There Is No Place Like Home - May 18, 2014

They say life is like a box of chocolates.

I don't know who 'they' are but that phrase really doesn't make sense to me.

Music in the bushes = Artistic Flare, hmm.  Spiders!?

HELLO YE

Another week come and gone. This Irish flare is brought to ye in honor of my favorite member of whom I visited last night in the beloved city of Antwerpen. Yes, I saw the Schiltz' again.

This last week we performed our fireside 3 full times for the zone conferences in Antwerpen, Rotterdam, and Zoetermeer. It was pretty stressful having to play the piano for an hour and half straight and perfectly 3 days in a row but I was definitely aided though it this last week.

Delft - I think

Zone Conference

We had an incredible zone conference (x3) in which we learned that coming this summer our mission will be receiving iPads! The buzz is up around the mission about it and I am excited with all the training we received but I will be honest, it doesn't faze me that much that we are getting them. It will make emailing and maps much nicer but I am afraid that it will become a master and not a servant. Hopefully not though and it is definitely inspired so things will all work well.

Dress up on P-day

We were able to give Jones a blessing this last week because he was sick but his baptism is being postponed for a while because his church attendance is lacking. IT is pretty frustrating because we aren't at church either because of the project and so it is so difficult to get everything managed through phones and members and then we aren't even there to support it. We are praying hard to know what to do for him and so we should see some progress as we are led.

We met with Pepijn again (I think I told you about him) and he really enjoyed the plan of salvation! We will teach him again this week and he is really solid in learning and is genuinely curious. Also we met with the De Bruijns again and will set up their program tomorrow to help them stop smoking.

More of Delft - I think

I really can't describe my experiences back in Antwerpen this week. I love that city with all of my heart and it doesn't seem to want to give me my heart back. I loved being able to talk with the members more freely in Dutch now and to see them all again. They are all excited about the project too which is cool to see that support from those that I love. We also taught an investigator from the zusters and she is a self-referral with 2 kids and a husband who all listened to our message. We watched the Because of Him video and sang for her and she was in tears as we shared the Spirit with her. She is sooo cool and the part I found cool was that she lives on a street that Elder Shelton and I have knocked before. She was one of those homes where either no one was home or at the time or the interest wasn't there. But Heavenly Father prepares people in His own due time and now she is a solid progressor that is willing to get to our fireside even if it has to be in a wheelchair (she has a hip problem).

It is very refreshing to be back in Delft. It has been a week since we have been home and a week too long haha

I hope you all have a killer week

Elder Trevan Scott Reese

O Het Is Wonderbaar, Wonderbaar Voor Mij

O Het Is Wonderbaar, Wonderbaar Voor Mij

Scathing Holland: Week 15

Holland Orange

What a week we had this week. Sooo full of miracles and amazing experiences. Tuesday we were on exchanges with the zone leaders and we both blitzed Delft which was awesome because it doubled our force there so we could get twice as much done. We visited Bart with a member and were able to teach him about the plan of salvation through the Book of Mormon to solidify his testimony of its truth. We had a great lesson and he pointed out how he really enjoyed the personal experiences and attachments we had to what we were teaching and the feelings it brought to him. We had Theo, the member, invite him to come to church and he came yesterday! Of course we weren't there....because we are inactive in Den Haag but our ward mission leader Bro. Scherf took great care of him and Theo was there too.

Lunch at Ikea

Also Vilma, the Colombian inactive that we played therapist with last week, has come to back to church twice now and both times with a friend who isn't a member! She is doing great and asks the teacher what she can read to prepare for the lesson next week. She told us that she wants us to teach her two friends from Spain and Ecuador who both have a little interest. Suuuuper cool.

Wednesday consisted of:

-contacting on the street and finding a former investigator from the Den Haag Zusters who lost her when she moved and then talking for an hour on the street and getting her new info.

-rain and wind

-knocking on doors and finding a Dutch man studying to be a boat navigator who let us in and we taught the restoration and committed him to baptism when he comes to know the truth

-sunshine

-visiting Vilma and hearing about her church experiences and friends

-rain and wind

-eating dinner with an inactive member whose husband wants to quit smoking and be baptized

-sunshine

-teaching jones about the temple with the 2nd counselor in the bishopric who is the coolest guy ever

-wind (but no rain!)

#streetlyfe

We also had our 4th performance for our project this week and we were in Haarlem with a record breaking 221 people in attendance (WHAT) #newrecord

Also Haarlem is where the Best 2 years was filmed so shout out to that movie set life as a European missionary. Train station is gorgeous too.

Knocking on doors

But I must say one of if not the best part of the week was yesterday morning, attending church in Antwerpen for the project and seeing everyone from my first area again! It was such an awesome welcome and everyone thought I was back to stay haha but it’s just for the project. IT was soooo amazing and one of the most emotional experiences I have had here. It was also a lot of fun to talk to everyone in Dutch hahaha because I could say nothing as a greenie. We will visit the members this week and I can’t wait.

We have to perform 3 times this week for zone conferences which will be......exhausting.

Things are not only rollin' here but they are T-R-U-C-K, they keep on truckin' all the way.

Shout out to American football with that one.

Have a great week!

Love

Elder Trevan Scott Reese

May 2, 2015

Good Morning, America. I am Elder Reese.

A full time mission is more than adequate preparation for one headed into a psychology or therapeutical major. Including experiences such as:

-aiding a member from Aruba whose daughter is a maniac and destroys the house by throwing glass bottles and cutting her father’s foot open

-entering an appointment with a Colombian woman who is bawling on the phone since her father had just passed away, and consoling her for 2 hours until her daughter arrives, in the meanwhile being eaten alive by a chihuahua

-teaching an inactive man who looked like the purple people eater on a bench outside in the rain about how a branch will not be returning to Delft soon because almost everyone here is inactive.

On the flip side our investigators are doing well and we have appointments with a bunch of them today. The goal is to get Jones to church every week and build his testimony on that so that he remains active. The ward is fantastic and his activity in church will play a huge role in his progression.

The project.

When they said we would be touring the mission they weren't kidding.

List of visited destinations week of April 27, 2015:

-Delft

-Den Haag

-Leiden

-Almere

-Amsterdam

-Hoorn

-Alkmaar

-Enkhuizen

-Lelystad

Holy buckets we were in the car for so long this last week. We visited the units in Alkmaar and Almere this last week whom are located on opposite sides of the IJsselmeer dijk so we had to drive 30 or so kilometers in between them every night over the Dutch North Sea.

One of my favorite parts this week was in Amsterdam. Thursday we met with the Amsterdam missionaries at the train station where the public piano was and the 4 of us performed songs from our program like Bring Him Home from Les Mis and the Come Thou Fount and the First Vision in Dutch. An estimated 50 people came around and listened and we were able to give them information about the church and our project! There was even a woman crying during the first vision song and we learned she was from Russia and the message really touched her. The Amsterdam Zusters are working with her too.

I got to work with Elder Morrell this last week and will this week too. Always makes it a good time hahaha visiting these units makes me hope that I can serve in some of them and some of them make me hope that I...don’t go there haha

We had some awesome experiences and the members in Almere and Alkmaar are so fun!

Also, in 5 flipping days i will be going to the place that i call home. SUNDAY WE WILL BE IN ANTWERPEN. I have to contain myself right now though because once i start calling members to visit them again i will probably cry haha

Have an awesome week!!

 

Elder Trevan Scott Reese