dearest family.

i am so tired. but i am happy. this week has been long. turns out zuster rigdon and i got extremely sick and it threw off most of our week.

let me sum up...

monday: RIDICULOUS pday. and awesome. somehow we ended up throwing away three hours of our time comparison shopping for the cheapest chocomel. turns out it's the cheapest at the LIDL. (like the Aldi) only 85 cents. we tried to make up for this by spending the last hour at a cool windmill. it was freezing cold but really beautiful. i will send photos next week. oh - but this day turned out to be fabulous in the end. we went over to hannekes for an appointment. we made her american apple cider. delish. then...WE SET A REAL BAPTISMAL DATE!!!! woo hoo! oh it was golden. its really happening! :) first of december!

tuesday: a classic rainy missionary day full of interestingness. went to look up a referral...no longer living there..walking back we saw a little girl fall off her bike. we were able to help her up and i just so happened to have hello kitty bandaids in my bag. brilliant! (thanks, elise!) turns out it was a good thing we were in that neighborhood! also - something funny. that morning during language study i was helping z.rigdon with her pronunciation of the strange sounds in dutch. she said.."how do you feel the spirit when you're speaking this language?!" haha...somehow it happens.

wednesday: biked for an hour in the ice cold wind to hillegom and had a great lesson with madina. woo hoo! had a short cold picnic on a bench before we headed back. on the way back we realized we had to go directly to our next appointment and ended up biking for 1hr 45m on the way back. but we made it on time. that evening we had an appointment with a family in our ward - their son was there visiting and we got to meet him. probably one of the funniest dinner appointments ever. he is a flight attendent for KLM and had so many funny stories for us. after we left i started feelin super ill..i was hoping i wouldnt fall off my bike as we went home. we made it home and i had to immediately go to sleep. but that didn't last long. i'll spare you the details....nevermind...i threw up regularly throughout the night (and near the end, z.rigdon joined me for some companionship unity and got sick as well :( it was miserable) and then we had to lay in bed for the entire next day. the reason i tell you this is because of something funny...

thursday: in the morning i had to call all of our appointments and explain that we wouldn't make it. ALAS - i didn't know the word for throwup in dutch. so there i am. lying on my bed looking through my dutch dictionary for the word vomit. i never had to know before because it had never come up. haha. pun not intended. wow. anyways. HOW RIDICULOUS!!!!! that was my first sick day on my mission. i mean - thats pretty good i guess. once in two years. other than the occasional cold that you just deal with - i am pretty grateful! so - not much to say about thursday.

friday: we gathered all of our strength and made it to zone conference the next day. i was quite impressed that we got there. we were still a bit queasy and tired - but we were there! i was glad we went because we learned many things.

ughhh....the rest of our week was just kind of crazy because of being sick that i don't even want to write about it.

but we are back in action. okay. well - i will tell you about sunday.

sunday was great. we taught investigators class. we taught about the atonement. so we did that trick where you put pepper on water and touch it with soap and it pushes the pepper to the sides... it was a hit! worked perfectly. although...i am running out of object lessons - i have created a reputation for myself and i dont know if i can teach a lesson again without something cool. do any of you have good object lessons?!?!?! if so - please let me know. i need your help. OKAY - then later we had a great lesson with mvr. goudsblom. she is seriously making some progress. its amazing to watch this process of people coming closer to Christ...it is the most beautiful thing. during our lesson there came many children on the door singing songs for sint maartin! it was pretty gezellig.

okay. today. is great. we have wandered through the centrum and the markets. we bought zuster rigdon her first fresh stroopwafel and got some cheap market rings. good times.

now we shall go find a cool thrift store in search for a tea mug for her! exciting.

family- this week was great. and terrible. do you want to know what i learned?!?!? Heavenly Father keeps his promises. he does not lie. it is up to US to have the faith though. i was reminded of this from a talk on sunday. a sister was sharing a miracle that she heard about from that movie 17 miracles. about the family who went back for their daughter, even though she was dead, because they were PROMISED that they would all make it to zion. that really impacted me. its up to me to keep going and trusting in the promises - even when i don't see or understand. to keep moving forward and to CHOOSE happiness is up to me. i am given agency to act -  not to be acted upon. this is hard. and also the best thing ever. this world is full of amazing people...all of whom are trying to figure life our. fill in the empty spaces with some kind of understanding or hope. our job is to serve them - and help  eachother realize our great potential. we all have a part to play. we have more power and strength when we realize who we are...and who our Father is. we are not alone! i am so grateful for you all. i love you all ZO ONTZETTEND VEEL. thank you for your prayers and kindness and awesome letters and love. life is great. i love you!!!!!!

- katelyn marie stout