First Baptisms!!

Awww. :) Happiest day for a missionary. :)

The Lekker Mooi Weer has arrived!

Hallo iederene! Groeten van lekker warm, mooi Antwerpen!
Hello everyone! Greetings from deliciously warm, beautiful Antwerpen!

Haha I think it's so funny but everyone here uses the word lekker
("delicious") to describe things. And now the beautiful warm weather
has finally arrived and so everyone talks about how deliciously warm
it is. :)

Missionary work is so much better when the weather is warm because
people are so willing to stop and talk and everyone is outside. We
found 4 wonderful new investigators this week and most of them were
found while we were outside contacting. And it's perfect that today
is so beautiful because it's Zuster Gulliver's last P-day and we are
planning on taking a lot of pictures. I have so many to send home but
today is a holiday so I can't print. Hopefully next week. :)

Thank you for your emails! Tell everyone I say hello and I promise I
am slowly but surely writing everyone back. I sent letters to Chris
and Angela last week and Uncle Bruce, Aunt Lynn, and Uncle Hugh and
Aunt Bobbi this week. Congrats to Tyler and Lisa! That's so
exciting, I definitely want to see pictures. Thank you for all of
your love. I got the card that everyone signed at the wedding and it
almost made me cry; I was so touched. I love you all. Haha I always
tell everyone I have the best family.

So it has been another wonderful week here. A perfect way to end the
transfer and Zuster Gulliver's mission. My new companion will be
Zuster Fritz. I met her at Zone Conference and she seems like a great
missionary. It will be really hard to say goodbye to Zuster Gulliver
though. She has become one of my best friends and she is an
incredible missionary! Such a wonderful trainer, I've learned SO much
from her. Haha but we always talk about how we'll be friends forever
so I'm not worried. Pray for her though because this whole having to
go home thing is very hard for her.

Oh my goodness what to say about this week? Tuesday we had the
wonderful opportunity to have Zuster Tippets one of the senior sisters
come and spend the day with us. She served a mission in North
Carolina when she was younger and now she and her husband are working
in the office. It was great to have her with us and we saw so many
miracles including finding a wonderful new investigator named Koen.
She is probably going to come down again sometime. I love serving in
Antwerpen because we are so close to Brussels and get to see everyone
in the office frequently.

Speaking of Brussels, we got to go on a little field trip there to do
legality stuff. A bunch of missionaries went and I got to see Zr
Garvin again and Elder Frahm and Elder Leash which was a lot of fun.
I'm convinced this mission has the best missionaries... but I'm not
biased or anything... :)

My random funny miracle of the week happened on our way to an
appointment with Liegios. I was sitting on the bus and a woman with a
shawl sat next to me. I thought, "Haha, my favorite way to start a
contact." So I started talking with her about the gospel and she
didn't seem too interested, but she was very nice. Then she told me
her stop was next and all of a sudden she took off her shawl and
started saying how nice it would look on me, and then she gave it to
me! Haha now this was in Dutch and she was from Turkey so her accent
was difficult and so I wasn't sure at first if that's what she meant.
But yeah she was serious and she totally gave it to me! Haha so nice.
I wish I could've gotten more info from her! I am praying I will meet
her again. Haha I will for sure never forget her.

Yesterday was Kurt's baptism and it was wonderful. My talk went well
and Pres and Zuster Brubaker surprised us and came. I love them!

Ahh I'm out of time! I love you all the Church is more than true.

Tot volgenda week!
Met liefde-
Zuster Holbein

Baptisms!!

OK, so I know I haven't been on my mission for that many weeks yet,
but seriously, this week gets the award for the most amazing week thus
far, filled with more miracles than I deserve!

Let me just start off by saying I LOVE MY MISSION. I am 100% in love
with every aspect, the work, the ward, the people, the city, the
language, yep all of it. Even the hard times. Haha I probably won't
admit it when I'm going through hard times, but I always learn
something.

But before I tell you about all of that, it sounds like things are
going great back home! I loved the pictures! Wow Julia you look
pregnant!!! Haha so beautiful though as always. Thank you for your
email! I'm glad to hear you're loving the house; you should send me
pictures. :) Chris and Angela look so happy! Please thank them for
sending me the invitation and tell them I am writing them a letter
today. I'm so glad all the family got to be together. William, I
totally can imagine you tearing up the dance floor -- way to make me
proud.

OK so this email is going to be really fast and random, but there is
so much I want to say! So yes, everything is going so well.
Seriously I keep thinking this is all too good to be true but then I
remember -- oh wait-this is the gospel; NOTHING is too good to be
true.

Last Tuesday we had the most fun zone P-day. We had a great time
doing zone finding and found a lot of new investigators. And then it
started pouring rain (haha) which it always does here, and we went and
played soccer. Well, the elders went and played soccer. Zuster
Gulliver and I got kinda lost and ended up just running up and down
the streets in the pouring rain singing "Onward Christian Soldiers,"
and then going home and making hot chocolate.

Wednesday was zone conference and it was so inspiring! I got to meet
a ton of sisters and elders and I got to see Zuster Pierson again
which was great. We talked all about working with members and the
importance of them. I got called on to do a lot of role playing
things and a lot of other missionaries came up to me after and said I
was the most confident Greenie they had ever met. Which I find funny
because I frequently don't feel that way. Anyway, it was so
inspirational and we came up with a lot of good ideas on how to help
the ward and work better with them.

Thursday we went on exchanges. Zuster Caitlin Robbins, who says she
knows John and Britt (which is why I included her first name) came
from Dordrecht to work with me. I was actually super nervous because
Zuster Robbins had never been here before which meant I was kind of in
charge of what we would do and the map and all that. I was so scared,
but I prayed really hard the night before that everything would go
okay. And oh my goodness does Heavenly Father answer prayers. I will
try and tell you quickly the biggest miracle.

We had an appointment with William for 12:30 and we had to go and meet
our joint teach in Central Station before. That meant we needed to
leave the house before 11:30. The bad thing was though that we ran
late and ended up not living the house till after 11:30. I was so
upset so I called William and told him we would be late. He responded
and said, "No you cannot be late; you must respect time," and all this
other stuff. So I said, "Okay then, we'll be on time." There was no
way though because we were so late. I prayed hard and we set out. We
met our joint teach and it started pouring rain. I didn't have my
umbrella and Zuster Robbins' was too small. (It's actually really
funny looking back.) Anyway, I tried really hard to find his place
but we got lost. So I prayed, "Please, please we have to get there."
And then all of a sudden the map made sense and we found our way.
When we got to William's door it stopped raining, I looked at the
phone, and the time was, I kid you not, 12:29. Haha oh my gosh I
could've cried. I promise you there was NO way that could've happened
without Heavenly Fathers help. We had a great lesson with William and
he is getting baptized June 19. I will forever call that the 12:29
miracle :)

Yesterday was Heidi and Marie's baptism and it was incredible!
Everything went so well, including my talk thank goodness. Saturday
night they took us and the elders out to eat and it was a blast. They
were so prepared. Practically the whole ward stayed and everyone was
so welcoming. The room was glowing. Next week one of the elders
investigators Kurt is getting baptized and they asked if I would give
the talk on the Holy Ghost. Haha lots of Dutch practice for me.

Oh how I love it here. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for all
of his children. We are so important to Him. I've learned countless
times already that if it's important to us, it's important to Him.

I love you all! Met veel liefde,
Zuster Holbein

Post Mother's Day Email

Hello Family. :) Long time, no talk haha. It is actually good that we
talked on Sunday because I have even less time to email today. Today
is zone pday so we have 12 elders here that all need to email and the
cafe is very full so I need to be quick. It was so good to be able to
talk with you! Everyone sounds like they are doing great! I LOVE the
picture of William at prom, always the stud. And even though I didn't
get to talk with Julia and John it was good to hear about them. John
I got your email-thank you so much. I love you and your wonderful
example of dedication has always meant a lot to me. Tell Brittney
that most of the tulips are all in the Netherlands, and Antwerpen is
mostly just a big city, but in the smaller parts of town were we live
there are so pretty ones. Someone needs to take pictures of Julia so
I can see her big belly! :) Oh and tell Uncle Bruce I got his email
and I got Chris and Angelas letter. I am going to start writing
everyone this week and I'll probably be printing pictures next we and
I will send those home too. Anyways, I love you all, thank you so
much for your support. Like I told Mom and Dad on the phone this past
week has been amazing! I have a very strong testimony that the Lord
blesses us for our dedication and the righteous desires of our hearts
will be given to us as we exercise faith. We found so many amazing
people this week! And we now have another baptism set up with a
wonder African man named William who is so enthusiastic. Heidi and
Marie are getting baptized this Sunday. Oh how I love them. They
asked me to give the talk on baptism and I am so happy for them I'm
actually not too nervous. Being nervous and afraid really doesn't
help at all. I'm learning more and more that if I just open my mouth
and trust in the Lord it works! Wow, this is such a great work. This
past Wednesday we watched the Testaments with Heidi and Maire and they
loved it! They both got really into it and after we all bore testimony
of the Book of Mormon. My own testimony of the Book of Mormon grows
stronger everyday. We met a very interesting man on Thursday who was
convinced the Book of Mormon was false and that he needed to save us
from it. We talked with him for a while and it was wonderful to be
able to bear tesimony to him. We have actually met several people
who feel this way and the wonderful thing is no matter what they say
against the book, nothing can hold up to the truthfulness. The book
of Mormon wins every time. I love that. There is power in that book
and I love the spirit I feel when I read it. Saturday night we had
one of the most amazing first lessons ever with a new family we found
on the street. I told you a little about them on the phone. It's a
mom and dad and two sons. They were very open to everything and
wanted to pray about what we shared. They had a lot of questions and
the wonderful was we were able to help them find all of the answers
in the Book of Mormon. I love that the gospel has all of the
answers. It is such a comforting thing to know that no matter what
happens, I know that the gospel will have the answer I need or be able
to give me the peace I need. Our mini missionary who I told you about
last week went home but she was a blast to work with. She helped my
Dutch a ton and she had the strongest testimony. And we all had a lot
of fun together. Funniest thing-so no one here eats pb and chocolate
together, they think it's really weird. Zr Gulliver had an extra
reeses so we gave it to Irene and promised her that it would be so
good. So she tried it and thought it was the grossest thing ever!
Haha I thought it was so funny because we love them. Oh and she also
thought it was really weird that I like to eat pb and apples. Well
that's all the time I have. Give everyone my love! Thank you for your
support and prayers. The work is alive here in Antwerpen! I LOVE IT.
:) Met Liefde-Zr. Holbein

Tell Everyone I Love Them!

Family! Your emails make me so happy.

Thank you so much for your faith and love and prayers for me, they
really do mean so much. I love hearing about home and all the
wonderful things that are going on. Yea for Julia and Jake and the
baby! That's all so exciting. Please let John and Britt know that I
will be praying for Britt's grandma for sure. Mom I got one of the
cards last Monday but that has been the only card I have gotten so
far. Thank you for always being so sweet. The cards always cheer me
up. ...

So this week has been wonderful but definitely one of those trial of
faith weeks. First of all, all of our appointments fell through! Not
even exaggerating. It was a little discouraging. But maybe it was
meant to happen because on Tuesday Zuster Gulliver got the flu and on
Wednesday I got the flu as well. We were both pretty sick and had to
stay in for 2 days which was weird. And it has been raining a ton and
very cold. Thank goodness for scarves they save my life.

Besides that we met with some members and Heidi and Marie and did a
lot of finding which sadly was not too productive. We tried so hard
though so it wasn't too discouraging because we knew we had done our
best. And now I can tell a week of miracles is upon us! We have a
mini missionary with us this week. The stakes here send 17-18 year
olds on mini missions and they come and live with us and do the
missionary thing for a week. A wonderful convert of 1 year named
Irene is here with us. We have just barely picked her up but I'm
excited to have her. She doesn't really speak English, so this should
be great for me!

Some great things about last week besides being sick and all that. We
had an amazing lesson with Heidi and Marie over testimonies. They are
so golden it is wonderful! We each took turns bearing testimony and
they each bore very powerful sweet ones. I love them so much. After
tonight they will have had all the lessons. On Wednesday we are going
to go watch "The Testaments" with them and I think they will love it.

Funny random stories - I totally pulled off the door knob at a
member's home when we were leaving! I felt so bad, but then they said
it was already broken so I didn't need to feel bad.

And the funniest story this week happened yesterday as we were going
to church. We missed our stop and had to walk through this kind of
gross part of town to get to church and it was raining really hard.
All of a sudden we heard this man singing Elvis really loud with kind
of a country voice and we looked back and he was running at us. So
Zuster Gulliver says, "Um, maybe we should walk faster, I think he is
crazy." So we started walking faster, but then he started calling at
us. So we turned around and realized oh wait... we know him. Haha it
was one of the older men in the ward. Haha! I think he might be a
little crazy because he walked with us the rest of the way singing
"How Great Thou Art" really loud. It was a good thing I was in front
of him and it was raining because I couldn't stop laughing.

Well, time's up, but as always I love you all! Tell everyone back
home, Pres. Hymas and the Blodgetts and everyone that I miss them but
I can feel of their support and it means so much to me. Thank you all
for your diligence and example. And for your faith. Faith is so
important, there is a reason it is the first principle of the gospel.
We have to have faith for Heavenly Father to work miracles through us.
I'm really trying to pray everyday and then get up and be the
missionary I know I can be with His help. I can't wait to hear from
you next week.

Tell everyone I love them!
Doi - Zuster Holbein

Flemish and Contacts

Hallo familie. :) Happy Voorbereidings Dag!

It has been an amazing incredible week full of so many miracles it is
just crazy. So awesome! Thank you for your emails, as always they
inspire me and give me that boost I sometimes need.

So I have so much to say! Where to begin is always the problem. So
this has been a week of lots of firsts for me. Last Monday night we
had an appointment with one of the ladies getting baptized, Marie. She
is an older Flemish speaking woman, probably in her 60s. She is
probably the hardest person for me to communicate with. At the
beginning of our appointment Zuster Gulliver got an important phone
call and had to take it. Which meant it was just Marie and I sitting
at the table. Haha I kept drinking my water at first because I was
scared to talk. But then I thought, "Zuster Holbein you are being
stupid...TALK." So I opened my mouth and just started talking. And I
honestly know it was the Spirit because somehow it worked! She
understood me and I understood her and it was cool. Zuster Gulliver
said later that she had been half listening and was like "Yeah
companion!" It really helped strengthen my testimony that the Spirit
does help us. Yeah!

Another first - on Friday we did our first contacting on the tram not
sitting by each other. I was so scared but once again I just opened
my mouth and was able to share a pass along card and my testimony with
a man. It was scary but cool. So overall the Spirit has been helping
me tons. Thank goodness because Flemish is hard.

In answer to your question Dad, here Flemish is the Dutch they speak.
There is no difference. So while it is like Dutch, the accent is very
very different and they have some random weird words. And they talk
really fast! Haha little kids are my favorite they talk like crazy.
Please continue to pray for my language skills because I do get
frustrated sometimes. I actually cried to Zr Gulliver a little last
week after a frustrating day. But I know I can do it. Slowly but
surely. :)

Thursday we traveled to Gent one of the most beautiful cities in
Belgium for interviews with the President. I LOVE the Brubakers. I
received a lot of needed counsel; it was great.

In other good news we have found so many new investigators and all
through the coolest ways. My testimony grows everyday that if you
plan and tell the Lord you are going to be somewhere and promise to
talk to everyone he will put prepared people in your path. Our theme
for finding is none shall pass. We do a mixture of different things.
Mostly it is just street contacting but we have gone to doors several
times. Our normal approach on the street is "Mag Ik een kaartje met u
delen?" which means "Can I share a card with you?" And then while they
are looking at it we go into the restoration or families or faith
depending on the card. It is a lot of fun, and we have had so many
hilarious things happen.

We have two very promising investigators both found on the street.
One, Judith, wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon, so we brought it to
her home shared a bit and then read Moroni's promise. There was a
beautiful spirit and after she said that everything we taught was very
encouraging. I thought that was a beautiful way to put it. Our other
is JoJo who doesn't speak Dutch, but he doesn't really speak English
either. Yet we had a beautiful lesson with him, and he said when he
knew it was true he would get baptized.Yeah! The people here are so
ready for the Gospel its great.

Oh, and Zuster Gulliver is great! Really I am so blessed to have her
as a companion. We are very similar and are always laughing.

Other random quick story - the little boys here think its funny to
call us nuns and sing inappropriate songs at us. Of course we never
respond, but the other day after not responding these boys came at
spit at us! Haha how rude! Whatever, it didn't bother me; I thought it
was way funny. Well time is up. The Church is true. I love you all.
The work is great; so hard, but SO worth it. :)

Doi - Zuster Holbein

First Email :)

Family!!!

Oh my goodness I have so much I want to say I think I may just
explode. First of all this email will probably be short and full of
mistakes because the keyboards here are way weird -- anyway I shall
try.

So yes, I am here in the beautiful city of Antwerpen! I was the only
one in my district to stay in Belgium and I am SO happy I am here...
This city is beautiful! My collega is Zuster Gulliver and she is
amazing! This is her last transfer which makes her an excellent
trainer. That also means that I will be taking over the city when she
leaves, so Pres Brubaker told me to get to know the city, get to know
the ward, and get to know the people. Haha, no pressure right?

So if there was ever a time to think this is not the language they
taught me in the MTC now is it! EVERYONE here speaks Flemish which is
WAY different from what they taught us. I have a very hard time
understanding things, but it is getting better! The first night I was
here we met the ward mission leader who does not speak any English,
and has a very strong accent, and totally looks like the old man in
that one Pixar chess playing short film, and I was so lost. Haha, it
has not discouraged me though! I am improving every day, and I smile a
lot.

Ok so I have so many stories. The first night we arrived in Brussels
they took us to the beautiful grand plaza or whatever it's called to
contact: Scary! Zuster Pierson and I went to the side to pray, and
as soon as I opened my eyes there was a man standing right in front of
me! He said something in French but I said sorry, I do not speak
French to which he responds, "Oh you are so beautiful!" He kept
saying all this stuff like that and asked why I was there so we
started to talk with him about the gospel. Haha, he wasn't too
interested and kept asking what he could do for me. I told him to
look up the website www.mormon.org and learn more. I went to shake his
hand to leave and he leaned in and kissed me! Haha haha, it was on the
cheek and normal I guess but it freaked me out for a second. Pres.
Brubaker thought it was very funny and said it was a good thing I was
leaving the city ;-) Anyway it is true that you never forget your
first contacting experience.

The work here in Antwerpen is amazing! I am lucky, I walked into three
baptismal dates! A girl named Heidi and her mother and a woman named
Monica are all set for May 30! Since I have been here we have found 8
new investigators and have seen so many miracles. We meet so many
people every day, and have had several wonderful lessons on the street
and off. I love these people and have met people from all over the
world. The language is slow, but the members yesterday said it was
already very good. I had to get up in church and introduce myself and
bear my testimony; oh I was so nervous! It really did go well though,
I was blessed.

Today has been great so far; I just had my first Belgium waffle -- YUM...

Well I love you all. Thank you for your love and support! The gospel
is wonderful and so true!

From now on I will only be able to read emails from family members.
Friends will need to write me by regular mail at:

Alfons Schneiderlaan 172 Bus 2
2100 Duerne, Belgium

I pray for you all! Thanks again!

tot ziens,
Jane