Monday, November 20, 2017

Week 75 ~ CINDYYY



On Monday we went to Efteling with our district!! The Efteling is an amusement park fairytale themed! It's so fun. It was the first day of the winter theme and NO ONE WAS THERE. So we had 5 min wait times in all the lines :) Right before we left we went on my favorite ride, the Baron, and when the guys came to undo our seatbelt things, he asked us if we wanted to go again! No one was in line so we just stayed in our seats and got to go again. It was the best.

Tuesday was so cool. We saw the windows of heaven open and were blessed with finding six new investigators in two hours. It was AWESOME.

Okay okay. Listen. CINDY IS AMAZING. We visited Cindy WednesdayThursdayFriday, and Saturday, and she came to a FHE activity and church. She is so prepared!! Let me tell you some of the miracles that have happened this week:
We taught Cindy the word of wisdom and she threw away her black tea that night and has been living the word of wisdom ever since.
Cindy has read all of the pamphlets and started to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning with her son.
Cindy had a dream about her family all in a house full of snakes and she made the choice to leave and was saved. She compared it to being trapped by the devil and her making the choice to be baptized!
A woman Cindy hasn't talked to in a long time randomly asked Cindy if she wanted a job and told her she could help her get one. She also was short on money for the week because she's been home sick and hasn't worked and she checked her bank account and there was more money in her account than she previously had.
And even though Cindy has been sick, she still came to church and stayed all three hours. She is SO AMAZING. I LOVE HER. 
If everything goes well, she should be getting baptized this Saturday :) Everything has been working out perfectly for her to be baptized this Saturday and we have felt a confirmation that this is the date for her. We will be seeing her every day this week and are praying it goes through! 

Tot volgende week!! (but in person)

 Zuster Fordiani

Efteling!
































Monday, November 13, 2017

Week 74 ~ klompen, de tempel, en geestelijke dingen

hey

the adventures of Zuster Elggren and Zuster Fordiani continue.... this time.. with a 30 mile bike ride to EEN KLOMPENWINKEL (a clog store). yaaas. This cute little dutch lady had the store in her back garage (in the teeniest little dorpje in the middle of nowhere) where she bought the klompen, her husband painted them, and then she did the cute little details. Sooo fun. 

We also went to the temple. It was the best! I love the sweet spirit there. I was able to receive the endowment for my grandpa´s brother´s wife, Adelaide Maria Fontanella Fordiani :) She was born 90 years and 1 day before me. And I gave my dying testimony at zone conference. Weirdest feeling... I don´t want to die yet. Sorry fam I´m staying. Grapje.

Hahah on Thursday we had a four man in Breda for exchanges. The sisters te Eindhoven came and partied it upppp with us... but it was the funniest exchange because the water guy was in our apartment fixing our water. Aaaand it ended up taking a lot longer than we thought. So we couldn´t just leave him in our place so we took turns going out to proselyte. No worries though, I shared the gospel with the water guy.. legit though. He was cool.

Friday was cool. We were supposed to meet our investigator at McDonald´s for a lesson but there was some miscommunication and so we ended up just getting some fries and we tried to give them to this man sitting alone. He didn´t accept but we sat and talked with him and then after we left he followed us out and asked us if we wanted to watch tv with him. Haha it was nice. We explained and invited him to church instead. good stuff

Sooo this week has been crazy for Cindy because she got suuuuper sick and had to go to the hospital to get some check ups. She´s still been sick, but we were able to go by on Saturday with Rocky (our ward mission leader) and he gave her a blessing. It was such an amazing experience! They were both crying and she said that no matter how she felt on Sunday morning, she was coming to church. And she did!! She is so amazing, faithful, and humble. I love her. We´re not sure if the baptismal date will go through because she has been sick and because of a couple other things, but I know she will be baptized soon and I´m so excited for her. Cindy is the best!

On Sunday we linger longer after church where everyone brings food and we eat lunch together.. well Zuster Elggren and I signed up to make cookies, but on Saturday we accidentally ate the last of the eggs for lunch and in the evening when we were making the cookies all the stores were closed. So we worked our magic skills and made brownies.. without eggs, milk, or butter. We are wizards. Freaking vegan brownies.. cooked for four minutes in the microwave. Boom. They were actually pretty good! and were all eaten mwahaha.

Also one of the talks was AMAZING in church yesterday. I want to share a part of it. The member talked about her conversion story.. she had a really good friend all growing up and they always stayed in contact with each other. Her friend moved to America and invited her to visit after years of being friends and writing each other. When the member got there they did tons of stuff together.. after about three weeks the member asked if they could go visit the castle (the salt lake city temple) that she had seen as she flew in. They went and her friend finally told her that she had become a mormon and it wasn´t a castle and she couldn´t go inside. So they took a tour instead and the member loved it so much and felt the spirit so strongly that she cried the rest of the day. Then they went back the next three days too! When she flew home a guy came into her work with a Salt lake city hat on. She asked him about it and it turns out that his parents are mormons so they talked about it a little bit.. and he gave her the hat. A couple of days later she was walking to work and she passed a guy standing on the street and she had the strongest impression to turn around and go back to the guy.. when she turned, he also had turned and they walked towards each other without knowing why. She noticed he had a book in his hands and all she said was, "If that´s the Book of Mormon that you´re holding then you´re an angel of God sent in my path." It was the Book of Mormon. She met with this guy and the missionaries.. she told the missionaries about a dream she had repeatedly had in the past where she was standing in water in white and she looked up at the sky and saw the date April 24, 1972 (if I remember right). That turned out to be the missionary´s date of birth. This story really showed me that God has a plan for each of us! For her whole life, this member had been being prepared by God to be baptized. I felt the Spirit so strongly as she was giving this talk testify to me that what she was saying is true, and that this is the true church. I´m so grateful for this church and for God´s perfect plan for each of us.

love you all!!!! 

z fordiani

photos from the bike ride:







tempel!!