July 26

Dear family, :)

That was so cool last week that we were almost on email at the same time! I was so surprised when I saw that. Weird.

I'm glad to hear that everything is going so well. Thank you for the story about the man who got baptized yesterday - that's so cool! I agree 100% that service is a great way to introduce people to the gospel. Bijvoorbeeld, we are currently teaching a lady who investigated the church a while ago but couldn't commit to be baptized. We found her number in the area book though and felt inspired to call her. It turned out that she had moved and actually now lives on our street! So we went to look her up and she wasn't too interested but she is trying to learn English. She speaks Spanish and Dutch and so we've been teaching her English, and as we've been serving her she has been opening up more and letting us teach her. It's a slow process but we are so seeing the benefits. So keep up the good work!

So when is the baby due??? The last I had heard was the 27th... tomorrow! Wow. Talk about craziness. I am so excited! I was thinking about baby Rhett today. His last few days with Heavenly Father. I wonder what that is like. I was thinking about how here in the mission right before missionaries go home they have an zegt maar exit interview with the President. I wonder if it's like that before we are born. Do we have an exit interview with Heavenly Father? What would he tell us? Of course we wouldn’t remember, but I think sometimes maybe what is in our patriarchal blessing is some of what he might have said. Just something I've been thinking about. Julia and Jake I'm praying for you and Rhett all the time. I'm so happy for you!

This is week has been a week full of miracles and blessings. We have been able to see so much success as we are learning more and more to be led by the Spirit. We are teaching all of our people with baptismal dates about twice a week which keeps us really busy. I'm exhausted! But this is the best kind of exhausted ever.

Tuesday night we had a really special lesson with Moni. We taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and really focused on how through baptism we can be cleansed from our sins. She loved it. Her eyes started glowing. At the end of the lesson we asked her how she felt and she said, "I feel safe. I finally feel safe." Oh I wish I could describe how beautiful that was. It almost made me cry.

Saturday we had an amazing lesson with Joseph. He's been struggling a bit with reading from the Book of Mormon every day and so this lesson was a miracle. He came and said he'd been reading it like crazy -- couldn't put it down -- and that he knows now that it really is the word of God because it's brought him closer to Jesus Christ. Yeah!!! He came to church yesterday and just could not stop smiling and talking to everyone. He is awesome!

Speaking of yesterday, I don't remember if I told you, but I gave a talk in church. And it went really well! I was so nervous, my goodness. I spoke on sacrifice. I told everyone how you dad always tell me "sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven." I felt the Spirit when I wrote it and the Lord blessed me a lot. I felt so peaceful after. We (Elders Wells and Reltiz, and Zuster Fritz and I) also sang in church yesterday. We sang “Blij Bij Mij Heer” (Abide With Me) and it was beautiful. I love how quickly music brings the spirit. Then last night we traveled to Gent with one of our investigators and attended a musical fireside put on by the ward there. It was powerful! Overall it was a special Sunday.

So funny story of the week... On Tuesday during district meeting my shoe broke! The strap just popped off! Haha I didn't even do anything to it. The bad thing was I couldn't walk in it. So Brother Nuyens, our ward mission leader and the ultimate handy man, was there and I asked him if he could fix it. He said he would run it home really quick and fix it and bring it back. I told him we had an appointment at 1:00 though and he said he'd be back quickly. So we finished our district meeting, but he never came back! And we really needed to get to this appointment. After trying several silly things, like trying on Elder Wells’ shoes (not a good idea), I decided to just go with one shoe. Haha yeah. So I traveled all the way from church 40 minutes to our next appointment with Lillian in one shoe. It may have looked ridiculous but it started a conversation on the bus with a lady and we gave her a Family Proclamation, and we had a wonderful apt with Lillian who thought it was great that I wanted to bond with the earth. It turns out that Brother Nuyens came back just after we left and was amazed that we had left. He took the shoe to 3 different shoe makers till someone could fix it. Haha I love him. It was all together quite hilarious.

I love you all! I can't wait to hear about the baby!! Your prayers are appreciated. Oh and no Dad, I don't print out the emails, too expensive. The Church is true. This is the best thing ever. What more can I say?

Met liefde,
Zuster Holbein