Groetjes van Dordrecht! (Greetings from Dordrecht!)

Well, we´ve been seeing all kinds of miracles here in Dordrecht already. But here´s one from yesterday for your reading pleasure. We had just a few minutes before ward council in the evening, and so we decided to street contact for a little bit. Unfortunately, there was almost no one on the street. But we talked to this man with just a few minutes left and he gave us his address and phone number and said we could bring and Book of Mormon by, so that was sweet.

Anyway, for the rest, I am super happy to be here in Dordrecht. I really truly love it already. The ward is great and Sister Aston and I get along really well. We´ve been finding potentials like nobody´s business, (9 since I´ve gotten here) which is super cool! I´m really excited to be here!

I learned a lot about charity this week. Real charity means wanting the absolute best for someone. Sometimes that´s hard, because what is best for them (or for us) can be difficult to deal with. But charity is the pure love of Christ. That means that we love others as much as Heavenly Father loves us. And we work to serve others because of that. I am so impressed by Ammon and the sons of Mosiah and their examples: they loved the Lamanites, who they considered their brethren no matter what they had done, so much that they gave everything to serve them in bringing them closer to the Lord. They felt the pure love of Christ, and because of that were able to have the desire to serve their brothers and sisters. I have learned more on my mission about charity than anywhere or anytime else. I love these people so much. I just want to help them, and the best way to do that is by helping them learn about the restored gospel. I've still got a long ways to go to have perfect charity, but I am so grateful that I´ve been able to feel that and learn that as much as I have.

Go out and share the gospel! It´s the best!

And to Assen: A Very Fond "Tot Ziens!"

Transfer calls this week: I’m going to Dordrecht! Sister Andersen will stay here with Sister Packer, who’s coming up from Dordrecht. I’m going to be with Sister Aston. I’m sad to leave Assen, really and truly. I love this place with all my heart, and I will miss it and the people here. But I know that Dordrecht is where I’m supposed to be right now. I’ve also been released from being sister training leader, which will be a bit different, but good. It’ll be nice to work more in my own city.

One of our miracles this week was a testimony to me of the power of the priesthood. We took a member to visit an investigator to give him a priesthood blessing for his back, because he's having a lot of pain, and has been for years it sounds like. During our next lesson the same member came on a joint teach and at the end of the lesson the investigator requested another blessing, and right after he told us that the day after the last blessing he went back to the pain center where they were treating him and they found a potential solution and set a date to get it started. That was very neat.

I learned a lot about humility this week. Some of the times when I have felt smallest and most alone is when I can also feel closest to Heavenly Father and the Savior, if I humble myself enough to not think about myself and instead to accept the will of the Lord in all things. I am totally dependent on the Savior's Atonement. There is not a success that I have seen on my mission that has been the result of how great Sister Stevens is. It has everything to do with whether or not Sister Stevens can let Heavenly Father use her to do His work. I am so grateful for the time I've had in Assen. I have learned and grown so much. It is sacred ground for me.

I hope you’re all doing well!

This is what it's all about...

Saturday was one of the best days of my mission. I love baptisms. Our convert was baptized! And his family came and he looked so happy afterward! It was amazing. He had a rough week this past week, but he made it and it was just so good. Then yesterday he was confirmed and that was very special. Another really cool side note--in the blessing his ancestors were mentioned, that he was to go and do their work for them. We found out later that he already knows a lot of the information about his ancestors, several generations back. So he can already get started there! I knew that there was support for him on both sides of the veil for his baptism, but that was super cool to hear about. The Lord is truly preparing people, and sometimes has been for years. It is a privilege to be able to see that. Also, last night we took him on joint teach! That was also a really neat experience. We took him to visit another investigator, who just so happens to be really similar to Lennart in that she's never been religious and currently struggles with some of the same things that he had trouble with in the past. He was an incredible joint teach. He was testifying and excited and just so happy the whole time. It is incredible to see how much the gospel has changed his life.

Patience, to me, is all about enduring well--enduring cheerfully, hopefully, faithfully, and willingly. We can endure our trials (or rejections) with patience because we know that the Lord's promised blessings will be fulfilled. He tries our patience and our faith so that we can become stronger. One of the reasons I am able to press forward in patience is by remembering past miracles and being grateful for the present ones--especially the baptism. Another experience from this week related to patience: a few days ago one of our investigators, cancelled an appointment on us. Again. He cancels more appointments than he keeps with us, but we keep trying because he'll come to church on his own (he was doing that for awhile when the city was closed), and I'm certain that he has some amount of testimony and that he will one day be baptized. Anyway, this time when he cancelled I was pretty disappointed. I've been working with him for 7 months and was getting pretty frustrated. But he kept trying to tell me something on the phone that for whatever reason I just could not understand. He can be hard to understand on the phone, but usually I can handle it pretty well. But I just couldn't get it this time, so he just said "Laat maar" [forget it] and we left it at that. Then, the next day we are talking to our new branch mission leader and he said that he'd just gotten a call that he (the investigator) wants to be baptized. Say what?! We called him, of course, and he said that that was what he'd been trying to tell me. Anyway, I'm still not sure what'll happen with him exactly--he didn't come to church on Sunday because he was out of town--but it was a pretty amazing miracle and more proof that patience is a heavenly virtue and that it pays off.

Life is so good here and I love you all! The Lord is in control of His work and I’m super grateful for that.

Always a reason...even for Brussells

So, we had a great week. I hope you all did too. 

Our baptism is Saturday. We're very excited for it!! Like always, he is one of the biggest highlights of our miracles. This week we had to go down to Brussells again for legality. At first, I was not super excited for that because it made us change our lesson with him to Saturday, which is usually not a good day for him. But because of that we were able to have the zone leaders come with us to the lesson (they were in Assen helping us find anyway), and it turned out being a really good lesson. We were also able to have a lesson with an investigator that we haven't seen in a few months. He had some operations coming up or something and so he didn't want to meet, but we stopped by again and had a lesson and we're teaching him again. It was really cool for too because one of his problems is understanding how pain and difficulty can be the will of God. But we had a really good lesson with him and Sister Andersen testified to him of God's love and the reason for trials. The Spirit was super strong and he after he said that he would like to receive a priesthood blessing (also something he’s been struggling with).

I realized again this week that faith is a process. We start by having just a little bit of faith, sometimes just a desire to believe, and then we act. As we act, we see the blessings, after the trial of our faith. And then our faith grows. An increase in faith motivates us to do still better. I know that when I have more faith that the Lord hears and answers prayers, I work harder and smarter to do all I can to live worthy of those blessings. I work more by the Spirit and with more hope in myself and in the future. I work with more obedience. I work with more love and patience. I am more focused. I trust all things to the Lord. There are times where I wonder. I wonder why the Lord allowed something to happen. I wonder if there's a mistake. But there are no mistakes in the Lord's plan. Thinking about the will of the Lord is always very interesting to me. He sometimes allows (maybe not causes, but allows) certain things to happen because of agency, and sometimes those things are hard to understand. But the Atonement can and does change all bad things into good things, if we let it.

Hope all is well there. I love you all very much! The gospel is true!

Love,
Zuster Stevens