October 7

Too many things happened this week I'm not sure I will get everything down. Also it will be a jumbled mess I can assure you.


First of all, we made tortillas from the recipe aunt Cheryl sent!!!! HEERLIJK!!!! Thank you so much!!!

This week I have been told I walk like a farmer and sing like a horror film, that I'm going to get fat, that I have acne and need herbs for it, asked, "you start fights a lot, huh?" and "you're a lot of trouble at home aren't you?" Had to climb a ladder and clean a lady's windows because "I’m scared to do it but you, you're not afraid of anything," .....good times

Well, we have this Russian woman who is kind of investigating. It's really hard to have a lesson with her because she thinks we're her therapists but she's spicy and hilarious we love her. Well we were going out to contact and she was going to a man's house so we just went with her....I can’t remember if I told you all this but we got volunteered to clean his house. Cool! So we go and after two hours we have another a appointment and get ready to leave. Welllllll, let me tell you. DO NOT MAKE RUSSIANS MAD! I was fearful for my life. She just starts raging. Saying that we cannot be people from God and just cussing and saying all this nasty stuff about us. So, I get defensive but the Lord shut off my ability to speak Dutch suddenly so I literally couldn't say anything back. I just nodded apologized and then left. So today we see her in the grocery store and oh man I am scared. She comes walking to us and I’m ready to be yelled at some more but she came and apologized and said she thought we were cool and she wants to go get drinks....uh ok. but alas luckily we still have our spicy Russian.

Also this morning (the morning of all mornings) we ran into this man we see literally every day. He is from Albania and always invites us to get something to eat or drink with him and we always say no because we're either on the way somewhere or it's a sketchy bar he's sitting outside of but yesterday Zuster Packer and I were talking and we were like "next time we see him we need to get drinks (delicious Dutch Fanta of course) with him" and boom this morning we decided to go eat breakfast out and guess who was there?????? Yep so we got our food and went and sat by him and had a lovely chat about his life and something about driver's licenses.

So we were coming back from Alblasserdam and this man said something to me about being a young lady which is common tragically here in Dordrecht we are constantly getting hit on so I just say oh well I’m not that young and then he tells me my Dutch is bad and then switches to English. He asks where we're from and we tell him then he starts cussing and tells us how much he hates America which is always lovely. Then he says "you are people from God" and then he takes his necklace and kisses it. But it wasn't a cross I have no idea what it was. Then he just gets up and leaves and upon parting says, "Look out for ugly guys like me." things like this happen all the time it's just weird.

So I'm sending this picture. While we were in Rotterdam this week to watch conference there was a group of 3 men and a woman outside of a bar (sounds like the start of a good joke, too bad) Well the one man yells at us "Hey I know you!" and so we walk over and we've never seen him before and he is like "You are the Mormons you have a temple in Salt Lake and also one here" Yes this is true and they are all so curious about us and ask if we want a beer or coffee which of course leads to why we don't drink them and then the one man just stands up and wants a picture with us so we take a picture with him and he makes a joke about polygamy but he also knows it has been abolished (this guy did his homework) and then the people at the table suggest he give us a license. (I’m thinking a fake ID) but he writes this license in the picture and it says "Free to speak about Jesus and the Mormon church in all of the Netherlands" and then says for the other countries he needs to charge. It was hilarious but we also through the course of that evening found out why Rotterdam isn’t open to sisters....

Question: have you heard of the book "Spiritual Roots of Human Relations" by Steven Covey. Well, I highly recommend it. One of our members read a bit from it to us and it was incredible!

In other spiritual news....conference was amazing. We go to Rotterdam to watch it live which means your ten o'clock session here is 6 in the evening. Luckily our investigator likes conference better in English so I understood the whole thing! Wow. It was so incredible though! There are so many things happening and we had better jump on board because the train is leaving! Oh wow, I just loved it! I think the talk by Pres. Uchtdorf "Come, Join With Us" was the most inspired thing I have ever heard. I loved it! It answers any issue people may have with the church and is just so amazing! Wow.

I hope all is well there. Missionary work here is moving. It's kind of glacial speed right now for us but with the push from conference and with help from the members we will see miracles. We can only do what our faith allows. Build your faith and allies mogelijk is!




Love,

Zuster Elting