Belgium Netherlands Mission

Oh my, this week was so good. It's crazy how fast this transfer is going by though, because transfers are next Wednesday and we are just praying every night that *if it's god's will* we'll be able to stay together for one more transfer. Zuster Hopkin is such a wonderful companion :) We are working hard and having fun.

We had an appointment with our Indonesian investigator, and he made us Bami soup and made us eat with chopsticks. Now you that know me are going to say, "but you could never use chopsticks!" or something, but I totally did it! I felt very accomplished. We taught him about covenants and how they bring us closer to God. His mother is a member, but is too old and frail to come to church, so that's a jammer. She's the most adorable Indonesian lady and whenever we come in she does the 3 kisses and tells us "oh wat ruikt je heerlijk!" (ooh you smell good!) and then when we leave she does the 3 kisses and says "I love you" in English. It makes my heart melt. They have two hairless cats that are pretty freaky looking, but to each his own :)

We were contacting in a park this week (the weather was heerlijk) and we talked to this man and we had a long conversation about the purpose of life. He was a little contentious at first but then it just turned into a very interesting, enthralling exchanging of opinions and testimonies. We had the cool opportunity to bear testimony about the plan of salvation and it was really cool. He didn't want to give us his number, but hopefully he'll call us. I hope so! It would be a miracle.
We talked to this other lady who loved nature. She was super funny. :) But not interested, sadly.

On the way home from a dinner appointment on Wednesday, we were sitting on the bus and it rolled up to the next stop and there was a girl saying goodbye to her grandma. When she got on the bus her grandma waved goodbye to her and before I knew what my arm was doing I waved back! Ach it was so embarrassing and I literally didn't do it on purpose, but it just happened and I've never felt more confused and embarrassed and we were just all laughing and hilariousness ah
Also that night Zr Hopkin sneezed while we were daily planning and then she said really quietly, "gezondheid" And I said, "wait... did you just... gezondheid yourself?" We had a good laugh again and just died.


Taking time to laugh is so important :)

Two weeks ago we randomly found this guy while we were looking up this old former, who is verhuisd (moved) apparently, and now we're teaching him! He's catholic and has dreadlocks and gold teeth, and he's super chill. He was very receptive and we have a return appointment with this awesome member as joint teach, so that's cool :)

Zr H had to go België to get her visum dinges on Vriday and so I got to go to Gouda with Zuster Harris for the day! We basically just did contacting that day in the rain and it was fun :) Although a bird pooped on my arm. haha

Saturday was going to be this awesome day with like 4 or 5 lessons (a rare blessing) and then all but one cancelled. We taught her the "Big Three": prayer, scripture study, and sabbath day. It was a good lesson.

So we just contacted by the markt for the rest of the day and just before going home to have dinner and weekly plan we were passing by this produce stand and we saw this freaky looking vegetable called a Romanesco or something and we bought one to eat for dinner. It's like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower and it's spiky. That was fun.

Sunday was just full of miracles: so our key got stuck in the front door and we couldn't pull it out and eventually we were just like "okay, we're going to be late we just need to go to church!" We left our house around 8:50 (church starts at 9:30) and just biked as fast as we could (it's a 45 min ride) AND WE GOT TO CHURCH AT 9:20. I'm convinced that Heavenly Father either stopped time or he just moved our bikes a little faster ;)

THEN we got there and who was at church? Our investigator friends, of course! as;dlkfjwpeorij We were just so happy I thought I was going to die! They all enjoyed it and then after the ward had put together this gezellig little lunch with broodjes (basically a roll with cheese of lunch meat) and soup. It was such a cute day. All these members came and fellowshipped them and it was a dream come true.

That night we went to look up this lady who a member had told us about, but we only knew her last name and the street she lived on, but we found her! She wasn't home, but we left a note and we were just grateful we could find her address.

I'm trying to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of March and I read basically all of Mormon and a little of Ether just on the train on the way back from Gouda on Friday night and it was an incredible experience. Mormon's lamentation for the Nephites is so full of emotion and it's just so good. I liked Mormon 5: 17 and 18 because it points out that God leads us and gives us direction, Christ is our shepherd! but Satan just leaves his followers to flounder. I want a way to steer myself! I love  you and hope you all have a good week!

Love, Zuster Watts

Valentines day? What is that?

This week was pretty awesome. Although it feels like my mission is turning into a time warp. What is life?

We had a super wonderful district meeting on Tuesday. Our district leader told a story about two boys, Jason and Ben, who used to play together. Jason got a rash on his hand and didn't know what to do about it, so his mom put a glove on his hand to hide the rash. He was ashamed of the rash and felt embarrassed of it, so he was incredibly protective of the glove which covered it up. One day as he and his friend were playing, the glove fell off. Jason didn't want his friend to see the rash--maybe Ben would make fun of him or think he was disgusting! So he ran away without a word and went home. Ben was confused and a little hurt that his friend would just run away, but he walked home thinking about the situation. 
Jason's mom gave him a new glove, so the next day he felt confident again to go out and play with Ben. As they were playing, the glove fell off again, and Jason began to run away, but Ben caught his arm before he could get away. 
Ben looked at the rash on his friend's hand, as Jason squirmed inside. Finally after a few minutes of silence, Ben asked, "What is this?" Ït's my rash... I was afraid to show it to you because I thought you wouldn't want to play with me anymore if you saw it!" Ben looked at his friend and smiled. "I had the same rash a while ago. Come on, my mom has some ointment that will heal it up!"

p.o.w. 

That story hit me like a semi! Ah. They went on to talk about how we need to be more open about our weaknesses with our companions because you never know if they'll be willing and able to help you. And it's just counterproductive to hide them. Elder Strikwerda said, "If you're spending all your time putting up walls around your weaknesses, there is no time spent making them into strengths!"

Loved that.

On Wednesday early in the morning (5:30am) zr Hopkin woke up and threw up a couple times.... so we stayed home. It was so sad to see her sick! But she got some good rest, and I made my planner cover, so it worked out fine. 

Thursday she was still feeling pretty shaky and sick so we took it pretty easy. We went out for a couple hours, but came back so she could rest in the late afternoon. 

Friday we had an appointment with our sweet friend, and it was amazing! Our past two lessons were good, but I was thinking about how we could really teach to her needs. After praying really hard I just felt like we needed to teach the lesson, the doctrine of Christ, focusing on the blessings mostly. Didn't know why, but that's the impression I got. The lesson was good, and she was just as receptive as she had been before, but it wasn't anything extremely special, until: At the end, she told us that she'd prayed about our message, and knew it was good. We talked and read a ton of scriptures and it just felt like the spirit was leading us more than I've ever felt before in my life. We were glad we'd talked about blessings before, because that set the tone for our responses. We talked a lot about the guidance of the Holy Ghost as well. She knows this is good and she is so sweet. That night, she texted us, and we both just felt so happy that I thought we were going to explode!

 She came to church and was smiling and participating in ZHV. She's having an art exposition in March before transfers, so we asked if we could come, and she said, "ja hoor! mag wel!" :D We love her!

Valentines day was funny and we talked about puns and it was wonderful. "I've taken a VIKING to you" etc. (thanks dad for the puns last week :) )

Okay people, so Groningen is basically the best city ever. 
                                                             (Remember, I love A’dam too.)
This week was just a dream!

Dinsdag:
We were running to catch a bus and we barely made it (like he had started to drive away but the stoplight was red right after he pulled away) and the driver gave us the dirtiest look as we stood at the door in the misty rain, but he let us on! So that was nice :)

We had a referral that we looked up last week, and we had an appointment with her. She's from Germany, so we speak english with her. We went in planning to teach her about the restoration, but then she pulled out this notebook with a ton of questions. Apparently she'd read a lot on mormon.org and even read the 13 Articles of Faith!!!!! So cool! So we went through and answered her questions. She told us that her parents raised her christian, but that with their church, they only go once a year, and "that just wasn't doing it for [her]" We got home a little late, but it. was. worth. it! As we were walking out the door, she told us that she thinks the dutch word for butterfly ("vlinder") is funny because her grandpa would say "oops that was a bad vlinder" whenever he farted.... hahahaha we died! 

She is basically our favorite person now because she also came to instituut on Thursday, and participated and is just overall a super sweet, amazing person.

Woensdag:
(I wrote "BEST DAY EVER" on the top of my planner page in red marker, so you know it's really a good day)

We had our second appointment this week with our other referral, and she is also a dream! She loved the Plan of Salvation and when we shared a scripture at one point from Alma, she pulled out her notebook, WHERE SHE HAD WRITTEN DOWN HER FAVORITE SCRIPTURE FROM ALMA. Last time she told us that she liked the index in the scriptures a lot, so she said this time that she'd used it and found a super motivational scripture in Alma 36. We waren verbaasd :D

We were supposed to have an appointment with a pasgedoopt girl, but when we got there she wasn't home. So thinking we had gotten stood up, we went back to the bikes and pulled out our map to find out where this referral lived. We figured out the route we wanted to take, and got going. Like a minute later as we had just entered the park, I saw her walking toward her house! We pulled over and she apologized that she was running late, and we had a super great appointment with her! Love when things work out.

The weather was super nice that day, but suddenly, as we were knocking doors at 8 pm, Nederland decided to be like BAM SNOW. Super fun! We took lots of selfies because we got plastered with snow as we biked home and of course we made snow angels in the road out front! Such a blessed day!

Donderdag:
Exchanges in Apeldoorn again :) I got to be with our Zr training leader, Zr Verdegem, who is a 28 year old from Gent, Belgium. She's super cool and her dutch (actually Flemish, which is actually beginning to be recognized as a different language. Frozen has a Dutch AND a Flemish vertaling, apparently) is awesome to listen to. Love working with her.

Vrijdag:
We made ourselves french toast and bacon for dinner and it was awesome.

Zaterdag:
Our referral friend came to the baptism! The zusters te Assen had a doopdienst for their investigator, and there's no font in Assen, so they came up to use our church building. It was cool to have one of our investigators there. She liked it from what we could tell, and she came to church yesterday so that's also a good sign ^_^

Remember our pantsless contact? So the elders had a lesson with him and his girlfriend, and it sounds like he's turned into an incredibly cool investigator! So funny. I hope he comes to church sometime so we can have an awkward/funny encounter. Prolly not good to be wishing myself awkward experiences, but oh well.

We had another lesson about the word of wisdom because someone was confused about that, and we shared 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 where it talks about how our bodies are a gift. Remind me to tell you more next week because it's hilarious but I have to go to a dinner appointment now and a;lkwejfpaoijdffas

Hope you had a good week!

liefs, Zuster Watts

This week we had Zone Training about a 2-3 hour travel by train and then bus. We slept over the night before at the Assen sister's apartment so we wouldn't have to get up super early the next day, so it was fun to talk to Zr Voss and catch up. She's the only one from our MTC group that has stayed in her baby city! She'll have been there for 6 months by the end of this transfer.

We also saw Zr Bush and her greenie, Zr Romney! Isn't that perfect? Bush and Romney. haha She's so soso awesome :)

That night we went to this cute newer member family who lives close by and we made them dinner. The elders made nasi (surinamse rijst that is delicious) with sate sauce on chicken and it was delicious, and we made a carrot cake that the little girls loved. While we started to share a spiritual thought, the girls were a little restless, so I let them braid my hair haha it was adorable. My hair was lookin pretty good by the time we left I had like 3 braids going everywhere. Love it!

There is a lady in the ward who has an incredible background. She had a friend pass away this week, but she's so positive and so amazing. She invited us over on Wednesday evening, the day of the funeral, and when we got there, she had a friend over who isn't a member. She pulled out her Book of Mormon and asked us if we could read in 2 Nephi chapter 9, where there are some verses about the resurrection and that we will live again after this life. We read them and then talked about them, and it was just so awesome because she turned it into a chance to share her testimony with her friend. I. Love. Her.

We had exchanges and I went down to Apeldoorn with Zr Kimmons. She was in my writing class at BYU Summer semester 2013, so that was super fun! As we were getting on the train to go to Apeldoorn, this guy who started talking to us, so we sat by him and turns out he's a convert of a couple years but didn't know where the church building was after he moved. Coincidences and chance encounters are just a norm as a missionary, but I can't help but marvel at how perfectly everything seems to work out.

We gave our no-pants-guy to the elders, and they totally have an appointment with him this coming week! haha It would be so funny if he ever ends up coming to church!

There's a member that's taking us to a pannekoeken restaurant today that's on a ship! I'm so excited because Pannekoeken are delicious!!!

We're having so much fun here, and we're seeing so many miracles. This is such a blessed area! The weather is so unpredictable, though! It snowed a couple times this week, but then the next day it'd be so sunny that it all melted and then it was icy some days. This morning alone, it was sunny when I woke up, rained for 5 minutes, cleared up while we biked to get groceries, when we came out of the winkel it was SNOWING and then after we dropped off our groceries it was sunny again. Nederland is awesome :)

My favorite quote this week is, "As we increase our dependability in the Lord, He will increase our capability."--Richard G. Scott

Sorry that there wasn't much in this letter... .I'll be more prepared next week...

veeeeeel liefs, Zuster Watts