Miracles and Metamorphosis

Maandag 16 februari 2015

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Wow, this week truly has been amazing!!! This week has changed me sooo much! We had so many experiences that helped me realize that God knows His children so perfectly, that we are truly instruments in His hands.

Our first experience was on Tuesday. Before Sister Bates was here Sister Quiles and I got lost and ended up in a street we'd never been before. We felt we had to be there so we started knocking on doors,. But nobody was home. Then we kind of forgot about it, but every time we wrote it in our planner to go back. But we never seemed to be able to have time. On Tuesday we had time, so we decided to go back to that street and we weren't sure where to go, We prayed and asked Heavenly Father to show us where to go. We felt we had to knock on a specific door. We decided to knock on all the doorsl. We got some good responses, but it wasn't it.

Then we came to the house we felt inspired to stop by. We knocked and a man answered the door. He told us he was a recovering member, that his daughter served a mission in the Netherlands. I was super excited of course and then I found out who it was. Sister Robbins, now known as Caitlin DeMass!!!! I'd been trying to find them in this mission forever, but without success. And then we were here, standing on this man's front porch, telling us that it was his daughter! There was no way we would have been able to talk to him and there was no way we could have set up a return appointment if we hadn't had that connection! :) We are going to have dinner with him and his daughter and husband this week! 

 

Again, we had that amazing connection! I am so grateful for the Spirit and that God KNOWS every single one of us. He reaches out to His children in love. I know that as we listen to the Spirit we will have miracles happen. We will find those that need our help :)

In the car on our way to dinner I was just sitting there in awe, that our Father in Heaven just knows who needs our help specifically and I felt an overwhelming sense of joy and happiness :) And soooo....we are going to have dinner on Friday! :D

Then also this transfer I decided I wanna get rid of all my fears. The Lord has helped me so much with that! When I finally figured out how to do street contacting (I know right, after 14 months I finally figured it out, because we never received any kind of training on it, so pretty much nobody really knows how to do it). But through a video of Dutch missionaries I finally figured it out! :D And it's sooo easy!!! :D And so now we talk to everybody we see and it is sooo great! :D We have had supergreat experiences, but also some really "funny' ones. At least, I can laugh about them :) There was this lady. We got up to her to shake her hand. We're like: HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!! :D How are you?!!!! :D And you could see her face going like this: -_- Like: Oh no...it's the missionaries... -_- it was hilarious! XD She shook her hand, said: I'm Lutheran.

At first we were a little beteuterd, but then we laughed about it and continued our journey! :)

 

 

 

That same night we felt like we had to go visit this wonderful returning member, she's usually not home. Any unplanned visits usually don't work out. But we decided to listen to our feeling. We started walking, as we were walking down the street we ran into a man on a bike and we started talking to him. He told us he was getting kicked out of his house. He had nowhere to go, that his food bag got stolen. He told us he was depressed and didn't know what to do basically. We started talking about Jesus Christ, gave him a gift card for a restaurant. Gave him a plan of salvation pamphlet and testified of God's love for him. We gave him the bishop's number and our number, but he never called back :( He thanked us a billion times for talking to him and helping him. It was such an incredible experience!

And you know what, that returning member wasn't home when we finally got there, so the Spirit led us to this lost man :) So as you can tell, this week was so great! I've grown sooo much and I'm sooo happy! :)

I love y'all and hope that all of you are turning to the Light. I invite all of you to study with me charity for the rest of this month :) (this is what the whole mission of Debby is doing this month). It's truly changing me and I know it will change you forever as well. Let us love one another!

 

 

Lots and Lots of Love

Sister Spijkerman





Elder Scherf en zuster Spijkerman op leiders trainingsvergadering!!! THe Dutchies

Training! :)

Maandag 9 februari 2015

Lieve allemaal!

This week has been a hard one, but it's also been a great one! On Tuesday we had Mission Leadership Council. All the leaders in the mission came together (we have MLC once a month). My companion and I had to give a training on being lovingly bold. At first we weren't sure where to go with it. But we prayed a lot and the inspiration just kept flowing. We felt the Spirit so strong! :) It was a great experience for both of us. :) The Lord truly qualifies those whom He hath chosen :) The Lord will give you the words in the very hour you need them :) On Friday I had to give a training, but I can't do anything without my compadres of course. We gave a training during zone meeting on  developing the faith to find :) Finding investigators is definitely the hardest part of a mission I would say. Sometimes missionaries get discouraged. It's so amazing to spread the Gospel, no matter the results!


This morning I read an article about Elder Nelson coming to the MTC and Sister Nelson Said the following:

 “One key for success on your mission. I’d like to talk to you about desperation.” She explained, “When we are desperate everything changes. Our vision changes. We are suddenly able to see things we’ve never seen before. Our ability to do increases. We are suddenly able to do whatever it takes. ...
“My dear elders and sisters, I pray that on your mission you will have many moments of complete and overwhelming and even anguishing desperation. Why? Because then, and only then, will you desperately ask, desperately seek and desperately knock. Then, and only then, will you find the courage and determination to follow through with exactness everything the Lord needs you to do in order to serve a valiant vibrant, worthy and very successful mission for Him.” (This article is supergreat by the way! https://www.lds.org/church/news/missionaries-called-to-bring-joy-to-others-elder-nelson-says?cid=HPWE012815650&lang=eng )

This principle is so true! I've grown out of my comfort zone so much because of desperation, because I wanted to share the Gospel so badly. Now I'm not afraid anymore to talk to everyone on the streets, on their doorsteps, and to invite them to learn more! It's been so great! :D 

I love all of you so much!!! I'm so excited for all of you to be involved in missionary work!!! It's the BEST!  

The Church is true!!!! Gosh, how much I LOVE the Book of Mormon! I finished it again on Saturday and right now I'm counting all the references to Jesus Christ! I'm in Alma 11 right now, and cumulative I found 2079 so far O.o So...just saying, the Book of Mormon truly is another testament of Jesus Christ :) So I will let you know how much it is in the Book of Mormon as a whole. It just takes some time to count all of it... :)  May the Force be with you!!! :D

Lots and Lots of Love

Sister Spijkerman

Once there was a snowman...

Maandag 2 februari 2015

Hiiiiii Everyone!

So, you might be wondering why I chose for this title. It is because we haven't had snow in weeks. Right now it's like Spring! :) But we don't mind at all! At least, I don't.... :)

Last week was a pretty crazy week. Plans fell through, people needed help last minute, etc. So there was quite a bit of stress, which I'm not used to at all!

O.o  I've never been so stressed out so much in my entire life, hahaha! So it was a good lesson! :) We were able to be led to a new investigator this week! :D

We were walking it was after 6, so it was pretty dark. We saw a house that the Sisters before us had knocked on before. We have tried it before, but that time nobody answered. The first time the sisters met the lady she said  wasn't interested, because she was already a member, haha.

Anyways, I looked at the house and felt like we should try again. So we knocked on the door and a little boy answers. He talks to his dad for a bit, and invites us to come in! So, that was a miracle in itself! :D We sat down, the mom was on the phone, so they told us we could wait till she was done. We talked to the boy for a bit to get to know him. Then she came in and we talked for a bit about where we were from and so on. Which leads into asking if we could teach the boy!

We asked him if he knew what missionaries did and he knew a little bit about it. Then the mom took over and asked him if he wanted to learn more about the Church? She told us that he'd been going to Church in the Stake across the street with some friends and she told us he hadn't been baptized! :D He said he wanted to learn more! :D WHAAAAAAAA!!!!! MIRACLES pouring down from Heaven! :D

You should also know that this is the only ward that hasn't had investigators in FOREVER and we'd been trying and trying to find people in that ward without any success! :D So we are soooo happy! :D The Bishop of that ward, served his mission in The Netherlands, so I absolutely love his family! They are sooo awesome! :)

We also went to Temple Square on Saturday to watch Meet The Mormons! I just love that move so much! :) I hope they'll put in on DVD so I can bring it home and watch it with you! It's super inspiring! It's basically a movie/documentary about 6 different LDS families :) It's AMAZING! :D

 Well....I think that's about it for this week! Missions are the best and I hope you'll encourage EVERYBODY back home to go!!! :D it's so amazing! :) Lives change! The Gospel is true! The Atonement is real! And Christ is right there for us!

 I love y'all and pray that the Lord may continue to bless you! 

 Lots and Lots of Love

Sister Spijkerman