Hoi Allemaal :)

Hoi Allemaal! ten eerste, ik hou van jullie. Dank jullie wel voor de gebeden en gedachten.

This past week was a good one. Our investigators are finally making some decent progress. It has been so cool witnessing the small, miracles that the Lord provides for his children. The family we found a few weeks ago langs de deur are amazing. we taught them teh restoration last week and invited them to be baptized and they said they would definitely be baptized if the Holy Ghost prompted them to do so. They are basically already missionaries...they keep extra bibles in their car and if they ever need to hand them out for any reason, they do. They really believe in the bible and when we introduced the Book of Mormon they thought it was also great...we Moroni's promise in Moroni 10:3-5 and they just kept saying "amen" haha it was sweet. We have another lesson with them this Friday. Things are looking up in Assen! We are working hard finding, teaching, and finding some more, and teaching some more. It's crazy....I got the idea from my good friend Kale Smith (who is serving in South Korea) to pray for a family to find teach and baptize so that's what we did, we prayed to find a family to teach (Another strong family is just what Assen needs in it's little branch) and a week later we found Patrick and Melony while knocking doors. It's the little miracles that give strength and courage to keep going!!!! 

Also last week we had a lesson with our investigator Charlene who is so great but hasn't come to church for the longest time and is so busy...but we had family home evening with her and her two kids. The lesson went great...and at the end, Charlene said the closing prayer and got a little teary eyed because she said she felt the spirit so strongly...We are praying that she and her 9 year old daught Telysha get baptized soon. Charelene just had to get married haha...but it'll happen :) That's what prayer is for, right?!?

Transfers are this week. Sister Jensen is getting transfered to Ijmuiden and I am staying here in Assen and getting Sister Johanson, who has been in Belgium for the past 2 transfers or so. I have met her once and she is adorable and so sweet! I am excited. I have learned a lot from Sister Jensen this past transfer. I will miss her! But I know she will do great things in her next city. 

Well, thank you all for your wonderful emails! Mom, I hope you had a great birthday. Also hope y'all enjoyed the package :) That's about all the time I've got! Have a great week everybody and see some miracles.  Here's a great quote by President Monson "Hope is taking action when doubting would be easier" don't be afraid to act on those spiritual promptings! Some of you may have some decisions in your life to make. Don't afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. Just do what the Lord wants for you to do and step back and watch the blessings come! He loves us so much and wants to bless us and see us make progress. I love you all! :)

and of course...pictures :)

 

another weeks bites the dust

Hey guys,

This past week we have seen some small miracles worth mentioning. We have been praying for a family to find to teach and to baptize here in Assen and on Saturday we were doing some bell-ops and a family rang us inside so we went up there and they knew some stuff about our church but they were interested and we made another appointment for this week. So we are praying that our lesson goes well, we will be teaching them the restoration. We pray that this family will be the answer to our prayers. The Assen branch really needs more stable families to have a stable enough branch that will turn into a ward. We are working hard and praying for more people to find to teach and baptize. I can't believe this transfer is almost over, it went so fast. I have learned a lot this transfer; a lot about Heavenly Father and a lot about myself. I am excited to see how the Lord will continue to bless these people here in Assen. We also had two great lessons with our investigators Luit and Jeffrey. Luit is an investigator that we haven't been able to have a lesson with for a long time so we finally had a lesson with him. We RADed him (restoration and doop, doop (pronounced dope) = baptismal committment) and it went great;  Jeffrey is a guy we found while street contacting a few weeks ago so we taught him a rad as well. Things are looking up in Assen. We are working hard and praying for miracles. I love being a missionary!

Last week for P-day we biked all the way to Groningen (about 20 miles...) and hung out with some other missionaries at a park. that was fun! We blasted Motab all the way there...#swagdontcomecheap

speaking of biking, my bike is dying. Poor Holmes. 

Well, this week we taught lessons and knocked a lot of doors! We do a lot of finding out here in Assen which is great. Also last week we went to Rotterdam for a Zone conference where they basically trained a lot on iPads (which we aren't getting for like 7 more months) but it was a good training. Sister Robinson also talked about Grace and the power of it through the atonement. I will send a link to the talk "My Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox that her talk was based on; it is such a great talk and I want you all to read it :) Oh we also committed out investigator Fingo to read the entire Book of Mormon. He's a talker and normally we come out of our lessons with him with some regret for not being more bold and not letting him rant on about random stuff but this last lesson we really took the reigns and were bold and testified to him that he would find an answer if he read and prayed about the Book of Mormon. So we are praying for him that he will read and pray and receive an answer and be baptized! 

Yesterday we had dinner at family Loorbachs (where I skyped you guys) and they took us to this cool sand dunes place! I will attach pictures. Love you guys! Have a great week. Today we are going to a zoo :)

here is the talk by brad wilcox: https://www.lds.org/youth/article/his-grace-is-sufficient?lang=eng

Liefs, 

Zuster Harris

   that's the Loorbach family, they're great!

 

I love you guys

Dearest Family,

I love you all. It was a pleasure skyping you guys and although it went by too quickly, it was still good to see and hear from you. I am so glad you all seem to be very happy. I want to tell you guys how grateful I am for you all and how lucky I am to have a family like you. I miss you guys and love you so much. 

Also, shout out to mom. I hope you had a great mothers day. I love you and am so grateful for you. Also happy mothers day to you too Heidi! you are a fantastic mother. and Grandma, I love you and happy mothers day as well. It was great to see you yesterday.

Well, although this transfer has been a hard one, I can't believe how fast it is going. There are only 2 weeks left. Transfer calls are in 2 sundays.....I am guessing I will stay but who knows what will happen. It could be that we both stay. Which if that is the case then I would be happy. I love Sister Jensen. She is so sweet and funny and a real hard worker. We both are hard workers and although it's easy to get discouraged out here where no one is progressing and we just get door after door slammed in our faces, we are keeping our spirits up with eachothers company and faith in the Lord that our work will eventually pay off. I would update you on our investigators but sadly they are incredibly difficult to keep in contact with and make appointments. a lot of times when we have lessons they get canceled last minute (which is a bummer when a member comes on joint teach with us from a far away county) or when we try to make appointment by calling people or going by their houses, they either never answer or are never home. there are also a lot of people here who aren't really all that with it...i think the government sends the crazies here to Assen which makes it really hard to have any progressing investigators for missionaries. in church yesterday we had 26 poeple in sacrament. our branch has like 90 people but maybe like 40 of them are actually active. But someone has to serve here and I am happy to do it. We are not going down with a fight! we are going to leave Assen better than we found it. It just takes a lot of prayers and faith and acting on prompings and recognizing promptings and dilligence. Even though the work out here is hard and slow, I would not want to be anywhere else in the world. the Lord has called me here and I am going to serve and love with all my heart until these people are brought closer to the Lord. That is my purpose as a missionary, to bring others unto Christ. It's not about the numbers. It's not about the recognition. It's not even about me or my own testimony (which is strengthened anyways, so bonus) but it is purely about the people here, and that's why I love it. Even if they are crazies, I love them so much. I love my mission! and I am excited for the future, for what the Lord has in store for these poeple. I know the Lord loves them. 

Last week I went on exchanges to Groningen. It was fun! We also did a ton of service last week. we did 6 service projects. which makes it hard to get 20 hours of proselyting time (we have a rule/goal in our mission that we must try to get 20 hours of proselyting time a week, whether you're teaching a lesson, contacting on a train, knocking doors, etc. 20 hours doesn't seem like that much but it can be pretty tough some weeks; especially when you have 6 service projects) anyways, we worked really super hard to be contacting every second we could. Yay for service haha

today we are biking 1 hour to groningen for p-day to play in a park with other missionaries. We literally never see other missinaries except on tuesdays for district meeting. it was really weird at first; that it was just me and my comp at every dinner appointment but now I'm used to it. but I'm excited for today because we get to see other missionaries haha. 

well, i gotta go. here are some pics. 

May the Fourth be with you

GOEDE MIDDAG YO

hayoooooooo yeah its the 4th of may so.....there's that.

wow it's been 9 days since we had a p-day last....and my brain feels pretty fried haha I can't remember anything that happend......lemme see here.

Well, we had Konings Dag in Emmen with our district. that was fun! we handed out books of mormon and pamphlets.....and more books of mormon and pamphlets. then! we went to dinner in Germany. That was SO fun. the family is in our District leaders ward (they live just over the border) and they are super cute and fun. we played soccer. 6 misisonaries at a dinner appointment. Can you even imagine? the kids loved it. haha one of the kids who is your typical, spit-fire red-headed freckled-face boy said in his prayer for the food "thank you that the elders and elderen could be here" haha he didn't say "zusters"...if you add an "en" on the end of something it makes it feminen (ex. "koning" = king and Koningen" = Queen) it was super funny and super cute

oh! I had my first bike accident. things are getting real. haha. I don't know my way around assen just yet and my comp thought I was turning down a street where we sere supposed to turn and I wasn't turning but she started turning and my tire kind of got stuck under her bike ish or something weird happened and next thing I knew I was flying over my handle bars. haha it was so awesome. But luckily we always pray for safety so I didn't get hurt and my bike is going to be ok :)

Our investigators are making slow progress. We still do a ton of service here and work a lot with less-actives and recent converts.  we are working hard and loving the work.

Hey I am so excited to skype home. It will be around 8 in the morning your time I think.....So just be ready I guess? sorry I don't know exactly what time it will be...but it will all work out :)

below are some pics of our we had for kings day. my comp Sister Jensen is in the middle. also eating the typical cake here in nederland for koningsdag. also some other cool pics. enjoy. I can't wait to see your faces in less than a week. please make sure everyone in the fam is there!!!! :)

I know Heavenly Father answers our prayers. I know I still have a work here in Assen. We are praying every day for miracels and working hard to bring about those miracels. I love you all!