Monday, October 30, 2017

Week 72 ~ one month left markkk

hey hey. I come home in ONE MONTH from today. 

This week consisted of contacting referrals from the new media campaign the social media elders set up. People can order lights for their bikes for free and it comes with a qr code to a video about the light of Christ and then we go and follow up on that and see if they want to learn more. We were able to teach one of the referrals the first lesson and hopefully we can get a new appointment with him soon.

We helped Emmy a lot this week with her moving! She needs to be out by tomorrow so we´ve been helping her a lot! We worked with her son and Jasmine to lay laminate down in her new apartment on Thursday :) We also took apart a bunch of closets and cabinets to be moved.. we´re basically pro movers now haha.. Say yes to the dress was on TV and I had to use all my willpower to look away.

Funny story: We had the cops ask for our info this week. We were meeting with our friend Ahmed (a member) and he had told an old lady he volunteers for that he was going to meet with us.. I think she must´ve been scared for his safety or something (people here are scared of us hahah) so she told the cops when we were meeting! So when we met him at the cafe, the cop was waiting for us and popped out of nowhere and wrote down all of our information. Hahah. Okayyyy

We had a lesson with a really nice, Indonesian woman we met last week and her husband was home and interested as well! They also want us to teach their kids! So we will hopefully be teaching a family really soon! I´m pumped

That´s all for now kids

Tot volgende week

Zuster Fordiani

1-centrum with z elggren :)
2,3-back at it-Jumbo salads for dinner.. our favee
4-riding achterop with the one and only (Jasmine)
5,6-pros at laying laminate







1,2-when zuster elggren accidentally drops the pepper in her soup
3-visiting and singing hymns for zuster staf on her birthday
4-rainbow!






Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Week 71 ~ TRANSFER 12. feat the one&only z. elggren

so i´m emailing a day late because the COOLEST thing happened sunday night. we saw this cute little old lady walking on the street so we decided to talk to her. We gave her a book of mormon and she also mentioned that she was moving the next day, so we offered to help. she accepted! so we went yesterday and helped her move! it was the coolest experience! She is 72 years old and had to pack up all her things and try to move with only the help of her son and one moving guy. She really needed our help and we were able to get tons done! She was so grateful for our help and kept calling us angels. We´re going to go visit her next week when she´s all settled into her new house! another funny thing was when we were packing up the truck, the moving guy was really impressed with my truck packing skills and organization of the boxes haha and he kept asking if i had done this before.. i guess delivery driving at byu paid off hahah.

also sorry not sorry for my punctuation/capitalization in this email. continue

the carnival was in breda this week... you know what that means... OLIEBOLLEN. look below for the not one, not two, but three pictures of the three times we got oliebollen. they are all necessary. documenting purposes.

baaaaassiiiccaaallly we had a really good week of missionary work! i picked up sister elggren on wednesday and we taught some amazing people. coolest thing was on tuesday night zuster klenk and i were at the station dropping off our bikes to prepare for transfers the next day. we saw this young, punk looking guy sketching and zuster klenk had actually seen him a couple times throughout the day and we both knew we needed to talk to him. well his name is Geis and he didn´t seem super interested but he did accept the tabbed book of mormon. he said, "het doet geen kwaad." we gave him our number, but i didn´t even think to ask for his number. i don´t know why. THAT NIGHT he called US and said he had read the chapters under the tabs "Wat verwacht Jezus Christus van mij?" "Bestaat er een God?" and "Kent God mij?" and kept saying that the book is "mooi" or beautiful. We made an appointment with him and taught him on Friday. Turns out he´s only 18 and is the freaking coolest!!! His younger sister died last year and he´s not religious so we had the chance to share the plan of salvation lesson with him and also were able to help him understand who Jesus Christ is. He is sooo open and cool!! 

We also met with Guido on thursday. Guido is also soooo cool! He´s the one we met a couple weeks back who was taught by sisters in Zwolle. He is not religious either, so we had the chance to talk about who Jesus Christ is with him. I love helping people understand what Jesus Christ has done for us all and how he can help us! It´s amazing. Breda is really cool because most people here aren´t religious or are religious but don´t practice. So we get to help them find that purpose to their life. Anyway, Guido and Geis are sooo cool and so open and had so many questions. I learned so much from both of them and am so excited to continue to teach them.

Another cool miracle happened when we were riding our bikes back from an appointment and we saw a woman walking along the sidewalk. We pulled over and started talking to her and she was so excited that we are religious! We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and make a new appointment for this week :) It´s so cool how God puts so many prepared people in our path every day.. we just need to recognize the opportunities.

anywho. enjoy your livesssss!! 

houdoeee
2-photos with twenty-one pilots lyrics are necessary
1,3,4,5-oliebollen. duh







1-transfer day! my baby is growing up and going to belgium
2,3-it was warm enough to sleep on the balcony! the adventures of zuster fordiani and zuster elggren continue
4-ice cream. we like food





Monday, October 16, 2017

Week 70 ~ WONDEREN BESTAAT transfer call edition

Hi.

highlights of the week:
We helped make quilts for babies in the philippines!!
Hair tips from one of my fav members, Susannah! pics below
We had stake conference in Brussels and I got to see a ton of old sint niklaas ward friends and other missionaries
Exchanges with the one and only zuster boyd!! we found a sick new investigator named William! he's been to temple square and is really open!

We also watched a broadcast to all of the adult members in Europe that Elder Ballard spoke at. It was SO GOOD. Here are some awesome things I heard and learned:
"You'll never be happier than you are grateful." -Elder Sabin
The way we observe the Sabbath day is a sign to God how we feel about Him. -L. Whitney Clayton
Elder Ballard:
Finding a few quiet moments to sit and be still and ponder is very important
"We know the Lord is going to win, but He would like us to be a little more active warriors."
Miracles start on our knees
"May the gospel be a precious treasure and one we want to give away in every way."
Elder Ballard shared an experience about how when there was a big drought in Ethiopia, he was there visiting and he prayed that it would rain. Every day Elder Ballard was there it rained. And he said, "Did that have anything to do with me? No, it had to do with how I believed. Believe in miracles!"

One of the best moments this week was on exchanges. A little old lady opened the door and told us that she wasn't doing good spiritually and she was really sad. I opened my mouth and started testifying to her that God hears her prayers and He is her father and He loves her. Zuster Boyd said a prayer for her and she started crying. We gave her hugs and a picture of Jesus and she cried and thanked us. That's what missionary work is all about! Helping others and doing what Jesus would do. I was so grateful to be able to experience that and help this cute little lady feel her Heavenly Father's love in a time of need.

We have this member Ahmed in our ward who just barely moved in. He is such an example of faith!! He is from Iraq but used to live in Canada with his wife and children. He has a muslim background, but when he was in Canada he saw missionaries on the street and knew he needed to talk to them. His wife told him that she would divorce him if he got baptized. But he knew the church is true so he got baptized. He went back to Iraq and his wife told the authorities there that he had become Christian so he was put in jail. After three months, his brother helped him escape. He became a refugee and crossed borders, took boats, walked, and drove all the way to Nederland where he was in a refugee camp for about two years. Now he's finally back on his feet and he called the church to get in contact with us because he wanted to start coming. Now he's coming, even though he's still learning Dutch, and he is just AMAZING.

Last but not least... TRANSFER NEWS. I got my very last transfer call and for my last six weeks I will be staying in Breda and getting ZUSTER ELGGREN AGAIN!!!!!!! Miracles do exist!! I am so so so pumped. Zuster Klenk is going to Lokeren with one of my MTC comps, Zuster Mangum, so I'm super excited for them too :)

love you!! houdoeee

zuster fordiani

1,2-ice cream & exchanges
3-my baby is so sweet
4-i spilled hot water on my belly and burned it
5-here's my battle wound from last week one week later.
6-statue









1,2,3-making quilts, the third photo is the quilt zuster klenk and i have been making on our own!
4-breda sunsets
5-look mom! i did my hair






1-picture drawn by Mia in our ward :)
2-breda
3,4-more hair
5-bad lighting










Monday, October 9, 2017

Week 69 ~ hi

Sooo pictures are worth 1000 words and because I have tons of pictures this week, I will be writing less.

We had a rough week with every single one of our planned appointments being cancelled, but we still saw miracles! We worked in Etten-Leur for a day and ran into one of our investigators on the street who we lost contact with for about a month. We were able to teach a lesson to him right there and Zr. Klenk testified like crazy. It was such a blessing. We also found two new investigators! Novel is the first, who we had met previously langs de deur and we went back and he wanted to make an appointment! The second was Guido. I´ve written about him before. He is the one who we saw riding his bike and he stopped and waved to us! He texted us this week and we made an appointment to meet with him :)

We met a really cool guy in the park this week named Philip! He´s not religious, but was "benieuwd" when we gave him a tabbed Book of Mormon (it has the questions of the soul in the front and then tabs to where you can find the answers). We exchanged numbers and he saved us in his phone as "mormon friends." Yesssss.

Zr. Klenk and I made a pact to be extra obedient and strive to be an example. We decided to just go hard!! And after we made that decision, we started seeing the blessings poured out of heaven :) 

Grapjes (funny things) for this week: (We were on one)
I jumped at a bush and got poked by thorns. Don´t ask my thought process.
I literally started runnning away from Zr. Klenk when she wasn´t looking because I wanted to find the tennis courts in the neighborhood
Zr. Pomales came with us for a day while her companion was at MLC and she was achterop my bike.. when I stopped she didn´t get off and we went down. In the centrum. In front of everyone. I scraped up my knee hahah
We found a zipline in the park and went ham
I had a flower that I wanted to give to someone at the station and this guy literally came up and took it right out of my hand as a joke and I was like, "Oh perfect! Keep it it´s for you!" He was so shocked hahah and then I saw him try to give it to a guy on a skateboard. Just spreading happiness
Just lots of hysterical laughing and fun selfies this week. You´ll see.

LUHH JULLLIEEE

z fordiii

1-i found peanut butter m&ms in an american candy shop!!! i decided to just suffer from the lactose haha
the rest-adventures in etten-leur







1-cool building in Breda centrum
2-de grote kerk in the night time
3-my scraped up knee from when we biffed it
4-cute little house in the country side :)
5-when z pomales was with us for the day
6-zip lining






1-hi mom
2-it started out normal...
and then... i don´t even know.
6-i didn´t know i could still do this