ok on to my week! The work is coming along here in haarlem! we had one miracle this week that im still laughing about.  we received a hq referral earlier this week (always exciting) and were even more excited to see that she lives on the ocean (i hadnt seen a real beach since ca). so as we were walking to the appt i kinda of prayed/talked to sister rigdon that we were going to set a baptismal date with this woman and that she would get baptized in the ocean.  we never thought someone would actually desire that in this weather.  but.. we show up to this womans door, she lets us in, we teach a great 1st, invite her to be baptized and she says "i already made a promise with god that i would only get baptized in the ocean so only if i can do that with your church". we tried our best to keep a straight face but my comp lost it and i excitedly told her that wed do our best to make that possible! and you know me and the ocean, this gives me even more motivation to keep this woman on board haha so i will let you know about her. 

we had another amazing appt with a mom and son that we are teaching.  her son is 14 yrs old and is the cutest coolest kid.  weve been teaching his mom but he is always in the room too and we knew he was listening.  this week we watched the restoration and he was glued to the tv the whole time and kept asking questions.  he loved it and agreed to come to church with his mom.  then the coolest part of the night, his mom asked him to say the closing prayer and he looked at her and said i have no idea how to do that. but he wanted to know.  so we taught him a simple prayer and he was so nervous! it was adorable! he kept starting and then pausing and grunting and then asking questions and then starting over until he got it perfect! then sunday he was at church all 3 hours and the ym's president and bishop got to teach him and then he sat with a ym in sacrament meeting.  im excited for this kid to really start to understand everything, hes so smart and has such great deep questions!

other than that we just rode around in the snow all week, had an awesome zone training, ate lots of good food and laughed a whole lot.  im looking forward to another great week!

love you all!

zuster j

Pictures from Antwerpen!

 One of my fav parts of Antwerpen (For the shopping)

 Brugge w/ some Elders! on top of the bell tower, if only you could see the view...

 Chinese dinner w/ Tao and Dan!

 I don't know but I like it :)

 Typical Belgium.  Mommy bike, chocolates, cobble stone and brick

Just looking Mormon and doing what we do :)

Jen's New Address

Sister Jen Jones

371 prattenburg

2036 SM Haarlem

Netherlands

greetings from a very frozen holland!  this week has been one of the strangest of my whole mission from leaving my very favorite city to coming back to holland to lots and lots of snow!  but im living in an adorable new city that seriously looks like fairy tale land now with all of the snow!  i wish it felt more like a fairy tale to bike in the snow haha but its been one hilarious adventure! yesterday we got about 4 inches of snow in the afternoon while we were walking around trying to 'find' people.  too bad we were the only ones stupid enough to be outside in it and we got very strange looks when we showed up at doors looking like snowmen.  it was soo funny and the whole area just looked so majestic, i loved it.  i now know what fresh powder means, but i have bike peddles under my feet in place of ski's...

my new comp is sister rigdon and shes hilarious! its going to be a very fun transfer.  im trying to get used to the new schedule since im used to a very busy city and lots of appts and this is a very quiet place and they just had a baptism here and dont have any other progressing investigators so we need to just find people to teach.  we set one baptismal date since ive been here with a lady who lives in our building though! and this week we will find the other crazy people out walking in the snow with us :)  
love you all! enjoy the warm weather for me :)
love zuster j 

blog:

1st big news... im off to Haarlem on wednesday!  ok maybe i dont feel like that exclamation point at the end of the sentence right now but i know i will when i get there. and ive gone on exchanges with my new comp and i LOVE her so i know this will be a fun new adventure.  shes on her 3rd transfer so shell still have the greenie energy that i love :) im definitely leaving a huge chunk of my heart here in antwerpen though. thankfully i got to say goodbye to a lot of my fav people yesterday and i still have some appts tonight and tomorrow to get closure ;) serisously if you have low self esteem just go on a mission! these people just shower me with love and compliments, and gifts! haha this morning our ward mission leader called and was so sad that i was leaving that he showed up at our grocery store while we were shopping to buy me a box of truffles.  i love these people. 

well onto our week! it was a long one but definitely a good one!  we taught 3 new amazing people this week that i am soo sad that i will not be here to teach!  we have been teaching this older woman for a few weeks now that i had been trying to teach since my first transfer here that i absolutely love!  her husband died about 2 months ago, (we came to the door moments after he died in their house, i think i told you this before) so now shes a little stronger and loving the company that we bring as well.  she wanted to join the church before but her husband was stopping her and now shes starting to really understand the book of mormon and really wants to believe that she can be sealed to her family forever.  the miracle this week was that she told us to go visit her daughter (ive met her twice before) so we went by her house and had an amazing evening with her and her husband getting to know each other and discussing the gospel. they told us that they are looking for a church and want us to keep coming back to teach more.  oh im so sad i cant teach them, but i know i will be in contact with them after my mission, i have a really strong bond with this family. 

hmmm. i also got proposed to twice this week by african men and followed for a good 20 mins until we went and hid at a members house till they went away.  goodness sometimes i dont love living in a city and having blonde hair. 

i love my life :)

tot volgende week van nederland! ik hou van jullie!

zuster j

 

beste wensen idereen! thats what everyone said to us at church yesterday and i was a little confused until i realized that we hadnt seen then since the year before :) this week was crazy to say the least and although it went by quickly it feels like new years was forever ago.  

highlights for this week:

-teaching tons of lessons!  since we have 5 baptismal dates, were very busy!

-going to amsterdam on exchanges

-having interviews with president

i loved this week! i got to see all the sisters and my second parents 3 days this week :) i really felt like i learned and progressed a ton this week too which always feels good.  i love going on exchanges even though it is exhausting because of all the travel (antwerpen to amsterdam is about 3 hours on a train) but i got to work with new sisters and got to help them set a baptismal date and find some new people to teach and thats always fun.  when i first got to the city i thought, ok ive seen amsterdam now..that was enough. but by the end of the exchange i had fallen in love and felt comfortable in the city.  then friday during my interview with president he come right out and says, "well you time is almost up here in antwerpen". i was very confused but then he says we have less than 2 weeks left in the transfer.. weve been so busy i have not paid attention to that at all. plus i thought id stay here another transfer with my greenie but he told me hes been thinking a lot about me lately and wants me to work in other places. well see what happens though!  hope you all have a great week and ill keep you updated on address changes soon!

love you all!

zuster j  

happy new year! im excited to write out my new years traditions tonight and refliecton the amazing year i have had!  this was a really fantastic week! we saw miracles with old investigators showing up at church and a member telling us that she wants us to start teaching her boyfriend!  and we set 3 new baptismal dates!  highlight of this week non spiritual wise was learning how to make pupusas (cant spell) with my favorite el salvadorian family! soo delicious and hopefully i will be able to recreate it when i get home :)  this week were learning how to make chinese food with our chinese investigators! i love this city and all of the amazing experiences i am able to have :)

sorry for the short letter this week, the ghetto internet cafes computers have froze on me twice so ive had to retype letters over and over and im done now haha love you all and have a safe and happy new year! 

love,

zuster j

so funny crazy stories from this week, because yes missionary life is
sometimes just nuts and this week was definitely no exception.
saturday night we had an appt with a woman that i had met at a bus
stop about a month earlier.  i had just started a small conversation
with her but she spoke very broken dutch and french so the
communication was very difficult. but we exchanged information and she
said that she wanted to make us couscous (shes from morrocco, which
also means shes muslim). she called us but it wasnt on our priority
list to visit her because we knew it wouldnt lead to much. so after
she called a few times we decided it would be good to make an appt.
we show up at her house that is on the crazy graffitied side alley
with a member of the ward that speaks french and after about 45 mins
of awkward not really understanding each other conversation we say ok
well we have to get going b (sorry i just got interrupted by an elder
calling with a skin question haha) ok so we told her we had to get
going but then shes like no, i made you dinner and my friends are
coming over.  it was 8pm at this time and we are supposed to be home
at 9.. we just looked at each other with wide eyes because when a
morrocan person makes you dinner it is a feest and you have to eat
everything.  sure enough she brings out a feest and her 2 african
friends join us and keep enforcing the fact that we need to eat more.
the coolest part was that she had specifically told these two men to
come over because they were christian and wanted to know more about
mormons! so even though we were sitting in the tiny apartment getting
forced to finish every thing on the table when we werent hungry to
begin with and even though we were super late getting home, we got a
man to read the book of mormon so it was worth it :)  then we leave
the apartment to try to quickly get home and there was a huge fight
that broke out in front of us in the tram station. so im on the phone
with our district leader to tell him we will be late and then he hears
yelling and screaming and i have to explain to him that we were caught
up between a bunch of muslim teenagers going at it.  we ran out to the
far back of the station to get away from it and got home saftely but
it was a pretty funny crazy night.  the best part was seeing my
companion witness her first crazy appt haha i loved it.
merry christmas!! love you all
zuster j

so this week was great! my comp set her first baptismal date with a man who we met through our other baptismal date! we love both of these men and saw some really great changes in them this week!  one of them called us one morning after reading in the book of mormon and was soo excited to change is life around.  my companion literally fell on the floor with excitment.  shes hilarious. 

saturday we got to go christmas caroling and contacting in the city centrum with the young adults from our stake.  we brought a piano and set up a tent right by the cathedral and the christmas market and got some great crowds to come enjoy our singing.  it finally started to feel a little more like christmas after that! 

yesterday we had a class on food storage in gospel principles and the reaction of the class was so hilarious.  everyone was soo excited, especially all the africans who have amazing ways to store food. i might have a very interesting african influenced food storage one day :)

oh and we will be staying in our apartment forever now i think because they cant find us a new.. so mail can continue to come to my belgium address if wanted.  we will hopefully be getting a new hot water this week though! merry christmas to us :) 

ok i love you all!

zuster j