Week 13 - Beginning of Transfer 2

Hoi Familie Riley!

I'm excited for this new transfer with Zr. Wood (my 2nd transfer out in the mission, her 11th out of 12- don't worry, she's not trunky at all though haha) and for the last 3 weeks our mini-missionary we're getting! We set some great yet realistic goals that will push us to be creative, proactive, and bold. I sure miss Zr. Meier, but Zr. Wood is awesome, too! She's from Sandy, UT, plays soccer and violin and piano beautifully, loves to eat but is tiny, collects cool Dutch stickers (like bumper sticker-type), her favorite food is bacon, and she's really good at contacting/ connecting and relating with people. This week our district is having a TaalWeek where we speak Dutch 24/7 especially with each other, so if I've forgotten English by next Monday, be prepared for an email with lots of ij's or double vowels haha.

This week was very successful in the sense that we made extra effort to establish expectations/ remind people what our goals are/ "determine the relationship" so to speak, and it feels nice to be on the same page with onderzoekers on that, even though it can be hard to hear from people I've grown to love that they aren't as interested in my message as in my friendship. 

M is preparing for baptism on 26 July, with doubts regarding family members not being extraordinarily supportive but which are nonetheless resolve-able.

J's been making progress and her daughter, K (who is 19 and has a baby) wants to meet with us because she wants to change and give her daughter the best future possible. I love their family! I'll send a pic of me holding K's baby when J tossed her into my arms to go grab something and Zr. Wood snapped a pic.

We had some crazy discussions while contacting, from obnoxious mockers to hopeless elderly W2 veterans.

How about that Oranje? I haven't seen any of the games yet, but the Elders happen to take 45 mins to walk past a bar with the giant screen and fill us in on all the deets.. or we just listen for cheers/ cannon shots/ fireworks!

Love you guys, and THANKS for the package!!!  LOVED everything in it!!!!!!!! I got it two days ago and it made me SOOOOO HAPPYYYYY!!! I LOVE the photobooks!! And all the grad/ wedding announcements and the sweet twin painting/ beans/ penguin cards/ fruity GUM and sooo much more and all the gifts with scriptures hahahaa I loveeed those, how did you come up with each one? They were good!!!!! Zr. Wood thought they were so clever!!! Seriously thank you SOOOO much, ah can't wait to use my new letter-writing equipment as well today! I did have a good 1/2 birthday- lots of traveling on a train to and from Utrecht because of transfers, but had 2 appt.s in the evening. (:  It sure was the best half-birthday so far. (we sent a half-birthday-package because her birthday is Dec. 25)  Love you!!!! 

Met liefde, 

Zuster Riley (:

responding to a photo of her twin sister cheering for Germany, and guessing where Madi may get called to on her mission:  Die Mannschaft!  I guess: Sydney Australia, Mandarin Chinese!