Week 23 ~ Paintballingggg

Last week we went paintballing on Halloween with the zone! It was district vs. district and our district won. Plus our district had all the sisters... coincidence? Toefall bestaat niet. We tried to travel back to Utrecht, but there was a fire arm spotted on a train at Rotterdam North station so there were cops everywhere and a helicopter, and all the trains back to Utrecht weren't running because they went through Rotterdam North station. Soooo we had to chill in Rotterdam Centraal for a couple hours until we could catch a train. But it turns out that the train didn't stop in Utrecht so we started heading toward Amsterdam.. so Elder Torrie jumped out at a stop to see if there was a train heading back to Utrecht and Elder Roberts didn't see him get back on so Elder Roberts jumped out and then they got separated hahah it was so crazy. We all eventually made it back to Utrecht Centraal safely.... haha.

We had a ping pong tournament at district meeting, and of course that was my favorite thing ever. Plus a little old man told me I look like Mona Lisa...?

The craziest thing happened this week!! Zuster Greening was on exchanges here in Utrecht with me and we went to look up a referral we got from the elders. Turns out we had the wrong address, but the lady who lived there, Claire, said she had been taught three lessons by some elders before! She then told us to check across the street. We rang the bell and one of our investigators, Mary, who we had been trying to get in contact with for a while, answered the door! Turns out she babysits the kids there during the day. So we didn't contact the referral, but were able to get a lesson with Mary and find Claire! And we called the elders and the elders teach Claire's husband already! It was so awesome. God was definitely guiding us that day.

We met with some J-Dubs on Saturday and very kindly bible bashed with them in a Burger King. That was definitely a new experience haha. It was fun to learn about their faith a little bit and share what we believe as well. I shared an awesome section out of 2 Nephi 2 with them about Adam and Eve too. It was actually a really cool experience and a testimony builder.

Anyway I love you all so much! Everything here is still going well :) You are all welcome to come move here with me when we get a new president on Tuesday! Good luck...

Liefs, Zuster Fordiani

1-Zr. Greening and I

2-Paintballing

3-When you don't want to do dishes so you eat breakfast with either giant spoons or teaspoons haha

4-word

Week 22 ~ Happy nonexistent Halloween!

Happy Halloween! No one really celebrates Halloween here, but our zone is going paintballing today! Boo yahh.

Last p-day we climbed the Dom Toren again. It was fun to see all the beautiful fall colors from the top. My legs were sore for a couple days after haha. And I finally bought some boots! 

We had some great lessons this week with Michael, Kester, and Jeremy. They are all progressing and doing well! Kester is pumped for baptism! I freaking love that dude.

The Netherlands is so beautiful in the fall! All of the trees are changing colors and the weather is so nice... well it's starting to get freaking cold, but I like it.. (just gotta keep telling myself that).

It was Zr. Wilkinson's half way mark so we went to McDonald's to celebrate. In the morning I hid in the other room for like 10 minutes while Zr. Wilkinson was getting ready. Then when she came out, I jumped out and scared her and yelled, "Happy half way!!!" Hahah pretty sure she hates me ;) Oh and I wanna give a special shout out to Zr. Wilkinson's mom! U da bomb ;)

Zr. Wilkinson had MLC (a meeting for all the zone leaders and sister training leaders) on Friday, so I went to Den Haag for the day on exchanges! It's always fun to go to a new city with different companions and shake it up a bit. You get to see how other missionaries do missionary work and it's cool to get new ideas and perspectives. We had some awesome door conversations that day! Den Haag is a cool city.

I love you all! Eat some candy for me.

Love, Zuster Fordiani

1-Inside the Dom Kerk

2-Elder Torrie as a midget

3-My homie Elder Smith!

4-View from the top of the Dom Toren

Week 21 ~ Area books are golden

Hey everyone! Still here in Utrecht! I was sick/had super bad allergies this week, but we continued to see the miracles. First off, we went through the area book and got in contact with some former investigators. Two of which who still have interest and are now our investigators! They're so cool. We taught Jeremy twice this week! It was amazing. He had a lot of questions about the Restoration so our lesson was really long, but so worth it because at the end he asked if he could try to sum it up. Then he recited the whole restoration of the church back to us! So cool! He's excited to pray about the Book of Mormon to know if it's true. The other former investigator we found is Rianne. We visited her and she said that she loves the Book of Mormon and reads it every day! She has read through the entire book and even had her favorite scriptures bookmarked. We had the prompting to invite her to be baptized and she accepted! We're really excited to work with her towards that goal :)

Our investigators Michael and Kester are still doing great and progressing a lot! It's so exciting to see them understand and enjoy the lessons we teach. I also finally street contacted this week! For some reason I haven't really done that a ton on my mission yet (it's pretty scary) but it was actually really fun! It gave us the opportunity to spend some time in the beautiful Utrecht centrum as well. A family came up and contacted us! It turned out to be a Mormon family from Lelystad. I love Mormons hahah. It was fun to chat with them for a bit. 

Oh also! Coolest thing! We got a referral sent to us that a woman from the Netherlands went to the MoTab choir in SLC and she talked to a member sitting next to her. She told the member that her boyfriend really wants a Book of Mormon but she had to leave to the airport right after to return home. The member told her that she could get her a copy and so she gave her her address. After finally getting in contact with our office, we were able to get the referral and deliver the Book of Mormon to her. She was SO excited! It was awesome! And the coolest thing was that she lives on the same block as us!! Pretty amazing.

A funny thing that happened this week is that we were taking a train to a dinner appointment with the elders and one of the train conductor guys came over and started talking to us. He was super funny (and kind of crazy) and he asked me how old I was and then said if I was older he would've married me hahah. He also patted me on the head and gave me gum. Haha he didn't accept our Book of Mormon, but we had a fun time chatting with him.

I also tried funeral potatoes for the first time... in the Netherlands. Haha the senior couple fed them to us and they are amazing!!

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Zuster Fordiani

1-4 Utrecht centrum

5- cliche fall pic

6- broodje marios

Week 20 ~ Kasteel De Haar & foo foo

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​This week was super good. I love Zuster Wilkinson!! We have been partying it up in the wonderful city of Utrecht. We had a great lesson with Michael this week about the Word of Wisdom! He is not so keen on accepting it yet, but we had Claudette with us as a joint teach and she helped so much! Joint teaches seriously make such a difference. I'm so grateful for member missionary work!

Kester fed us foo foo! It's a sort of African food made from potatoes, but it's kind of like the consistency of silly puddy and you're not supposed to chew it. It's pretty weird. It was good though! We ate it with chicken stew. Lekker!

We finally went to Kasteel De Haar on P-day!! It's the biggest castle in the Netherlands. It's literally a Cinderella castle. And it's so close to where we live! We're so lucky. Zuster Wilkinson and I were freaking out hahah but the elders were good sports ;)

Tuesday was Elder Roberts b-day! I made him banana bread and we stuck some candles in it haha. We also had zone training on Wednesday and we're starting to read the Book of Mormon as a mission all the way through before the end of the year! They gave us each a new copy and we are going to mark every time it mentions or refers to Christ and record all the names for Christ and tally how many times each name is mentioned. I'm SO excited. I've already started and it's so amazing to see how many times Christ is mentioned each page and even each verse! I love the Book of Mormon because it really is centered on Christ and we can come closer to him through reading it :)

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love, Zuster Fordiani

Week 19 ~ Food because... priorities

Hey hey iedereen. 

Transfer week was crazy but good. I got my new companion Zuster Wilkinson and I love her! She's super nice. We've been partying it up. It was sad saying goodbye to Zuster Merz, but I'm pumped for this next transfer!

On P-day we tried to go to the biggest castle in the Netherlands (which happens to be like 20 min from our apartment, who woulda known) but we got screwed over by public transportation. So we ended up at McDonald's. It was pretty chill. We're gonna try again today though.

Wednesday we learned how to make roti (I have no idea how to spell that). It's a Surinams food and it's these special tortillas with curry and oh is it HEERLIJK. We started out the transfer with finding three new potentials in one day! And we got our investigator Kester on baptismal date :) Hopefully Michael and Emiliano follow suit! I seriously love the people here. They are so stubborn and hard headed but so loving when you get to know them. One funny thing is that they do the kissy cheek thing when you say hello to close friends. So I was saying hi to Shauna and she started kissing my cheeks, but you have to do three kisses and I tried to pull back after the second and we ended up like half kissing. It was superrrr funny/awkward hahah.

We had a meeting in Gouda and I got a fresh, warm stroopwafel... so freaking yummy. And I finally tried oliebollen too! It's sort of like a scone. Sorry my emails are just always about food, but ya know.. priorities. 

Anyway I love you guys! :)

Liefs,

Zuster Fordiani

1-teeter totter life

2-finally got garlic nan in the centrum

3-Freaking chocolate butter is a thing here. CHOCOLATE BUTTEr

4-Mickey D's with the squad​

1-Zr Wilkinson!

2-Stroopwafels in Gouda

Week 18 ~ MAGGOTS and transfer calls!!

Okay this week was great but GUESS WHAT HAPPENED THIS MORNING LIKE AN HOUR AGO?!!?!? We moved our trash can outside on our balcony because there were fruit flies.. but you know what's worse than fruit flies? Maggots!!! Everywhere!! They were all in the trash can on the inside and outside of the bag so we decided to spray them to try to kill some and then they all started to crawl out and jump off the sides onto the deck! I almost threw up and then we dumped the old bag in a new bag and then took up all the floor boards on the deck and massacred those suckers. We stomped like 500 of them to death.

Anyway. It was a good week.

First of all Michael is amazing!! We had a lesson with him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he is so on board. He's still nervous about baptism.. he says he wants to know everything before he makes that decision.. We're going to talk to him about it more on Wednesday. But the lesson was amazing because he has completely changed! He came to our lesson more humble, less argumentative, more attentive, in nice clothes, and clean. He has been reading the Book of Mormon and he loves it! During our lesson he opened up randomly to one of the chapters in 2 Nephi where it's quoting Isaiah and he was so surprised. He said that's what he had had to read before he joined another church! I think it was a sign.. and then he asked to pray at the end of the lesson. He started out with a memorized prayer but forgot how it goes so he started praying sincerely. He asked for help as he takes these next steps and was grateful that we had found him. I think it was his first out-loud sincere prayer ever. After the prayer the spirit hit us so strong. We all sat in silence for 5 or 10 minutes or however long. I don't even know. Tears were streaming down his face and I think he may have got his answer :)

We also found a wonderful husband and wife who we were able to teach the Restoration lesson to! And they are both interested to learn more! Whaaaat?! So cool. They said we can return and teach their whole family! I'm so pumped! I've never taught a family before.

Conference was this weekend! I hope you all watched it because I only got to see the first two sessions. Which were AMAZING. Holy cow. I love how much was said about the Book of Mormon. I have such a strong testimony that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It has changed my life. And I continue to see the joy it brings into people's lives as they study the Book of Mormon.

TRANSFER NEWS: I'm staying in Utrecht! And i'll get my new companion on Wednesday--Sis. Wilkinson! I'm pumped to be staying in Utrecht, because we have amazing people here!

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Zuster Fordiani

1-Elder Watson's granny. I LOVE HER

2-Frickin monkeys in a tree in a rich neighborhood

3-Exchanges in Amsterdam with Lechie!

4-Little froggy friend :)

5-With Sister De Vries :)

Week 17 ~ Vocking Worst

Heilige Koe. So many miracles this week! This week I learned how important specific prayers are! On Wednesday or so, Zuster Merz prayed specifically for us to find one new potential. She had read about the power of specific prayers in her studies so we decided to try it. The day went on and we found no one.. but as we were unlocking our bikes to leave, a man came up to us and asked if we had belled his apartment building on Sunday. We said yes because we had, and then he went on to ask us what we were doing and what we believe. Then he invited us inside!! (That never happens btw). We didn't have time, but we are going to return this week! It was really cool to see the Lord bless us so specifically. On Friday I decided to try it again, and one of the first doors we knocked invited us to come back next Saturday. Finally, on Sunday,  Zr. Merz prayed for us to find one more person. And guess what happened? We found THREE NEW POTENTIALS. In one day. It was so amazing! That has never happened before. My testimony has really grown in specific prayers! I know that if you ever have need of anything, don't be afraid to be specific in your prayers. I know that the Lord will bless you and answer your prayers if you have faith! 

On Sunday, our new investigator Kester, from Africa, came to church and stayed all three hours!! We were able to teach him the Plan of Salvation the second hour and he said, "Why don't all churches know this!?" It was so cool.

Something funny: In a dinner appointment, a member fed us Vocking Worst.. when she told us what it was called we all choked because we were laughing so hard. She thought it was hilarious. (The v makes an f sound..) haha.

I love you all so much and pray for you! 

Love,

Zuster Fordiani

1-Carnival in Gouda on exchanges

2-The sunsets here are unreal

3-The elders... I just can't

4-Soaked