Monday, June 21, 2010

This week has been INSANE!

From e-mail dated June 21, 2010


Wow. This week has been INSANE! Heavenly Father is keeping me plenty busy before I go home. I'm loving it, but it's crazy and stressful and everything all rolled into one.
Tuesday Zr. Brubaker was able to come with us to some appointments since they had to be here to have a final interview with the sister that went home. It was wonderful because we are teaching a lot of people who speak French (and I can't speak French AT ALL anymore-- sad day! I can understand pretty much everything they say, but speaking it is completely gone--) An amazing appointment that we had was that evening with Brigitte, President Brubaker, and Zr. Brubaker. We talked about baptism and the covenant that we make. In the appointment we had to talk with her about her baptismal date, because to have her prepared in time we were going to need to meet more often. As we talked about it, she said she wanted to move her date to be baptized later in July. President Brubaker then said (in French) that it was okay if she wanted to, but that she could be ready by the 3rd and then he pulled the "And Zr. Fowler is leaving on the 7th" card. I haven't really told a whole lot of people that I'm leaving yet--especially not many of our investigators--and she turned and said, "What?! You can't leave! Okay, I know you have to-- so I'm getting baptized on the 3rd so that you can be there." We set up appointments so that she will be ready. She'll actually have to have her interview a bit early because we want it to be in French, so President Brubaker is going to come interview her tomorrow.
We had interviews on Wendesday, and it was great. President gave me an assignment to do these last few weeks--I'm supposed to make a list of all of the things that make me happy--and then he said that he'll be giving me another assignment in our next interview on July 7. It's been fun to take a little time at the end of every day to write down things that make me happy. I'm interested to see what the next assignment is.
We had a cool experience during a consecrated hour—Zr. Reber and I were finding around a Market and felt like we should go down a street we'd never been to before. As we walked down the street, EVERYONE was Muslim. We got to a corner and felt like we should go down another street. We were walking along, wondering what we were doing in such a Muslim neighborhood, when we saw a woman pull up on a motorcycle. We went to talk with her and she is from the Dominican Republic and has heard about the church and wants to learn more! It was neat to have the spirit guide us to her.
We also had a cool lesson with Zr. Daniels on Thursday about the Word of Wisdom. She drinks coffee and tea and as we talked about it, she is going to give them up for a week and see how she feels. I'm not sure I've ever really written about Zr. Daniels--she is an older woman and the Elders found her and asked us to help teach her, so we teach her once a week and the Elders teach her once a week. She's a nice woman, but has pretty bad depression. It's been really neat to see how the gospel has brought light into her life. She is so much happier now that she has the gospel. She is planning on being baptized on July 3.
We had an-- interesting-- experience during finding on Friday. We had a super cool contact in the park with a man from Curicao who wants to learn more about the gospel--we had a half an hour conversation with him about the gospel and he gave us his information to pass to the Elders in Arnhem (because he lives in another city). When we were done with that conversation and parted ways, another man, who was sitting on a bench, called out to us and asked if we were from a church. We said yes and he walked up to us and started telling us that we shouldn't only help people with skin of another color--we told him we help everyone and he said that we needed to help him because he had received a letter from the police about being reported for aggression and violence and said that if we didn't help him that he would take a knife and kill a bunch of kids. We tried to calm him down, but he wouldn't and he just took off in another direction. We went to the police station and spent a good hour there reporting him. Hopefully nothing happens and he was just upset. I'm really grateful for the protection we receive as missionaries. He was upset enough that I'm sure if we weren't protected by God, we would have been beat up or something--but God definitely protects us (not to make you worry or anything-- I've never had an experience like this one in the rest of my mission-- so you have nothing to worry about!)
Saturday evening we had a super cool ward activity. It was a luau with a show from people from the Pacific Islands. Everyone invited their friends, and there were definitely more non-members at the activity than members. It was awesome! It definitely kept us on our toes--we were trying to go around and talk to as many people as we could the whole night. It was a wonderful evening. Everything got started a little late though, so some people were a little upset that everything was taking so long--but what was really funny to see is that it was the Dutch people that were upset, while the people from other countries (and all of the visitors) were just chill and enjoying the evening. Sometimes Dutch people are a little too bound to their schedule.
Oh, Happy Father's Day! I'm so sorry I forgot to send a card or to say anything. And Happy Anniversary! ( I did send a card for that one). Yesterday I played a musical number in church as well as accompanied the Relief Society for their musical number. It was a wonderful service. It's weird to think that in a couple of weeks I'll be listening to services in English again. Strange.
This week I have been in Third Nephi. It has been so wonderful to read about Christ visiting the Nephites. I love it so much. I know that Christ lives. I know He loves us. I know that through Him we can return to our Heavenly Father.

Have a wonderful week!
Zuster Fowler

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