"What Christ is, we Christians shall be, if we imitate Christ." - Cyprian

My oh my, where to begin!  So, to start off the week, we casually went to Amsterdam where we looked at "priceless works of art" at the Rijksmuseum:) 

We also met several members there on vacation, as well as several confused tourists that thought the elders were security guards.  There are two types of elders: Elder Bonner, who ignored the fact that they thought he was someone else and gave them directions to where they needed to go, and Elder Nye, who let's all the old ladies know that he doesn't work there:)

Then, that night, we went on over to Enkhuizen, where we had dinner and FHE with a member and his family of 6 children! So much fun:)  We also found this guy knocking doors named Glen, who's half German and half Dutch and was born in Suriname; we knocked on his door and the first thing he said to me was "bist du Deutsch?" and I was like "yeah"...such a sweet guy, we went over the next night and taught him a first lesson and invited him to be baptized as he read and prayed about the Book of Mormon; he said we are always welcome at his house if we ever need to rest, "plassen" or are thirsty:)

Mascot of Hoorn

We also have taken up a new sport of throwing rocks at spiders.  I am not kidding when I say the spider situation is getting out of hand.  I pray for winter that the cold will freeze all the suckers.  I have three spider bites on my leg, which disturbs me greatly, as I sleep with two comforters and long pants...nevertheless, I have enclosed a picture of one that is right on an old scar, so it made the scar pop out.

Dutch Spiders

 

Spider bite on a scar, making it "pop out"

Oh! And I have come to the conclusion that I apparently have to learn Arabic; it seems like all the people I ever talk to speak Arabic and I can't quite tell if someone is trying to tell me something...

We met this older woman from Syria on Thursday  and she let us in to teach a first lesson; she kept talking throughout the whole lesson about how she knows, she knows, she knows and we're like, "no, you don't understand what we're explaining" and then out of nowhere she goes to her cabinet and pulls out an Arabic Book of Mormon and was like, "see? I know!" Whhaat?  Anyway, then her two daughters came in and they speak no Dutch whatsoever, so we headed on over to Google Translate (shout out to you, buddy) and basically explain everything about the Book of Mormon and invite her to read and be baptized when she knows it's true, and she was like, "sure":)

We also had another wonderful lesson with our Filipino Princess, yes, her name is Princess, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation and she loved it; she kept the drawing that we made her and said she was going to show her friends. So, Princess lives about a 40 minute bike ride away from our house, and guess whose tire decides to go flat on the way there?  Tsk, tsk.

Anyway, we locked up my bike somewhere then we achteroped home, with me biking and Zuster Hanny pulling up the rear.  Biking skills established. We also went to Enkhuizen where we went to this awesome open air museum with old Dutch games, houses and a frituur ('tuurlijk), we saw ducks, I held a cat reluctantly, and we also visited a lady there from New Zealand, who's on her way to get baptized, and she's going to teach us how to "islander":)  Thanks, Maria.

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul talks about true conversion and the necessity for us to be converted from within, by the Spirit.
Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?

Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men;

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

I really like the contrast between the hardness of the stone as opposed to the fleshiness of the heart.  Normally, we talk about steadfast, immoveable, build upon a rock that faileth not; however, in this case, we draw more upon the elasticity and vulnerability of the heart rather than cold, lifeless rocks.

The heart is subject to change, to emotion, to the Spirit, thus we must engrave our Christlike discipleship on our hearts, always heeding the promptings of the Spirit to allow us to further learn and progress.  The heart/soul is sensitive, yet enduring; it suffers aches, breaks and trials and still it can be healed through true repentance and with the loving help of a Savior. The heart/soul retains memory of our previous encounters and mistakes that we may learn and become wiser, more as God would have us be.

And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God;

Having faith, being confident, does not mean we disregard the Lord and in turn think that we can do it all on our own, but rather we understand that God makes us sufficient.  His grace makes us enough and we are never found wanting. We, through our faith, are made sufficient to bring about all that the Father expects of us.  He does not give us something unattainable. And thus, as Paul so boldly says, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 3:14)

Well, as Bill and Ted so wisely put it, this week: "be excellent to each other."

Peace n'blessings from the green, windmill and spider ridden province of Noord-Holland!

liefs, Zuster Dobler