Everything is Awesome!

This week flew by. We met some pretty neat people who seemed genuinely interested in hearing what we have to share about Jesus Christ, so that's great! We also had our investigators Jamie and Melinda come to church! Not sure what they thought about it; both people who spoke in sacrament meeting were supposed to be talking about service, but the only thing they both talked about was all the callings they've ever had, instead of talking about Jesus, so that was pretty lame. But our investigators still seemed to enjoy themselves. :)

Sorry this is short, have a super week!

Sister Daelemans

Baptismal Fonts and Hospital Beds

I learned a lot about my companion Sister Evans this week. First, some hidden talents. She knows ASL (American Sign Language) which is pretty neat, and she is also a master violinist! I also leaned that she is an incredibly brave soul, which I discovered because we had to go through some mildly challenging things yesterday.

The most exciting thing of the week is that Melissa got baptized! It was such an amazing baptismal service! And it was definitely one of those moments where everything falls apart before it comes together. Here's how it all went down. The end of last week we talked to Melissa and her mom, and our ward mission leader, and planned out the whole baptismal service. Great! But then in the middle of the week we found out that our mission president wants to change convert baptismal services to be shorter and simpler, so that the Spirit can be stronger! It was an inspired idea! It really was. But that also required changing a bunch of things last minute. But we switched things around, and figured out the program and all was good. We even coordinated with a member who printed the programs off for us in advance so it wouldn't have to be last minute, and said she would bring them with her to the service on Saturday. Great! Everything was set!.....Again! ...........But then on Friday, the day before the baptism, God told us we needed to change it. Again. When God speaks to us sometimes it is through the still quiet voice of the spirit, and sometimes there is a constant nagging voice, and then sometimes there is a loud shouting voice. The voice I heard was a nagging voice, and it was saying: "You need a musical number. You NEED a musical number." And then another thought. "Ask Sister Smith to bear her testimony. ASK SISTER SMITH TO BEAR HER TESTIMONY" It started as a nagging voice, but I was kind of ignoring it because the program was already set and the programs printed, so then it turned into the shouting voice so I was like "OK I GET THE MESSAGE!" Don't ignore those promptings people, because ignoring the Spirit when it's trying to tell you something is no bueno. So I turned to my lovely companion, the beautiful and talented Sister Evans and said "My sweet companion, how would you like to play the violin at Melissa's baptism tomorrow?" She agreed (after much coxing on my part) and I volunteered one of the elders to play piano with her. (Excellent leadership skills = volunteering other people to do things.) Then we miraculously found a violin to borrow from a member and had them practice the song "I Stand All Amazed" the night before. Miracles happen when you are on the Lord's errand! Then we asked Sister Smith, Melissa's mom, to bear her testimony. She seemed very unsure, but we didn't pressure her, we just asked her to consider it and pray about it and let us know the next day. The next day rolled around. We showed up early at the church to get everything set up. Pretty much everyone else showed up late and it was absolute chaos. The member who was supposed to bring the programs had missed her alarm and so couldn't get there before we had to start. (That ended up being ok because with all the last minute changes we had made, the printed program wouldn't have even matched the actual program.) As soon as we started the service though, all the chaos ended, and the Spirit was there so strongly. I have to say, God really knows what he's doing. :) Sister Smith had agreed just minutes before the baptism that she would bear her testimony at the end of the program. It was short and simple, but it was so powerful to see her testify to her daughter and the other members of her family who were there (some of whom aren't members) the truth and power of the Gospel. And Sister Evans did so great with the violin, she is a pro! Anyways, it was great and made my heart happy! :D

Well that was a long story. With a happy ending!!

This story has a happy ending too, so don't freak out. Last night we had to go to the ER because Sister Evans started having a terrible pain in her side. Like, felt like she was being stabbed with a knife pain. So we drove to the hospital and spent lots of time getting her tested for various things and waiting FOREVER for nurses to come check on her and bring back her test results (I don't know what people do when they're actually dying, because everything in the hospital moves so slowly.) We found out that she had an ovarian cyst that had ruptured, which caused a lot of pain but won't cause any permanent damage. She will be ok! She is on antibiotics and pain meds now, and we're going to be taking it easy for the next two days. It was actually kind of funny, because they led us to this little hospital bed surrounded by curtains, and there was no chair, so we both just sat on the bed together. But we were super tired, so we took turns lying down and taking naps. I also might have been singing Girls Camp songs to myself.....I was really tired so I don't remember but that is what Sister Evans told me this morning, haha. Anyway, she is so very brave because she was really in a lot of pain and we had no idea what was wrong for the longest time, but she didn't panic at all and was very positive given the situation! She is awesome!

I know the Gospel is true! I see the power of God in my life and in other people's lives every day!  There truly are miracles all around us if we just look for them :)

Much Love,

Sister Daelemans

Love is in the Air

Love is in the air! Except not for missionaries. We are pretty much nuns right now. The only kind of love we have is the love of Christ. Of course, that's the best kind of love there is.....so, yay! We get to share God's love with everyone :)

Some highlights:

It rained this week. Rain tracting is the best because people either think we're crazy for being outside, or they take pity on us and are more nice to us than usual. :)

​I burned my fingers Sunday morning. Hence why my fingers are in a mug of water. They are good now though, just bandaged up.

Candy. Haha, chocolate is always a good thing :) This Hershey kiss is too big to eat though! (But let's be real, I will probably end up eating it anyway.)

This week was good. Kind of cold, kind of wet, but we were able to see a lot of people. And most importantly, Melissa is getting baptized next Saturday! She is so cute, during our last lesson with her we asked her who she wanted to say the prayers, and she decided that SHE wanted to say both the opening and the closing prayer. She has come so far since we first started teaching her and she didn't want to pray at all. :) Now she loves to pray. She was sick and wasn't able to come to church on Sunday, but her mom told us that she overheard Melissa praying by herself while she was sick and lying on the couch. She not only prayed to feel better, but she was praying for all the members of her family and things that they are going through right now. How amazing, the power Christ's gospel has on people's lives!

Much love to you all, especially this week of Valentines!

Sister Daelemans

Time Flies When You're Preaching the Gospel

Good Day Good People of the Earth!

This past week went by SOOOOOO fast. I don't even know how the times goes by like that without me getting dizzy and falling over. But somehow it is Monday again already.

We had a pretty good week. A lot of the people that we have been teaching have seemed to fall of the face of the planet, so we probably won't be teaching them any more. But that's ok! We found some other amazing people that we are teaching now and they are the bomb.com! Jamie and Melinda are a couple that took the missionary lessons 20+ years ago in Germany, but decided to stay Baptist at the time, but recently decided that they don't want to be baptist any more, and possibly not sure even about God, but they are searching for truth and their hearts are really open! We had such a good first lesson with them and I am so excited to see them again next Saturday.

Other than that we have just been having a blast talking to people and teaching the Gospel, even to people who seem to be on another planet.

Also, we might have done part of a puzzle this week with Richard. He is a puzzle pro!

SORRY THIS IS SHORT I LOVE YOU ALL!

Sister Daelemans

Lancaster Greenie, Part 2

This week was a wonderful adventure. I am training is the area where I was trained! How crazy. I'm not sure what Sister Evans, my new companion, really thinks of the mission field, but I thought it was a pretty fun week. We went tracting her first day here, so she could get a feel for what it's like to go and talk to people. We had some guy chew us out for about 20 minutes about how the Bible was written to keep slaves subject to their masters, and so that was fun. Not really. But it was so ridiculous and we're also pretty sure he was high on weed, so we just laughed about it later. Later in the week we had some good experiences tracting where we got to teach some people who were really interested, so that was good. I think she already has a pretty good idea of the ups and downs of being a missionary. Sister Evans is from Spanish Fork Utah, she is the youngest of 3 girls, she has 2 dogs at home, and she really likes bikes (as in, motorcycles) so she's pretty much awesome!

We had a pretty crazy day on Wednesday. Some members of the ward took us out to have lunch, but it was taking forever and we were going to be late for our next appointment where we play bingo at the senior home, so we had them just drop us off there instead of taking us home to where our car was. But then after bingo, we had to get back to where our next appointment was, so we walked! Really far. I guess in other missions where missionaries don't have cars at all it would have been normal, but for us it was quite a change of pace. Our mission president has been telling us recently to use our car like a bus, which means to drive it to our area but then get out and walk to whatever particular street or house we are going to, that way we can talk to a lot of people along the way. But, since we passed several bus stops along the way, I guess you could say that we were just forgetting the car-as-a-bus thing completely, and using our feet as a bus instead.

On Wednesday there was also a worldwide missionary broadcast, where we got to hear from Elder Bednar and Elder Oaks and the other members of the church's missionary council. It was really good, and they also announced some important changes to our schedule. We still have to get up at 6:30, but we now have more time to get ready in the morning. And we can go to bed at 9:30 instead of 10:30 if we want to, so we get to more sleep! It is wonderful. So far I am really liking the way things are going.

On Sunday they had a combined 3rd hour Priesthood and Relief Society meeting that was all about member missionary work! And the Bishop asked us and the ward mission leader to do a little presentation at the beginning. It was so fun and went really well – we made the whole ward role-play with each other what they might say to share the gospel with other people! We thought it would be a good idea since so often people don't share the gospel because they just don't know what to say to people. But if there's one thing I've learned on my mission about talking to people it's that the more you do it, the easier it gets. So we made them practice and hopefully that will help them in the future to be able to feel more comfortable opening their mouth and sharing even a simple testimony with those around them. Sharing the gospel is so fun!

Have a great week everyone!

Sister Daelemans

Goodbye Trio Life

We got transfer news, and the trio is ending :( We had a lot of fun though, it was a great transfer! So, now for our fate, drum roll please .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,. I am staying in Lancaster 1st and will be training a new missionary. HA! EVEN AFTER 15 MONTHS I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING! But that's ok, I trust the Lord. I probably won't ever know what I'm doing, but things still seem to turn out fine somehow. That is one of the biggest things that has strengthened my testimony of this work and shown me that the Lord is completely in charge, because somehow I still haven't messed anything up yet, haha.

Sister Breinholt and Sister Crowley are both staying within the Lancaster Stake, so I'll still get to see them, which makes me very happy!

I don't have much time to say anything else. But I know that this is the Lord's work and that we are blessed to be a part of it! :D

Much Love,

Sister Daelemans

Here is a picture of us with some random old people. :)

Fabulous Hats and Dead Cats

This week I learned I need to trust less in myself and more in the Lord. There were several times when I really thought I knew what I was doing, and then the Lord was like "Nope, not quite. Let's do it my way." He's always right. It seems like I have to learn this lesson over and over again, but that's ok I guess. As long as I keep learning!

We had 4 investigators come to church this week! That is the most I've ever seen come to church in one week while on my mission!! :D Super awesome! This made up for the first part of church being super duper stressful. This old man came up to us after ward council and was like "Can you teach this class that's in a hour?" And in my head I'm like "Why are you asking us, we have so many things to do in church already." And then before I could tell him this, my companions were like "Sure!" Turns out that was not a good idea. We are already covering 2 wards, so our Sundays are already spent running around trying to be in 2 places at once. So, sorry Sir, being in 3 places at once is actually impossible, even in a trio. It was a class full of teenagers who pretty much refused to talk, so that was fun. But our investigators showing up really made up for all my annoyance and stress. We also had 3 less active people show up! Which was super awesome. :) So it was a pretty fantastic Sunday.

We started teaching a little 9 year old this week, who is the daughter of a member. Her name is Melissa and she is hilarious.

Sister Breinholt: "We're going to use this pamphlet because it has pictures, and pictures are really great!"

Melissa: "Yeah, like my pictures of my dead cats."

Also,

"When I get married, I need a man who listens to me, so he can understand my problems."

Other things that this week included were awkward Law of Chastity lessons, an old lady adopting us as her new daughters, playing soccer and volleyball with some recent converts and other missionaries, and trying on some fabulous hats at Target.

Have a great week!

Sister Daelemans