2nd letter from Eindhoven, Netherlands -- Week 50

Elder Steenblik, Elder Frisby, Elder Ames and Elder Parr

Our sweet backyard.  It's the best in our hood!

  This is what Ben's companion, Elder Jesse Holt had to say about Ben in his blog entry last week.  "Transfers are done and the new one begins today!  I got my new companion, Elder Steenblik.  He´s a funny, tall dude.  I don´t know what it is, but most of my companions are pretty dang tall.  Elder Steenblik is from Salt Lake and has a talent with working with people. I´m excited to have the chance to serve with him for a minimum of 6 weeks!"

Yo! 

Wow, what a great first week in Eindhoven it has been! Even though I wasn’t even in Eindhoven for most of the week.

Last Monday we decided to do some work in the garden in our backyard, so we bought some flowers and planted them.  I even got to mow a little patch of grass! We have the best lookin’ yard in the neighborhood now.  You better believe that!

On Tuesday I was on an exchange in Heerlen with Elder Lundburg.  We taught a lesson to a man from Africa who was baptized a couple of months ago.  We taught him about doing baptisms for the dead for his ancestors.  He got super scared and said that he would never do it and that he was terrified of even the thought of it.  Apparently back in Africa, he saw some creepy things with people summoning their ancestors and a ton of weird black magic stuff.  We taught him how baptism is a saving ordinance and not everyone will get the chance to do it in this life, so it is our responsibility to do it for them.  I told him that his ancestors wouldn’t haunt him for doing it, they would give him a big hug and thank him! It was cool to see the change in him by the end of the lesson.  He now has an appointment on Sunday to get a temple recommend.

Wednesday I was on an exchange in Amsterdam with Elder Ames.  Elder Parr had forgotten his retainer, so we had to drive up to Zaandam to give it to him.  We ended up eating dinner with them.  Elder Parr´s companion is Elder Frisby! It was nice to kick it with some of my old companions.

Thursday we went all the way up to Arnhem to work with the Sisters for the day.  We were on trains for like 3 hours and by the time we got there, we only had like 30 minutes before we had to come back! But it was a good 30 minutes at least.  It was nice to get back home on Thursday night.  I had been on the road for 3 days!

Friday morning we drove up to The Hague for mission leader council.  We were so close to running out of gas and we couldn’t find a gas station forever, but we found one just in time.  The council was great! We got training on extending commitments.  This was President Robinson´s last council and it was a good one.  After the council, we had a waxing party! All of us went outside and waxed our cars.  On the drive home, we got stuck in a ton of traffic and it ended up being a 3 1/3 hour drive home.  We were an hour late for our dinner appointment! Luckily they were chill and understanding about it.

On my mission I have really been able to see my strengths and weaknesses at work.  One strength I have found is changing light bulbs! In the past month alone, I have changed 3 light bulbs and 1 smoke detector. Anytime we walk into someone’s house, they just hand me a light bulb and ask me to change it!

Also, miracle of the week.  We went through a car wash.  Like, the kind that you drive through.  It was the most excitement I have had in months! Haha.

This week we are looking forward to giving a zone training on Thursday down in Antwerpen, Belgium. Maybe we will even have some time to work in Eindhoven.  I have only had one full day where we got to work in Eindhoven, but so far it is a great city!

                                  -Elder Steenblik

1st letter from Eindhoven, Netherlands -- Week 49

Hengelo District

Bishop and Sister De Ceunnick Van Capelle  -- Hengelo

This is the Awesome Alderink family in Hengelo  --  We ate with them every week

Hey Homies,

Well, I am in Eindhoven! Transfer day was absolutely terrible as usual.  Trains, train stations and lugging big bags around all day, but I made it in one piece! I don’t have my bike though.  Stuff got all messed up, so it is in another city with the Elders there.  Overall, it was pretty smooth transfer.

On my first day here, we met with a less active girl here.  She looks just like Shakira! We call her Sister Shakira.  She is from Peru, so she made some awesome Peruvian food for us.  I have actually missed Peruvian rice! Then 3 other Spanish ladies came over and we just had a Spanish partay.

I also had the chance to give a baptismal interview this week as well! We drove out to Heerlen to meet with one of their investigators.  It was about a 1 ½ hour drive.  I love giving baptismal interviews! They are amazing.  The guy I interviewed is an older Dutch man who had done all sorts of drugs and everything else his entire life, but saw the missionaries on the street one day and went up to them and talked to them.  He shared his experience with me about how he has been changed by the Atonement.  That is one of the best things about a mission, is you get to see firsthand how the Atonement can literally change people. 

We spent a ton of time planning these first couple of days.  You should see our schedule! We literally have 2 days in the next 6 weeks where we don’t have a meeting or an exchange.  We are going to be nice and busy.  I am super excited!

Eindhoven is a 4 man.  It’s Elder Holt and me along with Elder Goates and his greenie, Elder Van Vleet.  Our washing machine is broken, so we have to use member’s washing machines until our new one gets here.  Eindhoven is great and the ward is all really cool.  There is like a 2 week waiting list for dinner appointments, so we basically have one every single day.  Our house is 3 stories and pretty nice.  I’ll take pics another time.  We have a car as well! Thank the Lord! I still can’t drive though.... Hopefully my license will come soon, but as for now, Elder Holt is my chauffeur.  Elder Holt is Canadian, but he is still great! He is 5 feet 6 inches, so I am like a foot taller than him.  He is a super cool guy and has a very subtle Canadian accent.  He is basically a typical Canadian.  Loves hockey, maple syrup, he is super polite, kind and loving.  We get along super well.

There is a member here named Harry.  He is 84 years old and works with the missionaries EVERY SINGLE DAY! He loves to just go out and knock doors, teach, or whatever with the missionaries.  He even has his own nametag.  He is a hilarious old Dutchman.  We were at his house the other day and he asked me if I wanted a drink, so I said sure.  He went to his fridge and came back with 2 Monster energy drinks! I shared a Monster with an 84 year old man.  That’s not something you do every day!

We have like 3 other Peruvian women in the ward.  They all love it that I have been to Peru.  They all want to make us Peruvian food now.   :D

This week is a busy week and that’s great.  I have loved my first 4 days in Eindhoven.  This transfer is going to be awesome!

Love you all!

Elder Steenblik

12th and final letter from Hengelo, Netherlands -- Week 48

Steenblik, Steenblik and Steenblik

Elder Ben and KJ

Mean Muggin'  --  Elder Ben, Zuster Hansen, Zuster Huber and Elder England

Hey!

To start this lovely week off, I went on an exchange in Enschede with Elder Cutler.  We were out knocking doors and a guy yelled to us that he wanted to meet with us.  We were just like, great what a miracle! We went inside his house and he told us that he was a Jehovah Witness.  For the next hour, he taught us a lesson about how much he knew about the Bible and everything. It was very interesting to say the least!

We also worked with the sisters in Apeldoorn this week! Sisters Huber and Hansen.  They are both super cool sisters.  We went to a lesson with them and there was an enormous pit bull dog that was so wild! The whole dang lesson, you were either getting a huge tongue to the face or a tail smacking your body the entire time.  On top of that, he felt the need to jump on us every so often.  My clothes have hair on them permanently.  After the lesson we went with the Sisters and ate at Subway.  Veeeery disappointed in Dutch Subway! It still had that AMAZING Subway smell, but the food was Blimpie quality. 

We had a dinner appointment with KJ this week.  He is the one who has his mission papers in waiting on his mission call.  After dinner, we went and played some basketball with him.  The weather was super good this week, so we figured we would take advantage of it! 

Yesterday we went to Opa Steenblik's house so I could say goodbye.  His son and his wife were there visiting as well, so I got to meet even more Steenblik's! 

It was a bit of a rough week.  We didn't have one lesson in our own area, but then on Sunday, we had 4 investigators come to church! The Torosian's came as well as Belloh and the guy from Somolia. Our chapel was packed to the max and there was over 70 people there.  It is a good thing that they are getting a new church building in 3 weeks! 

This Wednesday I will be transferred to Eindhoven and I've heard it is a super cool city.  Every missionary who has ever served there has loved it, so I am super excited.  My new companion will be Elder Holt.

Hengelo has been great and I have loved every minute of it! I will miss the ward so much! 

Have a great week friends and family!

                                          -Elder Steenblik 

11th letter from Hengelo, Netherlands -- Week 47

A missionary and his bike  -- Elder Ben

Elder Ben 

Hey folks!

To start the week off, on Tuesday, we got to go to school! We eat dinner with a nonmember family every week and the mom is a school teacher at a local school.  She asked us if we could come and give presentations to her classes and her students are 12-13 years old.  Man, what a humbling experience.  If you are ever learning a foreign language and start to think that it is coming along, just go give a presentation to a class of 12 year olds! Hahaha.  For the first 2 class periods we just talked about the differences of America and the Netherlands and what America is like.  They all had tons of questions and I talked a little about football.  Most of them have heard of American football, but never actually seen it. I pulled a video up on the projector of football big hits.  They thought that it was the sickest thing they have ever seen! Haha.  It was awesome! Everyone's dream here is to one day go to America.  The 13 year old girls were more than excited to meet 2 nicely dressed young men from America ;) .  For the last 2 class periods, we went to the English classes and talked with the students in English and they were 16 years old.  We weren’t allowed to preach about our religion, but they actually had lots of questions about what we believe.  We answered all of their questions and ended up basically teaching a whole restoration lesson.  Afterwards, we got to go chill in the TEACHERS LOUNGE! Every kids dream! The school felt very similar to a normal American school.  Super cool experience to go be a teacher for a day! Hopefully, years down the road when these kids meet the missionaries on the street, they will remember the 2 goofy American kids that came to their school.

We had a Zone Conference in Rotterdam on Thursday and we spent the night with the Rotterdam Elders the night before.  For the 2nd part of the conference, we got to hear from the singing elders.  There are 4 elders in our mission who travel around and put on singing devotionals.  They were so dang good!

Friday I went on an Exchange in Deventer with Elder Andrew (my beloved MTC companion) and we had a great time together.  After we ate lunch, we had to run out of the apartment to catch the bus.  We got to the bus stop and Elder Andrew just said "Crap!" He had forgotten the keys, so I told him that we could just call the zone leaders and ask them to bring the keys.  Then he said "Crap!" He had also forgotten the Phone! Haha.  We had to ask some random dude on the street to use his phone so we could call for a set of keys. 

Saturday we had our interviews with President Robinson.  Last interviews ever with him.  We will be getting our new mission President on July 1^st, I think.

We met with family Torosian’s this week and they had friends visiting from Syria.  The friends spoke broken English and the Torosian’s speak broken Dutch, and then they spoke Arabic with each other.  Communicating was sure an experience!

Guess what? Elder England plays the mouth organ! (Known to some of you as the harmonica.) I make him play me some "Home on the Range" every night before we go to bed.  Very awesome!

Well, things here are going great! I will be getting transferred next Wednesday, but I won’t know where until Sunday night.

Have a fantastic week!

                              -Elder Steenblik

10th letter from Hengelo, Netherlands -- Week 46

Elder Hunter England and Elder Ben Steenblik

Opa (Jan) Steenblik, Elder England and Elder Ben at the wooden shoe factory

LeBron James is enjoying the flower pedals! (AKA, Elder Steenblik)

Elder Ben says...... Howdy!

Goede Daaaag,

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there, especially my lovely mother! It was awesome to be able to talk with her yesterday.  Already my 2nd Skype! I feel like the Christmas Skype was just last week! Time flies when you’re a missionary… maybe not for the moms, though.

This week we met with Jan Steenblik again! I call him Opa (grandpa) Steenblik.  We ate lunch with him and his girlfriend and then they took us to a klompen factory.  Klompen are those Dutch wooden shoes. It was super cool! We got to see how they were made and we got some cool souvenirs.  Then we all went out for ice cream afterwards.  They asked us if they could have a Book of Mormon, so we gladly gave them one.  They kept trying to pay us for it! Haha.  His girlfriend has all sorts of questions for us and she said that we are the first people who have ever been able to give her answers to her questions.

We had a lesson with Anja on Wednesday night that was amazing and the Enschede Elders came along with us.  She is trying really hard to read the Book of Mormon not as a text book and find how she can apply the things in it into her own life.  One thing I have been doing every day when I have a personal study is making a one sentence summary of something I learned that I can apply that day.  We invited her to do that and she loved the idea.  She also wants to meet with us every week and study together. At the end of the lesson, we all got on our knees and said a prayer and she asked God when she needs to be baptized.  The spirit was super strong and everyone in the room felt it.

On Thursday night, I got a call from President Robinson and he asked if I could come to the Mission Leader Council the next day.  On Thursday night, Elder England went to Enschede to work with them for the day and I went with the Zone Leaders to Apeldoorn.  On Friday morning we made the road trip out to the west coast.  Luckily the Netherlands is tiny, so it only took about 2 hours.  It was a super cool meeting! We got a really good breakfast and lunch, and all of the talks given were fantastic.  President and the AP's gave trainings on what we will be training on next transfer.  I also got to see some friends that I haven’t seen in months! I am super grateful that I got to go.

Afterwards, we went to The Hauge to go to a dinner appointment with the Romig’s.  They are a senior couple in our mission.  There were 6 other missionaries there as well, so it was just a party! By the time we got back on Friday night, it was already 10 PM, so I just spent the night in Apeldoorn again.  We finally got back on Saturday, and we had District Leader Council.  It was a week full of travel and meetings, but I learned a ton from all of it and had a blast as well.

Yesterday at church a random guy walked in, so we went up and talked to him.  He met the sister missionaries at some time in his life on the street and he felt like he should go to church on Sunday.  He found the address and came! So, that was the miracle of the week! We are going to start teaching him soon.

This week we will be traveling to Rotterdam for a Zone Conference, but we should at least have some more time to do some finding and teaching in our own area.  I hope everyone had a lovely Mother’s Day!

 Doooooei

-Elder Steenblik