Ever Onward!

Dearest family,

It was soooo great to hear from you all. I do love getting e-mails from you. It builds me up a lot and helps me keep on going! It sounds like all is going well with you there. I am anxiously awaiting the pictures from you :). Hopefully they come today. Mail seems to take a lot longer to get to northern Netherlands than South Holland.

Well, the work here in Groningen is going on as slowly as ever. We have had some great new ideas for finding people this week, however, so things should start going better soon. We went on exchanges this week, so for a day I headed down to Zwolle to work for a day with Zuster Sharp (who is in her first transfer) and her trainer (Zr. Baxter) came and worked here with Zuster Ekstrom for a day. I was so excited to have Zuster Baxter working in my area- she is in her 12th transfer (most sisters only stay 11) and is a missionary I have always admired. I figured if anyone could give us some good tips and help us get the work started here, it would be her. I got back from exchanges and Zr. Ekstrom told me that they had had the weirdest exchange ever and talked to crazy people pretty much all day. It was disappointing, yet somehow comforting to know that the difficulty in the work probably doesn´t have anything to do with our personal skills- after all, we´re doing our best. I was blessed to serve with Zr. Sharp. She is a sweetheart and spent the entire day praising my Dutch, finding skills, and teaching abilities. She even told me that my accent is the best one she´s heard yet from the missionary sisters... ahh, the naive innocence of a greenie ;) We found a really neat young lady for them to teach in Zwolle while talking to people on the street. It was so much fun!

I have chosen a scripture that is my theme for the transfer. It is 2 Nephi 33:6-7. Nephi talks about his faith that through the atonement of Christ, MANY of the children of God will be saved. I know that is true. Despite hard transfers, I know that there are many souls here in the Netherlands that are ready to hear the Gospel and be cleansed through the blood of our Savior. The Gospel is such a beautiful thing, and I know that people here will just love it when they give it a chance.

Dad, you would be proud of me- I have gained a reputation in the mission of being a really hard worker- apparently despite my reluctance to clean my room when I was younger, I still learned the Gulliver work ethic. The sisters call me the energizer bunny. I find that really interesting, because one of the areas I am constantly striving to improve is diligence and learning to work harder constantly. Working hard shows the Lord that we truly desire to accomplish His work. The work must go on!!!

I love you all. Soon I will have amazing stories to share of the miracle of the Groningen area, I just know it!!!!!!

Ik hou van jullie

Liefs,
Zuster Cherie Gulliver