Hi family! How are you all doing?

This week was really good and really busy! We have been having lots of appointments recently, which is awesome and we love it! We've noticed that our number of investigators has really gone up since a few weeks ago. The Lord is definitely blessing the work in Oranjestad!

One thing that Sister Cole and I have been doing is going through the former investigator section of the area book and contacting people that we think are ready. So far we've had success! We started teaching Marielis again (I taught her a really long time ago with Sister Hardy. We lost contact because she got sick and had to cancel our last appointment, and then her phone stopped working. She lives on the very edge of our area and we almost never go out there. We should've made time to do it, but we didn't...)! She is so awesome and showed just as much interest, if not more, as she had the last time we taught her. She really wants to know the truth. We re-taught the Restoration and she is really excited to get the Book of Mormon and read it (that's our next lesson with her). Another former investigator that we picked up is Adriana. She was taught about a year ago by the missionaries. She moved a couple times and they weren't able to contact her, so she had to be dropped. But we called her number and it worked! She has lots of LDS friends and has been to church a few times and really likes it. She's awesome and wants to know which church is true!

We had a really cool lesson with a new investigator yesterday, that I told President about:

 We received a referral from the other sisters in Aruba of a man that they contacted, Rafael, who lives in our area. We called him and made an appointment for yesterday, Sunday. When we started the lesson, we began asking him questions about his beliefs in God and his background. He told us that he grew up going to church with his mom, but it was more of an obligatory thing because she made him go. Then his mom passed away and he stopped going. But he said that now, he wants to start learning about God and how He can help him in his life. We asked him what he hoped to learn from us, and he said, "Everything that you can teach me about God." It was such a spiritual lesson, and it was amazing to see Rafael's pure desire to learn about who God is and develop a personal relationship with him. We are so excited to visit him this week and keep teaching him! 

We also got to do a fun service project this week! We got a call from a sister in the ward and she was going to be putting on a BBQ in a couple days for a fundraiser and had tons of chicken and ribs that needed the skin taken off of it...so we went over and de-skinned about 200 chicken breasts! It was pretty gross but also really satisfying and fun! Plus, it was great to be able to help her with the BBQ!

I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week! Thank you for all your love and support!

Love,

Sister Davidson

Some funny quotes from this week:

"Did you just burp or are you saying things in Dutch?" -Sister Cole (I guess my Dutch pronunciation needs some work)

This next one needs some background: We are teaching a man named Ephraim (I think I've talked about him before). He is from Dubai and is here for med school, and let's just say his family is not lacking in money. He was telling us about how he went to high school with royal people and everything. Anyway, he was telling us that he collects watches from Omega, Breitling, etc., and then started telling us that Kate Spade watches are really nice for girls and that we should get one. He said, "They're pretty cheap too...only about $200 or something." And he was totally casual about it! Sister Cole and I thought it was hilarious. Yeah, pocket change, right?!

Pictures (warning- lots of raw chicken picture included):

1. Sister Cole and I

2 and 3. De-skinning chicken and the final product

4 and 5. Joshua, Patricia's special son :) I tried to get a picture with him, but he would hide behind the phone every time. Finally got him to smile for the camera!

6 and 7. For FHE activity, Patricia taught us how to cut fruit in a fancy way for drinks! She works in a restaurant for a hotel. Here is a strawberry rose and a lime sun!​