T-7 Days

Hallo iedereen!!!

Hoe gaat het met jullie? Ik houd van alle jouw emails!!! I'm sorry that Six Flags was a similarly stinky experience for everyone. That's probably karma for trying to have fun without me. Just kidding, I love hearing about your adventures. I'm glad you at least enjoyed the FC game! 

I'm going to start with boring business stuff and get it out of the way. So, I have my travel plans, and I am flying out next Monday at 4:50 pm. It is a direct flight and we will arrive in Amsterdam at 10:50 am on Tuesday. It turns out that burn phones are discouraged by the mission president, so I bought a phone card and will hopefully be able to call you between 1ish and 4ish (my time), so if you could send me a Dear Elder with what number would be best for me to call, that would be great.(I know that's the first day of school and right in the middle of the chaos of pick-up time, so if you can't pick up or whatever, don't worry about it. I think they'll send you an email when I get to the country anyways.) Turns out I can actually talk to you (yay!), but the lines at the airport pay phones are crazy (boo), so I don't really know what kind of time I'll have. If I end up not being able to call you, it is because of lines and not because I'm dead, so don't freak out. Also, if you could maybe let the bank know that I will be in Belgium and the Netherlands, that would be good, because apparently a lot of missionaries have problems with banks shutting off their cards because of "suspicious activity" and then have no way to contact the bank. 

Receiving their flight plans

 Mom, your Sunday School class sounds crazy, but I know you will do great with them, as always. Also, I am super excited that you will be Nativity co-chair, and a little bit jealous that I won't be there to help! I love the Nativity, and it is such a wonderful missionary opportunity, and it is the best start to Christmas, and you are just going to do amazing with it! And I know that you are probably shaking your head reading that, because you always feel like that's not you talent, or whatever, but I mean that very sincerely. You will do so well, and of course the Lord will help you! If you see Mr. Bridges again, tell him hi for me! I miss him, he was a great teacher! I'm sorry your Baked Alaska didn't turn out, but it actually looks pretty yummy in the pictures. That might be partly because of the food here though. Not only is it not good, but with 2900 missionaries in this place, you have to wait in line for 30-45 minutes to eat, and that's if you're there early. Also, tell Tyson to make the most of seminary. A lot of missionaries here have told me that they really wish they would have taken more advantage of seminary, and I have been really grateful here for the things I learned in seminary. It's been a huge blessings to be familiar with the scriptures and helps a lot in our lessons. In terms of sending stuff, if you have found my umbrella, that would be appreciated, more family pictures would be nice if you have some. 

Dad, it is hard to believe I'll actually leave this place. It's weird, because I've gotten really comfortable here, and the thought of actually leaving kind of feels like starting my mission all over again, but for real this time. Some days I feel very ready, and other days it makes me kind of nervous to think about, but I think I've learned about all I can from the MTC and now just need to go and do it. Sounds like you've had a pretty busy week. Try not to kill yourself with all of that driving and not sleeping stuff. I would really appreciate it if you could keep yourself alive at least until I get back. 

On to the week, then. So this week has been my favorite thus far. That is in large part due to our new investigator, Caroline. Zuster Baker and I made a goal to not bring any language notes to our discussions with Caroline. We would plan beforehand really well, and study the vocab/ grammar we thought we might need, but we weren't going to bring anything in with us. That took some faith, but it was such an incredible experience. It kept us from worrying about the language, and instead focus on really connecting with Caroline and teaching to her needs. It felt much more like a conversation than a discussion, and the Spirit was so strong. It was incredible! I felt God's love for her so strongly, and she did too. She gave the most sincere and sweet prayer at the end. After the second discussion we had with her, our teacher came up to us (she is playing our investigator, and usually they have this strict policy where they do not talk about the investigator and pretend to not have any idea what went on during a discussion to keep it feeling real). But anyways, she came up to us and said, "That was such a cool experience for me. The Spirit was so strong, and Caroline felt God's love so strongly. She didn't even believe in God before." (They base the investigators they play off of people they taught on their missions, so she was playing a person she taught who hadn't really known about God.) Anyways, teaching her has been a real testimony booster for me, especially because I haven't had to worry about the language. As I've focused on the message and what Caroline needs, the words have just come- not perfect Dutch, but enough to get the point across. It has made me very excited for when I get to teach real people and truly help them come to know their Savior.  

Neil L. Andersen came and spoke to us this week, which was a neat experience. He gave us some good goals for our missions and promised us that we would see miracles. That was a pretty powerful thing coming from an apostle of the Lord.

I gave my first talk in Dutch this week. I feel like we are at a disadvantage, because two of the three branch presidency members speak Dutch, so unlike the Huns, Albys, and Turks, we are actually understood by the branch presidency, and they can tell how good (or bad) our Dutch is. It went pretty well though, and I'm actually to the point where I can speak fairly spontaneously, so I didn't have to just look at my notes and straight up read the whole time. 

The Duchesses

One funny thing that has happened this week. So, five weeks at the MTC is a long time, and starts to kind of get to everyone, but it has been especially boring for our Elders. To liven up the time a little bit, they have formed gang called "The Dutchmen" and they have been speaking in Brooklyn accents for the past week and have certain elders who are their hit men (apparently there are hide and go seek plunger wars in the elders dorms at night- I'm not exactly sure what that means), and one who is "the Boss" and so on and so forth. It is kind of funny to see how creative missionaries get with limited resources in order to make things interesting. 

The flying dutchmen

Sorry this email isn't very exciting, but not much changes here. There are a lot of things that I have felt especially grateful for this week though, so here's a quick list:

1) Thank you Mom and Dad for having us memorize those scriptures years ago after we finished the Book of Mormon- I have started memorizing all of them in Dutch, and it has really helped my language and my teaching

2) Thank you for teaching me the importance of exact obedience and showing me the blessings of not justifying our actions or tweaking the commandments to make them more convenient- that is a lesson that I have always been grateful for, but I have been really seeing the blessings of it lately and am grateful that I learned that lesson before my mission

3) I'm super grateful for my English classes, because learning a new language is 10 times easier when you already understand grammar rules

Kipzilla- the end result of our grammar lesson on superlative adjectives

4) I am so grateful for the hymns. It is such a powerful thing to sing the hymns in Dutch with the other missionaries, and it really brings the Spirit. 

Well, I love you all and miss you a lot!!! Hopefully I will get to talk to you a little bit next week!

Veel liefde,

Zuster Cluff