Hey!

Guess what! Life is super duper great! That's all.

Thank you so so so so so so much for your Thanksgiving package! I got it on Saturday! I'm so excited to have real Thanksgiving food! Thank you so much!

This has been a pretty good week. On Monday we tried to go teach Sister Ivy. She is 11 years old, and she really wants us to teach her. We taught her once before with her cousin, but her cousin doesn't seem to be interested in having us contine teaching her, so we were just going to stop, but then Ivy ran over to us one day on the street and asked us when we would teach her again. She said even if her cousin wasn't interested, we should just teach her. So we planned to teach her again. We tried going over there a week ago, but we couldn't find an adult to go with, and we can't teach children without an adult present. So we rescheduled. But when we went back, Ivy told us her parents don't want us to teach her. :'( So we cannot teach her. She was really disappointed. But we told her to keep reading the Book of Mormon, and we invited her to come to church. Last time we saw her she told us she had read all the way to 1 Ne. 22. She told us about what happened in the chapters she read, and she really had read it. We were really excited. She didn't come to church yesterday, and we're wondering if her parents didn't allow her. I'm really sad we can't teach her, but I'm really happy she is reading the Book of Mormon and that she has the desire to learn. I really hope she will keep reading the Book of Mormon, and someday she will be able to be baptized. We will keep stopping by and checking up on her.

Yesterday we taught Renz, the 11-year-old son of a less-active in the ward. He hasn't been baptized yet. We weren't sure if we'd be able to teach him becuase we had tried to teach him a couple times, but he wouldn't let us in to teach him. Miraculously, he let us teach him yesterday. We had planned to teach him the Restoration, but somehow it didn't feel right, so we taught him the plan of salvation and emphasized the doctrine of Christ as the purpose for life, and also as the way to go to the Celestial Kingdom. And he accepted to be baptized on December 29. I was amazed.

I don't know if I've told you about Giovannie yet, but he is a 17-year-old investigator, and he is just delightful. He's reminds me of a child because he is so willing to believe what we teach, and also because he was hungry at church last week and asked us if he could go buy a snack before sacrament meeting. Well, that wouldn't do, so I gave him some crackers that I had in my bag. Then after church we went to our apartment to get him a snack because he was staying for MCM (he was with some members who were going to MCM, and that's why he stayed). It made me laugh inside. He has a baptism date too. He's just the most delightful investigator. Sadly, we had to give him over to the Laoag 5 sisters because that is where he lives and he is not going to be in our area as much now that school has started (he is friends with a less-active family). I feel kind of like I'm giving my little brother away, and I really wish we could keep teaching him. But at least he will be taught. And we can probably go to his baptism too becuase he lives in our zone.

Anyway, thanks for being the best family ever! Thank you so so so so so so SO much for emailing me every week. You have no idea how much I look forward to your emails. I'm sorry I don't have time to respond to them individually. I'm really trying to focus on missionary work, so I haven't been able to write to y'all as much as I would like. But just know that I pour over your emails whenever I get them.

I love you all. The gospel is true!

Love, Sister Boekweg

P.S. It's hard for me to answer your questions sometimes, because I run out of time, so if you could write any questions you want answered all together at the top of your emails, then I can just type in the answer, and it will make it a lot easier for me to respond to them. Thanks!!