ALWAYS a Blessing in Every Day

Dearest Family-
Wowwww so many things happening for you all this week. Little bit crazy. It seems like I've been gone for a year but then I have to remember it's only been 7 months. Gek. That means crazy in Dutch.

Woot woot woot. I love this work. Everyday is like a game. I'm pretty sure someone needs to invent a video game called Missionary life because it would be action packed. Running for busses, cruising on our bikes dodging cars, people and other bikes, finding tons of stray cats on the side of the street, teaching a power lesson and hopping on our bikes talking about it the whole way home, getting soaked in the rain while we try to peddle through the huge gusts of wind, stopping twice a day to fix a broken bike, and so much more. I love that everyday is different and everyday never goes as planned. Somedays are hard but there is never a completely BAD day. Only bad hours. There is ALWAYS a wonderful blessing in every day.

We received 3 new investigators this week.

S. comes from Curacao and he met with the sisters in October but randomly stopped for no particular reason. We called him up one day and set up an appointment for the same day. The Apeldoorn sisters were on splits with us so we all went and taught the Restoration. It was so cool to be teaching a lesson with other sisters who are in different points of their missions. I love learning from other sisters and seeing how they explain a certain principle. S. was pretty positive in the fact that he knows he wants to be on the path to follow the Savior. A bit nervous though when we talked about Joseph Smith. He thought The Book of Mormon was just about Joseph Smith, but I think we helped him understand that it truly is Another Testament of Jesus Christ.

The other 2 investigators were found on the same day. Saturday was a power day for us. We finished studies and went to our neighbors upstairs to deliver a little pot of flowers we had meant to deliver last week. The man and his wife were very appreciative of the flowers and card and had so many questions for us about what we are doing. They're not interested in the message we have to share right now, but maybe they will someday :)

We were walking back into our apartment to go eat lunch and we saw our darling neighbor H. soaking in the sun on her porch below us. We ran inside and quickly chose a power scripture to share with her and ran downstairs. She was already inside by the time we got there, but she let us come right in. She saw that we had brought our "bible" so she immediately let us share our scripture. We shared a scripture in Doctrine and Covenants about how our trials are just a small moment. That really spoke to her and she began talking about how she knows that she needs to follow the Savior and she knows he is important but she doesn't feel it in her heart yet. She straight up asked if she could learn how to pray, and we were so excited. We carefully explained each step of prayer and why it was even important that we prayed. We then prayed with her to give her an example of what prayer could be like, and invited her to take a turn.

Her prayer was the most humbling experience I have ever had. This woman had so much desire as her frail little voice asked Heavenly Father for every intent of her heart. She prayed to have confidence and trust in the Lord. She wants to feel his love and support and she wants to feel it through prayer. It was one of my favorite feelings to sit there in the peaceful home of this lady and to feel the spirit so strongly. I know that Heavenly Father will answer her prayers. I know it with all of my heart. She has the desire to feel the presence of Heavenly Father, and that's all you need to begin with. You then develop faith and that faith leads to answers in the Lord's timing. We invited her to read Enos even though she had mentioned she doesn't do much reading anymore. She then asked when we could come again and talk about what she reads. Z. Romney and I left her house and we were both so amazed at the power of her prayer. It was her first time ever praying and it was lovely.

♦  ♦  ♦

After that experience we hopped on our bikes to deliver a birthday note to a less active. Turns out he doesn't live there anymore but we had a really enjoyable day contacting people on our bikes and knocking the houses we felt the impression to knock. We looked up several former investigators in Leeuwarden and we came across a lady from Morocco name K. She was in the middle of cooking food so she invited us ot sit on a chair and a tree stump right outside her door. We waited for a good 15 min when she came back and we talked for a good half hour about her previous experience with the sisters. She even let us sample some of her Moroccan food, all while sitting outside her house :) She's interested in us coming back and wants to already begin studying the Book of Mormon together kind of like a bible study approach. We are interested to see how this next appointment with her will go.

Da Bomney!

We are meeting so many cool people in Leeuwarden and the best news that we received on Sunday night is that we get to stay companions with each other for another transfer! We'll be staying in Leeuwarden. BOMNEY! Leeuwarden is a beauty. A cute tiny little place with a tender little branch. We love it. We are pumped to be able to continue what we've been doing here. This will be my first time staying in a city for more than 2 transfers, and my first time having a companion for more than 1 transfer. We have lots of cool ideas to put into action this transfer, and we're definitely praying for more miracles!

The Geertsema Family and Da Bomney

This is the lovely Geertsema family. They drove us home from Stake Conference and we ate lunch with them. They always spoil us with good food, mormon messages, and lots of piano and organ music. They are both Dutch but they speak mostly english with us because their English is fantastic.
Sister Geerstema gave us a children's Dutch book!

So Delicious!

We ate Pannekoek in Leiden after we went to Rijswijk  a few weeks ago to get Z. Romneys ID for nederland. It's a tradition for most missionaries to go there but my group didn't get to for some reason. I can check this one off the list now!

We meet again... 4 of my MTC District at Zone Conference. 

Zone Conference this week was amazing. We got to watch Meet the Mormons! But one thing I wanted to share was that we talked about praying for baptisms. The Ap's mentioned that we always pray for miracles or certain things with our investigators, but when was the last time we just prayed for a baptism? It's all part of Faith, and if we don't think we can do it then it won't be something we can do. So many of our investigators are on the right path! We just need to keep praying!

Flowers for Us and Our Neighbors!

Have a lovely weeeeeeeeeeeeeek. Spring is a comin' and so is General Conference. Don't forget to pay attention to the little blessings this week :)

Liefs,
Zuster Bush