Week 11: Three Days of Zone Training

Hello!!! I am using a European keyboard so sorry for the mistakes.

This week wasn't the most eventful week ever.. Sad so I will make this quick...SORRY. The zone training that my comp and the zone leaders (plus me a little) has been going good. Took up all day Monday and Tuesday and the Wednesday as well. We did have dinner with the Schiltz family on Tuesday and they are awesome. He hands out BOMs all the time and is an awesome member missionary. We are going to have Chinese take out with them on Tuesday which I am totally excited about that.

Zone training went sooo well. I wish I could explain what we did...It just is too complicated and my head hurts from typing on this keyboard haha. I will make sure to tell you about it when I get back because it was great. Everyone learned something. It was good and I am glad I was a part of it.

On Thursday was Zuster Rigdon's 1 year on her mission day, so we' celebrated... Guess what I did...SOOOO embarrassing...We were eating outside at this restaurant and We were laughing soooooo hard that I peed my pants. Yes, I said it, I PEED MY Skirt. Sooooo embarrassing. Luckily we were outside and it was raining so it wasn't that bad but ahhh probably the highlight of the week. I wish I could go into more detail.

I feel bad because this week all of our apt fell through so I don't have many spiritual stories... I promise that we do work out here. I am doing a lot better. I love it here and I love my companion.

We had dinner with our ward mission leader and his inactive wife this week. Love them. I did the spiritual thought...in dutch and it was good but My thought wasn't the center point. While I was teaching, Elder Armstrong starting eating cookies and they were getting sooo mad and saying that he wasn't raised in a good home because he wasn't sharing with others. So Sister Nuyons even said he wasn't close to Christ, it was crawy!! Haha then we stopped the lesson and explained that the cookies were like the gospel and the gospel is delicious. How do we know that other people don't want it if we don't ask. Sorry if that doesn't make sense. It was funny though.

Today we played soccer in Turnhout with an onderzoker of the Turnhout sisters named Isaac. He is going to get baptized, I just know it. Turns out that I am not that bad at soccer. It was a lot of fun and just super relaxing!!

Have fun in school and everything!! Love you All Sorry if this doesn't make sense;

Oh and I don't know why, but my card isn't letting me send pics... I will try next week again: Love you!!!!!!!

Z;Kohlert

Week 10: ...Running Around like a Chicken with it's Head Cut Off....

Hello family!!

How is everything going with you guys? School is starting, mom is stressed and the house is still not cleaned..I knew you guys wouldn't survive without me;) haha I am totally messing. I love you guys and want to hear about school! I am grateful that I don't have school for another year or so. Haha I hope mom told you the story about her waking up in the middle of the night and deciding that she needed to email me. It was definitely a gift from God to be able to talk to her over email. Much needed. I was crying so hard. Haha I love the Lord and I know He knows what I need, when I need it. This week went a lot better!

Well this week was crazy. Last Monday we went to Gent and saw the Castle of the Courts. It was really cool. You should look it up online. FUN Stuff. Then Tuesday we had district meeting which was way good. I have an awesome district. That night we did exchanges with the sisters in Heerlen because the missionaries in my MTC group all had to go down to Brussels to do legality stuff. It was a complicated story on why I went further away from Brussels to spend the night. But Wednesday, we went to Brussels and waited in the office for like 2 hours. Turns out something was wrong with my documentation, so I will have to go back two more times. Nothing bad was wrong, they were missing something. So pretty much that was a waste of my time. Oh well, I got to see my MTC group and talk with them! It was good to know that they all feel the same way that I do. Haha I miss them. We then got some yummy waffles and food and then I went BACK to Heerlen and spent Thursday and Friday with Zr Taylor. She is sooo awesome. We rode bikes and my butt hurt sooo badly!!!! AHH it was crazy I am very happy to be back in Antwerpen. 

Oh, while in Heerlen I did some achteroping and the sister riding the bike accidentally ran me into a pole so my knee hurt this whole week. it was kinda nuts.

As for investigators. Gift came to church yesterday, AWESOME! And Jason, that awesome kid, dropped us. :( We got a text from him saying he was too busy to meet any time soon. It was sad stuff. 

I love my companion and I just missed her soo much! We always have a good laugh and some crazy things happened yesterday. I will just have to tell you in person because I think you guys wouldn't like them. haha Just know that we are safe and are having fun while working hard.

We are making a District 3 video for our zone training. It is going to be epic. Hopefully I can get a copy so that you guys can see it, I am not in it yet, but I filmed it all. haha 

Well, I am sorry nothing really exciting happened. And I can't believe transfers are in less than 2 weeks. Time flies ahh! 

Oh one last thing, our ward mission leader fixed up a bike for me so now I have an awesome bike! He put a new seat on it and made it work. He is such a doll. Love him to death! I wish I had a picture so I could send it! 

Sorry this was a boring letter. I love you all so much. I have a letter that I wrote my first week here that I haven't sent yet so today (hopefully) we will get stamps! Love you all! 

Miss you tons, Zuster Kohlert!!!!

Week 9: We Found an Oven

Hello Family!

I loved getting all of the pictures from your trip to Seattle and San Fran! I hope you guys were safe and had a ton of fun! Kinda jealous that you went on Segways.. Can we do that when I get back? Thanks.

Haha Soo I decided I am going to need to buy more clothes than I was expecting.. I don't really have any winter clothes..This could get expensive. But I will just withdraw money from my personal account so that way I still have some emergency funds left here.

This week flew by but it also felt like one of the longer ones. I feel like I wake up with soo much doubt in my head..I don't have confidence or faith or something. I say to myself that I don't have to be here if I don't want to. Which is BAD. I WANT TO BE HERE!! I LOVE IT!! But Satan is definitely messing with my head. I had a good cry and talk with my companion. Hopefully things will get better! My comp is really awesome!

We do FHE with this cute lady every Monday and last monday we played frisbee which was way fun! Hopefully we will have more people show up today.

We are going to go visit a castle in Gent today! So excited. I will send pictures next week.

Wednesday was a long WET day. We weren't that smart and forgot our embrellas so we were soaked to the BONE! If I have time I will send pictures.

So Jason.....our investigator....He was too busy to meet with us this week. We hope we can meet with him this week but I am scared that he has lost interest..which is lame because we had SUCH an awesome experience with him. I just want him to be happy. We will see.

We do a lot of work with the less active members/non-active members and they are actually really awesome! I feel like they are important, if not more important, than finding new people. I love seeing them change!

We did pick up a couple new investigators. I will let you know how those go. But we had a lesson with an investigator of the sisters before us. Her name is Philomena. She is super cute. After teaching her and her sister Gift(now one of our new investigators) the rest., we invited them to be baptized! They said if they were to find out if this was true, they would. So that is exciting!! (:

WE FOUND AN OVEN!!! We had been using a stove and a microwave to make food..which was fine but limiting. One day I was just looking through the kitchen and I found this little oven thing! AHH THANK YOU!! We made something from it right then and there. We have so many possiblitlies now.

So excited that Kristy is in Luxembourg!! I can't wait to hear how that goes!! Good luck! Love you tons.

SOO yeah.. I feel like I am missing a lot but then again I don't think I am. Nothing too exciting. I am super grateful for my companion though. She really has given me some hope when I felt like I was being the worst missionary ever. This is hard stuff, yo. But worth it.

I love you guys sooo much! Lauren, Good luck with school..whenever it starts! You are going to LOVE BYU! Advice: Try to talk to a new person everyday! Doesn't have to be much just talk to them. And find people in your classes and get their numbers so if you have questions, you can ask them! Classes don't start until Sept huh? haha

LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!!!!!!!

Zuster Kohlert

Week 8: Well......I've Been Eaten Alive...

HELLOOO Family!!!!

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!!!!

So we did exchanges with the Breda sisters and the Gent sisters this week and it was soo much fun but I miss having my comp with me when I go to member's houses and whatnot..she doesn't have the opportunity to get to know them because she is gone a lot...I feel bad. But I do love being able to serve with different girls each week. We had a dinner with members almost every night this week. Which was way cool.

Wednesday we had dinner with Bishop Staples. At first it was kinda awkward because I don't really know how to speak dutch but after a while we got into the groove of things. They showed us their awesome hobbies. Sis Staples makes really cook cakes with fruit on them...I want her to make we one soo badly..haha and she also paints sculpture things..They look really cool. Haha Bishop is a chemical scientist...I think haha He works for a popular company that makes tape..I can't remember the name for some reason. It is cool stuff. They also showed us their genealogy. They both have so much work done. Their soup was super good (For you Br. Mohrman) haha loved it. She read us this awesome story that I will have to tell you when I get back. We felt the spirit sooo strong(: After we left...Like 2 minutes out of the door, a drunk guy comes up to us and is talking to us about why we are on a mission and stuff. (I couldn't really understand him..) But Kinda out of the blue is asked us to sleep with him in English. We got out of there asap. Nast. That just goes to show that Satan can influence people to ruin the mood of the spirit. He is so mean. UGH. Sorry you had to read that..I don't know if that was appropriate or not.

So we had zone conference on Thursday. It was really good. Talked about how we need to work on our invitation to baptism. We want the people to be at the point where they WANT to be baptized and ask to be...It is kinda hard to explain haha but it was good stuff! Loved it. Right after Zone conference, we did exchanges (so sis rigdon went to Gent with one of the sisters and I just took 2 of the Gent sisters with me). We went straight to the Boegaert's house (awesome members). She has a really cool conversion story. We had our FIRST APT with a potential investigator that night so she drove us home.. I was kinda freaking out because this was my first lesson and I hadn't really prepared anything. Oh the lesson was with Jason ( the guy we contacted and he didn't have his shirt on). Sis. Boegaert comforted me and same with sister Brophy and Djoukeng's.....

We met up with him...and I don't know why I was soo worried!! That was the best lesson ever. I don't care what anyone says but it was great! Spirit was so strong and we just bore testimony every second we could. He told us that his mom is the "poison of his life" because she only does stuff for herself. And that life was just hard. He also had really good questions. It was cool because he said that after talking with sis Rigdon and I at the door, he had a vision/dream/impression thing that only one of us were going to meet up with him the next time we met and that person would be with 2 different people. One of those people would be more experienced and the other more in the background. That totally happened. He was freaking out. And when he told us that we were going nuts inside because it had happened. AHH He receive revelation..crazy stuff. He also said that he had never met his real dad until 2 days after talking with us at the door. That all these good things were coming together at this point in his life. It was cool. He would always say throughout the lesson that we looked soo happy and were glowin. It's true, we look different and stand out from everyone. I know he wants that for himself. (Sorry I am just going over details briefly...sorry if it doesn't make sense). He also said that he was going to call us so many times before we contacted him but he was too scared. HE IS GOLDEN. I love him to death. He hasn't read a book before but he promised he'd read the Book of Mormon. He already read the restoration pamphlet. He is praying more intently. Soo cool. Yeah So we are meeting with him on Wednesday. So excited. God totally blesses us to find people that are ready. I know he will get baptized. I want him to be at least..haha This transfer is when I want it to happen. haha I am weird.

The rest of the week was good. Yesterday was fast Sunday..which was a lot harder than I thought it would be. But I am alive. We went to Hoboken to look up a referral and we found the address...And it wasn't his house...Weird. So we looked throughout the street for him. No where. We then called the ZL and they rechecked and found out that that was supposed to be for GENT....Good to know there is a street in Hoboken that is the same as one in Gent. We spent a long time doing that.

Anyways sorry for the super long letter. I have a letter I want to send to you guys but I haven't had time to get stamps...I will send it soon. SOrrryyy,... Love you!!!!!

LOVE YOU
You can also send stuff to the mission home..but yea! Miss you

Zr Kohlert