dearest family!

hello! i am happy. i will tell you why. i am staying in Haarlem! i love this place so much. i am so so so grateful to stay here. plus, i have the coolest companion ever! we get along so well. she is amazing. she even comes from fruit heights, which is almost kaysville! so we have a great bond already. i shall attach a picture. alright. lets get down to the nitty gritty.

monday/ a great day. after emailing and grocery shopping, we met roos at the station and went on an adventure through the dunes! we are so close to kilometers and kilometers of wild duinen that is just classic nederland. it is as close to hiking as one can get here in this country. it was so beautiful. we had a picnic on a bench and then spent hours walking around in the beauty. we sang songs from the sound of music and talked about the wonders of nature. it was indeed one of the greatest pdays of my life! probably because that evening we had a great lesson with hanneke and watched a special witness of Christ. after we were done, she told us that she knew that they were apostles of God because she could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. it was amazing and a wonderful testimony to me how the Spirit works. hallelujah!

tuesday/ a crazy and exciting day. i drank mint tea as i rode my bike to the station. district meeting. farewells to many. zuster larsen and i bike all over haarlem so she could say goodbye to people. it was a wonderful and hectic day. the ward will miss her! mvr. goudsblom who we are teaching, made her a hand knitted scarf even! it was so sweet! zr larsen finished packing and we went to bed.

wednesday/ woke up early and booked it to Den Haag centraal. we met the other missionaries there and then i traveled to leiden. i had to travel alone because there wasn´t anyone else going and it was really sweet because all the elders were freaking out and kept calling to make sure i was okay. i was even picked up outside the train by the office elders and escorted back. it was a riot. what  happened after that was just FABULOUS. the other missionaries that were training were there and some of them were from my mtc group which was soooo awesome. so great to see them. we met the new missionaries and zr.rigdon and i instantly got along. it was a riot. so much fun. we had a quick training and then went on our way! after we got home and dropped off her luggage - we went out finding. it was great. she did a wonderful job and just jumped right in.

thursday/ a crazy busy classic missionary day. so many appointments and biking across the city. we had some great lessons, zr. rigdon tried olliebollen for the first time. she even did it with great class by not getting powdered sugar over her entire face. she is going to be just fine in this country!

friday/ weekly planning. also. a man from pakistan called me. his name is griffin emmanuel. he was recommended to us from a catholic church because he needed a place to stay. it was a strange call. so we gave him the information to the salvation army. he sent us a sweet sms back saying `Godbless you always, EVERY STEP, AMEN.´ i loved it. also - before our appointment in the evening we had some time, so we were walking around talking to people and zr. rigdon stopped a lady and we had a reallllly great conversation with her. we ended up giving her a book of mormon and she seems really interested! woo woo! her first golden contact! i was so proud of her.

saturday/ we planned our great thanksgiving party at correlation with our ward mission leader. we talked to a great girl named anna on the bus. had american style dutch style mexican burritos at a members house and laughed a lot. so many good times.

sunday/ her first day at church! we had a great time. church was wonderful. zr rigdon shared her testimony in sacrament meeting and introduced herself in dutch. the ward already loves her. also, a sister in the ward came up to us and gave us a big bag of food. did she know that we didn´t have any food? miracle. oh - the reason we didnt have food was because last monday we didn´t actually grocery shop because zuster larsen was leaving and i didnt know what zuster rigdon would like and we didnt have time so i figured we would just use the stuff we had left in our cupboards. necessity is the mother of invention...and we invented some great food this week. good times. we also took a `daughters in my kingdom´ book to mvr. goudsblom and sang to her - as sisters in zion. it was awesome!

well / this week has been great. if you are wondering why i have so many forward slashes in this email, that is because this keyboard is being strange and i don´t know how to fix it. but it looks fine. so. what i have learned this week. it is really important to be a good example. that is probably number one. because that is how people learn. we follow the examples of those around us. so we always need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves. i have also learned that Heavenly Father always makes up the difference. if we try to do our best, we will have help. i am so grateful for the wonderful people on this earth who help out their brothers and sisters. we all have such a great responsibility for each other. it is a beautiful thing to help someone else / and also to receive help back. we need both of those things equally. i am so grateful for all of you. i love you all dearly! thank you for your unending love and prayers. i love you all! thank you!!!!! tot de volgende week!

/ katelyn marie stout