Geliefde familie,

WOW!!!  I can't believe I'm actually here!!  It's crazy it doesn't even feel real!  I absolutely love it!  So it's been a long week or so.  On monday we boarded the plane and then we got to the Netherlands on Tuesday morning about 8 a.m.  So our Presdient and President's wife along with the office elders were there to meet us.  We went to a hotel called the Golden Tulip it was really nice.  There were too many missionaries in our group so we couldn't stay at the mission home.  We did some legal stuff and then we went and got our first Dutch meal, pannekoeken and it was delicious!  Then we went and took a picture by a windmill, very Dutch!  Then we did more legal stuff, interviews with President and then we prosilyted, I don't think that's how you spell it haha.  It was hard and I was SUPER nervous!  Then we got to take a nap which was really wonderful!  I needed it!  Then we had the most delicious gourmet Dutch meal and dinner.  Actually just all the food at the hotel was REALLY good!  Then we got our new call letters and had a short testimony meeting.  I was called to the town of Zoetermeer!  And my trainer is Zuster Rigdon.  Yes she is actually related to Sidney Rigdon, but distantly.  The next day we had like a conference thing and then I met my new collega.  I love her, she is just amazing!  She is so funny and she has been teaching me a lot.  So after lunch we went to my new apartment.  It's pretty nice.  I haven't taken any pictures of it, but it's nice.  So in Zoetermeer the work hasn't been going so great so when I got there we had no investigators.  We worked our little bums off for the last 5 days and we have one new investigator and 3 more good potentials!  In total we contacted something around 130 people in the last 5 days.  So I'll just kind of do the highlights of the last week because I don't have a lot of time.  First of all riding a bike in Europe is not as glamourous as I originally thought.  I had what they call here "greenie bum" becasue your bum gets sooooo sore after the day.  It hurt very much but now I have already become pro at biking!  Oh so funny story.  So here they have a really cool way of getting on their bikes.  They like scooter with their leg on one petal and then swing their other leg over.  Anywy it's very efficient for getting on with a skirt so after tracking in an area one day I was trying really hard to do the scooter thing and failing pretty miserably.  This Dutch man unloading a truck sees me and finally stops what he's doing.  He goes to my companion and asks if it's my first time ridding a bike.  She proceedes to tell him what I am trying to do but apparently he doesn't understand because he then begins to give me bike lessons.  Showing me how to get on and then "you just go" this is all in Dutch of course so I don't really understand anything.  He rides my bike around for about 5 mins and then tells me how to get on and then guides me.  He was pretty pleased with his lessons because I was ridding pretty well.  Then he told me to "terug" which means come back but it was too small of an area to turn so I proceeded to crash making it look like I really didn't know how to ride a bike haha.  All this time my collega is just watching and laughing.  It was pretty funny.  Dutch is very hard.  I try really hard to understand but the people here talk so fast.  Yesterday was my first Sunday in Dutch and I'm pretty sure I got about less than 10 percent of what was said.  I had to give my testimony and all the members said I did really good.  SO apparently I can speak pretty well.  Dutch people just tell you how it is so if I spoke poorly they would have told me haha.  On Wednesday we had my first dinner with a member family, familie Vis.  They were very nice and they had a friend visiting from America so it was all in English whew!  So in my little town is the temple.  We went and saw it on my first day.  It is beautiful!  But I don't get to go because it isn't open on Mondays.  The ward here doesn't have church because they gave up their building to have the temple built there in like 2005.  They meet in an office building right now, but they are building a beautiful new stake center in their town that should be finished in about a year.  It can be really hard doing missionary work.  Some days it feels like we didn't get anything done.  It's hard having people slam doors in our faces or be really rude to us.  It's also hard not understanding and feeling like I can't contribute as much as a want to.  But when we find that ONE person that says they are interested in learning more, it makes it all worth it.  I love missionary work, and I definitely LOVE the Netherlands!  I will try to send some pictures today but I only have 33 minutes left.  Oh by the way the weather has been great!  It's been sunshine and pretty warm for the most part every day!  I don't even notice the humidity but I'm sure I will once it gets hot and then when it's really cold as well.  Well I love you all and I hope things are going well at home! 

Liefde,

Zuster Cassie Mizell