Week 38 ~ John Baptist's Head

We met this super cool guy, David, last week doing bell ups and we got his number and told us we could make an appointment with him. So we had our first lesson with him in this little cafe around the corner from his apartment and it was one of the best first lessons I've ever had on my mission! He's searching for a church and the truth, and he was so open and asked tons of great questions. It was amazing! He had already read a little bit of the Book of Mormon we had given him on the door and had done some research on our church ON THE CORRECT WEBSITE WE GAVE HIM. That never happens. Usually people go to some random websites and then tell us they read all this stuff about our church. Stuff that's not even true. Smh. That's like trying to find information for a paper in school and then using Wikipedia. It doesn't work people. Not a good source. But David, this little baller, went to mormon.org and looked up some stuff about our church! So cool. He also was really excited when we told him we teach more lessons and we also help people prepare for baptism. So we're going to go back and teach him again and he wants us to teach his girlfriend too! I'm really excited.

On Saturday, we tried to go visit a member's wife in the care center. He's this little old man and he asked us to go visit her. So we went got off the bus and found the building, but could not find the entrance anywhere. After we had finally found the entrance and wandered around for a bit, we found the front desk and asked where her room was. She told us that they didn't have a patient with that name... we were so frustrated because it had taken us forever to get out there and we had just been having an unlucky day so far. So we went out to the bus stop and were complaining and guess who happens to show up at that exact time and sit down a little bit away from us? Brother V! The member whose wife we were trying to visit! He could have been there ANY time of the day and he just happens to walk up and sit down next to us. It was such a wake up call from God. I could just hear him saying, "Don't you trust me? Where's your faith?" We were able to ask him where she was and go visit her (she was in a different building). She was so happy that we visited her and the next day at church Brother V kept thanking us over and over and saying, "God bless you." And he was telling everyone in the ward that we had visited her. It was so amazing to be able to help Brother V and his wife. I'm so grateful that God is aware of us and will help us in times of need!

Yesterday after church we were knocking some doors and some guys were walking towards us on the street. One had a Raiders hat on and Zuster Winkel is a huge NFL fan so she asked him about his hat and then told him what we were doing here. He didn't have any interest, but his friend was kind of listening. But then they both left. So we keep walking down the street and then the friend appears in front of us again from the opposite direction he was walking in. We were super confused. He came up to us and we were able to tell him more about what we were doing and get his number and address! We are going to make an appointment with him soon. We walked away and then we realized that he must've ran around the block super fast to talk to us again. It was super awesome to see how much interest he had in learning more! God truly does put prepared people in our path!

Zuster Winkel and I also found three spiders in our hair this week.. EACH. They were only babies.. but still. So nasty. I got super paranoid so I vacuumed our whole house and beds and couches.

This muslim guy tried to convert us to islam and we read a little bit out of the koran. But we ended up giving him a BoM and were able to share the Joseph Smith story with him! People are so much more open if you just listen. 

We were able to give out a bunch more Books of Mormon this week and have a lot of good lessons with investigators and people on the door and bus! It was a great week. 

AND next week we have a baptism on March 1st of two of our investigators, Benny and Amelia. It's a father and daughter who are part of a part member family. We're almost done with everything with them. We just need to get their interviews done and plan the baptism. They will be getting baptized on Amelia's 10th birthday. I'm SO excited for them. It will also be my half way mark so yay :)

I love this gospel!! and 

I LOVE YOU ALLLLL

Love, Zuster Fordiani

​​​​​​​​​​I love Gent! the third picture is of john baptist's head??

1,2,7-We love Belgium

3,4-Nastiest candy in the world

5-lekker weekly planning

6-bunnies in lokeren :)

Week 37 ~ transfer six

Super short email... I'm sorry!!

Highlights:

A member gave me a pair of shoes for free! Yay

I sent Zr. De Souza off to Den Helder and got Zr. Winkel! She's awesome. She's from Colorado!

Aaaaand we basically knocked all week. But we saw some crazy awesome miracles! We gave out so many Books of Mormon this week in tons of different languages. A couple in Dutch, one in Polish, one in Turkish, and one lady wants one in French. Pretty cool! We found a bunch of potentials and two of the girls even gave us waffles on the doorstep. Yesss

We are almost completely out of food in our apartment and so we ate some of Zr. De Souza's left over gluten free pasta for dinner one night... let's just say I'm really glad I'm not gluten free. It was like playdoh! Haha sorry de suzie

We also met a 17ish yr old guy on the street who kept following us around and waiting for us while we were knocking doors. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he had some interest?? maybe?? He asked us if we could have a boyfriend on our mission and if we had kissed someone before and how it was... and then kept asking us to give him a hug. Hahah so weird. At least he has a BoM though right?

I LOVE YOU GUYS

Love, Zuster Fordiani

1,8- waffles in Antwerpen centraal

2-frites for life

3,4,5-Lokeren!

6,7-cutest little bakery in Lokeren

Week 36 ~ transfer calls

Transfer calls were on Saturday night and... I'm staying in Lokeren and getting Zuster Winkel! Zuster De Souza is heading up to Den Helder. I'm excited to spend another six weeks in teeny little Lokeren :)

On Monday we went to Ieper! It was BEAUTIFUL. We saw a bunch of World War One sites and were able to go to the trenches. The Kortrijk members are awesome and gave us a tour and drove us around to the different sites. So we got a tour from the locals in flaams! So cool. Also. Tolkien came up with Lord of the Rings while he was in the war in those freaking trenches!! Pretty amazing.

One day we left our apartment and a lady pulled over in her car and told me that my skirt was tucked up.. I looked back expecting it to be only a bit up and it was ALL THE WAY UP. Thank goodness I was wearing tights...

We met a guy on the door and he gave us his number!! We were really excited because that doesn't usually happen. But then LITERALLY five minutes laterwe get a text from him that says, "hey." Ummmmm no that's not why we're here hahaha. Then again and then another that says, "Kun we praten." Hahah then we invited him to church. He didn't come. Jammer.

Friday was MLC. I love Nederland. And Zuster Merz. Afterwards, we met a drunk lady on the street who absolutely loved us hahah. I gave her a flower.

Sunday we had four investigators show up to church! We were super pumped!! Benny and Amelia (father and daughter) are still super excited and progressing towards their baptism date of March 1st! I'm so excited for them :)

Ik hou van jullie allemaal!

Zuster Fordiani

1,2,3-trenches

2-ieper!!

3-no coat weather baby!

4-the yw :)

Week 35 ~ coppers

READY FOR ANOTHER SHORT EMAIL? Cuz that's what you're getting. Sorry love you! 

We had some pretty crazy stuff happen this week! First of all we freaking got pulled over by the cops hahahah it was quite an experience. We had been in an area for about five minutes and had knocked like three doors and then these cops come speeding around the corner like out of a movie and they pulled up on the curb next to us. They beckoned us over and we had to show them our residency cards and our ministerial certificates too. He checked through our bags and looked at our book of mormon and herstelling (restoration) pamphlets. Zr De Souza tried to do some missionary work and asked if he was religious, but he shut her down pretty quick and said he was atheist. Apparently people in the neighborhood were getting sketched out by us... two frickin girls in skirts. Really people? Anyway then they just asked us a bunch of questions about what we're doing and they let us go. Hahahah it was so hilarious and then we were like sucks to suck people we're going to keep working in this area. So yeah.

ALSO we had interviews this week and the worldwide missionary devotional! A bunch of changes were made to our daily schedule and key indicators so that was crazy! 

Zr De Souza and I both got a prompting to talk to this girl on the street who looked like she was in a hurry and had her headphones in.. so we did! And we gave her a Book of Mormon and exchanged numbers! Miracles!

Zr. Boyd made french toast with speculoos spread for me for breakfast on exchanges.. and it was HEERLIJK. She's a gem 

Then the greatest thing happened! On Sunday we had FOUR of our investigators come to church! It was so awesome! I love our people! 

Also I'm the worst and I have no pictures from this week... Sorry!

I love you!!

Love, Zuster Fordiani

1-the countryside. my love

2-with our investigators priscilla and chasidi and then their husband/dad

Week 34 ~ Savannah Stevenson fireside!

Hey people I'm not really feeling like writing a weekly this week so yall get some lekker highlights.

We were street contacting and we met a man who bought us drinks and we taught a restoration in a bar! Doesn't happen too often hahah

We presented in zone conference and it wasn't a total faliure! Haha jk it went well. Pres. was spouting out revelation over the pulpit though and told me I'm gonna be relief society president someday. 

So stay tuned

We did some service for the Bishop's family and helped them move into their new home and also built some ikea furniture for them haha. It was so nice wearing jeans!!! I need to lay off the frites though... lol

Savannah Stevenson came and gave a fireside in Antwerpen! She played Glinda in Wicked and also Mary in the bible videos! It was awesome to hear her bear her testimony and sing. Our investigators Chantal and Murtaza came along as well! President was there and Chantal told him he couldn't transfer us haha and then pres. asked if he can attend her baptism. Hahah so funny

Anyway that's pretty much it.

Ik hou van jullie!

Zuster Fordiani

1,2-Sint-Niklaas squad

3-guys i grew a plant!

4-cool little place we found randomly

5-Savanna Stevenson

Week 33 ~ refferals up the wazoo

This week was a week of REFERRALS. We contacted a bunch so that was sick! We finished up contacting our referrals and contacted the remaining six this week! We had to take some crazy buses to the middle of no where and walk forever, but we saw some miracles as a result!

We got on a bus on the way to contact this guy named Gwen and we had called him earlier but he didn't answer. While we were on the bus to his house, he called us back and said we should come over in an hour! It was so sick! So we went over there and gave him a Book of Mormon and will be going back this Tuesday with a joint teach to teach him a Restoration lesson.

We also had a Restoration lesson with another of the referrals, Johan! We brought a joint teach and it was a great lesson! He was so excited when we gave him the Book of Mormon! At the end of the lesson his friend came in and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon as well! Johan then starts telling him to read the Restoration pamphlet and then he needs to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Already doing missionary work.

Random, fun things:

FOUR of us in our district previously chipped our front tooth and now have fake teeth

We knocked on this lady's door and she didn't have interest but she did have cookies! That she so kindly shared with us haha

I found a FREE bathroom in a time of need. (That never happens btw)

I stood in Belgium and the Netherlands at the same time... holla

MORE SNOW (that lasted for a day)

I tried escargo and schnitzel!! Both super good. Would recommend

I was sitting next to our investigator, Murtaza, on the floor and he just leans over and goes "tickle tickle" and tickles my feet. Hahahah make of that what you will

One of the sacrament speakers didn't show up to church so the bishop asked me to give a talk with like ONE MINUTE of preparation. IN DUTCH may I remind you. I pulled something out of my butt about the gospel of Jesus Christ and enduring to the end. Hahaha life of a missionary

LOVE YOU

Zuster Fordiani

PS I failed at taking pictures this week so you get to see the only two I took

1-someone needs to wife me (in like three years lol)

2-random church in Lebbeke

Week 32 ~ alcohol chocolate...and SNOW

HEYYOOO.

Another monday. Another email.

First off, shout out to my Mom and brother Anthony! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I love you people!

Second off, it snowed!!!!! It was super weak, lame snow, but it still snowed nevertheless.

This week was crazy. We had MLC up in Leiden, Netherlands on Friday so we got to have a sleepover in Gouda on Thursday night and then another sleepover on Friday night in Zoetermeer! Which means I got to see both my MTC comps! It was so great. MLC was really good and I learned a lot! It's always fun to go get spiritually uplifted and see all my friends! Saturday was insane and the trains were all screwy so we ended up traveling for SIX HOURS to get home on the train. It was death haha but we met some cool people and I met a girl from Utrecht! I love Utrecht.

I got a call from a random number this week and it was ZR LODDERS from Utrecht!! I was so excited to hear from her. She is the best.

Other funnies this week:

I ripped my coat in the armpit... again. Trying to reach my glove that fell in the crack by the train. I was lying on the ground trying to reach it and a guy came up and offered to help. When he found out I was trying to get my glove and not my cellphone he decided not to help though... awkward. BUT tender mercy! When we got on the train I found a glove on the ground!

Our investigator gave us chocolate.... we were eating it waiting for our train and there was a suspicious individually wrapped one. So we broke it open, sniffed it, and deemed it okay. Well it WASN'T OKAY. Freaking alcohol hahah it burned my mouth and then we were just coughing and spitting everywhere. Hahah pretty great.

Zr De Souza and I almost got separated on a train! I jumped on the train and then the doors started to close so Zr De Souza couldn't get on so I pulled an Elder Roberts and jumped through the closing doors and like superman opened them to get through. 

That's pretty much it.

I love you people!

Love, Zuster Fordiani

1-5-Gent!!

​1-Book of Mormon challenge :)

2,3-Dendermonde

4-Some of the snow... it was pretty much melted

5-America vs. Canada hahah

6-New Years eve in our matching sweaters from the ward :)

7-Cluffy and I on exchanges in Antwerpen​