Monday, October 15, 2012

Only on a mission, Oct. 15th, 2012

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Haha so I have had a pretty fantastic/crazy week filled with experiences that I think are only possible on a mission. One of those experiences happened as a result of the inspired referral from a member. Her friend was not interested in the Gospel, but the referral got us to a BEAUTIFUL neighborhood we'd never seen before. We began knocking doors, but either no one was home or no one was interested. Jammer. It was about time for us to head to another part of the city, but Zuster Jones was inspired for us to walk another way. We turned the corner and found another really beautiful street and decided to knock a few more doors. The first few didn't answer, and in a bit of a pleading/exasperated voice my companion said, "Heavenly Father please let someone open a door so we can at least see inside one of these beautiful homes," to which I half jokingly added, "and maybe we could even get a tour!" We knocked a few more doors and nothing. Then, I turned around and noticed a door we had skipped over. I felt like it was important to knock there and not only did the door open, but the first words out of the woman's mouth were, "Kom maar binnen." That never happens! People don't just invite strangers into their homes, at least, not on my mission! We naturrlijk accepted her invitation and ended up getting to have tea and chocolate with her and her adorable 90 year old husband while we heard some stories from their lives (turns out he was a legit Nazi...thank goodness for the Atonement!) and taught the Plan of Salvation. As we were getting up to leave they not only invited us back, but offered us a tour the next time!! Does Heavenly Father answer prayers or what?! Also, these two have three married children all with little families of their own, we're really hoping and praying we're able to be able to teach all of them! 
Some other fantastic/crazy things that happened this week are:
-Eating rabbit (a typical Belgian dish) and FuFu, fried plantains, and yams (typical Ghanian dishes) 
-Had a friend go to the hospital and in an hour needed to coordinate how to get her daughter home from school and get her some help. Everything ended up well and although she wasn't able to walk, our friend has since been miraculously healed through her faith and prayers and the faith and prayers of others.
-Sister exchanges, I went to Zoetemeer (a small doorpje in Nederland where the Den Haag temple is) for a day and got to work with Zuster Omozokpia! She's a fantastic greenie who's being trained by one of my MTC companions and we had a great time together. I learned a lot from her in the 24 hours we were together and am super grateful for her humble, faithful, and fearless example. 

Other cool stuff too, but I gotta run and catch a train now to Brugge!!!

Love you all!!! 

Zuster Becky Hinchcliff

Monday, October 8, 2012

These emails don't adequately provide me with means to convey my love for all of you and my joy in the gospel of Jesus Christ


That said, I'll do my best with what I've got :) 

Wasn't conference amazing? I feel spiritually filled and yet somehow crave more! Isn't so cool to live in the latter-days when we again have a prophet here on earth and are able to receive continuing revelation?! Can you believe it, 18-yr-old elders and 19-yr-old sisters!! AH! I was so excited (and still am) that I could cry! My immediate thoughts when I heard this announcement were first of Cory and then of Mary. Daarna, a flood of thoughts came upon me and I had trouble concentrating on the following talks. Haha I can't help it, I love missionary work! To quote from an email I just sent Melissa, "This is so great, just think that's four years more worth of endowed members of the church. What a powerful source of righteousness (D&C 43:16)! Also, I can imagine for a significant amount of young men and young women this is going to have a serious affect on their focus in high school. The gap between the wicked and the righteous is widening making those who are righteous more defined and distinguished. It's like the gulf in Lehi's Dream. No wonder the youth theme for this year was "Arise and Shine Forth." 

Verily I say unto you all: aArise and shine forth, that thy blight may be a cstandard for the dnations;

A standard for the nations, yeah!!! What an exciting dispensation we live in!" The army of Helaman just got some more recruits! Oh man, let's flood the world with some truth!! I wish that I could type out all my notes from conference but considering that it has taken me a few hours to review them and I'm not even done, I think it's safe to say that my typing them is out of the question. Just know that my testimony has been strengthened and I have an even greater resolve to do the Lord's will and better follow the promptings of the spirit I receive from Him without delay. One of the promptings I received this weekend was to write letters to a few specific people, so expect some letters soon :)

I love you all A LOT. Sometimes that love tries to trick me into thinking that I'm homesick, but no worries, it's just an illusion :)  However, I am really excited for our reunion heirna (Alma 17:1-4 and Alma 27:16-18). 

Love, Zuster Becky Hinchcliff

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Oct. 2, 2012


Iepers
Inbox
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Sorry this is a day late, yesterday we were traveling all over Belgium for a Zone P-Day, so our  time was eaten up by travel. We met up with President Robinson and Zuster Robinson and some elders from our zone to have a tour of a litle town called Iepers (I think in English it's Ypers?) were there is a lot of WWI history. The branch president down there gave us the tour and it was a really cool experience. The whole tour I thought of people like Grandad and Grandpa Catlett and the stories I've heard from them over WWII and about Daddy and I just want to say I am really grateful for each one of them and all the people who sacrifice so we can have the opportunities that we do. It's actually really cool that we went to Iepers this Monday because this Saturday Zuster Jones and I celebrated the Fourth of July so we were already in a pretty patriotic mood. At the end of the tour we went to this war memorial with like 55,000 names of lost soldiers inscribed in it and guess what?! Zuster Jones found a Hinchcliff!! E.T. Hinchcliff listed as a rifleman with the Post Office Rifles. I don't know if anyone in our family knows anything about this fellow, but if so I'd love to hear his story!! I took a picture of his name and will send it to you when I find a computer here that sends pictures. I also found a W.E. Hutchings from the 4th BN London Regt. R. Fus. (no idea what that means, I just copied it down) and a Private W.W. Hutchings from the E. Kent Regt. (The Buffs). We also heard a really funny story about the town Iepers from Pres. Willems (the branch president). So once upon a time a long time ago there were a lot of mice in Iepers. It was a really big problem so the townspeople were trying to think of safe solutions to get rid of them all. As they got to talking they came up with the idea to bring cats into the village since they're a natural enemy to mice to take care of the problem. The cats successfully solved their epidemic, but then the villagers had a new problem: too many cats! Rather than bringing in another animal to get rid of them that would eventually reproduce into a bigger problem someone came up with the idea of throwing cats down from the tallest tower in the village. Apparently it was the best idea out there so they gathered together as many cats as they could and threw them off the tower! I guess this went on for some years before they decided it was cruel or something and stopped the practice. Now every year or every three years they have a cat remembrance service below the tower and a man dressed as a court jester throws stuffed animal cats to a crowd of people below. Haha maybe you don't think that's funny but we were all busting a gut when we heard, it's just ridiculous! :) Anyways it was a pretty cool p-day.
This last week started off a bit slow for us because Zuster Jones was sick for a few days, but luckily she recovered pretty quickly and we were still able to have a good week. I think the most exciting thing that happened was we got bikes! For some reason the sisters in Antwerpen haven't had bikes for a few years and relied on public transportation to get around. That's fine and dandy except that Zr. Jones and I really have been trying to visit more dorpjes were families are so we can find, teach, and baptize families and public transportation just wasn't getting us there. When we called President Robinson to ask about bikes he didn't know why we didn't have bikes either so after a week of asking around a member got us some bikes!! We haven't had them for very long, but there's already been a significant difference since we got them. Our first day with the bikes we found two positive new investigators and met a lot of postive potentials. What great!! The work is picking up here in Antwerpen!! Not going to lie sometimes I feel a bit over-whelmed with it all and the significance of what I'm doing here, but at the same time I feel really humbled that the Lord finds me worthy and capable and trusts me with it. The worth of souls is really great, so that's a lot of responsiblity, but I know the Lord doesn't give us anything we can't handle and will make up for what I lack as long as I do my best. I intend to do nothing less.

I love you all and hope you are all enjoying the Autumn!

Love, Zuster Becky Hinchcliff