Week Two of Transfer One (Zwolle)

This week was very busy. So I'll start with the typical day. We wake up at 6:30 and then usually hit the snooze a couple times (still trying to get my schedule in order), go running (the past two runs were a 7K on this really nice path that takes you out into green Farmland) make breakfast which lately has been a lot of cold oatmeal with fruit and milk. We have eggs pretty often as well. Study (personal, companionship, then 12 week which is for greenies). We're supposed to have an hour of language study as well but with three hours of study it's twelve and it's just too much time and we need to get out and go to appointments. I've been learning about as much as I can at a time though just by writing down what people say and practicing as we bike. It takes about 25 minutes to get to the city centrum, 30 to get to the church, and up to 40 to get to our furthest appointments. We frequently take trains and buses to get to other towns in our area. It's pretty cool. So a lot of travel and biking.

We've been having a decent number of appointments, 12 lessons last week, but we're working on getting more. Last week we were able to teach two unexpected first lessons to people that just let us in. They were both Christians. They both happened on the same day. One of them called us back a few days later and unfortunately isn't interested anymore after talking to her dad and looking at things on the internet. The whole issue just confused her. I don't know if we could've done our part much better, I think she just isn't ready and prepared for this sort of thing.

This week has been really enjoyable though. Pday we got to play basketball, tuesday we had district meeting and then spent most of the evening with the bishop. Our mission president gave him permission to show us a film called 'The Secret" which is a sort of documentary that teaches how to achieve our highest goals through what it calls the law of attraction. In short, it teaches you how to set and envision goals, believe that they are attainable, and basically that our focus on them and our deep belief that our goals will be realized brings them about. It sounds crazy, but it actually lines up with the gospel. If we have a vision believe that it can be accomplished, not knowing beforehand how it is to be accomplished but just taking steps of faith, the Lord will make things possible for us if they are to build up His kingdom or bring us lasting happiness. The movie is on netflix. It sounds unbelievable and nuts, but it makes some good points and teaches you good techniques for envisioning your goals. It gave me a sort of new perspective on what the gospel teaches about how all things are possible for us as children of God if we can only believe. Anyways, enough about that.

The best part of the week was that we got to spend three days with the singing elders! There are four of them and they are assigned to certain areas, but they have a car and travel and work in a different city every week. They use the elders in that city to get appointments with people where they meet them, sing, give a thought, and intive them to their concert. They're super great singers, they all have talent and experience and sing great arrangements that sound wonderful. They have two very good tenors. They all spent one night with us. They've been doing this for about a year I think and are almost done, but they said if the president gives the okay they will probably start but up again, probably with a few new members. 

In the mean time, I'm just going to do my job the best that I can. I heard a talk Elder Holland gave at BYU called "The Inconvenient Messiah". Among a multitude of great take aways, I really liked "Work hard and do right, and someday our chance will come". We can apply that to so many things. If there's something we want, we must just work hard and do right, and if it's right for us, the Lord will grant it unto us. Trying to make things happen our way in our own time to our own liking is contrary to our Heavenly Father's wisdom and in many cases will leave us feeling like we'll never have what we want. The Lord knows our needs, if we just follow what he wants for us, He can give us more than we could ever procure for ourselves. I've been developing a desire to become more and more humble. Humility just makes me feel better and be my best self. When I'm humble, I'm more able to follow the Lord's will instead of my own because humility makes it more clear that the Lord's way is the only way to be happy. When I'm prideful, I tend to only listen to my own counsel instead of the Lord's perfect wisdom. This just leads to me being unhappy. I want to follow Christ and be Humble, Submissive, Selfless, and Charitible. Acting according to those attributes brings me the most happiness and peace. I also belief that I will be bl ssed with so much more if I trust and follow the gospel. I've seen it and continue to see it in my day to day life. The Lord can make more of me and give me more than I could ever make of myself or give myself.

Stake conference was yesterday and it was really cool. I could understand most of what most of the speakers were saying! I'm expecting myself to keep progressing in the language to were I'll be able to be comfortable and functional in it in a few transfers if I do everything right. I've been given so many gifts. I've got great expectations here and I'm so excited to keep learning and growing! It sounds like things back home are going nicely!

Love, Elder Knaupp

Here's a little gem I found of Ammon in the MTC...you're welcome. Notice he has ear plus in...he said he wanted some so he could reduce the noise and be able to study more. Now we know the real reason....ha ha ha!