"I love to see the Temple"

Oct. 18, 2014

Well I don't really have any funnies to share this week. Hopefully this next week when we get our mini-missionary, I'll have some good ones for you! Oh and next week, I will know if I am getting transferred or not. Exciting stuff!

This week was amazing! We had an awesome P-day last week. We went out to the big shopping center and went window shopping. It was fun. There is also a 17th Century ship in the harbor, that we went and saw. It was really cool!! I also heard from the Missionaries in Ghent that they saw the Burke's!! They are a family that lives in my home Stake in Germany.  They told me that they said hi! It was awesome to hear from them through the missionaries down there. Oh I love hearing from people back home! It is weird being so close to home.

We had some pretty incredible miracles this week. We went to the Temple this week. I LOVE THE TEMPLE! Not having the option of going to the Temple, has really made me appreciate the blessing of the Temple. This is the 2nd time I have gone on my mission and it was exactly what I needed. I learned so much. The spirit you feel there is truly incredible. The next time I go to the Temple is in April. I have another 6 months until I go again. But I know that the Lord will sustain me. OH how I love the Temple. We also had an amazing lesson with our investigator Vivian this week. We decided to teach him about Baptism and Confirmation yesterday. We weren't sure how it was going to go but we were hopeful to set a baptismal date with him. We had taught him about the word of wisdom in our last appointment and he had committed to stop smoking. We have asked him about setting a baptismal date before and he Always was reluctant. So yesterday, we started teaching him and explaining the importance of baptism. He told us that he understood how important it is. He also said that he has been praying to know what the Lord wants him to do and if the Book of Mormon is true. He said that he hadn't received an answer. We then explained that sometimes we need to set a date, in order to show our faith that God will answer our prayers. After a lot of explaining and discussing, he just said to us "We will just pick a date." So we did!! Vivian is scheduled to be baptized on the 29th of November!!! He said that he is going to take the next week to pray and focus on God, so he can receive an answer and also stop smoking. He knows that he has a lot to change but he wants to do it. He held up his baptismal calendar yesterday and told us that this is where he is going to start, he is going to change! Oh it was amazing. He is changing so much. I love being able to see people change their lives and become who the Lord needs and wants them to be. He is going to receive an answer!! He is going to do it!! Oh I love him so much!! It was truly an incredible day! Pray for him please, that he will receive an answer!

While we were in our appointment with Vivian, I realized how blessed I am to be here in the Netherlands serving a mission. I get to watch people change and help people come closer to Christ. I love that I get to be here serving my Heavenly Father 24 hours a day!! I have planted my feet in a mission and nothing is going to take me out!!

I know that this gospel is true and I am so grateful for it!

Vergeet nooit om in God te vertrouwen.

Zuster Adams

A weird statue in Lelystad. No clue why...there are a lot of strange things here!!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...FALL!!‏

Oct. 6, 2014

Sorry to disappoint every
one this week but I don't really have any funnies. I do have one that my companion found funny this week.

-She was in the bathroom washing her hands and I said to her that we would save so much time if we didn't have to use the bathroom. I mean think about it, can you imagine how much time the average person will spend in the bathroom during their lifetime?? It is a lot ot time! So the trick to life is to limit your time in the bathroom...just kidding! :)

This week was overall just a good week. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. It was just good! We had a lot of appointments. Our investigators are progressing and I keep wondering how I can be so blessed. We have investigators that truly desire to know the truth. They are keeping their commitments and studying for themselves to find the truths of the gospel. I am getting a taste of what it will be as a mother to see my own children keeping "their commitments." This gospel brings so much clarity into our lives and I can't complain righ now. Being a missionary is amazing and I love serving here in Lelystad!

The most wonderful part of this week was that it is starting to look like and feel like fall. I LOVE fall!!! It is seriously the best season ever. The trees are starting to change colors and there is just this feeling of happiness in the air. I sound pretty ridiculous...but it is true!! We spent our Saturday afternoon at a member's home, gardening and picking apples! It was wonderful! The Elders were there with us and we had quite a bit of fun. The family has a trampoline so we used the trampoline to pick apples. Elder Warner said it was the most fun he has had his whole mission. Our hearts were racing and we just couldn't stop smiling. Missionaries do run across simple joys like jumping on a trampoline very often. Those minutes on the trampoline will keep me going for at least the next 6 months! It was hillarious to watch the Elders jumping together. They were laughing and giggling. It was so good to see them enjoying themselves!

I don't have much to tell this week but I want to encourage everyone if they haven't watched General Conference to watch it!! I learned so many things and had a lot of my prayers answered. The prophets and apostles are truly men of god, chosen to lead Christ's church upon the earth! I feel a lot of comfort knowing that the prophets and apostles will never lead me astray. We attain our own exaltation but we can be helped by following the words of the prophets!

We are all children of God and God wants us to attain our potential! I hope that I can attain my potential and truly reach for the best and not just the good!

Fijne Week en Tot de Volgende Keer

Zuster Adams

Attached are the pictures of our fun on the trampoline!

We need not fear, when the Lord is on our side

Sept. 29, 2014

Hello and welcome to Zuster Adams' email of the week. :)

Funnies of the week:

1. We went to dinner at one of my favorite members here, Renata. She is amazing!! She is really funny and likes to play practical jokes. We had a dinner appointment with her and the Elders and the Elders didn't know we were coming so we hid our bikes around the corner and made the dinner table only set for 4 people...then we surprised the Elders by coming out of hiding after 10 minutes! It was great!

2. We went to an appointment and the man didn't answer the door and we got a call from the Elders that a rain storm was coming...so we quickly put ourselves against the investigator's door, underneath his over hang, while it downpoured...after about 3 minutes our investigator opened the door...with us awkwardly right in front of it.

3. The Elders need an arabic Book of Mormon and we didn't want to leave our apartment to bring it to them...so we made a rope out of scarves and lowered it off our balcony to them! It was pretty genius(my idea by the way)!

4. We went to Schiphol International Airport(the train goes there) to pick up some Book of Mormons from the Zone Leaders...the Zone Leaders parked in the wrong spot and almost got a 70 euro ticket...I felt so bad.

5. We made Elder Warner crêpes for his Birthday today!

6. Last transfer we never saw the Elders...unless it was planned...now we see them 1, if not more, times a day...it is ridiculous!

You know every week I come to this point in my emailing where I have to decide what I want to say and it is always a struggle. You would think it would be easy but every week feels like a month so I look back at the week and I just think "that happened this week???, feels like a month ago"--Missionary Problems...

This week was incredible! We met with Charlie twice this week and wow, she is going to go places!! We had her write down her life goals and what she wants in life...She had getting baptized, go on a mission on the list, and get married(we told her she wants a Temple marriage)!!!!!! AHHHH it was incredible! Also, her friend from school wants to sit in our next lesson. She is amazing and just soaks in the gospel. I feel honored to be teaching her. We were biking along and it was about 20 minutes til' we could go home and I pulled a pass-along card out of my bag and told myself that I was going to give the card away before the night was over. We biked past the train station and I saw a kid sitting on a bench and thought "I need to give him this card." I kept biking and then I told Sister Heilner that we needed to turn around and talked to him. We did and he is awesome!! We are meeting with him later this week and I am really excited. I am glad that I listened to the spirit. On Thursday, Sister Heilner woke up feeling really naucious. We didn't know what we were going to do because we had 4 back to back appointments that day. We prayed that she would get better. She felt fine for our first appoinment which was an incredible miracle! We taught our investigator Mameyaa from Ghana. It was one of the coolest lesson ever! We taught about the Temple and how she can be sealed to her family forever. She loved the idea of being able to have her family forever. She also realized that it is only possible in the Temple. I asked her, if she would prepare herself to be sealed in the Temple(basically asking her indirectly to be baptized) she said yes!! She said she wants to talk to her husband about it and help him see why it is important! It was amazing! She wants eternal blessings!! Right after our awesome lesson, Sister Heilner started to feel sick again. Our next appointment miraculously canceled and we were able to go home and rest. She recovered and we were able to teach our other lessons that day. The Lord knew that Mameyaa needed to have that lesson so he allowed Sister Heilner to feel okay so we could teach. The Lord is in charge and if he wants us to teach, we will teach. We have some incredible investigators. One of our other investigators Vivian is going to pray this week to know if what we are teaching is what God wants him to follow! I love teaching people that are ready and open to learning.

We also taught a lesson this week where the people were not open. It was the worst lesson of my mission. The spirit wasn't there and I didn't feel the light of the gospel afterwards. I am learning that those that want to learn and progress, are humble and willing to learn. I need to be more like Christ's disciples and sit at his feet humbly waiting to learn. Rather than being one of the pharisees trying to find fault with what the master is teaching. I don't think I am necessarily a phaisee but I am not always humble and ready to learn. I am grateful that my Savior is patient and loving with me. I am learning a lot and learning that the Lord truly prepares us for what is ahead and never wants us to be afraid. We need not fear, when the Lord is on our side!

Vrees niet, ik ben met u!

Zuster Adams

Attached is the picture of the "Surviving Seven" or the "Zeker Zeven"  It is the sisters that are staying after all the other sisters leaves...we will be here as all the replacements come for all the sisters leaving...crazy! Also, of our adventure at the Schiphol International Airport--I AMSTERDAM

Transfer Number 2 in Lelystad Begins!!!‏

Sept.  22, 2014

I love Transfer Week when I am not a part of it! Sister Heilner and I were able to stay here in Lelystad while the entire mission changed. Some crazy things defnitely happened in regards to where every one went. It is always so exciting!! One amazing thing that happened this week is that my relief society president from BYU(I was her visiting teacher) is being trained in Almere which is in my district!!! I am so excited to see her!! I got a hair cut!!! My hair is shorter and I got some layers. Nothing hugely different but I like it!

Funnies of the week:

-We had a barbecue with the Elders this week...we had a little trouble lighting the coals. None of us knew what we were doing. After a considerable amount of time...we finally got a fire going and were able to eat.

-We did a look up and the front door had an over hang...the whole thing was covered in Giant Spiders! They were crawling all over. The sides of the doors, and the window next to the door were also covered in spider webs and spiders. It was terrifying! It took all my patience to stay calm and not freak out. The man that we were trying to find proceeded to throw two of the spiders at us...it was terrible.

-We met a lady on the street from Thailand this week. She was very nice but decided to correct our Dutch. I, usually love that...but she also had an accent so we weren't sure if her corrections were legit. We asked some Dutch members...turns out her corrections were wrong.

-Also, we had a Relief Society activity this week and did facial masks!! It was great seeing all the ladies in the Branch with masks!

This week has been truly amazing and since this next transfer my companion are focusing on gratitude I will be expressing the incredible things that happened this week with gratitude to my Heavenly Father.

We have some incredible investigators that are making some incredible progress. We have an investigator from Suriname that told us this week that he knows baptism is coming. He is reading and truly wants to know. We had an awesome lesson with him about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He wants to progress!! We had an appointment this week with a former investigator. It was incredible. We shared the Restoration with him and he totally got it. He wants to read the Book of Mormon and wants to come to church! It was amazing!! We taught yesterday another one of our new investigators. It was an amazing lesson. We were planning to teach the 2nd lesson but he had so many questions about the 1st lesson that we spent our lesson answering his questions. He made the connection that we believe our Church is the only true church on the earth and that mean that a lot of people are lost, searching for the true priesthood. He also realized that if the Book of Mormon is true that it means a lot for him and that it will change his life. Oh it is incredible to see someone connect the dots for themselves. He is excited to pray and read the Book of Mormon. I know he will receive an answer!! We taught a family this week and they invited their friend to listen to the first lesson and he now is a new investigator. They also came to church on Sunday!! Our first people in church!!! Also, a random family showed up at church and now is taking the lessons from the Elders. This is just a few samples from all the miracles we saw this week. Plus, our Branch President's wife is going to ask her two friends to take the lessons this week!!  It is amazing! When I look back at where Sister Heilner and I began 6 weeks ago, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. At the end of this week, we had 7 progressing investigators and 1 baptismal date. How is that possible when we starting with nothing 6 weeks ago?? The Lord has seen our faith and is blessing us! The Lord has big plans for Lelystad. He wants to see it become a ward with strong active members. We are looking for Kingdom Builders and the Lord is blessing us. I am so grateful that I have had the chance to serve here and see the changes that have occured. Work here in Lelystad is hard and very different from other places in the mission. But I am learning so much and truly feel myself becoming who the Lord needs me to be. I am so grateful for my chance to serve the people here in Lelystad. I know that this next transfer will be one of incredible miracles!

This week I get to sing a solo at our Zone Training! I am excited! We also have a greeny here in the city and he is a wonderful Elder!! We are having a lot of fun introducing him to all things Dutch! :)

Geloof in Wonderen

Zuster Adam

Great Grandkids are like Popcorn...‏

Sept. 15, 2014

What an incredible week it has been! I went to 3 conferences from Elder Ballard and 1 of those was with Elder Bednar. It was a truly spiritually uplifting week!
One of the things that was hillarious this week was that Elder Ballard in the 3 conferences he spoke in told the audience that once you start having great grandchildren, they just start popping out like popcorn. That was probably one of the funniest things I have ever heard. 

In regards to missionary work this week, we had some incredible lessons and somehow, taught 14 lessons this week!! I don't even know how that happened considering we were gone for an entire day this week. The Lord truly is blessing us. We got dropped by one of our investigators this week. It was sad but she isn't ready yet. I hope someday she will be. Then we picked up 6 new investigators(3 were a family). It was really cool. We taught an awesome lesson to this guy yesterday. He was asking so many awesome questions about the Book of Mormon and the Priesthood. I can't wait to teach him again. We also taught 3 first lessons this week and those people all said that if they found out the Book of Mormon was true they would be baptized! It was so cool!! 

I want to share now some of the things I learned from Elder Ballard and the other general authorities.
-Sister Hallstrom told us that when the Lord knows our hearts, we secure ourselves Holiness. I want to give my heart to the Lord so that I will be holy.
-Elder Bednar spoke about bursting the bands that hold us back. We so often pray for the bands to be broken, when we should pray for the power and strength to break the bonds that hold us. I loved that!! We must pray as agents and not as objects.
-Elder Dyches read us a quote which I loved "The years teach much, that the days never know" I loved that because I look back on where I have come on my mission and every day doesn't seem like much but when I look back at the months, I can see some incredible progress. We may think that the days don't matter but the days accumulate into so much more.

-Elder Ballard counseled us to never let anyone pass us because we have to remember the worht of their sould an dthe price that was paid for them and me. We often think that some one won't accept the gospel or want to hear about God. But Jesus Christ has paid for them all and he loves them and we must love them too. Elder Ballard also told us to discover Heavenly Father and to build our relationship with him. If we do so, the Lord will discover us. 

All of the General Authorities expressed the need for simplicity in teaching and in many other things. I learned that as I focus on the simple things, my life will be easier and so will those that I teach. 

We found out yesterday that Sister Heilner and I will be staying here in Lelystad for another transfer. I am excited to implement the things I learned. I feel more ready and spiritually boosted to face whatever the Lord has in store for us. 

Miracles will happen and my faith will grow! 

Fijne Dag en Groetjes,

Zuster Adams

Side note--Same trip, Elder Bednar came to Allison's home stake (in Germany), with her Dad, Josh Adams as Stake President.  Josh and Shirlene Adams smiling behind Elder Bednar.

Bishop Emmanuel Odro from Breda.  Allison's first area.

Spiders, Smoke, and Sunshine‏

Sept. 8, 2014

What an incredible week it has been! It feels like a year has gone by since I last wrote. Time is a strange thing. 

We had so funny things happen this week: We went to across the Dyke to a little village that is a part of our branch and we tried to rent bikes and usually you just put your train pass on the bike cage and the door opens and you take a bike. Well...it wasn't working and we saw another machine inside the cage...so Sister Heilner "broke in" or I guess slid under the glass walls and tried to get the door open. She was successful but the machine inside ending up not working either...annoying. Also, The Netherlands has MASSIVE spiders EVERY WHERE!!!! It is weird. I have never seen so many spiders in my life. They take over everything. Also, we were try to warm up a tortilla and we forgot that it was in the oven and the fire alarm went off and we successfully smoked up our apartment. Rest assured we got it all under control but it made our sunday afternoon a little more exciting. 

We met with Charlie throughout this week and she is doing so good. We set a baptismal date with her for February 21st. I know it is a long ways away but she can't get baptized until she is 18. We taught her the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom this week and she gladly accepted to following them. She has a few things she has to work through but she is wants to start a new life. I love meeting with her. She is so eager to join the church. I love seeing her enthusiasm. It helps me have enthusiasm for the gospel too. Then we met with Marit and we read 2 Nephi 2 with her because she hadn't read it. After reading and explaining it, she said to us that she was planning on telling us that she didn't want to meet with us anymore but after reading that chapter she became interested and decided this was something she did want. It was incredible. Sister Heilner and I almost forgot that we were going to read that with her so it was incredible that the spirit reminded us and we were able to give her exactly what she needed at that time. The spirit was so strong in that lesson. Sister Spencer also came on exchanges here this week which was awesome! I got a chance to be with one of my best friends again!! We had a great time catching up. We also taught an awesome first lesson to a woman from Ghana. She totally understood that if she reads the Book of Mormon she can know if the church is true. She told us that reading isn't a crime and that she wants to read it. It was amazing!!! The Lord is blessing us so much. We have 4 progressing investigators and 1 baptismal date. Looking back at where we started 5 weeks ago, it is amazing to see how much Heavenly Father has blessed us. We had faith that the work would go forth here and it has and will continue. I love being led by the spirit and learning every day. 

This past week has been one of learning and reflection. I have been trying really hard to find out who I am. We are often asked to make goals of where we want to be at the end of our missions and if you don't know where you are at then you can' t make goals for the future so I am studying a lot and trying to find out my unique gifts and talents. I am learning a lot and truly beginning to see my worth and the worth of those around me. 

Remember always that Heavenly Father is mindful of you and that he will give us the exact circumstances that we need in order to grow. I love this gospel and the chance I have to share it every day. 

Liefs, 

Zuster Adams