November 27,2017 Email :D

This last week we were blessed to have 3 American Thanksgivings and, of course, still have leftovers in the fridge! Woot woot! One of my favorites, was with the Loughery family. They fed us Thanksgiving last Thursday...thinking it was Thanksgiving. He's Scottish and she's Canadian. It was so fun! 

We had a fun miracle that really built my testimony in the little things! Each day, we make a plan for every hour, sometimes half hour, of where we are going to be and what we will be doing there. We also have a backup or two planned for each segment, being prepared and showing Heavenly Father that we are going to be where He sends us! On Saturday, our plans fell through, so we hustled to our backup: Walmart. We had a solid 15 minutes or so, and though that sometimes isn't enough time to do a lot..we wanted to show faith in our plans! So we parked the car, prayed for guidance, and started hustling in to find whoever Heavenly Father needed us to. As we were making our way to the entrance, I saw a lady smoking on the side of the building and felt prompted to go talk to her. Upon later discussion, I found out Sister Bloomfield did too! We changed course, and sat down next to her, asking how her day was going and sharing what we do as missionaries. She said that she has depression and is looking for a way to find more happiness. She works in Walmart and was just on break. Miracles!! We are going to see her, and possibly her husband, later tonight! :D 

We had another cool experience this week that taught a principle of the gospel. We were asked on Tuesday if we would be able to move apartments on Friday. No problem! We figured if we spent our night time packing on Wednesday and Thursday we would for sure be ready. We were told we could ask a set of Elders to help us move as well, so we got that lined up and were even told we would get a truck and trailer! As the time got closer to move, we realized that sister missionaries have accumulated a lot of things in the 5 years that they lived in this apartment...and we did not have enough time, patience, or manpower to do it in time. At like 15 minutes to the time the Elders were coming to help us and the trailer was supposed to come...we were a wreck. We were frantically going to make a garbage run and ran into the Elders. They were early. So we ran upstairs, leaving them in the lobby and started hastily throwing remaining things in boxes...there were so many boxes!!! We ran back down outside and saw the trailer coming. And then we looked behind it. Behind the trailer was another van with a senior couple in it to help. And behind them, 3 additional sets of Elders walking behind. They had moved earlier that morning and decided to come help us. In less than 45 minutes the Elders had everything out of our apartment, including the stuff we were going to take later for sake of time. In another 45, everything was in our new apartment. I was so extremely grateful! Though moving apartments was such a small thing...it was hard for us to do and we just wanted to get back to Heavenly Father's work out here! It was a testimony to me that Heavenly Father will always help us. Sometimes we plan things, and think we've got it! We got the help we thought we would need, we prepared and set aside time to accomplish it and we were ready! But when it really got down to the wire, we didn't know if we would be able to do it! But Heavenly Father sent some grace our way and made up the difference. I know He is always there for us in our times of need! Great and small! 

Oh! Last but least, transfer news came! Sister Bloomfield and I are STAYING TOGETHER here in beautiful Langley! Here's our new address if you want to send anything. :) 

6946 198A St.
Langley, BC V2Y 3A9

Canada

Had to take a picture with Sister Bloomfield's first Tim Horton's!! We had donuts too, of course!

Our new apartment! :D It's a bit more organized now...we realized after we moved everything in and after the Elders left, we failed to get any of the 4 study desks (yes, 4) from our apartment into our home! So we are studying on the ground for now! XD How fun!

The Senior couple that helped with the move gave us all some money to buy lunch afterward. We told the Elders to take it and go and that we would just eat our own food and unpack for sake of time. About an hour later as we were headed out the door, we heard a knock. The Elders had bought us some pizza! How sweet!

The pizza took priority over anything else in the fridge. We removed a shelf to get that sucker in there! XD Priorities! 

November 20,2017 Email :D

Yikes! The title of this email gives me the shivers! This week I hit 10 months in my mission life and 20 years in my time here on earth. CRAZY!!! 

Update on last week's zone activity (when we were Griffindor) we had so much fun! We did Minute to Win It games and other challenges competing as Districts. Go team Griffindor! 

This week we had a fun miracles! We got a call from some Elders in Merit asking about a lady that lives here that used to investigate the church. Apparently she has family in Merit. It was awesome! We got in contact with her and saw her the next day! She is so awesome! She wants to be baptized on her birthday in December! We set that as her date and are so excited to see her again! It was such a testimony to me that Heavenly Father looks out for us...no matter what!

Yesterday, we got the special opportunity to watch the Face to Face broadcast with Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard! WOW!!! It was so special! Sister Bloomfield and I walked away (Well, ran..in the rain...to get to an appointment) with so much gratitude! We both, though not expecting it, got so many questions answered that we didn't even realize we had! I highly recommend it to any and all that didn't watch it! Something that stood out to me was their comments on the balance between agency and inspiration, and when asked how to keep balance between worldly and spiritual life...answering that EVERY day is a spiritual day! We need to live a spiritual life in a temporal world. :) It's truly all about balance! I know that when we lean on the Savior, we are truly in balance!

Sorry this week is short! I'll try to make up for it with some pictures!!

This is Sister Archibald and Sister Buur!!! (pronounced "boo-uh" She's from Denmark! I love her!) They came to our apartment Wednesday morning and made us breakfast for my birthday!! I love them so much and am so grateful for their example to me!!! We are moving in together sometime this week or next!! So exciting!!!

Documenting my birthday continues...I asked the Elders if we could take a picture after District Meeting. It was a good meeting! Though we are all slightly stiff in the picture!! haha

Anyone that knows me well probably knows that I do not enjoy seafood! What did I want for lunch on my birthday? Sushi. So we went to Walmart (for the sake of time..) and got some sushi and ate it in the car! Comp goals!!

Whilst walking to the car with our sushi, a man came up to us asking if we had ever heard of this funky gym thing called Orange Theory trying to get us to join! we graciously accepted the free guest passes to the gym and as we walked away felt prompted to talk to him still. I turned around and said "Have you ever heard about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?" we sparked up a conversation and invited him to the broadcast! We got his number, gave him a pamphlet, and said we would see him Sunday! How fun!! Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways!!

November 14,2017 Email :D

Hello sweet family and friends!!

Another wonderful week of miracles has come and gone and I'm so grateful for everything Heavenly Father has blessed me with!!

We started off with Monday, having a wonderful dinner with a family in the ward. They had invited MariLou to join us, but she couldn't. We had a lesson with her that evening, though! The girls of the family were so cute! They were so interested in our names and where they come from, we each shared tidbits. Bloomfield is a city in New Mexico named after Sister Bloomfield's great...something grandpa. And I informed them that there is a Valkenburg city with a small castle thingie in the Netherlands. The girls were so in awe! It was so cute! One of them, the oldest, at age 10 came up to us and said "I don't really know how to say this...but...are you important?" Such a perfect opportunity for Heavenly Father to work through us! We were able to bear testimony of the fact that she too, is just as important because of the name that she has to represent her family and her heritage and her heavenly family and heritage as well! It was so neat. :) It was so cool! Sister Bloomfield told me later that her parents were just beaming, and after that lesson, the dad did everything he could to get to our lesson with MariLou later that night! It really built my testimony about how important members are! Not only were we able to have an amazing experience with them, but the night just kept on going swell! As we were on our way to MariLou's lesson, we were able to find a new investigator with a strong Christian background and is so pumped to learn about the Book of Mormon! At MariLou's lesson, we had the brother with us that we had eaten dinner with, and were able to invite her to be baptized! She accepted for December 16th!!! :D The Spirit was so strong!! Throughout the lesson she was talking about how she feels this perfect peace at church...so different from what she had felt before! We asked if she would like that always, and we were able to bear testimony of the gift of the Holy Ghost made possible through baptism and confirmation with the proper authority! What an amazing experience for the member with us and for her! We had members in the building popping in to say hi during our lesson, and each of them, not knowing what we were talking about, bore testimony to her that she was exactly where she needs to be! It was so cool!!! <3

We had a string of just fun really cool miracles this week, too!!

Shelly! We went to have a visit with a sweet single mom in the ward, and as we were trying to find her house, we had to walk through a complex of 100+ houses! So many! We finally found her, had a wonderful lesson, and started walking back to the car. We were short on time, but I felt the prompting to knock on just one of the doors. So, of course, follow the first prompting! We went up and knocked. The owner of the home is a nonmember daughter of a less active member we see regularly! She thought we knew she lived there, and was home alone fighting a cold. She welcomed us in and we had a wonderful visit! The next day, she came to dinner at her mom's house with us, and the next day we had a fun lesson with her, her mom, and 2 of her nonmember nieces at the church making fun crafts and then went out to lunch! Such a miracle!!!

Jason! We were walking to the house of a less active we were dropping by, and saw a man taking out his trash. We approached and he said "no English! No English!" I said "what language?" "Mandarin." *deep breath* "Nee how! wuh shuh twan chow shuh!" (me trying to say, Hello! I'm a missionary!) Feeling like we were supposed to keep talking to him, Sister Bloomfield called the Chinese Elders as I tried to continue communication in Chinese. XD They talked to him on the phone and set a return appointment for the next day! They were able to see him, have a meal with him, and learn that he has been to the church before! It was so cool!!! Even if there is a language barrier, there is never a spiritual barrier!

Paul! This one is my favorite! <3 On Tuesday, we were walking out from visiting a less active in the ward and saw a man taking groceries out of his car. We were prompted to talk with him, and walked up and started the convo! He informed us that he used to have a pretty hard life because of choices that he made, then shared a heartwarming story about how he was led to a church and found Jesus Christ. :) It was amazing! We were able to set a return appointment for Friday to hand him off to the Elders to teach! Zone Conference got changed and so we had to move his appointment to Saturday. During Zone Conference, he called us and texted us! He had forgotten that we rescheduled and was trying to find another time we could meet! Sister Bloomfield (always so good at following the spirit) invited him to just come to church instead of meeting with us. He said he would LOVE to! And then asked "is it okay if I bring my kids?"  We almost cried! Sundayrolled around, and in walks Paul with a 2 and 3 year old. 2 of his 4 beautiful children. :) He stayed all 3 hours and has an appointment to meet with the Elders soon! He too talked about the spirit that he felt at church. He said he felt at peace and at home, nothing like other churches he has been to. The power of the Holy Ghost is so real! I am so grateful to be a playing piece in these people's conversion!! He is truly an elect!

This week, as previously mentioned, we had zone conference! It was so amazing! I was privileged to sing in a choir of 8 missionaries a version of Nearer my God to Thee/If You Could Hie to Kolob and Elder Ulisses Soares, one of the Presidents of the 70 came to speak! We all got to shake his hand, and I was sitting in the front row of missionaries! President Wong came and sat right in front of me, and Elder Soares was walking around close to us a lot, so many times I was in touching distance of two general authorities! It was an amazing experience! I learned a lot though! Right before the conference started, they had us missionaries sit down and President Wong looked at us and chose like 5 of us by the spirit to have a personal interview with Elder Soares. I knew it was coming and so desperately wanted to be one of the 5! I had tried to spiritually prepare and was feeling the Spirit SO STRONG in the moment! I was so sad when I wasn't picked, and prayed that Heavenly Father would calm my heart and help me to move on, focusing on what He needed to teach me. As I sat there, almost as distinct words I had the impression come to my mind "You have already received your witness." I don't know what exact witness I was searching for, but in that moment Heavenly Father calmed my heart, helping me to know that I didn't need to sit across from a general authority to know I was supposed to be there in that conference. Heavenly Father will always answer our prayers!

Something that we really focused on in Zone Conference is our faith in our goals. Elder Soares asked us if we had faith in our goals and what they mean to us. We all stood at different times answering what they meant to us and showing him that we truly do have faith in our goals. Then he had us open our planners and look at our numbers goals and the actual numbers we are getting. President Wong asked to see my planner...so he had mine. That wasn't nerve racking at all! ;) But it was such an interesting point! It didn't matter what the numbers were. He wasn't focused on that. It was the fact that they didn't match! He said that if we truly had faith in our goals, we would do everything in our power to reach them, knowing that they are truly attainable! 2 Nephi 25:23: "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know it is by grace that we are saved AFTER ALL WE CAN DO." What more can we do? It was a huge eye opener to me! We decided to focus that day on doing all we could to get people to church the next day. The next day, we had 4 less actives come to church for the first time in a while and 2 investigators. Heavenly Father really showed us that it is so true! There is always more we can be doing! We need to have faith that He will help us as we do all we can!

Oh! Another one! We received a referral from a ward member to go see a less active sister. We went to her house. She wasn't home, but her inactive 30 year old son was. We were able to talk to him on the doorstep, and he opened up that his friend's sister just died. I felt prompted to invited his friend to receive a priesthood blessing of comfort and visit from the Elders to explain the Plan of Salvation. He accepted and the Elders should be seeing them sometime this week! It was such an amazing experience to see the little path that led us to that door and now his friend will have a chance to hear the gospel! Though not active in any shape or form in the gospel, this guy recognized the blessings that it brings and that his friend could benefit from it. So cool!

I am so grateful for the many miracles that Heavenly Father blesses us with each and every day! He is truly in the details of our lives! Have an amazing week y'all!

love,

Sister Van Valkenburg

The view right outside the church...see this beauty at least 3 times a week! <3

Took some pics whilst getting ready this morning because we never take pictures...if anyone likes Harry Potter you may recognize a color scheme...we may have a zone activity today competing as districts and our zone may or may not be Griffindor...XD

Sister Bloomfield is so flexible!! Look at her!!! I was struggling to stay sitting up to look in the mirror! 

November 6,2017 Email :D

Wowie wow wow! God is just so good :) 

This week was so good! But for the sake of time and all I only have a couple of things to say. :)

One: Scripture that I love! Sister Bloomfield pointed it out to me this week and I just love it!

Alma 36:5

"Now, behold, I say unto you, if I had not been born of God I should not have known these things; but God has, by the mouth of his holy angel, made these things known unto me, not of any worthiness of myself."

We talked about how despite any "worthiness" we are ALWAYS worthy of gaining a testimony! No matter what level we are in life, spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally...He will lift us. And we are always worthy of a testimony!

A really fun, really cool experience that we had:

Marilou (the lady we found in the church parking lot) had such a good lesson with us last week! We had a ward couple with us and the lesson was just SO GOOD!!! She said she would be at church on Sunday, but come 9:15 she wasn't there and we had Ward Council in another ward...so we went into our meeting. About 30 min later, we got a text from the Elders. "Marilou is here and she's bearing her testimony!!" We bolted out of Ward Council as fast as we could!! We only caught the closing song...but as we walked up to see her, she was just swarmed with members congratulating her and introducing themselves to her! She was invited to dinner, people asked if they could come to lessons with her, it was amazing!! Talking to the Elders later, they told us that in her testimony she had talked about us (calling me "Sister Vah Vah Voom" because she can't say my name) and said that everyone in their testimonies had been saying that the church is true and she thinks they are right! She has found the true church! It was such an amazing experience!!

I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ! I know that they are truly in the details of the details of the details of our lives!!

Love you all!

Sister Van Valkenburg

ps. Thank you to those who sent pics of your cute kiddos! Made my day!!!

October 30,2017 Email :D

Hello hello! Happy Halloween!! And most importantly, happy wedding 29th wedding anniversary to my beautiful mom and dad yesterday!! Love you both!!

Oh wow! This week was the bomb! Literally..like we made a bomb out of baking soda and a gallon sized container of vinegar during District Meeting....! Haha it was awesome! Our district leader is really into using visuals to get his message across! We were learning about the steps that it takes to get people to come to church! The vinegar was the people, the baking soda was the members and Ward council! It was way fun! 

Adventure of the week:

We came out to our car to leave for the day on Tuesday morning, and our back left door was open a crack! The contents of the dash were all over the front seats, and the little cord/circuit thingie box lid thingamajig was off and the cords were exposed!! Holy Toledo!! Our car was broken into!!! Luckily, all license and registration are in place, nothing was broken, and the car runs smoothly! The little booger took only one thing! My flash drive!!! How rude!! Well enjoy the EFY and MoTab!! Hahaha who knows? Maybe it can be the beginning of a beautiful conversion! Music is pretty high up there with ways to connect to the Spirit! 

This week we had an amazing experience with a sweet member! We have been using music a lot in our teaching lately, singing a song and bearing testimony with scripture. It truly is fun! We were visiting an elderly sister in the ward whose husband died just about a year ago. We were prompted to sing A Child's Prayer for her and share some scriptures on that. As we sang, she smiled and was just touched! As soon as we finished, she told us that that exact song has been stuck in her head the past few weeks and that she couldn't remember the whole thing! She was so grateful that we sang that song for her because she was able to learn how it goes! It's the little things like that that just bring a smile to my face! <3

We had another miracle happen! (so many!) There is a 17 year old less active named Stephen in our ward, but he is never home. :( He and his sister were baptized about 2 years ago and Sister Bloomfield, unbeknownst to me, has been praying to run into him on the streets because he is never home. Yesterday, we did! It was so cool! He was with a friend and we said hello...as we crossed paths on the crosswalk! Oh no!! We were only able to say hello! :( After the exchange, Sister Bloomfield was so grateful to have seen them, but said simply "I hope we get to see them again soon so that we can actually talk to them." I said "we will!" Less than an hour later, right outside our house, we ran into them again! Heavenly Father is so good! We were able to talk to them longer this time and it was just so good! I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father that looks out for our needs! 

Another miracle! And this one's a doozie!! Once upon a time it was Wednesday night, and we have coordination meeting for Willoughby ward at the church 8:00 every Wednesday. So we come pulling up at about 7:45 to get to our meeting, and see a car parked right smack dab in front of the front doors of the church. As we drive by the car, I think I recognize her as a ward member and feel prompted to back the car up to talk through the windows. As missionaries, we are not allowed to do that without a backer outside of the car! But...ya know...when the spirit says to do something....you do it! So I backed er up and we said "hello!" to the lady! Turns out, she isn't a member of the church, and had parked her car there because she "feels good" there! We were ecstatic!! :D We had about 10 minutes before the meeting, but the Elders and Ward Mission Leader didn't appear to be there yet, so we said we would love to give her a short church tour before our meeting if she would like! She said yes! So we had an amazing church tour, taught a bit of the Restoration, set a return appointment for TONIGHT (so excited) and had just an amazing experience! Come 8:15 we had said goodbye and sent her on her way with no sight of the Elders! We then received a text from them saying that coordination had been moved to the ward mission leader's house that night! BUT they sent the message at 3:30 that afternoon. Our phone didn't receive the text until after we had been at the church and met MariLou! Oh it just built my faith SO MUCH that Heavenly Father is in the details of the details of the details!! I know that there is a very important reason that we didn't receive that text message until later! We wouldn't have gone to the church if we had gotten it on time!! It was such a cool experience!! :D

I am so grateful for all the miracles great and small that Heavenly Father blesses us with! :D

have an amazing week!!

love,

Sister Van Valkenburg

ps. Pictures of Halloween Costumes and your smiling faces would be much appreciated!! <3

My sweet companion and the chocolate/banana/Peanut butter pancakes we made! We couldn't just do the regular mix! ;)

We tried donairs for the first time! Yummy!

The ward trunk or treat! ...We switched nametags! Cuz that's all we can do! XD

I got a little excited for Christmas last P-day and bought chocolate countdown calendars...! Now it just needs to be December 1st!! XD Merry Christmas!! :D