February 16, 2015

Dancing, Peppers and New Investigators!

This week was sooo stinkin' good! We are seeing miracles here in Leeuwarden. 5 new investigators this week, and 2 of them are progressing, with a possiblity of the new ones progressing this week.

One of my favorite experiences of the week was looking up a church headquarter referral in Akkrum. We received a notification that someone nearby wanted a Book of Mormon. We called her up and she was SO open for us to come over. Let us choose a time and everything. It was perfect timing too because Zuster Romney and I were both a little stressed about planning what we'd be doing that day because the District Leaders were going to come work with us. It worked out perfectly. The next day we showed up at her house and she welcomed us in with no question. We were mensen 4 (four people) and she was so happy to have us. Her husband was also there with their dog and we could see the light of Christ in both of these people right away. We weren't too sure what was going to come from this meeting but we had a couple options planned just in case she didn't have a lot of time. We ended up teaching both of them about the Restoration and they are SO open to reading the Book of Mormon. They seemed to understand everything because they'd been doing a bit of research themselves. It was a really great growing experience for me as all 4 of us missionaries switched off teaching certain parts to them. It's so amazing that we didn't even have to prepare a lesson together, but we can bring the spirit if we are worthy to be guided by it. Also it helps that we are all familiar with Preach my Gospel. Preach my Gospel is sooooo good and I think everyone should read it. Not just missionaries :)

We are encouraged as missionaries to invite someone to prepare to be baptized after we teach them a first lesson. We call it a R.A.D- Restoration and Doop (baptism). We were nearing the end of the lesson and I realized that we'd need to invite them, and I would most likely be the one to do it. I freaked out inside for a good while, but I was able to get up the courage and invite them. It was so cool to hear that they would be willing to once they read The Book of Mormon and find out that it's true. Her husband wasn't too sure about what consisted of being baptized so we assigned them 2 super good chapters about baptism. 2nd Nephi 31 and Mosiah 18. This family is soooo positive and we are excited to teach them again! Also it's the best because now we have 2 investigators named Petra.

We also had a really good lesson with Phi this week. I don't know if I've talked about hm before, but he's from Vietnam and doesn't have the best Dutch. His son who speaks really good Dutch was there for the first lesson, so we didn't really get to hear a lot about what Phi thought about things. We have been worried that we'd have a language barrier, but this lesson was so good. Br. Ahmed came on joint teach- he is from Egypt and doesn't have the best Dutch either- but they were clicked right away and have similiar experiences in their lives! Z. Romney and I were both so shocked that they could understand each others "Nederengles" The lesson was super weird because then Phi decided he wanted us to speak English because it was easier for him to understand. He spoke Dutch and we taught The Plan of Salvation in English. Super hard and funny to switch back in forth, but it just shows that the spirit really is another language because Phi understood it all!

We had the funnest branch activity I've ever been to. We had a Valentines Dance on Saturday, which we've been preparing for, for a couple of weeks. Z. Romney somehow volunteered herself to teach Jazz Ballet her first day she was here- she's a ballet dancer- and we finally got to teach everyone. The party was in a church building- an old bank- and we learned how to Line Dance, Breakdance, Jazz Ballet, and English Waltz. It was so stinkin' fun and we loveeeeed being in jeans and a t-shirt for a few hours. I'll send some pictures next week. It was hilarious too because I got to be Z. Romney's assistant. Everyone who is reading this knows that I cannot do any form of dancing. I just free style and move my body parts, but it was super fun. We taught everyone the Napolean Dynamite dance, but nobody knew it except the Elders because we taught it to them while another song was playing. We basically had creative rights to do whatever kind of dancing we wanted to, because I'm pretty sure Jazz and Ballet don't really exist together. It was a fun Valentines night and it was extra special that our investigator Maggie showed up and stayed the whole time.

 Okay something funny that happened this week. We made Salsa. Yes. We finally found peppers here. I guess nobody likes spicy food here. We couldn't find Jalepeno Peppers, but we found a bunch of random colorful weirdly shaped and got so excited that we put them all into our salsa. We took the salsa to the Valentines Dance and everyone was asking, "Who made that salsa?!" They found out the sisters made it and just laughed. Only a couple of people liked it, but we thought it was okay because there would be more for us. The funnies part about it though was we made the salsa right before we went to bed. Apparently I didn't wash my hands good enough, because I went to blow my nose and my nose caught on fire. I was up for a couple of hours trying to get it to go away. I resorted to sticking my nose in a bowl of milk. I didn't tell my companion until I woke up the next morning :)

Hey guess what. I gave my first talk in Dutch in Church on Sunday! I did give a talk in Primary, but I'm not counting that one because it was just to a 2 year old and 3 adults :) But It was a really good learning experience for me, and I hope they all understood me :) I got to speak about Prophets and why it is so important to have a living Prophet on the Earth today. I based a lot of it from the talk by Henry B. Eyring in this past October's conference titled "Continuous Revelation." One thing I really loved about it was that not only did Joseph Smith restore The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the earth today, but he also made it possible for us to receive revelation. We need a Latter-day Prophet to help guide us in this changing world. According to Henry B. Eyring, there are some questions that just cannot be answered with our human minds, and we need a better source to receive answers. That way is through a Prophet from Heavenly Father. I am so thankful for a Latter-day Prophet!

♥  ♥  ♥  

Ahh I am super sad. I grabbed the wrong SD card for my camera this morning so I'll have to send them later this week or next week. So sorry. I even took lots of pictures. But the pictures I did upload are just silly ones. We made Lemon Greek Rice soup and Z. Romney had a romantic dinner on the couch haha, and the other pic is me just being weird showing off my Jewish hairstyle.  Glad you got the pictures from last week though. I didn't think I had any to send, and then I got done emailing and realized I had a ton. Crazy me. Losing my mind over here :)

WOW
You guys had an awesome week! Sorry I can't comment on too much of it this week.
I am still waiting for the rest of Rebecca's story though :)
Thank you for the inspirational emails :)

Love you all and I love being on a mission!!

Fijne Week!

Liefs,
Zuster Bush

Agnes got baptized!!!!!


Image forwarded from Zuster Jones




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