2nd letter from Geel, Belgium -- Week 91

Me and my Boo

Brussels 

Brussels

Hey Folks,

I am alive just in case you were wondering.  There has been lots of sketchy stuff goin’ down this week with all of the terrorists and what not.  We were actually in Brussels on the day that they had a shootout with the terrorists that were involved in the Paris attacks.  Crazy!

This week we spent a ton of time traveling.  We had to go to Antwerp on Tuesday for a zone meeting and we went to Brussels on Friday so that Elder Waters could do some legality stuff.  Plus we spent a ton of time traveling in our own area to look up look ups and to go to our dinner appointments.  Our area is massive, and we have over 20 referrals that we need to look up from a campaign that the mission is running.  This week will also be full of trains and buses.

The work is slowly moving forward.  What we have found in our first week here is that everyone in Geel hates us haha.  Not everyone, but a lot of them.  Geel is a small city, so most of the people have already been contacted by the missionaries, multiple times.  We have been focusing on other cities in our area to try and find some new people to teach.

We had a couple of lessons this week but nothing too exciting.  One of the guys we taught talked the whole time about how Jesus was not crucified, but he and Mary took a ship to France and smoked weed together.  Now there are some interesting beliefs!

This week we had a dinner appointment almost every night, with the sisters in our area.  The branch has been taking good care of us!

Nothing too special this week.  We are just working to find new people.  We hope to see success this week with the referrals that we have received.  Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

                                                  -Elder Steenblik

1st letter from Geel, Belgium -- Week 90

Elder Steenblik and his "greenie" Elder Waters from Idaho Falls

I made it back to Belgium!!!!

All you can eat ribs with my old district last week in Amsterdam

Gueeeess who's in Belgium? This guy!

On Wednesday we had our transfer day and it was a looong day.  I left Almere at 7:30 AM and we didn’t get home until 8:30 PM.  I have a son! I am training a missionary named Elder Dakota Waters from Idaho, Falls.  He is a super funny guy and we get along great.  We have been having a blast in Belgium together.

We are in the city of Geel.  The work in Geel right now is basically nonexistent.  We are both new to the area and don’t have one single investigator at the moment.  We are going to be working hard these next couple of weeks to find some new people to teach.

Our first day here a member came to our apartment and gave us a huge box of chocolate! So we have basically been living off that for the past week.  We received a nice warm welcome from our neighbor our first day here by him leaving us a note on our door saying if we “don’t be quiet” he would break all of our bleep bleepin bones.  So if I disappear, it was the guy downstairs!

Man alive do I miss a car! We come home at the end of every day and our legs are killin.  We do a lot of walking here and our area is really big which means we also have to take lots of buses and trains.  The problem is that the buses only leave once an hour which means we sometimes get stranded in a city for an hour.  That happened to us this week, so we just talked to people in the area and we ended up finding 2 potential investigators because of it! Glass half full.

My very first Sunday here I was asked to give a 10 minute talk....on the law of chastity! Wow, what a first impression I made haha.  The branch here is awesome! There are actually quite a few members and I think there were around 50 or so.

The weather here has been great.  It has been sunny every day and not too cold.

I am sooo happy to be back in Belgium! I have missed it so much! I have missed the waffles, all of the terrible funky smells, the cobblestone roads, the church bells, the chocolate, the Flemish language, the nasty carbonated water, the fries, the billions of cranes, the friendly people, everything! I am excited to get to work with Elder Waters and build up the work in Geel.  Have a great week!

                   -Elder Steenblik

6th and final letter from Almere, Netherlands -- Week 89

Elder Steenblik and Bishop Decker

03-07-16 Hard Rock Cafe in Amsterdam.  After 20 months, I finally had some chicken wings

03-07-16  Beautiful day in Amsterdam

Goedemorgen Dames en Heren,

This week has been a great one.  We were able to find some new people to teach and managed to meet with quite a few less actives as well.

We found a new investigator this week named Mariana.  She was a woman who had been taught by the Elders a while ago but she only met with them once.  We went over there and had lunch with her and afterwards had a lesson with her.   She has lived all over the world and has had tons of amazing experiences. She was very interested in the Book of Mormon and was excited to read it.

This week we saw a cool miracle.  We went home for dinner and when we got to the parking lot we both felt that we needed to look one last person up before we ate dinner, so we looked up a woman named Trisha.  She let us in but was really busy and stressed, so we could only stay a couple of minutes.  We shared a quick Mormon message and just left a little spiritual thought with her.  When we left she had tears in her eyes and thanked us for coming over.  That was a cool experience to see how the Lord wanted us to visit her and just leave a little spiritual thought to brighten her day.

This week while we were just knocking some doors we talked to a guy who invited us in.  He was 30 years old and he had a wife and 4 kids.  They said that they were looking for a church that would be good to raise their kids in.  Boo Yaah! We are going back later this week to teach them.  Golden!

Well, sadly after just 6 short weeks, I will be leaving Almere.  But, I will be going back to Belgium!!! I will be training a new missionary in a city in Belgium called Geel.  I am sad to leave Almere, but I am super excited to get to go back to Belgium.  I have really missed it! I have absolutely loved my time in Almere and I am thankful for the privilege that the Lord gave me to serve here.  Well Almere, it has been real! Peace out.

                         -Elder Steenblik