The Madness!

We were also happy to hear that Nederland won both matches this week, though I was a bit sad to hear that the US was beaten by Germany. But it'll be interesting to see if Belgium or the US wins tomorrow because that's our companionship. Hahaha. A member brought that up. But I'm also really glad that we're not allowed to watch the matches because that's gotten us out of some weird situations! Anyway.

 

Well, another week has flown by! I can scarcely believe it. Actually, not a ton happened this week. We decided that it was due to a lack of unity and planning last week, and we've repented and are working (HARD) on both things!

 

Li. continues to be an amazing miracle. She also continues to terrify us with the way that she brings things up! She went to the doctor this week and was told she's overstressed and so she's telling us this and all I can think is that the next thing she's going to say is "So you should probably stop coming." But she didn't, she just told us her plans to lessen the stress and told us that she was planning on taking the bus to come to church on Sunday (two buses, actually). She's so full of faith. She just continues to surprise us! Pleasantly! Gi. is also loving church and talking to us, which is so neat! Especially because he's so young! Six years old and he loves talking to people about Jesus. What a good kid. :)

 

Got back in contact with Jy. He was really upset that his baptismal date had passed. We were secretly happy because we're thinking that should help us to help him see that he has to take this all seriously if he wants to be baptized. He needs to meet with us, and come to church, and keep his commitments. They're not suggestions, they're important to his salvation! Ah!

 

Hs. is also progressing beautifully! He couldn't come to church yesterday but he's coming next Sunday. We have a lift for him and everything! He accepted the law of chastity and tithing and fasting beautifully!

 

Oh! We went to the relief society activity on Wednesday and several sisters commented on how much they loved that we came. It was cool because we were able to build up our relationships with a couple of them! A couple were even inactive so it was really neat to be there. :) We're looking forward to the Ward BBQ in a couple weeks for the same reasons!

 

We've started to plan zone training and I'm really excited to see how everything will turn out. We're focusing it Christ and on using Preach My Gospel with members. I'm really getting super excited for everything we're planning for this transfer!

 

I found a cool scripture this morning. Doctrine and Covenants 95:11. "If you keep my commandments you shall have power to build it." The Lord is talking about the temple, but it really hit me about the fifth stake. If we are obedient, we'll have the power to build it! I loved that. And it's true! And it totally applies to the rest of life as well. If we're obedient, we'll be okay. And as Mosiah 2:41 tells us, we'll be blessed and happy. :)

 

I love you all so much!

 

Sister Anjewierden

Hup Holland Hup!

 

How's the US doing in the World Cup? Nederland is doing pretty well, I hear. Haha. Everything is decked out in World Cup decorations over here and it's super fun. :)

 

WHOA there's a lot to say and I've got like NO time. Which really just means I will probably end up not saying half of it. But here we go!

I'm excited to be staying here in Utrecht with Sister Verdegem. I'm excited to become better friends with her and to really get the work here moving! :)
The biggest and greatest news of this week is that Li. came to church!!! With Gi. and La. :) Which was a big deal, because her husband continues to not be supportive, and he's the one with the car, so she biked, and the Muurlings saved the day and picked up La. and Gi. She said the most sincere prayer after Gospel Principles - lots about how she was so glad that she chose to come and she hopes that her husbands heart will be softened so that they can be unified and go to church as a family! She's amazing - I am constantly in awe of her faith. Gi. is doing much better, luckily. Apparently he has sickle cell attacks like every three to four months, so while it wasn't nice, it wasn't anything new for them. He's the cutest kid. He loved church! Especially primary, but even sacrament meeting! He's one of the coolest 6-year-olds that I know :)
Ha. would like to come to church, which is a big deal, seeing as the first time we asked him he was very lukewarm about it. Something along the lines of "I'll think about it... Maybe..." But now he wants to come! We've found him a ride for this coming Sunday and are praying that everything will work out so that he can get there! He's still got tons of questions, but we re-invited him to be baptized and he paused before saying "Yes, if I know it's true." So his progress isn't quick, but it's definitely there!
Jy. has disappeared again. It's really frustrating to try and get ahold of people who have no credit on their phone to call you with, because the only way it'll work is if they answer when you call! So. Crazy. We're still trying.
Sister Verdegem and I did a musical number this week - "My Soul Hungered", which is a Seminary song from the Book of Mormon year. It's about Enos and it's so good! On the note (haha) of Enos, my prayers have been drastically better this week. But still need to be better! Still working on it. Also, we're working on getting the members to read Preach My Gospel and I'm convinced that it's going to bring about MIRACLES here!

I've decided that I need to magnify my calling better this upcoming transfer. I've been coming up with some ideas as to how I can do that and I'm excited to implement those with the sisters! It's really going to be a great transfer, I can feel it. :)

SO MUCH LOVE! :)

Zuster Anjewierden

Sister Hoff and I got egged....Really.

Sister Brophy and I made banana bread while stuck in our apt. during the world cup game.

Progress

Fammmmily. :)
Sometimes weeks come that look really daunting from a distance (two, three weeks before), but then they're actually really fantastic, and not even as jam-packed as I thought previously! This week was such a week. With Mission Leader Council and Zone Conference and other stuff, I wasn't sure how we were going to do it all! But we did, and it was really wonderful!
Sister Verdegem's birthday was this week and the ward was SO great to her. :) We got a dinner appointment the day of! It was super neat. It's been really interesting to have a companion who's a native speaker. We switch back and forth between Dutch and English day in and day out! She's a really incredible teacher, and she's amazing with the members - I'm so glad to have her here!
BIG NEWS - We're invited to ward council! We asked about it yesterday and the bishop said we could come! That's really great. :) It'll be really helpful, I think!
Li. wasn't able to come to church yesterday because her son Gi. is in the hospital :\ He has sickle cell anemia and had an attack last week. We went to go visit them there, and Li. says she'd love for him to have a priesthood blessing. I am so amazed at her - she's really incredible. An acquaintance of hers tried to anti her this last week and she handled it so well! She's still just as strong as she was before - stronger, I'd say. We're going to have to reschedule her baptismal date, but I know she wants this. And needs it. :)
Jy. is getting closer but he has all of these random questions all of a sudden! Mostly things that aren't terribly important, about word usage and such things - He just needs to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! It's amazing how literally everything comes back to that wall of faith - if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the same church that Christ established, restored to the earth. Ha. also needs to pray about that. He told us on Friday that he finished the Book of Mormon, but still hasn't prayed about it! We made him promise to do so. :)

Zone Conference was amazing! Elder and Sister Boom taught me so much in the few hours that we had to listen to them. I'm super excited to start applying it all!

 

My goal this week is to have better prayers. I pray a lot (mornings, for study, meals, when we leave the apartment, in lessons, etc) but I want to have more meaningful prayers. That's how we really use the Atonement, and I'm currently... Not really using it! So. Wanna work on that. :)

 

Love you all so much!

 

Sister Anjewierden

With my comp. and Elder Castillion.

With Elder Knudsen (also from Bountiful).

ahhhh! Running out of time!

June 9

Kinderdijk with the Utrecht gang!

 Stroopwafels in the pouring rain with sister Hoff.

 Cool ranch Nederland style.

We have to go catch a bus to our dinner appointment so this may be quicker than usual but here we go!

This was a crazy week. We started it out with two exchanges - I spent Tuesday with Sister Stevens in Dordrecht and Wednesday with Sister Rosenlof here in Utrecht. I sure love working with these sisters. They're amazing and I learn so much from them! I'm doing my best to help them in the ways that they need it. I love them a lot. :) Anyway, the rest of the week was fairly normal I suppose, except for Saturday and Sunday which consisted of travel and stake/regional conference and wow. It was crazy! But really great!
Well... Li. is doing really well! She wanted to come to stake conference but some family ended up coming to visit for Pentacost weekend and she wasn't able to. She said she's definitely coming this next week though! She has the cutest little kids - one is Gi., who's 6, and he said he wanted to come with her to church. It was the cutest thing! We just need to help her husband see the light and this whole family could be brought into the fold!
Jy. is still as excited as ever to be baptized. His date is getting closer and closer and we're actually a little bit nervous we're going to be cramming a bunch of lessons in the last week before because his work schedule is crazy! But it'll be okay whatever happens, the Lord is in charge! 
Today we actually had a lesson with a referral that Li. gave to us - Vi. She's also a young mother. We had a great first lesson and she said that she doesn't want further visits right now simply because she's super busy at the moment, but she did say that she was excited to read the Book of Mormon, and that she wouldn't have taken it if she wasn't going to read it. I know it will touch her if she's open to it!

Stake conference was really great! We had a hard time hearing in the Rotterdam building but it was great to hear some words from our apostles and other leaders! Also I got to see a bunch of members from Dordrecht!

 

Please go watch the "Prayer" Mormon message. I cried. Also, I heard John Legend on the bus this week and it was a tender mercy of the Lord.

 

LOVE

 

Sister Anjewierden

Allergies are worse than colds!

June 2

Can't believe it's June already. My allergies are going crazy... But I'm sure loving this weather, despite the fact that my sinuses aren't! For that reason, I'd really love some rain.

It's amazing how quickly P-days fly by. There's just so much to do! We took our time studying this morning, which was great, but it sure makes for a crazy rest of the day. I'm glad that we have so much structure - it's just another thing that reminds me that this work is run by Heavenly Father. He's got it all figured out. It's so cool!

Let's see... Had a great exchange with Sister Hoff this week! We found some cool potentials in Gouda and had this great dinner appointment with the bishop and his wife there. His wife told us their conversion stories and wow. I love hearing peoples' conversion stories. They're always so powerful! Then on Wednesday we went on splits with Sister Brophy and Sister Kohlert in Capelle aan den Ijssel and that was really cool. I'm so impressed with them - they've taken all of this moving in and out of the apartment like champions. It was weird for Sister Verdegem since Sister Brophy served in Gent for six months before Sister Verdegem came on her mission! She said she almost felt like a regular member again. I can imagine that would be super strange!

Other than that... We've been really trying to build up better relationships with the members of the ward! They're so great and we would love to get them going on joint teach with us more because they really add incredible amounts of input, and they just testify with the Spirit! It's awesome. We had some really great lessons with members present this week, a couple of which were with Jy, and they were really incredible.

Speaking of Jy, he came to church yesterday! And also, he's going to talk to his boss about changing his shift on Sundays so that he can come every week! We're trying to figure out how to help him get to Stake Conference this next week. But my favorite thing about Jy this week is that he shared his testimony with us on Friday. About the Book of Mormon. He talked about how there are so many simple truths in it that answer questions he's had for a long time. Especially Bible-related questions that confused him because of the many translations of the bible. So that was really neat. He's really excited to be baptized on the 21st!

Well, other than that... Li. is doing great! I wasn't there for the appointment with her but Sister Verdegem and Sister Rosenlof invited her to be baptized on June 21st! Which is super cool. We're going to have to change that day because she's got to be able to come to church enough, plus her husband isn't being super supportive so we're hoping that will change with time and prayers. But! She wants to be baptized. She knows we were sent to her!

 

Okay I know there were other things I wanted to say but I gotta go. But I love you all! Have a great time on the road and in Nauvoo and stuff! :) Think of me lots ;)

 

SO MUCH LOVE!

 

Sister Anjewierden