Rotating Door

Goede Dag Iedereen!

[Good Day Everyone!]

Well this week has been a really fantastic week.  We spent quite a bit of it traveling (again :p) but the rest was really quite great.  Traveling this week was dedicated to getting me my Belgian Drivers license, so that was pretty fun.  I always love that chance to go back down to Belgium.  The reason this week was so great was because we were able for the rest of the time to hit it hard, really focusing on doing the work and in the way the Lord wanted us to do it.  Glad we were able to do that because one of us is on our way out.  That would be Elder Higham, he is being transfered up to Heerenveen in the Netherlands.  I will be getting ANOTHER greeny!  So I will find out on Wednesday who I am training. That is super exciting.  Training is a lot of fun, and I've been doing it the last 4 transfers (3 finishing up, and one greeny of my own) so why not keep going!  It's fun working around young missionaries, most of them have fire and it just needs to be directed and refined.  It helps me grow a ton as well, forcing me to be thinking about what I can do to be the best example for the young missionary I can be. It forces me to progress or give up.   Also my ability to see things more for what they are, being able to discern between good and bad.   Haha, it's also taught me quite a bit of patience.  I'm ready and excited to teach and learn from another new missionary.

I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Doei!

[Bye]

Love,

-Elder Hayden L. Lott

Question of the Week:  We see quite a few pictures of water in Breda.  Is it just from the canals, or are there polders that far inland?

Answer: The water you see is canals, it is super pretty, but really only around the centrum.

Breda Harbour in Old Town Breda
image from Google

Park Valkenberg in Breda
image from Google

Boats on Canal in Breda
image from Google

Breda Canal
image from Google

Breda at Night
image from Google

Kasteel van Breda
image from Google

Blokhuis, part of Kasteel van Breda
image from Google

Spanjaardsgat (Spanish Water Gate)
image from Google

Castle Bouvigne
image from Google

Crazier Than Normal

Hey guys!

So this week was fun, crazier than normal.  The first half of the week was normal.  Had some really nice appointments with investigators and all.  It was also Hands to Serve Week across the mission so we had a service project nearly every day.  Then craziness happened. President Bunnell called for an emergency transfer.  So we are now in Breda.  So we spent a couple days transferring and figuring all that out.  

Harbor of Breda
image from wikipedia

Hands to Serve Week
picture from Zuster Emilee Bush blog
Elder Lott is on the end left in blue t-shirt

I also had my first chance to do a baptismal interview this last week.  That was super cool, super spiritual.  

Anyways, that was our week. I've got to go, love you guys!

Love,

-Elder Hayden L. Lott

Lord's Reminders

Hey Everybody!

So this week has been another stressful, but rewarding one.  We had to travel a lot this week to get Elder Higham legal, going anywhere from Den Haag and Leiden to Brussels to get his residency cards.  We also blitzed (went out contacting and looking for new investigators with a lot of missionaries) Tilburg as a district after district meeting to help get the elders and sisters there some more to work with.  Fun stuff. With all that and traveling all over for dinner appointments we didn't get in nearly as much work as we wanted to in our own area, but we'll fix that this next week.  We also had an investigator drop us this last week, Lxxx.  It was super sad to because it ended all happening in French between Elder Higham and him so I had no clue what was going on... well I kind of knew but I couldn't really help, so he had to deal with his first dropped investigator alone for a little while.  Sad day.  He bounced back though and is doing just fine. We had another appointment with the lady we found in Bergen op Zoom, Axxx.  She is so golden!  We ended up not even being able to give our planned lesson because she has already read so far in the Book of Mormon and had so many questions that we just answered those. She can't meet this next week because she is going on a 'worldly fast' where she doesn't talk to anybody, doesn't look at media, or read or watch anything worldly.  But she said that during her fast she would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. I know she is going to get an answer.  She also asked us to pray for her husband, that he would be open to hearing about spiritual things, even being open to listening to us.  Seriously, so golden.  Jxxx is doing good as well.  She has stopped smoking and is receiving professional help now to stop.  We shared a message with her this week about the story of Moses, when he went up to the high mount and was taught by the Lord.  He first saw the Lord and was taught about his true identity, then Satan came and told him to worship him.  Moses was able to gain strength from his knowledge that he was a Son of God to overcome temptation.  Hopefully she can gain strength from knowing she is a Daughter of God, having received that witness from the spirit, to overcome temptation.  I think that is a lesson we can all learn and apply actually.  (Moses 1, Pearl of Great Price).

We're headed to go bowling today as a district.  That will be fun.  

I love you guys!

-Elder Hayden L. Lott 

Question of the Week:  We've heard of some unique Dutch idioms such as: 

Be caught in dog’s weather or hondenweer.  You wouldn’t send your dog out in it. 

See a monkey appear from a sleeve. Daar komt de aap uit de mouw. means Aha! Now we know what’s really at the bottom of this. 

Be as healthy as a fish, or zo gezond al seen vis.  

You can also have butter with the fish – boter bij de vis – which means you pay for goods and services straight away.  

Have you heard of these or any others?

Answer:  To answer the question of the week this week is that I don't really know any Dutch sayings, or maybe they just aren't coming to mind.  Maybe I'll add that to my language study.  Quick thought on that. I feel like I was reminded a lot by the Lord this week that I need to serve under His power and will and not my own.  I've been putting off language in place of studying and planning for other things and I paid for it.  My ability to speak Dutch definitely took a hit, like more than is normal for not studying well for just one week.  The gift of tongues is real, and is very much a gift that we need to work for though.  Also, I ignored a few other promptings and paid the price for that as well.  So dumb of me, always follow promptings!  There is always room to apply the atonement though.

Always Follow Promptings of the Spirit
President Thomas S. Monson
General Conference 1985

Lord's Hand

Hey Everybody!

So to say the least the days are getting faster, the weeks are going by quicker, and transfers are like the blink of an eye at this point.  Can we just have it all slow down a little bit?  I guess that won't happen when you have new adventure just about every day.   Really though, crazy.  I don't have very much time but I think I will share one experience that was really powerful this week.  It has to go along with following spiritual promptings and the fact that the Lord prepares people for his servants.  During this week I was on exchanges with the Vlissingen Elders, and I had brought Elder Crowsen to Roosendaal to work with me, leaving Elder Bruneau (2nd transfer) and Higham (my greeny) to work in Vlissingen.  Needless to say they had their own adventures but we won't talk about those here. For the day we had planned to look up some potential investigators in Roosendaal, but when we went to head out that didn't feel good, so I decided to just do a little bit of door to door finding, again not good.  So we got on a train and went to a city called Bergen op Zoom.  After bouncing around a couple neighborhoods and just not feeling quite at ease we got to a neighborhood I felt good about, like really good.  But every door we knocked the people were not only not positive or blunt, they went out of their way to be rude.  Oh well, but we came to a door and a lady answered and we started to talk to her, but before we got too far it came out she believed in old lost scripture so she was super interested in the Book of Mormon.  She invited us in and we had a super powerful lesson on the restoration.  Turns out she has been praying to find a new path because she is unhappy with some of the things her church is teaching. She doesn't believe they are things that Christ would have taught when he was on the earth. When I pointed out that it wasn't a coincidence that we had come she said that she agreed and as we were getting ready to go, she accepted an invitation to be baptized by someone holding proper authority if she came to know that these things were true.  So amazing.  Honestly the most prepared native Dutch woman I have talked to so far on my mission.  Haha and the only foreseeable problem is that she doesn't have a car to get to church, but that can be solved via members hopefully.

Really cool.  Otherwise the work is going really great.  I'm loving training Elder Higham still. He is such a good missionary, he is just a little rough on himself always wanting to be his best.  Which is a good thing to want, but you should cut yourself some slack.

The rest of the District is doing well too.  There is only a little drama but that should be resolved soon enough.  Just a matter of trust and communication. 

I love you all so much!

-Elder Hayden L. Lott

Question of the Week: Now that you are back in the Netherlands, are you able to get fresh stroopwafel again, or are they a seasonal thing?

Answer:  Yeah we can get warm stroopwafels again.  They are year round.  Also, I'm super excited for it to be fall again because that means the special dutch treat of... oliebollen!  So good.  Also seasonal vla's are super good.   And Old Amsterdam cheese.  Good things.

Post Rain Selfie

After District Leader Council

Bergen op Zoom

Pond Fort

Open The Door!

Greenys Can't Be Too Safe on the Train