wat een druk druk leven!

Crazy busy week! We had interviews on Tuesday in Den Haag - the last
time I'll be able to have a one on one talk with President Woodland. I love
our mission president. I've learned a lot from him. At our training we
learned a lot more about working with the Ward with joint teaches... wow,
that must sound so boring to you people. Anyway, it was great fun, and I got
a letter from Lenneke, a Dutch girl in her 20s who got baptised in Rotterdam
after I transferred to Gouda. She is doing INCREDIBLE - she's the YSA rep
for the ward, has been to the temple several times, and just loves the
gospel so much. She has amazing people there too to fellowship her. I hear
she's coming to the next zone conference this week, so that'll be so good to
see her. It really is the most rewarding thing in the world when someone you
taught the gospel can see all the beautiful changes in her life because of
it. I love it so much.
We had some cool miracles in finding. We went back to Emmy, the super
chatty amazingly cool older Dutch lady who let us in last week. She has a
granddaughter with major emotional / behavioral problems whom she often
helps take of. Emmy's husband passed away a few years ago, but this
granddaughter still feels like she receives messages from her granddad.
Anyway, Emmy said her granddaughter was doing MUCH better this week, and
said her granddad had told her she needed to be making better choices and
living a better life. I didn't quite follow Emmy's Dutch perfectly, but she
really attributed it in a way to our visit, or at least didn't see it as
coincidental - "I didn't tell her that two girls from a church had been by,
but you know..." And we managed to teach her about the Restoration and she
is genuinely interested in letting us come back and teach her more. So good!
So this week we'll go back again.
The elders in our district came up to Haarlem last Saturday to do
some creative finding... we chalked out the Plan of Salvation and had a
super fun time talking with people about it. But the coolest miracle
happened just before that - while waiting at the station, we saw Didi again!
She's the woman from Bulgaria who'd met with elders (and teared up when she
told us they were here best friends) years ago. We thought she'd been in
Amsterdam all this time, but she's actually leaving int wo weeks - and let
us make an appointment to meet with her this week before she goes! Wahoo!
I'm so excited to get to know her better.
Engelien just learned about chastity and is still working on quitting
smoking - but the Relief Society has just taken her in so well. During our
lesson on forgiveness Engelien got a little emotional - she's had some hard
problems with her parents' divorce and other family issues - and it was
amazing to just see Dutch women wrap their arms around her and kiss her on
the cheek. Gosh I love this ward so much! And Azelea came to church for the
second time!!!! Oh I adore her. She is my Ethiopian sister. I'm totally
taking a picture ofher Book fo Mormon - she has scriptures marked up and
down that whole thing.
Wehad exchanges this week and I got to go to Amsterdam! I tried
meeting up with Amy Robinson but it just didn't work out schedule wise, and
that was a shame - but it was super fun working with Zr. Stapleton, a new
sister from St. Martins. It was also super fun tracting briefly in the
Bijmer (in south east A'Dam). I really miss tracting in the ghetto
sometimes. It's so crazy random - you never know who you'll see. But it was
really fun to come back to Haarlem. This place has become home. And the way
president talked about how it ought to've become home for me, I'm pretty
sure I'll just be staying here until the end of my mission... which is fine
by me!
I really love you all and am so grateful for you. I know this
gospel is real, and I know it changes lives. Thank you for your letters and
prayers.

Love,

Zr. baxter