No Such Thing as a Dead City

First of all, I would just like to say that there is no such thing as a dead city. I guess I don't know a ton about the history of Assen and the missionary work here, but from what I have heard and seen, particularly the fact that it's been opened and closed so many times, this place was a challenge for a lot of missionaries in the past. Ten minste, lijkt het zoals voor mij [at least it seems like to me]. And I have to admit, I sometimes had my doubts as well, despite our baptism, because of the dip that we had afterwards. And I have been told by members before that Assen is one of the difficult cities in the mission.  I don't understand it, because I have to say I couldn't possibly deserve it, but things have exploded over the last two weeks. We have had so many new investigators and been teaching so many lessons. It's taken awhile to get going, and if I've learned one thing here it's that change takes a lot of time, but we are busy busy busy and I couldn't ask for anything more (except for all of those new investigators to start progressing and for a lot more baptisms. I'll put it on my Christmas wishlist...). We've got potentials, we've got investigators! We're getting dropped sometimes too, but that comes with the territory. The Lord has asked us to do something, and as we do our part of what He's asked, He will provide the miracles. Punt. We can always do our part better. But He understands that and that's why we have the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He loves us no matter what and forever. He's happy when we do as much as we can. And He'll take care of the rest. That I know. That doesn't mean that it'll be easy. But let's be honest, none of us signed up for this because we thought it would be easy. But we did because we knew it would be worth it. And we had faith in Jesus Christ that it would be possible. The gospel is true! And so is 1 Nephi 3:7 (I will I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.). I just wish that will all understood that better. Moses 1:39--this is the Lord's work, and He's doing it! (For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.)

One of the biggest miracles of this week was meeting a super cute couple -- he let us into this student-type housing so that we could try to teach another guy that we had made an appointment with a few days before. We went up to try to teach him, but we weren't sure how to find him, but this other girl who lived there helped us look for him (he wasn't home) and then we taught her a lesson. Then we went back to our appointment's apartment, who was there and we made a new appointment with him because we didn't have a joint teach. Miracle, especially because if we'd had a joint teach that other lesson with the girl wouldn't have been possible. But then we went back down and ran into to guy who had let us in. He said we could come back with a Book of Mormon. When we did, we taught him and his girlfriend and invited them to baptism. They are actually going out of town for a month for the holidays, but they're very positive and we've got an "appointment" to meet with them when they get back. They are awesome!

Life is good and the gospel is true! I love you all!