March 17, 2010

Salut ma Famille!
This week was really cool we baptized the two sons of Marie. Daniel and Gabriel. Elder Mezerai baptized Daniel and I baptized Gabriel. Really cool experience. Our "3rd missionary" PaPa Denis he is a 65 year old African from Congo he has been living with President and Sister Miller (Branch President) well whenever we needed a 3rd male he would come with us and he was suppose to go back to Congo on Monday he spent Friday-Sunday packing everything up couldnt sleep because he was so excited/stressed so the Millers take hime to the Airport at 5:00am Monday morning after they get all his bags checked and pay and extra $150 for all that the Lady at the counter asks for him Passport so he gives it to her and it was EXPIRED!!! SINCE 2008!!! the Millers about had heartattacks they love PaPa Denis and just love him so much they spent almost all of Sunday in tears well when they found out he wasnt leaving oh man! One of the Sisters in the ward Sister Monica went with them and she said they both froze up for about a minute and they sister Miller finally started to speak and try to figure out a way to get him on that plane but President Miller who is about 6'2-6'4 just stood there in a daze Sister Monica said that she felt so bad but then when she got back to her apartment she said that she just blew up in laughter and couldnt contain her self. It was a very interesting/funny experience but they finally got everything all settled and he got a temporary Passport to go back to Congo so he will have to reapply for one once he gets there but he is leaving Friday.

I also failed to tell you that I broke my hockey stick but dont worry President Miller works at the temple and he is the head person of maintenance so he is going to take it to the wood shop and fix it for me so all is well :) You know i couldnt survive another 6 months without any hockey. I heard the good news that Canada won Gold and Silver in Men's and Women's hockey and won the most Gold medals. So that was good to hear.

The mission is doing excellent right now. We are kind of worried for transfers because Elder Mezerai and I got things going here in our Area and we dont want to get changed up now. So hopefully the spirit will guide President Mansell to keep us together for atleast 1-2 more transfers. We will see on Mar. 31

Right now we are working with a Women her name is Helene we went and checked up on her the other day taught a little bit about Baptism and set a date for April 11 it was amazing when we got there we asked her how her reading was going we assigned her to read Mosiah 18 well she pulled out her Livre de Mormon and she opened up to Mosiah 18 and there was a full sheet of white lined paper full front and back of writing so we were really nervous and we asked "are those some questions you had?" She said no I read and studied it and wrote down everything that I understood. Our jaws about hit the floor!!! She did a Book of Mormon study by herself!!! She is the first investigator that has ever done that according to Elder Mezerai and probably the first out of all the members and most of the missionaries too! When we saw the effort she had put into reading and praying we knew right then to set a baptismal date and for the first time since I have been here see answered without a seconds hesitation YES! You could feel the spirit in the room so strongly.

We also figure out that night that Sister Woffinden(Elder Woffinden's Wife) Can read French! She cant speak it except to say Hello, Goodbye, and Thank You but she is amazing at reading it she says she can read it but doesnt understand a single word she just read. We dont care! Now we can use both of the Woffindens for our appointments before we could only use Elder Woffinden because he went to France on his mission and he can still speak it really well. I hope I will still be able to speak and understand French when i'm 62. Well those are some of the few miracles that happened to us this week. I Love you all
-Elder Van Dyke
P.S. DUSTIN AND NATHAN WRITE ME BACK!!! Dont make me send Chelsea after you!

March 9, 2010

This week has been a Crazy week. Sorry for my short messages the last couple of weeks we have been really busy finding and not alot of teaching but we are on a good stream of both right now. But anyways

This week we baptized Marie's two boys Daniel and Gabriel. I batized Gabriel and Elder Mezerai baptized Daniel it was an amazing experience They both scream when they got in the water even though it was really warm. I guess they spirit was just too overwhelming for them :) We also Confirmed Marie a member it was really cool. Elder Mezerai and myself are working really hard to reach our goal of 6 baptizms this month. We have two and we should have for sure 3 more the rest of this month and one we are not 100% sure of yet but the Lord is helping us to know with a surety that we will reach the goal. So weve put our best foot forward and we continue on. Our best Member Missionary that we take with us EVERYWHERE whenever we are in need of a 3rd Male he is GOING HOME!!! Back to Congo on Monday so now we have to use our Senior Couple the Woofindens which is kind of a hassle becasue they never say No but we feel like maybe we might overwhelm them with all the appointments we need them for but they say its all right. We will see.

So this week during our lesson with Marie and Daphne and the two boys Daphne asked what a Patriarchal Blessing is so we explained it and she WANTS IT!!!! So we explained it to hear a little deeper and she was asking questions left and right and she was just so excited so I showed her mine and what it looks like. Well I realized I havent looked at it since the 2 week I was in the MTC. So for Personal study the last 2 days Ive been studying my Patriarchal Blessing and WOW!!! It makes alot more since now then it did just 4 months ago. I talks alot about my mission and the things it says are just amazing. So I just wanted to put a question in all your minds. When was the last time you looked at yours? If you dont have one. Why not? They are amazing I realize now how important it is that we have them. They are like a 3rd set of scriptures but they are meant for only one person. YOU!!! How cool is that. God loves you soooo much that we wanted you to have a little help in like its kind of like for example life is a test and so God didnt want us to know all the answers so thats why we had to pass through the veil of forgetfulness and then we didnt want us to be completly oblivious so he sent us prophets and teachers and they those that are memebers of the church we have Patriarchal Blessings that are another guide that give us a greater direction and knowledge of what we need to do. I know I have only been in this World for 19 years but in my Patriarchal Blessing it lets me see the years before this life and it goes on to tell me of all the wonderful blessings i will recieve in the life after this one. How cool is that! I know that if we all will spend just a few minutes going over our own Patriarchal Blessings and look at all the promises the Lord has given us we will know what we have done and what needs to be done.

Well I Love you all and for those of you who dont know what a Patriarchal Blessing is. Ask a member or better yet ask a missionary. They are a wonderful blessing to have and Really will help you understand things more clearly. I Love you write me :)
Love Elder Van Dyke

February 24, 2009

D.C. from Antartica to the Bahamas or close enough

Okay so this last week many many many miracles. Marie the mother of Daphne was baptised she said she wanted to be baptised the first week of March the day after her birthday but then on Friday night she called and said that she got a prompting to be baptised this SUNDAY!!! So that was really cool and we are teaching her two 8yo boys Daniel and Gabriel(twins) they are a handful but a delight. Then that same Sunday and old investigator we dropped Martial got a new job and has Sundays off so he wanted to come to church with us and so he got to see both the Confirmation of Daphne and the Baptism of Marie and he wants to start having the lessons again so we are super excited about that. We know he is just going to be great now that he is on the right tract. The snow here is clearing up pretty fast especially with all the rain we have been having it has melted the snow almost completly off of the lawns but the sidewalks and roads are still packed full of snow/ice and it isnt going anywhere anytime soon. Tomorrow is Zone Conference my first one! I came in the day after we had ours in January so Im excited for that. Everything is going good here. Today for P-Day we got up at 5:00 and went to D.C. to take Sunrise pictures which I have included we went to the Lincoln memorial to take them. We also went to the White House to take pictures and then we went to the Halocaust memorial museum which was really intense but I liked it. I love studying about wars and stuff and Hitler even though he was very twisted and evil was very smart and knew what he was doing and how to get his way. It was a really great teaching/Golden Question opprotunity which we used to our advantaged you would be surprised how many people wanted to hear more about the Plan of Salvation especially with what they just saw. So all in all it was a great experience. I have included the pictures that we took. I will talk to you next week. Love you all and passe un bonne journee(have a great day)
-Elder Van Dyke

February 17, 2010 Pictures

February 17th, 2010

The weather here hasd been insane!!! We have spent probably 30 hours on shoveling and 10-15 hours on pushing cars out/pushing cars up hills/pushing cars WHEREVER!!! Im glad to have lived in Utah and Canada and know what snow is really like. Whenever Elder Mezerai and I stop and help people they always ask us where we are from and when I say Canada they always say something to the tune of "Oh so this is like nothing to you then" "Your a proffesional then aren’t you" or my personal favorite "You drive Dog sleds in Canada Right?" I Love it.

Elder Mezerai and I get in alot of doors because neither of us or American (full American in my case) which really helps and I probably know more African dialects then I do French now. I have learned more about Africa in the last month then I have in all 6 years of Jr. High and High School its amazing how much different it really is coming from a Native then from a text book and a boring teacher. I LOVE the people hear they are so friendly and its really easy to change topics from weather and sports to Religion. The name tag really helps too :) French is coming along very well our Investigators Love the fact that im trying to learn their language so they help me out alot when I struggle.

Today we had tranfers and guess who is staying in the same area with his same companion... ME!!! Thank goodness I need to stay with the True French Man alot longer than I have so far. I have lots more to learn. Well nothing has really been happening thanks to all the snow. The work will continue to be slow for about another 2-3 weeks while people make up the money they lost while everything was shut down. Everything is going good here Im staying healthy somewhat (Afican food isn’t healthy at all especially with all the Palm Oil they use) I cant wait to hear from you. Until next week I love you all and be good :) -Elder Van Dyke

February 8, 2010

My letter for everyone else

Sorry im writing you now and not on Wednesday like usual. We have had crazy snow! Its a record or atleast thats all we have heard were just missionaries so we dont get the most up to date news. We had 2 1/2 feet at our apartment. We spent the last couple of days(Saturday, Sunday) and Today shoveling out Cars, Driveways, Sidewalks, EVERYTHING!!! The snow plows are not helping either.

The area is still going great Church was cancelled which sucked for alot of us because that meant the cancellation of Baptisms(not us) But Good news actually GREAT news rememeber Daphne? Well her Mom is so in tune with the Spirit and she doesnt even have it yet! Crazy!!! Well she has finally decided she wants to be baptized she says she feels its the right things and she knows it but she is going to wait until her two boys Daniel and Gabriel understand the Gospel enough so that they can be baptized all together and then they will be an amazing family which they almost are now all they need is the Gospel :)

The work has been a little hard with the earthquake in Haiti still but when we talk about the Plan of Salvation with them it really brings comfort to them. One thing Ive learned so far(3 1/2 months) You can never say to many prayers. I counted how many prayers we said in one day it was 10 prayers and thats just for us not including the other 7 we said with investigators. 17 prayers in one day. Do you think Heavenly Father is up there going oh no Elder Van Dyke not another one? Of course not I bet he is up there saying Yes! Yes! Time to talk with my Son :)

Have you ever thought deeply about prayer. No you havent well serve a mission you will learn to appreciate prayer alot more. It has taken me 11 years to really understand what prayer is. Prayer is how we talk to God. Your probably saying Elder Van Dyke I knew that before you were born well let me ask you this. How often do you pray? How long do you pray? Do you really say your prayers with all your Heart and Strength? If you answered no to any of these then dont worry start now make today the day that you are really going to talk with your Father in Heaven but when you finish dont just say Amen and walk away Stay on the "line" let your Father talk back to you as much as we love getting advice from our Earthly parents how much more should we hunger for advice from Our Heavenly Parents? They want to talk to us and give us advice and help us along we just need to ask for it and then LISTEN for it. I have a testimony that Prayer is one of the most important things we could do here right now. Even if you dont have the same beliefs God still wants to hear from you even if you dont think anyone is listening just remember there is ALWAYS one person listening and watching out for us and wants to help us along our way so I would ask you to say a meaningful prayer tonight and really bear your whole heart and soul to your Father in Heaven and I promise if you do this you Will feel his Love for you and the many blessings that come with that Love.

I Love you all too but I cant love you as much if you dont write me :) (See how I turned this around) I will write later this week if not I will for sure write next Wednesday. "See ya next week and remember keep your stick on the ice" (Red Green show)

February 3, 2010

You need to send all of my mail and anything else that you send me to the mission office because if I move to another apartment then my mail might not get to me so just send everything to the mission home address and they will forward it on to me. Money is going good I have extra money so I must be a smart shopper or something. I receive $160.00 each month they gave me a Debit Card from JPMorganChase with my name and everything and they just put the money on the card each month. We should be getting a new car soon we hit 50,000 miles on this one so they will give us a new car to destroy... did I say destroy I meant drive :) Im doing really well...

Im glad Chase came to church what about Ryan and Alex? Tell them all to write me I wrote all of them and I expect something back. Anyways back to ME! I am doing good we are having a tough time with investigators because they are all African everyone not a generalization I mean everyone we teach is African. They are really laid back a little too laid back. They really accept the gospel and everything we teach but when it comes time for Sunday and they actually have to do something they all of a sudden get "sick" or have to "work" or any excuse they can find but thanks to Elder and Sister Woofinden they have one less excuse and that one is usually I dont have a car and I dont want to walk... Well guess what have we got a deal for you :) but the area is going good I emailed my teachers back at the MTC and Soeur Roubicek (served in Quebec)

She is teaching an Elder who is going French speaking Washington D.C. only problem is D.C. French is only 3 areas and the oldest Elders is only 19 months and so we talked to Pres. about it and he said that the French are going to have a turn in the English program...NO!!!!!!! right now we have 6 Elders 2 speak really good French 1 is French but the other 2 Elders and myself don't speak or understand it very well so that means we are losing 2 Elders from the French program and gaining 2 more who can't speak French so we dont know whats going to happen but hopefully they send the 2 new Elders to the English program first.

Right now we have 2 Baptisms planned for this month really exciting. Other than that everything is going good and the work is going. Oh I almost forgot in case you havent seen the weather for D.C. guess what SNOW!!!! and lots of it. Problem I love the snow its my favorite I especially love blizzards only thing is in the French mission no one lives close to us so we have to go by car EVERYWHERE!!! but when it snows if there is even 1 in. that sticks to the ground we get LOCKED DOWN!!! until Pres. clears us to drive again.(So much for learning to drive in 2 feet of snow in Utah) But we have lots of fun like Sleep,Eat,Call(investigators),Sleep,write letters, Sleep and pretty much catch up on Sleep. Well I cant think of anything else to write I Love You ALL!!! Talk to you next week... Bye :)