"Becometh as a child"

               

Our Dutch skills continue to grow little by little.  We enjoy reading the Liahona.  First we read the story in the very back of each issue for very young children! 

Then I read the Visiting Teaching message, which takes much longer to translate : ) (think forever!)

 I was wandering along the street here in Zeist while Elder Christensen got his hair cut and found a Christian bookstore.  I found these little bible story books.  “The Story of Moses”, “Daniel is not Afraid”, and “Jonah Listens Anyway”!  I only needed to look up one word, “toch”.  It seems so simple, but here we are, the best reading we have is children’s books! 

We sit together on the couch, reading them one page at a time, thrilled as we figure out what it says!  And yes, just like our grandchildren who are learning to read, we look at the pictures first to start figuring out what the words say! 

Today was a good day for Dutch at church.  A member from Romania prayed in Relief Society.  English is her 2^nd language and Dutch her 3^rd.  (yes, we feel inadequate!).  She isn’t fluent in either of them but can communicate fairly well.  When she prayed, she prayed in Dutch, using all the important words, none of the flowery words, and in English sentence word order.   Woohoo!!  I could understand the whole prayer!  

The Relief Society teacher had made an outline of the lesson with the scriptural references by each point.  I could read most of the outline, only needing to look up about a half dozen words.  With that and the scriptures I was able to follow the lesson even though I couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying, just a few words here and there.  As I’ve said before, learning Dutch is a slow, slow process.  We’re farther along than when we just arrived (newborns) and have “become as a little child”!

 One of our Dutch language goals is that by the time we come home we can read this book, “He Was One of Us”.  It is the story of Jesus of Nazareth illustrated by a famous Dutch artist, Rien Poortvliet.  I love this book!  I The illustrations are so beautiful.  We continue to pray for the “gift of tongues”!