"Make your own sun:)"

Back to the flat landscape of the Netherlands

Pilot Week in Hoorn has already come and gone!  We've been all over the place this week.  We had Zone Conference in Zoetermeer and Elder Dyches, one of the Seventies for Europe came and spoke to us.  It also poured on the walk back to the trams, so fall is on the move.

Zuster Voss at Zone Conference!

 

On Monday evening we had an awesome FHE with a family from the branch, the t'Hoens:)  Probably one of the best examples of love and testimony that I've ever seen in my life. Also, we have the best elders in Alkmaar (the elders version of Hoorn)...they're super grand.

Sisters Dobler and Hanny with the "grand" elders of Alkmaar

We went to Haarlem and did service for the whole day at this school for autistic children and that was so much fun:)  We cleaned/sanitized every single toy in that place (they had giant red balls that we played with). It was so great too because missionaries have been going there to clean for some time now and the ladies that work there started asking us about why we enjoy serving and what we do when we're not cleaning their school. They are so grateful for what we do and it's awesome to see how we can help people feel the Spirit through service.

We had an uber long dinner appointment with this couple (it was a bbq and they cooked the meat in shifts) and that was another awesome opportunity to share what we do as missionaries because they had their friends over who were asking questions; we started to share our spiritual thought, got 2 minutes into it, felt some raindrops, decided to move inside and then it turned into basically and mini typhoon.

Dinner appointment with the elders

We also had to travel to Amsterdam that night to sleep over for Zone Conference that next day, so we were sufficiently watered.
We spent two days in Amsterdam and we went contacting for a bit there and met this one guy who doesn't believe in anything but then he does believe in everything and I got confused.  He was saying that the experiences we have and the spiritual promptings that we get are created in our minds as a way to bring ourselves satisfaction in this life, sort of like the placebo effect.

My temporary companion, Sister Harris said something, however, that really stuck with me. She said that those feelings couldn't have come from her because she knows herself and what she is and isn't capable of and she isn't capable of giving herself those types of feelings. Which goes along with what I've been thinking for these past few weeks...we need God in our lives.  Lots of people here say that they "believe in themselves" but, are we not all limited in some capacity?

Christ's grace allows us to become unlimited in our potential and helps us become what we need to be.  I love my Savior and this work.  His Gospel is constant and unchanging-it's given to us to help us become what He knows that we can become.

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.  It is my daily mood that makes the weather.  I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration; I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated and a person humanized or de-humanized.  If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.  If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."  Johann Wolfgang Goethe

One thing that President Robinson stressed a lot is about 100% accountability and Elder Dyches this last week talked about choosing our attitudes and "making our own sun" (especially her in the Netherlands).  Choose to be happy. This is a Gospel of happiness.
liefs, Zuster Dobler

According to Google Tranlsate:
"We do not live in the middle ages, trash belongs in the dustbin"