Happy January 12!

Hoi iedereen!

So I'm now writing you from the lovely Gouda. It's about 20 minutes
away from Rotterdam, but a much smaller city with an entirely different
feel. This area used to have the reputation of being rather slow as far as
cities with sister missionaries go, but lately the work has been going
incredibly here, and with the division of the Capelle Ward, the branch here
has become a proper ward, so there's lots of exciting things going on here.
My companions are Zr. Kabenda, the Surinaamer I served with in Rotterdam 6
months ago (it is so gratifying to be able to understand almost everything
she says this time around - and she's a pretty funny one, so it's good) and
Zr. Kriser, a ridiculously positive and sweet person from Utah. I'd been on
an exchange with her before and loved working with her so much I was pretty
sure we'd never actually be companions. So our companionship is definitely
one of the funnest I've been part of.
Wednesday night we went to the church to teach Elon, a young man in
his 20s who has a baptisimal date in February. They've taught him a lot
about the Restoration, and he had two friends who were interested in talking
about Christ and came along for the discussion. The ward mission leader,
Douglas, and his wife Marielle (they're in their early 20s) also came along,
so it was quite the party at the church. One of Elon's friends, Valmir, was
a pretty cool character - he comes from Kosovo and was raised Muslim but
converted to Christianity. We had wanted to share Joseph Smith's story with
them and the message of the Restoration, but as soon as Valmir caught sight
of the Book of Mormon, he got really suspicious and started asking some
really pointed questions. Once he realized we believe in scripture other
than the Bible, it quickly turned into a one-sided bashing session. It
really was almost funny how utterly unwilling to listen this young man was.
It taught me a lot about how not to teach. About 20 minutes into his tirade
we realized there really wasn't anything we could do, so we very honestly
told him we had to go so we could be home on time. He was pretty annoyed we
could only meet for 30 minutes (the normal length of appointments) and
implied we were pansies and couldn't answer any of his questions and were
just taking the easy out. It was quite a crazy funny situation. =) It was
interesting to see Elon telling him he just needed to open his heart and
listen about Joseph Smith and his experiences with God. Anyway, by the end
of his tirade he also had the grace to add that, according to the Bible,
woman can't teach in the church anyway (thank you Paul!) so... at that point
it was just funny. We asked if we could pray before we left, and he seized
the opportunity, and prayed for at least 7 or 8 minutes. Whew! It was almost
funny how absolutely absent the Spirit was. But I sure learned a lot about
how not to bring the Spirit into lessons. And Elon didn't seem to really
share any of Valmir's opinions. So kind of a crazy experience, but all's
well that end's well.
Luckily the next day we met Jennifer, an awesome Dutch mom the sisters
in Amsterdam met. We set a baptisimal date for her in February, and it was
so cool to see the Spirit teaching her - at the beginning of the lesson she
was saying how she wants to follow God but her life is just crazy busy and
there's so many conflicts going on right now. By the end she was saying, "I
guess there's never an easy or convenient time to follow Christ." I love
people, and I love how the Spirit can teach people so much better than we
can!
Gouda is a ridiculously big area, since our proselyting area
covers a lot of smaller villages in the area. On Friday we biked more than
an hour out to one area. It's absolutely beautiful though; I'm so excited to
be here for spring. It's also been ridiculously cold - the canals froze over
and everyone's been ice skating. Having your feet go numb while tracting
(despite boots and multiple pairs of socks) is not the pleasantest of
experiences, but it was a blessing in surprise - since everything had frozen
over, Elon's soccer game was cancelled and he could come to church! Anywho,
it's gotten warmer today (I've never been so excited to see ice melt) and
things are going good.
Church was pretty fun, especially with the new ward. I was this close
to having to teach Young Woman's with 12 hours notice, but luckily the Stake
YW President was there and showed a talk on her iBook (I was only slightly
drooling) from the New Year's Eve broadcast Jeffrey R. Holland and other
church leaders gave. So she translated the talk as he gave it, and it was
pretty cool. Irene, a recent convert from Rotterdam, actually came to Gouda
to see me and Zr. Kabenda, so that was also incredibly positive! It really
did my heart good to see her.
We're teaching a lot of people here, including a couple families from
Angola, which makes for some interesting translation problems, but luckily a
counselor in the Stake Presidency and his wife are from Portugual, and
they're now in our ward, so that helps tremendously. It's really cool to be
teaching families.
And last night on the way home from an appointment, Zr. Kriser felt
like we needed to drop by an inactive family. Only the wife was home, and
was proceeded was a crazy tug-of-war with the Spirit. She took forever to
answer to door, then insisted she needed to go meet her husband somewhere.
Zr. Kriser very kindly and firmly kept on asking her if she was all right,
if we could share a scripture with her, if we could pray with her. Her story
kept on changing; eventually she suggested we come inside, and opened up to
us about a lot of family problems she'd had with her kids and husband. We
learned she'd been thinking very seriously about leaving him. The Holy Ghost
really guided us to share certain scriptures and ask certain questions. By
the end of our talk, she was saying, "I guess it really won't help to run
away. That won't fix any problems." We all testified to her that her family
and marriage are worth saving, and that they can be saved, through the
Atonement and through the efforts of her and her husband. Right before he
came home, she looked me in the eye and asked me, "Sister, do you really
believe that? I mean, do you really believe that we can be healed?" And we
said yes. It was a really interesting experience. She's from South America
and the common language between us was English - Mom always comments it'd be
cool to have gone foreign speaking on a mission because then you'd have to
rely on the Spirit more. But I must admit, the times on my mission that I've
most felt like the Spirit was working through me was when I was talking in
English. I know Heavenly Father guided us to go talk to that family.
So... good things are happening in Gouda! Thank you all for your
continued prayers and support. And of course letters. =) I love this gospel
and I love the way it changes people's lives. And I love you! Have a
wonderful week. =)


Liefs,

Zr. Baxter