Transfers!! Bitter-sweet - as always

So, good news and bad news - I get to stay in Gent (yay because I love this city so much and the people - I feel like I've been so blessed to serve in the most two amazing cities on my mission). The bad news is that Sis. Fleming is getting transferred to Dordrecht. Our dynamic duo is getting split up but I know she'll do great there. 

This weekend has just been a great one. On Saturday we had the baptism of Antoinette! It was so great. After it happened she came to me and said, with a huge smile on her face, "I feel like a new being!" And Jonas, the guy baptized her thanked us and with tear-filled eyes said, "Thank you so much sisters for giving me the opportunity! The spirit is just so strong as you say the first line." He's only 17 years old and it was really cool to see that happen. 

She arrived 5 mins. before it was supposed to start - so that was a little stressful. But she told us that she was late because she was over at her friends/ family's house, asking them if they could come to her baptism. None of them did. And regardless of that, she came with huge smile and excitement about taking this next step in her life. We are so proud of her and even without any support she's been so strong in making this decision. 

Yesterday, Antoinette got confirmed into the Church and she was just glowing and gave me endless hugs, telling me how happy she was and grateful she was that we taught her. She has incredible spiritual strength and she has strengthened my testimony of the power of this gospel. 

All of yesterday just seemed like a perfect day. We had the singing elders in sacrament meeting (I was told they you can see their performance on youtube or something - just type in singing elders belgium/ netherlands mission and they should pop up). They had everyone crying as they sang "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" to the melody of "Homeward Bound." (one of my favorite songs) It was one of those moments where it makes you truly and sincerely appreciate being on a mission. Making the decision of going on a mission was quite hard but I'm so glad I did it. 

Last night at dinner we shared a spiritual thought with the Geens, about going on the path of life and going in the way the spirit prompts you. We did this object-thing where you have someone stand still and the you try to lightly push them but they don't move because they are standing still. Then you have them walk and you push them and they go in a different direction. It is the same with God. 

He can only lead you in the right direction if you are already moving and making the effort to go somewhere. If you stand in one place, saying, "Okay God, tell me where to go or what to do." Then when you get promptings you are so focus on standing still and you won't move. It's not until we take the action that He'll lead us. 

Again, I'm sorry to cut it short. I am being called to go take pictures with us for the last time. I love you all! Hope you have a great week! 

Good Morning

It's about 6:15am right now...the earliest I've ever gone to email because our wake up time is 6:30.  So forgive me in the rest of the email if my thoughts are not as cohesive as I would like them to be...we are going to Flanders Fields today for our p-day. We'll be walking through trenches and having a tour of the museum. So I'm excited! Well...excited as much as my 6:am self can be. :)

I feel kind of bad because I'm not able to write all the things I would like to tell everyone. And I've realized that I've never really spoken about all the things that we do on P-days. For example, we went to a concentration camp a few weeks ago - it was rather solemn and I wouldn't really know what else to say. It's not like you can say - we had a great time - at one of those things. We (sis. Fleming and I) decided one p-day we just wanted to chill out and so we bought some sushi and fruit and had a picnic in the park.

I've been pondering what to say all week. For the most part we've just been working really hard to find people who want to talk / meet with us. So far in my time in Gent it has been pretty easy to set up appointments and have them go through but it seems this last week and a half or so, no one, and I mean no one, wants to meet with us. Nearly all of our appointments except one or two fell through. Often times during the week we just look at each other and say - What is going on!? 

But it's still really good oddly enough. We are still having a lot of fun. And since we have less lessons and more time finding we have a lot more time to talk to each other about various topics ranging from questions about life to questions of why Sis. Fleming threw ANOTHER snail at my face. Most of our conversations leads back to us discussing what's going to happen next Wednesday when transfers come and we're not together anymore. She's been in Gent for 6 months so she's bound to leave.

It's kind of funny because she always brings up, at least once a day, the question of what I am like outside of being a missionary. She keeps telling me, "I wonder what you'll be like after a mission - like what you're like in regular clothes and if you're still funny or crazy..." I respond that I think I'll be the same but then I'll start to question myself of what I will be like in a year. 

So many things can happen and it's weird to think about what I would be like in a year after a mission because just feels like a compacted mini-life. For example in life you have these roller coasters of emotions in different periods of your life. On your mission you have those roller coasters weekly, sometimes daily. Where you feel, by the end of the transfer, that you are really different. You really only change in little ways but when you look back it seems like a lot.

I would say one of my favorite things so far on a mission is seeing other people change and grow. We had a lesson with one of our investigators that's going to get baptized on Saturday and as she was saying the closing prayer she said, so excitedly, "Thank you for my baptism." and she did this sort of squeal. It was so cute. I love seeing the gospel work in people. It brings out this light within them and you can see it through the happiness in their eyes; it's really amazing. 

I really love being on a mission. I want everyone to know that. It's really really hard at times but so worth the sacrifice. Yesterday a member took us with her family to go have a picnic at a kasteel (castle - but it was more like a mansion). As we were just sitting in the sun on grass I was just thinking about what an amazing experience it was just to be here; to meet new people and have all these different kinds of experiences - experiences you would only really get by being a mission. 

We were talking about the sequences of events in our lives and Sacha (one of our wonderful members) was telling us that she had always wanted to go on a mission but when the time came to it she didn't want to until she prayed about it and went on her mission to Scotland where she ended up meeting her husband and then coming to Belgium. She's from the Ukraine. 

It was weird because I had asked where did she think she would've been had she not got on a mission. She would most likely not moved to Belgium and then we might have not met... It's weird to think of things like that but fun sometimes - to trace the web of your life. Sometimes I like thinking about things like that because it makes you appreciate all the people that matter most to you and it gives you caution or direction on where to step next in your life. 

I love adventure! I love having adventures - meeting new people, going through crazy experiences and such. Life is a lot of fun when you think about - well, if you make it fun. I've been learning how to make even the bad and difficult times fun (it makes them go a lot faster). Anyways, my time is up. 

Hope everyone has a great week! Love ya! 

Wat op?

In my very first transfer in the land, a sister missionary gave me this advice: "There's always going to be at least one thing that really bothers you on your mission. A little voice that annoys you and that voice is Satan. So just tell him, 'go away Satan'."

This past week, that little thing for me was worrying about what's going to happen after my mission. There are moments when I have to actively tell myself to stop thinking about my future and what I'm going to do when I come home because it brings nothing but stress. 

On Tuesday, we had interviews with our mission president. When I expressed my concerns to him he just simply told me this: "Most of the things we worry about never happen. And we're never going to be able to see the end of something; that's not the way this life works. God will give you only one step at a time and you have to take that step with faith." 

That comforted me for a few days and then I started to freak out again. But I've been trying to really understand that and then believe it. It's one thing to understand a good piece of advice and another to actually internalize it and move forward. 

So, I've been really pondering the subject of faith: how we use faith, what is faith, and so on. And through my studies in the scriptures (specifically the Bible Dictionary - one of my favorite things to read through) I've come to the conclusion that there are two main types of faith. Or rather, two aspects of the topic of faith. 

The first one: Faith is an endowment of God; it is a gift that is given to us from God as a consequence of our righteous choices. 

The second: Our personal faith comes from taking a literal action. 

As it says in the scriptures, faith precedes the miracle. I have often wondered about this paradox of faith (well, I don't know if you would quite call it a paradox.) But in order for us to have a miracle or even something to happen (doesn't have to necessarily be a miracle) we need to have faith. But when that thing that we want to happen doesn't actually happen then we need to have faith in God's timing. 

So a question that I've been confused about for the past few months is which one is it? Did something not happen because we didn't have enough faith or did it not happen because it was not God's will? 

I don't really know where I'm going with all this. This email is more of my thinking out loud. But I don't know. Do you have any opinions on this? I'll stop rambling now. 

I love you all! (Ik hou van jullie!) Hope you have a great week! 

Bitter-Sweet

Hello everyone! 

So as I said in my last email, we had a baptism this weekend and to be completely honest, it was absolutely nothing of what I expected. To keep a very long story short because of my lack of time (as usual) only two out of the five decided to get baptized. Everything happened so fast that sis. Fleming and I had no idea what to do. 

One by one three of Mary's boys came to us and told us that they didn't want to get baptized minutes before it was supposed to happen. The baptismal service ended up being postponed about 45 mins. because Mary was also surprised at what was happening and was talking with them to understand why they changed their mind at the last second. 

One of the worst feelings in the world is feeling completely and utterly helpless when someone is in pain. Mary just kept crying and asking us, "Why? Why? What happened?" And we couldn't console her because we didn't understand how all this happened either. We tried to comfort her the best we could but it didn't do much. All we could do was just keep praying. It was really hard for Sis. Fleming and I to keep it together as well. It was one of the most stressful times of my mission. 

This was a really weird experience because I was just continually praying I could feel God's love for them and that He had a plan but it was mixed with disappointment and confusion. I wasn't upset that it was three of them, I was upset that it was them. I could care less about numbers or the quantity aspect of a mission. 

I didn't really realize until I went on a mission how much you invest in the work. You invest everything you have on the people you teach. You learn to care about them and they come to really and truly matter to you - something I wasn't quite expecting (at least not to this intensity) on a mission. 

One of the members of the branch had asked us to write our conversion story or testimony down because he's doing an article for a paper about us. I was really grateful for that especially after Saturday because in writing about my conversion I realized the importance of pain. 

What I basically said was that I didn't have some great story to tell about my conversion. I've never seen an angel or had some miraculous thing happen to where I knew, without a doubt, that there was a God and that He loved me. But rather, my testimony started with a question - I wanted to know if God was there. 

And the thing about gaining a true testimony is that it's hard - and it should be. There is wisdom in pain and opposition. Things that come easily to us do not nearly mean as much as when we go through difficulty to get them. Why should searching for God be easy? Why do you we get in this habit of thinking that if God really did love us then He would submit to our will and our desires? 

I don't know about anyone else and I cannot speak for anyone other than myself but I know that my personal testimony of the truthfulness of God and of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and this church came through countless hours of prayers and an innumerable bout of tears. Maybe for some it was easy but it wasn't for me - and how grateful I am for that. 

One Sunday, I was still in a weird mood from Saturday and during Fast and Testimony meeting a member turns around and whispers to me, "You need to go up there and bear your testimony, it will make you feel better." At first I was terrified, I always get so nervous when I have to speak in from the congregation, especially in Dutch but I went up anyways. 

She was right. It did make me feel better. I think what hurt the most was seeing these boys turn down this gift, the blessing of true peace and happiness that extends beyond our mortal bounds and then having their mother come to me several times to just cry on my shoulder. 

I have a testimony of the truthfulness of this Gospel. I know that God has a plan for each one of us to make it back to Him. I testify of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and that by reading it you will draw closer to our Heavenly Father more than any other book. Put the promise at the end of the Book of Mormon (Moroni 10:4-5) to the test. 

Happiness in this life is your own personal choice. You have to work to know God; you have to be diligent, earnest, and sincere. He is there. He is right there. And as I learned in my own personal conversion (and I'm not nearly done with being converted as it is a life-long quest) that as we seek to understand the lessons/ reasons behind our pain or experiences; as we ask God in prayer and then wait to hear or feel an answer; that He will answer us. 

Dat weet ik zeker! I know He will give you an answer because He gave me one. 

I love you all! 

Zr. Begazo