Week 28: Prettige Kerst!

Hello everyone!! How are things going with you guys? This week was an amazing week...don't even know where to start actually. haha But I guess I will just go through the coolest/funnest parts!

Monday we went to Brugge..TOTALLY GORGEOUS. I have been there before but it was super cool going with Zuster Aldous who is BOMB. Haha We had a good time going through the Kerst Markets and everything. It was really fun. All the other missionaries decided to go see some guy play the harp while Zuster Aldous and I went to see how the line was looking for the Belfort tower that is soo tall. The line was super short so we decided to climb it. It was SOO Good. Haha BEAUTIFUL. I definitely would go back with mom and dad if they haven't done that already. 

Brugge from the Belfort Tower

Then we made cookies with Julie and another guy from our ward named Willy. They turned out pretty good. Haha Julie opened moms Christmas present to her and it was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat. haha I think she really liked it.

Tuesday was a great day. District meeting was good. Then we finally had the chance to look up an inactive which we hadnt visited for a while. She for some reason always has her friend come over whenever we come. Then she leaves us with him and her son. Super awkward so we left asap. But we did talk to her other friend, Linda and we said we would bring her by a BOM in her taal. I cant remember what taal she speaks though. Its written down somewhere..haha then we finally made an appointment with Isaac and Saphaar. Youll have to look back in some emails a couple of weeks ago but he was really cool. We will meet with them tomorrow. Then we had Christmas Eve dinner with that one awkward family story that I told you last week haha where we thought the kid was a potential but then he really was just an inactive..Super awkward BUT the dinner went really well. He wasn't there but the mom dad and active daughter was. It was really nice actually. That day we got a call from Dirk and he had his whole baptismal program ready and he told us about how he was reading in the Book Of Mormon and he got the strength to quit smoking!! So he went to the doctor to get medication to help him and it was soo good!! It is amazing to see how much people will do for the Lord. I love this work. He should be getting baptized on this upcoming Sunday!

Live Nativity at the Stake Christmas Concert

Christmas came and it was great!! we went and had lunch with Julie and her son and his wife. That was fun! The Zone Leaders were there too so that was also fun! We played some cool Sabotage game which I will have to get and then Uno. Z Aldous pretty much won every round. I was jealous haha She is good! Then we rushed over to the Schiltz and Z. Aldous skyped while I watched Toy Story 3. SOO GOOOD. It got me all softened up for skyping. Sorry I cried sooo much. I miss you guys A LOT! But it was really nice talking to you. It seems like we didnt even get to talk that long. Sorry. I loved seeing everyone though. We then had SOOO MUCH to eat at the Schiltz that I thought I was going to explode. Haha but we played games and it was fun. 

Thursday is what they call 2nd Kerst. So we went caroling with the whole zone at this old peoples home. We split into two groups..and it just so happened that we got the group with all of the tone deaf elders. haha It is a good thing we were singing to people who were hard of hearing..haha It was still good though. Then we had dinner with Zuster Van Laere and her friends. It was really good. We ate gourmet food. That stuff we had at that ladies house in Switzerland. Super lekker. We also had a chocolate fountain for dessert! the Elders were there too. It was really good.

Friday, Eugeen had is interview for his baptism and he passed with flying colors. Bishop was also there and he really said some amazing things! Eugeen talked to Elder Cooper about how he gained his testimony after reading and praying. The day after he gained his testimony and really got an answer was the day we invited him to get baptized which was super cool. We also had a good lesson with Marisa!

Saturday we did more caroling with Bro Schiltz. He is the coolest guy ever. We taught him what "You da bomb" means so now he says it all the time. Haha He even said it in his talk on Sunday. Totally awesome. We visited Wouter (LONG STORY SO ASK ABOUT IT WHEN I GET HOME) and also Dirk!

SUNDAY! Best day ever. Marisa and Dirk came to church. AND EUGEEN GOT BAPTIZED! The whole service went perfectly. Bro Schiltz baptized Eugeen and it was soo good. Julie and Zr Schiltz gave the talks and we (the missionaries) even sang in the middle. It was really beautiful. Eugeen told me how happy he was and that he is leaving behind 91 years and starting a new life. SOOO AWESOME. LOVE THAT MAN. HE IS SOOO AWESOME.

Brother Schlitz, Eugene, Me, and Zuster Aldous

 More happened but I dont have time. Next week should be really good. FULL of appts and things to do. We hopefully will have time to see all the people I want to see before I get transfered! I will let you know where I am going next week!

I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU TONS!!!

BE SAFE THIS NEW YEAR!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Week 27: Prettige Feesten Ledereen!

HELLO!!! How is everyone doing?? Mom..You are officially 50. Wow. Crazy. Haha did you enjoy your birthday surprize? Did you get my letter by chance? I hope so. 

Hmm. I dont really know where to start off this week. 

DO you remember Marisa, the lady who came to church with her son a month or so ago? Well contact with her has been off and on since then but this week we finally got into her house, taught her the plan of salvation and then set a baptismal date with her. THat was super cool. SO her baptismal date is for the 1st of February. Super exciting!

Eugeen is still on track to get baptized this upcoming sunday. Super excited. Haha I was in Gent on exchanges so I missed his lesson this week but Zuster Aldous got through the rest of the commandments with him and also went over the baptismal interview questions. She said that he while he was reading through the questions he was just saying "easy, yep that is good.." so on and so forth. He is just a cutie. Can't wait to send pictures of his baptism. 

Dirk is doing better! We had a really good lesson with him this week. He was prepared for what we were teaching which made the lesson more enjoyable. He still has a hard time with smoking and drinking coffee so hopefully he can get off of those before his baptism on the 4th of January. We might have to push his date back. We will see. Keep him in your prayers. 

During our District Meeting on Tuesday there is one person that is randomly picked to lead the discussion on a set of scriptures that we read throughout the week. Of course I was picked to lead it..ha. But We were all confused on which scriptures we were suppossed to talk on..I had ended up preparing for the wrong scriptures...Awkward. But I just flung it and tried my best. It was surprizingly pretty good because I had to rely only on the spirit. THat was a really cool experience for me. The Lord helps you out! 

Wednesday we went caroling! Super fun! I love singing for people. It totally brightens everyones day, including mine. 

Saturday night was the ring kerstverhaal (the ward Christmas story) and it was really good. There was a choir that sung and then someone told the story of Christ's birth while actors played it out. It is crazy that I can understand this language. It is really cool. Haha. 

Sunday we had Dirk, Thinley and her sister at church. Super cool. They ended up staying the whole time! Woot. Thinley and her sister even stayed for the ward Christmas party, which was a huge success. Loved hanging out with the people from this ward. SO ya. That was fun. 

Of course more happened this week but that would take ages to write. Oh yeah. We were walking on the street and some guy comes up to us with a Poinsettia (I have no idea how to spell this..its the flower that is everywhere during Christmas time) and asks which one of us deserves this flower. I quickly point to Z. Aldous and he just says..Hmm let me think. He thinks then hands the flower to her and says "You are really pretty but she is the better friend." haha, I don't really understand what that was supposed to mean but it was funny. I am glad she got the flower because I didn't want to hold it all day. haha

Love you guys! Have a Merry Christmas!!! 

Zuster Kohlert

Week 27: Alle Mannke This week was crazy!!

Hey family!!! So I am just so blessed to be out here. And you have a wonderful family like you! I miss you dearly and pray for you everyday. You guys are the craziest, coolest and funniest people I know. Thank you for being you. I am so going to miss sharing Christmas together but don't fret, I will be home next Christmas soo no bigs. haha!

This week was totally nuts and dont have time to tell you everything that went on.. it would just take forever.

First Off HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I will be sending a letter to you this week! I hope you all do something great and that you just get to relax for once. I love you. You are the best mom in the world.

Let me just skip to one of the best parts of the week. Tuesday. WOOT. So I can't remember if I told you but this lady in our ward works for the Public Affairs in Belgium with the church and so she was invited to this women gathering thing to tell them about Mormons and how we celebrate Christmas. They invited 8 religion (including ours) to come present to about 80 women. So she decided it would be a great idea to bring us along. She didnt think it would be that big of deal to have us come because she though she would have a table and then the women would come to her..boy was it different. We walk in and its SUPER FANCY. There are 8 tables set up with about 10 chairs on each table and the people are dressed up all fancy. The women in charge comes up and is like..Who are these people? We dont have enough seats for them to be at the table...The lady from our ward was like.. OOOPPSS. So they figured something out where one of us would go around to the tables with her and the other would be sitting by the door with a display table. Very last minute the lady who is in charge gets a call from the Islamic person and they say that they cant make it. SO they were one presenter short. Of course we were there for the resuce and took over the other table. That night we ended up teaching the first lesson to 8 different tables with 8-10 people sitting at the table. SUPER COOL HUH? They were really interested also and LOVED US. So shocked that we would come out here for a year and a half just to spread our religion. They also asked soo many times why we were so happy. THey also couldnt get over how good our Dutch was. Anyways. Long story short, the LORD IS AWESOME. He totally makes things work out so that His will and word can reach every person. He inspires and influences people to help them out. Totally awesome. All of our BOMs were gone along with our Joy to the worlds and A lot of our pass along cards. Totally cool.

Eugeen is still on track for Baptism!! So excited for him. I think he really enjoyed church yesterday. Dirk is doing better. Still working with him. Love him to death though.

Thursday we had our Christmas Conference in Amsterdam.

Zuster Aldous and I

Friday night we had dinner with the Schiltz and it was great. Totally got us in the Christmas mood. We were waiting at the tram halte when we just started humming Silent Night and doing some really good harmonizing when a guy next to us said 'You have got the right season for that' We ended up just having a good convo with him. We were rushed to get on the tram so we didnt get to give him a passalong card or BOM but then we realized that he was on the tram with us. As we got off Zuster Aldous goes up to him and says 'since it is the christmas season, we would like to give you this gife' and hands him the BOM and we walk away. It was a really cool experience..I know it doesnt seem like it over email but it was. I love the Chritmas season. Such a great time to serve others.

Sister Aldous and I Decorating Schlitz's Christmas Tree

I hope that we can all remember the reason behind Christmas and turn outwards and serve others. I was sitting in sacrament meeting during sacrament..And I was thinking about Christ up on the cross..and the pain that he had to have felt was enourmous. I could almost feel it as I was sitting there. He loves us soooo much. It is amazing that he would do all of those things for us just so we can return to live with our Heavenly Father again. I am truely grateful for the Atonement in my life and that I can become better everyday through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

LOVE YOU GUYS SOOO MUCH!!! Cant wait to skype with you at 6 pm (my time) on Christmas!! LOVE YOUUUUUUU
MISSS YOU

Zuster Kohlert

Week 26: Whipped in the Face...Ha ha....Not Really!

Hey family!!!! How are you guys doing in the FREEZING weather? It sounds like you guys are colder than we are. It is starting to get a little cold here..I had to wear two pairs of tights the other day....and the winter begins.

What a wonderful week we had!! I don't have time to go through everything, but I will definitely hit the highlights. Okay so, Tuesday we had a dinner appointment with this cool family and then on our way back home we were talking to this lady on the tram. She started talking to us in English because she heard us talking about what stop we had to get off on and everything. We tell her that we are here for our church and she says cool that is totally awesome. What church? We tell her and the second she realizes we are Mormons she turns her back and says "Oh I changed my mind, I'm Jewish." ... super random but also sad...Oh well. The cool part of the story is coming up. There was a lady sitting close by her who would smile at us and be nice. Both Zuster Aldous and I felt that we needed to talk to her so we did. When the other lady got off, we got a conversation going with her. She was really sweet and pretty interested. We gave her a Book of Mormon and everything. So hopefully things will get going with her.

Wednesday was full of miracles. We had a lot of free time in the morning to do contacting, so we started knocking doors near one of our potentials. No one was really answering but we decided to keep going. The next door we knocked was this really nice lady. She had a friend who was Mormon so she was pretty interested. She ended up letting us in!!! Super cool!. She loves learning about new religions and stuff. We gave her a Book of Mormon with our testimonies written in it. She was really cool. We couldn't get another appointment with her but she said she wants to drink some tea with us again and just talk. haha... Oh yeah, she gave us some tea and we told her we only drink kruiden tea..uhh herbal tea haha and she was like ya ya. So we get our tea and take a sip and as we are she tells us it is Black tea..Woops awkard. I felt bad....Oh well. Black tea tastes nasty. Later that night we went back to Isaac (the potential in that area) and he wasn't home but is younger siblings were. His sister said that in September she had gotten a Book of Mormon from some elders and was really interested. and his 4 year old brother was like "I want a book of my own" so we gave him one and he was super excited. She wants to be taught with her brother so we will try to get to them this week..the only hard part is that he is only home on Wednesday nights and this week we are going to the Netherlands for Zone training and we have to leave Wednesday night.

I am super nervous for Zone Training by the way...I am singing again. AHHHH I will let you know how that goes. Totally not ready.

But guess who is ready??? Eugeen!! We taught him about the law of tithing this week and he was soo accepting that he even wanted to pay extra because he had missed 90 years of his life. We told him he just needed to start when he got baptized. I love that man. He came to church and I think he really enjoy it.

There was a crazy wind storm this week and I heard it was pretty bad in the Netherlands. Good thing we are in Belgium and the weather is milder. I love it here. Seriously, I never want to leave.

Sunday was Sister Aldous's birthday!!! WOOOT So I made some breakfast burritos for her and they were pretty good. We then had a rocking dinner appointment after church. Then later that night we had strawberry shortcake! I will send pics..We got in a whipping cream fight. Hence the title " Whipped in the Face" haha I thought I was pretty clever. haha Anyways.

Happy Birthday Zuster Aldous

Whipped in the Face

This week I really realized how awesome our church is. A member showed us this Mormon message "The reason behind Christmas" or something like that and I almost cried my eyes out. The church is true. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and also a super awesome story that we can learn SOO much from. We can receive personal revelation as we read and ponder its words.

LOVE YOU SOOO MUCHHHHHHH WE GET TO TALK TO EACH OTHER SOON!! Woot;

p.s. Congrats to Jake Larson and Hannah Bradford! I wish them the best with their new companions and this step in their lives! Super exciting.

Love, Zuster Kohlert 

Week 25: New Companion....and TWO Upcoming Baptism!

HEY AWESOME FAMILY!!!

 

Well it sure sounds like everyone had a really great week this week. I love hearing all of the stories and whatnot. Thank you for the awesome pictures. You guys are seriously the coolest people ever. I am soo grateful for all that you guys do for me and the love that I feel from each of your letters.

 

This week was a really great week. Zuster Rigdon and I had a great time together and I really miss her but I am sure she is doing great things in Leeuwarden. Zuster Aldous and I are just BLOWING IT UP!!!! This week was soo great and I love her. She is super fun and perfect for Antwerpen.

 

We had soo many blessings this week that I dont think I can add everything in..Sorry. But where to begin, I dont know.

 

Monday we went bowling for Julie's birthday and it was SUPER FUN!! I love her and everything that she does for us.

 

Tuesday we had a great district meeting and a really cool lesson with an inactive member. She ended up calling her friend over and we got to give him a lesson. That was really cool. Then we had lekker Thanksgiving dinner with the Familie Schiltz. You guys know much about them. They are the best ever. I almost cried my eyes out and I am not even leaving Antwerpen.

 

Wednesday was transfers... WOOT WOOT. Haha I said goodbye to Rigdon..That was hard. Definitely crying. But we then had to wait for our new companions. Ended up playing some Mafia and Ninja in the station where no one was. It was really fun. Then Zuster Aldous arrived. I just love her to death. She is super cool. We went by some potentials but they weren't home so we just knocked doors. Guess who's door we knocked on first? BLAS. Haha And guess what he did. KISSED ME ON THE CHEEK. Haha super hilarious, but I was shocked. haha Then we went by the Schiltz to introduce Z. Aldous. They are just so awesome.

 

Thursday was AMAZING. In the morning we stopped by Victorias and Creolas and this is hilarious..We were sitting in this like kitchen thing and talking to Creola, when a guy comes in and they talk to each other in Romanian and then he goes into this small bathroom thing like 2 feet away from Zuster Aldous. It has this weird curtain-like thing as a door. Then while we are talking we hear the splashing of his poop in the toilet..HAHA it was super hard not to laugh. That was funny. We then had a lesson with Eugene. We reviewed the Restoration by watching the movie. Julie was the perfect Joint Teach for us. She just said everything that needed to be said. We then talked to him about baptism and GUESS WHO IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON THE 29TH? EUGEEN! We are super excited. And I think he is too. Then we had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner with the Taselaars (this older cute couple) and their daughter who is also in the ward. It was nice getting to know them better.

 

Friday we had a great day also!! Just met with some members and they were super sweet. Nothing super special except for Zuster Aldous got hit on by some guy in a tram. HILARIOUS. haha

 

Saturday. We went and made soup with the Schiltz, Stapaels, Boegaerts and Johan for the homeless. That was really fun. I wish I could send pictures but I don't feel like I have time because the elders are waiting for us....sorry. Then we took Creola to the church and gave her a tour. It was cool because Zuster aldous played the piano and I sung for her. She recorded us. Super hilarious. But the spirit was really strong. Then we stopped by a previous investigators house who had a baptismal date a month or so ago (who's wife is a less active) and we cleared some doubts with him and we set another baptismal date with him for the same day as Eugene. COOL HUH? So we have two baptismal dates!!! We are super blessed. Then we had another lekker Thanksgiving dinner with the Verhaegens who are the coolest people ever. It was really nice and super fun. I really missed having Thanksgiving dinner with you guys but it was still really great.

 

Sunday, Creola and Eugeen came to church. Great day. Paula got confirmed so that was cool for them to see. I think it went really well.

 

Okay I am out of time but I love you guys sooo much and I know this is the Lords work. I wouldnt have it any other way. I know I miss you guys like crazy but I will see you again. AM I CANT WAIT. I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH AND MISS YOU!!! Party it up for me and Thanks for the pictures.

 

LOVE Zuster Kohlert