Contacting! And More Contacting!

Hoi!

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Now for the past week! Contacting! And more contacting! The joys of opening a new area, haha. On Tuesday, we got to meet our new district. It´s twice the size of my last district. It consists of the Gouda Elders, Gouda Zusters, Utrecht Elders, Utrecht Zusters, Dordrecht Zusters, and us. Tuesday was also the day we found our first potential investigator! We gave her a BvM and set up an appointment for two days later. On Wednesday, we went on splits with the Zone Leaders. That means that they came to Sliedrecht and we split up and we all went contacting in our area. We were able to find a few more potentials from it. On Thursday we had exchanges with the Gouda Elders. Elder Lyman (the District Leader) came to Sliedrecht with me. We had our first lesson with the lady we found on Tuesday. Her name is Linda Koppelaar and her husband, Johan, was also there. They´re a young couple with two little boys. They´re super cool and already religous. They believed everything we told them, including the fact that the BvM is true. The only thing they didn´t quite understand was why we were the only ones with the authority to baptize. Maar het komt goed! We also had a lesson with a member who´s trying to quit smoking so he can go to the temple. It was a really cool experience for me because while we were talking with him, the impression came to me to tell him that if he smokes one cigarette less each day, then he can quit. All of the other missionaries kept suggesting ideas to help him, while I was just kind of staying quiet. The influence of the Spirit wraught stronger in me as I sat there. The impression was getting more and more powerful that I should tell the member the thought that came to my mind. It literally felt like my entire insides were quaking. Finally I shared with him what I was prompted to say. He really liked the idea. We then made a schedule for him to be completely done with is addiction to smoking by 8 Febuari. That was the first time in my life that I felt the influence of the Spirit so strongly. I learned that as long as we desire to help those we teach and remain open to the promptings of the Spirit, Heavenly Father really will tell us what we need to say. There is no greater feeling than following the Spirit to help with the needs of others. Thursday we went finding,Friday we went finding, and Saturday we went finding. We had a few dinner appointments with members. On Sunday we were determined to make a lot of appointments with members (since it´s also our transfer goal to work with members) and we ended up making six appointments! I´ve only ever beat that once on my mission (and it was for Christmas). This coming week looks very promising! I love you all!

Elder Fowkes