Hallo! What a crazy blessed week! To start off, we had our last Zone Conference on Tuesday with President and Zuster Woodland. I will really, really miss them a lot. There were also a junkload of departing missionaries who I've been with most of my mission - Zr Kabenda, Zr Higham (never comps but we've had almost all our comps in common), my first district leader, other leaders... it makes me feel really old. It was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day. We learned a lot about how we can better use the Book of Mormon. Since then we've seen so much more success in finding with the Book of Mormon, including meeting the most theologically open man ever, whose cousin converted and immigrated to Utah back in the 50s or 60s. Interesting. =) Not open for an appointment but was excited to read the Book of Mormon and wants us to stop by another time for another chat.
> Azelea is moving this week to her new house and hopefully her mom will arrive from Ethiopia to help watch Catherine once school is out for the summer. I'm really, really hoping we can start teaching Azelea's mom too, and that once things calm down we can get her coming to church more regularly. Engelien (pronounced angle-een) is still struggling with the Word of Wisdom and quitting smoking - your prayers would be appreciated. Milene just got back from her vacation and we have dinner with her Wednesday, so that'll be great to get back into teaching her and letting her choose a new baptisimal date. Thank you for your prayers for these wonderful people.
> We had a fun conversation with Emmy - she's not super super willing to go to another church but wants to come by sometime. It's really hard to teach older Dutch woman - it's a very strange social dynamic, what with trying not to just get relegated to those cute American girls with bad Dutch who like to talk about God. ;)
> One awesome miracle this week was having an appointment with Didi. She's the woman from Bulgaria we met op straat about a month ago who'd met with Elders in Bulgaria when she was a teenager and got teary as she mentioned they were her "biggest friends." (I really, really, really will miss the awkward eloquence of english as a second language. We encounter it so much here!) We'd run into her last Saturday at the station and were suprised to find she wasn't in Amsterdam as she told us she'd be, and were so so happy to go meet her. We mostly got to know her background - she came her to work with the flowers and married a Portuguese man. She'd met with the Elders because they lived in her same building, and she and her brother had gone to church there. I'm still not sure why it didn't go further - as she said she remembered something about a certain Joseph Smith, we pulled out a Bulgarian Book of Mormon and asked if she recognized it. The look of shock and joy on her face was incredible. She even suggested to her Father-in-law that they all come to church. They didn't (yet) but it'll come. She's going to A'dam next or week or the week after for a month and a half, but it'll come with her... what a miracle.
> We continue to be crazy busy in Haarlem. We are super blessed here. Li, our chinese investigator, is beginning to seriously pray on her own, and about baptism as well. She also goes on vacation to China for more than a month this week, but when she comes back I'll be excited to see her again. I just really love these people.
> The biggest surprise of this week is transfers.... I'm staying in Haarlem, and Zr Fowler is going to Amsterdam with myold comp Zr Miller! I'm honestly very torn about this, because I stinkin' love Zr. Fowler and we've been blessed to see so many miracles and people literally popping out of nowhere to teach. But I'm excited for her to be able to learn from a new city and new companion. I'm also training again, which was a bit of a surprise (at least on my part), so I don't know who my new comp will be. But Haarlem could always use the greenie miracles, so I'm excited. =)
> I love you all. I love this work, and I love my Heavenly Father and Savior. There's no end to miracles, and no end to His help. Have a wonderful week.
>
> Veel liefs,
>
> Zr Christa Baxter
>

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

Hallo iedereen! So this week brought some great progress with people we're
teaching. We taught Azelea about Tithing, and it seemed pretty reasonable to
her. Although that may be because she doesn't have a baptisimal date yet. ;)
But on Saturday we taught her with Sjaak, a convert of 18 months or so who
just got his mission call to South Africa. We had Sjaak teach the majority
of the first lesson again to her, under the pretext that he needs the
practice teaching, and Azelea acted like she was a completely new
investigator. So we had to hide her beautifully tabbed and marked copy of
the Book of Mormon she's been highlighting like nobody's business the past 6
months. =) It was amazing. It felt we were in the MTC again teaching a
member who was giving answers too good to be true. Finally Zuster Fowler
said, "Okay Azelea, all pretending aside, you talk like you've been a member
for years. Do you really know that Joseph Smith was a prophet? And that the
Book of Mormon was true?" And Azelea thought about it all and said, "Well,
yeah! I do know it's true!" She loves the Book of Mormon but she'd never
expressed that kind of surety about Joseph Smith. So then Zr Fowler invited
her to be baptised with Mosiah 18:8-10 - Azelea responded, "Wow, you haven't
shown me this scripture before." And then said she wants to be baptised, but
things are just too hectic and crazy in her life right now. I stinking love
this woman so much! Her biggest obstacle is coming to church, but things are
getting more flexible at her workplace, so she's trying to come again in a
couple weeks. Please please please pray for her to be able to come to church
regularly and get baptised. She's such a wonderful person and has such a
beautiful growing testimony.
Milene is doing well, but got sick so she couldn't come to church or
the baptisimal service in Den Haag we wanted to bring her too. Bummer! We're
hoping to introduce her to more of the older members who joined the church
when they were young adults around her age - most of the Young Single Adults
in the ward have grown up in the church, and the standards can seem to be a
pretty big change at times. We're hoping to help her see she really can do
this. =)
And Engelien is great. The ward takes so much care of her! But she's
just learning about the Word of Wisdom, and she smokes a lot and drinks
occasionally. So there's that - we just go forward in faith and dilligence
and do our thing. It'll come good.
Um, I don't know what else to say. I really just adore Haarlem. The
ward is amazing and we're teaching a lot of truly amazing, dedicated,
serious people. And just Sunday, Heather (a Canadian au pair) brought her
Dutch boyfriend to church again - he wants to take the missionary lessons
again and see if he really can believe in God and accept this church.
Reminds me of some high school experiences, but maybe she'll succeed where I
failed. ;) I really just love being a missionary right now.
And on Friday we took another trip to the mission home in Belgium for
legality - and I found out I get the stay a 12th transfer!!!!! Meaning I
will be released on October 28th. Wahoo!!! I was pretty surprised, but I
really love being a missionary, and the language is no longer so great a
problem, so I'm happy to stay even longer and experience one more European
Fall. I love you all and I love this work. I know Heavenly Father is taking
care of us all, in His time and His way. I know he answers prayers.

Veel Liefs,


Zr Baxter

Another good week in Haarlem. Engelien is doing fabulously. On Monday
we taught here more of the Plan of Salvation - apparently she'd had time to
really disgest what we'd taught her earlier, and she was literally shocked
and elated at the concept of a Pre-Existance and the Spirit World. "NOOIT
wist ik!" ["I never knew that!!!"] I seriously was wondering where the
camera crew from preach my gospel was hiding - it was so good it felt like a
set up. =) She loves reading in the Book of Mormon, and on Thursday we
brought Zr Kroese (another Surinamer) and watched Finding Faith in Christ,
which she loved. Unfortunately she didn't make it to church, but she's been
a little sick lately, and we're going to see her tonight, so things should
work out.
Milene's also doing great. She was out of town, but this Saturday we're
taking her to a baptismal service in Den Haag and she'll be at church the
next Sunday. Please pray that she'll have the news to talk to her very
religious mother about her upcoming baptism and that it'll go well. =) I've
never taught someone so ridiculously solid.
We also had a fun return appointment to Jessica, a Nigerian single mom
of two who is beginning to grasp what this crazy Book of Mormon is and what
the heck Joseph Smith is all about. =) I love watching people open up
through the Spirit.
We had a really fun contact on Tuesday night. We made the
seemingly-mistake of tracting through a wealthy neighborhood during dinner
time, but one woman said to come back another time during the afternoon. We
took her up on her word, came back a couple days later, and had the most
marvelous conversation about religions and God and the Resotration. Like
many educated Dutch people, she's got a pretty pan-religious approach (which
I'd probably be if I'd grown up here) but really was interested to read The
Proclamation on the Family. Towards the end of her conversation, she said
she'd have invited us in but her husband was sick - turned out he'd had a
heart attack while they were in vacation in the States 6 months ago. After
we prayed with her and asked Heavenly Father to bless her husband and family
in light of his health problems, she hugged both of us. Oh, fruits of the
Spirit. She'd love to talk again but not make a fast appointment... it'll
come. =)
We had a hard time finding new investigators this week but were blessed
to look up 3 old ones who are willing to meet with us again. So it goes!
Also something funny... my bike totally broke down while biking to our
finding spot. My bold companion Zr Fowler would not be deterred, so when the
first Dutch woman opened the door, looked at our nametags, and told us she
wasn't interested before we could even open our months, Zr Fowler jumped in
and said, "Actually, we're having some bike problems... do you have a
screwdriver we could borrow?" The good woman brought us a tool kit, rag, and
a cushion to kneel on while we put the chain back on my bike. It was pretty
funny. (Hopefully my bike will last till the end of my mission!) It totally
reminded me of the Catholic priest in Argentina that yelled at Dad and his
comp, only to very graciously let them borrow the ladder they'd come to ask
for. People are good. =)
So the work goes on. I love you all.

Zr. Baxter

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

Hello everybody! Well, it's been a super great week, but a little
non-eventful - at least as far as interesting letter writing goes. Azelea
prayed about Joseph Smith and baptism but doesn't feel like she got an
answer, tho she's still working on quitting smoking, and reads the Book of
Mormon everyday. It will come! Patience! Milene still doesn't dig the Word
of Wisdom but is totally down for tithing (I'm always surprised at what
people do and don't find difficult). We brought Zr. Kroese, another
Surinamer, to Engelien's house on Wednesday night, and they LOVED each
other. And talked a ridiculous amount. I love fellowshippers. They are so
amazing. Zr. Kroese totally understands her better than we do too, and used
to be of the same Christian religion Engelien was, so that's pretty much
amazing. Engelien came to church on Sunday and loved it - she was even there
before we were. Hopefully this week we can set a baptisimal date with her
and help her begin quitting smoking. Good times, good miracles.
We all got to go to the temple on Wednesday. My last time in Holland,
at least as missionary. It was wonderful, and I will miss it very much. I
love my fellow missionaries. I also got a junkload of mail at Zone
Conference - thank you all! I especially loved the letters and photos from
Briana and Zack, Peter, and Nate. My FHEbros are still the best! I am
working on writing you all back soon!
And as far as transfer news goes, both Zr Fowler and I are staying,
and I'm pretty excited about that. I still don't know if I've got 3
transfers left or 4. I'm happy either way. I'd still like to serve in Den
Haag (the Hague) before I go home, but Haarlem's great and I pretty much
adore the people we're teaching right now. Milene heard one of us might
transfer and did not like that idea! It's always flattering and rewarding to
see how much your friends like you - especially when they get along with the
ward so well that that's not a concern! ;) And Zr Fowler and I are really
getting into a good groove of working together, so I'm excited to see the
miracles of this transfer.
Haarlem had a big outdoor music fest last weekend for their
independence day (or something to celebrate their freedom after WWII) and it
was funny biking past live music and mobs of Dutch hipsters, realizing how
much I have in common with them and also how little. I am so glad I came on
a mission, and I don't even miss live music much anymore. =) I love this
gospel and I love love love these people. And I love you all. I know
Heavenly Father plays an active role in all his children's lives - to a much
greater extent than we often realize. He'll never force us to make the right
choices, but He'll never stop giving us the chance to do so. The Book of
Mormon is the word of God, and it can change lives. Have a blessed week and
know that I'm happy and loving life, and that I love you all.


Zr Baxter

So we saw some amazing things with investigators this week. First off,
Azelea's husband Yannis is back from Greece and actually sat in on a lesson
with us! He said he'd read the Restoration pamphlet too. Definitely progress
since the last time I saw him 2 months ago, when he said he was a Christian
but definitely didn't espouse radical religions. ;) We watched the
Testaments with the whole family (Azelea, Yannis, and their 6 year old
daughter Catherine (aka Belina) ) on Thursday, and Azelea loved it. Even
referred to the Book of Mormon as fact. Always a beautiful thing. =) And
then she and Catherine came to church on Sunday! They've only lived here 7
months so she doesn't speak much Dutch, but between translation on my part
and English Sunday school, I think she really enjoyed it. People were pretty
welcoming, especially Bishop and Stella, the Nigerian woman we bring on JT.
I love Haarlem. And I love Azelea and Catherine.
Things are also good with Milene. We saw her on Friday and had an
amazing 3rd lesson with her on the steps of the gospel (Faith in Christ,
repentence, baptism, enduring to the end). She is reading a chapter out of
the Book of Mormon every day, and if she misses a day, she tries to read two
the next. As we explained the Holy Ghost to her, she said she's feeling that
more in her daily life, especially after coming to church. Even her friends
are noticing it - a friend of hers who's technically atheist had been asking
her questions about God, and Milene told her she's welcome to meet with us,
the missionaries, if she likeds. The woman is like getting referrals for us!
Oh, so good! Her big question - so what commandments am I agreeing to keep
when I get baptised? Good one! =) So we talked a little about the Word of
Wisdom. She got sick Sunday morning and didn't make it to church, but now is
leaning more towards coming every week. On Sunday we taught her the Word of
Wisdom. She doesn't like the idea of giving up the occasional glass of wine
or fruit teas - she was raised on the idea of everything within reason, and
this commandment is rather surprising, after all - but I'm pretty sure as we
keep on helping herunderstand the Restoration it will fall into place. She
seriously is like the Preach My Gospel test case scenario. I love her so
much. It's amazing to see people gesture to the Book of Mormon and comment
about "our church."
We also got to finally visit Engelien, the Surinamer woman who
approached the elders in A'Dam because of their name tags and wanted to
learn more about their church. She's willing to meet with us for 3 times a
week for 30 minutes, and said she'd come to church this Sunday. There are
two crazy strong Surinamer sisters in the ward around her age, so it really
has amazing fellowshipping potential. And we visited Laticia, a former
investigator who's about 20 and from St. Martins. Teaching her totally
brings me back to the Bible Belt and Louisiana. She's pretty sure she'll
never believe in Joseph Smith, but loves that we're trying to bring people
in Holland to Jesus Christ. What with all the rampant agnosticism and
atheism and all. ;)
We tried to have a DTR with Marc... when we asked him if he actually
does want to know if Jesus Christ is his Savior, he said, "Well, yes,
otherwise I wouldn't be meeting with you!" It's kind of ashame because he
and Esther broke up, and she was actually keeping more committments them him
at this point - on Monday she'd read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and Alma
42 and really found the pre-mortal existance pretty interesting - apparently
nobody else teaches that. I'm hoping we can still teach her when she moves
out... we'll see!
Things are still going great with Zr. Fowler - so good that I'm pretty
sure one of us will be transferred next Wednesday. ;) We'll see. I still
don't know if I'm staying 11 transfers or 12. I'll be happy either way. This
Wednesday we get to go to the temple in Zoetermeer for the last time on my
mission. I'm incredibly excited.
I really do love you all. Thank you for your prayers and support. Some
days are hard, some are amazing - but usually one great appointment can make
a whole day just incredible. =) Have a fabulous week and remember that
Heavenly Father really is there, and truly does listen.

Love you all,

Zr. Christa Baxter