Belgium Netherlands Mission

This week was just so packed full of stuff so I'll try my best.

1. We went to this family in our ward on Monday to do fhe and they made this delicious 3 course meal for us! The salad was my favorite: arugula with fresh mint, citrus dressing, feta cheese, nectarines, and a salty meat. It was DELICIOUS. The mother and father in this family were super stars!

2. On the train ride to sleep over in Den Haag (at zr Hopkin's place! :D) the night before zone conference, zr Maughan wrote "Dinsday" in her journal because I was teasing and distracting her. It was really funny. :)

3. On the train ride back from zone conference, we were sitting across from a girl who was Asian, reading a book called "Crazy Rich Asians". We died secretly of laughter. It was awesome. 

4. Zone Conference was INCREDIBLE. Elder Dyches was visiting our mission and he was just really inspiring. His wife was in the hospital, but he still came and taught us! The stake president to stake Rotterdam spoke to us, and he said something that really touched my heart: "God sent us down here knowing we'd get hurt, but He also sent His Son to make sure that nothing could go wrong. Do your best and God will do the rest." I love that, because I can apply it to my mission, as well as to just life in general. 
We talked also about becoming "Master Teachers" and it was just full of inspiring advice. So cool.

5. After getting home from zone conference, we had dinner and then about an hour to do some work, so we went just spontaneously by an investigator, because we hadn't heard from her in a couple weeks. It was really cool because she told us she had needed us right at that moment, and we had a cool talk about the plan of salvation. She's doing well. I love those random little "coincidences" (toeval bestaat niet)

Man this week was such a good one!

On Zr Ramirez' last night in Arnhem we had dinner with this cute family in our ward. The parents are both from Ghana, but the wife is living with their daughters in England right now and the husband is working here. The wife and daughters were visiting this past week and he invited us over so we could meet them. It was so fun! The daughters have these cute British accents and it was just adorable. They were asking me all these questions about why we celebrate Thanksgiving and the 4th of July ("that's just rude!") haha and I felt legitimately impaired language-wise. It was in English, but oh my goodness I stumbled so much over my words and it was so funny. They were so sweet though and we ate a lot of good food.

Also they sent us home with leftovers we're still working on finishing, they gave us so much!
Zr Ramirez is so funny, we ate a lot because on the way there, she showed me a scripture, Luke 10:7-8
" 7 And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.

 8 And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you:"

And she said, "so that means we need to eat everything they put in front of us!" Ever since we read that I've just thought about her at all our dinner appointments this week haha

I miss that lady. 

But transfer day was probably the smoothest-run transfer day I've ever experienced. Throwing suitcases and a bike on and off of busses and trains is usually a billion times more hectic, but this time everything went really well. :) We forgot Zr Ramirez'' helmet though.... so I'll have to give that to her this week at our zone conference.  haha

Zr Maughan is super cool! We both have the same exact ukulele (except she decorated hers with cute washi tape) and we love to sing, so we've just been singing nonstop the past week. This Sunday a member came up to us and asked us to sing a song neither of us has ever heard of before in sacrament next week as part of her talk, so we've been practicing today haha
It's always fun to have a companion that likes music :)
Zr Maughan actually reminds me a LOT of Zr Frandsen! it's really funny and weird because it's major deja vu sometimes

But we went to see one of our friends this week, and when we got in her car at the station to go to her house, she said, "Sisters! You need to be proud of me!" And we were like "of course we're proud of you!" And she said, "No. Do you know what happened today at 12?" "...no.. what happened?" "I smoked my last cigarette!" 
And we just all died of happiness. 
I love stubborn Dutch people. This is a great example of when their stubbornness really works to their advantage. Our friend is so SO COOL. We fasted for her the next day that she'd be able to keep going and on Sunday she was still going strong! I love her so much!

The singing elders came to our ward on Sunday and sang for us in sacrament meeting and we have a ton of appointments with them and members this coming week, it's so exciting! They sang "Joseph Smith's First Prayer"and "Oh My Father' to the tune of "Homeward Bound" and it was absolutely beautiful!
The spirit was so strong.

We've got a Zone Conference with Elder Dyches of the 2nd Quorom of the 70, and we're super excited! It's going to be really good. :) I love conferences and trainings. :) Also getting really excited about Zuster's Conference at the end of September! 

This week I was really touched by a scripture I read in 2 Corinthians 2
" 7 So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.

 8 Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him."

I loved it. Because we really do need to be careful and forgive others, but also show them. Let them know that we've forgiven them, otherwise they might be torn up by the sorrow they may feel. I had a few names come to my mind of people I need to "confirm my love toward" :)

Love you all, have a good week!

Well, we had transfer calls last night and the results are that Zuster Ramirez is going to Apeldoorn (20 minutes north of Arnhem with the car) and I'm getting Zuster Maughn. She is from American Fork and was at MRJH with me and Caden! (She and her twin are Caden's age) And they were both in Guys and Dolls! Crazy, right? She's the group right after me and was just a Sister training leader in Belgium. She is so thoughtful and sweet and I feel so beyond lucky that she is my new companion! 
I'm super sad to see Zr Ramirez go though! We had some super good times together :) She's going to the ward where her mom's boyfriend lives, so she was laughing that her mom can't go to the Apeldoorn ward anymore to visit. It's all very exciting haha

Well, I don't know how this transfer managed to go by so quickly but it did. So this last Monday we went to a monkey zoo in Apeldoorn (yes it's funny and coincidental yes) and the monkeys could just walk around and sit on you and stuff but there were a lot of people there so we were sad that none of them sat on us. But it was still super cool! We had lots of fun. :)

This week we went on two exchanges again and there were just so many cool moments! Some of my favorites:
-in Maastricht Zr Twiggs and I went to an investigator, who is 85 and loves music. We walked in and he was blasting classical music and he had a mini organ and two keyboards. It was so cool. He made me play the piano once he found out I could play :) haha We talked to him about prayer and receiving answers to prayer, and then gave him the Liahona with the last conference and marked a talk for him to read. As we handed him the magazine, he looked at the cover with the little family smiling out at him, and he said "I can tell who these people are--that they're from your church. You all have this look about you. Every sister missionary that's been to my house has that too. I find that extremely wonderful. You can tell that you are Christians"  that was so cool to hear! :)

-also in Maastricht (which is turning into an elder city now... crazy!) we went to a member house for dinner and they were funny and asked who out of us (two elders came as well) was next to go home. I cringed as the other 3 missionaries pointed at me. That's never happened to me so far! Agh I don't like it...

-in Breda again with Zr Bush (Zr Ramirez had a doctor appointment and Zr Jaramillo needed to go with to translate) We were doing lookups and there was this one former investigator we were trying to find but the street didn't have her house number. There was a block of houses, the last number was 62, and then an alleyway with garages, and then the next block of houses beginning with number 46. We were super confused because we were looking for nr 50, and after about a half hour of looking around and asking people where nr 50 was, we realized that we were looking at the wrong street on the map haha it was so funny :)

-also we were biking around with our helmets on of course and there was a kid riding achterop his mom's motorscooter. As they passed us he realized we were wearing helmets and just started laughing super hard, so we smiled and laughed too. Then maybe 20 minutes later we passed him again, this time he was on his own bike and we just all died of laughter. We wanted a picture with him, but we were late for an appointment so we just nicknamed him Ricardio. haha we love ricardio.

This has been such a good companionship and I'm sad to see her go, but we'll have stake conference and zone conference so I'll see her next week :) 

This morning I did a deeeep cleaning while she packed and it felt so good. I left my spiritual journal and my real journal in maastricht so hopefully I can get them back on transfer day.... but in the meantime I've just been using scrap paper. haha

I think my favorite thing this week was church. I learned so much! Brother Jones, our ward mission leader teaches the gospel principles class, and yesterday he talked about cowboys vs shepherds: is our Savior a cowboy or is He a shepherd? When you think about the attributes of both professions and how they deal with the animals, it gives a lot of meaning. If we view our Savior as a shepherd (which He is) we realize a lot more about His nature and His desire to love and care for us. 

Veeeeeel liefs! hope you kids have fun starting back to school this week!
Zr Watts

We found out a couple days ago that there actually is a computer in this church building and that we are allowed to use it, so now I'm regretting paying 3 euro at the library, but oh well. There's only one computer, but taking turns is better than paying, so it's all good. I also just got to play the piano for an hour so I'm definitely not complaining. And Zr Ramirez just brought me a cup of Andalusia herbal tea, so I'm just really cozy right now on this rainy Nederland day. :)

man, where to begin? i'M running out of time, but I can't believe that a year ago I was starting out in the MTC and worrying about the language haha those worries seem so insignificant now. I've learned so much and I made a goal to really get better at writing in my journal, so that's picking up right now. :)

We had a cool lesson with our investigator about the nature of God and Jesus Christ. He is making so much progress and it's so amazing to see that. He isn't smoking at work anymore!:D

We had MLC this week and it was exactly what I needed. I was starting to really feel down on myself and my efforts and some other things were just weighing on my mind, but it was cool to see how all of my unspoken prayers were answered and I was able to get some really good things out of it that gave me some direction on how I can be more positive and more at peace with what I accomplish or don't accomplish. There were so many times this week where I read or heard something that was exactly what I needed to hear and it was really humbling and wonderful. I'm so grateful to be here on my mission! I love you all so much!

have a good week!

Goede Morgen allemaal!
So we bought our helmets last week, and then, due to circumstances, we can't use our bikes, so I haven't worn mine except for on the way home from the store haha

I finally got to work with Zuster Bush for a day! Tuesday was such a good day :) We worked in Breda and it was just so cool to see how much we've grown in the past year (what?) And she is just a lovely human being and we had WAY too much fun. :) We cleaned the church there in Breda and the elders left us with the toilets so that was funny. :)
When we exchanged back, Zr Jaramillo forgot to give my bike keys back, so that's why we can't bike right now. I'll get them back from her district leader on Saturday at DLC though, so 't komt goed :)

The next day we did another exchange with the Maastricht sisters, and I worked with Zr Dobler for the day in Arnhem. We had a super cool appointment with their investigator and her husband. He was really curious and wants to join all of our lessons now! At the end of the lesson he said he was curious about baptism and then said one of the most beautiful, sincere prayers I've heard, so we're naturally really really excited about them. 

Friday we had to go to Amsterdam early in the morning to get my stuff notarized so I can get my drivers license finally resent! It was an early morning, we had to leave at 7:30 to get there at 9:15. There were other people waiting in the line that hadn't noticed on the Consulate website that they couldn't bring any electronics with them, so they were all flustered, and the security guard wasn't very nice. There was one older woman that I talked to a lot, she was so sweet. I had a lot of opportunities to explain my nametag that morning and it was just really a funny morning. Turns out that it was 48 euro for each signature. Sooo this drivers license is getting real expensive to reorder. But on the plus side, we went to Burger bar real quick afterward and had a good hamburger and fries with good BBQ sauce (which is hard to find here)
The next day was a parade, so the whole city was decked out in rainbows and even the US Consulate had rainbow streamers coming down from the balcony under the American flag. It made us laugh. Amsterdam is a .... special place. :)

On Saturday we had a huge miracle! We were supposed to have an appointment with an investigator, but then when we got there he was sick, so we decided to go to the centrum to contact and we ran into a man who came to church night, but we never got his information. He was talking to a muslim man, so we all had an interesting conversation. He didn't want to give us his information to meet another time, but it was at least good to get that horrible feeling of not having asked for his address off our chests. He gave us an address of a long-lost less active to go to though! We think she maybe moved, but nobody knew, so we stopped by her yesterday and it was so cool to see that mini miracle come of it. 

Everything happens for a reason! I love you all and hope you have a great week! Don't forget to read in the scriptures and pray every day, I promise you'll learn something you can use during the day or week!

liefs,
Zuster Watts