hello dearest family of mine, what blessed world we live in. i am so grateful we get to email and have such consistent communication. this is a joy to me - to hear of your lives and what is going down. thank you for your brilliant letter. i am sorry to hear that some of you are sick - i am praying for you :) i am glad we kind of got to watch conference together - through the magic of satellite transmission. and what a conference it was. talk about FANTASTICCCCCCCCC. what up. i was so happy. the whole time. actually, i haven't heard the last session yet and i don't know when i will be able to, but still, brilliantttttt. i adore conference. it was a little different hearing it as a missionary though. the week previous was spent praying for those who would be speaking, that our investigators would receive the answers they needed. as i listened to the talks i could hear how perfect they were for each different people we were teaching, and also for my own questions. what a blessing it is that we have a living prophet to guide us. good gravy. do people know about this!??! i must go tell them. after this email. oh, what joy fills my soul to hear such truth spoken. conference is too short. but luckily the liahona comes in one months time. hallelujah! lately, i have been studying action. there are so many SIMPLE things we can do, choices we can make each day that will decide our fate in the eternities. my new companion, zuster hill (who is super duper brilliant and awesome) asks me really thought provoking questions everyday. she asked me what my biggest fear was, and i told her, losing someone in my family... it brought such a heartache to even think about it but as i pondered over her question i realized that actually my biggest fear was forgetting/losing the knowledge of the plan of salvation. the thing that makes my love for all of you so deep and so meaningful. the gospel that has strengthened and made our family what it is - that would be the most terrible thing to lose. and of course, the remedy is in my choices. and your choices. every single day. every choice we make. to be happy and kind, to read and pray and do for others. those secure our path. but we have to make them every day. and really, it is every single person on this earth that we must take care of. because we are ALL family and we all decided on this plan together, which means we are all responsible to help each other out. that is our mission. i am just so grateful that i have such a wonderful family who DOES make the correct choices and constantly help ME by prayers and support and love and serving others. oh it is a great world. it is a great gospel. one of my favorite things that were spoken at conference yesterday was the thought about how much Heavenly Father DELIGHTS in being merciful to us. oh how beautiful! it is so true.

well, i don't have much time left to email so i will give you a quick break down of this weeks activities. so you can get a little taste of life in amsterdam. wednesday was filled with transfers. waiting around in den haag centraal. finally got home to A'dam and settled in. we looked some people up. set goals and made plans. good times. zr.hill and i went on exchanges in my first transfer and it was GEWELDIG so i knew we would get along. it was true. we have a lot of fun. good times. thursday was full of appointments and the usual hustle and bustle of the city. after our last planned appointment in west a'dam, i thought we would look up a few people and then visit lucky. when we got to lucky's apartment she belled us in and we came inside, and there was a sweet old chinese lady, a neighbor of hers, on her couch, and lucky said the police were coming over in a minute so they could talk about some recent problems with thievery in their apartment. i said that we could come back another time but she insisted we stay and then we could have a lesson. we sat on the couch, trying to have a conversation with this lady, when another neighbor comes in, a man from suriname and the police man. so we sit quietly on the couch and watch the scene. we have an older man from suriname with a quality moustache, a sweet old gray haired lady from china, and sassy lucky from thailand on one couch, then we have the mega dutch, gruff sounding police man sitting on a chair. and two missionary sisters on the other couch. quite the scene. lucky kept offering water and chocolate easter candy to everyone. after 15 minutes of fascinating conversation between these people, they all realized that not much could be done. but they had four different cultures and though patterns all swirling around at once and i just looked at zr.hill and said, welcome to amsterdam. this is completely normal. oh how i wish i could've taken a photo of that day! hilarious. absolutely. well. life is great. and interesting. and yes, i know, i haven't sent any photos for a long time...i am sorry. i will try to put them on a cd today and send them soon. i love you all. thank you for everything! have a great day! LOVESSSS.