Week 96: "If you want to hang out with Chinese people, just stay in China! You’ve got 1.4 billion of them there!”

 April 13, 2015

I’m always afraid to say it, because I feel like whenever I say it, it ceases to be true…but, I’ll say it. I think spring is here to stay. I woke up this morning and the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I’ve hardly worn my heavy coat at all this past week. Things are looking up for my last transfer.

And yes, my last transfer starts this Wednesday! My last six weeks. In this mission, you have sixteen six-week long transfers (plus the six weeks in the MTC). I remember when I was a young missionary, on my first few transfers, and the last transfer just seemed so far away. But, it’s almost here. I’ll be getting a new companion for this last month and a half – Elder Matos is getting transferred, and I will be getting an Elder Byers as my last companion. He’s been out on his mission for almost six months. I’m sure you’ll here more about him next week…

These past six weeks have flown by. Elder Matos and I have worked hard, and looking back, we’ve seen a good amount of success – we found a ton of people with whom we were able to share the message of the restoration. I might have taught more first lessons this past transfer than ever before on my mission. Some of the people we’ve found and taught have chosen to stop meeting with us; some people are still learning. No one is making a whole lot of progress, but I count my blessings that we have been able to teach so many different people. I’m convinced bigger steps will be made this transfer. I mean, we’ve seen miracles and been answers to prayers for these past weeks, and I see no reason for that to stop now!

That said…this past week was a pretty good week. I mean, we got to go to the temple on Wednesday, and that was great. On Tuesday night, we got on a train to Rotterdam, and we slept over at the apartment of some missionaries there (one of whom was Elder Byers, who I’d never met before and never imagined would become my companion one week after that…go figure). The next morning, we got up early so that we could be at the Den Haag temple (which isn’t actually in Den Haag, but in Zoetermeer…) by 8:15. While we walked to the temple, it was super foggy outside, and it was kind of cold. Not great weather. The temple was a great spiritual experience, like it always is – it’s great to set aside the everyday things for a moment and feel close to Heavenly Father. Half of the mission went on Wednesday – the other half had gone the day before. When we got out of the temple, it was sunny and warm. There’s a cool metaphor in there somewhere, if I wasn’t too lazy to look for it…

After the temple, we all walked to the Zoetermeer chapel, where we ate lunch. Then, following the spring temple conference tradition, we all got on a bus and headed to Keukenhof, the park of the tulips. It was great – I mean, flowers can be pretty cool. Unfortunately, we were there a bit early in the season, and only about half of the tulips had bloomed (last year, we went later, and all the tulips had bloomed and about 30% had died – you never see all the tulips in bloom because they bloom at different periods). But hey, I can’t complain. We had a good time.

The work moves onward here in Tilburg – Elder Matos and I were street contacting the other day when we talked to this Asian guy. He spoke English, and after a quick conversation, he invited us to sit down with him at the nearest cafe and talk. His name was Shen, and he was pretty funny – he was from China, used to live on the west coast of the USA, and loves American football. Go figure. He went off about how he loves hanging out with people from foreign places – he started talking about how Chinese people go to foreign countries but just hang out with each other while living there. He started to get passionate about it, and said loudly, “if you want to hang out with Chinese people, just stay in China! You’ve got 1.4 billion of them there!” He cracked us up. After hearing about his life for a while, we had a good gospel discussion. It was great.

Later that same day, we went to look up someone we’d talked to on the street, an older man. We knock on his door, and he came down in a bathrobe (and quite possibly just a bathrobe). After recognizing us, he invited us in. I thought, oh great, we’re going to have to teach someone in a bathrobe, and obviously, the only people who would let strangers inside while they are only wearing a bathrobe are weirdos and crazy people. At least, that’s how my logic went. But, he told us to wait a minute, went upstairs, then came down fully dressed and told us about how he was about to take a shower, but he wants to hear what we have to share. This man had his priorities straight – better to be spiritually clean than physically clean, right?

That’s all for today, folks. Enjoy spring.

-Elder Bonney

My old Eindhoven housemate, Elder Hills and I found some tulips that were in bloom. I can't lie, there were a ton of tulips in bloom. Also a ton of tulips that weren't. There are just a ton of tulips at Keukenhof, okay?