GUESS WHAT!!!!  I GET TO STAY IN DORDRECHT FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

That's right! Zr. Aston and I get another transfer together in this beautiful city, and we get to be together for the holidays! I am so excited words can't even explain. However, our Elders are getting white washed... Elder Mower is going home this week which is probably the saddest thing in the world, and Elder Rauma is going.. somewhere else. I forget where. So still lots of change, but at least I get to stay!!!

This week has seemed super fast with not a whole lot that actually happened. We discovered how to best help M. She just needs to figure things out for herself! We are going through the commandments with her 2 at a time and we just talk about them till they click for her. It is actually really helpful for me too, because I get a lot of new insights. S is probably my favorite person in the whole world right now. He told us in our last appointment with him that he wants to get baptized!!!! He said after we taught him the plan of salvation he prayed about it and just felt good. He loves church and loves what we teach so he wants it! S testified to her that he knew it was true and he was going to do everything to follow Christ, so that was amazing. I am so excited for him!

P had us over for dinner a few days ago in his new house. It was definitely a man made meal, but it was tasty and a super good time. He is really working to quit drinking and I think we are starting to see some progress with him. He relapsed a few times, but it hasn't been bad. I am really proud of him, I actually kind of feel like a proud mother.

We spent a lot of time helping the members this week as well. An inactive family is moving back to New Zealand so the wife wanted to get rid of anything and everything. Our job was to organize and disperse. Basically, the 4 of us have a lot of new cd's we can't listen to, some movies, and funny clothing. We were pretty excited, and she loved that we helped and had us over for dinner the next day as well. We also helped with the ward dinner that the young womens organization was putting on... you know, our ONE young woman. So we volunteered our services and ended up cooking the entire day and cleaning  afterward. It was pretty fun though and a great time with our ward.

So that is about it! I am SO excited about the girls! I hope everything goes according to plan so they get here on time! I can't believe I am going to have sisters!!!!! Good luck with everything and I am praying for all of you! Have a great week everyone! Ik houd van jullie!

 

Elders Mower and Rauma

Liefs, Zr Packer

NOVEMBER 18

Hello Beautiful people that apparently read my letters every week!

I was approached this week by a member in the ward and informed that their family had found my blog and loved reading it. So, I guess you could say this is a sort of shout out. :)

This week we spent a lot more time with P than usual. I don't know if I mentioned he is working on moving into a new house, but he is. We have been pretty slackish in helping him, but have tried to step it up a bit this week. We went by his new house for an appointment and he has done a  VERY nice job with the place. He has done all of the flooring and painting on his own and furnished it himself. I was very impressed. Our deal is still going strong. He has now gone a week without alcohol and I've gone 2 without buying candy. Ugh. It is totally worth it though. We ran into P on exchange day and he mentioned needing help cleaning out the rest of his old house. So I volunteered ourselves and the Elders to go help. We threw a lot of stuff out, Zr Juchau (Sister training leader) scrubbed down the kitchen counter and I packaged his dishes. Oh, and I found a cupboard full of glasses for different kinds of alcohol...

And destroyed all of them...

I may or may not have had a bit of fun with that one. P allowed me to do it though, so he can't get mad :) We went back a day or so later and biked a whole bunch of stuff over to his new house. Yes, that is how moving works around here. you bike it.

We had the MOST AMAZING appointment with one of our newer investigators S! He is so ready for the gospel I love it! We finished teaching the plan of salvation to him and asked what he thought. He said he felt relieved more than anything about the 3 kingdoms becuase he had been taught hardly anyone can make it into heaven. SO COOL. The spirit was so strong and he said he was excited to come to church...

And guess what?

SOLOMON CAME TO CHURCH!!!!! AND LOOOOOOVED IT!!!!! Oh my goodness I can't even explain how giddy I have been about that.

It just keeps getting better too. He is already doing missionary work! he is trying to get his girlfriend to come listen to us or read in the book of Mormon, and we didn't even know he had a girlfriend! HE IS DOING IT ON HIS OWN! Yeah, basically the church is true.

Pretty much that is the most exciting thing that happened this week. This week just flew on by so I am having a hard time remembering much else. Oh, but Sinter Klaas came into town this weekend! So we watched the parade, and I was pretty impressed with the festivity. The Zwarte Piets come and hand out these candies called kruidnoten and pretty much they are delicious. one filled my hood with them when I wasn't looking. Thank you! So yeah, I have a lot more pictures this week, so enjoy!

I hope you all have a great week! I am glad everything is going well at home, and I wish everyone success! Thanks for the love and support!

Liefs, Zr Packer