Week 11 - Groningen

We took the elders with us to joint teach K, and he took us to see the flowers near his house! 

Hairless cat and G's mom, Zuster B (a member and so sweet, always tells us "mooi gebet" and "je ruikt zo lecker")

Julia's pasta for dinner on the long train-ride to Cappella aan de Ijssel, yum

Hoi mijne geliefde familie~

As you can tell by my subject, I'm pretty excited about Nederland creaming Espana (formerly ranked #1 aka supposed to be the best in the world) 5-1. Also surprised. And you could say this little country is pretty excited, too! Zuster Meier and I decorated the outside of our house with orange flags, a little Nederland flag, and window stickers, which is nothing compared to the orange flooding other neighborhoods. Oranje just can't let this big win go to their head and lose to some rugby-playing country like Australia now...

Because of a zone conference this past Saturday in Rotterdam with Elder and Sister Boom speaking, Zr. Meier and I slept over Friday night with the sisters in Capella aan de Ijssel, and it was driving us crazy hearing the cheers from the neighbors, but not knowing the exact score. 

The world cup may be a macrocosm of what's happening in Groningen- lots of exciting surprises. For example, we had two contacting "power hours" between language study and lunch which were successful. Zr. Meier and I were knocking a neighborhood near our house that seemed to have been knocked before ("yeah, we've seen you, and heard of that book"), but I thought it'd be great to give them a second chance/ plant some more seeds, so we kept going, and suddenly this cute hipster JoVo was like "hey, I know you guys, Sister Hudson (former Sister in this area) is one of my good friends, come on in, let me grab you something to drink and tell my mom!," and she told us that she'd come to church a few times and to "that Thursday night thing" (institute) and just got really busy after a while and lost contact.. but she initiated setting up a return appt. and both she and her mom were so cool! 

Then, the next day, we stopped by M and S, two onderzoekers who I've only heard about and never met, because apparently they suddenly disappeared a while ago and we've been stopping by regularly when we're in the area, and both of them answered and explained what was going on and set up return appt.s! 

Elder and Sister Boom are so classy, inspiring, cool, and wise, and everything that a Dutch couple should aspire to be! I loved being spiritually fed by them at zone conference. 

Also, M, who we meet with twice a week and is progressing so well set a doopdatum for October! Which is so exciting for her, but sad because Zr. Meier will be home by then- woah. (M actually had felt good about June 14, but after talking to her peer mentor and family, decided she should wait until after Summer to jump into anything...)

Happy Father's Day Dad, and 21st (!!!!) birthday, Isaac! I'm doing great here, don't worry about me, and Groningen is the place to be. 

Met liefde,

Zuster Riley