Week 55 - Transfer 9

New transfer already!

 Eliza's 8th companion in 9 transfers 

 Our beautiful church building!

 And the beautiful temple. (:

  Jonas Symynck (from Gent) served a mini-zending in Den Haag.

Goeie dag Familie Riley!

    So, Zuster Lemich, my beautiful new companion, is awesome. She grew up in Wyoming until she moved to Cedar City, UT in her teens, and went to U of Utah for a year. (She's lactose-intolerant and a health nut as well; we could talk all day about date-nut butter-coconut- concoctions and quinoa salads and veggie curries..) and it's just so fun working with her and Zoetermeer loves her so much already and we're already such good friends. She just served in Breda for six months and speaks very highly of it, so I'm glad that the lovely Zuster Faa (now serving in Breda) is in such a good place now as well. (:

    Tuesday night we had a really neat lesson at the home of Familie De V. I was a little nervous going over there because there had been a slip-up on our part in communication with L and R about their baptism date- we'd understood that they were planning on 25 April to be baptized (which we even told a couple members at church when they asked), while they were thinking of end of April as more of a goal and sometime in May as the realistic time, and it ended up getting announced in primary, much to R's surprise. But they were so nice and forgiving and on Tuesday night got out the calendar and agreed that 23 May (someone's 14th birthday, eh J-dawg?) was the best time with their schedule/ feeling prepared, and R kept making sure it was really going through and  was so excited to plan it all, and L said how she feels like all the puzzle pieces are really coming together and the gospel is really making sense. R bore a sweet testimony about how at first church was new and frankly a bit weird with all the church-y terms, but now she feels so good there and understands things much better. They are both excited to finally have chosen a set date to be baptized, and of course the whole ward is so excited for these dear friends of theirs.

    Samantha, the 8 yr old daughter of a sweet less-active lady, E, wants to be baptized and E finally feels like she is ready and she will be baptized on 2 May. Samantha has such a pure desire to do good, and I'm always re-amazed at the faith of children. They really are the future of the Church.

    Speaking of baptisms, we moved L's date back to the end of May to make it more realistic- she's reading and asking good questions and progressing, but between her Mom who schedules family trips every weekend (although she says she wants L to progress) and staying with her Dad (who is totally against the church) every other weekend, she still hasn't made it to church. Actually, that's something we've been struggling here- getting investigators to come to church- which is surprising to me considering the amazingly strong and warm 2 wards we work with, and the many positive people we are working with. But Zuster Lemich and I are really going to try to improve that.

   On last-minute exchanges with Zuster Voss, we went back and forth between Den Haag and Zoetermeer to juggle appts in both cities (not complaining, what missionary doesn't love a day full of appts?) and met with M, this super sweet Christian Surinaams woman. Her house had such good, peaceful vibes and we all hit it off really well and next thing I knew we were sitting on her couch singing and harmonizing Sound of Music songs ha. Then we taught her a RaD which felt so good- the spirit really was in her home- until at the end when she wouldn't take the BoM (she said she has enough Bibles/ she'll just pray about it/ we can bring it and read it together)... it was so interesting, because both Z. Voss and I picked up on that immediate switch in the feel in her home. She was so sweet though and we left with basically her entire freezer (leftovers of delicious homemade Surinaams food to heat up and eat for dinner). Something really neat that was definitely not a coincidence ("coincidence is often God acting anonymously") was the fact that her son, Lorenzo, who came in at the end and talked to us for a while, was the same Lorenzo who the Assen sisters excitedly called Den Haag sisters about approx. a month ago when I was on exchanges- he'd been to his LDS friend's baptism and saw the Assen sisters on a train and came up and talked to them, and had been taught one lesson recently here in DH! And then the DH sisters just met M, his mother, on the street and ended up coming over and having a neat lesson with her- what are the odds.

    Yali is a cute Jovo-aged Chinese student who was referred to us by Liping (a member) after Yali came to the music concert, and we are mostly teaching her English- but through MTC study books (she speaks good Dutch and Dutch and English are easier for her to juxtapose) which contain simple sentences about gospel principles. She is so nice and friendly and hard-working, I really like her.

   I'm excited to be focusing so much on the Book of Mormon this transfer- it really does contain the word of God and brings me closer to my Savior Jesus Christ. Where are you reading as a fam right now?

    Love you lots- veel liefs!

Zuster Riley (:

Cassandra and Chys!

 Scooping poop at Wouter's cow farm! (Wouter is a super cool recent convert).

Tulip fields in Hillegom (where a wassenaar less-active lives)!

From the Romigs: We invited the missionaries over to our house for our district meeting today. We fed them fajitas for lunch. They are a great bunch of missionaries. Three of the missionaries just transferred into our district.

From the Robinson's bl0g: Joint teach with President Robinson, teaching Isaac in Gent (2 transfers ago)