Happy General Conference

Hoi familie and vrienden!

So another lovely normal week. We did a FHE for the yougn
single adults and an investigator on Monday that went over super well, and
that was pretty awesome. We also finally got Milene (the friend of Frank,
one of the YSAs) to church on Sunday, at least Sacrament Meeting. Wahoo! We
have another appointment with her on Friday, so that will be grand.
On Saturday we had an English lesson with Jay, a Turkish-Nederlands
Muslim man in his 20s. I'm pretty sure he wanted to learn English from us
because he had a crush on my comp, but we gave him some Restoration
pamphlets in Dutch and English to help him learn religion vocab last time,
and this time he had loooots of questions about the Book of Mormon and
modern day prophets. We also had Sjaak, a recent convert waiting on his
mission call, there. Watching Sjaak teach Jay in English was pretty awesome
and rather amusing. It is slightly vindicating to see people also struggling
in a second language, (their English is actually really really good) but
mostly it was just cool seeing Sjaak teach in English. Jay wants to come to
General Conference to hear what it is these modern day prophets and apostles
have to say anyway, so that will be pretty awesome.
We also had exchanges this week, and the lovely Zr Erickson (friend of
none other than Mike Sheflo!) came up from Den Haag. It was super super fun
working with her, and we had a great day of some op straat finding by the
huge church in Haarlem's centrum (I really am coming to love jsut talking to
people on the street - I'm pretty thankful I live in a culture where we can
do finding in ways other than tracting) and had some awesome conversations
with people about God and faith and the Restoration. Plus the weather was
gorgeous,'so that's always a plus. Later we had a hilarious dinner
appointment with one of the young single adults of the ward, and we were
also able to have a wonderful lesson with Azelea. Azelea conceptually
understands the Restoration and how the Book of Mormon ties into Joseph
Smith, but while she finds it very interesting and inspiring, doesn't yet
know if it is true. The fact that the financial crisis has really made
things difficult for her family (her husband is currently back in Greece
looking for a new job) doesn't help. But she's just amazing - she'll get
there eventually. We just need to get her to church!
Marc and Esther are still intellectually interested but not super
excited about coming to church, Kate's English is bad enough that there's no
way we could feasibly set up an appointment with her (much less teach her -
tho we did drop off a POlish BoM with her roommate), and Maria is super busy
with work right now - but overall things are good here in Haarlem.
I also found out last night that I'll be training Zr. Chantelle Fowler,
who happens to be the former roommate of the girlfriend of one of my
freshman FHE bros at BYU. (That's right - I am the Kevin Bacon of the Dutch
Zuster Missionary Universe. Average Baxter Number [degrees of separation] in
this mission is 2. Guess God wanted to make up for me being a solo sister in
the MTC. ;) ) I'm actually pretty excited! The panic hasn't set in yet. I'll
try not to pull what mom's trainer did and start bawling my first night with
her. =) So for those of you who've served missions, any advice on training
would totally be appreciated.
I really love this gospel and I really love you all. There's really no
better feeling than following a prompting of the Holy Ghost and seeing that
you were led to do or share something at the right time. Or talking to
incredibly kind agnostic Dutch fathers about God and testifying of His love.
The spirit is wonderful. Have a great week and know that I love you.

Veel liefs,

zr. Baxter!