gefeliciteerd! (or, as translated, congratulations!)

So another pretty great week! We were the only sisters who didn't get
transferred, so it was weird to have a normal week (without a zone
conference or interviews or exchanges). But good things happened. Marc
actually came to a Young Single Adult activity, and that was great. He knows
what he needs to do to really know if he knows that the church is true and
if Christ is his Savior - he's just not really at a convenient time in life
to get down on his knees and pray and come to church. But hey! He came to a
JoVo activity! So baby steps. =) We set a baptisimal date with Engelien for
June 20th. She is so amazing. She brings the Book of Mormon with her to work
to read on her lunch breaks and has been talking to her friends and family
about the church. If we don't contact referrals from her by the end of this
week, we are horrible missionaries. ;) She came to church for the second
time in a row, and the sisters did such a wonderful job of walking her to
Relief Society and fellowshipping her. Haarlem is a great place to be.
Milene also came to church again, and this week we had dinner with her
at Frank's house (her friend that introduced her to the church) and Linda,
another member our age. We talked about the apostasy and restoration and
following the prophet. Milene is hilarious - she follows up with us on her
commitments ("I prayed about the Word of Wisdom like you asked me but still
have no answer...") and at the end of our lesson talked about Nephi and
Laman and Lemuel, and commented that we all need to be a Nephi, but often
it's easier to be a Laman or Lemuel. She sounds like she's been a member for
years! She is just so great. I absolutely love her. Please keep her in your
prayers that she'll get a testimony of the Word of Wisdom.
In other cool news of Wijk Haarlem, Sjaak (a recent convert of about 15
months) just got his mission call to South Africa Johannesburg, English
speaking. He leaves in September and is so excited! Zr Fowler correctly
guessed where he's going, so he gave her a pretty funny reward for guessing
right. A little background is needed to get this one. So Zr Fowler is indeed
a lovely, wonderful, praiseworthy, and fabulous missionary who exemplifies
the 13th Article Faith in more ways than one. Unfortunately she tends to get
hit on by older foreign men, who more often than not are Muslim. Sjaak knows
this and finds it pretty funny, so as her reward he gave her some cookies he
made and... a printout of the Ensign article "A Mormon Perspective on
Mohammed" and a postcard of Egypt with some scribbled lines from the Koran.
Funny one! But the joke was kind of on him since his handwriting is so bad
that we literally thought it was Arabic for the first couple of minutes.
Anyway, I absolutely love to Young Single Adult group here and they're
pretty much amazing!
On Wednesday Aunt Roberta and Uncle Larry came to Haarlem and I had my
mission president's permission to go to lunch with them. It was pretty weird
to be sitting out on a terrace cafe by the Oude Bavo Kerk (the big cathedral
here) and being a tourist instead of contacting them - but also pretty fun!
=) They treated me and Zr. Fowler to a delicious lunch (thank you!) and we
had a great time talking about missionary work here and in New Zealand
(where they served a mission a few years ago) and some of the
church-sponsored well-digging projects they'd been on in Africa and other
places. Mostly it was pretty surreal seeing the family resemblence between
Roberta and Mom (in a good way! I promise I'm not homesick =) ), even in
their mannerisms and the way they laugh - but it was fun seeing family
again. Also, I've come to the conclusion that my ability to make small talk
in English has totally disappeared, and if I'm not teaching and testifying,
I don't even know what to talk about. Should make dating in 6 months pretty
interesting! ;)
There's really not much else... I mean, there's plenty of things I
find great andfascinating, but probably not so much for you people. =) We
did find some pretty cool people finding this past week that I'm excited to
meet with again this week. My favorites were Bianca, a young woman who said
on the door that she'd gone through too much to believe in God. When we
asked her what she'd experienced, she told us she can't believe in God when
so many of her family members have passed away in the past few years. If God
is so loving and good to others, why not to her? We shared a scripture and
prayed with her (and, to be perfectly honest, teared up a little with her),
and when we asked if we could come back and teach her more about God's plan,
her answer was en emphatic yes. Please pray that our appointment tom will go
through. I love seeing peopel changed by the Spirit.
The other miracle as Didi. It was raining pretty hard but we stopped as
she walked by, only to find out she moved her from Bulgaria 8 years ago, and
as she recognized our name tags, that she'd met with Elders in her homeland
when she was younger. She was SO excited to realize we were from the same
church and teared up a little as she told us that those elders were her best
friends. She'll be in A''Dam for the next 6 weeks but said when she's back
she'd like to meet with us again. The woman bore her testimony to us about
how much she loves God and is searching for him. What a beautiful
experience.
Well, I love you all. The work is going forward. Thank you for your
prayers and support.


Veel liefs,

Zr. Baxter