Druk, druk, druk (busy, busy, busy)

From e-mail dated 20 April, 2009
Hoi!
Deze week is druk geweest, maar geweldig (this week has been busy, but great)...
It sounds like things in the family have been pretty busy! And crazy weather! I'm feeling super blessed with the weather here in Haarlem--it is GORGEOUS! It's a little chilly in the evenings though... yesterday I forgot to bring a jacket with me. One of the members (Zr. Scholten--she is kind of becoming my mother away from home) came with us on joint teach and at the end of the lesson she came up and threw her sweater over my head telling me that she didn't want me to get sick, so I had to take the sweater. We'll be going to her house for dinner on Wednesday, so I'll return it then. I absolutely love Zr. Scholten--she is AMAZING! In fact, all of the members in Haarlem are fabulous. It's an older ward--there are only 2 kids in primary--so it's a little rough for them. We're really praying to find families right now because the ward needs some young faces.
That's neat that you are thinking about going to the tulip festival. Next P-day we are going to Keukenhof for a Zusters P-day (all of the Sisters in the Dutch side of the mission are coming), and I'm SUPER excited. After we get some pictures developed, I'll send them along.
Okay, so what else has happened this week? Wednesday we had interviews in Den Haag. That meant that we had a great training and got to spend some time with some of the other missionaries in the area. I got to see Zr. Miller there-- a girl I knew in high school. So that was fun! She goes home at the end of this transfer, so I'm glad I got to see her then--and I'll get to see her again next Monday. Interviews took a really long time, so we barely got back to Haarlem in time for our appointments. One of our investigators let us know that she is moving back to Ireland, so we'll be saying goodbye to her this week. She's a really sweet lady, but she isn't really making any progress--she sees us as lief Amerikaanse meisjes (cute American girls) and talks to us about her love life problems-- so we are going to try to get her in contact with missionaries in Ireland... I'm praying for her sake that they'll be Elders so that she will pay more attention to the message and take some action about it.
We've seen some great miracles this week. One being that we were able to get a lot of finding in, even with a long day of interviews in Den Haag and a REALLY long day travelling to Belgium and back on Friday (Zr. Baxter had to go to Belgium for a legality trip, which meant that our whole day was gone--we left our apartment before 8 and didn't get back until after 9). But despite all of that, we found more new investigators this week than in the rest of my short time here. We found 5 new investigators this week!
One is named Magalie--she is from the Congo and she is amazing! And a little miracle that helped with this is that we accidentally grabbed a French Book of Mormon that morning... which happens to be her first language! Oh, Heavenly Father works in marvelous ways! She didn't want to meet with us at her apartment, so we met at the train station and she took us to a cafe. It was a little interesting-- but the spirit was still super strong. She is excited to read from the Book of Mormon and we'll be meeting with her again on Wednesday.
On Saturday we were walking through the park and getting turned down left and right. Then we came up to some older ladies on a bench and just started chatting. They invited us to sit down and we talked about life in general, then got onto the topic of the gospel. Turns out they are sisters, and when they were teenagers some Elders taught them for a bit. They hadn't thought about it for years, but one of the sisters had thought about it as she was going to bed the night before, then here we were. They are cute ladies, and we will be meeting with them again this week.
Heavenly Father really knows what he is doing with this work. I know He lives. I know He loves each of us. I wish I had more time to write-- because we had an amazing experience with one of our investigators and a priesthood blessing last night-- but I'll see if I have time to write it in a letter later today. I've gotta run, but I love you! You are all in my prayers.
Met al mijn liefde,
Zr. Chantelle Fowler