Tell Everyone I Love Them!

Family! Your emails make me so happy.

Thank you so much for your faith and love and prayers for me, they
really do mean so much. I love hearing about home and all the
wonderful things that are going on. Yea for Julia and Jake and the
baby! That's all so exciting. Please let John and Britt know that I
will be praying for Britt's grandma for sure. Mom I got one of the
cards last Monday but that has been the only card I have gotten so
far. Thank you for always being so sweet. The cards always cheer me
up. ...

So this week has been wonderful but definitely one of those trial of
faith weeks. First of all, all of our appointments fell through! Not
even exaggerating. It was a little discouraging. But maybe it was
meant to happen because on Tuesday Zuster Gulliver got the flu and on
Wednesday I got the flu as well. We were both pretty sick and had to
stay in for 2 days which was weird. And it has been raining a ton and
very cold. Thank goodness for scarves they save my life.

Besides that we met with some members and Heidi and Marie and did a
lot of finding which sadly was not too productive. We tried so hard
though so it wasn't too discouraging because we knew we had done our
best. And now I can tell a week of miracles is upon us! We have a
mini missionary with us this week. The stakes here send 17-18 year
olds on mini missions and they come and live with us and do the
missionary thing for a week. A wonderful convert of 1 year named
Irene is here with us. We have just barely picked her up but I'm
excited to have her. She doesn't really speak English, so this should
be great for me!

Some great things about last week besides being sick and all that. We
had an amazing lesson with Heidi and Marie over testimonies. They are
so golden it is wonderful! We each took turns bearing testimony and
they each bore very powerful sweet ones. I love them so much. After
tonight they will have had all the lessons. On Wednesday we are going
to go watch "The Testaments" with them and I think they will love it.

Funny random stories - I totally pulled off the door knob at a
member's home when we were leaving! I felt so bad, but then they said
it was already broken so I didn't need to feel bad.

And the funniest story this week happened yesterday as we were going
to church. We missed our stop and had to walk through this kind of
gross part of town to get to church and it was raining really hard.
All of a sudden we heard this man singing Elvis really loud with kind
of a country voice and we looked back and he was running at us. So
Zuster Gulliver says, "Um, maybe we should walk faster, I think he is
crazy." So we started walking faster, but then he started calling at
us. So we turned around and realized oh wait... we know him. Haha it
was one of the older men in the ward. Haha! I think he might be a
little crazy because he walked with us the rest of the way singing
"How Great Thou Art" really loud. It was a good thing I was in front
of him and it was raining because I couldn't stop laughing.

Well, time's up, but as always I love you all! Tell everyone back
home, Pres. Hymas and the Blodgetts and everyone that I miss them but
I can feel of their support and it means so much to me. Thank you all
for your diligence and example. And for your faith. Faith is so
important, there is a reason it is the first principle of the gospel.
We have to have faith for Heavenly Father to work miracles through us.
I'm really trying to pray everyday and then get up and be the
missionary I know I can be with His help. I can't wait to hear from
you next week.

Tell everyone I love them!
Doi - Zuster Holbein