Een andere week als zendelinge

From e-mail dated 25 May, 2009

Well, it's been another great week as a missionary. I got mom and Colton's letters this week--thanks so much, it's so nice to hear from the family. I always look forward to reading your email on Monday's, but it's nice to get the surprise letters in the mail as well. I'll be looking forward to the package. Before I forget-- in the next package you send (not that it needs to be anytime soon) something I would enjoy is crystal light (like the packages you can dump into a bottle of water) and packets of ranch dressing mix (they don't sell that in the Netherlands--even the members order it special from America because they like it so much... it's really funny)...
So, what happened this week in the life of Zuster Fowler?
Monday night we taught Engelien--the Surinamer with whom we just set a baptismal date. We had taught her a bit about the plan of salvation the time before, and she had done some reading and thinking about it. She told us what she had read and she was so excited. She kept saying over and over "Nooit wist ik!"(I never knew that!) It's so amazing to see people recognize how the gospel is different and can bless their lives.
Tuesday we had District Meeting in Alkmaar and I received my stack of letters that I had missed picking up at Zone Conference. Thanks to Kristi, Marci, Kevin, and Liz. Later that day a couple of our appointments fell through, so we went to visit a member. It turns out that she was having a really rough time with the ward, and going there was really inspired. It is so important to have pure love for people in the ward! It's really hard for people to go when they feel like other people are talking about them behind their back. Each of us are striving for the same goal, and loving people without reservation is super important--I've always known that, but talking with this sister really reaffirmed that to me.
Wednesday was probably the roughest day of the mission so far--and Zuster Baxter says it was also the roughest day of her mission. We had door after door after door slammed in our faces and a couple of people right out yelled at us. No one would let us say more than 3 sentences in more than two hours of finding. I've never had that before. We were both pretty discouraged, but we learned a lot from it and were able to have a really good conversation about the atonement. That night the Zone Leaders called us because they felt like they should call--no other reason. It's through little things like that that I know that Heavenly Father is watching out for us and cares about us. The next morning, as I was reading through the Book of Mormon (our mission president has asked us to read through it again before July 1), I read Alma 14 that talks about the horrible things that Alma and Amulek went through as they were preaching the gospel. However, the very next chapter, Alma 15, talks about how they were lead by the spirit to another city where they were able to baptize flocks of people. It is the same with missionary work--Satan works really hard on you when he knows that really good things are coming. That day we had some amazing experiences, including looking up 3 old investigators who want to meet with us again and having an amazing conversation with a lady on her door (after the prayer she stood there in silence and then just gave us both a hug and told us to be sure to come back).
Our investigators have made some great progress this week, and I'm excited to see what this next week will bring. It's going to be super busy because we have to go to Brussels for another legality trip-- plus we are going to Den Haag to take Milene to see a baptism-- so we'll be like race horses trying to fit everything in (but that's a good thing--President Woodland told Zr. Baxter in her last interview that we'd better be prepared to become race horses because Haarlem was going to start getting extremely busy).
Oh, you asked about Zr. Baxter-- I don't have a lot of time left, but I'll let you know a little bit about what she is like--AMAZING! I learn so much from her every day. She is a very loving individual with a great capacity to follow the spirit. We have so many amazing experiences because she gets a prompting and follows it. She's a really good example.
Well, my time is pretty much up. I love you all!

Veel liefs,
Zuster Chantelle Fowler