October 20th, 2014
I remember telling myself at the beginning of last week -- if I could make it through the week, I could make it through the rest of my mission. There was a lot of stuff that needed to happen and a lot of things that needed to go well. Only a miracle would get me through the week. Fortunately, God hasn't ceased to be a God of miracles...
So, here's a quick overview of what I was facing on Monday. First, Elder Pouwer and I had to prepare a thirty minute presentation to present to, like, seventy missionaries at temple conference on TUESDAY. The next day. Some call that procrastination, but I like to call it...alzheimer's? We also needed to prepare our plans for mission leader council on Friday. And our district leader council on Saturday. (These names probably don't mean anything to you guys, but just think of it as...a lot of meetings.) Did I mention that our baptismal candidate, Priscilla, had to have her baptismal interview, and if she passed, we'd have to prepare her Saturday baptismal service?
I WAS FREAKING OUT. And I'm not a very stressful dude! I was pretty sure that I was going to end the week by getting an ulcer and ending up in the hospital. Or having a brain aneurysm and ending up in a coffin. (Disclaimer: I do not actually know if stress causes brain aneurysms. And yes, I had to look up how to spell the word.) Let's take it one day at a time...
Somehow, we got our act together and had our presentation ready for Tuesday. It was actually pretty fun -- for part of it, we called missionaries out from the group to give short lessons on non-gospel topics that they were good at, ranging from motocross to music therapy to magic tricks to screamo music. Yes, screamo -- there was an elder who sang (and screamed, apparently) in a punk band before his mission. I'm not a big fan of screamo music (it kind of hurts my head), but I thought it would be cool to hear about the "science of screamo." He started off... "well, basically, you destroy your vocal chords until you find the sound you like." Apparently, you find a screaming sound you like, and then after doing it for a while, it stops hurting. I think I had a look of mild horror on my face during the whole explanation. But hey, I was grateful that he was willing to teach about his talents!
We had people teach random topics to help missionaries see what it's like to be in the shoes of an investigator. Our goal was to help them improve the quality of their questions in lessons. We're always teaching about the gospel, a topic we know a lot about, so hearing about things they didn't know a lot about helped them analyze the situation in a better way. It was eye-opening. Anyway, our presentation went pretty well, and we were satisfied with it.
I almost forgot -- all of us missionaries got to go to the temple on Tuesday morning, before the conference! It was great. The temple is always a great experience. It was strange -- as an elder, you get to go to the temple four times on your mission (twice a year, in April and October). This was my third time... I only get to go once more before I go home. It's weird to think about.
On Wednesday, we were on exchanges with the Leiden elders -- I worked in Leiden with Elder Reynolds, and Elder Pouwer was with Elder Argueta (the district leader) in Alkmaar. Elder Argueta was going to give our investigator, Priscilla, her baptismal interview. Elder Pouwer and I were a little nervous -- we weren't sure how it would go. We'd been teaching her regularly since we got to Alkmaar, and she seemed ready to us, but only the interview would tell. Meanwhile, I'm working with Elder Reynolds in Leiden, not knowing how it's going. (While we were knocking doors, a giant dog came out of a shed and tried to killus, and I thought I might get maimed...but we made it out of the gate and shut it in time to get away.)
Long story short -- Priscilla passed her baptismal interview! That meant that Elder Pouwer and I had a baptismal service to finish planning for Saturday. It was hectic, but we did our best to pull it off. Meanwhile, we got everything for our councils ready, and those went well.
On Saturday, Priscilla was baptized! The branch president, President 't Hoen, baptized her. It was a great service. Her sister (who referred her to the missionaries a couple months ago) came up from Amsterdam to give a short talk at the service. It was simple, but the Spirit was there. We were all really happy for Priscilla.
That night, we were in Amsterdam writing up a report about the zone (another thing we had to get done), and we finished it, then decided to go out to eat -- we hadn't had dinner, and it was already around 8 PM. We thought we'd celebrate Priscilla's baptism. We learned an important lesson, something we hadn't foreseen -- going out to dinner on Saturday night in Amsterdam's centrum is probably not the best idea. We saw (and smelled) some scary and strange things while trying to find a place to park... But, we ate out anyway. And while I was sitting, eating my calzone, relaxing, thinking about how we got everything done that week, the phone buzzes. It was a member of the branch presidency. "Elder Bonney, kan je morgen een toespraak geven van 10 minuten?" ("Elder Bonney, can you give a 10-minute talk tomorrow?")
Well, it's not over until the fat lady sings. For church on Sunday, Priscilla made it just in time to get confirmed (her train was late). My ten minute talked was on the spot transformed (out of necessity, I was the last speaker with thirty minutes left until the end) into a twenty minute talk. There. We finally made it.
Also, we'd helped someone get to church that morning, named Victor. He'd explained to us (we found him knocking doors) that he was an inactive member from Aruba who had just moved to the Netherlands and wanted to become closer to God. After church, we discovered that... Victor has never actually been baptized. He's not even a member. But, it looks like he's our next baptismal candidate. God is too good. Not only did everything this past week go as it was meant to, but He dropped a new person in our lap.
It's a good thing I didn't have a brain aneurysm.
--Elder Bonney
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| Elder Pouwer and me, looking good at the temple in Zoetermeer. |
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| Elder Pouwer, President 't Hoen, Priscilla, and I at Priscilla's baptism. |
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