But I've never had a king...*cough cough* America:)

So, this week's kinda crazy with the whole King's Day thing on Monday so I'm emailing today!  I've never had a king before so this shall be quite the experience....All I can say is "orange".  King's Day is the king's birthday apparently...I think and we'll be celebrating by having a booth up for "Because He Lives" video and also a Meet the Mormons campaign thing because it's coming to the Netherlands in May or so!   Super fun, lots of orange:)

Beautiful Maastricht

 Well, my first full week in Maastricht was amazing!  Sister Manning is from Kansas, but her dad is a businessman, so she's also lived in China and I think Singapore and North Carolina....She also went to BYU for a year.  She's so fun, super motivated and we get along great:)  There are so  many wonderful people and it's fun going and talking with so many different people:)  

Zuster Manning

This week, I probably ate my weight in every food imaginable...members give us oh so much food and their dinner appointments will give you a run for your money, *heavy breathing*  But it's fun to meet them all and I already love them:)

"Fancy Ice Cream" prepared by an investigator

Our new apartment's great, my bed is uber soft (not always handy in the morning) but it's all grand:)

There's a guy in our ward from Australia and he was telling us at dinner about how he's swum with crocodiles.... Crocodile Dundee anyone?

There are just so many more people walking around that it's easier to just start talking to someone on the street; we do a ton of travelling to little dorpjes (villages) in our area and so we're working on doing lots of travel contacting where you start a conversation with people on the bus/train.

Contacting in Turnhout, Belgium
"Thanks Belgian ruffians for reminding us to smile":)

Oh! I've also come up with a new contacting method where I play the pathetic American and ask a person next to me on a train/bus what a certain word means.  I found a crazy world in Het Boek van Mormon (Book of Mormon) a few days ago and we had no idea what it meant, so I asked a man what "verderfelijkheid" means...turns out it means "corruptibility", not the best word to contact with, but then you can always start up a conversation with that: "I'm learning Dutch, I'm from America, I'm on a mission", and so come over and teach them the Gospel...At least that's the plan:)

This morning we played basketball with the elders and other members from the ward which was actually quite fantastic:) We've been sharing with people Elder Holland's talk "An High Priest of Good Things to Come" lately: it's so powerful to realize that Jesus Christ is the hope of better things to come.  Sometimes they don't always come when we want them to, but they come exactly when we need them.

It's so great to know that the Lord knows exactly when blessings need to come and when He needs to let us learn a little more.   The Lord loves us all and His hand is always stretched out to us, no exceptions.  His Atonement is universal and it's never too late and no one is not good enough to feel his love, to see the silver lining on the clouds of life.  He is hope and love.

I hope that you all have a fabulous King's day (hahaha); I'll be imagining that everyone is celebrating my mom's birthday and not just the King's:) Have an amazing week!  

Life is amazingly spontaneous and wonderful! I love it all:)

Liefs, Zuster Dobler