Rotterdam!

Baroniestraat 18a
31ED Rotterdam
NETHERLANDS

So theoretically that should be the same address I send you last week, butif not, there's how to reach me now! So hello, wunderbarre familie andvrienden! I'm now hailing you from echt Nederland, the land of windmills,comprehensible (mostly) Dutch, and normal American keyboards! So hopefully Iwill be able to include a little more this week. The zone leader inAntwerpen should be checking my mail for the next couple weeks, so hopefullyanything already en route to Antwerpen will make it to me in time.

So now I'm on a bike in Rotterdam! I'm in a trio of sisters. Zr.Knoelk is a wonderful senior comp with a few more months left from Idaho,and Zr. Kabenda is a middle-aged (in mission terms - in real life she's 24)Surinamse missionary. She's definitely helping me learn Dutch more quickly,so that's pretty great to work with her. They're both pretty fabulous and wehave a lot of recent converts and a few people getting baptised soon, so wekeep pretty busy.

I find it's really fun to claim Louisiana as my home - members arealways excited to meet someone not from Utah (so I play down the fact thatI'm a one generation removed Utah Mormon), and as we're biking around thecity all day it's some slight consolation to remind myself that Southernwomen don't sweat - they glisten. =) There's a lot of good work here inRotterdam. I find the Dutch is a LOT more understandable, which is quite arelief. I'm actually participating alot more in teaching, which is great,but also shows me how much work I have to do and how much more I have tolearn!

The ward here is just superb. We meet in a meetinghouse built in the1950s - it's due to be remodelled shortly, but it's a lovely building. TheRelief Society held a babyshower last week for a recent convert and anotherward member, and it was fabulous to see how this ward welcomes new members.It was also hilarious to kick back and celebrate with Dutch women - they areso great! It's such an open friendly culture with the members, and I'veenjoyed everyone I've met so far. As far as comprehension goes, I understandenough to reasonably fake my way through conversation, and I just try to letmy love for these people shine. Small talk is always an adventure in secondlanguages, but it's all good.

So my first week here we had a 16 year old girl working with us on amini-mission. Let me say that tracting with a shy 16 year old is quite theadventure! I told here I'd bring the courage if she'd bring the language...So I did most of the talking and I hope she wasn't too embarassed as Imauled my way through the Joseph Smith story in my Neder-Engels, brokenDutch to people on the street. We both survived, so life is good. =)

I'm not sure what else to say... I think I'll continue to like itmore and more here. The longer I'm a missionary, the more I realize familyand faith are all that really matters in life - everything else we do aremerely appendages to it. There are some wonderful recent converts here whoare so happy with the gospel now in their lives, and that's reallyremarkable to see. I'm enjoying what I do - it really is wonderful to beable to just serve people. One blessing from leaving Antwerpen at the sametime as Zr. Barkume was seeing how fond people were of missionaries - it wasreally uplifting to see we do make a difference, with members and peoplelearning about the gospel alike. But it's really the Spirit that touchespeople when we visit them and teach them. Sorry this letter is so haphazardly written - I love you and am sogreatful for your letters and prayers! Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Zr. Christa Baxter

transferred!!!

So hello family and friends! Its been an absolutely fabulous week in Belgie- but soon it will be Belgie no more for me! Tomorrow Im taking a train toRotterdam, and there I will join Zusters Knoelk and Cobenda. Theres a bit ofa shakeup happening on the sisters side of the mission because within thenext three transfers, 8 sisters are going home and there arent any comingin. So we found out they mission in closing down Antwerpen for the sisters,and in September a senior couple will come. Its kind of sad to be leaving myfirst area after only five weeks here - I was just getting to be able tomake small talk in Flemmish! =) But I got to work with Zr. Knoelk onexchanges last week and shes pretty much amazing - I will learn a lot fromher. I barely got to talk to her comp, but shes a really cute girl fromSuriname, so thatll be really cool to learn more about her and her country.So overall Im really excited. The mission is going to rent a new apartment for the senior couplein September, so we spent almost all day yesterday cleaning stuff out ofours and organising everything. Its amazing how much random stuff gets leftin missionary apartments! Baking supplies that expired seven years ago, acassio keyboard, and some very, very creative plan of salvation visualaids... So my new motto for transfers is ´´Junk not lest ye be junked.`` =) So last Thursday we drove up to Den Hagg with the Zone Leaders to workout some legality stuff for Zr. Barkume. We had to go to the Stadt Huis(city hall) to get some paperwork done - it was like the DMV (in terms ofwaiting) in a stark white, utilitarian building with huge amounts ofinterior space and sky windows. To complete the Kafka-esque feel, one piecein the modern art display there in the hall was an enormous inflatableGeorge W. Bush head. While waiting, I struck up a conversation with a youngMoroccan woman about culture and religion and prayer. It was one of themoments that just felt so European - talking about religion and the world inThe Hague cuty hall with a Moroccan Muslim woman, with George W. loomingover us, no less. I love being here! Another fun thing has been the American family that just moved into ourward. We got to visit with them twice at their home, and it was SO FUN to beable to understand their kids! Id missed how adorable kids are, and Imexcited to be able to understand Dutch kids in Rotterdam! They had two sonsand a ten year old and six year old daughter. The youngest reminded me somuch of Lauren - she rehearsed half of the plot of one of her fav movieswith barely time to breathe - so cute. =) Anyway, this fa,ily will reallyenjoy getting to be part of a multicultural European ward and being able todo ,issionary work here. Plus they were from Houston and were a major BYUfamily, so it was fun just talking about home. =) Friday evening we had a Music Evening with the ward that we missionarieshad organized. It was all music and short spiritual thoughts centered aroundChrist. It really was a lovely evening and a nice way to end our transferhere - plus one nonmember came and thought it was a really wonderful evening- he told his friend if we ever do it again, he wants to come. So that wasgreat. As far as the work goes, Lola and her family came to church on Sunday!That was amazing! Its so weird transferring all our investigators to theelders, especially because all 8 of our progressing investigators come fromfamilies - always a strong missionary goal. But were just the messengers,and I know these people will continue to come closer to Christ and HeavenlyFather through the gospel. It really strikes me as a missionary how for somuch of my life, the gospel was always part of me, but not literally myfocus. Thats natural I suppose - but I am so grateful to know why Im onearth and how I can have joy through serving others and following Christ. Itall comes out as trite cliches in an e-mail, but everyday I see peoplewithout this knowledge who desperately need it - I really am grateful to behere. There are just so many great people in this ward. Sunday we had lunchwith an adorable couple in their 60s - hes a Belge and shes an Irish woman,and they met by the London Temple. She constantly brings candy to themissionaries at church, and as we left for the final time, she gave uscookies; popcorn, and... Virgin Mary circus peanuts. She said Belgians goingon pilgrimages sell them. All I can say is theyre not that tasty, and it waspretty funny going contacting right afterwards carrying around apostasy inplastic wrap (just kidding - sort of). Pictures shall come when I figure outhow to develop them in the Netherlands. I just love you all! You can send ,ail to the address below from now on- the Antwerpen elders will check our mail still en route and forward it tous.My new mailing address is
Baronie Straat 18a
3051 ED
Rotterdam Nederland

Love,
Zr. Baxter

and contact!!!!!!!!!!!

So heres the newsy blog-able part of the letter. =) This week was literallyone of miracles. It began Tuesday night when Sister Barkume and I prayedduring planning about who our new investigators would be. I felt like itwould be a ,iddle aged mom, she felt like a college aged woman. And the nextnight, after a fabulous lesson with a great joint teach, we found thatfamily on the second door we knocked! The father let us in, and the daughterwas 19. The mom and daughter were the most open - I was on exchanges fo thereturn appointment yesterday, when they proceded to drop us, but Im mostlyjust happy we could be where the Lord directed us. Many people need manycontacts with the church before they really investigate and get baptised, soI know this familys time will come later on. Thursday one of our baptisimal dates got dropped because shes prettywacked out into the paranormal... We are her ´´angels`` who sang to her andreminded her of Gods love during a hard spell. The funniest part is thatsince we dropped her she came to a baptisimal service and church! So weirdqfter all those weeks of trying to get her to come. Oh well. Its all in theLords hands anyways. But we had a real miracle Wednesday. We finally finally got to meet withan inactive woman who wants her 13 year old son and 9 year old daughter toget baptised. Her hardest part was meeting with the ,issionaries - she madeand dropped so many appointments! But the Lord let her hurt her ankle so itwas easier to persuade her to stay home when we came over. Sometimes theLord just has to slow us down so we stay out of our own way. ;) Her childrenwant to get baptised, and she is so excited to return to church and have thespirit again in their home. She married a Belge man but is now divorced; shecomes from Brasil, so it reminds me of mom. =) Her children are amazing...They really are the miracle of my mission thus far. Our other really great family is Lola, Sammy, and their two littleboys. Theyùre from Albania and Serbia and so sincere. They came to abaptisimal service Friday and they love having us over. Shes reading moreand more of the BoM and catching hi, at home was a big breakthrough - hessuper friendly and more excited about us then we feared hed be. So good! Andthey both speak Dutch so the ward will like them a lot. The Lord really hasblessed us with families and its awesome! Overall we had five investigatorsat the baptism on Friday (plus the other missionaries investigators) so thatwas pretty cool. Other funny miracles include - meeting a woman on thestreet who, upon seeing a pamphlet, excitedly yelled I LOVE JOSEPH SMITH!!Apparently she got a pamphlet THREE years ago and keeps it by her bedside.Crazy! Yet another reminder the Lord knows whats going down - we just haveto do our best and not get in our own way. =) Monday we met a man and his father in a park and had an incredibleconversation about God, religion, absolute truth - and in English!!! The sonhad lived in Hong Kong and met the missionaries there - the one heremembered could possibly be Dean Newton but probably not. But he had such afond recolelction of that Elder. He was hesitant to make an appointment withus because he was about to go to London (darn European vacation strikesagain) but took our card and even wrote down our names. Well see! And yesterday I got to go to Rotterdam on exchanges. I worked with Zr.Knoelk who was pretty amazing. Sometimes I feel like such a &" year old here- in frumpy sister mish clothes, awkard with the language, and just tryingto fight back anxiety qnd hqve more faith. Working with more experiencedmissionaries helps me see that there is a light at the end of this greenietunnel. Anywho, we had a fabulous time with one of their goldeninvestigators and then 7 more lessons on the street - including my firstreal Rastifarians!!! Utterly hilarious. When I realized he was smoking pot Istepped back a little bit, but hoepfull he still felt the Spirit. So good!Rotterdam is more crazy modern Europe than Amsterdam, and it was fun toserve in a place where the Durch was so clear. At ward council I couldunderstand ninety percent of what was said! So exciting - and a relief. =)

Happy P-Day!

Dear amazing familie,Its back to a european keyboard so bear with me. So much to say!!! First off we had zone conference yesterday whiich was incredible. We watched a clip from the end of Indiana Jones and the Lqst Crusade that re,inded me of you, dad! :) It was all about how faith and sacrifice are necessary to bring about the Second Harvest. My greatest area of focus lately has been keeping my thoughts thoughout the day focused on the work and not drifting back to friends and familie at home in a distracting way. Its so a,azing to see people here who have truly become missionaries, and arent just young people doing missionary things. This is really the first week when Ive begun really enjoying this work and being truly happy and grqteful to be here. For whatever reqson that came a lot faster in the MTC; I think a lot of that is the language and such. But really, I a, so blessed to be here. I was really luxcky to last week to see 2 of the elders from my MTC distrikt often. Last pday we aent to Brugges, an especially beauitful Belge town full of old buildings and beauitful waterways. Even better, I got to see Elder DeMass, the first elder I taught with in the MTC. It was SO GOOD to vent with someone and laugh over how crazy Flemmish is, how intense the adjustment to the field is, and yet how great it can be. That helped me a lot in getting over the last bits of the anxiety that popped up my first few weeks here. I no longer wake up dreading going out and finding. Which really is a miracle - this mission has taught me if we plead and work for it, Christ can truly change out hearts, which is one of the greatest mirqcles ever. Anyway, at ZC they gave us so,e further guidelines on mail - we can only e-mail directly our parents and we can only recieve e-mail from our parents. No siblings. So I couldnt open the e-mails from Alisa and Katie (tho I did read the one forwarded from Mom, Alisa - and the other one didnt shoa up from her. I guess this system is still okay if your e-mail only contains Moms exact message.) But I must thank you all for all the amazing mail lately! Youre all such wonderful correspondants. As for news here, there are so many miracles. Last week we had a week of sacrifice where out distrikt worked on individual goals, all prqyed as co,pqnionships for eachother at seven AM, and extra prayerfully set our goals and strived to fulfill them. I love the way the Lord blesses us - the first hqlf of the week was a little sketchy by the last few days were amazing. We tqught this incredible Afrikan woman named Toki about the second hqrvest and then asked for referrals; She WALKED US to her neighbor (who turns out to be gone on vacation, but still! In three weeks well meet her!) and then her 14 year old son walked us to the house of his friend and introduced us to his dad. The sheer faith showed by this incredible family just was amazing. The next day, Saturday, we were having a hard time reaching our joint teaches goal. Then a faithful elderly temple worker in oru ward, Zr; Van Loven, called us out of the blue asking if we needed any joint teaches. INCREDIBLE! SO she came with us to teach an Afrikan man the the most loving Albanian woman Ive ever met named Lola. Later that day we had a lesson with a Chilean man and his mother-in-law and it just clicked with him. I think he will sincerely read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. I love seeing South American people learn about the BoM - the whole plates of gold thing totally doesnt phase them. Its crazy cool; Friday we got to eat dinner with some other older members, a married couple and the wifes bachelor brother. I could understand almost all of his conversion story when I qsked hi, about it. I si,ply adore these old, tried and true faithful members who accepted teh gospel from Americqn missionaries on their door 20 or 30 years ago. They are such beautiful people. Plus the meal was a rice and shrimp affair that totally re,inded me of seafood cajun dishes, so that was positive. :) Monday was more miracles. We stopped by an old contact, a woman Zr. Barkume had visited a few times and tqlked to qbout the gospel. The woman said it was a bad time but then it started raining (I love Heavenly Father) so she let us in, and then suddenly there was her bathrobe wearing, cigar toting husband, whod heard about us and began philosophizing about ,orality and the difficulty of believing in a God that lets babies die every 60 seconds in Afrika. So my fabulous trainer popped out the Plan of Salvation on them. It was INCREDIBLE to see a theoretical intellectual Flemmish man in a bathrobe, with British accented English phrqses thrown in no less, learn about the Plan of Salvation and ask real questions, mark the BoM passages we shared, and say we should com back and talk more. SO GOOD!

Hello from Brugge!

Hey familie! So we're spending our pday here in Brugge, a particularly beautiful city in Belgie. It's true historic Europe, complete with windy cobblestone roads and canals and touristy junk everywhere. So good. =) It's been an interesting week! We've seen miracles and opposition. As far as the work goes, One of our baptisimal dates, Bertha, is making more and more progress. Still no church, but for valid reasons (like illness and shcedule conflicts). She's changing how she prays and making other small marks of progress. We met an amazing familie and had the most incredible first lesson with them on Sunday. The mom is an Ecuadorian woman married to a Belge. He wasn't interested, but her 16 year old daughter and 13 year old son were - and how! The Spirit was so incredibly strong. The sheer joy of that lesson more than made up for any homesickness or language barrier frustration I've had this past month. I was blessed to be there, even though I didn't say much. =) It really is cool watching my trainer in action. I still can't understand Flemmish well enough to do more than testify occasionally, but I notice marked differences every day. The lesson was so great we scheduled a return appointment two days later. Unfortunately Patricia, the mom, was no longer very open. She wouldn't really say why, but we could tell she was skeptical about the Book of Mormon. Her kids still want to continue meeting with us. We'll see how it goes. We're definitely going to keep up contact and see what will happen. As far as crazy cultural stuff, I've officially discovered frites, and they are just as dangerous as everyone said! We bought a large size for 3 € from the frituur round the corner from our flat. We'd planned having them as a side for dinner.... that was a mistake. It was HUGE! We ate all the frites we could and still probably only got 2/3 in. Ridiculous. I took pictures and someday I'll figure out how to actually develop them here and send you photographic proof of how ridiclously large 3€ of frites are. =) One of our investigators also gave us about 8 bundles of bananas that night when we stopped by (her husband works at a fruit factory and gets to take home the excess). I don't know what was up with gross amounts of food Friday, but it was pretty funny. Hugh Nibley continues to be my one source of conversational connection with members. Okay, not quite, but I do get really excited when I can say something to them besides talking about the Second Harvest and gospel principles. =) We had a lovely dinner app with the stake patriarch and his wife last night. He used to be an organ repairman and played us some hymns on an organ he made himself. I spied Faith of an Observer (the Nibley biography) and Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless on their bookshelf. It was hilarious how excited we both got. I think my trainer and his wife probably shared some amused eye rolling. =) I never ever thought I would hear an older Flemmish man quoting Nibley on "We are gathered here today in the false robes of a black priesthood" - but that, I suppose, is one of the hilarious miracles of missionary work. =) We also trekked into downtown Antwerpen last Saturday to help an older woman in the word, Zr. Van Loven, visit teach an inactive member. The whole thing was in French, but what made things really interesting was the Muslim wedding going on right across the (very narrow) street. We were halfway into the opening prayer when the most ridiculously awesome fanfare of trumpets and drumming exploded. We all stood at the windows and watched while a bride and groom stood on their front doorstep, being filmed by camcorder-toting aunts and having rice and flowers thrown at them. It was SO COOL to see all the colors and pageantry and clothing of that different culture. Europe really is changing so much as far as cultural dynamics go. I'll miss seeing the Muslim woman everywhere when I go home. Park contacting has become one of my favorite activities here. The weather has been absolutely stunning in my short month here - I really came at the right time for Antwerpen. I'm trying to soak it all in while I can (I've developed a watch tanline, actually, since it's so sunny) so I can happily survive the rainy winters. =) Sunday afternoon we met some crazy cool people in the park. One was an Albanian woman who spoke perfect Dutch and was quite warm and welcoming - we have a return appointment with her this Saturday, I think. Another was a man who'd lived in Utah and would be baptised by now if it weren't for tithing, or so he said. That was an interesting conversation. And another woman wasn't too interested in the gospel, but had the most logical understanding of polygamy (for helping widows and orphans) I'd ever heard - not something I was expecting in a park in Belgie! This really is a beautiful country, and I will miss the European habit of accessible parks in the city. Well, things are going well. I understand more and more everyday, and can start contacts (though not finish them). When I exercise my faith and start conversations on buses and such, the Lord puts someone in my path I can communicate with, whether in English or my broken Dutch or my trainer. =) This gospel is amazing and so real. The Lord really does answer prayers and inspire his missionaries. I love you all so much, more than I could ever express in an e-mail. Have a wonderful week, remember to pray specifically about your concerns and problems, and be ready to act. =) Love, Zr. Christa Baxter