3rd letter from Maastricht, Netherlands - Week 26

Elder Walker in Maastricht.  Doing his famous "hang loose" hand signal.  :-D

Hey everyone! 

So this week was just awesome!  We had the chance to go to the Temple and hear from the Mission President as well as go to Stake Conference, so it consisted of a lot of traveling this week.  

We also had the singing Elders in our apartment this week performing for members of the ward and investigators which was amazing.  It just blows my mind to see how music is able to move people and influence lives for the better. 

uhm yeah, so I guess let's see..what have I learned this week.  uhm I guess one of the biggest things I took away from this week of conferences is how much of a blessing it is that we have the opportunity to go to church and partake of the Sacrament every week.  The saying: "The man wasn't made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath is made for man" is absolutely true.  

On my mission I have truly came to experience the peace, rest, and strength that comes from dedicating Sunday to our spiritual growth and doing the work of the Lord. 

He truly has given us the Sabbath in order to improve our lives and I can promise all of you that as you strive to make the Sabbath a pleasure, that it will bring about an amazing change in your life and you'll feel more at peace and have greater strength throughout the week. 

Anyways, I love you all and hope you all are loving life, smiling and that you know that I love you!  Have a great week!

- Elder Walker

2nd letter from Maastricht, Netherlands - Week 25

Hey everyone! 

It's Elder Walker, sooo sorry I don't have a ton of time to write today but I just wanted to talk about the miracle of prayer real quick.

Firstly, Maastricht is absolutely beautiful and soooo much fun.  There is a huge, huge population of students and the school is very international, so I have met lots of people from Germany, the United States, England, Scotland, France, Spain, Turkey, just everywhere, it's sooo cool! 

But yeah, about the miracle of prayer, so me and my companion Elder Leigh decided to pray to give out two book of Mormons a day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (which is a lot) and we were able to do it! 

Every single day without fail we gave away a Book of Mormon in Dutch and English, which was super cool, and found a couple of really awesome potential investigators.  

So it was just a huge testimony that this is truly the Lords work and we just get to be tools in his hands.  

I just want to let you all know that I love you so very much and I hope you all have an amazing week!

- Elder Walker

1st letter from Maastricht, Netherlands - Week 24

Hey everyone! 

Elder Walker here in the beautiful city of Maastricht!   So I guess a quick recap on the week, I got transferred to Maastricht, which involved lots of traveling, like a ton!  But life is good.  

I have the privilege of serving with Elder Leigh who is from South Jordan, Utah and he came here right out of high school and this is his second transfer in the land.  But yeah, he is super awesome and we are going to get some work done this transfer! 

Let's see, I guess a little bit about the city.  It's beautiful and has a ton of church's everywhere and also is a student city which is just a lot of fun, plus the ward is just fantastic.  I've been into Germany twice this last week sooo that's kinda cool.  

But yeah, it's a blessing to know that as missionaries wherever we serve it's where the Lord wants us to be.  

It was definitely a privilege this week to hear from our amazing Prophet and the 12 Apostles this Sunday.  It truly brought peace to my heart and I'm grateful for not only the things that I have learned, but the things I realize that I must change. 

So if you haven't watched all of the sessions I would invite you to do so.  I promise you that there is a message in there for you.  

Anyways, got to run!  Thank you all for everything!  I love you and have an amazing week!

- Elder Walker 

**** PLEASE NOTE IN THE WEB VERSION OF THIS BLOG ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE THE NEW MISSION OFFICE ADDRESS TO SEND PACKAGES TO ****

 

12th & final letter from Leuven, Belgium - Week 23

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't blogged for the last couple of weeks life has been crazy!!  So update, last week I climbed a super cool church tower where you can see Antwerpen as well as Brussels which was awesome! 

The rest of this week was super cool we had the opportunity to go serve in a soup kitchen which was super cool as well as some service for some other people in the area.  It's getting colder here in Belgium, which means rain and fog, haha totally different than my favorite climate but its still super beautiful and I enjoy it.

uhm let's see, the work in Leuven is going great, we have one investigator with a baptismal as well as 4 truly progressing investigators which is super cool! 

Okay, soooo a bit of news before the miracle/thought for the week, and that news is that I'm leaving Leuven this Wednesday and heading to the city of Maastricht, which is super cool its one of the southern most cities in Belgium as well as the oldest, and to top it off its right on the border of Germany!!  Sooo potentially some time will be spent in Germany, as well as on the American military base right next to it, so yeah I'm pretty excited to got to the next place the Lord has called me! 

Fun fact from mom about Maastricht: 

Maastricht is a city and municipality in the southern part of the Dutch province of Limburg, of which is the capital.  The city is situated on both sides of the Meuse river (Dutch: Maas) in the South-eastern part of the Netherlands.  Maastricht is on the Belgian border (with both the Dutch-speaking Flemish and French-speaking Walloon region) and near the German border.  Maastricht is widely known as a centre of tradition, history and culture and popular with tourist for shopping and recreation. 

Haha okay so miracle time.   This Sunday we had a visitor from American Fork, UT who is here for a month, and he brought a friend who lives in Belgium, who is not a member which was awesome.  But the real cool part for me was why she decided to investigate and that was because she went to Utah for business several times and loved how friendly everyone was and wanted to know why. 

And it just hit me a little bit how much influence, member and non-member alike, that we have on people and it got me thinking about how truly important it is that we stand as a light house to the world, standing up for what we believe in, doing good unto others, and truly loving our neighbors.  

I would just like to conclude with my testimony that I know that our Savior Jesus Christ lives.  I know that he performed that infinite atonement that allows us to become better and to live with our families, with our Heavenly Father forever out of love, but out of love for his Father and Heaven, but also for the love that he has for each and every one of us.  

He knows all of us personally and loves us deeply, and I just want to let you all know how grateful I am for all of you and I truly love you all.  May god be with you till we meet again. 

- Elder Walker 


Pictures courtesy of Brother and Zuster Caldwell (Senior Missionaries)

The Caldwell's took the Elders and Zusters on one last activity in Mechelen to climb St. Rumbold tower.  When they got to the top this is the view Jerrick talked about, being able to see Brussels and Antwerpen. The tower has 538 steps, in each direction.

The crane chamber, 160 steps

Next to the old carillon

In the clockwork room

By the bass carillon room.  The new carillon is built on top of this room

Exotic fruit and coat shopping for Jerrick. The Caldwell's take such great care of the missionaries!!

Zone P-day Soccer fun!

 

11th letter from Leuven, Belgium - Week 22

Elder Walker was only able to give a quick update again this week.  

" This week has been good we have had a huge emphasis on service which was super fun. Hahaha so don't worry too much about me I'm not freezing haha. But yeah I will try to send some pictures this pday. Okay love you!"  

Well, he didn't manage to get me any new pics, but thank goodness for the Senior missionary couple in his ward, (who take great care of the missionaries), the Caldwell's. They are great at posting updates and pictures of Elder Walker and the other missionaries on their blog.  Here are some from their service week.  :-)  ....We love you Elder Walker and are so proud of you!!

Sister C and Elder Walker planting bulbs (Typical rainy day in Belgium)

Elders Thornock, Drinkwater and Groenveld

Jerrick's companion, Elder Silva

Bishop Dixon

Bishop Dixon bought everyone pizza after all their hard work

(post from Elder & Sister Caldwell (Left)) On Friday, we drove to the crematorium in Turnhout for the funeral service for Sister Geets, a long-time member of the Church.  Because of her life of kindness and service, the expected crowd was much too big to meet in the small Turnhout chapel.  The missionaries had been requested to sing a hymn at the service and we had prepared the day before.  We had the Elders from Genk, Geel and Leuven there.  The sisters based in Turnhout were travelling that day.  It was a lovely service and we did fairly well on the hymn.

(One more picture from the Elders trip to Brussels a few weeks ago) Brother & Sister Green from Orem were visiting friends in Brussels. They took the missionaries to the best waffle shop in Brussels.

10th letter from Leuven, Belgium - Week 21

Hey Everyone!  There was no update from Jerrick this week.  He has had a very busy P-day and promised to update us all next week!  He did say he is doing great though, so that is all that matters!  :-)  I did manage to snag some pictures though!  - Janell 

Antwerpen Stake outing: (left) Elder Paur, Elder Silva & Elder Walker

Grabbing a quick lunch....what do ya know..Mc'D's!  :-)

Ready to Perform for the Rest Home (The senior missionaries said Jerrick has a great Tenor Voice!) Left to Right: Elder Silva, Zuster Caldwell, Brother Caldwell, Elder Walker

The audience

Zone Conference with Elder Timothy J. Dyches of the Seventy.
This session included the Amsterdam, Den Haag and Antwerpen Zones (do you see Jerrick in the back?)

P-Day emails

 

The Tilburg station to meet his new companion Elder Silva (Right) 

Last weeks P-day in Brugge w/the Zuster missionaries

9th letter from Leuven, Belgium - Week 20

Hey everyone! Elder Walker here!! 

Just another beautiful week in Belgium! uhm lets see I guess the first thing I must report on is the weather it has been chilly and super rainy like rain here is crazy!  Just a straight up wall of cold water you get soaked in seconds but it's super awesome.  So yeah I'm thinking winter is here soooo gray skies forever hahaha but it's fun.  

Lets see miracle for the week, well we had 3 investigator's at church which was super awesome! And we also set up a Baptismal date with one of our investigators which was super super cool!...like bam life is good! It's really awesome when you see your investigator's taking those steps to come closer to Christ and is a huge motivator for me to be the best that I can be. 

haha it's always great being around families here.  Honestly it reminds me of my family back home and the ultimate goal we have as missionaries and that is to get families to the Temple to be sealed for time and all eternity, which to me is one of the most amazing gifts we have on the earth, which actually goes along great with my "food for thought this week".

Which is, we all really know what we need to do in order to accomplish those things we want in life, whatever they may be, but what it really comes down to is how much work we are willing to put in to do it and what we are willing to sacrifice to get it.  Which really is summed up nicely by the mission standard in this mission of 100% accountability for everything, which is awesome! 

haha it has made me realize that if I want to accomplish something it's up to me to do it and at the same time other people helping you out is definitely a blessing because I still believe that we all need help sometimes, whether that is from a friend, spouse, a loving parent, or most definitely from our Savior, because none of us are close to being perfect, but through him we can become perfect. :) 

So I know this is a jumbled mess but I want to relate this to one more story and that is of the Anti-Nephi Lehi's and how they buried there weapons of war, they sacrificed that thing to become better and show that they were willing to follow our Savior, which I think is something that we all must do to become better.  

So I would like to challenge you all to find something you would like to improve on this week, no matter what it is, it can be anything and then find something that you are willing to sacrifice in order to improve in that area.  I can promise that as you do, you will be blessed for it and will be able to accomplish what you would like to. 

Anyways I love you all and I am sooo grateful for your love and example.  I will always keep you in my prayers.

- Blisters bring blessings

- Enjoy the little things

With lots of love,

Elder Walker

(I found these on the Belgium/Netherlands Facebook page of the missionaries trip a couple weeks ago to Belgium.  Had to share!)

Jerrick is hiding somewhere back there!