The Power of Conversion!

Hello! 

This week has been awesome! We have been working hard over the last little bit and the Lord has blessed us with two more people who we can share the this knowledge with. It has been amazing to see how one changes over just a week! ​

Our first new investigator is Tracy! Her boyfriend that she has been dating for a couple years now has been a member, and when they first started to date she would always challenge him and God. But then she decided to come to church, but what got her really interested was the pamphlet of the Restoration! We met her at church and set up our first meeting for Wednesday. When we got there she was super excited! We had a really good lesson! Before the lesson she had already read 22 chapters of the Book of Mormon and that she had read most of the pamphlets we teach about!  We also invited her to be baptized which she was in tears of joy about! She will be getting baptized on November 21st!

We tried to meet her the next day, but, then she got a flat tire - as often happens, things go wrong when people investigate the church - but, why? Satan doesn't want people to find the full truth - he wants us to be miserable like himself. But, then we met on Friday and had a great lesson. We also went to the Visitor center by the temple and watched "Meet The Mormons" and had lunch with her and her boyfriend Philip. 

In the past, Philip has not been able to come to church due to work, but now as he has tried to come to church he has been able to show his faith. His work just promoted him and, so, he no longer needs to work on Sundays!

The last couple weeks as we have met with couples and other such people it is great to see that as we teach them about the gospel that they get closer and closer, and stronger and stronger and their love goes deeper and deeper for each other. THIS is what God wants for us - what makes us happy? Most people would say their family! God wants us to be happy and thus he has provided the plan for us to do so  - which we call the Gospel. It is by following these instructions that we can gain everlasting happiness by being able to be married for all eternity and time in the temple. There is no other authority on this earth that can do that! I testify that this power is back on earth - and I see it a lot. 

Our second new investigator is Rosemary. She is a friend of our recent convert. Our recent convert called us and then we went over soon after. Rosemary's mother has lung disease and does not have too long to live. But it is through the gospel that we can know the truth of what happens to us after we die. She wants to teach her children what is correct instead of what she thinks about God. After the lesson, a whole bunch of people came in and it was wonderful for her to be surrounded by so much love. 

I know that Heavenly Father loves each of us. He knows all the intricate details in our lives. I know that if we put God first all else will fall in place. I also know that this Gospel is intended to bless us as families and individuals and I see it all the time.

- Elder Kloosterboer

Pictures 

Balut eggs 

Balut!

Me eating balut

Someone else eating balut

Dinner from Tongans

Thank You

October 19th, 2015

This week went by super fast!

We don't have any quotas we need to reach as missionaries, we just need to be obedient to missionary rules. Missionaries agree to this when they sign up for missionary work. Our missionary leaders - other missionaries - help us in this work by us being accountable to them and the Lord. So why would an 18 year old go on a mission? What keeps us here and why is it at such a young age? 

Well I don't have all the answers but I feel that a mission is super important. Some might say - why go in your prime years of life when you could be dating, going to school, making money, progressing in life!? I feel that my mission thus far has blessed my life immensely! Not only do I have a strong testimony of the Savoir and the Gospel, but I am far more prepared to serve those around me and I have gained so many skills that will open up opportunities. Well I could go on to say much, much more, but for now this will suffice as I would like to share what happened this week with you. 

Service: We now do two service projects here every week. One of which is where we give food to people who come in. The other one we help in a kitchen - we dice onions and cut up celery and stuff - then we bring food out to the old people sitting outside - it is a lot of fun! 

We are teaching Heidi - she is one of our new investigators! She is going to another church right now, but she is searching for truth. We taught her about prayer. I know that when we pray to Heavenly Father with faith and real intent then He will answer in His own timetable. 

On Sunday I introduced myself to the ward and bore my testimony. We also went to a fireside, much like Why I Believe, but about people who were once less active in their lives! It was so cool! One that really stood out to me was when one man was less active, and his daughter started to have a very bad reaction to some mosquito bite. One of his other children pleaded  that he give a priesthood blessing. He had that authority, but he had no power as he wasn't living the gospel as he should have been. He tried but nothing worked. He then left the room and broke down crying because he had no power. He then knew he needed to change his life.   

We also attended a dinner for the High Priests! It was good getting to know the members more. 

For those who don't know. My mother has been diagnosed with cancer in the lungs about a month ago or so but she is doing a lot better now! We don't know how long she will live, but I have faith to continue my mission and that we all have trials to go through in our lives. 

I also wanted to say thank you to all those who are helping my family! It is such a blessing being out here knowing that my mother is taken care of. Thank you Alnwick branch for sending those flowers - that means a lot and to see such love is moving. Thank you for everyone who has been providing meals for my family because otherwise they would be stuck with my dads cooking haha jokes. There are so many who have been praying and that touches me to see that there are good people in the world who care so much! But I know that Heavenly Father is in control and if He wanted he could take this away in a second. 

I know that Heavenly Father loves us so much, it is so evident to me as I have served my mission thus far. I know that the gospel brings happiness. I love being a missionary and it fills my soul with joy - especially when I see others accept this message. 

I love you all!

- Elder Kloosterboer 

Pictures

Modi

Reunions

October 12th, 2015

So I am in Hayward 4th now and it is weird being back. But here are some things that happened this week. We ran into a Spanish member who is less active and he is planning on coming back to church! It is so sweet that the Lord puts people in our path, or us in theirs, and miracles happen! 

We cycle a lot here and it keeps us fit! There is a lot of work we can do here so it is fun! My companion and I are working hard and at least twice a week we have a member who we go with to visit less active members. Just as Jesus went after the one lost sheep and left the ninety and nine we try to do the same.

The members here are very diverse. We have Tongans, Fijians, white people, and others here. So we get fed decently when we have dinners. 

We visited Ron this week. He has been investigating for a few weeks now but is not willing to pray - which is not good, because it is only through prayer that we can know of spiritual truths. I know for my self that Heavenly Father does answer prayers. But He answers in His own time.  

On Sunday I saw a lot of people whom I know! In the morning we had stake conference where I was able to catch up with a few people from the Hayward 1st ward! It was so wonderful to speak to them and to see how they are doing :-) Our stake president gave us all a few challenges, one of them is to give one card about the Book Of Mormon out to a friend or someone before the next stake conference. We as missionaries get to follow up with our members to help them. 

We went to Why I Believe this week. One of the people who spoke talked about how the Book Of Mormon is true and how it changed his life. He spoke about how he was not a good person at all, but he changed around because of this book! Another man said that he was very stubborn. But, then, for some reason he said he didn't know if this was Christ's church or not and he started taking the lessons. But for him to actually say that he might be wrong was a big change for him - even when he was young he said he didn't like french fries, and for 6 years he said the same because he didn't want to say that he was wrong. Our two recent converts spoke from Hayward 4th! Lyana and Clare also spoke! It was neat to hear their testimonies. 

It was super nice to be able to catch up with people whom I have served and I look forward to continue to keep up with them after my mission as all the people who I have met on my mission mean a lot to me. 

I, for sure, know this is the fullness of the Gospel! It is so wonderful to see people join, to see how much more joy they have in life. To see that they are reaching so much more potential, and why? Because they took a leap of faith! I know that God loves all of us, even though it seems like so many suffer in this world, and they do,  doesn't mean that God doesn't love them, it means that we don't have a full understanding of all things, But He does and we can trust him. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” - Proverbs 3:5–6

Love, Elder Kloosterboer 

Pictures

Hayward-bound

Good week this week. 

I am leaving to Hayward 4th, making this my shortest area of only 9 weeks! We did a few service projects this week. On Thursday we helped Salvation Army with Christmas signups. We had to make sure that the people had photo ID and all these documents to verify themselves and such, but that was not the hard part, the difficult part was that a lot of them spoke Spanish and a few only spoke Spanish... I had no idea how to help lol. 

I really liked a lot of things from General Conference but one thing I want to apply from the prayer that was said in one of the sessions was to "Enjoy to the End" so that is what I will be doing these next 12 weeks! 

Went on exchanges - Elder Hibbert is super tall and this is what happened to my bike! I was with Elder Toleman in the Cambodian 10th branch. We did a lot of work and we even taught Savanna who the elders hadn't seen for a while. We answered a few of her questions and we also visited a few others. 

I am so glad that I am out here to share such a powerful message with the people here. I love teaching our brothers and sisters because they become so much more happier and I can feel the spirit as we meet. I love the feelings of the spirit, In the bible it says this about the feelings of the spirit "22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." As I serve I feel this, It is the spirit who guides us in the Work. Why because this is Gods work. If it wasn't, missionaries would have messed it up a long time ago. 

Will see you all next week!

Pictures

Bike after exchanges

Doing service at Salvation Army 

We had to give a lesson on this

Oreos and whipped cream