Just Call Me Zuster: Week 52

Zuster Riley and her comp

Went to Primark (a cheap but pretty cute, Forever21-esque store here in NL) for the first time with the Lelystad sisters. / Zuster Cowles was pretty excited. (:

Guess who I saw at the Paasmuziekconcert (btw, there is an incredible couple- Br. and Zr. Gruppman- who are members in Rotterdam and are world-renowned violinists and they performed. Br. Gruppman is the Rotterdams Philharmonisch concermeester.)? My HOMES, Tahira aka mini-zendeling companion Zr. Koulen!! (:

The zone leaders came to an appointment with us and it happened to be Elder Elkin's birthday- so we had the friendly servers sing to him at this little Brasserie where we went for lunch and all the cute elderly Brunch-ers joined in. / A true Irishwoman doesn't limit herself to green breakfast only on 17 March right?

Monday: Hey, just so you know, we'll be doing most of our e-mailing tomorrow morning because we didn't get on until really late. But I'll send some pics right now. (: Today was good and pretty relaxing- I'm just trying to make sure my sisters feel loved and keep the peace and help them to stay confident and strong and positive. I talked to a really cool member today for hours, who said a lot of inspired things that I needed to hear and I am so grateful that Heavenly Father puts people in our paths at the perfect time. The Romigs (sr. couple who is related to the sr. couple in Groningen) put a video of us singing "Let it Glow" on Facebook apparently hahaha. Talk to you more tomorrow!

Liefs,

Z. Riley

P.S. Mary Poppins looks amazing, can't wait to watch it with you someday!

Tuesday: Better late than never!

Hey, happy April (almost)!

Great week last week- On Tuesday, our day was packed with appt after appt (felt like my first transfer in Turnhout again)- we swung by Jimmy and Jetty, who are a very sweet Surinaams couple who have been meeting with the Zusters for years, but progress really slowly and don't quite see the importance of "rushing into commitments".. we also met with Angela, who met with us while her good friend/ neighbor Priscilla un-dreadlocked her hair. Priscilla was cool and we got to know her a little, but when she was invited to sit in on the lesson with us she politely declined.. but as we got to teaching the Plan of Salvation and asking questions to Angela, Priscilla was really interested and kept answering and sharing her beliefs (she's Catholic) and it was really neat, because right before we had to leave she opened up to us and shared a really hard experience and asked us if we would pray, and wanted a Heilsplan pamphlet. Lucie had some really good questions about the justice and happiness of the plan of salvation with regards to part-member/ part-active family, and the next day after yoga I asked Zr. VanderPut to shed some experienced light on those sincere questions, and she was really able to help Lucie, and we had such a great, uplifting conversation about trust and faith in mortality.

Speaking of Lucie and Rosanne, we're going there tonight with Zr. Tettero and her YW daughter, and they are doing so well- still planning on baptism at the end of April. Sister Roberts, a member from Kentucky in the Wassenaar ward has a non-member friend from FL who's been to tons of RS activities in the states and came to and loved a recent one here, and she suggested we call and see if we could get to know her/ meet up, and when I did, she was so friendly and said "you know what, do you girls like Mexican food? Why don't you come over for dinner Tuesday night?".. we were so excited- apparently she has been through the lessons before and doesn't want to be preached at, but the fact that she is so friendly and positive towards having us over/ coming to church events is neat- helaas she got really sick and we'll have to reschedule.

Probably the highlight of our week was Friday night, walking around the centrum with some members to hand out paasconcert flyers.. no one was too interested, until we stopped these two girls who looked about our age, and ended up talking to them for at least 45 minutes! They were so. cool. They're cousins, originally from Iran, but Sara grew up in Sweden and Arman in the UK. I was talking to Sara about universal commonalities and moral absolutes and it just felt so natural to share a verse from 2 Nephi 2 and she's so cool and studying Industrial Ecology here and Arman is fascinated with religion and they are very open and non-judgemental and want to meet up and talk more. They actually said some really inspired things that helped us, and anyone watching us would've thought we'd known each other for years, the way we group-hugged and laughed and squealed when we ran into them later that night as we were leaving (they wanted to go get a drink with us and talk more, but it was already our bedtime ha).. but we will definitely talk with them more. They were a miracle!

Also, we're teaching L (less-active L's 12 yr old daughter), and L wants to hang out with us on a P-day in a few weeks.. we went to their house and she was crying during our spiritual message, saying she'd missed feeling the spirit, and even though she's scared of others' reactions at her suddenly coming back to church after so long, she feels like it's time. They are both so great. Her boyfriend is a very friendly and polite civil engineer who is completely satisfied with labeling himself as Catholic and not thinking about religious things otherwise.. but she (and we) always try to include him in on our chats. We went clear out to Hillegom - a beautiful dorpje (cutest little brick houses ever) surrounded by tulip fields to look up a less-active.. it'd been storming and we were soaked, but it was so worth it- she let us in and still has an incredible testimony and I'm excited to meet with her more and work some things out.

Love you guys! Play some pranks for me tomorrow! Maybe Motra Madi and I can switch missions or something for April Fool's, that'd be funny, right? (;

Liefs,

Zuster Riley

Video of Eliza singing "Let it Glow":
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1584533771816092&set=vb.100007784535927&type=2&theater