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

Maandag 26 januari 2015

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai geliefde familie!!! :D 

Afgelopen week was...interessant...

Maandag was ik bij de doopdienst van een van mijn onderzoeksters in the Avenues! Kunnen jullie je nog die onderzoekster herinneren die dromen had dat ze lid van de kerk moest worden? Maandenlang had ze de doopdatum voor 19 januari, ze is gedoopt!!! :D Wooohoooooo!!! :D And it was fun to see the Bryner's again too :3 

Dinsdag hadden we transfers and Sister Bates is bij onze club gekomen! :D It's been soooo much fun so far! She is absolutely adorable! :D It's been fun living with 5 sisters in one home :)

 

This week our apartment was falling apart. A couple of our plugs don't work, then our heater stopped working, so it was 54 F (about 12 C)  in our apartment, that was pretty cold, hahaha. Then our power kept going out, and then our light bulbs all died! :) It's definitely been one of those missionary adventures :) Unfortunately we had to drop some investigators this week :(

 

But I know we'll be blessed with new people to teach! :) 

 

So I'd like to share with you something I learned this week during personal study! I was reading the end of 3 Nephi this week and in 3 Nephi 19 it says the following:

"And it came to pass that Jesus departed out of the midst of them, and went a little way off from

them and bowed himself to the earth ..."

What I learned:  is that even Jesus Christ Himself, the Only Begotten Son of the Father, went to a quiet place where He could pray and talk to His Father :) I thought that was pretty cool....

I don't think I really have something else to share with you this week, sorry....:) But I have tons of pictures though! Be grateful that Sister Quiles is still my companion, because she loves taking pictures and reminds me to take some too! :) 

 I love all of you and I am so grateful that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind will be saved! 

Lots and Lots of Love

Sister Spijkerman

A Miracle Shower

Maandag, 12 januari 2015

Hello Hello My Beloved Family!!! :D

It's pouring rain outside and it's been like this for the last couple of days. Which is very unusual for Utah... o.o It reminds me a lot of home. Which makes me very grateful to serve my mission in Utah, because honestly, I would have been miserable biking in the rain all day, hahaha! Heavenly Father definitely knew what He was doing! :D

This week has been a craaaazy week!!! :D We helped one of our investigators clean and organize her house, which is quite a project since she doesn't like to throw away stuff... But it makes us feel so good to help this poor old lady! :D Then, oh my gosh...

MIRACLE!!!! A couple of weeks ago we had dinner with a partmember family. She is a returned missionary from Italy and he is not a member. Sister Quiles told me beforehand that the sisters had approached him to ask if he was interested in meeting with them. But he told them he wasn't. He comes to church with his wife very often though. Anyways. So we went to dinner, and at first they were a little bit nervous and standoff-ish, probably because they were afraid that we would be slamming the Book of Mormon on the table. To have him read the Book of Mormon or something, hahaha.  Instead we had a great time just talking and at the end we shared a message.

 

At first when the wife asked him to join us for the message he didn't look very happy, but he probably didn't want to be rude, so he joined. We shared Alma 7:11-12 and testified of Jesus Christ and the Atonement. While we were talking he was super focused and he was paying attention. Of course letting his phone got off a couple of times. But he was smarter than that, so every time he turned it off! We could definitely feel the Spirit! That night they sent us home with some food. So we had the containers in our apartment for a while.

 

Sister Quiles had made cheesecake the day before. On Saturday we felt prompted to stop by to give them their containers back and give them the cheesecake. So we did. We knocked on their door. At first they didn't answer. After the second knock they asked who we were and we answered that we were the sister missionaries. Then she opened the door and looked kind of shocked. We're like oh..oh. She invited us to come in and they canceled their appointment for that night and invited them to eat cheesecake with them. So we did and as we were sitting down he started talking. He told us he'd just had an experience and he wanted to share that with us. This is pretty much what he said: 'As you know my wife is a Mormon, and I'm not. And that makes her really sad. I never realized how sad that makes her. And I was just telling her how surprisingly comfortable I feel at church. And 5 seconds after I said that you sisters knocked on our door.' 

 

....
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OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!! :D 

So then we had a long conversations about the missionary lessons. He finally agreed to have us come back to teach him!!!! :D WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

So miracles are happening!!!! :D We're soooooo happy!!!! :D 

I love my mission so much and I'm so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost to help us in our work. seriously, we would not be able to do anything without it! :)

I love you all so much and I'm so grateful for your prayers and love for me!

Lots and Lots of Love

Sister Spijkerman

happy new year!

Maandag 4 januari 2015

Heeeeey allemaal!
Happy new yeaaaaar! :D I have to keep it short today :)

But I have to tell you a couple cool stories :D 

First of all, on new year's eve we went to some members' homes, so that was a lot of fun. Bishop Drysdale invited us to come over, since he knew how to make oliebollen! :D muahahahha :D So I actually did have some oliebollen :D That night we had dinner with one of our WML's. We made pannenkoeken for them :D It actually tasted pretty good, hahaha! Can you believe that?! :) Anyways, on Tuesday it was soooooo cold here! It was storming outside, so the wind was blowing like crazy! The trash cans had fallen over, so there was trash flying around everywhere and there was snow everywhere. Later on we found out that because of the wind it was like -20 F outside O.o so that is like -29 Celsius.... so like I said: it was pretty cold :3 Bbut you gotta do what you gotta do! :) Satan is not going to stop working because of a snowstorm, so we better get out there as well! :)

 

The next day it was still a little bit cold, like 16 F (-8 Celsius),  we walked everywhere and it was sooo good! Because if it wasn't for that we wouldn't have had the miracle that I'm about to tell you!!! :D We were walking down the street to stop by a member that we promised to stop by. As we were walking we saw an elderly man shoveling snow, so we stopped and offered to help him. He turned out to be a member and we asked him for referrals and stuff. But no results from that. After our conversation we continued walking and decided to knock on a potential investigator's door. We could see them inside, but they didn't answer the door. Then somebody walks by and asks us if we are the sister missionaries! So we're like: yeeees!!! We are the sisters!!! :D She asked us where her ward would be and we looked it up and told her. She was about to continue walking her dog, but the Spirit hit me and was like: 'ask her if she is a member'. To be honest, that question would have never come to my mind, because if people want to know where their ward is they usually would be members that recently moved in or something. Anyways, the Spirit knows best, so I asked her if she was a member. Then she responded: Actually, I'm not. But I'd like to be one! 

 

 

WHAAAAAAAT?!!!! :D

So we're freaking out of course! :D So I got so excited that I probably screamed at her, saying: We can help you with that!!! :D :D :D

And she was like: oh really?!!! And we're like: YEAH!!! :D So yeah, kind of a crazy week huh?! :D But it's been so great! Miracles are happening and the work is moving forward! :D 

My time is pretty much up, so I will leave you with my testimony that I know that God is a God of miracles, that sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven, that Christ lives, that He is our Savior and that all He wants for us is to be happy and return home :)

Lots and Lots of Love

Sister Spijkerman <3

We wish you (...) a happy new year!

Maandag 29 december 2014

Maandag 29 december 2014

Hiii allemaal!!!!

Het was zooo leuk om jullie allemaal weer te zien! :D Wel een beetje vreemd, hoor, maar ja, wat wil je wanneer je een jaar op zending bent! :) Ik voelde me zo schuldig over mijn Nederlands! :s Het spijt me echt heel erg! :(

Anyways...De rok is helemaal geweldig! :D Thank you sooo much!!! :D De cadeautjes waren ook helemaal het einde! Iedereen is zooo ontzettend lief voor me geweest gedurende deze tijd van het jaar! We zijn belachelijk veel verwend :) Nadat ik het skype gesprek met jullie had afgesloten opende we een cadeautje dat Nick Lange voor ons had gekocht :) Je zult nooit geloven wat we hebben gekregen, hahaha XD Hij had ons Lord of the Rings lego gekocht, hahahhahaha XD IT"S THE BEST!!! XD So Sister Quiles en ik zijn nu aan het uitvechten wie wat krijgt, hahaha. Ik wilde Arwen :3

Afgelopen tijd heb ik veel over geloof geleerd en zitten nadenken. Ik weet dat geloof zoveel wonderen teweeg kan brengen! Geloof en hoop gaan altijd samen. Ik heb gezien hoe krachtig geloof daadwerkelijk is :) Ik heb veel zitten nadenken over het Barbie liedje 'your song will hold the key' where it says 'Believe in all that can be'. All things are possible if we just believe they're possible! I love Ether 12 and Hebrews 11 where it talks about all the miracles that happened because people had faith first. I also love President Packer's words. He said: 'We do not obey because we are blind. We obey because we see.'

 

Faith and hope is what has helped me so much throughout my mission. Hope and faith that good will come as we keep being diligent and have charity. So I plead with you to have faith. Have faith that good comes to those that keep the commandments of God and love God. I love Romans 8:28: 

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

 

I love all of you so much! :) Thank you for your sweet spirits :)

I hope you had a great tweede kerstdag! :D

Please eat some oliebollen for me, hahaha :) A happy new year and I will write you in 2015! :)

Lots of Love,

Sister Spijkerman