, I will only go on 2! So that means Elder Clukey and I Will have lots of time to work here in Den Haag together.  That will be nice.

On Saturday we got to go to Anja's baptism! I was able to help teach Anja back when I served in Hengelo.  I was super sick on Saturday and must have eaten something on Friday that just didn’t agree with me and I threw up like, 5 times.  But I had waited for Anja's baptism for months and I wasn't gonna miss it for anything! So we made the 1 1/2 drive out to Apeldoorn.  Elder DeWitt came with us because he served in Hengelo as well.  It was awesome to see Anja get baptized.  She was super happy and so were all of the people that came to support her.  It was also great to see some of the Hengelo members again.  I have missed all of them!

On Sunday night this week we had another first lesson with a woman named Joyce.  She is from Suriname.  That means that she loves to give us food! We taught her about the restoration and we are meeting with her again this week.

It has been a fantastic week.  Most of our investigators are still on vacation but it was a great chance to find some new people.  We had lots of success this week finding new people to teach and we have set up quite a few appointments for this upcoming week which we are excited about.  The Lord is blessing the work here in Den Haag.  Thank you for all of your prayers in our behalf! Love you guys.

                                                 -Elder Steenblik