Sister Allison Adams' Mission: Proselyting in Van Gogh Museum!‏

Feb 9, 2015

Now that I am looking back at this week I am realizing how much happens in one week. It really is crazy!!

Funnies:

1. We were biking home on Monday and it was pretty icy but not too bad. We were still able to bike so we weren´t too worried. Then we saw a motorcycle ahead of us crashed and cops trying to help him up. As we got closer they yelled us that it was icy. I thought "oh course it is icy but it isn´t that bad." Then we hit some seriously bad black ice. No worries, we got off our bikes and walked but while we were biking our bikes were literally sliding away from us because it was so icy. It was so much fun!! :) Thankfully it is above freezing now.

2. I started doing some deep cleaning in our apartment...I am pretty sure no one had cleaned the sink in years...it was so gross. It is now sparkling. Apparently, I have a reputation for changing apartments and cleaning them because a Sister in Groningen told my companion this week that she knew that I did that...hillarious.

3. Sister Karlson was in Zoetermeer on exchanges thi sweek and Sister Fasavalu was here with me. We decided to go to institute and we had a marvelous time reading the dedicatory prayer for the Zoetermeer Temple. It was super cool. Anyways, unbeknowst to us...the Elders decided to do something terribly mean. We walked out after Institute and Sister Karlson´s bike was gone. Bikes get stolen all the time so it wouldn´t be unusual to have it gone. We had locked it though. sister Fa was so upset. We didn´t know what we were going to tell Sister Karlson and she had specifically told me to take care of her bike while she was gone. We went back inside and the senior couple said that they would take us home. I decided to call our district leader to tell him we would be home late. Elder Harrup answers and I proceed to tell him that Sister Karlson´s bike got stolen. He laughs and then says oh well...haha we hid it around the shed. I was so mad at him. I told him we would prank him back...so I need to come up with something good. Dad, I hope you can help me out with that.

4. We went to go look up a referral late one night. The person kind of lives on a sketchy street closer to the centrum. We got there and it wasn´t looking to scary until we started hearing the yelling of a crazy lady down the street. She was screaming for someone to leave her alone and screaming every curse word in the book. She was insane and definitely was not mentally sound. It made for an interesting 20 minutes.

This week was awesome!!! It was definitely trying and a lot of adjustment but it was really good. The week started out marvelous with a trip to the Van Gogh museum. We were walking around when a security guard stopped my companion and asked who we were, pointing at her name tag. We then proceeded to tell a bunch of stuff about the churhch, give him a mormon.org card, offer to set up an appointment, and find him later to give him a pamphlet. It was so cool!! He met all the missionaries(6) because we all came together. It was so awesome and totally pumped me up!! We need to be ready to teach anywhere and to everyone. The security guard told us that we just seemed so at peace and happy. It is amazing how people can see, if they open their eyes, the light that the gospel brings. Then that night we went to FHE with the YSAs. A kid that I had called from the Area Book the week before had texted and asked if he could come to FHE that night. I said yes and had no clue who he was or if he would show up. HE SHOWED UP!!! And made some good friends. We were also able to set up a first lesson with him on Friday. The Lesson went really good. At the beginning, he asked if he could take notes. It was so cool to see his desire to know and make sure he understood. He asked lots of questions and was very interested. He has been texting us with questions and been keeping really good contact. That does not happen very often. Most the time, we are dragging those we teach to make appointments and keep in touch with us. He is so cool!! His mother is filipino, father is australian and he is from japan. He is studying to be an opera singer. I have a good feeling about him. I had the chance to go back to Lelystad this week and it was really good to be back for just a day. I got to see Sister Hoole and talk with her about all her missionary work. She is doing amazing!! It was fun to see all that the sisters have done since I left(even if it was only 2 weeks). They have gotten a lot done and are seeing a lot of miracles. Wednesday, I came back to Amsterdam but I was with Sister Fa. We had a really good day of work. We found two really positive potentials. I can´t wait to go look them up. Thursday, we went and worked a lot with our ward mission leader. He is amazing and so willing to help. We talked a lot about how we can get the name of the church more known in Amsterdam. We started thinking of ideas for publicity. We are going to try and get a copy of "Meet the Mormons." We want to have a showing of it and get as many people there as we can. We also worked a lot on how we can work with the inactives in the ward. We were brainstorming and offered the idea of an open online document of all the inactives so that we could always be able to update it and so that all the missionaries and the ward would have access to it. Bronno(the ward mission leader) didn´t waste anytime. He called our mission president and asked if we could do this. President Robinson said yes! We made a google drive document! It will help keep everything situated and up to date. They then announced it in Ward Council and everyone seemed really excited about it and wants to work with the list we have made. Bronno texted last night thanking us for the idea and all the work we are doing. It was so nice to have that appreciation. There is so much work to be done here in Amsterdam. We can easily reactivate and baptize enough people to double the active membership and more. It is cool to see everyone getting on the same page and being excited to work together. Special things are going to happen here. I can feel it. I can feel that we are on the verge of something incredible. The work in the Netherlands is amazing! There are so many miracles happening and changes that are truly going to make it so the work will go forward faster and stronger than ever before. Yesterday, we were knocking doors. We knocked this door and a man opened his window up above so I began by yelling who we are. Usually I ask people if they are interested but instead I decided to begin by testifying as it says to do in Preach My Gospel. The man ended up coming down, we taught him the first lesson and asked him to be baptized, if he knew the Book of Mormon was true. It was the coolest thing ever. I have heard of missionaries doing that sort of thing but had never had the guts to try it myself. I did it!! The Lord is in this work! We received three referrals this week and have 5 in total. We will hopefully have time to look them all up! I know that we have so much work to do here. This week was hard. I struggled with knowing if I was doing the right things. If I really did anything on my mission. I prayed a lot and received a blessing. I can now say that I have done what the Lord has wanted me to do. He has been with me the whole time and will be with me for the rest of my life. This gospel is true. Jesus Christ lives. I have a Heavenly Father that loves me and he will never let me fail! Miracles are happening left and right and they will just continue to flow. People will be baptized and will be strong members for the rest of their lives. I can´t wait to see what this week holds. It will be a busy one but a wonderful one!! Never forget how important you individually are to our Heavenly Father!

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Zuster Adams