First Split, Finally Really Doing Work!

Hey All!

I guess its really been another week.  Time flies out here in the mission field, even more so than in the MTC.  I am finally really getting settled, finally being able to take a breath and calm down and realize that if I take this a step at a time, I can do this.  I've had a ton of really cool experiences this week, so I guess I'll get started and see how many of them I can fit into an hour.

No information - but from date stamp of picture, this was taken minutes before it was sent,
so must be outside of wherever they go to send p-day e-mails.

The first thing I'll talk about this week actually includes many experiences that have happened since getting here.  These experiences have to do with the members whom I have met here.  It has amazed me so far the strength I can see from those who are active.  Especially here the in Netherlands, members of the church stick out from those around them.  I think more so here that back home because the world around them is such a different contrast.  One thing that I have been told, and that I have witnessed for myself, is that this country is very worldly.  Legally, it is the most wicked country on earth.  They were the first country to legalize abortion, drugs, prostitution, pornography, and many other things.  That is why it is so amazing to me that these members can be so strong.  It has proven to me in these 2 weeks of being here that light will always overcome darkness.  We are at members houses for dinner nearly every night now. (That answers that question, Mom.)  It is always a relief to walk into a members home and just feel at home, because as I have found, I feel at home when I am feeling the spirit, and it is in these members homes.  We had a cool experience on Sunday with it being Fast and Testimony Meeting.  Many of the members got up and bore their testimonies, but the ones that impressed me the most were those of the young men in the ward.  They were very genuine, precise, and powerful.  They were not basic either, one baring testimony of the temple and of baptisms for the dead.  The future of the church in strong with young men like these, they are truly some of the elect of God's children and they are only yet still just in their youth.

I know I am only beginning to love these people, but I am so glad for the love Heavenly Father has blessed me with as of now.  Now I don't want to leave the wrong impression.  I am finding love for all the people of this country. Even though many of the actions of people here are not so great, most of them here really truly are good people.  They are always willing to help you find your way if you are lost, or help you out in other kind ways.  They have many Christ-like attributes without even knowing it.  They seem like a perfect example to me of a people who would benefit from the truth, they just know not where to find it.  Because of their past, they don't trust of religion, and therefore also God.  There are these cases and also other sad cases such as those whom we talk to of Islamic faith.  There are many of these people who seem interested in our message, but sadly we cannot teach because after doing a quick background check we find that they are from the Middle East and that their families would not be happy if they found out they were learning from us - they might even kill them.  It makes me so sad to think that these people can see light, but will probably not live fully in it in this life.  I hope and pray that these people will have a chance in the next life to receive and accept this gospel and the blessings that come with it.  It's just really sad they can't receive it now.

Splits with Elder Rozandaal

I had the opportunity to go on my first transfer/split this week.  I went with Elder Rozandaal up to Utrecht (Click here for more information on Utrecht).  He is a native Nederlander, so it was way cool to be the only American around for an entire day.  The first thing we did was go to a service project for an elderly blind lady in the ward they are serving.  We had lunch with her, and talked with her for a little while and then started to get to work.  When she was telling us what she wanted us to do, I was wondering if I was understanding her right, I was thinking that she wanted us to cut down a tree in her front yard.  Turns out my Dutch is better than I thought it was because I was right; we ended up cutting down her tree.  She was very grateful, and sent us of with lots of treats, including my first European Fanta, so good! After this, we had a dinner appointment and just contacted the rest of the night.  Haha, yet again I have been told that I have a German accent, this time by Elder Rozandaal.  He ended up asking me if I knew who Arnold Schwarzenegger was. I said yes, so he said that I sound kinda like that with my deep voice, only speaking Dutch instead of English.  That is sweet!  It doesn't help me want to fix my accent now because that kind of accent is awesome.  The next morning we got up and had to skip most of studies to bike out to a teaching appointment.  Before we got there, Elder Rozandaal related to me that man we were going to teach wasn't from the Netherlands but was from Nepal or some country close to there and didn't speak Dutch, but did speak English so I was going to have to take the lead on the lesson.  I thought this was pretty cool, but later it was even cooler because he ended up being a man who I had contacted with a office elder my first day here!  He didn't remember me but I remembered him, and I was sure of it after he said he had talked to some Elders on a train and that's how he came in contact with us.  Anyways that was a blessing and I don't know all the reasons that we keep meeting up, but God is in the matter I know that.  When we contacted him on the train he seemed very open, and upon starting to teach him he seemed also to be so.  But as the lesson went on, I started to get the feeling that he was missing something.  We were asking questions, and he seemed to understand everything we were teaching, but only intellectually.  It eventually came out that he was also a missionary, but for another church.  He had once been Buddhist but was now Christian.  He didn't really want to hear our message, just liked to talk about God and Christ.  He ended up trying to give us some advice.  He told us that we should not be teaching here, but we should be teaching in a third world country.  He told us that the people here are too rich to 'need' God, and that humbler people would listen better.  He then told us that he has a friend that is in India that is a missionary for his church and that he can't get anyone to listen so he gets lots of people to listen to him by holding big meals and people come and he then puts on a movie in the background that shares their beliefs.  He told us that's what we should do.  I'm not going to lie, I was tempted to laugh.  Instead I took the opportunity to bear testimony to Him that we were here because we had been called by a Prophet of God, which was as good as being called by God himself, and that all people, whether they accept it or not, deserve to hear the truth and have an opportunity to accept it.  I also bore testimony that this is the one true church on the earth today, and that it is Christ's restored gospel on the earth today.  After I said this, we sat for awhile while he thought about what I had said.  For the only time during our meeting he looked like he was actually thinking and being touched by what we had said.  We had to go pretty soon after, but I hope that even if it is not soon that the spirit will work with him and eventually get him to the point where he understands that our message has personal significance for him, and for everyone on this earth.  I will probably never see what comes, but hopefully it will be fantastic.

Frites (the Dutch way with mayonnaise, not ketchup)

Stroop Waffel!  (This was something he was most looking forward to trying.)

Well, I have so many more experiences, but my hour is nearly up.  I love you all and have you all in my prayers.  This church and gospel are true, Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, amen.

Love,

Elder Hayden L. Lott

I'm Finally Here!

I am in the Netherlands, doing real work and going real places!  It is so amazing here! Even better than I imagined.  It is so pretty here, everything is so green and diverse, even though it is super small and everything is close to each other.  Our first day here we got picked up by President and Sister Robinson and the APs, had a quick time to get our luggage put away then were swept off to a quick orientation meeting.  Because there was so much to do in only a day until we would get our trainers and head out, we stayed in a hotel next to the airport which was pretty cool.

Elder Lott will serve in Ommoord with Elder Chantry as trainer.

The reason I say that this country is pretty small is that on that first day we ended up taking a train from the Amsterdam airport to Den Haag to sign some paperwork and other things and it only took like 20 minutes.  If you look on a map of the Netherlands they seem like they are a ways away.  Crazy stuff. I don't remember much else from that first day because at that point I had been up for like 3 days straight without sleep and was just about ready to pass out.  I remember the bed was super comfy.

Elder Lott meets Elder Chantry  Click here to see Elder Chantry's blog.

Click here for more pictures from the Mission President's wife. (For pictures of Elder Lott, go to the post: Transfers from the MTC, Monday, September 22, 2014)

The next day we woke up, had some more training, and then got our first call letters and trainers.  My first call is the the area called Ommoord.  It is kind of funny that it is called that because Ommoord actually has like 2 percent of our actual area, but oh well.  We are the Elders for Gouda ward.  Just for an easier reference point, we are just outside of Rotterdam.  It is very cool here, there are lots of classic dutch parts of our area and lots on new parts too.  Because we are right outside Rotterdam, we have an even more culturally diverse area than most of the Netherlands. The ward is mostly native Dutch, but there are some German, and Russian, and even Americans thrown in.  We have already contacted people from Suriname, Slovakia, Russia, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Brazil, Bulgaria, and countless others.  It is way sweet, and eye opening.  So I am actually in a trio, my trainer is Elder Chantry (he has been out nearly 2 years, this is his last transfer, he's from Washington state.) My other companion is Elder Johnson, he has been out about a year and is from South Jordan, Utah.  (Click here for Elder Johnson's blog.)  They are both really great and have been fantastic examples to me so far as how we can work hard and also have a ton of fun with it.  It has been really cool having all three of the major spectrums in one companionship. (2 years, 1 year, pretty much nothing).

Train Station

Funny Sign - Rough translation: Kids that jump will be sold to the circus

Sent no information with this one - somewhere in Rotterdam.

This week we have had a series of what my companions have been calling 'greeny miracles'. I think I'll only share one for now.  We were out contacting in the morning, the first morning since I got here, and we were walking around a lake a little ways from our apartment.  We decided to go back for lunch and ended up contacting this lady called P.  She is from Suriname, but has lived here for a while and was just walking home from a long time at work. As we began to give her a card that would direct her to go to mormon.org, we prepared to start just moving on but then she started asking questions.  She wanted us to tell her more about the church, because a friend of hers that was a member of our church had invited her to church fairly recently.  We were very excited and started to tell her some about our church, she ended up asking questions that where nearly perfectly aligned with the first discussion, we ended up walking and teaching her all the way across a huge park, and by then we had already taught her the first discussion.  At this point it was time to part ways so we gave her a Book of Mormon, and she gave us her info.  She said she would read and pray like we had asked her, she also asked if we could come teach her son, because he could use this message. This is a crazy miracle in many ways.  First of all, because what are the chances of running into her in a huge park along some random path, also because she was simply amazing, and apparently people that receptive don't come along very often, let alone in the Netherlands. It has still been too short of a time to see what all will come of this, but we are hoping that this will lead to great things!  To give everybody an idea of how rare this is for our mission, we have been asked to share our story in zone training next week, and we don't even know what all will come of it yet!  It is truly a miracle no matter the outcome though.

Geese/Swans:  We weren't feeding them.  They were just really territorial and came over to run us off...
it worked after they began hissing at us.

My First Bike. I bought for it for 175 euro, but by the way you can't pay here with cards, Mom, you have to
take money out from the ATM so I took out about 200 euro. Also, reason I say first is odds of getting it
stolen on my mission: fairly high.

What to do with only two bikes:  We only have two bikes right now because Elder Chantry has
been a ZL and had a car.....

Sent no information with this one - somewhere in Rotterdam.

Our Studying Desks:  Ha ha, this is the only room I can take a picture of because the rest of the rooms
in our apartment are too small to fit in the range of my camera (can't back up enough).

Sorry for how crazy this email has been, I can't really focus I'm just so excited and happy!

I love you all!

Good luck til next week!

-Elder Hayden L. Lott 

Finally in the Netherlands, First Area is Ommoord!

On Monday, September 15th,  Elder Lott left the Provo MTC and traveled through Detroit on to the Amsterdam airport.  We were waiting for a phone call Monday morning, when Michael (Dad) received a text from the first counselor in our bishopric, Randy Beyer.  We hadn't known that Brother Beyer was traveling that day, and he hadn't realized that Elder Lott was too.  Not only were they both traveling that day, but were even on the same plane to Detroit!  So we were blessed to have a picture from the airport, which was totally unexpected, and a tiny bit of Dutch weather in the morning, which had not been predicted.  The Lord knows how to calm an anxious mother's heart.

Surprised to find out the Brother Beyer was on the same plane to Detroit as our son!

We (Mom, Dad, Lilianne and Elliot) were able to speak to Elder Lott, and how very good it was to hear his voice.  His enthusiasm was off the charts.  He was finally on his way to Belgium-Netherlands Mission!  We spent the morning watching his flight move across the United States, towards Detroit Michigan.  While switching planes in Detroit, he was able to make a flurry of last phone calls, speaking to Garrison at Cross Country practice, and again to his Dad who had gone to work for the afternoon.  Elder Lott said the Sister missionaries were able to place a Book of Mormon with a stewardess from the Salt Lake to Detroit flight, who was impressed with this group of 11 young men and young women headed out into the world to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The little ones watched 'The Best Two Years' (again!) while we continued to watch his new flight head to Amsterdam.  They landed a few minutes early, arriving just before midnight our time.

It was good to see the plane arrive in Amsterdam after a long day of watching it progress across the world.

Since Monday, we have been on pins and needles, waiting to hear to hear more.  Today we finally received word and pictures from the Mission President's wife, Sister Robinson, that all the elders and sisters had arrived in safety, that the past two days were spent completing Visa and financial paperwork, conducting interviews and giving instruction. (Good thing they were prepared for a hectic schedule in the MTC!)  And in her words "Your missionary has arrived safely and is now out in the mission field living the life of a missionary. "  

With Brother and Sister Robinson at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam

  Showing Off New Companion and Area Assignment Letters

Elder Lott is assigned to the Ommoord (Gouda Ward), which looks to be a neighborhood in Rotterdam.  We have located his trainer's family on the internet, and are waiting to have permission to use his name before posting here, but it looks to be great fit.

Oh the joy a form letter and 2 pictures from the mission home have brought our family!
-Anastasia