What I Learned From President

Hey all!

Been a crazy week again, but I am settling in to having a new companion, and I am starting to get my feet under me in taking over this area.  We've had a busy week of mostly finding new people to teach, and looking up former investigators.  One of the fruits that I've seen this week was that a less active we've been working with for about three weeks now came back to church on Sunday!  It was so good to see him there, and I know that it will help his progression back onto the straight and narrow. It was cool as I felt that this is at least part of what missionary work is; helping all whom we come in contact with come unto Christ.

It is still continuing to get darker and darker each day, at least in a physical sense, and so we have to work especially hard with the daylight we have to get our work in.  We have started to move our last hour of studies to the end of the day so that we don't have to be out working when no one would open their doors anyways because it is pitch dark.

The first experience I would like to tell this week has to do with Faith.  Because of the success we have seen with praying specifically for how many potential investigators we want to find each time we go out, we have been continuing to do so.  This last Wednesday before leaving the apartment for lunch, I felt impressed to pray for 3 new potential investigators, and after doing so, felt confident that we would find them and even felt impressed on where we would go to find them.  But, also out of laziness, we only took 2 Book of Mormons with us.  We had about 3 hours ahead, but after just the 40 minutes and on the same street even, we had given away 2 Book of Mormons, and gotten the OK from the people we gave them to to come back in a week.  I was mixed emotions at this point.  We had seen a lot of success which was to be expected because of our prayer, so I was happy.  But I also had a sinking feeling; I couldn't believe myself.  I had prayed for rain, received confirmation that it would come, and not prepared my field to receive it.  After 2 more hours, there came again mixed emotions  because we had not found anyone else whom was even the slightest bit inclined to listen to us.  I was puzzled because our prayer had not yet been answered, but also just figured it was our neglect to prepare that was holding us back.  I was proved wrong when on the last door we knocked we met a lady who was very interested in what we had to say, and had many of the right questions to ask that led perfectly in a talk about the Restoration.  We asked her if she would like a Book of Mormon and she said yes, so with kind of a guilty thought in the back of my head, we had to tell her we didn't have one with us.  We ended up setting up a time when we could come back with the Book and teach her and her husband more so it didn't ruin the situation, but it sure taught me that I need to prepare for what I pray for.  I think that this is the case a lot of the time in our lives.  We pray for things, and God is very willing to give them to us.  But in order to receive them there is an act of faith on our part.  We need to put in the work, and prepare ourselves for the answers we will receive from our prayers as long as we do our best to do so.

Gouda Square
I know again - but it's really cool

Another Alley in Gouda

The second experience from this week is that we got to work side by side with President Robinson this week!  What an amazing man.  We got a call on Friday morning during companion study from him, with him letting us know he'd like to work with us for the day.  So we set up a time and place to meet him in Gouda and that was it.  My first reaction was: Oh my heck, we're going to work with president, ahhhhhhh!  But my fears were soon calmed as I was reminded of a lesson that was impressed on me by my mom from about the day I was born until I got out of the car at the MTC, and that is if we are doing the things we should be, and are trying our best and doing our best to follow Christ, we have no need to be worried, ever, for anything.  I was so glad that I knew what I was doing that day, and that I had been trying to do my best as a missionary, so I had nothing to hide.  I only had room to gain from working with President, and oh, did I gain!  After meeting up with him, I was again easily put to ease because he is a very loving man and you can feel that and the spirit radiating from him when you are around him.  He bought us some Turkish pizzas for lunch, and some ollibollen for desert while we walked around Gouda's main square.  After this and some other things in Gouda, we went to look up a less active in Zevenhuizen.  I am so glad we had Presidents car for this because it would have been a long bike ride into the middle of some farm land, beautiful farmland yes, but still the middle of nowhere.  When we met this man it turned out he had no interest in coming back to church or listening to our message.  Nevertheless, it was amazing to see the outpouring of love from president as he talked to him about normal things instead for awhile, like the fact he was raising goats, reindeer, chickens, and had an onion farm.  At the end of our conversation, the less active was still not interested, but his countenance  had reasonably changed into that of friendly and warm towards us.  At this point, we only had an hour or so until we needed to get to a dinner appointment and President needed to go do some other things, so we decided to go and knock some doors.  It was amazing to see that as we went along, people who would normally have slammed the door in our faces, and actually even some who were in the process of doing so would take a pause, and actually stop and listen to what we had to say because they could see the outpouring of love and of the spirit that came from President in a humble, yet strong way.  There are so many things I learned from President that day, and many I am still trying to put to words, but I have learned even more so that a mission is a labor of love, and we should not be afraid to show that it is so as we proclaim the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ollibollen!
Me and Elder Lovin enjoying Ollibollen

Also I guess a third thing, in response to some questions from my mom, we only go to the store once a week for most of our grocery needs.  But we do take the opportunity to stop and grab things during to week to keep us happy :) some things include ollibollen (pretty much a ball of dough deep fried, sometimes with apples or other fruit inside; there are stands everywhere here in the Netherlands in the Fall), Frites (Belgian fries that have batter on them and are cooked twice), doners (they are like Turkish/Arab shredded meat and vegetable sandwiches on flat bread and are to die for) capsallons (like a doner but in a foil tray, intead of flatbread they put frites on the bottom layer and put everything that would be in a doner on top)  Belgian Waffles (they have little balls of sugar inside and are made from dough not a batter), and of course stropewaffles! :)  I also love some of the deserts here, incuding vlah (it's like a pudding but not quite thick; it's thinner and creamer and a little less sweet).  For breakfast a lot of the time, I eat grijsmeel pop which is like a sweet oat meal thing but just a little different and I can't quite explain it -  anyways that is very Dutch.  Me and Elder Lovin also discoverd this week that if you get rijs pop, (rice pop, pretty much the same thing as grijsmeel pop) and put in cinnamon and vanilla extract that it is a super good desert!  Yogurt, cheese, and chochalate here are simply amazing, and are better than I have ever had.  My favorite thing a member has fed us would be a couple of weeks ago we got a super good Indonesian stir-fry!  It was sooo good; I still don't know what the meat was but I don't care because it was just that good. 

I love you all and am keeping you in my prayers.

Love,

Elder Hayden L. Lott

Darkness and Diligence

Hey all!

This week has been pretty much all that I have expected.  I dropped off Elder Chantry at Rotterdam Central Train station and picked up my new companion Elder Lovin (Salt Lake City, Highland High School) and we were off.  

Rotterdam Central Train Station

Finally!  Ran into Elder Knudsen from my home stake!

Daylight 'savings' was on Sunday, and this week has been really dark.  The sun isn't really completely up yet until almost 9 am and is completely down by 6 pm at night.  For those first couple days, I'll be honest - it was a little depressing with all the change going on and the sun never being out.  It is hard to work when the sun isn't out.  But no worries, as soon as I realized what was the cause I've been able to whip it and get right back on path!  I have to laugh though, Dutch people are funny. In general, they are already a little less likely to even talk about religion than most.  But now that the sun is going down, they use that as even another excuse to turn us away.  Haha, it's just kind of funny. 

Park in Gouda

View Across a Dyke in Woerden at Night
Doesn't quite give it justice, especially since there was a windmill lit up by
lights in the background that you can't see in this one.

Rope Tower in park in Capelle

Me and Elder Lovin on top of the Rope Tower
We just had to - it was so random and cool!

Anyways, going into this transfer I had the feeling that what I would need to focus on studying and applying would be diligence.  Elder Lovin and I have been super diligent thus far in working hard to get some people we can teach, because as of when I picked him up we had one person we were teaching and one less active we are working with.  We decided to put all our efforts in going through the area book and potentials list, and in trying to find some new potentials on our own.  Every time before we walked out the door this week, we prayed that the Lord would bless us, that we would be able to be successful in finding people whom we could teach, even sometimes praying specifically for the blessing we wanted. One such case was Saturday. As we walked out the door, Elder Lovin prayed that in the next 3 hours we could find 2 people whom we could teach.  The Lord answered our prayer, as we found 2 within the first hour of our look ups and door knocking.  (We actually worried that our prayer had been answered too fast and that in the next 2 hours we would find no success, but the Lord really rained His blessings down as we found 3 more!)  The Lord not only blessed us in this situation, but for our diligence in all our work this week.  We went from having no appointments for next week to now having 5, as well as 4-5 others who said to come back in a couple days. We also were able to place 3 Book of Mormons!  It is my testimony that the Lord will bless all of us for our diligence.

Click here for LDS links on Diligence

Along with this is finally really starting to see the fruits of my labors in the language. Since I have gotten here, I have gone from not understanding nearly anything, to actually being comfortable listening to an entire Priesthood lesson, Sunday School lesson, and Fast and Testimony meeting this Sunday, and learning from it!  I am also seeing progress in speaking the language, as I was able to give my testimony of the Book of Mormon without having to translate any of it in my head for the first time!  Part of this progress I believe is not being able to fall back on Elder Chantry as much, but I know this and all the blessings like it are from the Lord. The gift of tongues, and interpretation of tongues are true and are given as I seek them diligently.

Click here for more information on the Articles of Faith

This is the way nearly all gifts, revelation, testimonies, and other things are gained.  Our Heavenly Father wants to give us all that he can, but he does know what is best for us. Thus, we must first put our work in, both to prove our faith and to give him something to work with.  Then he can give us the blessings we want because we have learned from Him, and trusted Him to do so.  The Lord will make us equal to all of our challenges if we are diligent and obedient.

This work is true, it is the Lords work.

Love you all!

-Elder Hayden L. Lott

PS shout out to my little sister, it's her birthday this week, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Parting Ways

Hey all!

As most of you probably know, this week my trainer Elder Chantry is going home (sad day) and I am taking over our area in Ommoord (Rotterdam/Gouda).  He has been a fantastic trainer, everything that I could have hoped for and more.  He has taught me so many things both about our mission, and life in general.  

Gouda Missionaries at the Bishop's House
Sister Whittington, Sister Schwab, Elder Lott and Elder Chantry
(What's up the the duck lips, Elders?!)

I found out that my new companion will be Elder Luvins (I think that is how you spell it).  Which is way cool because even though I am new, I've actually already met him.  We talked for like an hour on a tram coming back from temple conference, so that's way cool.  I'm pretty sure from what I can remember is that he is fairly new out here too, he's definatly been out less than a year anyways.  So even though it's sad I'm losing my trainer, I'm super excited to get to work with Elder Luvins.  I feel confident in my ability not only to take over this area but to thrive and make it fruitful with the help of the Lord.

There are two things I'd like to share this week.  The first comes mostly from what I have been personally studying this week, and that is Charity.  As I have been studying, I have come to learn that Charity is so much more than just service for our fellow man and those in need.  Charity includes that yes, but Charity is actually the pure love of Christ.  Not only that, it is a gift.  Because Christ knows everyone perfectly, he can love everyone perfectly.  We may ask in prayer for this pure love of Christ, so that we may be filled with love for all those around us and especially those whom we serve.  I have really seen the blessings of this flowing this week, as I have felt a deeper desire to help and love those whom I have served and come in contact with this week.  I love the words which the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.  The entire chapter is over charity.  It has helped me to know a little about why loving God and others are our greatest commandments.  It is because if we truly love God, we will want to be like him.  We will want to follow His example, and we will want to help others do the same if we truly love them and want the best for them.  Therefore, if we follow a perfect example, all the other commandments will fall into place and are really just a road-map and checkpoints to becoming more like God.  My thoughts seem really scattered on this, but I will sum up and say that it is my testimony that true strength and progression comes from submitting our will that has been given to us (free agency) by a higher being (God).  Instead of doing what we will with our choice, we give up our will to that same higher being, in faith that it will be for our good perfection and exaltation.

The second thing I'd like to write about is an experience I've had this week and a few things I've learned from it.  So our bike problems continued this week.  On Thursday morning we went out of our apartment to look up some people before lunch, only to find that our bikes had been messed with.  From what we can tell, someone had tried to steal them but were unable because we had chained them to the bike parking thing.  We assume that when they could not steal them they became angry and started heaving on them in frustration because the way we found them they were leaning over sideways with the front tire still in the tire slot. The front of my bike was completely mangled, and Elder Chantry's tire was as well.  

Broken Bike

Before I say anything else, I'd like to say that everything turned out ok, and I actually knew it would from the minute I saw what had happened.  It's funny how many experiences I've had that seem so insignificant out here on my mission that would have been huge back home. Eternal perceptive is real.  We were able to steal a tire from another bike left by other missionaries to fix Elder Chantry's bike.  That bike is going to another missionary who needs one because he is going from being a zone leader to a trainer. (He had a car as a zone leader.) As for me, my bike is fixable but we found out it would cost nearly as much to fix it as to get a new one, so I had decided to just get another.  But it turns out I don't have to because a dying missionary is giving me hers (thanks Sister Schwab!)  [parent note for our non-member friends: a dying missionary is the term used for missionaries that are on their last transfer before going home.  A dying missionary's companion will sometimes say that "I am killing my companion", meaning that their companion is going home at transfer.]  So the Lord takes care of us even in our trials.  From this story I would like to testify that the Lord does not give us trials. He may allow them to happen, but he will never allow more than we can bare.  Trials are opportunities for us to more quickly learn the things that we need to become more like Him, if we are humble enough to allow it.  Along with that, God will do the most and allow and help us to be the most successful we can be in our situations, if we look for how he is leading us. God did not give us the trial of our bikes being broken, but he gave us some blessings to counter act it.  We have been working super hard lately at finding positive people to teach.  And in the last couple days we have talked to some positive people on the street as we have been getting from place to place that we would normally not have talked to had we been on our bikes.  It is still to soon to see if any of these people will turn out or not, but it has been a blessing enough to have talked to some people who are positive, and not all just those who will harshly slam a door in your face, or wave you off without at least hearing you out.

This has been such a powerful week as for the strength of my testimony.  As a last thought, I would like testify to the power of the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon in the power they have to bring light into our lives.

I love all of you and pray for you every chance I get.

Love,

-Elder Hayden L. Lott

ps mom I took out 90 euro from my account.  Also I will be sending home a Christmas package, any requests for yourself or others? I have some ideas as for maybe as for chocolate and maybe gifts for siblings and others but I'd also like some ideas.