I have had quite a
number of crazy stressful weekends in my life and this last one just added to
the stack. I don’t even know where to begin.
Saturday we had
our first performance ever in Dutch. But first off, we had a member in Alkmaar
translating the English script to Dutch and then Friday morning she
texted saying she felt a prompting to start the translating process all over
again. Soooo she started over and got the finished script to us Friday evening
with our performance the next day. We ran through it and it took about 4 hours
the first time through. But we practiced til late and Saturday all
day as well to be ready for that night.
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| Brother Lister's son with our Singing Missionaries |
Just to explain it a
little better, it is about 90 minute performance and I kid you not the piano is
played the whole entire time except for the song that I jump down and sing with
them. So from the moment the first note is played for 90 minutes I am jumping
back and forth between pages and changing keys, tempos and everything for all
12 songs we have and each of the stories.
So Saturday night
we performed after so many prayers that I had to be able to perform well and
give the Spirit to people who hadn't really felt it before. It was such a weird
combo of nerves and comfort I can’t really describe it. Then we just did it and
performed and everything worked out great. It was so hard to focus and
concentrate like that for 90 minutes. I
feel like I was taking the ACT again haha. It was incredibly spiritual though
and it sounds like almost everyone in the audience at one point was crying. (I can’t
see anything from the piano and can’t afford to cry because then I can’t read
and I ruin everything haha) Afterward we had all the missionaries with us from
the areas and we all stayed in the chapel to talk with the members and their
families and friends about what they had felt and we were able to receive quite
a few referrals. And that is our goal. To receive referrals and give the Spirit
to people and give members a way to do missionary work. Super cool. We have
heard stories of the stake president’s friend coming and crying the entire
time, investigators dropping a baptismal date then receiving a priesthood
blessing and picking it back up, and my personal favorite, our story of Zuster
Groen. We had 169
people come to our fireside Saturday and
for Holland that is unbelievable. Bishops and counselor to President Robinson
were speechless :) English we had about 167 too so it was incredible. Hopefully
word of mouth spreads too.
About a month ago we
had dinner with Zuster Groen and her nonmember family and she came to the
performance Saturday! It was awesome to see her again and after the
performance she was crying for days. She is completely inactive and hasn’t been
to church since she was 18 but a member. Zuster Jansen who works in the temple,
knew her, came over and testified to Zr Groen like a flamethrower hahah. Zr Groen lost her father a while back who was
actually a regional representative of the church and our portion about death in
our program hit her so hard as we taught the plan of salvation. Zr Jansen
killed it testifying and they both had a great rest of the night. We will have
dinner again with Zr Groen this Wednesday with her family which is
sick.
Sunday we did the
same performance but in English for the American ward and there were just as
many people there as the Dutch one! a lot of people came back to see it again
which was cool and so many people here speak English it was easy for them.
President and Zuster Robinson were there last night with all the missionaries
again and it went really well again. I was crazy nervous again because the
Dutch and English scripts were different in length so the pages with the music
next to it were all different and realigned so I had to flip pages while
playing and hit certain things at certain parts haha it is crazy stressful
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| Sunset in Leiden |
It was really
successful and President loved it with all the potential behind. We haven’t
heard a negative comment or anything from it. We had a primary girl sings child’s
prayer with us and her anti grandparents came just to see her sing and they had
a good time. Super cool.
Yesterday morning we
actually performed in Rotterdam too to start next month’s trip so that is already
kicking too.
It was a neat
experience and I am so glad that I was able to do it and strengthen my
testimony of the Lord's Hand in this work. Seriously I could not learn the
piano songs or transitions or anything without the Spirit. I took a second this
week to just imagine what life would be like without the Spirit. I literally
shuddered at the thought of not having my Constant Companion Always alongside
me. Always there to turn to in times of need and stress. I am so grateful for the
chance I have to give that to others too.
It was a good weekend
but to be honest I am just glad that it is over haha now we can focus on our
areas so we can work in Delft more and do actual missionary work again.
It was really neat to
run into Waldo this last week at a dinner appointment. Really crazy small world
haha he even knew that Uncle Jason had his finger cut off hahahaha
Well this next week won’t
be so boring because we won’t have to practice haha
Love you all thank you
for all your prayers they mean sooo much
Elder Trevan Scott
Reese
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