December 16th Update

Familie,

That's super cool Dad that you were able to meet Elder Holland and Elder Clayton. I guess that's your reward for missing Elder Holland every time he visits our ward, haha.

First and foremost I just want to say that we have a very loving and caring Heavenly Father who looks after us and blesses us according to our works! As you know, we have spent much, much time contacting people. This past week we have certainly seen the fruits of our labors. By last Tuesday we had made five appointments with potential investigators. Our list of potentials has grown significantly and we are continuing to make appointments! We had our Zone Conference last Thursday in Amsterdam. Since it started so early in the morning, and Amsterdam is a country away, we left Wednesday morning. On our way up we stopped in Den Haag so Elder Bean could take care of some Dutch legality. We then stayed the night with the Den Haag elders. I actually had the opportunity to go on splits with the Den Haag elders and we went to a dinner appointment on Wednesday night. The man we ate with was super friendly and super strong in the gospel. It was an interesting appointment though because it was all in Nederlands (Dutch) and I speak Vlaams (Flemish). Fortunately, the transition from Vlaams to Nederlands is fairly easy. It's much more difficult the other way around. At the conference we were able to here from Elder Texiera (I think that's how you spell it) and his wife. He is a member of the Seventy and is in the presidency over the European Missions. They gave us some really good council and Elder Texiera even gave very specific advice to me and my companions concerning our upcoming first lessons. Which then leads into the miracle of the week (probably even the biggest miracle of my mission)! We received a referral from Sarah de Castro, a member in the ward who has recently become reactivated. She referred us to an old friend of hers who is searching for the truth. His name is Guido. We met with Guido on Saturday afternoon for our first lesson. We started our visit using the exact method that Elder Texiera had taught us. And basically, the next thing we knew, we had a return appointment set up and a baptismal date set! Yes, that's right, a baptismal date! Even before we began the actual lesson! His baptism is currently planned for 26 Januari. Guido was super positive about everything and at the end of the lesson the Spirit was very strong. Yesterday we had an appointment with Rehema, an African woman who I contacted in the centrum. It was also a really good lesson. She even had a friend there! Unfortunately, she's less enthusiastic about baptism, but she is willing to invite us back, so that's good! Now we're going into this week with many first lessons set up and even more potentials! I'm way excited! The work here in Antwerpen starting to grow into something amazing!

I love you all!

Elder Fowkes