Week 30 ~ Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS ya filthy animals. I hope you all had an absolutely wonderful Christmas with lots of snow and yummies. 

I'm gonna keep this email short and sweet so here are some fun things that happened this last week:

Last p-day we went to Mechelen and caroled as a zone :)

I played bean boozled (a jelly bean game) on exchanges in Antwerpen and had to eat barf, rotten egg, and canned dog food flavored jelly beans... lekker

Zr De Souza and I were literally two steps away from being blown up by some stupid kids fireworks haha it was fetching scary

Our investigator Murtaza fed us dinner again! Yesss and he finally came to church! We took the train with him, but because it was Christmas the buses weren't running so we walked 40 minutes to get to church. He's a champ

I skyped my family!!! :) 

Our ward is AMAZING and they gave us and the elders each a box full of presents after church on Christmas!

We had a five course Christmas eve dinner at the Bishop's home. They are the best!

My family sent me a 12 days of Christmas package, but I didn't get it until the 23rd so I had fun doing the 10 mintues of Christmas hahah and then two days. I love my family :)

Also COOL STORY:

Christmas eve night we didn't have anything to do so Zr De Souza and I decided to go street contacting and we brought a bunch of Book of Mormons with us. We got inspired by a story in the December Liahona about a senior couple in France who did the same thing on Christmas eve and gave out Book of Mormons to people walking around alone. Sooo we did the same thing! And it was awesome! We were super bold and I even chased this guy down the street that I really felt like I should talk to and he was interested! I told him we were giving these books out for free because it was Christmas and that it had changed my life and he was super thankful and told me he would definitely read it!! Super cool! I also knocked on the window of a guy sitting alone in his car and we were able to give out three Book of Mormons within an hour! Freaking Christmas miracles :)

I LOVE CHRISTMAS

Love, 

Zuster Fordiani

1-12 days of Christmas

2-ya idk

3-Murtaza made us dinner!

4-Crazy/cool church in Lokeren

5-Christmas eve selfiesss

1-Christmas!

2-the bishop's cat hahaha

Week 29 ~ I'm so bad at subject lines lol i don't even want to try anymore

It's Christmas time in hollis queens (Belgium).. mom's cooking chicken(stampout) and collard greens(stoovlees). 

Merry almost Christmas people. FIVE DAYS until I can skype the fam. 

This week was fantastic. On Monday we went to Antwerpen for p-day to the Christmas market and rode a freaking ferris wheel. And on Tuesday I went on exchanges with my one true love, Zr Leman in Gent. It was so beautiful! I'll attach pictures below. We also made my "Feed my sheep" photo shoot dreams come true. You'll see what I'm talking about, also below. ;)

We set a baptismal date with our investigator Murtaza! Hopefully that can go through! It was pretty awesome and he also made us curry so like what else could I ask for?

Our mission is also doing a facebook campaign where people can order a Joy to the World video, so we've received a lot of golden referrals from that. These next couple weeks are going to be crazy trying to contact them all quickly! We contacted one this week and he lived by a really nice lake. I don't know if it's just me, but I haven't seen lakes here, just rivers, so I was pretty excited. 

Oh oh oh also we have the coolest new investigator! We street contacted him and were able to set up an appointment with him and have tea in this little posh tea shop (Don't worry we didn't break the word of wisdom people). He is THE COOLEST. He's literally a genius. He has a doctorate in music analysis or something and he has also met/studied with James Watson. Aka the James Watson who discovered the DNA double helix with Francis Crick. Watson&Crick. Ring a bell? I was so freaking excited. #innernerdcomingout. Anyway he's freaking cool and he's from Wales and he was so sincere learning about our religion as well! He had lots of good questions and knew a lot about Mormons already. He looked really excited when we gave him a Book of Mormon. Hopefully we can meet with him again soon!

Some other fun things that happened:

We met an American lady! She was literally the nicest lady I have ever street contacted. She just took our card and was so kind! I love Americans

Zr De Souza and I started doing Jillian Michaels work out dvds together... lol

I cut Zr De Souza's hair

And yeahhh that's about it. 

Here's some pics. 

I love you guys.

Zuster Fordiani

1,2,3,4-Antwerpen!

#Feedmysheep photoshoot

The sheeps were pretty interested if I do say so myself

Week 28 ~ lol idek

Hey everyone. I was still sick this week, BUT i'm getting better! Slowly but surely. :) I also don't have tons of time this week so this is gonna be short and sweet. Sorry!

The highlight of this week for me was getting to go to the Netherlands for two days! I freaking miss that place! On Thursday we went to Rotterdam for a zone conference with a member of the area 70 presiding! He taught us a lot about being a high-yield, low-maintenance missionary. That can apply to being members of the church as well. It was awesome hearing from him and his wife and also seeing all my other missionary friends! Then on Friday we went to Leiden for Missionary Leadership Conference with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders at the mission home. We just talked about the mission and stuff, but again it was awesome seeing other missionaries I haven't seen in forever! I saw Zuster Merz!! And it was awesome. I freaking miss her.

Our investigator Chantal is progressing a ton! She is the best. We hope to get her on baptismal date soon! Also, we got Benny and Amelia (father and daughter) on baptismal date this week. It was a really awesome week :) 

I love you guys so much! Merry (almost) Christmas :)

Zuster Fordiani

1-random christmas photos idek

Week 27 ~ 6 months!

Happy Sinter Klaas! People here have Sinter Klaas on Dec 5, and then two days for Christmas on Dec 25 and 26. Three Christmases babaay. I'm not complaining. Oh and I hit my six month mark on December 1! Time fliessss. 

Sooooo basically this week was the least eventful of my whole mission so far because Zr De Souza got sick last Monday and so we stayed in a couple of days. She's still sick and now I'm sick too! So that's a party. We have just been lying around our house with LITERALLY nothing to do. Like you know when normal people are sick they usually watch movies and play on their phone... lol well we can't do that so I read the entire 'Our search for happiness' book and the November Liahona magazine with all of the talks from the November general conference. SO i'm gonna tell ya'll what I learned.

One quote I really like comes from a talk by Russell M. Nelson. "My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. When the focus of our lives is on God's plan of salvation, and Jesus Christ and his gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening--or not happening--in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy. We feel it at Christmastime when we sing, 'Joy to the world, the Lord is come.' And we can feel it all year round. For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!"

I really like this quote because it focuses on the fact that we can be happy all the time no matter what our situation is, if we focus on Jesus Christ. 

"I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.... In His presence is fulness of joy." Psalm 16:8,11

And that's why I'm here on a mission! To share the joy that the Savior and his gospel has brought to my life. To help others feel the happiness and love that the gospel brings. To help others find joy in the journey. :) As Zr De Souza and I have been sick this week, I've come to realize that I LOVE missionary work and sharing the truth of the gospel with everyone. All I wanted to do was get out the door and share #verlichtdewereld cards with people haha. I love this gospel and I'm so grateful to be working with the Lord on this little part of the vineyard here in Lokeren :)

Funnies of this week:

-We taught gospel priniciples yesterday at church because the teacher was sick... Little did she know we were also sick haha. So we struggled through that lesson.. me with a sore throat and Zr De Souza with no voice at all. It turned out pretty funny tbh

-We played Just Dance with our investigators seven year old daughter. We went ham on 'What does the fox say?' I fricking love normal music

-We asked a guy for directions and he just kept saying, "No thanks." Hahah all we want are directions buddy! His wife eventually helped us lolol

-We made an appointment with a woman and then showed up at her house and she started being all sketchy.. "I'm going to have twenty people here for a party in a couple minutes so we're going to have to do this another time. Twenty people. TWENTY. TWO ZERO." All while she was hugging us and kissing our cheeks a lot. People kiss here A LOT. Oh and btw we stayed and knocked doors by her house and guess how many people showed up for the party? ZERO. -__-

Lol I love people. I hope you all have a great week! Keep it up on the 25 ways in 25 days!

Zuster Fordiani

1-Our cute friend Germaine. She posted this picture on her instagram :)

2,3,4-Our phone was being screwy and so apparently these messages are from President. Hahah I was dying

5-A member gave us Christmas decorations to use! #thankful

6-Mistletoe... where are the boys? Oh wait...

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a marzipan pear

lokeren at christmas time

me decorating the christmas tree because i know you like those pics mommy :)

Week 26 ~ happy turkey (chinese food??) day

This is going to be a super random email so geniet ervan!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all enjoyed some lekker turkey! Thanksgiving doesn't actually exist here but on Saturday our ward had a thanksgiving party together... of chinese food! It was super random, but so fun. 

So basically people here eat frites ALL THE TIME. We literally have had frites at dinner appointments with the most random foods like four times this week. But I'm not complaining.. my tummy might be a little though.

The work here in Lokeren is booming! We have six progressing investigators right now! They're all so great. I love missionary work!

Zr De Souza and I had to give a presentation for zone training and it actually went well! We also sang in front of EVERYONE. If any of yall don't know this... I don't actually sing so that was interesting haha. We got cheesecake though!! frEAKING CHEESECAKE. That stuff basically doesn't exist here so I was pretty pumped.

I went on exchanges with Zr Leman in Gent this week! Gent is beautiful!! We had so much fun together and we were able to get two lessons on the door! We went to the centrum at night and it was amazing. I want to go back for a p-day soon. 

Random things that happened this week:

Zr De Souza accidentally bought and ate some avocado alcohol chocolate.

I witnessed a man barking at a tree.

We found a handicapped man stranded and had to wheel him back to his house.

Also! Everyone needs to go check out the new Christmas Campaign! I'm excited to start the 25 days in 25 ways on the first of December. Check out the new video on mormon.org. :) #VERLICHTdeWERELD #LIGHTtheWORLD

Love, Zuster Fordiani

1-Sunsets for dayzz

2-Market day in Lokeren

3-Gent at night

4-Clever son of a gun

5-Chinese thanksgiving babayy

6-Chastity and I with our castle

 These are some pictures Olivia sent me (mom) because she knows I love to see where she is living! I sent her this Playmobile advent calendar because I know how much she loves foxes and all things princesses!

Week 25 ~ LOKEREN

Hey hey everyone! Shout out from Belgium! 

Lokeren is suuuuuper different than Utrecht haha. I went from a huge city to a really small town. But it's really cute and the ward members are amazing! We've been given so much food already. #blessingsofachastelife. My new comp is Zuster De Souza and she's really nice. She's from Canada ay. 

Yesterday we had a super amazing miracle! We were knocking doors and we got let in! That has literally only happened twice on my mission. So this woman let us in and we taught her a lesson, and she doesn't have tons of interest in the church, but she said that if Jesus was knocking on her door then she would let him in so she let us in :) She gave us chocolate and she told us if we're ever homesick or just want to talk, we should knock on her door and visit her. She's also going to give us a tour of Brugge. Blessingsss

Also, apparently right after I left, they brought the car from the Harry Potter movies to Utrecht Centraal and opened a HP store... and my family is going to Harry Potter world this week. So yeah. Haha

I don't really have a anything to say this week, but I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Zuster Fordiani

1-Goodbyes

2-Antwerpen Centraal

3-Fall colors

4-Zr. De Souza and I (back at it with the belgian waffles baby)

5-Last district meeting with the U-GO district :')

6-Last Utrecht squad selfie :(

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Week 24 ~ Vrees niet, gewoon doen

Hey guys! I have so much to say, but so little time! So this week was so wonderful! I finally got to go to the temple for the first time in Zoetermeer! It was so beautiful. The session in Dutch is the coolest thing ever. And I understood almost all of it! It was so fun getting to have a break from missionary work and feel the peace of the temple. Afterwards we had a small combined zone conference in the Zoetermeer church. The assistants introduced "Vrees niet, gewoon doen" to our mission as a sort of title of liberty for us to remember and rally behind. (Fear not, just do.) I'm excited to apply this into my missionary life more as I talk to more people and bare my testimony of Jesus Christ.

Now for the funny story of the week:

We were waiting for a bus and we had to wait for like 30 minutes, so we decided to go into this beauty store and look around. I found this blue mascara and I wanted to try it because I know this girl who wears it and it's really cute. I've always wanted to try it out, but there was no tester. Well, I was feeling a little rebellious randomly so I decided to try it anyway-and because it was already open. Well what happened is what ALWAYS happens when I do something kinda stupid--I get caught. So a store worker starts yelling at me (in Dutch obviously, but that makes it a lot more stressful) because it wasn't a tester and she snatches it from me to go take it to the back of the store so no one else uses it. So obviously my pride was a little hurt, so I was like no I was going to buy it! So she was said it was okay and she wasn't mad anymore so I had to buy it (to save my pride) and that's the story of how I ended up with a 7 euro bottle of blue mascara. Moral of the story... Don't do stupid things. Please.

And TRANSFER NEWS: I'm getting transferred to LOKEREN, BELGIUM!! As sister training leader. I'm super excited, but also really sad because I LOVE Utrecht. Belgium is gonna be a new, fun adventure though. I'm excited to feel like a greenie all over again when I can't understand their accents...... hahah. Flaams babay.

Anyway I love you all!!

Zuster Fordiani'

1- Me and Kester!! His baptism is the 27 of November :) He's a true homie.

2- Temple with Wilky :)

3- Rotterdam zone paintballing on Halloween