Wednesday, July 9, 2014

July 7, 2014
Well hey there everyone!  It's been a....freaky week haha.  Not really a bad week just a wierd one with lots of strange happenings.  I guess the first news to announce though is that Nederland has made it into the semi-finals for the world cup!  WHOOO!!!!  These people are seriously crazy about their soccer!  But the even crazier news is that our mission President has given us permission to watch the game this Wednesday at 10 pm!  HA crazy right!?  When the zone leaders called and told us I didn't believe them and I had to call the AP's to confirm but it's true!  Ok well I think the best way to talk about the week is just to go day by day so I'll get started.
 
Maandag-Not much happened excpet we exchanged in Leiden in the evening.
 
Dinsdag- I was here in Almere with Zuster Heilner (the sister training leader) and we were on our way to an apt. with a recent convert when I get a call from the Zone leaders asking where the church was.  I answered of course and then asked why?  They said "because we are coming to your district meeting today!" I kindly informed them that there was no distric meeting today because we had interviews this Thursday.  They sounded unsure and hung up.  2 seconds later I get a call from our district leader telling me that interviews are NEXT thursday and that we do indeed have district meeting today!  OH NO!  I felt like an idiot.  Poor Zuster Larson missed out on district meeting.  It was pretty awkward haha.  But then we had a good lesson with one of our new investigators Cindy.  She aksed us an interesting question: so what happens if you die and there is no God? We all thought about it and decided that at least living our faith here gave us more hope and happiness.  We had a lesson with an inactive who is really sweet.  She wants to start learning the basics again and also she wants us to teach her 6 year old daughter =).  We had Brigitta who is still doing great!  Then we exchanged back in the eveing.
 
Woensdag- We went and taught a lesson to Aluria in the morning and then had lunch with Zuster Wolff.  Then we had a language study with Zuster Van der Put and then AdriĆ«nne came and we had a lesson on recognizing the Holy Ghost.  It was actually a really good lesson.  Then we met this guy from the Congo and it was a miracle because he mostly spoke french and very little English but I was able to understand most of what he said and some how communicate with him.  We even set up an appointment.  Then we had a little BBQ at the church with the YSA's so that was pretty fun and then ward counsel.
 
Donderdag- We started off the day with a lesson with Aimable the guy from the Congo.  It was pretty hilarious because he told us that he understands british english better than american english so we taught the restoration in a british accent with me speaking and using as much french as possible.  It was a miracle that he understood anything but he did!  And he commited to baptism and wants to meet again.  Incredible!  I'm sure that Heavenly Father was getting a good chuckle out of the lesson though!  haha.  Then we had a lesson with Adriana and also Margreet.  We talked about the Holy Ghost with her and had a pretty fun lesson.  Then we went to Madelon and started making a silent lesson for Brigitta and then afterwards we had dinner with Chaya and Reuben.  We get home and I go to pull out the phone and I can't find it anywhere!  So we start knocking our neighbors' doors to see if we can use their phones and eventually one of our neighbors answers.  We call a million people and finally realize we aren't going to be getting our phone back so we schedule to go pick up a new one the next day.  But the miracle of it is, is that I had had a small promting to write down the numbers of all of our investigators which I did.  If I hadn't done that a couple of weeks ago we would have lost all of those numbers!  Incredible!
 
Vrijdag- Happy 4th of July!  This was a crazy day.  I talked to Zuster Larson a lot in the morning about the BYU Jerusalem center and I realized that I really need/want to spend a semester there.  I will have to figure out all the logisitics when I get home though.  We left pretty early in the morning to go to Leiden to pick up our new phone but there was a car on the train tracks so we had to go this really inconvienient way to try and get to Leiden.  We finally get there 2 and 1/2 hours later and then when we get on the train to go home, it's not working!  We wait TWO hours and it's still not working so we finally call the zone leaders who come pick us up to take us back to Almere so we can get to a dinner apt. on time.  We have an AMAZING BBQ with familie Pantophlet and then we watch the Other Side of Heaven movie.  It was wierd watching a movie haha. 
 
Zaterdag- I was feeling pretty sick in the morning so that was a bummer.  But then we had a good lesson with Brigitta where she feed us Surinamse food and we made funnel cakes with her.  Then President had given us permission to watch the soccer game of Belgium so we went to Bishop's house and did that.  That was also freaky to just sit down and watch a sport haha.
 
Zondag- Church was pretty good and then we went to Zuster Wolff's house and we made cakes.  Like the kind you see on Cake Boss and stuff like that.  I made a Hawaiian flower cake for Brigitta's birthday this week and also a red rose cake for someone else.  I'm not sure who though.  They look pretty good too!  Zuster Larson also made a beautiful cake.  Anway we spent the WHOLE day there which was fun but also weird haha.
 
Anyway it was a crazy but good week and it looks as if this week will be quite similar!  Well I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful week!
 
Love,
Zuster Mizell


June 30, 2014
Well it's been a crazy week with a lot of good and also a lot of hard but I survived!  haha It's been good to hear that things with all of you are going so well.  Especially you Brenton.  It's so cool to have you out in the mission field talking about your experiences because I know EXACTLY how it feels.  =)  It's cool!  I'm glad to hear that things are going so well for you.  Mom, Dad, you guys are getting a foriegn exchange student!?!?  That's soooo cool!  I'm really excited!  So her name is Eva and how old is she?  She's not going to be taking my room right??  How long is she staying a whole year?  It will be cool if I get to meet her and maybe we can understand a little bit of each other haha.  Where in Germany is she from?  Anyway moving on.  I am LOVING working with Zuster Larson.  She is from St. Louis, Missouri and we are from the same MTC group so we were already good friends.  She loves Almere and this is going to be her last city which is kind of wierd.  She is one of the sweetest people I know and she's wonderful to talk to and work with.  It's going to be an awsome transfer.  As far as the week goes it was pretty good.  Monday we went to Den Haag for a zone p-day of playing sports.  I mostly just sat in the sun and wrote letters though.  Then we left our phone on the field and walked all the way back but it wasn't there so we figured one of the missionaries had picked it up but we didn't know how to find out who.  So then we got lost in Den Haag and tried asking people where the next tram stop was or if we could use their phone but no one spoke Dutch or English!  It was pretty frustrating haha.  But eventually we made it home just in time to make it to our dinner apt. at the Bishop's house.  We had burgers which was good.  Tuesday we had district meeting and it went pretty well.  I shared the thought on Virtue.  We had an apt. with a new investigator Fiorella and it went really well!  She's awesome.  We also had a good apt. with Brigitta.  She is really making progress.  We painted an inactives fence and then went to dinner in the eveing it was lekker.  Wednesday was just exchange day.  I spent most of the day in Leiden waiting for my new companion and saying goodbye to Zuster Taylor.  After I picked up Zuster Taylor we had dinner at Zuster Wolff's house and something else that I can't remember.  The rest of the week was pretty good.  Just normal things.  We found this really sweet girl named Sophie.  She let us in and we taught her the restoration.  It was really cool.  Brigitta is making progress everyday which is awesome.  We went and made pizza with Johan and AdriĆ«nne on Saturday so that was fun and we ended up serving some peopel throughout the week.  Anyway I'm out of time, but I love you all and I want you to know that I KNOW the gospel is true and the power of the Savior's Atonement is real!  I pray for you and hope you have a good week!
 
Love,
Zuster Mizell