HOI!
So, on the exciting news side of things, I'm getting transferred toGouda! My new mailing address will be:
Zr. Baxter
Gloriantplantsoen 60
2805 XD Gouda
NEDERLAND

I'm pretty excited, all in all. I'll be serving with a Zr. Kriser (an incredibly positive and purely good Idaho-an) and again with Zr Kabenda, thesecond sister missionary from Suriname ever (also the one I served with withZr. Knoelk here in Rotterdam 6 months ago). Gouda is a good deal smaller andcovers a lot of smaller villages around it, so there'll be fewer Surinamersand fewer people speakign Dutch as a second language - so add that plus Zr.Kabenda, and it's time to rock the Nederlands and improve my languageskills. The branch there also recently became a ward as Cappelle got splitbetween Gouda and Rotterdam I (my current ward), so it's an exciting time tobe there.

This past week has seen a lot of cool things, not the least of whichwas New Years. For a country that makes it illegal to be outside withoutgovernmental ID and requires you to sign in and out of cities you live in,they are RIDICULOUSLY lax on fireworks. Last year Zr. Matos got roman-candlefired-at just biking through The Hague (literally sweeping fireworks off herskirt) so she'd totally built up this image for me of New Years as a time ofpanic and mayhem. Luckily the mission required us to be indoors by 6 PM thisyear, and while there were lots of fireworks throughout the day (tractingvaguely resembled a war zone in terms of smoke and explosions), it wasn'treally until midnight that we got woken up again by all our neighbors goingoff. So you know. That was fun, overall. =) The canals have also beenhovering right around freezing, so often biking through Rotterdam you cansee families out ice skating, which is pretty charming and picturesque. Ishould have taken pictures.

This week has also seen some nice missionary progress. We'd sloweddown a bit with the holidays, although even though we weren't finding hardlyanyone through tracting, we totally were blessed through good sincere peopleto teach through referrals and old investigators randomly calling out of theblue. Anilda, the Portuguese woman who investigated a couple years ago,happened to have a friend, Jose, over not once but twice while we wereteaching her. He asked us for a Book of Mormon after sitting in for the last5 minutes or so of the Restoration DVD, and happened to be there a coupleappointments later, so we were able to invite him to church (he came! Shestill hasn't!) and teach him last night. What an awesome blessing. Hedoesnt' speak much Dutch, so between Zr. matos's Spanish and Natalie, an aupair from Peru, we get by. I mostly nod and occasionally bear my testimonyor something. But it's all good.

Lenneke is doing AMAZING. We taught her Tuesday about obedience withLuid (her co-worker through whom she's made contact with the church), andThursday about the Ten Commandments with Eunice (the amazing 27 year oldSurinamer who got baptised about 8 months ago and is just on fire. I loveher.). She also came to a baptism from a yougn Chinese student the elderstaught named Wei Wei. At the baptism she commented that it was as scary asshe thought it might be. She also said that in a periodical interview at herinternship, her superiors have noticed really good things in her and herrelationship with people around her - so she's noticing others noticingchanges since she's been coming to church. Last Sunday she made up her mindafter church that if anyone called, she would just be brave and mentionshe'd been to church - and her mom, coworker, and cousin all called. Her momis becoming more positive about this whole church thing, and before we eventaught her the Ten Commandments she decided to start sporting (working out?)on Saturday instead of Sunday. I LOVE HER! She's just so entirely... normaland good and seeking for truth. She now talks about baptism as somethingshe's seriously considering doing. So I'm sad to be leaving, but Gouda's nottoo far and maybe we can bring some investigators to her baptisimal service,should she make that choice.

Wei Wei's baptism itself was pretty fun. We missionaries sang "I StandAll Amazed" with the last verse in (I'm sure absolutely butchered) Chinese.Hilarious! He loved it though. It reminded me of my old roommate Kristy Lu(from whom I recently recieved a letter) so that was quite positive.

Other fun miracles include Irene, a recent convert, calling us up on NewYears Day and inviting us over to meet a friend of hers whom she wanted tohelp accept the gospel. He'd come over to help haul away some old junk inher basement - once he figured out we were from that new church she'd joinedhe was preeeetty quick to make his excuses and leave, which was almostcomical, but it was AMAZING that she was so proactive about helping herfriends have exposure to the church. I love new members! So we read D&C 122(maybe 123?) :17 about doing all things in your power cheerfully and lettingGod work the miracles. Love it. We also were blessed to recontact Edna and Paulo, the Cab Verdiansefamily we've intermittently been teaching over the past months. She was soexcited to see us and asked us when we were coming over again, so now Zr.Matos and her new comps can work their charm and help that family becomeeternal. =)

In ZHV (=relief society) we welcomed 7 or 8 new sisters from the otherward that had just been split, and Zr. Verhoeven gave an AMAZING talk onunity and sisterhood. We were asked to again sing Daughter of a King, andwere blessed to really bring the spirit in. I love this ward so much. Somuch. I'm glad I'll still be able to see them at Stake Conferences and GenConference and the like.

We also found a family during finding yesterday, and the contact wasjust so normal and natural I felt like we could be ina Preach My Gospelreality TV show. Good times. Families are always miracles, especially whenthe father is the interested spouse.

So things keep on keeping on. 2009 is off to a grand start, and in4 days I'll hit my halfway mark as a missionary. Absolutely nuts. I reallylove you all and am so thankful for your support and mail. I'm really gonnamiss Rotterdam, but Gouda is a really different area and it'll be good forme to better my Dutch, and fun to serve in a slightly more scenic place. Iknow Heavenly Father answers our prayers. Have a wonderful week!
Liefs,
zr. C Baxter

Also please pray for Monik and Ingemar who've both started smoking again.It'll come good for them eventually.