DROP IN THE OCEAN - DECEMBER 22, 2014

This week I learned firsthand what it is like to truly lose yourself in the work. And it is a feeling that I want every day for as long as I am here.

This last week was one of a lot of learning which was fantastic. Zone Training was great and we found a handful of potentials that day. Wednesday was a big day and I was here in Antwerpen with Elder Bernier on exchanges. Elder Bernier and I are two dang peas in a pod and so it was super fun. We contacted the first person in the centrum and she was a business woman from London who was leaving in a few hours to fly home. She had heard of the Book of Mormon play and we gave her the real thing and she said she would read on the way home. We ate lunch with a member at a restaurant and the owner was a former Jew who asked who we were when he saw our tags. HE asked if we were Catholic or Protestant or whatever and we told him we were Mormon and he just yelled oh yeah like Romney haha. Anyway, we talked to him about our religion and gave him a Book of Mormon. We will go back there to eat too and see him until he has time to meet in February. It was awesome.

We did a lot of great finding and had a lesson with our recently baptized and his mom who is investigating. We had a fantastic lesson with two young guys David and Joshua who each have their Book of Mormon and will come to church this Sunday. They each prayed at the end of the lesson and every single question they had during our lesson, Elder Bernier and I were able to answer it using the Book of Mormon. It was so awesome and the Spirit was so strong.

The rest of the week was great as well. We had an inactive named Wouter come to church yesterday for the first time in 5 years. We had been working with him for a while and were finally able to get him to church and it was a special Christmas sacrament meeting with music and he is very musical himself. He absolutely loved it and it was a total miracle to have him there. We ended up visiting him yesterday afternoon and caroling a little to him and his wife on the phone.

My testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon in teaching has exploded this past week. I have known it was true for a long time, but seeing Elder Bernier be able to answer every single question David and Joshua had through it really taught me a lot. They are real eager to read it now seeing how it answers life questions.

That day with Elder Bernier was one of the best days I have had out here. Him and I have a very similar work ethic and I loved being able to work like that for the whole day. He will never truly know how much he did for me this last Wednesday.

I was reading Elder Holland's talk this last week and I still love so much his quote that came from Mother Teresa:

"What we do is nothing but a drop in the ocean, but if we didn't do it, the ocean would be one less drop than it is."

That is so true in everything that we do. Sometimes it’s hard to want to do something when there is hardly any positive outcome. But simply doing it in the first place brings out something useful in that you are doing the Lord's work when you obey.

Mailed at beginning of November and he received his packages this past Tuesday!

Christmas should be great here. We have a lot of members set up to see and investigators to stop by. It’s a little hard because a lot of people are stubborn around Christmas because they don’t what to talk to strangers but we are trying our best. We contacted an old couple on the bus this last week and talked about their kid and grandkids for a half hour in Dutch.

Last story, we were walking home and we passed a woman from Southeast Asia and her little boy and little girl. I felt impressed to talk to her so I turned around and gave her a card after I contacted her. When I stopped her little girl stopped jumping around and talking in Dutch and looked into my eyes with those big brown eyes and it MELTED me. It was like I was seeing Jaida again for the first time and I basically died on the street haha then I started talking to the kids in dutch and it was super cool. It was just a normal contact and the woman wasn’t too interested but the experience was huge for me. I felt the love that Christ and Heavenly Father has for each and every one of us. That same love that I need to have to bring them to Christ. I loved it. I pray for them and I don’t even know them. But there is something special there. I know it.

Have a fantastic Christmas!

Love,

Elder Trevan Scott Reese