2nd letter from Almere, Netherlands -- Week 85

Selfie with the Boiizi  --  Burgers in Amsterdam 02-01-16

Practicing to become an ultimate Aggie at Utah State  -- Elder Steenblik and Elder Smith

Elder Steenblik and Opa Steenblik

This is famous in Amsterdam.  It says "I am sterdam" and you can climb it if you would like.  Somehow, I climbed the "I."  It was 10 feet tall, but I just used my ninja skillz.

Repent ye -- Repent ye!

Hey!

How was your Super Bowl Sunday?? Shout out to my boii Peyton for bringin’ home the win.

On P-day we went to Amsterdam with a couple of other missionaries in our zone.  We went and got hamburgers and then walked around and shopped.  Amsterdam is so sick! We also went to a really famous Dutch museum called the Rijks Museum.  That was awesome.

You will never guess who I saw this week.  Opa Steenblik all the way back from my Hengelo days! I remembered that when I served in Hengelo, I met one of his sons named Henk that lived in Almere.  I googled Henk Steenblik and found his address.  We stopped by this week to look him up and Opa Steenblik was there! It was perfect timing because he was visiting for the day.  It was fun to see him again.  Henk was at work when we went by, but his wife invited us back for dinner. On Saturday night we went and ate dinner with the Steenblik's! They said that we are always welcome to go back, so hopefully we will be able to go again soon.

This week the young men in the ward had a "mission prep" night and they practiced cooking.  They made dinner for us and it actually turned out pretty good believe it or not!

We are still struggling to get in contact with all of our investigators.  Most of them we haven’t even met yet.  We have found a couple of new people that we are going to visit this week.  The investigator pool is making slow progress.  But we had an amazing week with the less actives.  We had like, 7 less active lessons this week. The ward has given us a solid list of names of people to visit and that sure makes our job a lot easier! One thing we are doing is after every dinner appointment, we bring the member with us to look up some less actives in the area.  It has been going really well because then the less active member sees a familiar face and the member gets involved in missionary work.  And it helps us out! It’s a win, win, win situation.

We had an investigator at church this week named Diana.  She had worked the night shift and still came to church! That’s what I am talkin’ about.  Dedication.

Also, I took a bubble bath this week for the first time in over a year! Oh man how I have longed for a lengthy luxurious bubble bath.  It was a wonderful experience.  I just thought you should all know.

Well, that is about it.  Have an awesome week everyone!

                                     -Elder Steenblik

1st letter from Almere, Netherlands -- Week 84

District in Den Haag

Hanging with my new neighbor, Ronald

Hey Everybody!

Well, this has been a super crazy week full of lots of change.  Wednesday was our transfer day.

We stayed at the station all day helping all of the missionaries getting transferred.  There were a lot of problems this transfer day! Lost luggage, and lost missionaries.

Elder Smith and I are both new to the city.  Luckily we had the car that we could just load everything into and drive home.  Before we could even get home, we had a dinner appointment and a lesson with an investigator at a member’s house.  That was pretty nice!

We unloaded all of our stuff and by that point it was 10PM, so we just parked the car by our apartment. We went out the next day and found a nice 60 euro parking ticket waiting for us! We paid for parking but it turns out that parking automatically shuts off at midnight and then starts back up at 7 AM.  Those crafty ticket people just wait until 7 and then go give away a bunch of tickets.  Dang them! You win this time parking people.

Our apartment is awesome! We literally live in the middle of an enormous outdoor shopping mall.  It is basically like we live at the Gateway, but not as ghetto.  More like City Creek and it is a great location! Just the parking is a pain in the neck.  We spent an hour this week at the city hall place trying to apply for a resident parking pass but we couldn’t since the church is a "business.” We are still trying to get that figured out.  Oh and the best part is, WE LIVE ABOVE A MCDONALD'S!!!

What more could I ask for?? I mean, it is a European McDonald's, so you have to take out a loan just to buy a Big Mac, but still.  McDonald's!

It has been pretty tough since we are both new.  We have tons of names of investigators and people to look up, but we don’t know who they are.  Right now it is just a big list of names and it will just take time to get situated.  For now I just feel like a lost child! Haha

The members here are great! They are all happy to have us here and they are all willing to help us.  The ward here is about 40-50 active people.  Quite the change from the Den Haag ward.

I am super excited to be here in Almere and there is a ton of potential here.  I am excited to work with Elder Christian Smith from Provo, Utah.  He is an awesome companion.

 Have a great week everyone!

                    -Elder Steenblik

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