Hilda is Baptized in Leuven, Belgium

Hilda Schoolmeester, 25 February, 2012

Leuven

Elder Pope, Brother Mesotten, Hilda Schoolmeester and Elder Shoemaker

Hilda's first contact with the missionaries happened on the door.  I actually wasn't there quite yet, but the note in the potential investigators section tells how it went fairly well: "Talked about families, said we could come back!"  Between that and the appointment, I got transferred in, so the rest of the story is first hand.

In our first appointment with her, she was fairly quiet.  She mostly just listened to what we had to say.  When we extended the invitation "If you know that the Church is Christ's restored church by February 26th, will you be baptized?" she did respond, "yes" but it wasn't very enthusiastic.  We also invited her to come to church, and although she had problems come up with a friend that kept her up the entire night before, she still showed up for sacrament meeting.  

Much of the second lesson went similarly to the first, but as we got to the end and invited her to read in 3 Nephi 11, Brother Mesotten re-emphasized the importance of reading and praying, and (in much better Flemish than ours) committed her to read 15 minutes every day and then to pray about it.

When we came back, we found out that she did.  She had been reading

Godwin Is Welcomed To THe Hengelo Ward

Godwin Obasuyi, 25 February, 2012

Hengelo

Goodwin Obasuyi and Elder McKee

Godwin is a man of great faith. He comes from Nigeria and has lived here in the Netherlands for around 15 years. He met the missionaries at his sister’s house while she was meeting with them. Upon hearing the message of the restoration, he was filled with curiosity. Through being taught by the missionaries, he came to know the truthfulness of their message and decided to be "reborn" (baptized). Godwin was baptized in Apledoorn, the Netherlands, and confirmed a member the next day. Godwin is a great new addition to the Hengelo ward and has been welcomed with loving hands. Written by Elder McKee

Big Smiles In the Ampen Family in Dordrecht

Hans Ampen and Mathilda Amofa 25 February, 2012

Dordrecht

Sister Schwab, Hans Ampen, Mathilda Amofa, Sister Rich and daughters of Hans and Mathilda

Han’s and Matilda's smiles have only gotten bigger since Sister Rich and Sister Wassenaar first met them on the street in Dordrecht 5 months ago. After making their first appointment with Familie Ampen, the sisters realized they would have to cancel because it was scheduled for the same time as the first session of the October General Conference...so they just invited them to conference instead! Their family made every effort to be there, and enjoyed the conference. Hans was converted to the gospel from the very beginning, and was determined to obey every word of God. Matilda loved every appointment with the sisters. They have attended church faithfully every week for the last few months, and really add something special to the Dordrecht Ward. They have also touched many people with their faith and desire to share the gospel with others. Both Hans and Matilda were raised believing in God, but when he talks about the church and the Book of Mormon, Hans just keeps saying, "I didn't know. I didn't know." Well, now he knows, and his family is experiencing the blessings that come from knowing and doing. The Monday morning after their baptism, Hans called the sisters (Sister Rich and Sister Schwab): "I just called to thank you people. You gave me my life back." We sure love seeing them so happy!    

Love, Sister Rich and Sister Schwab

Apeldoorn Zone President's Training

Our last Zone President's Training was held in the north eastern part of our mission. All missionaries in the zone gathered in Zwolle. This is a beautiful part of the Netherlands.

President Brubaker and I had an inspiring day with the missionaries that are serving in this part of the Netherlands. We invited every missionary to start reading the Book of Mormon together. We will start on Monday, the 27th of February, reading 5 pages a day. We asked the missionaries to highlight the various names of Jesus Christ and Christ-like attributes as they read.

Elder Wang and Elder Burton are in Groningen

Elder Pitchforth and ElderKunz are serving in Groningen as well!

Elder Schwartz and Elder Schulte are new in the Apeldoorn zone.

Elder Moscon and Elder Hendrickson look happy to be role-playing

( or noticed I was photographing them!)

Elder Hendrickson and Elder Sanchez are role-playing the importance of the Book of Mormon

President Brubaker discusses the teaching model after their first role-play.

1. demonstrate

2. Practice

3. evaluate

4. practice

5. evaluate
Elder McDaniel now has his turn to be the missionary and Elder Wait is the investigator.
Elder Pitchforth takes his turn to be the missionary and teaches his companion (investigator)
Elder Pelaquim and Elder Mathis enjoy the challenge of thinking how the investigator would feel and respond.

Elder McKee sees how the Book of Mormon can bring the spirit when you teach from the Book of Mormon.

The Apeldoorn Zone is blessed with two senior couples, Elder and Sister Van Komen and Elder and Sister Bush. They provided a fabulously healthy and delicious lunch for us all! Elder and Sister Pankratz have followed us to every training bringing the supplies for the missionaries and checking missionary vehicles.

Zone President's Training-Rotterdam

On Thursday we spent the day with the Rotterdam Zone.
With the Spirit beside us we can become dramatically better teachers.

President Brubaker talked to the missionaries about the very critical importance of 9:00 planning. Each day has a certain number of appointments and a certain number of hours contacting, of meals, of lessons and well, of a lot of things.

We are about to make a cultural migration in our mission. The scriptures are replete with examples of migrations such as Abraham, Nehemiah and Moses. One great example is found in the first chapters of the Book of Mormon, which speak about the great migration of Lehi and his family to the new world. The Lord knew that to preserve Lehi’s life, his family needed to make a change. It wasn’t always smooth sailing (so to speak) for them, but they founded an important culture in the Americas. This culture yielded up a most convincing record of God’s dealings with His prophets and a powerful witness of Jesus Christ and his mission.

Over the next few weeks, we too will be leaving a beloved place behind. We will be moving to a way to increase our finding, teaching and baptizing; we will move from ‘consecrated hours’ to ‘Consecrated Days’. To do this we will be taking better advantage of technology and careful planning to fill our days with meaningful activity.

“Organize yourselves, prepare every needful thing, and establish an area, even an area of order (DC 109:8, with some liberties).

There will be a simple, but extensive change in the way we missionaries work on a daily basis. As a mission, we will be organizing our area books and using them together with ‘LDS tools’ and electronic ward lists to create accurate maps of people’s residences in order to create benefits and increase our efficiency. This will take a few weeks to become fully operational but it is an exciting new way to organize our efforts
Missionaries will now always have a specific place to go—a person to look for. We will focus on people not streets. It will make planning easier and enable us, as missionaries to “work smart.” A consecrated day starts with a good 9:00 planning session the night before. In our Daily Plans, the goal is to have prayerfully considered, and have a name written down to visit for every hour that we are not teaching.

Executing a Consecrated Day is a three-part process. (a) Find the address (hopefully someone is home), (b) 2-2-5. Then knock at least the two doors on each side and five across the street or across the hall (c) the third part and critical part of the plan is to be “fearless” in contacting people you meet on the street or the bus/tram as you travel to and from the address.

Missionaries will never have to open their Daily Planners and find empty pages again. It makes it much easier to implement the directives found in Preach My Gospel. It will revolutionize our approach to planning and finding.

We have confidence that you will enjoy this way of working. It will provide more structure and help us exercise faith that Heavenly Father will put the right people in our path.

As we embark on the migration to Consecrated Days, may we follow the example of Lehi’s obedience in 1Nephi chapter 2…

2 And it came to pass that the Lord ^acommanded my father… that he should ^ctake his family and depart into the wilderness.

3 And it came to pass that he was ^aobedient unto the word of the Lord, wherefore he did as the Lord commanded him.

As we do this with hope and excitement we will be blessed as Nephi was told later in the same chapter…

20 And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you.

After prayer and consideration of Consecrated Days, I feel to ask a blessing for you… as you contact each hour of each day, while travelling to and from the neighborhoods of people whose names were chosen though inspiration, you will prosper, and be led to promising investigators; yes, even investigators that God is preparing for you.

President Brubaker

Sister Rich is loving training and serving with Sister Schwab in Dordrecht. Sister Gardener and Sister Jones love serving together in Gouda!

The Rotterdam Zone!

We are so blessed with great missionaries in the Rotterdam Zone!