ELDER LOGAN CHASE VAN KATWYK
WEEK #54
6/29/15
Hey hey!
Man so many events I'm missin' out on! Congrats and good luck on the dances and routines and all that "jazz"! (ha ha get it?) And glad everyone is doin' good and jobs are workin' out for you all! Keep on keepin' on! And send everyone my love at the Lauper Reunion for me.
As for me and my week, my week was pretty good. We had a 3-day zone exchange and I stayed here in my area, like always lol We weren't able to teach the Rocha Family too much this past week but we did finally get to on Friday, and we taught about the Plan of Salvation and Temples. Elder Maluia and I had this cool itty-bitty experience where we were just knocking on doors on this one street and on the way back, before we started heading to our appointment with our member, he (ed note: i assume it was the Rocha man but it could have been just a total stranger...logan didn't specify) was right by our car so I went up and started talking to him. We ended up having a really good contact and we set a baptismal invitation for him :) Turns out, he's been married 3 times before and is currently single, and he lives with his daughter and his trying to find a job. During our contact, it was probably the most bold contact we've ever done because we were just smashing his doubts and promising super blessings like crazy. Elder Maluia and I went by to see him yesterday and shared with him the Restoration lesson and it turned out to be really good as well.
The Rocha family is still doing really good. They, unfortunately, didn't go to church yesterday because their youngest daughter was really sick. But we went by last night before we headed home to see how they are doing and how their daughter is doing as well.
I think something I've learned that I'm trying to improve is just being more bold with people. I definitely have noticed that I'm improving at that. I've caught myself "beating around the bush" sometimes and I just realized that I don't want to do it anymore. So I've been working on that this past week.
Stake Conference was good as well. I'll be honest, I started getting really restless during a few of the sessions, because we had to go to 4 sessions in total; 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. But it was good nonetheless. I also translated a Spanish session into English for this guy I met way back in the start of my mission over by Alice. So that was pretty cool experience. Never did it before until yesterday hahah
Well that was my week, not too long but not too short. Keep on keepin' on and I hope everything continues to be everything! I love you all and pray for you all!
Elder VanKatwyk
6/29/15
Hey hey!
Man so many events I'm missin' out on! Congrats and good luck on the dances and routines and all that "jazz"! (ha ha get it?) And glad everyone is doin' good and jobs are workin' out for you all! Keep on keepin' on! And send everyone my love at the Lauper Reunion for me.
As for me and my week, my week was pretty good. We had a 3-day zone exchange and I stayed here in my area, like always lol We weren't able to teach the Rocha Family too much this past week but we did finally get to on Friday, and we taught about the Plan of Salvation and Temples. Elder Maluia and I had this cool itty-bitty experience where we were just knocking on doors on this one street and on the way back, before we started heading to our appointment with our member, he (ed note: i assume it was the Rocha man but it could have been just a total stranger...logan didn't specify) was right by our car so I went up and started talking to him. We ended up having a really good contact and we set a baptismal invitation for him :) Turns out, he's been married 3 times before and is currently single, and he lives with his daughter and his trying to find a job. During our contact, it was probably the most bold contact we've ever done because we were just smashing his doubts and promising super blessings like crazy. Elder Maluia and I went by to see him yesterday and shared with him the Restoration lesson and it turned out to be really good as well.
The Rocha family is still doing really good. They, unfortunately, didn't go to church yesterday because their youngest daughter was really sick. But we went by last night before we headed home to see how they are doing and how their daughter is doing as well.
I think something I've learned that I'm trying to improve is just being more bold with people. I definitely have noticed that I'm improving at that. I've caught myself "beating around the bush" sometimes and I just realized that I don't want to do it anymore. So I've been working on that this past week.
Stake Conference was good as well. I'll be honest, I started getting really restless during a few of the sessions, because we had to go to 4 sessions in total; 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. But it was good nonetheless. I also translated a Spanish session into English for this guy I met way back in the start of my mission over by Alice. So that was pretty cool experience. Never did it before until yesterday hahah
Well that was my week, not too long but not too short. Keep on keepin' on and I hope everything continues to be everything! I love you all and pray for you all!
Elder VanKatwyk
WEEK #53
6/22/15
Hey howdy hey!
Thanks for all the encouraging words everyone. And yes, things are all sorted out and all better. Glad everything and everything is doing great!
Well, first off. I love this area so much. I've seen so much success and this is definitely my most fruitful area on my mission. On Tuesday the Sisters talked to this person who apparently moved in from Logan, Utah and they contacted us. It was very fortunate because Elder Maluia and I were just walking on our way to give someone a blessing. But then the Sisters called and told us that we didn't need to go give the blessing anymore so we were just like "OoooK...Well now what?" and then the Sisters shoot us a text saying that they met this family who just moved in from Utah and fortunately we were super closeby to the area where they live. I told Maluia about it and that they moved in from Utah and he was pretty excited to go. We went and knocked on their door and met them and they are soooooo awesome! We've been teaching them ever since. They are the Rocha family. It consists of the Dad; Larry, the mom; Daniella, and the 2 daughters; Breanna (7 years old) and Sofia (13 or 15 months) and they are so great. Larry had a friend that he worked with in Utah that was an LDS and he was one of his best friends. This guy always talked about the church to him but you could say Larry was pretty close-minded. But not in a stubborn way. He would listen to the missionaries, but it just wasn't clicking and he just had a hard time making sense out of the principles and the lessons. So he didn't want anything to do with the church; never even stepped into a church building but he has talked to missionaries before. Then the Sister's found them for us.
We've created a great relationship with them. The whole family loves us. Apparently Sophia ALWAYS cries whenever someone comes into the house that she doesn't know, but she never cries when us missionaries come :) Larry really just wants to find closure with decisions he's made in the past and wants to know basically how he can just move on from his past. So as of right now, we taught him the Restoration lesson and emphasized on the priesthood and how he can lead his daughters, because he also wants to set a good example for the kids and for all them to be apart of a church. And then we taught The Gospel Of Jesus Christ about Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost and Enduring to The End. And the whole family loved that lesson. It just made so much sense to Larry. He told us afterwards that it made so much sense to him of why we need to be baptized and the steps we need to do to make it back to Heaven. He was baffled by how simply we taught the principle and the analogies we used and everything. To be honest, he made me feel really good about my teaching :) After that lesson, Breanna drew Elder Maluia and I a picture that had us two holding her hands and then she wrote on another piece of paper "You're the best :) <3" She's super cute.
Then they came to church yesterday and they loved it! In Gospel Principles we talked about fasting, and afterwards, Larry told us "I don't see why anyone should not fast" and he just walked away loving it. During priesthood, we were talking about the Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, and someone made a comment about the challenge Hinckley gave us to read the Book Of Mormon, and then all of the sudden I hear from Larry, "I wanna read that book. I wanna get that" and then before that, in a different instance he just randomly said, "I wanna be baptized" :) Woop woop!!!! They're doing so good!!!
Another experience I had was a very powerful experience. There was a recent death of a kid being stabbed at a graduation party. He was a grandson to a less-active in my branch. Elder Rodriguez, Riding, Maluia, and I attended the funeral on Friday to pay our respects. We went there to see the viewing of the open casket, and we just sat in the back. It was very sad seeing his family and his girlfriend just weeping and crying really hard. But we just sat in the back and waited for our turn to see Chris. Once it was our turn, we went up to the family, gave them all hugs and paid our respects and we asked Chris's mom is we could say a prayer at the casket and she said yes. So we waited for the friend or family member to finish his prayer he was doing. Then once he was done, we walked up to the casket and, I kid you not, we all stopped for a moment and started kneeling all in sync, taking the same one knee first and then tucking the other knee under to kneel. All four of us side by side. And then Elder Rodriguez started the prayer. As soon as the prayer started, the Spirit hit me unlike any feeling I have ever felt before, so much so that I started tearing up. It was weird because it felt like some power was coming out of me to Chris's body (as weird as that sounds). During the prayer, it was almost like all the crying in the room stopped and there was just sniffles. And all I heard was that it seemed like Chris' mom was crying even more. From that, It made me wonder what they were seeing. If they were seeing angels or us glowing...I don't know. But I also wondered what they were feeling. To this day I still wonder.
After the prayer was done, we just got up and left; didn't say anything else nor did we look back, but I did feel like we accomplished what we needed to do. Once we returned to the apartment, I found out that Elder Riding and Elder Maluia had the exact same experience; same feelings, same everything. It was super cool how it was almost like we acted as one being; 4 separate people but one in purpose like the Godhead...3 separate people but one in purpose. It was an experience I don't think I'll ever forget. It makes me grateful to be the instrument God needs to bless other people.
Anyways that was my week. Sorry it was probably longer than usual. I just really wanted to take my time with this email for the books. But keep on keepin on everyone! And I'm glad everything is everything and I hope everything continues to still be that way! I love you all and I pray for you all!
Elder VanKatwyk
WEEK #52 - Hump day on the 18th....yeah, one year down, one year to go
6/15/15
Hey everyone!
Sounds like everyone had a great past week! Loved all the emails and stories of what's going on in the outside world! and so just to answer the question, Roman is 9 years old and Josh is 15. Congrats on the new calling mom! Hope all goes well with that.
My week was pretty good! It was filled with a lot of ups and downs.
The up's was that Josh got the priesthood and was ordained a teacher yesterday :) We also had a family night with Noemi (I honestly have no idea how to spell her name... lol) and her family on Saturday and it was a lot of fun. We played a game called "Spot-It" and I related it to how we have a lot of focuses and goals we are trying to achieve in this life, but as well there are a lot of distractions that confuse us or distract us but if we have our focus on Jesus Christ, we'll make it to the top. And then we played a bunch of other games, like basketball and dodge ball and things like that :)
Another experience was that we're teaching this guy named Juan Rodriguez and this guy is super awesome. So I taught him once on an exchange and we taught him the Restoration lesson. He had a lot of great questions and we were able to solve and answer his questions that he had. At the end of that lesson, we handed him a Book Of Mormon and told him we were gonna teach him about that in the next lesson. So we come back for the next lesson and he sits down and says with the Book Of Mormon in his hand, "Man this book is unbelieveable!!". And I was just like "Ya?" And he says, "Ya!! Like everything just makes soooo much sense!! Were Moron-ee comes in and where the Indians, my ancestors, came from!! Like this book is so incredible!!!!". And guess what... He literally started from the cover and when we came by, he was up to the testimony of the 8 witnesses :) So we read that and the testimony of Joseph Smith with him and EVERYTHING was making so much sense to him. I just never met anyone so flabbergasted and excited about the Book Of Mormon before in my mission. He then started to tell us how he was studying with the Jehovahs Witnesses but now that he started reading that book, he doesn't want anything to do with them any more :) The next lesson we had with him, we taught the Plan of Salvation and a little bit about temples. Everything still continued to make sense to him. While we were talking about the "Earth Life", I pulled out the pass along card that has the Salt Lake City temple on it and when he looked at it... His face light up like crazy and his eyes got suuuuuper big and he just says "WOOOOWWW!!!!! that is the most beautifulest building I have EVER seen!!!", and then Elder Maluia says "Ya there even one in San Antonio." And he was just like "WHAAATTT!!?!? There iiiis!!!! I've been to San Antonio so many times but I've never seen something like this! I am GONNA go see this as soon as possible. I'm gonna go tell my wife that we're gonna go see the temple there!" and then I told him that there's actually temples like that all over the world and he was even more mind-blown hahaha Then he touched a little bit on the principle of eternal families and how temples play a role in that. Now he's super stoked to go to the temple and he wants to be sealed to his family in the temple :) Woop woop!!
The downs of my week was that I was getting really frustrated with my leaders... Especially my District Leader who is Elder Rodriguez (The one that was my companion in Laredo) So with this new change and unit assignments, we're handed new investigators just about everyday because of missionaries finding new people. So one day, I counted how many investigators we have and we have almost 20 investigators. A little below half with a baptismal date. I was getting really frustrated because Rodriguez was more focused on us trying to baptize this guy that the sister missionaries handed to us, but then he wonders why we haven't gone by all these investigators we have and why our numbers are so low... Then he gave us a commitment during the day in the middle of proselyting to organize our investigators and our teaching pool to be more organized. At the end of the day, he follows up with us to see If we followed the commitment to organize our investigators and things and I told him, no. Then he follows up in the next morning, and we still hadn't. I just would get super mad at him because he's always hounding us to do these things when we don't have any time to because were planning or proselyting. ....he frustrated me a lot when I was his companion and he still frustrates me as my leader.... I'll be honest I thought I had a lot of patience, but it's just something more to grow.
Well that was basically my past week. Hope everything continues to be everything and I love you all a lot and pray for you all as well. Keep on keepin on and have a steller week!
~~Elder VanKatwyk
WEEK #51
6/8/15
Greetings from the land of Tex-Ico!
Haha don't worry mom. It's not too much of a hassle because I always make sure I have my camera and things to send pictures home. Have some great videos too but I'm not able to send them home. but it's ok!
The interesting thing is, is that I was meaning to send you a note to Brother Nichols a while back but I just kept forgetting. Then one time, I was at my apartment, I think going to the bathroom or in the shower (the place to receive revelation ;) haha) and the thought just came to me again, almost like a wall hit me. And then I remembered that time to tell you. It brings me comfort in the fact that I was used as an instrument to help someone or a family still be happy and keep their testimony alive in Heavenly father and Jesus Christ. I'm really glad he's able to find happiness in the prompting that I had. Just goes to show that Heavenly Father has a plan for each and every one of us. And grateful for the privilege I had to be that instrument.
My week was good! So on Thursday, we went by Noemi, Roman, and Josh's house but Roman and Josh weren't there. So we just talked to Noemi. That experience was a testimony builder of how baptism and the Gospel blesses the lives of others. Noemi told us that ever since we found them and started teaching them, they never fight with each other at all. There's more peace and unity in their home. She also said that one of her daughters family fights and yells all the time, but in their house right now, it's very peaceful. She said that everyone looks after each other and when one of them isn't keeping the commandments, they will call each other out for it. They would help each other make the good choices. And she told me that she is very grateful that we found them to teach them. Really, Noemi has opened up to us so much. I remember when we first found them and started talking to them, she didn't talk a whole lot. She was very quiet. But over time, she took us out to eat with them and her grandkids and she's very talkative with us now. She also told me that she's very excited to go to the temple in September or so and she's delighted in the fact when I told her that if she lets Elder Maluia and I know when she's going, that we can get permission to go through the temple with her. Hopefully, E. Maluia and I will be able to go with her. Roman and Josh said they want to go to the Salt Lake City temple and Josh is very excited to go through the temple to do Baptisms For The Dead.
Yesterday, during church, Josh and Roman got confirmed. Before church started, Josh sat down and pulled out a piece a paper that had writing on it. .....He wrote out his testimony, or what he wanted to say, on a piece a paper to read it at the pulpit. As soon as the member of the branch presidency ended his testimony Josh shot straight up to bear his. I'm not gonna lie I almost cried during his testimony. He got up and said "Good morning brother and sisters, my name is Josh Davis. I'd like to start by thanking my missionaries Elder VanKatwyk and Elder Maluia and for teaching me and helping me be baptized". After that he bore a powerful testimony about how letting Jesus Christ in his life has changed him and his family. Then he started talking about his experience of baptism. He said that once he saw the water, it was so clear. And once Elder Maluia lifted him up out of the water, he felt cleansed from his sins and that his sins were like the pencil marks on a piece of paper when erased. And then continued to say how much his life changed from all the things we taught him, from baptism and temples, "which I'm very excited for". It was very incredible. Everyone after church asked us if we wrote it for him hahah and we just said "No". Josh told us that that took him 3 hours to write on Saturday. And Noemi told us that he would be writing his testimony but it would be really loud, so he left the room and went in wrote in a different room. I love that family so much and it was a real testimony builder for me on how the gospel blesses the lives of others and as well where the focus needs to be. I remember telling them point blank that my goal was to get them through the temple and to stay active. I see now that that is a great vision to have and one that'll make the difference in peoples lives.
Well that was my week really. I love you all and I pray for you all! Keep on keepin on and stay safe. Hope everything stays everything!
Elder VanKatwyk
WEEK #50
6/1/15
Hey everyone!
Sounds like everyone had quite the week! I'm glad the funerals were good. I wish I could've been there. Especially for Cameron's but I pray for the family every night to be comforted.
My week was great too! So this past week, we had a zone exchange, and I was working with Elder Latu (like the good 'ole days :)) What we did for this exchange was that we set a goal for how many baptismal dates and new investigators we wanted to get. So we set the goal for the zone to get 52 new investigators and 63 baptismal dates. It was super fun because during this whole exchange, every "BD text" we were calling each other out within the zone. At the end of the 2 day exchange we ended up with 82/52 new investigators and 63/38 baptismal dates. We destroyed our goal!! Woop woop! During the exchange, Elder Latu and I walked by this house that had the sign "No Jehovah's Witnesses allowed. Or any other religious group". So we knocked on the door. Turns out the guy was pretty cool. Not interested but cool. We sang a few songs for us on his guitar thingy and I thought it was great. I took a video of him singing his songs too hahah :)
So yesterday, was Roman and Josh's baptism. it was a pretty crazy Sunday because we still had members to set up appointments to go by as well, and so many Less-Actives showed up yesterday at church as well; like people I've never even. So I was trying to meet them and set up times with them, as well as taking care of Roman and Josh and filling up the font. But the baptism was awesome. Josh and Roman's mom showed! Which we didn't think would happen because before, she wouldn't sign the baptismal record form for Roman to get baptized. I felt really bad though because she showed up right after the baptism portion. As well, Josh's best friend and his parents, brother and his girlfriend showed up, plus all of Josh and Romans immediate family. Sooooo many people were there! Naomi (Their grandma) specifically requested for a musical number by us missionaries to sing Be Still My Soul during their baptism because that's her favorite song. I'll be honest, it sounded sooooo cool. Because we had aaallll the missionaries get up and sing and we all sang together. There was probably about 12 of us plus Elder Maluia and I sang in our white clothes. Spirit was definitely very strong.
But ya that was my week just about. Just doin work and keepin on! And I hope everyone continues to keep on keepin on and I hope everything is everything. I love you and pray for you all! Much love
~~Elder VanKatwyk