Oh the weather outside is frightful

Helloo everyone!

Welcome to winter in the Netherlands! We had a first snowfall on Thanksgiving, and as I speak it is pouring buckets. Biking in the snow is well... interesting. Definitely going to take some practice and a lot of slowing down. The cold weather itself also makes things fun. I will have to send pictures home of Zuster Kremer and me when we go out. The other day I wore 3 skirts, 4 shirts and a sweater, 2 scarves, 2 hats, boots, gloves, just about everything I could find. I'm sure I look hilarious. But hey, it's worth it to stay warm. I'm also fighting a cold at the moment but I have medicine-ish stuff and I took a nap today so it should go away soon.

Thank you for your wonderful emails! I'm glad that you were all able to come together for Thanksgiving. What a wonderful holiday. We had hands down the best Thanksgiving ever. (Haha, Zuster Kremer makes fun of me because I say “the best” or “the coolest thing ever” all the time. Oh well, it's still true.) We spent most of the day finding, and met some of the most amazing people. I only met one American, but I did get to say Happy Thanksgiving to him. That evening we went to Claire’s, an American's house and had a wonderful feast with her. It was Zuster Kremer's first Thanksgiving, haha.

I actually don't have much time to write because the snow kind of messed up our plans, but I will share a cool miracle. Saturday night we went to a member's home for dinner and we had a lesson with them on being led by the Spirit. We talked about how as missionaries we do consecrated hours of finding every day, and that we pray the night before and then look at the map to be led by the Spirit to know where to go. So we had them kneel down in prayer with us and then look at our map, and we all picked out a street together. We told them that we were going to do it from 4:00 to 5:00 on Sunday, yesterday, and that they could pray at 4:00, and then we could call them at 5:00 to tell them what happened. So they picked this little street kind of in the middle of nowhere and we went. The hour started and was ok, nothing really big happened. But we were not discouraged! About 10 minutes before the end of the hour we knocked on a door. A man answered and after we introduced ourselves and asked him about his belief in God he said, “No, no, I don’t believe,” and went to shut the door." But suddenly I felt something so strong to stop him so I just blurted out, “No, please, we have a very special message. Is it ok if we just come in for a minute?” He looked at me and then said, “Well... ok, yes”! So we went inside and met his wife and ended up teaching them a whole lesson about the Book of Mormon and gave them a copy. They were both really touched, and after the prayer they asked us to come back! Their names are Fam Graas and they are incredible. I'm so happy to go back. And it’s all because of the faith of some members combined with ours. It was a miracle.

Thank you so much for your letters and love. I miss you this holiday season, but I am so excited to be here and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. What a perfect time of year to do it!

Met liefde,
Zuster Holbein

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Family,

Happy almost Thanksgiving! It's funny because here everything for Christmas and Sint Niklaas is under way because yeah, obviously they don't have Thanksgiving here. And my companion isn't American either haha so I actually almost forgot it was this week. I am happy everyone can be together! Please send everyone my love. Eat lots of yummy pie for me. We'll be going to an American's house on Thursday for dinner but I won't be having any pie. :)

I decided that for this week's email, especially since I don't have a lot of time I just want to send a list of things that I am grateful for so that you can add my thoughts to the family list. Also, being honest, it's been kind of a stressful morning, so I think this will be good for me. So here we go. Things I am grateful for on my mission.

First and foremost I am grateful for my Saviour Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to represent and serve Him here in Belgium and the Netherlands. I am grateful for His atoning sacrifice and that through Him I can overcome all my weaknesses. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who knows me personally and who tailors trials to fit me and is always there to help me along the way. I am grateful for my mission in general. Haha an all-encompassing statement. I'm grateful to be in this part of the world. I'm grateful for the Dutch language. Haha it's weird, but I love it.

I'm grateful for my personal testimony because without it I wouldn't be able to do the work I'm doing. I am grateful for the Book of Mormon -- the keystone of our religion. I am grateful for moments when I can hand the Book of Mormon to someone and watch them hold it for the first time, to watch them read in it for the first time, and then slowly but surely to watch them gain a testimony of it. I'm grateful for opportunities to bear my testimony.

I'm grateful for the hymns of the Church and the spirit they bring. I'm grateful for people who will let us pray with them on the street during a contact or people who will let us sing.

I'm grateful for my journal that I have faithfully kept, never missed a day, since I was set apart. I'm grateful for all the pictures I've taken and the memories behind them. I'm grateful for inspiring quotes from general conference that teach gospel principles clearly. I'm grateful for the first prayer I say when I wake up and the last prayer I say before I go to bed. I'm SO grateful for long prayers and times when I can just talk with my Heavenly Father. I'm grateful for the Holy Ghost. The way that it speaks to me and the way that it touches the people much more than I ever could. I'm grateful for the love of God -- the warm, fuzzy kind that makes everything else going on around me ok. I'm grateful for repentance and the miracle of forgiveness. I'm grateful for lessons guided by the Spirit and those moments when I say something that I know wasn't me.

I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for every email, every card it the mail, and every prayer.

I'm grateful for the priesthood and for priesthood blessings. I'm grateful for Joseph Smith and the restored knowledge we have about the plan of salvation and the purpose of our lives.

I'm grateful for open and honest communication. I'm grateful for warm blankets and my bed at the end of a long day. I'm grateful for tea -- honey lemon and minty morocco being my favorites.

I'm grateful for an hour everyday to spend in the scriptures during personal study and the awesome opportunity to study not just for myself but for other people. I'm grateful for the everyday tender mercies and the little miracles and funny moments. I'm grateful for other missionaries’ examples of faith. I'm grateful for all my wonderful companions and the things they have taught me. I'm grateful for EFY music and time at the end of the day to maybe have a random EFY music dance party haha.

I'm grateful for charity, the pure love of Christ. I'm grateful for Bible gems -- those precious little scriptures in the Bible that I had never found before my mission. I'm grateful for my eternal worth as a daughter of God.

I'm grateful for weather -- all kinds, sunny and rain. I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my agency and that I can chose to be happy. I'm grateful for goals and that with the Lord's help I can set and achieve them. I'm grateful for investigators who make progress because they chose to, and because they have received a testimony. I'm grateful for the early saints of the Church who suffered so much. I'm grateful for the principle of obedience.

I'm grateful for oatmeal and bananas. I'm grateful for green apples with peanut butter.

I'm grateful for Preach My Gospel. I'm grateful for exercise and being able to run in the mornings. I'm grateful for black pens, because blue are yucky. I am grateful for my flute. I'm grateful for my planner and being organized. I'm grateful for cell phones; they make things so much easier.

I'm grateful for member referrals, members who come on joint teach or finding, or who have us over for dinner. I'm grateful for people I can laugh with. I'm grateful for days when nothing falls through and for good back up plans when it all does. I'm grateful for district meetings and zone conferences. I'm grateful for a weekly email from President that always says exactly what I need to hear. I'm grateful for long bike rides home at the end of the day when I can pray. I'm grateful for baptismal services and strong new converts. I'm grateful for the sacrament, it's always the same no matter where you go.

I'm so blessed to be a missionary. I love this life and I love my Saviour.

Please know how grateful I am for all of you this time of year. I love you!

Met Liefde,
Zuster Holbein

With Love

Hello family dear :)

Thank you so much for your wonderful emails! And for the Thanksgiving card. That really touched me when I got it and as always it came on a day when I needed it. I really do love getting those cards in the mail. Letters mean a lot and you all are wonderful!

It's been a really blessed week. I love Amsterdam more and more every week that I am here. I think that having someone new to the mission field as my companion has especially helped me to see just how much I love it here. Every bit is great – the investigators, the members, the people, even the challenges because they usually make for a funny story after.

Zuster Kremer is an absolute doll, I love working with her. She is such a hard working missionary already and she's a lot of fun to be with. Training is well, good. I don't think I really do anything different than what I did before. People seem to learn best by example and love more than when someone says, "Do this or do that." Besides Zuster Kremer already is fantastic. We have seen so much success since she came, it's like the work is on a jump start again. We've been doing so much finding, which I LOVE. I don't know why, because I know a lot of missionaries who don't like it, but I love love love finding. It's like the life-blood that keeps me going. I love talking too and so I think that helps – haha.

We've met some interesting people this week, and we've had the chance to use Zuster Kremer's French a lot. We had a random man come up to us in a park and ask if we speak French. Totally random, but thank goodness we did and we ended up getting his number and everything. We also got proposed to, again – you'd be amazed how often that happens – and a lot of other crazy things.

As a side note, the weather this week has been horrible! Big storms have been coming through and everyone has been amazed that we even went out in that weather. Haha, best moment of the week – it was super windy on Friday and we were biking to go do an hour of finding and a gust of wind came that was so strong it blew me off my bike! Literally! We could not stop laughing, it was so funny. Thursday was particularly crazy. It was rainy and hailing and we were trying to bike from an appointment with Melinda to the church, which takes like 45 minutes when it's not raining. And then all of a sudden Zuster Kremer's fiets breaks and it starts pouring and all this crazy stuff and we were totally not in the best part of town. So we locked the bikes up and went into a gas station where we had to call the senior couple to come and pick us up because we were literally in the middle of nowhere. It was insane. But everything worked out.

So the miracle of the week came in working with one of our investigators who is really struggling with drug addiction. My time here in Amsterdam is teaching me so so much about working with people in situations like this. Addiction to anything really is a real thing, and it's sad because when someone is addicted to something they do give up their agency. But people can overcome these things, and the Church has an excellent program for addiction recovery. We are using this program with one of our investigators and they have really been making progress. But then this past week during studies I was studying for them and I came across an activity in Preach My Gospel that talked about trying to give up something that was just a part of our lives, something that is so normal we don't even think about it. That's how hard it is for someone who has an addiction. So I thought about that. And Zuster Kremer and I talked about it. And we decided that to help support this investigator we are going to give up sugar, which considering Christmas season is coming up that is going to be interesting. We're still working on the details, but we really want to try and understand better what these people feel.

I guess another thing that I'm really coming to learn is that the Church is like a big hospital. The Church isn't for the spiritually healthy fine people. For one thing, none of us are like that. We all have problems and weaknesses and that's why we come to the Church; that's why we come unto Christ, so that through the atonement we can be healed. That's what repentance is. It's a healing. And it's beautiful. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to repent. I love helping others come to realize the joy that it brings. I love that famous painting of Christ visiting the sick and poor people, the one where he is reaching down looking to the one homeless man under a tent or something. I was looking at it the other day and one of the members was with me and she pointed at it and said, "This is Christ's church." It's true. I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to be a member and to share the gospel with people. I love the line in Hark the Herald Angels Sing that says that Christ is "Risen with healing in his wings." My favorite way to picture the Savior is with his arms wide open. I've been looking for that in my scripture study lately, scriptures that talk about Christ's arms and the way he is always reaching out to us. I know that Christ lives. I know that He loves me. I know that everyone here on this earth is a child of God. That's such a precious truth. Thank you so much for your testimonies, they strengthen mine. You all are wonderful!

Met liefde,
Zuster Holbein

Sisters in Brussels for Conference

November 8, 2010

Dear Family,

Oh my goodness what a busy week! I wish I had more time last Monday to write because now it feels like I have so much to say and not enough time to say it all! So first things first, we found out about transfers last night and... I'm staying! Haha no surprise since Zuster Driggs is leaving, but what the surprise is that I'm training! Haha weird, when did I become old enough to do that? I will be training Zuster Kremer (her picture is on the blog already). She came a week early and spent the week in Antwerpen while President decided who her trainer would be. She is from Hungary and absolutely amazing! I met her at the sisters’ conference, and even though I didn't get to talk to her a lot I can tell she will be a lot of fun to work with. So yeah, that's crazy and exciting and a little intimidating and all that but I'm really excited!

Miracles of the week. So members keep telling me that there is a street here in Amsterdam called Holbeinstraat, and we'd been meaning to look it up but never had time. The other night though we were praying and it just felt right to go there and do some finding. So we went and had an awesome consecrated hour of finding! It was hilarious because when I would introduce myself to people or they would look at my name tag they would say "You know this is HOLBEINstraat, right?" And I would laugh and say something like "What... really?" Haha it was great. We actually found a bunch of awesome new investigators so that was cool. We also set another baptismal date this week! We got a referral from someone who had looked at the Dutch church website and ordered a copy of the Book of Mormon. Her name is Melinda and we went over to deliver the book, had a great lesson with her and set a date for the 18th of December. She's lived all over the world and actually knows a lot of members of the Church in Germany and she would always talk with them about the Church but no one ever gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon! And then a couple of months ago she saw “Legacy” on TV ... random, I know ... and was really touched. So she decided to investigate a bit on her own, and then she asked for missionaries to come. She already knew so much when we came and is totally on board to prepare for baptism. When we challenged her to the 18th she said, "Oh well that would be a wonderful Christmas present for me." Haha ELECT. She's great, I'm so excited to teach her.

Everything with Daphne and William our 2 investigators with dates is going well; people are just getting really busy around here and are hard to meet with. That can be hard. But we're not worried and everything is going to work out.

A funny moment was this week in a lesson with a new investigator named Glen. One of the older woman from the ward came with us, and we had a really good first lesson. At the end of the lesson I was going into challenging him to baptism and I started to say something along the lines of how we would be having a baptism on the 11th of December and before I could finish my sentence, you know, “would you prepare yourself to be baptized on this date” or something, the older sister says, "...and we'd like to invite you to come and watch." Bahh haha I don't think I've ever wanted to hit an old woman before that moment! Haha ok so that's harsh; I wasn't upset, I just thought it was hilarious. I was like oh...haha...ummm, yeah that too... but the date is for YOU. Anyway, we had to go and it didn't end up working out. I'm taking that as a sign though that we just needed to wait. We have another appointment on Wednesday though and I am totally going to try again!

Saturday we got to go to the temple again. That was of course amazing. It was great for Zuster Driggs to be able to see Sekou Kieta a man she baptized a year ago and it was beautiful. The session was in French because that's his moeder taal, so we all had headphones and got to listen in English. I love the peace of the temple. It was a great end to the week and preparation to finding out that I was training.

Yesterday was stake conference and William was able to come which was great. The ward rented a bus and we all traveled together. It was about a hour trip and it was a lot of fun. Wijk Amsterdam is so great!

The longer I've been in the Netherlands the more random things I keep learning about “The Best Two Years,” and the more people I keep meeting who are in it. It's funny, no one is going to want to watch it with me when I come home because I'll keep saying, "know him, know her, been there..." But the funniest one was this week. The Reijnders are one of those big families here in the Netherlands, kind of like the Hattons in Kentucky, and they are all over the movie. We were having lunch yesterday after Stake Conference with one of the sons, Jos, and his wife and somehow got talking about it. I asked him if he was in it and he said "Yeah, I'm the jerk missionary who stole the girlfriend." Haha, apparently they had him come and do this photo shoot and then gave him 20 euro and told him that it might be in the film. And then the movie came out, and before he had seen it someone called him and was like "Hey, so you got the part of the bad guy!" Haha which is so funny because he is one of the most soft spoken people ever. Anyway, so when you watch the movie and it shows the picture with Elder Rodgers and Elder Christiansen (I think is his name) you can know that is Jos Reijnders and he does have a beautiful wife and he is nice and they feed us dinner all the time.

Well that's it for this week. Ik hou van jullie! Happy birthday again Dad! Thank you for the cards, the emails, the prayers, the love, and your testimonies.

Liefs,
Zuster Holbein

November 1, 2010

Dear Family,

Sorry this email is so late. I am writing you from the mission home in Brussels right now. We are having a 2 day sisters conference here. It's been the best day ever. We had a super fun time today just having P-day together. This mission has hands-down the best sisters. Last night we spent the night in Antwerpen and it was so good to be back. I got to see a lot of people and it was a tender mercy I needed. I wish I had more time but all the sisters are waiting to email so I don't have time. But quickly -- the temple was amazing! We did the session in Dutch and it was beautiful. I have a very strong testimony that when we go to the temple with a question the Lord will answer it. Zuster Driggs and I actually get to go again this week with an investigator of hers that got baptized last year. It's going to be a great week!

And happy birthday Daddy! I am so happy that you got my cards.

Anyway, that's about all I have time for. I feel your prayers and I really appreciate your love. Everything here is going really well. Pray for opportunities to share the gospel! I promise next week's email will be better. We find out about transfers next week -- crazy to think the transfer is already almost over! So yes, everything is great and I love you all and I pray for you all the time. Blij maar geweldig. :)

Met liefde,
Zuster Holbein