Happy 2014 NEW YEAR!!! :)

Hello Family and Friends-

 

What a fantastic Christmas I had as a missionary! I loved every single second of it. There is truly nothing like it! Thank you for all the Christmas Wishes and emails. They made my whole week!

 

Well to start off for Christmas Eve we went to our branch presidents house and had a delicious meal and they bought us both a gift which was this amazing Dove soap and we sang Chrismtas songs and read lots of stories. Then after that me and Zr Meier went home and opened up our Christmas Eve pajamas and moved our mattresses out to the family room and slept by the tree! It wasa blast! It really felt like Christmas still in a weird way. Then Christmas day we got up and made ourselves some good breakfast and we opened up all of our gifts together! I LOVED everything so much, so thank you thank you! We got some Book of Mormons and tied bows around them and then went outside and just talked to people on the street and handed them out. It was so cool to see different people and hear there stories on Christmas day. Us and the Elders decided to go caroling before going to the Geens and we only got to one door and we tried to sing "O come all ye faithful" and were TERRIBLE. haha I have never sang with more tone deaf elders in my entire life. But we all laughed and it was great. That night we were able to skype our families which was amazing! I loved every second of it. Everyone has been asking me if i was homesick after. It definately is one of the weirdest feelings I have ever had thus far. I was a little trunky and it took me about 2 days to get back into my "missionary grove". All of our mottos after the skype calls is to just forget about it and kind of block it from your memory. haha as bad as that sounds. Either way it was so worth it and so fun!

 

The rest of the week was just busy as normal and full of missionary work. Really cool story- we met this 25 year old girl named Greet and she is sooo sweet and nice. We went by and gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read in it. I am so excited to see where she will go and how she will progress! We have been doing lots of finding lately and we have this goal in Gent now to give away 10000 pass along cards in 3 months. So that means that each companionship has to give away about 50 per day. So we are trying to go strong with that and get as many people to come to church as possible who want to. We have lots of appointments this next week and I am super excited! For New Years we have to be inside 3pm and I think I am going to go absolutely crazy. That is the longest I have ever been inside for 6 months. haha But we bought silly strings and noise makers today and we are just going to partay it up! I love you all and miss you all dearly! Thank you for your sweet prayers and support! It means the world! Happy 2014 New year!!!

 

Love, Zuster Brophy

MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!! :) :)

Hello Family and Friends-

 

Holy cow I cannot believe it is Christmas! Time is moving sooo fast and it is starting to scare me just a little bit! This transfer only has about 2 weeks left and I am SO sad! Mainly because I know I will most likely be leaving Gent and I will probably cry my eyes out because I love the people and this city SO much!

 

Well we had one crazy busy week! We have been looking up and searching out the 25 referrals we have for the "Joy to the World" DVDs and we finally got them done just in time for Christmas! It was a very uplifting, exhausting, long experience but I know we will be blessed and see many new investigators come out of it. Our new favorite thing that Elder Texeira taught us last week in Zone Conference was to use the mormon.org cards and literally just walk up to strangers, give them a card, and say hey your invited to church at this time and at this place. And suprisingly most people really like it and we had three people at church yesterday because of it! It was such a cool miracle! Especially during this Christmas season to be a missionary and go around talking to people about why we really celebrate this holiday and what the deeper meaning is! I wouldnt want to be doing anything else on Christmas! We are doing lots of service Christmas day and also on "Tweede Kerst" which is the 26th. They are kind of cool over here and celebrate Christmas twice in a row so we are doing lots of service! And also we decided we are going to go to the hospital that is nearby on Christmas morning and visit the people there that dont have family to visit them. I am really excited. Nothing will beat this Christmas for me I dont think and I will be soaking in every single second of it! We also met this man on the train named Harry and he is a photography student in Gent. He started asking us about the church and missionary work and I explained that kind of what we did on a daily basis and things. Turns out he wants to do a "report" on LDS missionaries and me and my companion get to be the missionaries! So he has been taking lots of pictures and he actually wants to follow us around one day so he can see the life of a missionary! haha kind of made me laugh. Dont worry- he will not become a stalker. At least we hope....

 

We are planning on going finding and finding and more finding all week! We have lots of different parties/dinner appts though which will keep us busy. We are going to a members house with Didier on Christmas Eve and we get to share an "american" Christmas story/tradition and I am so excited for that. Give me a little taste of the American spirit :) We are headed over to Brugge again today to go Ice Skating and to see that beautiful fairy tale city during Christmas with the whole zone. I will be taking lots of pictures! Thank you to everyone who sent me a letter or something for Christmas! I was so overwhelmed and could feel all of your guys love. I loved the Christmas tree and all the ornaments and I have to say, our apartment looks REAL good. I love you all and miss you so much! I know that our savior came into this world and died for every single one of us! Do not forget why we celebrate this amazing holiday and try and go out and serve someone else and give of yourself! It is thee best time of year!! Merry Chirstmas :) :)

 

Love, Zuster Brophy

I have the best life in the whole world. And GELUKKIGE VERJAARDAG to the best dad on the planet!!!

Hello Family and Friends-

 

Wow what a fantastic crazy week we have had!! So much has happened and I have to make sure I remember everything to tell you all. So I will start from the beginning. We started out the week last Pday and me and my companions went and toured the centrum and saw all of the pretty Christmas Markets! Christmas in Europe is seriously the best thing I think I have ever experienced. They have so many activities and so many things to do and see. (pictures attached) Then we had to get Zuster Gallego all ready and packed up to leave for Amsterdam Wednesday afternoon so we got there in time, since it takes about 4 ish hours to travel all the way up to Holland by train. We got there when it was dark and it was my first time actually in Amsterdam besides the airport 6 months ago and Centraal Station is absolutely GORGEOUS! I realized it is actually my cover photo on FB, if I remember right. We slept over with one of the zusters there and it was a blast. We all got up the next morning and had zone conference the whole next day and Elder Texeira, of the seventy who is over the European area spoke to the whole mission! It was such a cool oppurtunity we had. He talked about so many good and inspiring things and gave us some of the best ideas. We were all just completely pumped and ready to get outside and go talk to people like crazy!

 

After that we got our Christmas packages, mom THANK YOU SO MUCH. Holy cow we are so spoiled. Between me and Zuster Meier we had about 6 packages and by the time we had made it all the way back to Belgium with them all intact our arms are STILL sore from everything. haha We have had so much fun with them already and put everything under the tree. I absolutly LOVE  the ornaments you all made for me. They made my whole week and I have hung them all up and I read them every day! It was such a clever Idea and I love it so thank you so much. Before we made it back to Belgium, Zr Meier had a meeting in Ledien for all the leaders of the mission so I got to go on splits with Zr Taylor and serve in Breda, Holland for about a day and a half. It is such a beautiful city! I rode a bike for the first time as well and holy cow. I am soooo out of shape its ridiculous. haha my legs wanted to fall off. And apparently there is this thing they call "greenie bum", and basically it is your worst nightmare and I had it for about 3 days. haha moral of the story, I am now mentally preparing myself for biking next year and I am feeling very bittersweet about it. It was very fun to just bike around Holland. Not to shabby of a life if you ask me. :)

 

Guess what? I gave a TALK in church yesterday. In FLEMISH. not english, FLEMISH. For those of you that know me well, know that I about want to pass out everytime I have to do that in English, let alone in a different language. To say the least, I was extremely nervous but I surprised myself and was able to say everything I wanted to say in a different foreign language. Maybe a little rusty at parts but It was such a good feeling!! I love the people and the language here sooo much. Well I love you all so so much and miss you dearly! I think about you all personally often and I just feel so blessed to have you all in my lives. Especially during this Christmas season. :) This church is true and I am so happy I am where I am right now. I know without any doubts it is where I am supposed to be and I love my mission with all my heart. You are all the best! Have a wonderful week!

 

Love, Zuster Brophy

Its beginning to feel alot like CHRISTMAS! :)

Hello Family and Friends-

Ohhhh my goodnesss what a fantastic week we have had! I LOVE this work so much. And I am completely sure that I have the best companions in the world. Zuster Meier and Zuster Gallego are the best.

We have been having such a crazy week with appointments with less-actives, recent converts, and investigators this week plus the 16 referrals we have received for the "Joy to the World" DVD's we have been delivering! We have a new investigator named Lucero who basically only speaks spanish so Zuster Gallego has been loving it since her native language is Spanish. She unfortunately leaves this week though and we are so sad to lose her :( Me and Zuster Meier will need to brush up on our spanish. I dont know how that is going to work out but we will do our best! Didier, our recent convert that was baptized about a month ago went to the Temple to do baptisms for the dead on Saturday with the Branch President Pres VanHees and it was SOOO good! He was so happy and it just made my whole year seeing that happiness in him. On Chrismas Eve we will be spending the night at President VanHees's house with Didier and I cannot even wait. It will be such an amazing holiday season! We just got a Christmas tree for our apartment from Zuster Geens and Its sooo fun! She gave us ornaments and all the lights and decorations. She really is like my other little mom. So now our apartment is all festive and ready for Christmas as well. We have our big mission wide zone conference this coming Thursday and Elder Texeira from the 70 is speaking and I am so excited. So we will travel all the way up to Amsterdam on Wednesday for that. Then Zuster Meier will be in Leiden for a huge council for all the leadership missionaries and I will be heading down south to Breda and work with another sister for just one day and then we will finally return back to Gent on Friday night. It will be one crazy week! We also had a small miracle the other day. We had gone to deliver a DVD to a referral and they ended up not wanting it. So we were walking back to the bus stop and Zr Gallego saw this lady working out in her yard and went right up to her and just said "Can we help you with your yard work?" She was BLOWN AWAY. She kept saying "why on earth would you do that?" You dont get paid?! And we kept saying no no we are volunteers etc etc. We ended up helping her in her yard and had a nice lunch of soup and bread that was delicious! they were so sweet and it was such a good feeling to beable to just help someone completely random. Missionary work is the best!

So funny story, Guess who Zuster Meier's dance coach all through high school was? Lorna Strong! All of a sudden she said she went to Hunter High School and it rung a bell in my head and I asked her if she knew Lorna Strong and we both just freaked out. Both her and her family know Tom and all of the kids. It was such a fun little connection we made! We are having a blast and I am absolutely loving it. I love this gospel so much and I love being out here on a mission being an instrument in the lords hands. Especially during the Christmas Season it is so fun to walk around and talk to random people about why this season is so important. I love all of you and thank you for your wonderful support and prayers!

Love, Zuster Brophy

Craziest Week of my Life!!

Ohhh my good goodness this week was the longest, shortest, craziest week of my entire life with transfers and everything else going on! Big news, I actually have two companions Zuster Gallego and Zuster Meiers! Zuster Gallego is going home and completing her mission in 2 weeks and then it will be back to just the two of us. It has been a total blast and I love both of them to death. They both came down from northern Holland and Zuster Gallego is 32 years old and lives in Aruba and Zuster Meiers is 20 and from West Valley City. She was joking and said that Dad probably had given her multiple tickets for speeding. haha We have been having a blast together so far and I am so excited for this transfer.

 

We had a great Thanksgiving Dinner with some members last Thursday and it was a REAL American Dinner. Potatoes, Turkey, cranberry sauce, etc etc. It was amazing! This transfer is nothing but full of Holidays and we have appointments to be somewhere for every single one and more so I am really really excited. Zuster Meiers is the Sister Training Leader so we will be doing lots of traveling back and forth from Holland and different things all the time and I am really excited to be able to meet lots of the other sisters in this mission. I have been told that being the companion of the Sister Training Leader is kind of like being an "undercover sister training leader" So i am pretty excited.

 

We have had a really great productive week! Our ward mission leader has this website where people can request Joy to the World DVD's and Books of Mormon and so far just in Gent we have received 42 referrals. So between us and the Elders we are BUSY. We have 14 we need to contact within the next two days and I am so excited to see what comes out of it. It is so cool to sit and watch this branch grow so much. Broeder Geens knows the right way to do missionary work and It is just on fire. We will be having a zone conference (The Christmas Dinner) next week up in Amsterdam and Elder Texeria of the 70 will be speaking to us. I am sure it will be sooo great! That is also when  we will all get our Christmas Packages. Update on my foot, It is still giving me problems but I am just trying to rest, ice, and use those essential oils I got. I am praying it works! Zuster Robinson got some pictures of it from me and sent it to a specialist to get his opinion, she said if the swelling and things dont start going down within the next week after I have been taking 600mg of Ibprofun 3x per day then we are looking at something more serious. So we will see! It has just been an adventure! Thank you all for your prayers and support! I love you all so much!

 

Love, Zuster Brophy