The grass is green and the doors are purple

Nikki's email from today, January 12!

Hallo!

Well, I'm alive and I actually got to go outside today! To be honest it feels kind of strange, and I'm already pretty wiped out--but it's exciting! My concussion has turned out to be a lot more severe than we initially thought, but I'm getting better and we get to go out and work this week! I probably won't be able to do a full day's work right at first, but we'll do our best to do as much as we can. Zuster Faasavalu is an angel--she is so kind and caring, and the members and our investigators are amazing--I love them all so much. We've received so many phone calls and meals from people--including our investigators--and the elders in Zoetermeer helped us a lot--getting groceries, going to our lessons for us, etc.

Oh, funny story--apparently I freaked my companion out this past week when I would tell her the same stories over and over again--yay concussions---don't worry though, I don't do that anymore. We've had some funny moments together though--I mix up my words a lot and just say funny things sometimes and don't realize it until Zuster Faa points it out...we've gotten to know each other really well and tried to make the most of our time together. I've had to just lie down and rest a ton this week, but when I've been able to, we've had some great talks...I just love her a ton.

I forgot to tell you about last Sunday at church--we were only able to go to sacrament meeting, but before it started I was talking to Zuster Ehrari, and she told me that she had been up until 2 AM that morning, but that it was worth it to come to church. She said that before she started coming, she had a lot of hate in her heart--she looked at the world and saw hate, and she was very unhappy. When she came to church, she felt relaxed, and she said that as she has been coming to church each Sunday, she has felt more love in her heart and found more room in her heart to love others. She is so sweet and is hoping to be ready to be baptized in the near future. She is so kind--when she heard about my accident, she called and said "If you need anything at all, I'll do it, anything. I'm just like a friend for you, ok? So just let me know" So many others have said similar things--I love these people here so much, they fill my heart with so much joy and love.

The subject title is a quote from a couple weeks ago actually, but I wanted to share it. There was a day after my accident (before we got doctor's orders to stay in) when we were both feeling kinda down, so we decided we would make it a happy and good day and that we would pick out the good things--and when we went out the door to go out and work, I said "Look! The grass is green!" (it's crazy...it's January and the grass is super green!) and Zuster Faa said "And those doors are purple!"--for some reason that got our day started off on a really good note, it probably sounds kinda funny, but it really did, and we had a really happy and great day of work. We saw miracles that day--while we were biking we saw a less active that we had been trying to get ahold of--we set an appointment with her too! And we stopped by another less active that day and had a mini lesson with her. We had some other great lessons/contact with investigators/recent converts that day too. So anyways, Zuster Faa and I say "the grass is still green" and "the doors are still purple'' to eachother a lot to help lift eachother up and to help remind us to look for the good.

I am so grateful to be a missionary. Even though I haven't really been able to do missionary work these past couple of weeks, I still love these people and this work. I love the Lord and I love the opportunity I have to serve him here amongst all of these amazing people that I love so much.

Liefs,
Zuster Thomas

Pictures: (I need to catch up...)

There was a double rainbow on Christmas!

Our Church building! This was on Christmas--can you believe it?