4 day exchanges....why not?

Hello Friends and Family-

What a crazy awesome week!! We went to sleep last night and I woke up this morning and started doing a normal regular thing and Zuster Lemich started cleaning the apartment up (like we always do on Mondays) and I realized that it was Monday again!! Idk what my problem was but I had literally forgotten and not realized it. Haha weeks just go by so stinking fast its crazy. Especially right now...Im just freaking out.

We got to go on a 4 day exchange with Zuster Kohlert and Zuster Maughan from Utrecht and it was so much fun. Zuster Lemich and Zuster maughan needed to go back down to Belgium for more legality issues so me and Zuster Kohlert just got to party it up here in Breda. We did lots and lots of contacting and found some awesome new investigators. We also celebrated our 17  month mark with some take out chinese food and Ben & Jerrys. It was delicious. And we have been seeing miracles just left and right in this city! One of our progressing investigators,  Nick, texts us almost daily now with questions about the gospel and also asking for more reading assignments from the Book of Mormon. And he wants to be baptized sometime in December or January and I am SO excited for him! He is so golden. Sophie is still progressing and has come to church the past few weeks. We also found another Golden investigator last Tuesday. His name is Ali and he is from Iran. He let us right in on the door and we gave the Restoration lesson and he basically asked us for a return appointment instead of the other way around. We took an awesome joint teach this last Friday and he is super prepared with lots of questions and things for us to help him with. We have lots of good potentials we are working with as well. All ones that have gotten the number off of our card and called US. That doesnt ever happen!! Z Lemich turned the big 20 on Friday, so of course we had a nice little party in celebration of her being really old. Made some good cake, took some great pictures. Life is just really great :)

I am enjoying every second out here!! Its one very bittersweet feeling about having this experience end very soon but I am just soaking it all in as much as I can. Thanks for all the support, love, and your prayers! You are all the best and I cant wait to see your faces soon!

Love, Zuster Brophy

Yes....I got to go back to BELGIUM!!!

Hello Family and Friends-

Another week has come and gone and It went by wayyy too fast! We have been staying busy and the days just mush together into one big happy event and I dont know how to describe it! Yes...you read it right....BELGIUM. Zuster Lemich had to do some legality things down in Brussels so we got to go back for my first time since I left and I was sooo much fun! Ah, how i love that place. We traveled with the elders through Antwerpen and then straight to Brussels and Zuster Lemich had some really delicious Belgian frites and some good waffles. So much fun! We have been teaching alot as well. We got a member referral from a family here in the ward named the De Wildes. They have two kids on missions, one in the states in Ohio and the other in London England. And it was their daughters work friend and his name is Nick and he is 26 and is absolutely GOLDEN. He is totally open for the gospel and they let us come over, all have dinner together at their house, and then give a lesson. Super Member Presents! Woo! We are hoping to set a baptismal date with him very soon. This last Tuesday night we were out knocking doors super late at night and we get to our very last one and this girl named Angela opens the door and right when I saw her face I got this feeling that I needed to talk to her about the Plan of God and tie that into the Book of Mormon. So immediately I did that, and she got this really cool look in her eye and accepted the book and asked US to come back and share more about it (because she was busy at the time). It was SOOO cool. Those are the moments when you just know that the spirit is speaking through you to these people and its the coolest feeling ever. So we made an appointment for the next night at the same time. So we were both super excited and everything was good. Well the next night came and we had an appointment with another member literally on the other side of the city and it ended up going later than we thought and we werent going to make it back out to Angela on time/ let alone at all because it was so late. Through the whole appointment I was just dying inside because I wanted to go back so bad and we didnt even have her number to call her. When we get outside I pull the phone out of my pocket and check to see if we had missed anything and there is a missed call from a random number and a voicemail. I listen to it and guess who it is?! ANGELA. She had gotten our number off the card we gave her and called us. And she ended up not being able to do it that night anyways and she said in her voicemail that she wanted to make another appointment with us. This never happens people. Ever. Dutch people just dont do that. It was such a miracle and we were both just freaking out. So we called her back and we have an appointment with her this week and I am so excited to see what happens! Missionary work is the best.

This week is going to be a really great one! Zuster Lemich is turning 20 on Friday and we are going to party it up! We get to go on exchanges this week and teach some really awesome lessons! Life is good. I love and miss all of you!! Thanks for the support and prayers!

Love, Zuster Brophy

Starbucks!

 Me with all the greenies getting their legality done. I was the oldest sister there and was in charge of leading everyone around in Brussels. Now if thats not weird...I dont know what is.

                      
 This is what happens when you bike in skirts...haha so funny!

 More Belgium :)

First belgian waffle..yummy!

 Eskimos :)

Breeeeeeeeeeeeeedda :)

Hello Family and Friends-

I am in love with this city. There is no doubt about it. It is so beautiful and so much fun to be living here. We have a DISHWASHER. Do you know how amazing this is?! This is a miracle. We live across the street from the church and literally a 2 minute walk to the grocery store and a 20 minute walk to the centrum. I am a happy camper to say the least :) It has definately been a crazy week though! Saying goodbye to everyone in Capelle was definately not the easiest thing to do. Lots of tears were shed with investigators and members. I really loved that city and those people and It will always be a very special city for me. Somehow I got everything packed, man I have accumlated SOOO much junk on in the last 17 months and I cant figure out how. Somehow I got it all to fit in my two suitcases and dropped it off early in the morning in Rotterdam Centraal with the zone leaders. I went up to Leiden to the mission office and picked up my little daughter, Zuster Lemich!!! She is almost 20 and is from Cedar City. Lets just say....Our mission president is inspired. We are literally the same person. We both have a Diet Coke Addiction, both love Cafe Rio, both pass out when we get shots or touch a needle in general, and all of our interests and mannerisms are the same. Haha its kind of crazy. Needless to say, we have had a very exhausting but amazing first week together! Her Dutch is amazing, she has that amazing drive and motivation to work hard, and this transfer is just going to be a blast!  On Friday night for Halloween we went and got her first Speculoos cake and dressed up as mother/daughter. It was so great. White washing has of course made it super exciting and stressful. Since this is my first time training its just made it all that much more fun. However, we literally just walked straight into a gold mine. This city is amazing! Thursday morning, we were walking to the bus stop and I saw this lady and in my head I thought, Hey you should talk to her. So we get over to the bus stop and Im trying to figure out how a good way is to start a conversation without being completely awkward. Eventually I start talking to her and we had a really good conversation and she ended up coming to church on Sunday and we have had 2 lessons with her now. SO awesome! The sisters before us had also left alot of good investigators and potentials that we have been able to look up and that has been great and fun! On Sunday we were able to go to church and this ward is so amazing! They are all pro-missionary work and ready to help us with whatever we need. The Bishop is one of the nicest, loving men I have ever met and we are just so happy to be here. I have made a goal that I wanted to make this transfer one of those transfers where every night when you get home you just fall into your bed because you are so tired. And so far, we have literally done that every night. There was one night this week I didnt even make it to the point of changing my clothes I was so tired. Haha I love missionary work and I am loving being here with Zuster Lemich to help these people in Breda! I love and miss you all and thank you for your support and love!

Love, Zuster Brophy

Me and Zuster Lemich

Halloween Night..dressed up as Mother and Daughter :)

Breda is Beautiful!

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!

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

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.

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 :)