HUMP Daaaaaaaaaaaaay!

"Wat in de wereld."
(Imagine me saying that in a Dutch accent)

Just TWO weeks and FIVE days before I fly...

Time flies here and it's kind of scary. 

I thought it would be the longest experience of my life

 but I enjoy what every day has to offer.

We had TRC (Teaching Resource Center?) for this first time and we were so nervous. We got to class in the morning, grabbed our stuff and ran straight to the next building to find who we would be teaching. Zuster Watts and I were able to talk to a member of the church who was from the Netherlands. We shared with her our testimonies and a couple of scriptures that we really liked. We talked for about 40 minutes but mostly she did the talking :) We are working on our Dutch conversational skills, but mostly it was just great to feel the spirit and to be able to understand quite a bit of what she was saying. Something so COOL- I planned on sharing a scripture with her so I grabbed my Dutch Het Boek Van Mormon. What I didn't know was if I had remembered the right reference or not. I was freaking out. But we pray before EVERY one of our lessons to help calm our little souls. I chose a reference and decided to go with it. Since I can't understand every thing yet I couldn't just read the verse to make sure it was the right one. I had to have faith that I would share what needed to be shared! I had her read the scripture and then bear testimony of it. Afterwards I looked in my English B of M to see what I had her read. It was a DIFFERENT scripture than what I had intended on having her read, but it was a better example of what I was trying to say to her. Whoa. Cool huh. The spirit guides me in ways that are so amazing.

Our Scandinavian Zone- The Danes in the middle just left and we're getting new ones today!

The next day we taught Pip-Broder Wells about the Restoration aka Het Herstelling. We nailed the lesson hitting every point and fact about what happened between the Saviors Earthly Ministry and the translation of the Book of Mormon. We gave Pip a Book of Mormon as well and he was excited to read it. It's very interesting though because it wasn't really our Dutch that was making us nervous during this lesson. We got out of the lesson and we were feeling so horrible and we didn't know why. We had just given him a book of mormon and we didn't have too many language struggles. What was it?!  We've taught enough lessons that we can use the same words without having notes. We basically go into the lesson with some english notes and then try to say them in Dutch. The problem was that we had gotten into the habit of saying the same things, we were not sincere. For example... "I know that Heavenly Father loves you. I know that God desires to help you. I know that we can receive answers. So boring and the same every time, we need to be more sincere and learn vocab that will truly tell the investigators how we feel! My goal this week is to be more sincere and truly try to say in Dutch what I think in English. That means I need to learn more vocab... but I can definitely do that!

Funny story...

During that lesson with Pip we got talking about the priesthood and how it was taken off the earth and when the apostasy happened many plain and precious truths were also taken off the earth. I had a scripture that popped up in my head about "they knew not where to find the truths." So I opened my scriptures- my dutch scriptures- and flipped to the verse I thought it was. I had him start reading it and he was SO confused. hahaha. Then Zuster Watts covered me and had him read another scripture. So thankful for companions. 

Oops!... Nederlands flag is upside down.

So those were 2 lessons that we really didn't feel so good about, but the next two we had with them we felt pretty awesome about! This was actually yesterday. It was our first time having two lessons in one day. Morning with Pip and afternoon with Sherry. Once again we were so nervous to teach Pip. We chose to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon with him and we all felt the spirit so strongly. We told him to interrupt us when he had a question and we talked about the verses as we went. I had to follow along with an English Book of Mormon so I could understand it all, but it still worked well. The Chapter we had him read with us was 2nd Nephi 31. He told us that he wanted to continue to read the Book of Mormon and I told him that the next chapter 32 was a beautiful one (mooi) to read. He set his copy aside and told us he was going to leave it open so he could find it later. The chapter was about how Christ was baptized and that in order to have eternal life we need to follow his example. He then surprised us by asking how we could be baptized. Zuster Watts and I looked at each other and grinned. We then kind of stumbled to tell him that he just needed to know for himself that the Book of Mormon was true. We need to have the baptismal commitment memorized in Dutch by next appt so we can actually ask him to be baptized!  He has the desire and we felt SO great after that lesson. It was a very special experience to talk and pray with Zuster Watts afterwards about what went great. As I'm writing this I am just so amazed that I can do stuff like this. I know that Heavenly Father is my second companion and I'm so grateful for the Holy Ghost to guide me to know what to say. We are not perfect teachers and there are a LOT of awkward moments where neither of us know what to say, but when we do speak, we are speaking for the Savior and we are saying the things that he would have us say. It is amazing and I love it.

Sisters going to Nederland. Only Zuster Watts and I are in the same District.

When we taught Sherry we also read a few verses in Moroni 7 with her. Moroni 7:13-19 I think. She doesn't believe in God (remember that in the MTC all investigators are actually our teachers pretending to be investigators) so we are trying to help her realize that He desires for her to follow Him and that He has a plan of happiness for her. She has some member friends and she went to church once with them. Her biggest question is..."Why are members of the church so happy?" My answer in English- I am so happy because I know my plan in this life. I know what I have to do in order to have eternal life. It is a simple plan, this life is difficult but I am not alone. I am happy because every day I have on this earth has a purpose and that purpose is to keep the commandments so I can return to live with Heavenly Father again someday.
Now I just need to learn how to portray my thoughts in Dutch. :)

How would you answer that question? Why are you so happy in this life?

Lots of ups and downs this week but I am starting to see the reward for my hard work. Now I just gotta keep working! Some cool insights I heard from the GEWELDIG (marvelous) devotionals this week....
Ahhh. no time. I'll send the quotes to you in a letter.  Just know that the Devotionals are perfect and I love them all and I am sooo happy here.  I sang in the choir at Tuesday devotional today. I'm a movie star. Yes. We sang Jesus Once of Humble Birth. It was lovely.


My goals this week are to:

♥  Loosen up a bit and remember that missionaries can have fun :)

♥  Listen to the spirit and pay attention to the needs of my investigators.

♥  Step out of my comfort zone and work a little harder
 to do things better than average.

♥  Work on gaining a stronger testimony in Dutch :) Simple but powerful. 

♥  Make sure my investigators know that I MEAN what I say. 

♥  Have emotion in Dutch! It's hard but it can be done.

I love you all! Thanks for your support and love!