Monday, February 29, 2016

Cops called on us

Yes that's right, the cops were called on us :P "we got a 9393 up in here, got some girls knockin doors at 8:30 at night" but yea, I'll get to that story soon ;)

Last week was another crazy week of back to back exchanges and lotttss of lessons. It was good. I LOVE the sisters in our zone and of course the Tilburg sisters ;) they each have a special and unique light about them and it's so great to get to work with them. I learn a lot every time. We went to an appointment with the Tilburg sisters to an eternal investigator. I will not share his name as he has quite a past behind him. Sister Begazo is however Bad a (sorry) and was super straight up with him and asked him questions to open up. Turns out he is a member of the Hitler Youth, was raised with Nazis and listens to old speeches of Hitler every day almost. It's pretty crazy teaching him because of his past but right now we are working on helping him know that we can change and be forgiven through the Savior's Atonement. He has changed a ton, however. especially since the sisters found him 6 years ago on a night that he was about to take his own life. Really grateful to be able to make a difference in his life. 

anyways, what'd we do this week....I swear my memory has gotten worse the longer i have been out. lollll. thank goodness for planners! let's see, had good lessons with Farhad, he is still preparing for his baptism. Making progress! 

we had dinner/a going away party for sister cowles at the Westerlakens house (a part member family whom I LOVE) ahh it was weird because I felt like I was home....The mom reminds me of my own mother (did I say that last week?) and they just love the missionaries. Looking forward to the day that they will be a forever family :)

Sunday was good, we got to teach the primary lesson :) brought me back to my days before the mission sort of when i was in nursery haha however those kids were much younger :P they are super cute. 

So, story time :) last night we had about an hour after dinner to do some finding. we decided to knock a certain street, prayed that we'd find people and be led by the spirit, and started a knockin'. We come up to a door, and keep in mind it's about 8 pm-8:30, and ring a lady's doorbell. She comes to the door but doesn't open it and just talks to us through the closed door. I do the usual "we are missionaries from our church" and she was like nah it's better if you come in the day time. so we write her down as a potential, and continue knocking. 10 minutes later a cop van pulls up, and we were like uh oh....so 2 cops get out and are like what are you two doing? and we told them and they said that an old lady called the cops saying that 2 girls knocked her door and told her to let us in her house hahaha did not say that... anyways, after getting our info and stuff, we ended up having a chill conversation about why we are here and how we're from America and they were really interested in what we do...it was funny. they were just like ok well be careful at night ok? so we said ok and walked away being really confused. 2 minutes later I witnessed a drug deal as we were biking home and it was sketch. welcome to the world :) anyways, point of the story is i hope this cop lady looks up our church eventually becomes converted and baptized, I believe that's why we felt like knocking that street ;) 

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!! this week I have been trying to live up to the qualities listed in Alma 27:27. Look it up :)

Have a fantastic week, and see the miracles. 

Veel liefs, 
Zuster Harris
 


















 

Monday, February 22, 2016

crazy week of busy-ness

COMO ESTA
wait is that how you say it, lol

This week was OFF DA HOOK CRAYYYYY. It was probably the busiest week I've had my entire mission. I have taught more lessons this week than ever before!!! I'll quickly go through my week for you :)

maandag:
had a chill P-day walking around the centrum with the elders and shopped a little, then that evening as we were missionarying it up, we looked up a potential we had found our first day together and he was home! It was a miracle because it was one of those potentials that the parent is not home so we just write their info down anyway to go back because who knows if they'll have interest? well most of the time when we do that, we come back and they don't have interest because they are usually from the Muslim belief. Well, this man was not. He let us in and we taught him the first lesson, and he was positive to the baptismal question as he has not been baptized before. He however loves Christ and God. His name is Lissandro. 

later that night I got to see my boo-thang, Sister Stewart Chester (for those of you who don't know/don't remember that is my old companion) because she and her new comp got to sleep over that night for Zone Conference the next day. Party!

dinsdag:
Had Zone Conference, that was really good. We learned about the chapter that we as a mission are focusing on in Preach my Gospel which is Learning to Recognize the Spirit (chap. 4). That chapter has incredible insights on learning how to recognize the spirit, teach by the spirit, helping your investigators recognize the spirit, and many more wise things. I consider Preach My Gospel scripture...it's so good. anyways, good Zone Conference. Later that night we taught Daan, our investigator we just 3 days previous got on date. That was a good lesson. Then we taught Farhad, our investigator who will be entering the waters of baptism binnen kort :) as usual, he is a superstar and is making progression. I have no doubt that we will be ready for baptism. 

woensdag:
taught a lesson to a lady named Balonia. She is from Curacao and is very sweet. We then traveled over to Doris' to teach her but she was showering when we came so she let us in and we waited for her to get ready for 45 min lololol my life and then she came out and said she has to leave haha so we shared a quick scripture and prayed and left. Later that night we taught Leroy, the man that was a miracle to find. He was the one that his neighbor had referred us to that wasn't home the first time, but the spirit told us to go back and knock and he was home. Had he not been a referral we wouldn't have gone back. So happy we asked his neighbor that day if she knew anyone who would be interested in our message! Well, we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and set a baptismal date with him! He is so good. He came to church yesterday for the first time and I think he really liked it. He came a little late and at the end said it was such a bummer that he was late, he really wanted to be in the sacrament service. We are excited to see him make progression in the gospel and to help him along the way!

donderdag:
this was an interesting day. started out knocking some doors, then had a lesson with a man named Robert (most of our investigators are men...) so the elders came with us because no member could come on Joint Teach, but Robert wasn't home so we had some extra time so we did some look ups and visited Tiny & Ed, the couple who 2 years ago were investigating the church, but moved and lost contact with the missionaries and we found them miraculously knocking doors our first day together. We shared a mormon message with them called "Earthly Father Heavenly Father". It was good and they really liked it. We testified that God is our Heavenly Father and the spirit was strong. They still however wish not to have the lessons quite yet (but they still let us come over anytime) so we will continue visiting them when we are in the neighborhood, until they are ready. They want to come back to church so that's cool. later this evening we taught an "eternal investigator" of Dordrecht who wanted to have a religious conversation with his friend who is catholic. He said they wanted to talk about Jesus so we  were like...why not?? so we go over expecting to talk about Jesus, and it ended up that his friend just talked most of the time about his opinion and wouldn't let us get a word in edgewise and other weird things happened so we were a little confused about why we were there and so we quickly left, and later that evening we had a lesson with Farhad and a member was there. It was a good appointment, most of the time we talked about his baptism coming up which got changed to the weekend later for different reasons. He is still excited though and is reading everyday and praying everyday for strength. He is so fantastic!

vrijdag:
Visited a member who is too old to come to church, she is a sweetheart. Shared a story out of the Liahona for march. Later that evening we taught Doris. 

zaterdag:
we took some time out of our P-day to climb the Grote Kerk in Dordrecht. It was so cool!!! and we ended up teaching someone up there haha that was sick. Gave him a Book of Mormon and prayed with him. We saw him like 5 times that day and the first time he came up to us and was like "do you know that God loves you and has a plan specifically for you?" that was cool because usually I am the one on that end, saying it to someone else but it was refreshing to hear it from someone else. We then saw him on the tower of the church that we climbed and that's when we taught him. Later that day we taught Lissandro, the man we found on Monday. watched the restoration video and answered questions about Joseph Smith. Later that evening we visited a family who the mother got baptized 7 months ago and one of her daughters got baptized about a month ago. he had FHE there with the elders and also watched the restoration video. I love that family!!!!! I felt like I was at home because the mom reminds me of my own mother. she loves the beach and her house is blue and all beachy and stuff :') I felt like I was home for a sec. Weird. 

zondag:
Church! we had 3 investigators in church, all 3 who have baptismal dates! Dat was heel bijzonder, hoor. Daan, Leroy, and Farhad. Then we taught Ben, a recent convert, and visited a less active member family who fed us delicious African food (they are from Ghana) and we watched the Restoration film with them as well. I think this weekend was the most I've ever seen that movie hahah I could quote the whole thing. I still love it every time though. Every time the spirit is so strong. I just love the story of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! it makes me so happy thinking that the truth of the gospel has been restored. Later that evening we visited another eternal investigator who really just needs the spirit that the missionaries bring when they visit, however he is not a progressing investigator. was good. 

This week was a long one but it was a great one. I learned lots of lessons this week, which is good. Learning is good. I hope you all have a great week this week and continue to see the miracles in your every day lives! and rejoice that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth through proper priesthood keys :) 
Gonna try to send pics later....don't hate me! this computer is radicalas (ridiculous) ;)

MUCH LOVE
Zuster Harris :)