6/11/12

Dear Family,

Goeden Dag! What a wonderful day it is here in Apeldoorn. Not this week but the week after is transfers. My goodness how time flies... I love working with Elder Li. He is such a great missionary and just a great guy! It's been so much fun this entire transfer and we continue to see miracles all the time.  A few miracles from the week. During an appointment, we were having dinner with a couple of Chinese students and they started talking about how excited they were to be baptized and how they wanted to spread the word to all their friends and family back home. One of them mentioned that her professor pulled her aside during class to ask her to stop talking about religion so much because it was a distraction in class. Apparently, all she talks about to her friends in class is God and the missionaries, haha.  It's been really neat just walking down the street and having so many occurances where someone will say, "Hey! you're those missionaries that 'so and so' talks about all the time. You should come to my house too." I absolutely love it, haha. Missionary work is too much fun! Another miracle of the week is Tim. We were walking around and I saw this guy on the way to the store, kind of briskly walking. He looked like a cool cat, reminded me of, not necessarily an emo but dressed funky, i.e.. red jeans, bright yellow shirt, big glasses. He had his i-pod in and was just going to the store to grab lunch. At first, we passed by him but I had this thought in my mind, "Go back and talk to him!" So, I ran back and caught him right as he reached for the door of the store.

Me: "Stop!"

Tim: "what?"

"uhhhh, what kind of music do you like?"

"um, Ben Folds...Why?"

"No way, I've totally seen Ben Folds in concert, he's great!"

"How? Where?"

Ï'm from America, I saw him in Indiana."

"No way! Why are you here?"

"We share a book with people that can help you discover God"

"Really? I have a half hour lunch break, let's talk now."

"oh, ok! Just here?"

ÿeah sure, I don't mind"

   In the end, we taught him on a curb next to the plaza and commited him to baptism. He is super interested about learning and we'll be meeting again with him this week. He's a film student and has a lot of the same interests that I have. Super cool guy. It's so important to listen to the spirit! If we had just kept on walking, we would have never talked to him. Timing is everything.  Everyone else is doing very well. A lot of progress in the work here. We had a good turn out at church and a few people come that we totally didn't expect.  Another miracle, a girl walked into church with her friend and then told her friend afterwards that she wants to be baptized.  The Lord has really blessed us with some wonderful opportunities. It's our job to make sure we act on those opportunities. I think that's the biggest thing I have learned is to act and to act quickly, don't wait or else doors will close. The spirit is so important in everything that we do.

It was really cool hearing about what's going on back at home. I'm super excited for William and his new adventure! I'm excited for he cool stories that he'll come back with. James will have a lot of fun at Boys State. I loved it. He'll just have to play smart or play extremely dirty. But He'll need to prepare from day one and use any networking possibilities he has. Paige looks so old! Holy cow, I cannot believe that she is twelve... My goodness! I hope everything is going well with her. I need to write her a letter sometime.  Ok, so I have written some letters, now when we have a spare moment, I need to place them in a mail box. That takes time as well... Mailboxes are just randomly placed around town and never seem to be in convenient locations.  The pictures will come. I decided that my letter coming back was actually a good thing. Next week is mission conference where we say goodbye to President Brubaker and his wife and so I need the card to take pictures from there.  If you get photos from William from Jordan, please pass them on. I love you guys, and will talk to you next week! Happy fathers day and happy birthday James!

Love,

Elder Schulte