January 23, 2012

Hello,

Hi family! It is a real exciting thing for me to be able to write you an email every week. I love being a missionary. You have so many great experiences that help you to grow and stretch. This transfer is going to be absolutely brilliant. There are many things to learn from Elder Dongen. He is a really dedicated, determined and experienced.
Watford is a really wonderful area! We have a great town centre, which is a nice change because for the past 8 months I have had very small town centres. This one is very big with people every where. I love people. The ward is very missionary minded and loves to help us with the work. There are Sister Missionaries in the ward as well... they cover the exact same area as us. It is fun and different to work with them. Sister Cordeiro speaks portuguese and so she will teach me everything I need to know. I really wish that I could have been able to learn all of portuguese but the Lord has different plans. Um dia I will learn Portuguese. I have a list of languages that I want to learn.

1) Portuguese
2) then Spanish
3) Mandarin
4) Swahili

I really want to do it. I want to live in so many different countries and learn about how they work and why. Moving around a lot in the mission is becoming something that I really enjoy. New cities, new people and a new life. A dream I have now is to be a dentist or doctor and go to many countries doing free medical work. Staying for six months to a year and learning the language and culture. Communication is a very interesting thing. If we do not communicate with others in this life... our relationship suffers. If you do not communicate with someone... you cannot grow closer to them. It is a written law somewhere. The same way with our Heavenly Father. If we do not talk with Him through prayer... how can we know what He wants for us? We cannot draw closer to Him without speaking with him. He is ever ready to answer our prayers.
Watford has 3-4 investigators with a baptismal date right now.

Ellen is 17 and a awesome girl. She has completely changed her life around and really wants to be baptised tomorrow. He parents think the whole religion thing is a waste and want her to wait until she is 18. That puts her baptismal date to the 10th of March. She loves Church and the YW girls really accept her. She has a really spunky personality and is just a cool girl.
Andy is about 40. Has been looking for the Church that the Bible talks about. He says ours is the closest that he has found. He is hesitant about baptism because he thinks that he is beyond baptism. The views and ideas he has are great and it causes us to really back up what the Church Doctrine is with the Bible and Book of Mormon. It has been nice on my mission to be able to see why we do the things we do. As we think about why... the gospel comes alive.

Sandy is a bit older than Andy. She is very busy with a case that she has been working on for a while now. It is to do with some kind of Identity Theft. We had a really perfect lesson yesterday with a member. Elder Dongen invited her to be baptised on the 25th of February. She was wishy washy about it and then the member went for it. She testified all about how she needed to be baptised on the date that we asked her. She shared her baptismal story... and then Sandy was prompted to accept it. We will work with her towards that date.

IAN!!!! He is sooooo coool. We met him in town on Thursday... and he was looking for a church because it was bugging him that he had never found that one he was looking for. He stopped his exercise in the gym early and walked into two churches in town. He wasn't impressed by them and started walking home. That is when we stopped him. He was very interested. We tried to set up a Chapel tour with him he next day... but he refused and said he wanted to do it that day. We obviously said that was okay... and interrupted our finding. I was a tad frustrated... because I love street contacting. The world is full of allllllll kinds of people. We met Ian at the Church 4 hours later... had a brillllliant lesson and invited him to be baptised on the 3rd of March! He was really excited. He said he is someone that will give it his all. All we need from people is an open mind and a willing heart. He has both and will progress. The Lord has people prepared.

I love it here. Our flat is a shed... slash cabin. It is behind Bishop's house. Everything is in one room. The kitchen, study and bedroom are all together. The toilet is the only thing separate. We do not have a shower... so we bathe. Terrible. I soak in my own filth. I like it though... I feel like I'm on a holiday.

Thank you for all your support and love. I am sending a present for the parents. It is a great one. I am really proud of it.

Love,
Elder Krebs