A Most Wonderful Week...

This week was so jam packed... 

so let's just start off with the best thing ever!

Zuster Emilee Entering the Temple

We went to the temple and it was the most memorable experience ever. The first time I went I was on maybe week three of my first transfer, so it was quite a miracle that I could understand the session this time. Dutch Dutch Dutch. It's crazy but sooo good. I wish you could all do a session in Dutch :)

My Dear Zuster Watts

It was such a lovely experience to be in the Temple 

with so many missionary friends and President and Sister Robinson. 

I wish I could be there everyday! 

And YES! I got to do a family name this time!

Afterwards we went to Keukenhof 

for like 3 hours 

and it was beautiful! 

I noticed I ended up taking more pictures of missionaries than flowers haha 

but there weren't as many tulips as usual 

because apparently we went a little too early in the season. 

But we had a good time roaming around with tons of missionaries and running into random members from America, and other people who were really curious about our name tags. I'll just have to come back another year to see more tulips!  :)

We had a real good lesson with P. We printed a baptism calendar for her to specifically show her all of the things we could still teach her. Our plan was to show her the calendar and talk about the importance of us giving commitments and her keeping them, and then we would ask her to choose a goal of when she would want to be baptized. The lesson turned out being a bit different though, and we got to talk to her about the Atonement. We talked to her about what it specifically means to her. She brought up a really good concern that I want to share. She said that she was confused why God would let the Atonement happen if the world is just continuing to be corrupted and people are doing bad things and going completely against God's plan. Isn't it just a waste of the Atonement if we are not taking advantage of it? We talked to her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that our purpose is to help people understand the Atonement so they can use it in their own lives. The world isn't perfect, but we are on the way to understanding more about the plan that God has for us. It was cool because this unexpected topic led perfectly into us talking about the baptismal calendar and about the commitments she needs to be keeping. She is not interested in being baptized at all, but interested in learning the specific topics we introduced her to. She especially wanted to know about the law of Tithing and Fasting. We helped her commit to just simply praying everyday this week. We really hope she just feels the spirit, because we know that as she continues to pray her desires will be increased to do good. We ended by showing her the video #becausehelives and talking about how we can be happy because of the Atonement. She has always thought of it as being something sad that she only thinks about during Easter time, but I think we helped open her eyes to see that we have so many more opportunities now because he lives. Zuster Romney and I left the appointment feeling soooo good, and happy. The spirit really led that one.

The Elders had a baptism on Saturday! The last one was about 2 years ago, so it was a special moment for the branch. The new member is 24 and soooo cool! His mom has been a member for a while but not able to attend because of transportation issues, so the Elders went to go visit her about 5 weeks ago, and met this guy and he wanted to be baptized. Such a miracle! It was a really cool day for everyone, and I think it helped to strengthen a lot of the members testimonies.

Randoms...

Spoke to someone on the train in Dutch that said I sounded like I was from South Africa

We met a guy from Canada on our way to Temple Conference! This week was taal (language) or SYL- speak your language- week so we were trying to speak Dutch to each other on the train, and the guy heard us switching back and forth from Dutch to English and was interested where we were from. #blessingsoftaalweek

We stopped some crazy hooligans from fighting each other this week. Zuster Romney helped me gather the courage to go with her to stop this crazy guy from pinning another guy against the wall in the middle of their soccer game. I had no idea how to say the word fighting in Dutch so I just told them that we wanted to give them a mormon.org card so they would stop with the _____ and I did some really nice fighting actions. haha. These guys were pretty tough and were making fun of our Dutch, but Zuster Romney and I left safely. We turned the corner, and some of the ladies that were watching ran up behind us to catch up and asked us for some mormon.org cards too. Zuster Romney whipped out her cards and they took a few secs to choose what colors they wanted. Oh yeah... and the girls were about 6 years old... We felt pretty good about stopping that 10 year old boy from bullying a 7 year old :)

Miracle- found a free public restroom in Sneek this week. Yes. Miracle. We contacted in that city aaaalllll day with no one letting us in.

Goodbye to my Groentje Zuster Romne

Transfers are happening this week! This transfer went by unbelievably fast. I knew I was going to be leaving, so I started gathering my things a few days ago, and I took pics with everyone throughout the transfer so the good-byes won't be quite as hard. I'll definitely miss Tedere Gemeente Leeuwarden (Tender Branch) because being here for three transfers got me really used to EVERYTHING,

Another Bomney Moment

I'll most definitely miss my Groentje Zuster Romney and all of our "Bomney" moments. We had too much of a fun time together, so I believe that is why I'm getting transfered :) But.... I am so excited to be going to UTRECHT with Zuster Karlson! (Zuster Watt's trained her) and I'm excited for Zuster Romney to see so many miracles here in Leeuwarden. I found out that Utrecht has a random violin in their apartment, so I'm crossing my fingers it's a full size :)

Better go!

Vergeet niet om te lachen! [Don't forget to smile!]

Liefs,
Zuster Bush