ELDER LOGAN CHASE VAN KATWYK
WEEK #58
7/27/15
Hey everyone!
It's still crazy that peter is leaving on his mission right now. He'll have a great time out there.
My week was pretty good! We saw alot of miracles this past week.
So I guess you can say I have a testimony of "breaking-up" with investigators hahah in other words, letting them know we wont be coming by and why. So... Our investigators Carlos and Eliza, (the ones we've been working with to get married and then baptized) we weren't able to get in contact with them for quite a few weeks. We tried everything we possibly could, going by different times of the day, calling them, texting them, leaving a cheesecake that we made ourselves and things like that. Finally, we went by again and both of their cars were home, and we heard people inside. So finally we're like "Alright we're done with them". And while we were driving home I decided to send a "Break-up" text to them. So I wrote one up and sent it. Next day the wife, Eliza responds back to us! Apologizing and she threw her husband Carlos under the bus and basically said it was all his fault. So I asked if we could go over that same day and she said ya. We drive over and by this point, I'm ready to throw down with them super hard. We go over and meet with Eliza and her daughters (because Carlos was at work) and we talked about everything. It was nice because she was really open with us and explained everything that was going on. Apparently, Carlos's only problem was that he didn't like that church was 3 hours.... Out of all the problems that could possibly come up, it was that one..... a doubt that could've easily been talked about. He loves the lessons and us coming over but he never wanted to come to church. So we figured everything out with Eliza, to make sure there wasn't anything else holding him back. Then we checked her desire of being baptized. and she's great! She's definitely down to get baptized! So while Maluia was playing with her daughters, I was talking with Eliza figuring things out and making plans with her on the next step. It was super hard because our leaders were pounding on us to get them baptized so we can hit our goal of baptisms for this month as a zone. I honestly was super scared, and I told Maluia as we talked about it as a companionship that I don't want it to seem like we just want to force her to being baptized especially now that we finally got in contact with her. My District Leader and Zone Leaders were hounding me about it and on top of all of it and I was feeling like if we weren't to get her baptized that I let Heavenly father down because when we set our area goal we technically promised him that we were going to hit it. I eventually just hit my weakest point where I had no idea what to do, and so Elder Maluia and I prayed about it right there. I got to the point where all I wanted to do was to do the right thing. I didn't know how and I didn't know what. But all I knew was I wanted to do what Heavenly Father wants. So we prayed about it in every single prayer until our lesson the next day with her. It was pretty nerve wracking because once it was time to go to the next lesson, I didn't feel like I had my answer on what we should do however we did have the idea of just having her pray and ask what she should do. During the lesson, I basically explained to her that the original goal we set for her was the 26th of July and that Maluia and I prayed super hard for what was best for her and what Heavenly Father wants and if she should be baptized on the 9th of August or the 26th of July.
What Elder Maluia and I decided on was that we wanted her to ask what she should do. So that's what we did. I was definitely led by the Spirit, not knowing what to do or say. Kinda like Nephi! Anyway, so we had her pray and before she prayed I asked if we could take a second to pay attention to our feelings after the prayer is done. So we did that. And then I ask what her feeling and thoughts were and she told us that she didn't want to get baptized alone and so she wanted to be baptized on the 9th with Carlos. So the plan is that they'll get married on the 8th and baptized on the 9th
After that she said she wanted to talk to Carlos about it all. Basically, Eliza invited Carlos to be baptized with her on the 9th haha :)
So that's were we are at right now with them. I told her that we support her in that decision and we will shoot for that. Apparently Carlos is missing us and so we're trying to work it out to where we can teach Carlos again haha And yesterday, they all came to church!!! They finally came!!! We were super excited to see them there! It was a great miracle for us. Super stressful but we managed to come out of it
Well that was my week. Hope everything continues to be everything and keep on keepin on :) Love you and all pray for you all. have a steller week!
Elder VanKatwyk
7/27/15
Hey everyone!
It's still crazy that peter is leaving on his mission right now. He'll have a great time out there.
My week was pretty good! We saw alot of miracles this past week.
So I guess you can say I have a testimony of "breaking-up" with investigators hahah in other words, letting them know we wont be coming by and why. So... Our investigators Carlos and Eliza, (the ones we've been working with to get married and then baptized) we weren't able to get in contact with them for quite a few weeks. We tried everything we possibly could, going by different times of the day, calling them, texting them, leaving a cheesecake that we made ourselves and things like that. Finally, we went by again and both of their cars were home, and we heard people inside. So finally we're like "Alright we're done with them". And while we were driving home I decided to send a "Break-up" text to them. So I wrote one up and sent it. Next day the wife, Eliza responds back to us! Apologizing and she threw her husband Carlos under the bus and basically said it was all his fault. So I asked if we could go over that same day and she said ya. We drive over and by this point, I'm ready to throw down with them super hard. We go over and meet with Eliza and her daughters (because Carlos was at work) and we talked about everything. It was nice because she was really open with us and explained everything that was going on. Apparently, Carlos's only problem was that he didn't like that church was 3 hours.... Out of all the problems that could possibly come up, it was that one..... a doubt that could've easily been talked about. He loves the lessons and us coming over but he never wanted to come to church. So we figured everything out with Eliza, to make sure there wasn't anything else holding him back. Then we checked her desire of being baptized. and she's great! She's definitely down to get baptized! So while Maluia was playing with her daughters, I was talking with Eliza figuring things out and making plans with her on the next step. It was super hard because our leaders were pounding on us to get them baptized so we can hit our goal of baptisms for this month as a zone. I honestly was super scared, and I told Maluia as we talked about it as a companionship that I don't want it to seem like we just want to force her to being baptized especially now that we finally got in contact with her. My District Leader and Zone Leaders were hounding me about it and on top of all of it and I was feeling like if we weren't to get her baptized that I let Heavenly father down because when we set our area goal we technically promised him that we were going to hit it. I eventually just hit my weakest point where I had no idea what to do, and so Elder Maluia and I prayed about it right there. I got to the point where all I wanted to do was to do the right thing. I didn't know how and I didn't know what. But all I knew was I wanted to do what Heavenly Father wants. So we prayed about it in every single prayer until our lesson the next day with her. It was pretty nerve wracking because once it was time to go to the next lesson, I didn't feel like I had my answer on what we should do however we did have the idea of just having her pray and ask what she should do. During the lesson, I basically explained to her that the original goal we set for her was the 26th of July and that Maluia and I prayed super hard for what was best for her and what Heavenly Father wants and if she should be baptized on the 9th of August or the 26th of July.
What Elder Maluia and I decided on was that we wanted her to ask what she should do. So that's what we did. I was definitely led by the Spirit, not knowing what to do or say. Kinda like Nephi! Anyway, so we had her pray and before she prayed I asked if we could take a second to pay attention to our feelings after the prayer is done. So we did that. And then I ask what her feeling and thoughts were and she told us that she didn't want to get baptized alone and so she wanted to be baptized on the 9th with Carlos. So the plan is that they'll get married on the 8th and baptized on the 9th
After that she said she wanted to talk to Carlos about it all. Basically, Eliza invited Carlos to be baptized with her on the 9th haha :)
So that's were we are at right now with them. I told her that we support her in that decision and we will shoot for that. Apparently Carlos is missing us and so we're trying to work it out to where we can teach Carlos again haha And yesterday, they all came to church!!! They finally came!!! We were super excited to see them there! It was a great miracle for us. Super stressful but we managed to come out of it
Well that was my week. Hope everything continues to be everything and keep on keepin on :) Love you and all pray for you all. have a steller week!
Elder VanKatwyk
WEEK #57
7/20/15
Hey hey hey!
Congrats Cammie on the big news! I send my excitement and happiness telepathically and hopefully it will reach you all haha
Well as for me my week was really good. We had interviews with President Maluenda and like always, it was spiritually enlightening. It's always nice to have interviews with him because there are times when I could just never find what it is specifically that I needed to improve on or things like that. He asked quite a bit about how you all are doing and how Elder Maluia and I are doing. I was usually scared to say anything during interviews with him, but this time I was pretty comfortable and I elaborated my answers instead of saying "yes" or "no" or "good" and I asked questions and things like that. So it was good.
On Friday during Weekly Planning, we made some really really good plans for our investigators and we did it all with a humble heart. Usually, we just did it half-heartedly but this time it was full. And we decided that we wanted to hit our daily goals every single day.
The past few days we've just been working really really really hard. We accomplished almost ALL of our goals that we set for the week and we just worked our butts off. We've been as obedient as possible; following our leaders and commitments, and trying to complete our goals which we did see a lot of success from.
On Saturday, we went out working and we were really determined to hit our goals for the day. It was 8:20pm and we needed 3 more contacts and all the referrals that we had were too far away get get to. So the only way to hit our goal was to just start knocking on doors and that's what we did. We did it as quickly as possible, but still doing it well. And we ended up hitting our last contact in at 8:55pm! Wooh!!
On Yesterday, truth be told we had no one committed to church. We had made one of our investigators a cherry cheesecake prior because we haven't been able to get in contact with them. We had no one committed to church but we had 6 investigators at church!!! Including less-actives!!! And the first time we met these people were on Sunday!! Like they literally were all miracles who just fell from the sky.
We saw many miracles from our hard work this week in putting our hearts in the right place to do the things we needed to do. We even helped move two people in one day and then went back to finish helping on another day. I think I'm done trying move 400 pound shelves that take an hour to put into the truck and 8 people to move hahah But it's all part of the experience.
Well that is all I got. I love you all and pray for you all. Keep on keepin on and I hope everything continues to be everything!
Elder VanKatwyk
7/20/15
Hey hey hey!
Congrats Cammie on the big news! I send my excitement and happiness telepathically and hopefully it will reach you all haha
Well as for me my week was really good. We had interviews with President Maluenda and like always, it was spiritually enlightening. It's always nice to have interviews with him because there are times when I could just never find what it is specifically that I needed to improve on or things like that. He asked quite a bit about how you all are doing and how Elder Maluia and I are doing. I was usually scared to say anything during interviews with him, but this time I was pretty comfortable and I elaborated my answers instead of saying "yes" or "no" or "good" and I asked questions and things like that. So it was good.
On Friday during Weekly Planning, we made some really really good plans for our investigators and we did it all with a humble heart. Usually, we just did it half-heartedly but this time it was full. And we decided that we wanted to hit our daily goals every single day.
The past few days we've just been working really really really hard. We accomplished almost ALL of our goals that we set for the week and we just worked our butts off. We've been as obedient as possible; following our leaders and commitments, and trying to complete our goals which we did see a lot of success from.
On Saturday, we went out working and we were really determined to hit our goals for the day. It was 8:20pm and we needed 3 more contacts and all the referrals that we had were too far away get get to. So the only way to hit our goal was to just start knocking on doors and that's what we did. We did it as quickly as possible, but still doing it well. And we ended up hitting our last contact in at 8:55pm! Wooh!!
On Yesterday, truth be told we had no one committed to church. We had made one of our investigators a cherry cheesecake prior because we haven't been able to get in contact with them. We had no one committed to church but we had 6 investigators at church!!! Including less-actives!!! And the first time we met these people were on Sunday!! Like they literally were all miracles who just fell from the sky.
We saw many miracles from our hard work this week in putting our hearts in the right place to do the things we needed to do. We even helped move two people in one day and then went back to finish helping on another day. I think I'm done trying move 400 pound shelves that take an hour to put into the truck and 8 people to move hahah But it's all part of the experience.
Well that is all I got. I love you all and pray for you all. Keep on keepin on and I hope everything continues to be everything!
Elder VanKatwyk
WEEK #56
7/13/16
Hey howdy hey!
Wow, summer is going by super fast now! I can't believe Peter is leaving on his mission soon and Nathan is coming home. I'm starting to feel super old hahah But the world keeps moving forward when you're a missionary. Anyway, keep up the good work mom holding the fort at our house! I definitely sure hope the A/C will start working and the freezer as well. You sure definitely don't want the house to feel like Texas. I know you would not like that at all hahah ;) To answer your questions dad, we lost all our investigators and our area got absorbed into a different area.
Things are going good though. We had a great start to last week. Elder Maluia and I had an awesome growing experience. On Tuesday or so, one of our members gave us like 14 referrals right there. We were super super pumped to go contact them all. The next day on Wednesday, we were trying to contact all the referrals. We were walking around to save miles and as we were walking away from this house, I saw this lady sitting in her yard on her picnic table under a tree in her front yard. As we were walking and as Maluia was on the phone, I just had the impression that we need to go talk to her and so I was waiting for Maluia to get off the phone.. As we were walking away, the impression started to get stronger with every step and then I felt like I was about to have a heart attack and I was like "Maluia, there's a lady back there!" And then he hung the phone up right then and we started walking towards the house. Prior to this day, I told Maluia that the next time we talked to a lady who didn't speak English, I'm wasn't going to say anything at all. As we were walking up to talk to this lady, I started getting the impression again that this lady was Spanish. And so now you have Elder Maluia walking all enthusiastically and strutting along with a card in his hand that I had given to him, and he says "Hey, how's it goin?!" And she responds, "Mande?" (Which means "What" in Spanish) And then right then Maluia, is like "Elder Elder she's Spanish" And I just stood there and didn't say anything and just smiled at him. He took it like a champ and did extremely well! He just went right up to her and started speaking to her and he got pretty good. I let him struggle a little bit and then I got another impression from the spirit to just go for it and take it from there. I talked to her in Spanish and long story short, we set up a BD with her and her son! It was super awesome. I thought Maluia was going to be upset at me for letting him struggle and not saying anything at first but he had a great attitude and was really proud of himself after it all. I'm glad he trusts me to know that I have his back when he struggles. It was cool :) We walked away all pumped and excited. Me, because of all the spiritual impressions that came to me one right after the other. And Maluia because of the great experience he had speaking in Spanish and being able to step up. We've been role-playing contacting in Spanish the whole past week and so after that whole experience he said "you know what Elder I love role-plays now" hahah :) Good times.
To be honest, that's about it. We forgot to turn in our gas receipts to the mission office and so our van is parked and our keys got taken away until the office gets our receipts. SO..... we've been on foot the past week....so the work has been really really slow. I'm definitely looking forward to getting it back so we can have more great experiences.
Well that's my past week. Not too much. But I love you all a lot and I hope everything continues to be everything. Keep on keepin on and be safe!
Love you all and pray for you all,
Elder VanKatwyk
WEEK #55
7/6/15
Hey everyone!
Happy late 4th of July! Hahah I apologize for forgetting his name in the experience. "His" name is Bernie haha And for the question on if he's still planning on baptism....I think so. Last time I checked he was. Looks like everyone had a great week. Thanks for getting Sister Mullowney that note to pass off to me. That night, I forgot what day you all were fasting and it made me really nervous and so I hoped you guys did it on Sunday, cuz that's when I did lol
So...about transfers.... Our area of San Benito got closed down, and Elder Maluia and I both got transfered out..... I'm in an area called Dixieland 2 in......Harlingen still!!! And Elder Maluia went to.....Dixieland 2 as well!!! A.K.A we're still comps :) haha Which means, that we both are whitewashing this area. Now we're in Harlingen 1st ward (English) = English area.
As for my week, it was pretty good. I've never even thought that I was gonna be able to whitewash an area in my mission but here I am. And I'll be honest, this week has been very "Faith-filled". It's pretty hard whitewashing, especially when the Elders before you don't leave any notes on anybody or anything. So the first thought I had was to go by all the auxiliary leadership and work from there. We even have the Stake President in our area and so I've been trying to use that to my advantage. It's been great though. We've just been having fun driving around (oh ya, so I leveled up from a car to a van area hahah I'm the new soccer mom now) and getting lost in our big area with not having any idea of where anybody and anything is hahah But we had some great experiences. It was always funny when members say, "do you guys have anything to do on this day at this time??". All we would say is "Uhhhh nawwww. Not that we know of."
One day we were out knocking on doors and our stake president called asking if we were doing anything because he needed some kind of service, and if we were busy then we could do it the next day. But we ended up just driving over to his house because we weren't doing anything hahah It's fun. It's a good time
So Apparently for one of our investigators, we're going to have to plan a wedding for them before they can get baptized.....so this should be interesting. Another one of our investigators is having super bad health problems, like liver failure or something (The yellow eyes and orange skin, super weak. The whole bit). We drove by her apartment and saw her getting something out of her trunk so we stopped and went and talked to her for a bit. Then I asked if we could give her a blessing. I ended up giving it to her and it was really cool. While we were talking before the blessing she was telling us what things she can and can't eat, and there was a shattered glass of this Mexican tomato juice and I kept offering if she would like us to go to the store and buy her another one and she refused. I asked like 3 or 4 times but she said "No it's fine." After we left, I was just like "Maluia we're going to the store anyways". And so we went to the nearest Mexican grocery store and we found the tomato juice, I bought her two of those and bananas. Then we drove back to her apartment, and we had the idea of doorbell ditching her. So we drive back and I went up and doorbell ditched and hid behind the nearest truck while Maluia was recording it all. I wanted him to video tape it because I wanted to see her reaction. And it was cool because in the video, it's pretty blurry, but you see her open the door and her hand go up to her mouth/face, and then she comes out a little to see if anybody is there and then goes back in. It was cool :)
July 4th was a lot of fun. My apartment is super fun now! We had to be in the apartment by 6. So we played games with each other like scum and such :)
But that's about my week. The ward is great. Never felt so out of place because neither of us knew anybody hahah but it's all good! I love you all and pray for you all. Hope everything is everything. Keep on keepin on!
Elder VanKatwyk
7/6/15
Hey everyone!
Happy late 4th of July! Hahah I apologize for forgetting his name in the experience. "His" name is Bernie haha And for the question on if he's still planning on baptism....I think so. Last time I checked he was. Looks like everyone had a great week. Thanks for getting Sister Mullowney that note to pass off to me. That night, I forgot what day you all were fasting and it made me really nervous and so I hoped you guys did it on Sunday, cuz that's when I did lol
So...about transfers.... Our area of San Benito got closed down, and Elder Maluia and I both got transfered out..... I'm in an area called Dixieland 2 in......Harlingen still!!! And Elder Maluia went to.....Dixieland 2 as well!!! A.K.A we're still comps :) haha Which means, that we both are whitewashing this area. Now we're in Harlingen 1st ward (English) = English area.
As for my week, it was pretty good. I've never even thought that I was gonna be able to whitewash an area in my mission but here I am. And I'll be honest, this week has been very "Faith-filled". It's pretty hard whitewashing, especially when the Elders before you don't leave any notes on anybody or anything. So the first thought I had was to go by all the auxiliary leadership and work from there. We even have the Stake President in our area and so I've been trying to use that to my advantage. It's been great though. We've just been having fun driving around (oh ya, so I leveled up from a car to a van area hahah I'm the new soccer mom now) and getting lost in our big area with not having any idea of where anybody and anything is hahah But we had some great experiences. It was always funny when members say, "do you guys have anything to do on this day at this time??". All we would say is "Uhhhh nawwww. Not that we know of."
One day we were out knocking on doors and our stake president called asking if we were doing anything because he needed some kind of service, and if we were busy then we could do it the next day. But we ended up just driving over to his house because we weren't doing anything hahah It's fun. It's a good time
So Apparently for one of our investigators, we're going to have to plan a wedding for them before they can get baptized.....so this should be interesting. Another one of our investigators is having super bad health problems, like liver failure or something (The yellow eyes and orange skin, super weak. The whole bit). We drove by her apartment and saw her getting something out of her trunk so we stopped and went and talked to her for a bit. Then I asked if we could give her a blessing. I ended up giving it to her and it was really cool. While we were talking before the blessing she was telling us what things she can and can't eat, and there was a shattered glass of this Mexican tomato juice and I kept offering if she would like us to go to the store and buy her another one and she refused. I asked like 3 or 4 times but she said "No it's fine." After we left, I was just like "Maluia we're going to the store anyways". And so we went to the nearest Mexican grocery store and we found the tomato juice, I bought her two of those and bananas. Then we drove back to her apartment, and we had the idea of doorbell ditching her. So we drive back and I went up and doorbell ditched and hid behind the nearest truck while Maluia was recording it all. I wanted him to video tape it because I wanted to see her reaction. And it was cool because in the video, it's pretty blurry, but you see her open the door and her hand go up to her mouth/face, and then she comes out a little to see if anybody is there and then goes back in. It was cool :)
July 4th was a lot of fun. My apartment is super fun now! We had to be in the apartment by 6. So we played games with each other like scum and such :)
But that's about my week. The ward is great. Never felt so out of place because neither of us knew anybody hahah but it's all good! I love you all and pray for you all. Hope everything is everything. Keep on keepin on!
Elder VanKatwyk