Dear Family! You all are so wonderful. Seriously, I hope you know and can feel of my love and appreciation for you. Thank you so much for all you do to support and help me.
I hope you all are doing well. It's been a great week! Super busy, and super crazy with New Years. Oh hey – Happy 2011! Gelukkig Nieuwejaar! It's going to be a great year. Zuster Kremer and I met a woman about a month or so ago who said that 2011 was going to be the year of the saints. I believe her. :)
Good news -- we finally helped Delroy, one of our investigators, set a baptismal date!! He will be getting baptized February 4th (on his birthday). I told you about him on the phone, but just a recap. We met him in Oosterpark on a freezing day. We had a really long talk with him though and gave him a Book of Mormon which he was very excited to take. He's from Suriname but has lived in Amsterdam most of his life. Ever since that day he was been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and loves it. He's one of the best examples to me of prayer. A lot of things that we have told him about the gospel have been new to him and kind of hard for him to accept, but we always challenge him to pray about it and he always does and he ALWAYS gets an answer and acts on it. He knows God will give him answers, and every time he prays he asks God to lead and guide him. To me that's the most important thing. God really does answer the sincere heart. Eerlijke bedoeling is what we call it in Dutch - real intent. I'm so excited for him! Please pray that he will be able to stay strong. He came to church for the first time finally yesterday and loved it. It was testimony meeting and everyone bore testimony of the restoration and it was POWERFUL. I love the ward here in Amsterdam.
What did you all do for New Year’s? IT WAS SO CRAZY HERE. Honestly, I did not sleep that night. This place was a war zone. The whole day was crazy. People kept setting off bombs the whole day and you couldn't see anywhere it was so full of smoke. We were riding our bikes down this one street and these little boys started throwing bombs all around us! Haha - it was intense. They kept exploding all over. Don't worry though, the Lord protected us and we didn't get hit. We had to be in by 4:00 but we had a good night planning, setting goals, cleaning, and then watching the Testaments (the Pancratzs let us borrow their mini DVD player.) I couldn't think of a better way to bring in the new year.
I am very happy to say that every day of 2010, with the exception of 41 days, I was on my mission. It was really cool New Year’s Eve to be writing in my journal and to think, hey, as I look back on this last year I can honestly say that I know that I have been doing exactly what Heavenly Father wants me to do and I have done my very best. What an awesome feeling. How many people can honestly say that? I am so grateful for the opportunity my mission gives me to become the best person I can be, someone who really gives her all to the Lord and who knows what she can accomplish with the Lord’s help. I feel a lot of peace when I think about this next year, and I feel a lot of excitement.
I have set some awesome goals that I’m really excited to work on. For the month of January I am working on Faith. I figured that was a good way to start the year. I was reading a talk by President Monson today and I love this quote from him. He says, “The future is as bright as your faith.“ And that really got me thinking. That means that I can have the brightest future I want. It’s all up to me and my faith. Faith is totally the happy attribute. It’s optimism and trust. It’s like when you wake up with this exciting feeling in your stomach, just excited to see what the day would bring. That’s the same feeling faith gives us. We’re excited as missionaries to get up, it’s that excitement like oh, oh I wonder what miracles we’ll see today. I love it!
Well, I'm out of time cause it took me so long to read your emails and think about it. Know that I am happy and doing well and just loving life. Send everyone my love. Do all you can this year to share the gospel. Now is the time. Let's call down the miracles!
Met liefde,
Zuster Holbein
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