Starting Again

FAMILY!

Well, we had a pretty great week as far as personal growth, helping other missionaries grow, and making plans for the zone/for our own city, but as far as investigators go it was a pretty hard week! We realized on Saturday that we really only have a couple of investigators who are still positive. It's time to replenish our teaching pool!

We visited Rotterdam distrcit on Tuesday, which felt really strange, but was good! It was fun to be able to see how someone else's district works. Elder Pouwer is a power(haha)ful teacher and we learned a lot about using the Book of Mormon in teaching. Sister Kohlert and I headed back to Utrecht and had a great exchange. We had a lot of fun together and taught some great lessons to Me. (Word of Wisdom) and Ib. (Law of Chastity).

Wednesday we switched with Gouda and Sister Hoff and I also had a great exchange! While at a dinner appointment we heard about the new documentary coming about about members of the Church - Meet the Mormons. They showed us the trailer. Looks like it'll be good! I'm excited to see it, but not as excited as I am about watching Elder Bednar's talk from Education week - the members have all been talking about that, too.

Thursday was a HARD DAY. Everything went wrong. Ib. dropped us. We were late to everything. People dropped appointments. We were an hour late to our dinner appointment. It was about as ridiculous as Murphy's Law can get. I turned to Sister Verdegem at one point and said, "I just want to crawl in a hole and die." Haha. But we did visit a cute less active family and they were kind of the highlight of our day, along with our dinner appointment with familie Dubbeld! Once we got there.

Friday was Mission Leader Council and wow, I got so many ideas of how to improve my teaching these last few weeks. I can't believe that I haven't been using them all before now! Like... Writing down frequently asked questions in my study journal and studying answers for them? Or focusing in on baptismal interview questions when planning lessons? They just seem like common sense but hey, we're all still learning, right? Anyway, I'll definitely be applying it all. It's weird to think that I won't have another Mission Leader Council though!

The rest of the week involved District Leader Council, visiting members, and re-evaluating our situation. We dropped Jy. (it's almost impossible to contact him lately), Ib. dropped us, Ro. and Ma. haven't been responding to us... Me. is doing great, so that's fantastic. Ha. needs to gain a testimony of the Restoration. So... We're going from that. Almost back to square one as far as investigators go, but we do have some really positive potentials.

Quick spiritual thought. Due to a series of unfortunate events, we missed the sacrament yesterday morning. It was really frustrating because we walked in with Me. and they were singing but they started saying the first prayer and we waited for them to come out and they never did. I even tried to go open the door so they'd know we were there. BUT they wouldn't let us in. And I was so upset! I fought back tears as we went into the chapel - I thought about how difficult the past week had been WITH the sacrament and didn't want to think about how it'd be this week without it. Then I thought of the parable of the ten virgins. I have never felt more like one of the foolish virgins. I felt like we were knocking at the door of the Bridegroom but we were too late! If we had been more prepared, it wouldn't have been a problem. I decided I never want to feel like that again. So. New life goal. Always be prepared!

All righty. Til next week!

Love you all. :)

Sister Anjewierden

With Sister Kohlert in Utrecht!