Just Call Me Zuster: Week 66 - End of Transfer 10

Monday, July 6, 2015

Week 66 - End of Transfer 10

Being American

With the lovely Zuster Bunnell and other ZTLs!

Z. V/d Scheer (so sweet and has us over every Friday night) and her moody cat!

Cute YW!

Exchanges in Lelystad / Leah and Lara's bunnies- shout out to Trixie and Sophie haha.

Ik blijf!

Lieve familie,

We got the transfer call last night and I wasn't really expecting this- but I'm staying for a 4th in Zoetermeer (my 3rd with Zuster Lemich), sweet! I'm glad because I don't feel like my work here in Zoetermeer is done. Also, with the 40 C heat/ stresses of being in a trio/ whatever other excuses, I don't feel like I've always been the most loving and meek and patient companion, and wouldn't want to have ended our companionship on a weird vibe, esp. compared to what it usually is. Zuster Nyakoh is going to the Preston MTC next week, and will return to Den Haag with Zuster Hopkin (so we'll see her on exchanges and at least weekly at district mtg.!)- so we'll be a trio with Zuster Hopkin for the first two weeks of this next transfer, probably bouncing all over the place between Den Haag, Wassenaar, Zoetermeer, etc.

On Saturday we celebrated 4th of July by going to a welcome to Nederland party hosted by recent convert Peter Blair for his son, who he hadn't seen for 7 years. Peter is a hilarious older British (we decided not to remind him what our families were celebrating back home that day) man who got baptized a year ago and organizes the English class we teach during the school year, who has the funniest and coolest stories from his days as a professional ice skater in the traveling circus. We met the coolest people there, and all agreed afterwards that it felt so good to meet people who actually wanted to talk and get to know us and have such engaging conversations, and even want to meet up and talk more some time. I talked for a while with Peter's Canadian friend who turns out to be a world-renowned physicist/ has all sorts of connections with NASA, and is on the committee for the MarsOne project and it was so interesting to hear the behind the scenes of that- Josh would've loved talking to him.

Zuster Cowles, Zuster Nyakoh and I (we all have ties to Gent so had fun reminiscing on people in that great city) had a really cool miracle on exchanges.. we were going to a dinner appt. and were looking up a lady who Elders had contacted a while ago and said she may be interested in learning more, and when we swung by, she politely explained that she was already Christian and had looked on our website and saw a lot of nice similarities, but didn't see the need for the Book of Mormon if it's the same as the Bible that she already reads, and it was so cool because even our explanations didn't seem to satisfy her, but the second we opened up the Book of Mormon and read a verse about the Savior, her entire attitude changed, and she said, "hm, maybe I'll have to order that book and read it a little more," (aka take the one we offered her)- and we ended up praying on the spot and setting up an appt. for the next week. Such a testimony builder that, as Madi a few weeks ago alluded to Paul saying, our teaching really is not in the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the Spirit. The Spirit is what gets people, and nothing brings the Spirit like testifying of Christ, esp. with a BoM scripture to back it up.

I'm excited to build up a strong teaching pool of investigators to teach and prepare for baptism and the temple this next transfer. Jacob 1:7, I love this work!

Thanks for the love and prayers and support! Have a great week.

Liefs,

Zuster Riley (:

P.S. I got the photo book/ half birthday package and wow, thank you so so so much. I am so blessed with the love and support, you're amazing!!!

P.P.S. I got to meet Pres. and Zuster Bunnell at MLC and they are loving, sincere, and led by the Spirit. I'm really excited to work with them.