I just love getting your emails. I don't really get homesick, but by Sunday I'm usually REALLY ready to hear from all of you, so I love love love reading what happened in your weeks!
So, today marks just about the halfway point. This time three weeks from now I will be packing my bags and heading for the Netherlands! It is crazy, because in some ways it feels like I have been here my whole life, but it other ways it feels like I got here yesterday, and it is crazy to think that only 3 more weeks of Dutch lessons and I will be attempting to speak to real Nederlanders!
This week we got a new batch of Albanians in our zone! There is 20 of them, so our zone is almost 60 strong now! I love not being the newbie anymore, and I love getting to pass on the love, help, and support that everyone gave me when I first got here, so it has been a lot of fun working with them! It's a lot easier to see the gift of tongues at work in them, because they got here Wednesday and by Sunday were giving prayers totally in Albanian! That shocked me for a minute, but then I remembered that the same thing happened for us Dutch folks, but it seems a lot faster when you're watching someone else learn the language than when you're trying to do it yourself. This week we are getting four Turkish missionaries! We're excited for that!
We have been teaching our new investigator Monique, this week. She is a lot harder to get a read on than Gijs was, and Zuster Baker and I have struggled to know what to teach her, plus because of some weird lack of teacher situations going on here, we only got to teach her for like 10 minutes at a time. We struggled to really invite the Spirit and help her understand principles in only five minutes, but it has been good practice, and it has really helped me to focus in on what it is most important that I teach people about the gospel. We really prayed and worked on our lesson for tonight to know what she needed in her life, and we felt very guided to two specific principles that she needs in order to feel the Spirit and feel God's love. It is such a powerful experience for me every time that we receive direction like that. God knows His children, and He knows what they need at each moment. Even though it is role play, the person acting as "Monique" is a child of God and needs the gospel in her life, so I hope that the Spirit will teach her something that she needs through our lesson.
We had a really special experience this week. One of our sister training leaders, Hooper Nuver, called all of the sisters into her dorm Wednesday night and told us that she was being tested for cancer. She has been sick a lot of the time since we had been here, and we knew that she had had surgery to remove a growth before she came here, but she told us that they had been testing the growth for cancer for the last 6 weeks (the whole time she's been here), and she was supposed to be getting the results that week, but they hadn't come. She had been so happy and strong and selfless the whole time I've known her, that none of us guessed that she had been going through something so hard the whole time. She decided to tell us because she was struggling and asked us to fast for her and her family while they waited for the results. We all said a prayer together right there, and it was so powerful. It was such a powerful testament of the message we are all going out to share, because we did not know if the results would come back good or not, but we knew that it was in God's hands. We all had such faith that God would be with her and her family, and we knew that even if the worst happened, her family is eternal, and God has a plan for her and her family. We knew that, and we could pray and support her in her time of need because we have that knowledge. It really drove home to me why I am here. Some people face times like that and don't know that it will all be okay in the end. They don't know that they have loving Heavenly Father, and they don't know that their family can be eternal. The Spirit was so strong in that room. We fasted all the next day as a zone, and the happy ending to this story is that right as we were about to end our fast, she got her results and they were negative! So, of course we had a break the fast party in our dorms that night with all of the candy different mothers have sent us to celebrate!
So, this week we taught our first TRC, which is when real members from the general Provo area come to the MTC, so that we can practice teaching them in Nederlands! It is such a cool experience, because it is not role play! They are being themselves, and we get to help them to come further unto Christ! First we taught a returned missionary, and we had an amazing experience with her. The Spirit was so strong, and she really opened up to us. I could understand everything she said, and I could respond to her in semi-decent Dutch, and I felt like we truly helped her. Then we taught Michael. Michael is actually from the Netherlands, but his mom is from Suriname (where my companion is going), so he not only spoke legitimate Nederlands, but it was mixed in with in with a little bit of a Suriname dialect (I think.) All I could think of was that scene from The Best Two Years where the elder speaks to his first Dutch person and then says, "That's not the language they taught me at the MTC." It sounded like a different language than the one I've been studying. He spoke so fast, and I caught a few words, but really didn't know what he was saying half of the time, so that was fun! It made the three weeks I have left look like no time at all, because I am going to need all of it and more to learn this language.
Last story. This week has been a little bit difficult, because I've been worried about learning the language fast enough, and it's been frustrating to me that I can't just teach people the gospel, becuase I can't say all of the things that I need to say. I've also been worried about leaving my family for so long, and the reality of what I am doing has just kind of hit me. At breakfast the other day, one of the Huns shared this thought that their teacher had shared with them: (I've edited it to make it applicable to my mission) "Before I came to this earth, I was with people that I loved, and there came a time when our Heavenly Father gave us our callings for our time here on earth. My call said that I would be born to a good family who loved me and who would raise me in the gospel of Jesus Christ and teach me to follow Him. Someone else got their call, and it said that they would be born to a family in the Netherlands. They would face trials, they would suffer, and they would not have the gospel of Jesus Christ. They read their call and were devastated, because they would not have the gospel. I turned to this person that I loved and said, 'I will find you. I will leave my home and all the things I have been given, and I will go to the Netherlands. I will learn Dutch, a not so easy language that I will probably never use again, so that I can preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to you in your own language. I will bring you the gospel, so that you can have happiness in your life.'" Obviously this is mostly speculation, but I do believe that there our people in my mission who are waiting for me. They are waiting for me to bring them the gospel that they so desperately need, and that they once chose. It made everything that I am doing seem entirely worth it, and it made the things I am giving up seem so trivial. I have been blessed with so much in my life, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to share those blessings with others. If that means learning Dutch and leaving my old life behind for 18 months, then I will gladly do it if it means that I can bring my fellow brothers and sisters to know their Savior.
I love you all! I think about you and pray for you every single day. Thank you for all that you have given me and for all the support you give me!
Veel liefde,
Zuster Cluff
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