700,000 Kilo of onions. Young farmer in the ward, he and his wife are super nice and speak Dutch French and english. His entire crop would probably easily fill two of our houses.
Well it's Christmas week all of a sudden! It's really warm here and pretty dry which is actually nice. This week was quite busy but not with quite as much normal missionary work as usual. We had to spend a lot of time helping with transfers. It's hard to remember really all of what happened, there's just so much every week. It's hard to even sum up one day here! I think it's just so many learning and growing experiences that there's too much to describe or even remember, you just move on every day. I often try to keep track of what I've learned to try to hold onto it but it just blows away with every new day. Every day is just dense with thought and experiences that are hard to describe. I've been thinking a lot about faith and testimony this week. I've read stories about general authorities that have had big experiences that built their testimonies, whether they be individual events or longer term experiences like a mission. I'm grateful to be on my mission and am excited to be building my testimony here and doing my best to move forward in faith and do missionary work.
Not much to report this week, we met a few new people though. I read a super awesome talk with a promise that just about anyone would get baptized if only we as missionaries invited and led them the right way so that they would follow the spirit coming through us. It basically teaches you how to apply faith, hope, charity and love to your interactions with people. It has some really lofty promises and it takes some work to understand, but I think it's a true principal and I want to learn it. I tried it a couple times yesterday. For the ward mission report in priesthood I confidently addressed the priesthood (usually it's the ward mission leader and if not one of us missionaries timidly tries to come up with something relevant to tell the priesthood, we ought to prepare a bit better but that's a whole other story and struggle) . Anyways I stood up and told the priesthood we had cards that brought people to a website for people to share with their friends, and said "who is going to share these with their friends?". All the men indicated that I should pass them around and some even wanted multiples. I was proud that I left my comfort zone and went out on a limb to invite them to do something that I usually would be afraid or just to lazy to do. The key was also doing it was confidence in my voice and words that I knew all of them could and would do it and that it would be a success.
The talk advised that we just confidently ask people to let us in and listen to our message, to deflect their excuses because EVERYBODY has an excuse and they're ALL invalid, all we want is 15 minutes to share something crucially important. And how do they know it's important? How will they believe us? We have to be so confident and full of faith that they actually do want this and that we aren't just going to say "okay you're right you actually don't need the restored gospel". You've got to be kidding me! Christ wouldn't just walk away from them, he would understand that they just need a bit more time with us to feel the spirit and follow it and that He would change their minds and hearts. Of course you don't want to be pushy, but 90% of the time what we're asking for isn't pushy! We just want fifteen minutes or less. It's denying our message to just accept their excuse and leave them. Most people would totally go for the gospel if we could just help them realize what it is. Elder Cook in his talk says that through our faith we will invite the spirit to be the one who convinces these people who don't know what they're saying no to. This kind of faith means saying certain things to people. No maybe's, no "would you like to hear about our church", no agreeing with them when they say they're not interested, but confidently insisting and explaining and testifying to them personally from your heart that if they would just let you in then despite their doubts that it will be worth it. And it's not you that will convince them to agree, it's the spirit. Anyways, I really loved the talk and I wanted to get my feelings out about it.
Later that night, we met a bunch of guys about our age practicing basketball on a wet, street light lit court. I went up to them and introduced myself and where I'm from and told them how they were the first people I have seen here playing basketball. They all gathered round and were excited to hear that I had played basketball in america and they told me about how basketball here is much smaller but growing. They asked me if I wanted to play with them so we played three on three for fifteen minutes or so. It was really fun, they're pretty good at ball handling and most offensive stuff, but their defense and ball movement was lacking. Still impressive considering, they were pretty good. I gave them our number and told them to call us if they need an extra player. I think they were definitely impressed and hopefully they'll call soon. I told them a bit about what I do here and that I'm leaving in six weeks. So that was really cool. Church was really good, I'm learning more about how to really use and enjoy the sabbath.
Thank you for your prayers, I definitely believe that I wouldn't be learning as much and doing as well without them.
Merry Christmas! I wish I could spend it with all of you.
Love, Elder Knaupp
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