Ik hou van jullie zo veel!!!!!!!
Mom, I am definitely starting to get used to it, and the language is coming, but it is a little bit hard, because most of our lessons are in English and most of our contacting is in Dutch. I know lesson, prayer, testimony Dutch fairly well, but don't get to use it a lot, and I know very little everyday Dutch, which we use a lot more, so I still have a LOT of learning to do, but it is coming. And although I can't believe you've become one of the facebook moms, they're right, we don't really have a lot of time to email here, so I do my best. It sounds like your callings are going good! I'm really glad that the SS party was fun. I'm super glad you got to go to the temple! I miss it so much! It is hard not being able to go, but we don't really have time for it anyways. Also, I don't think that I would be too much help with Tyson's physics. Does he have Mr. Pratt??? I will try to send my pictures different, but I don't know if I can.
Dad, I am truly sorry about your MFFEMTMIMU, but I thoroughly enjoyed your second one. I will send of pic of the Shield, but I'm pretty sure some elders rescued it from the garbage. The creative approaches were more along the lines of: selfie contact, tattoo contact, Ik weet wat je denk, en het is niet zo, wij zijn hier om u te bekeren, what is the best Belgian food, etc. Yours sounded cool though, and I'll suggest it for the next list. Sounds like Saturday was a bad dad day all around. Tsk tsk tsk. I'm sure Justin was happy to get some new cleats out of if though, and I'm glad their games have been going so well. I've been thinking the same thing about the refugees. It's amazing how the Lord works, and I'm glad I get to see it up close, because hearing about it back home, you can't really understand it. I definitely have a different view of the world after just three weeks here.
Well, this week was crazy and long, but also really great. So last Monday we had a zone P-day, where this member in Ieper took us around to all of the WWI sights and talked to us about it (a lot, and in Flams, so I didn't get much out of that part). There's this whole sight of trenches that have never been filled in, so we got to walk through those and hear some stories about the trench warfare, which was pretty cool. Also, because of that, I had like 25 minutes to email, so I apologize to the people I didn't email back last week.
Our day to day work kind of varies. We work with a lot of less actives and recent converts, who I just absolutely love, and we also do a lot of finding (mostly knocking doors and street contacting), which is kind of hard here, because a lot of people see your nametag and refuse to talk to you. (For example, we had to go to Nederland for some legal stuff and decided to buy peanut butter while we were there because for some strange reason it is like three times more expensive in Belgium. Anyways, we stopped a lady and asked if she knew where we could find a store that sold peanut butter. Her response, "Sorry, I have no interest." A lot of people literally see our nametags and a) tune us out, b) say no before you can say anything c) keep walking and pretend they don't hear you). Oh well, I love them anyways, and there really are people here prepared for the gospel.
So anyways, we had some really long days of no appointments (we had a LOT of appointments fall through) and getting turned down this week, which is kind of discouraging and exhausting. BUT, we saw some really cool miracles. We found four new investigators this week, which is a very large number for this mission. We started teaching two sweet ladies from the Phillipines, who talked and talked and talked without taking a breath and put piece after piece of cake in front of us, but who we had a good discussion with about God's love for us and His plan for our lives.
Also, we started teaching Reuben. We were early to an appointment one day, and so decided to knock some doors, and we found Reuben, who told us that he was busy, but we could come back later (usually that's a blow off), so we came back this week when we were in the area for an appointment, and he let us in. We talked to him for a bit, but had to leave for our appointment, and he told us that he really wanted to meet with us again, so we set up an appointment. We brought a less-active (Katia) with us to joint-teach him, and when we showed up, we found that he had brought his girlfriend (Ann) who wanted to be taught, too. We had a really powerful lesson with them, and he had all of these amazing questions, and he invited himself to church next week and kept asking what changes he would need to make to become a member of this church, and the Spirit was super strong, and afterwards, Katia told us that it was incredible and she wants to serve a mission! It was amazing, and I just feel like he has been so prepared for the gospel. He has a long ways to go, of course, but he has such a desire to learn, and I'm so excited to get to teach him and help to find the peace that he is looking for in his life.
Last story, yesterday we taught Janko about the plan of salvation, and he had some really great, deep questions, and told us that he wants to come to church every Sundayfrom now on, and he wants to help translate for us if we teach people who speak Arabic or Farsi. He has had such a hard life, and I so badly want for him to have the peace and joy of the gospel in his life. After Janko we taught Grace, an inactive member. We talked about temples, and she got so excited. She didn't know you could go to the temple before you were married or that she could do work for her family, especially her brother who passed away this year. She said she really wants to prepare to be worthy of that.
Sorry for the long email, but the Lord has really blessed us this week, and seeing miracles like those make the long days of doors literally slammed in your face so much easier. I know that this is the Lord's work. Oh how He loves each one of His children! He knows us so intimately and has such a great plan for our individual lives!
I love you all. I think about you and pray for you all the time. I hope you have a great week!
Met zo veel liefde,
Zuster Cluff
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