A week of change.

From e-mail dated January 18, 2010.

Well, here's the news. I'm being transferred. I'm going to miss Amsterdam like crazy. I'm really sad that I'll miss Kim's baptism, but that's the way life goes. I had some really great inspiration about it about a week ago and wrote it all down, so I'm glad I was already able to give it to Zr. Fritz. My MTC companion, Zr. Ekstrom, will be coming down from Groningen to work with Zr. Fritz. They will be awesome together, and I'm sure Amsterdam is ready for some change. There's only so much one place can handle of Zr. Fowler before they need to kick her out.
So, I'm going to The Hague (EEEW--English ways of saying things stink!)...
So, what's been going on here?
Well, yesterday I had foo foo for the first time since my first week on the mission. As much as I love the African people here-- the African food is not my favorite. I actually enjoy a lot of different kinds of African food, but foo foo is not exactly one of them. Foo foo is basically a special kind of flour paste that you eat with a soup. The soup is usually pretty good (this time we had granite soup), but the foo foo itself is a little much for me--I just can't get over the slimy texture.
Oh, we had the most interesting exchanges this week-- I went on exchanges with Zr. Bennett--and we travelled up to Zaandam to work for the day (it is in the area of Amsterdam, but a little far away, so we don't go there very often). Well, we looked up some old investigators and visited a couple of inactive members. When we rang the doorbell for one of the members we visited, the door was opened, and there were two police standing there. I thought, "No way--two encounters with police in two weeks-- you've got to be kidding me!" Well, they were there to take her to jail because she had a parking fine that is two years old and she didn't have enough money in the house to pay it (with all of the added fines from not paying it, it was about 115 euros). Her son was on the way to pay it, but he wasn't going to get there fast enough, so we looked in our wallets, and with all of our money combined we had barely enough to help her pay her fine so that she wouldn't go to jail. Wow, talk about CRAZINESS!
I had a neat experience this week. As I was sitting in the bus after Zone Conference, I got this really strong impression that I needed to talk to the man sitting in another area of the bus. I prayed to Heavenly Father and told Him I thought it was going to be weird, but asked Him to fill my mouth. I opened my mouth and what came out was, I don’t know why, but I feel like I should ask you if you want to learn more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. What? That’s the BEST I could come up with? Well, he asked me what it was about, and by the time I got out of the bus, we had an appointment for this week. It was a testimony to me that the Lord knows what will reach people the best and knows who is ready.
Kim is doing great. I still haven't told her I'm being transferred-- we'll see her in a few minutes to go to lunch-- I love that girl way too much. I'll miss her like crazy.
I'm going to miss a lot of people here-- it wasn't this hard to say goodbye to Haarlem--but there are a lot of people here that I REALLY have grown to love. But being transferred, as hard as it is, is a part of missionary life--there are people in other places that need me--I'm done what the Lord needed me to do here (I hope anyway--)
Well, I've gotta get going--we're already going to be late for lunch...

Love,
Zr. Fowler