October 25, 2010

Dear Family!

It has been such a wonderful week. I love working here in Amsterdam and I love working with Zuster Driggs. She is absolutely hilarious; I am really going to miss her when she goes home. She asked for your phone number though because she wants to call you when she gets back. Haha, so you can expect that. She is great! I've started running again in the mornings, but there were some problems for a while, and Zuster Driggs is such a sport. She doesn't like to run so she just sits in the cold and watches me run up and down the street. The mornings have gotten really cold here, we really have to buddle up to go outside. Actually, it's basically just always cold here now. Mom, I am so grateful for the rain coat we bought. And I'm glad we bought the bigger size because I can wear my winter coat and then put the rain coat over it. It's helped a lot! I rains every day here. The heater in the church broke too and so the building is freezing! The Snugglie has made its way to Europe and the members are starting to wear their Snugglies to church. It's hilarious. Happy almost birthday Daddy! I am sending a surprise in the mail.

This week was great and this coming week is going to be even better! I can't believe I forgot to tell you last week but...WE GET TO GO TO THE TEMPLE TOMORROW!! I hope you can read the enthusiasm in my voice. I am above and beyond excited to finally get to go back to the temple. People asks us all the time if we are homesick and I always say, no offense to you all, but that I'm temple homesick. We really were spoiled in the MTC to be able to go every week. That's a goal I want to have when I go back to BYU. I've been preparing the last few weeks to come up with questions or just things that have been on my mind. I cannot wait till tomorrow. Haha, it's like Christmas.

So our miracle of the week is a woman name Unique. She is from Suriname, which means she has the most beautiful Dutch ever (besides Vlaams) and we met her through a member here named Jennifer Linkers. We went over to Jennifer's on Thursday to have dinner and Unique was there. She was very, very curious about what we do as missionaries and we ended up teaching her a very full, beautiful first lesson. She loved it! She was a little "skeptical" but believed that she could ask God for an answer. We got her info, but as it turns out she lives in Almere which is just north of here. But we have elders in Almere and it turns out they had knocked on her door before but she hadn't been interested. We told her we could give her info to the elders, but she said that she was going to be in Amsterdam through the weekend and she wanted to know if we could teach her more. Haha, umm... yes, that was possible. We went over every day after that and taught her the plan of salvation, gospel of Jesus Christ, word of wisdom, and law of chastity. She has some problems with the commandments now but she was so touched and knows that what we've told her is true and she needs to change her life around. She read tons from the Book of Mormon in between our visits and she really got it. It was wonderful! During our last appointment yesterday she cried and said she really felt God's love and she wanted to progress to baptism. Oh my goodness I love her! I am so excited for her to continue to be taught by the elders. And she said she comes down to Amsterdam every once in a while so we will see her again. Talk about prepared people. And talk about amazing members. Seriously THIS IS THE WAY TO DO IT -- Jennifer is great. :)

Funny story of the week also comes from Jennifer's. She is also from Suriname and people from Suriname make VERY spicy food. The elders came for dinner as well on Thursday and Elder Wood dared me to eat this small, yellow pepper with him. Everyone was like no, no don't do it, you'll regret it. But... we did it anyway. Oh. My. Gosh. It was so hot! My mouth caught fire haha and I couldn't breathe. Definitely not the smartest thing I've ever done. So Elder Wood and I are sitting there crying and Jennifer starts going off about how we were her guests and so if we were suffering she needed to suffer too. So she pops one in her mouth too! Haha, so we are all sitting there crying and everyone else is laughing and oh man, you just had to see it. Well, you live and learn. And now I have a funny story.

Last night we had a wonderful appointment with the Relief Society President Zuster Van Leeuwen and her husband. They are incredible! Their son is actually on a mission HERE now and he was in my zone in Antwerpen which is cool. They are both awesome members and we talked a lot about working with the ward to get the work done. We gave them a lesson on what my other insight last week was. So people always think, "Oh wow, missionaries are so smart in the gospel. They know so much and when they come home they are just so great. They know everything." And Zuster Driggs and I were talking about that the other day and we were trying to figure out why people think that. People always think that we know everything about the gospel. But the thing is... we don't. And the knowledge that we do have just comes because we study the basics. Every day. Haha for 2 years/year and a half really all we study every day are the first 3 lessons in PMG. Like I study the plan of salvation a lot. I like to study faith. Or just read from the Book of Mormon. It's the basics that make up the gospel. And that's available to everyone, missionary or not. There is no big secret. That's what I love about the gospel. It's simple.

I love you all! Keep praying. Study Preach My Gospel. Really that will help so much!

Met leifde,
Zuster Holbein