February 24

Greetings from the beautiful land of Assen! Or as I've been told to call it. Awesome. :) I'm down.

I have had a pretty interesting week to say the least! I'd love to share all of the details, but moving to a new place is a bit overwhelming so I don't remember really anything.

Monday and Tuesday I said my goodbyes to everyone in Dordrecht. It was pretty sad, but I think I was finally ready to go. Our days were actually full with how many people wanted to meet with us before I left, so that was really nice. It also prepared me for this place, where our schedules are full with people wanting to hear the gospel! WOO! I am really excited to be working here. I left Dordrecht about 9:30 Wednesday morning, and didn't get to Assen till about... 4:30, so it was a pretty long day of trains and over stops.. But I got here and loved it immediately. The members love having us over, and are really just super excited about mission work. It is super cool to see! Friday actually one of the members was celebrating his retirement and invited us along with a bunch of people from the branch, and the work to this super fancy Chinese buffet place! Oh man it was the most delicious thing i've eaten in my life. We probably could have fasted this whole week with how much we ate though. Oh man.

Pretty much... That is all that has happened. I've met a few of the investigators, and continue to meet them as the week will go. I've met our most recently baptized member, who actually recieved the Priesthood yesterday! So that was way cool! Really, I'm just excited to be here!

Oh. I do have a story from yesterday though... Well... pretty much if you want companionship unity, get one of you locked in the bathroom. I'll have to tell you something about dutch "water closets" They are litterally closets. With room for a toilet and a sink your hands don't fit in... And I got locked in it. Because the dead bolt is stuck. And might have been locked in there for over an hour and a half... Luckily after calling 6 people our mission leader came to the rescue. So. Welcome to Assen! I'm going to go see the Olympic team now. :)

Ik hou van jullie!

Liefs, Z Packer

February 17

I´m not sure how I feel about this week.

It was a week of goodbyes. I´ve known for the last month or  so that I´m leaving Dordrecht... So... I said a lot of goodbyes.

Zuster Packer and Brown

So where am I going? To Assen! Litterally on the other side of Nederland! No idea how I feel about it since I´ve been here so stinkin long! But I am excited to see something new! And I´ll be working with Zr. Anderson! (The woman who saved my life in the MTC... Ok a little dramatic, but she definitely helped.) So I have to say I´m pretty excited for that. This email really is probably going to be a description of all the pictures I´m going to send. Because I took a lot this week. Starting with when Family A invited us over for N´s birthday. That was pretty fun. Africans definitely know how to cater a party. N has been like my temporary Jason/Colie/Dayana. He is the same age, and hilarious as can be. I like the kid. I will definitely miss my Ghanian family.

Wednesday we had Zone conference! You know what that means?! Spiritual feeding. Definitely needed. Oh, I also got to see a lot of my good friends! like Zr. Spencer! and Zr. Rosenlof, an Zr Brown.. Basically it was just a really good day! I really lucked out on this mission. The people here are hilarious.

Zuster Packer and Rosenlof

Valentines day was pretty fun. M got us Stroopwafles and we had a nice talk, and the C invited us over for an anti-valentines dinner! Probably the yummiest pizza I´ve had in my entire life. And a whole lot of fun if I do say so myself.

The miracle for this week was M again! He cancelled several things for the church. Saturday night he came to a fireside we had at the church on Positive thinking, and LOVED it. Of course. And then skipped his political party whatever to come to church again! He is really loving it. We are still working on him recognizing the spirit, but I know it´s coming. He told me yesterday that even though I´m moving he would like me to come back WHEN he gets baptized. Boo Yeah.

There were a lot of really great moments yesterday, but my favorite was probably as I was leading the music in sacrament to a Dutch hymn I´ve never heard in my life and a very familiar voice comes out over the congretation saying Àston?! Aston?`.. Yes, it was T. M's oldest son. SHE CAME AGAIN!!! It was so amazing. Definitely a great way to leave this place. I´ll miss it a lot, but it´s the Lords will. P might die, but he says that every time sisters get transferred. so. That´s it for this week! I love you all!

Liefs, Z Packer

February 10

Life as a missionary... Is pretty awkward.

I have become one of the most awkward people I know... In reference to my social life. Yesterday at dinner with a member, her nonmember husband, and inactive son (who is also a chef, and R&B artist with his 3rd CD that just came out...) We were talking to the son about his music.. He bailed as soon as the food was done, and the kitchen was clean. Wished us luck on our missions and my last comment was Ì´ll look up your music!` .... No regrets.

This week was pretty interesting. I finally got over what ever the heck I had on Friday, so the rest of the week is a bit blury. Let´s just say I would go out for a bit and need an hour nap in between each appointment. It kicked my butt, but with lots of prayers, rest, and herbal tea with honey and lemon.. I got better. Thank heavens. We had 2 really great appointments with M this week! He is REALLY progressing. Like.. I don´t think I can say up until this point that i´ve actually SEEN someone progress. But man, his faith is growing like a wildfire. He also came to church for the second time this week, and LOVES it! It´s the craziest thing! We frequently lose him in the building because he talks to EVERYONE! And what is even better? They all love him! We were a little worried yesterday about teaching the Word of Wisdom, because in his words: "I´m addicted to coffee, but that´s just a Dutch thing, if you are Dutch you have to drink coffee. So I can´t go without". Well. We taught the WOW, and had a killer joint teach, and he talked about how he knows it´s just logical, and healthy, and his doctor would probably agree... And then he said he is going to follow it and get off Coffee!!!!! What I love even more, is we always set up a follow up appointment (this weeks happens to be right after a fire side he wants to come to!) And he told us this week that he will call us if he can any earlier! Who does that? Cool people. I´m really excited for him!

We had another pretty interesting appointment this week. I´m not sure if I mentioned our super cool contact about a week or so ago or not.. But pretty much I contacted him, he was real nice and went on his way, and then RAN back to us to get more contact information to talk to us. Super cool! Well he emailed us, and then we called and set up an appointment. He wanted to walk around the city with us and just talk. We basically taught the restoration, but more in conversational form. He is currently going through a pretty rough time in life, and picked 2 random American girls to talk to.  But it was really cool, and he wants to take us on a tour of Amsterdam... We will see if that ever happens. He is really strong Catholic, so we are taking it slow, but he was a cool man.

Thanks for the love, and updates, and other great things I hear every week! I love all of you and am so grateful for the support you give me!

Veel Liefs, Z Packer

Hello everyone! Has it really been a week already? Time is seriously messed up on missions...

We had a super great week! You are probably curious about the subject as well.. Well I'll explain! This week was the NL Doet or pretty much a Nederland wide service day. So our little branch signed up to fix up the Kinderboederij or in English, the child farm. I was confused too. It's really just a petting zoo! It was way fun too! We painted and the men built things, and then we painted those! They have these GIANT bunnies that were running around while we painted and other cool animals. I guess some news people came too and interviewed some of the branch leaders about who we were and what we were doing. Way cool! We will supposedly be in the newspaper this week.. now I just need to find one.

Other cool things we did included Zr. Andersens and my combo service which is that she gives massages while I play music on the piano. It is a lot of fun! We waited a lot for trains to go on exchanges because every time the weather changes the trains break down. We made mississippi mud pie for the branch potluck. And made a lot of appointments! We looked up a few former investigators as well as a few inactives this week and made appointments with most of them which is super exciting! It is amazing to see that they are still open and willing to learn about the gospel. And personally, I just love talking about it! There was one pretty sad moment this week... If you think getting dropped by an investigator is frustrating, get dropped by a member. It was heart breaking, but one of our members (who goes back and forth between us and the Jehovahs witnesses often) Told us that she doesn't want any contact anymore. I guess this isn't the first time it has happened. So hopefully she will come back.. again. We still love her though :) 

We had a lot of other really amazing appointments this week, and if I were to talk about all of them I'd be here for the rest of the day. But pretty much, it's amazing to watch people develop faith. And I've noticed my faith develop a ton out here. Miracles do still happen, every day. And this work wouldn't be possible withouth the hand of the Lord. It is HIS work.

Have a super great week everyone! Ik hou van jullie!

Liefs, Z Packer

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