Journeying Along

Dear Family,

Hey hey hey. :) HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! Zuster Perry and I are appropriately sporting red, white, and blue but it doesn't make any difference here because those are Holland's colors too.

Greetings from Zoetermeer! We came to spend the day with Zuster Kremer and her companion just because I wanted to see her before... well yeah. Anyway, it's a beautiful city and the temple is here!

Sounds like William is doing great! I'm so happy for him to be able to have that experience. I want to write him today. I am also putting something in the mail for you all so hopefully you will get it soon. I think the mail is weird here; sometimes things send, sometimes they don't.

So things here are great! Absolutely wonderful. It was quite the week full of ups and downs but the ups have been incredible. First things first -- Neda is getting baptized on Saturday! Wahoo!!! She is so wonderful! One of the most amazing people I have ever met, and she is already sharing the gospel with EVERYONE. Her baptism is going to be great; I swear she's invited half of Rotterdam. The ward is totally behind her too which is great. Yesterday in testimony meeting the Bishop announced her baptism, and after that everyone started bearing testimonies about when they joined the Church and how happy they were for her. And then right at the very end Neda jumped up and gave the most beautiful testimony. It was really touching to hear her talk about how she's looked all over and tried so many churches but never felt it until this one. I'm super happy for her. So that's this Saturday and it's going to be great. I'm so happy for her. :)

Mevrouw came to a baptismal service with us in Rotterdam on Friday. It was such a touching experience! Things have been really hard for her this past week, just because it was now almost a year ago that her husband died. But she came and was so touched by the Spirit. We got there early and we were sitting listening to Zuster Perry playing the piano, and we just started talking about how families can be together forever and she asked to see pictures of my family and I showed her and testified about how I know that even though it's been hard to be away from my family I've always known it's ok because we will be together forever, and I want other people to have that. She then asked me, "How long have you been here anyway?" (I tend to not tell people, just because... yeah... I don't want any decisions based on when I might leave). When I told her that I was leaving July 20th she was super surprised and then got really quiet. We didn't talk about it further. Then later we were showing her the baptismal font, and she got really filled up looking at the picture of Alma baptizing in the waters of Mormon. We were just standing there and then she grabbed my hand and said, “I know you really want to be here, but I just still need time. I'm going to do it, I just need time.” And then she hugged me. It was such an emotional moment. I told her it didn't matter; that's not what it's about, and that everything will work out. She said she knew that and she is going to get baptized. I love her. I love her with all my heart. It's amazing the relationships that you develop with people. Everyone I've met on my mission is so special to me. I really, honestly feel like I've been sent here for these people. I need them and they need me. I learn so much from them.

Other news -- this has been the week of biking! We may or may not have had much money this past week... just because reimbursements weren't in yet, so we've been biking everywhere! Oh. My. Goodness. On Wednesday evening we had an appointment in Woerden which takes like 30 minutes in total with the train and bus. So we think... no big deal, we could bike that in an hour. Yeah right. It took us 2 1/2 hours! Bahhhhh LONGEST BIKE RIDE OF MY LIFE. Haha the first hour was great, cool, lekker, but then after that it just got crazy. It shouldn't have taken so long but we ended up getting lost. Any why did we get lost? Haha -- because we were too proud to check the map! Wow that was really a lesson for me. As I was biking back I thought, ok there's got to be some gospel gelijkenis right? Here's what I came up with. Life is like a bike ride. It's crazy and long and tiring, but Heavenly Father has given us a map and things to help us on the way. How frustrating would it be to get to the end of our life and realize we had just been going toward a dead end? Speaking as someone who got to the end of a very long road to find nothing but a cow field and old train tracks -- VERY FRUSTRATING. So why would we do that? Pride, thinking we know better. All that natural man stuff. Here's what I have to say: people -- we just have to follow the map, bike at a good pace, and make sure we don't get caught up in the difficulty so that we miss all the beautiful windmills around us. If we do it, we'll end up exactly where Heavenly Father wants us to be and it'll be worth the effort.

I love you all so much! We're working hard here, keeping going; every day is another day. I love and pray for you all and appreciate your prayers.

Met liefde,
Zuster Holbein