Belgian keyboards make me cry

This is gonna be short, probably, because I have a pretty decent amount of time, but this keyboard is AZERTY. Hereùs q sentence typed zithout fixing things. Really annoying, right? Ah well. I'll deal with it!

Belgium is pretty cool! I do have to say that it kinda stinks here (in some places more than kinda), but so far my least favorite thing is that the keyboards are different, so I'm fine. :) Vlaams is pretty much ridiculous though. Haha. Think... Irish people in English. It's still Dutch, but barely, and so accented! I'm getting used to it slowly. :) I'm excited to see Oma and Opa on Wednesday[they are still in Deventer], and to go to the temple! It's been SOOOO LONG.

We have a baptism on Saturday! His name is I and he is marvelous. He is from Kyrgmenistan... Did I spell that right? He's super neat and I'm so excited for him :) We saw some super cool miracles this week,

Hey! Gruppman! I still have not met them but hope to. I'm glad the concert zas good! [Parents went to a concert conducted by Igor Gruppman who also lives in Rotterdam part of the time.]

Sister Clement is fantastic! 

Thank you for all of your support and prayers - I have been feeling them lately. Especially with this transfer... I didn't really feel ready to leave Deventer, but there's a reason I need to be here, I know!

I love you so much!

Zuster Anjewierden

T-t-t-t-transfers!

Last P-day in Deventer - 

I'm sure going to miss this place. I love these members and the missionaries who serve here (like my grandparents!). I've made some incredible friends here (like my JoVos... :( ) and my goodness, I've learned so much. I'm excited for the change, but it may not be an easy transition.

Wish I could write more, but I've got no time...

Turnhout, Belgium... Sister Clement... Here I come!

Miracles and Confereeeence!

Oh my goodness I hope you all loved conference as much as I did. I still haven't been able to hear the last session. Bah! It's driving me nuts. I may be able to in just a little bit here... We'll see.

As I've been out on my mission, I've realized that phrases like "That was lucky" and "how ironic" and "what a coincidence" are just a lie! Nothing is chance; nothing is coincidence. The Lord is so aware of all of his children, and he has a plan for EACH of us, not just everyone as a general whole!

Sister Townsend always told me that General Conference was a time of miracles, and I was able to see that these past few days! On Saturday we visited a referral - a man named L , who is a refugee from Afghanistan. He converted to Christianity about a year and a half ago here in the Netherlands! We invited him to come to General Conference that night. He loved it and asked to come the next day. He spent the entire day with us yesterday at the church! We haven't even had an official lesson with him yet and he's already said he'd like to prepare to be baptized. Very neat, very faithful man. We have an appointment with him tomorrow - I'll let you know what happens!

We also found J! Turns out she was here the whole time! There was some weird thing that happened where she was sent to Amsterdam because they wanted to deport her, but then, after being kept there for 3 days, she was sent back. The government said there was no reason for her to be deported... Go figure. We just happened to see her as we went to visit L on Saturday - she lives in the same camp that he does. It was absolutely not any coincidence. We have a lesson with her tomorrow as well!

Another neat thing about this week is that we have 3 dinner appointments that are with inactive members of our ward! We've really started to see the fruits of our efforts with the inactive and less-active members of this ward. Super cool! We're looking forward to keeping that up.

I was so inspired by conference. I am so excited to apply it in my work! This week I'm studying diligence, but I am also taking a leaf out of Elder Soares' book and studying the Christlike attribute of meekness along with that. I had a great study today and am excited to continue it this week. :) STUDY WITH MEEEE :)

We have temple conf in two weeks and I'm PSYCHED but I don't get to see the new movie because it won't be translated for like a year. :(

Amersfoort for church starts next week! (Moms side note: She will be traveling there to church, an hour away, while current building is being worked on.) Transfers are also next week so we'll see... Most trainers and trainees only stay together for two transfers...

Love you all -

Zuster Kira Anjewierden

quick

Literally no time, but this week was good! We had zone conference, which was the bomb, and I got to see some of my favorite people from Rotterdam zone. Liiiiiiiiiiike

FAMILY PICTURE. Plus the weird cousin? Ha I don't know. This is my lovely first daughter there on the left (of the picture, not of me, that's my second daughter). Also, my great friend Elder Huff there in the background. It looks like it wasn't on purpose but he was totally photobombing.

Ummm... Yes. We had a couple appointments but we REALLY need to find more investigators because we're running out. It happens. We've been a little lame with stuffing the funnel full... Changing that.

All the time I have! Agh!

Love you all!

Zuster A

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"From a Jewish guy to you, 'Mazel tov!'"

Hey all, here's a little update! Sorry it's been a while...

We have had a great couple weeks with members. We're getting to know a lot more active ones and we've had appointments with several more inactives. It's been great! Unfortunately, in our focus on the members, we let our potentials/investigators pool run a little bit low, so we're struggling a bit on that side. That's something I didn't really think about before I came out - missionary work is a balance of several things. You have to work with members (inactive and active), find investigators, teach investigators, report to Church leaders, eat, sleep, study... Sometimes you work too much on one or two and the others suffer.

We had to drop one investigator due to his unwillingness to keep commitments (he's had the lessons before and knows the church is true but won't change the way he lives), which was really hard because we know he just needs to make the decision to do that and he'll progress, but we felt very at peace about the whole thing afterward, which was good. We've also not been able to come in contact with another one of our investigators for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, we have a couple of potentials who have been very busy the past few weeks but are now willing, and even excited, to meet with us! One is a former investigator who is a young Dutch girl. She just lost her aunt to cancer. We're really excited to teach her about the Plan of Salvation! The other is a German girl who's here studying tourism. I met her on exchanges with Sister Hudson and we helped her move into her apartment. We're excited to meet with her and to tell her about our message!

I hope that everything is going well with jullie (you, plural. Why isn't there one in English? Y'all.)! I'm so grateful for the support and the prayers. I pray for all of you as well! Much love!

Zuster A

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Still alive, I promise

Hey everyone, it's been a few weeks! I have run out of time again because of P-day activities that we didn't know were occurring, but I am still alive, and the work is still going! Promise. :) I'll try my best to write a legitimate post next week. Much love!

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Another week another euro?

WOW goodness I've got just a few minutes to speed type. I don't have my full hour because we had a super cool opportunity today to go to this zoo called the Apenheul - it's mostly monkeys! It was suuuuuuper cool. :) We saw lots of monkeys! Also, we went with our district, which is always a blast. . I attached a picture! The other girl with us is a member in Zwolle. She's named Segijna (no idea how to spell that really) and she's SUPER cool. She speaks American because she went to Philly on her mission!

 

*My bike got STOLEN last week. Really truly. Super sad. I think that was last Monday? But it's whatever, I'm getting another one from a member in Zwolle who's super nice. I'm actually more bummed about my fietstas (bike bag) than the bike itself, I think.... That thing could hold the world. I'm borrowing opa's until I get my new bike.  It was bound to happen sometime!

Belgium in comparison with the Netherlands is stinky and more French. So.... I prefer the Netherlands to the parts of Belgium I've experienced.  

 

Lastly, I've got a spiritual thought here. I had the opportunity to give a little talk on Virtue in district meeting today. In my studies for the talk, I realized that to me, virtue is giving up our will to for the Lord's. If we have righteous desires, those come from Christ, not from within us, because the natural man is an enemy to God. So how important to not only to do what the Lord wants, but also to want the things that He wants for us, and to think them! I highly recommend reading 2 Nephi 2:27-35 with that in mind. Nephi is an incredible example of virtue.

 

Wellllll until next week, homies. I love you all. :)

 

Zuster Anjewierden