Gratitude

Dear Family,

So last night Zuster Perry and I are sitting on the floor after doing our planning, listening to EFY music (something I have come to appreciate more being a missionary I think -- haha), eating frozen grapes, and just chatting waiting for phone calls to hear about transfers, and obnoxiously texting everyone to see if anyone had found out, when all of a sudden it hit me -- this was my last phone call when transfers would have anything to do with me! WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?! Haha -- needless to say I had this “whoa” moment. So the news is the unstoppable Zuster Perry and Zuster Holbein are staying here in Gouda ready to rock another transfer. Yeah! I'm so so happy.

I just have to state, I love my mission. I do. When people ask me: Name? Zuster Holbein. Preferred language? Dutch. What do you do all day? Invite people to come unto Christ, ride my bike around beautiful Gouda, have crazy epic adventures, knock on lots of doors, get yelled at by half the people, work with the most amazing members in the world, go out to a pizza dinner with the recent 62 year old convert Sjef, pretend like we really biked to Italy, teach the most precious of God's children, pray every day that it won't rain, sing hymns while biking, and watch the gospel change people's lives. Do you have the best life ever? YES. :) Really, to Karina, Greg, Lindsay, EVERYONE who may be wondering about a mission -- it's worth it. 100%. Even the hard times.

This week has been awesome. So much happened. Wednesday we went to the Protestant school ... wow. I was nervous; not going to lie. But it went so well. The students actually did pretty well. The only 2 things they missed were 1) Actually Jesus Christ IS the center of our faith, and 2) we don't allow 10 wives. After their presentation we went up and they were like, “Okay, say something.” I was like, “I thought you were going to ask us questions!” So we just both bore our testimonies of how we came to know the gospel was true and what it means for us, and how Jesus Christ is the center of our lives. After that they asked all these questions about how we learned the language, if a mission was required, and why we need the Book of Mormon, oh and if only Mormons go to Heaven. The Spirit was with us, thank goodness. We were able to give pamphlets out to everyone, and presented two of the teachers a Book of Mormon. Yeah! :)

Other cool miracles -- Tuesday we were doing a consecrated hour and it was not going well. I was tired, honestly, it was at the end of the day. Then all of a sudden, this woman starts yelling and waving at us from the street parallel to us. We thought, okay, not weird, people yell at us a lot. But then she started yelling for us to come. We went over and she asked if we were Christian, and she let us come inside and told us that last night she prayed with God to help her find a way to have a better life, and then when she saw us she felt something. Yeah ... amazing! So we taught her a basic first lesson, and made a return appointment for tomorrow night! Wahoo. :)

Oh and Neda set a baptismal date on Wednesday! She's getting baptized July 9th and she is so excited. She is giving away Books of Mormon to everyone she knows. And she's going strong through hard stuff too. Her family who at first was all supportive gave her some anti-info. She called us right away and we went over and discussed it, and she decided by herself to throw it away because it didn't make her feel good inside. Love her.

Mevrouw Idema came to church yesterday for the first time yesterday and loved it! Oh she is so sweet. I want her to get baptized more than anything so that she can go and be sealed to her husband in a year. She's going to do it, I know it. She loved fast and testimony meeting, and asked if she could write something down and then next month say it. She is so sweet. I love the spirit when we teach her. Especially when we talk about eternal families. I've never felt the Spirit so strongly. I just know that Rob is waiting for her on the other side to accept this. I never feel Heaven so near than when I talk with people about eternal families. It's beautiful. After lessons like that I swear my bike feels like it has wings.

Thank you all for being so good to me. I pray for you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting me as a missionary. I studied gratitude this morning and I was overwhelmed with everything that God has given me. To quote our African brothers and sisters here, "God is good." Haha -- oh the joys. Love you all!

Met Liefde,
Zuster Holbein