Anne Marie Van Winkel, Antwerpen, Nov. 7, 2010
Anne-Marie van Winckel is the childhood friend of recent convert, Christine Nuyens. Anne-Marie grew up in a very Catholic family and has always had great faith, but has felt over the past few years that there was something more to be found. She began looking into several religions without any contentment. In a casual phone conversation, Christine mentioned that she needed to go to get her family and things ready for church early the next morning. Anne-Marie's curiosity was piqued and she began immediately to ask questions about the church. Four hours later, they hung up the phone with an agreement to continue the conversation the next day. Christine invited Anne-Marie to church early September and she hasn't missed a Sunday since. She got the scriptures and church manuals and began reading right away until they were finished. She spent hours on lds.org and mormon.org researching the doctrines of the restored gospel. Early October, the sister missionaries came to her home with our ward mission leader, Christine's father, Brother Nuyens, to teach the first lesson. And she already knew everything. We challenged her to baptism for the 14 November but she assured us that was much too fast. Several appointments and Sundays at the church later, she had developed an unwavering testimony and decided that there wasn't much reason to wait. In two days, her baptism was planned and happened beautifully. After the ordinance, Anne-Marie stood before the congregation and bore sincere testimony of how she came to recognize the spirit and the truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She is already an important part of the Antwerpen ward and is looking forward to her first calling. She's incredible. (Written by Zusters Fritz and DeGroot)
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