The Antwerpen Hand - Oct. 29

The Antwerpen Hand

Ok so here's the story according to my understanding of the Antwerpen hand. Haha you can probably check it out online for the full verhaal. So once upon a time a long time ago there was this mean scary guy going around cutting off people's hand and throwing them into the river to show everyone he was bigger and stronger as a way of asserting power. People everywhere were terrified but someone somewhere got tired of living in fear. The next time the mean scary guy came through town, this someone (or a group of someones) cut off his hand and threw it in the river, ending his reign of terror. The town was named after this occasion. 'Ant' is the colloquial shortening of the word 'hand' meaning hand and 'werpen' is the infinitive form of the verb throw. Thus, Antwerpen. The End :) 

Haha people here are very proud of that story and have a lot of giant hand statues around the city, symbols of hands in architecture, and they even sell chocolate hands in just about every chocolate shop. I think it's cool for that they take pride in their history. 

Yesterday at church we had a great sacrament meeting. One talk was over how we all need a purpose in life and we can find that purpose in our families. The other was over family history and the importance of looking for our ancestors to do their temple work. This was pretty significant considering that at the start of the meeting the first counselor in the bishopric read a letter from the First Presidency over family history work. I know we would all benefit from taking more pride in our family history, maybe not to statue-building, chocolate-making extent of the Belgians in Antwerpen haha but definitley to the extent that we are doing something to knit our hearts in unity and love with our fore-father. I know that as we take more pride in this we can fulfill Elijah's prophecy of the hearts of fathers and children turning towards each other (Malachi 4:5-6). I hope that we can all find purpose in our lives by serving our family members, those with us here in this realm of our existance and those who have gone ahead to the next.

Love you all, have a great week and do some family history for me!!

Love, Zuster Becky Hinchcliff

November 12

It's a Girl!!

So you remember my friend Sara right (she was baptized in September)? Well, she just had a baby early in the morning November 11! Haha Zuster Jones and I were/still are super excited about little Sam. In the past several months we've been through a lot together with Sara and now we feel as if Sam is our own. Ok, maybe not our own own, but definitely like a niece. All day Sunday we were walking on air we were so excited to meet her, and finally after a reeeaaalllyyy long correlation meeting at church we had time to go to the hospital to meet her!! On our way we called President Robinson to let him know we were tantes and to ask permission to hold our niece, he said yes!! Best day of my life. That little girl is straight from heaven and I got to hold her in my arms. I'll be sending pictures soon.

In addition to this most glorious event, our Sunday meetings themselves were fantastic! Not only were all the teachers and speakers incredibly inspired, but we had two new investigators roll up into sacrament meeting! 

Ludo is an older Belgian man who called the church Friday afternoon asking for a copy of the Book of Mormon. He said he'd been trying to find one everywhere and desperately wanted one. We let him know we could help him with that :) After getting his address and telephone number we invited him to church and he came! We now have an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. It's a miracle too that we were at the church for that phone call. We had just finished having a zone training at the church and Zuster Jones and I were the last ones in the building locking everything up when the phone rang. That's some divine planning. 

The other man in church Sunday is Pepe. He's from Spain but has been living here for a while because he speaks some awesome Dutch. We met him and his son a few days ago at a tram halte. His son saw our nametags and asked if we were Jehovah's Witnesses. NO! People need to stop thinking that. We kindly let him know we were missionaries from another church (in fact the church with a fullness of the truth restored to the earth) and started up a conversation. A few sentences into it Pepe joined and before we got off the tram he had a Book of Mormon in hand. After sacrament meeting Sunday he set-up an appointment with us for Thursday and said that he had some friends that needed to hear our message so they'd be there too. Sounds good to me! 

And that was all just yesterday! This last week has been incredible, we've been seeing some miracles here in Antwerpen! 

I love being a missionary.

Love, Zuster Becky Hinchcliff

Even more pictures

First- giant nest 

Second- me inside giant nest

Third- Castle chilling on the side of the street in Antwerpen. Cool huh :)

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More Pictures

First- big church in Antwerpen. They have lots of beautiful churches here, but no one really goes to them anymore except for tourist...sad

Second- This is us with Sara, our friend who was baptized beginning of Sept. I don't think pictures are supposed to be taken in front of the baptismal font, so you probably shouldn't share this one.

Third- trio!

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PHOTOS! - Oct. 29th

The first is of my with a giant Antwerpen hand in central train station

The second is with the A for Antwerpen in central train station

The third is of a man throwing the cut off hand Antwerpen is named for

The last is a street in Antwerpen. I take a lot of pictures of buildings because I think the architecture is beautiful but I figure you would get bored of looking at a bunch of buildings so instead I decided to send you just one picture with several included.

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The Best Week of My Life- Oct. 22

Echt waar! This last week has been so amazing, full of inspiration and miracles.

Monday we went to Brugge with some other missionaries for P-day where we ran into some members of the church from America, a kid Zr. Jones met last week on the train who not only recognized her but was so excited to see her that before she could stop him he ran over and gave her a huge hug haha, and one of the senior couples in our mission who ended up taking all of us out for fresh waffles, mmmm! 

Tuesday we had a lot of really great Atonement focused lessons and we made contact with a friend we haven't seen or heard from in weeks! We set an appointment right then :) Haha also another man hugged my companion...

Wednesday was our temple conference so we woke up early to head to the Den Haag Temple. There we met up with all the missionaries from the Antwerpen and Appledorn Zones and all the senior couples for a session and afterwards we traveled to Leiden for a zone conference and lunch. The temple was so beautiful and being there with so many missionaries was so wonderful. Zr Jones and I are the only sisters two sisters in both zones so it was really cool to be there with so many priesthood holders. Awesome actually. At our zone conference we heard several "closing testimonies" of a group of elders that are leaving this week that I have been privileged to work with. I'm going to miss those ones. Also, I got a package in the form of a bottle, clever :) Haha the elders were so excited for me and suggested I send it back filled with Dutch goodies, like a message in a bottle type deal. Haha we'll see, but keep your eyes open ;) Oh and so you know Mom, the goodies you sent were DELICIOUS! Thanks :) There's a lot that could be said about this day, but basically it was fun, spirit-filled, and just what I needed.

Thursday we got two new investigators, had a great appointment with a less-active family who committed to come to institute and seminary this week, where able to be an answer to someone's prayer when another appointment fell through, and a member took us out for Chinese food! I ate a duck, yum!

Friday we had a great appointment with some friends over how to recognize the spirit after which they told us they could feel it, a little girl told me I was her best friend :), our weekly planning took forever because we have so many friends and lessons to plan for, and we had a really great lesson with a family over how we are all children of God. 

Saturday everything went through and ran smoothly. We were able to make  all our appointments, do some service, and go to the Saturday session of stake conference where President and Zuster Robinson gave amazing talks, both in Dutch! I was blown away by how well they did and the spirit they brought. 

and...Sunday was Stake Conference in Brussels so not only did we get some awesome spiritual nourishment from our stake, but we also got to see a beautiful new city! Also, someone one else told us we were an answer to their prayer and after meeting members of our ward and seeing us interact with our stake, President Robinson told us that this next transfer Zr. Jones and I get to  stay companions here in Antwerpen!! I am so excited! Not only is this the longest I'll have been with one companion, but I LOVE Antwerpen and was afraid I was on my way out, thank goodness I'm not!

I don't know, maybe this week doesn't seem particularly special to anyone else, but for me, it was super spirit-filled and to quote one of our spanish members, "amathing." I really felt like I was improving the lives of those I interacted with which is an incredible feeling. I love being a missionary and am really grateful for the experiences the Lord provides that allow me to build up others and in the process be built up myself. I know that I am doing the Lord's work and that He is involved in the details. I love you all and am grateful for what you do to build me up, the emails, letters, and packages you send; the prayers you say; and the work you do to build up and share your testimonies. Yesterday at stake conference one of the speakers quoted Moroni 7:27, 37: 

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have ^amiracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to ^bclaim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men?...Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that ^amiracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men; wherefore, if these things have ceased wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of ^bunbelief, and all is vain."

After reading this he used examples from the scriptures and his own life to show how faith is a principle of action and that as we exercise our faith we can assist the Lord in bringing about miracles. I would like to add my testimony to that I know that miracles continue, I see them everyday. I know as you all excercise your faith, you'll see them too :)

I love you all!!! Have an amathing week!

Love, Zuster Becky Hinchcliff

Only on a mission, Oct. 15th, 2012

)

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