On the first day of Christmas:)

Dear all, well another week has past and I must say, Belgian weather is doing a pretty good job for it being mid-December.  It's rained a couple times and though it's chilly, it's nothing a coat can't fix.  It does get pretty dark here pretty quick, it's pitch black by 17.00/17.30ish but I just read about my friend in Sweden who loses the sun at 13.00ish so I suppose I can't be complaining...where to begin:)

Zone Conference was this week in Antwerpen and we got our Christmas packages!  So now I'm working on developing the Christlike attribute of patience.  Curse it all...oh well.  Last night, we met an old man smoking on his doorstep and he started talking to us *disclaimer* he lives 2 blocks away from a psychiatric hospital so that I might explain some things...ANYWAY, he asked us all these different questions and this is what I learned form him: Coca-cola is delicious, water from the tap is nasty, smoking is "lekker", and I have a stand-by boyfriend just waiting for me to accept.  He was an interesting one, but he wanted to talk a little about Christ and so now if he waltzes into church one day, it'll be no surprise:)

We went on some more exchanges this week with Turnhout and Antwerpen sisters-while we were on the train back to Gent we started talking to this Belgian guy and he knew more about America and Europe than both of us...we had a state capitals trivia game and yeah, he won. *somewhere a bald eagle and Elder Bonner are crying*  But!  He told us a fun fact! Did you know that one of the U.S. Presidents could speak Dutch?  He was born in American, but his parents were Dutch immigrants.  I'll give you a hint: you Kramer from Seinfeld?  His favorite president.

California Dreamin'

In Jacob 5, we read the allegory of the tame and wild olive tree; the servant and the Lord of the vineyard, throughout said allegory, the Lord and servant work to preserve the trees.

In verse 27 it reads: But behold, the servant said unto him: Let us prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it a little longer, that perhaps it may bring forth good fruit unto thee, that thou canst lay it up against the season.

The Lord, because he loves us, prunes us, digs us and cuts us down.  I feel like a mission is like spiritual boot-camp and though I'll never go to boot-camp, the methods behind their madness are as follows: break the person down so that you can build them up the way you want to, according to particular standards. And thus it is with our missions. Oh, and in life.  Heavenly Father cuts us back sometimes, like Mom would do to our poor lemon tree. It looked naked, ugly and my mom got so much flack from us for making the lemon tree "not pretty".  But once it was cut back, our preconceived notions, biases, opinions, pride, stubbornness, once those are out of the way, there's room for real growth, a harvest. When we're cut down, it gives us the opportunity to be built up the way God wants us to be.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1).
liefs, Zuster Dobler

ANSWER: Martin Van Buren