Mijn familie!!! I hou van jullie!
This week was great--plenty of ups and downs, but overal it was really great.
This past week brought some great teaching appointments. We taught Aimable about the Light of Christ and the Holy Ghost, and it was awesome. He likes to come up with analogies--they help him understand more, and honestly, they teach me a lot. He described the Light of Christ and the Holy Ghost as a stick for a blind person--it helps them feel where they should go and which path they should take. Also, earlier we were talking about the Book of Mormon, and he said that the Book of Mormon and the Bible are like wearing socks with your shoes--it doesn't quite make sense to go without one of them.
We've been working with Vanessa, an inactive memeber, a lot lately. She broke her tibia and is in a wheelchair at home, so we visited her a couple of times (it was also her birthday this past week). We had really great lessons with her, and she stopped smoking!!!! She said she doesn't even have the desire anymore. What a miracle. It's hard to get her to church with the wheelchair--cars here are generally super small, and the bus is a little tricky for her/the wheelchair--but she wants to come back!
Adriene is doing really well, we taught her the plan of Salvation, and it was really great--she has real and strong testimony--we just need to help her make the steps to getting baptized; she wants to, she just has to work on a few things first.
We had such an amazing lesson on Friday with Michelle--she is a referral from Yarina, who is so awesome. We taught her about God being our loving Heavenly Father, about prophets, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and Prayer (the first lesson in Preach My Gospel). My companion and I switch off teaching, and one of the things I taught about in this lesson was Joseph Smith, about his prayer and his answer, when God and Jesus Christ came to him. It was a really powerful moment, and I could really feel the Spirit, especially as I recited Joseph Smith's own words describing God and Christ coming to him. Michelle is really open and positive, and we're really excited about her.
Anyways, we also had interview this week with President and his wife--they were really great! They are both so wise and kind, and I learned a lot from them. We also had a Sister's Conference on Saturday--all of the sister missionaries met up at the mission home and we had a great conference! It was really fun to see all of my MTC sisters and to learn from all of the sisters here. Sunday was great! I could understand a lot more of what people were saying in church, and instead of focusing on trying to understand people, I was able to focus more on what they were saying and applying it to me. It was an uplifting fast Sunday! Also, I feel a lot more comfortable with the members. It was so wonderful yesterday to be with the members and chat with them. I love our ward! There is a little girl named Margreet who loves us so much--she is part of a part-member family, and we've been teaching her to prepare her for her baptism--she is so fun!
Also, here's the moment Mom and Dad have been waiting a long time for: THANK YOU for letting me take piano lessons and encouraging me to practice. The missionaries in our ward have been asked to participate in choir, because usually the numbers are really low. Anyways, the choir director asked me to play piano for choir--I have never played piano for a choir before, so I was a little nervous. Then I realized that the song I was about to play was a Dutch song and I had never played it in my life--thank you Sherri Bell for teaching me how to siteread! It was fun, I love being with the members and singing with them.
The weather here is getting colder, and it's been more rainy too. One day, we had to deliver some invitations--we're having a zumba activity for the young single adult women (there are a ton of inactive ysa sisters, so we're trying to reactivate them!)--and also do look-ups, contacting, etc...and it rained all afternoon! It was pretty exhausting but it felt good too.
The title of this email is something I've been thinking about a lot this week. Sister Packer told me that in this mission especially, you really need to know where your testimony stands, because people question it and reject you all the time. So I've been trying to figure out where my testimony stands. And one important part of my testimony is that I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father. He knows us. He loves us. He wants us to come Home to Him. We can come Home to Him through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ik hou van mijn Redder en mijn Hemelse Vader. Ik weet dat zij van ons houden.
Liefs,
Zuster Thomas
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