dearest family of mine. what a grand day it has been. let me just give you a quick rundown of this weeks haps. twas quite a riot to be sure.

 

monday; halfsies pday. lekker emailen and grocery shopping - then we went back to work. we had a great lesson with a lady named blessing! i met her on the metro and she is so cool. she is from nigeria and we have an appointment next week too. golden!

 

tuesday; ended up riding our bikes throughout the entire centrum. one wrong turn on the grachten and you are gone. ended up being beautiful and i am super tan now. good times. we also raced the elders home from wijk raad (ward council) and we ALMOST WON. its cool because we were on bikes and they were in a car.

 

wednesday: sisters pday in leiden! holler! took a train and bus to leiden and had a sisters health day. it was great. i taught them how to make a good salad, and a few other vegetable dishes..basically how to eat healthy and cheap and quick on a mission. we also learned about skincare from zr.jones and pilates from zr.brubaker. classic ladies day. it was great. also: went on exchanges. zr.herring came with us to a'dam.

 

thursday: i was hugged by a tall australian man. its a bit of a long story but super great. he actually stopped me on the street because of my nametag and started talking in dutch..but i could tell that he wasnt dutch. turns out he is australian and we had a huge conversation about our church and i cleared up a lot of misconceptions. he said that mormons don't believe Christ was divine...i said that was false and he hugged me! haha. had a great time on exchanges - learned a lot and then spent the rest of the evening in hot trains to switch back. it was an awesome day.

 

friday: crazy weekly planning. finally got out of the house and talked with so many cool people. i have made a new goal to talk to every family i see. its going well because we are teaching pedrita and edvin (i think i said something about them last week) and they have a cute little baby! so things are going well. they are progressing - so cool. i love them.

 

saturday: went on splits with sisters in the relief society and visited inactive/sick sisters in our ward. it was so great. i love this ward! i love seeing people working so hard for the sake of others - not for personal gain. nothing is more beautiful!

 

sunday: talk about your classic fantastic sunday. this day was great. let me explain. the sun was shining. the spirit was present. so many members came to church and it was so great. we talked about the Holy Ghost in our gospel principles class and there was a kid named Yassar(who was getting baptized later that day) who was answering all of these questions from the teacher - elder van de graaff was next to him just beaming like a proud parent. it was so great! there are people who are seeking truth! i love it. we had 3 baptisms. oh it was lovely. estella and yassir and a lady named antonella from italy. they were all from the elders. so great! also: i counted the cultures/languages in relief society and we had 11. crazy times! that wasnt even sacrament meeting. i will do that next sunday. awesomeeee.

 

TODAY!!!!; today was great. roos came over and helped us fix up our back yard! she brought tons of plants and trees. we weeded for an hour or so and cleaned it all up and then planted so many great things. a fig tree, grapes, strawberries, oregano, mint, thyme, sage, corn, potatoes, flowers, salad, cabbage, tomatoes..etc. its so lovely now. then we ate salad in our new back yard. i will send photos next week. so so so cute. it was so healing! i love the earth and all i could think about when i was weeding was the parables and scriptures that talk about plants. haha it was so great. Heavenly Father is amazing and has created such a wonderful world for us. i am so grateful!

 

okay family. that was my week. it was pretty crazy. this week i have learned many things. the most important thing though - is to keep our eye single to the glory of God. its so easy to become distracted from things of the world. its sooo easy to lose sight of who we are and why we are here. blessedly we are constantly showered with help and guidance from many directions. i love you all so dearly. i am carried day by day by your prayers and love. thank you SO much. hallelujah! i will leave you with my favorite scripture of this week that insipired me.

 

"behold my sons, i desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God and i would that ye should declare unot the people these words, behold i have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of jerusalem; and this i have done that when you remember your names ye remember them and when ye remember them ye may remember their works and when ye remember their works ye may know that it is said and also written that they were good. therefore my sons, i would that ye should do that which is good, that it may be said of you and also written, even as it has been said and written of them. " - helaman 5:6-7

 

lovesssssss! - katelyn marie stout