Monday, October 27, 2014

Well....Im ending it with a BANG :)

Hello Family and Friends-


Welll.....We heard about transfers and.....IM TRAINING AND WHITE WASHING IN BREDA!!!! WOOO!! I am beyond excited!! When I wished to end it with a bang, I really did get my wish. haha I am super excited to see another city, and I have been to Breda once and it is SOO pretty and the cutest little dutch city. And I get to have a little baby daughter greenie :) Its going to be an adventure to say the least....white washing with kohlert six months ago was one of the funnest, most stressful things Ive done....so im excited!  Zuster Greenwell is also training but staying here in Capelle/Rotterdam. She is freaking out about taking over the city and everything but I know she will do just fine. Pretty much my whole group of sisters that go home in a transfer are all training-white washing/ or sister training leaders for their last transfer. President is keeping us busy for this last one  :) very very wise. So I will be packing all of my stuff up and going to the mission office on Wednesday morning with all my stuff and pick up my greenie. Then we will haul all of my stuff and her stuff all the way down south to Breda where I am hoping someone will be there to take us to our apartment? haha idk we will see. And then there ya go.....a last transfer of miracles!! I am beyond excited!! YAYYY! oh and just to put the cherry on top of the cake...I am in the Antwerpen, Belgium stake so I will beable to see alot of the members from Gent right before I die. :) How much more perfect can it be?!!

We had a good week here in Capelle! I am really going to miss this city. It will Always be such a special city for me and I will miss these people soooo much!! Thank heavens for technology after the mission! We had alot of good appointments this week with our investigators and said alot of goodbyes and visited alot of members. We had a huge party last night with our investigator Mano. His whole family came over and made indonesian food and 8 other elders from our district also were able to come and it was a blast. Lots of singing and dancing and having a good time. They are seriously a miracle family. We gave the spiritual thought that was very centered on Christ and the spirit was SOOO strong! Afterwards, the dad of the family looked at me and said Thank you so much for knocking on our door. Everytime you come over I get this really warm feeling and it makes me feel good. I know you guys are doing a good work and we are going to miss you alot. AHHH I died. They have been making so much progress and its amazing to see. We also were able to visit Iris this week, unfortunately she got sick so we couldnt meet with her on Thursday but we both had a feeling on Friday night that we really needed to visit her. So we went over and went up and started chatting with her. Turns out she had been having a really hard day and needed someone to talk to. We read out of the scriptures and the spirit was there. Its one of the coolest things in the whole world to see the changes and the progress these people make. I have never seen it in my life before now, and I will probably never see it again. Last night....I kind of freaked out for the first time. I think getting my last transfer call and actually seeing and knowing how its going to end really hit me and I balled my eyes out for the first time about going home. haha I miss and love all of you, but man- I want to stay here. I love it this place and there is nothing like the work I do here! The Gospel is true. I see it day in and day out!  I cant wait to just go down to Breda and go crazy! Its going to be a blast and a perfect ending to everything. Thank you for all the prayers and support!

Love, Zuster Brophy

All of us after visiting Mano
 Waiting for a bus after Stake Conference...drinking Stoofperen vla....natuurlijke :) 
                                     
 Mano and the crew :)
We received our Halloween Package...yea!


Monday, October 20, 2014

Ik vind het leuk om kruidnoten te eten. :) Uh Oh....dit is een probleem.

Hello Friends and Family-

Sooooo I love Europe around the Holidays. They just do it SO much better than America when it comes to the food. Mainly just the pastries. Last year around this time I was in Belgium which is very different than the Netherlands so I didnt get the gevulde speculaas and the Kruidnoten and Kerst Pannekoeken! They are SOOO DELCIOUS. Its seriously a dangerous environment over here. And there real Christmas holiday is Sint Nicolaas and that is on December 5th. So I will be here just in time to catch the big one here and just in time back in America to catch the one there :)

We have had a great week. We went to the TEMPLE!!! For the last time...in dutch. That was a really weird feeling when I left there. But I finally got to see one of the new temple videos!! WOO. They finally finished translating it to Dutch. I thought it was super good but also very weird. haha idk how to describe it. I guess I just didnt really know what to expect, but it was super great! We had a really good conference after with everyone and good trainings. We have been doing alot of good finding lately and trying to find some good investigators. We have seen some success but not alot this past week. We taught this new woman and her name is Sibel. She is from Turkey and she is hilarioussss. She doesnt speak Dutch and only a little bit of English so she is constantly making funny comments and trying to figure out what we were saying. But the good news is...we made it through the Restoration lesson and it went really good and the spirit was strong! Iris is still doing great. We moved her bap date AGAIN to Nov 15th and we are praying she makes it. Transfers are next Wednesday and we find out this upcoming Sunday if I am leaving or not. I think I am leaving Capelle but im not so sure. We will see what happens! Another one of our investigators Mano, is throwing a huge party for me with his family and all of the elders in our ward are coming next Sunday and I am super excited. Mano speaks fluent dutch but he likes to practice his English with us so most of the time we end up speaking a mix of the two. But in his broken english he told me I really hope you can stay here...you are the Sunshine in this house. haha I laughed super hard. When he says it in Dutch it sounds a lot less sketchy and creepy....but he translated it directly so it sounded really funny in English. He is so great! We are hoping to set a baptismal date with him very soon.

This upcoming weekend we have Stake Conference here in Rotterdam! We are getting transfer calls on Sunday and we are busy with lots of appointments! Life is good. And not to mention...the weather here is sooo abnormally warm for this time of the year! So I am counting my blessings :) I love you all!!

Love, Zuster Brophy

Jason from Apeldoorn came and visited me in Rotterdam! SO fun!  
                                        

Lunch at Vapianos. LEKKER



At the temple in Den Haag



Monday, October 13, 2014

Hellllllllllllllo Herfst :)

Hello Family and Friends-

We are wittnessing miracles here in Capelle!! We had a super great week and we are staying super busy. Just to start off with a miracle, we have found 3 new investigators and  less active that we are teaching, all in one week! We decided to go do some bell ups by our house and we push this number and this sweet little lady comes up and says Hey are you guys the mormons?! and We say yes we are the mormons. And she goes...I am also a mormon but I am not active anymore. WHAT! So cool. We made an appointment with her for the next day and had a really great appointment with her. She is from Peru and has been inactive for about 14 years, but at the end of the closing prayer she looked at me and Zuster Greenwell and said Im so glad the mormon church is back in my life! :) She is so awesome. She wasnt able to come to church this week but she wants to come really bad. We also have found some really great positive investigators that we have appointments with this week! Super excited for those. Iris is doing great! She is planning on being baptized on November 1st and I am sooo excited. Even if I get transferred and dont stay in Rotterdam, you better believe I will be at that baptism. She has made soo much progress and I just love that woman so much.

We had a sisters conference this past Saturday with all of the sisters in the mission at the mission home. It was super fun and cool since it was my first time going to the mission home and dang- it is BEAUTIFUL! It was very weird because there were probably a total of 45 sister missionaries there and by Jan 15th there were only 12 there that would still be on their missions. So we talked alot about the mission culture and traditions that we have had and started together and how we want those sisters to keep up with it and keep it going. It was super weird to realize I am one of those actually getting ready to go, it hits me more and more- especially since I got one of my "dying letters" this past week! AHHH. Crazy. Me and Zuster Greenwell are having a total blast over here and seeing soo many cool things. We get to go to the Temple Tomorrow and I cant wait! It is Always much needed after 6 whole months of not going. I am so grateful for this gospel, I see it change lives and Its been the best experience in the world to come here on a mission. I wouldnt change it for the world!! I love and miss you all!!

Love, Zuster Brophy

All the Sisters that have served in Gent, Belgium :)

All of my companions except for Zuster Meier, Gallego, and Israelsen


 My companions that I served 3 transfers with :) Zuster Kohlert and Zuster Djoukeng.



Monday, October 6, 2014

Algemene Conferentie is mijn favoriete weekend van de jaar!!

Hello Family and Friends-

I just sat down at the computer to write this email and I seriously cant even remember what happened this week. All of my days are just smashing together. So I apologize in advance if this email is really scattered all over the place. GENERAL CONFERENCE IS AMAZING. Especially the Sisters Conference. We basically camped out at the church all weekend long. Because how it works here, is they have broadcasts in the church and they watch the General Young Womans meeting in the afternoon saturday, and then watch the Saturday morning session live at 6pm our time. And then Sunday afternoon you watch the Saturday Afternoon session and then watch the Sunday afternoon session live at 6pm. And then us poor missionaries have to find some way to watch the Sunday afternoon session by ourselves since we dont have any internet. haha So its kind of cool. Everytime I watch the sessions where it is live, I Always think of all you guys watching the exact same thing with me. Kind of a fun thought :) I love our prophet and all of those great men and their inspiring words. I need to go back and review all  of my notes.

Today we went to the Zoo in Rotterdam with the whole zone and it was SOOO fun! We all pre ordered our tickets and luckily it turned out being decent weather and didnt rain or anything. We had a good time and I may or may not have somewhere around 200 pictures to prove that. This past week went by sooo fast and was a really productive one. We have alot of good potentials right now that are just waiting to turn into new investigators! We have been trying over and over again to meet with this lady named Adrianna that we met doing bell-ups. But everytime we go over there she isnt home and we have to reschedule! So frustrating. I have never wanted to teach someone more in my life. She is just soo positive! We have been seeing lots of success with our teaching and less-actives we are working with. We had lots of investigators also watch the conference online which was awesome! Iris is still doing really well. We are hoping she gets baptized sometime this month, but if not for sure in November. We have a zusters conference that is on Saturday in the Mission Home and I am SOOOO excited! We are going to have an absolute blast and I cant even wait. And then the week after that we have Temple Conference! WOO! We are just partying it up here in the Netherlands! I cant believe that its already halfway through the transfer.....time really needs to slow down. I am starting to freak out with the amount of time I have left. Its kind of scary! I love all of you and miss you! Thanks for all the support and prayers!

Love, Zuster Brophy


Enjoy the zoo pictures :)