Temples, Tulips, and Maastricht, oh my!

Phew, where to begin??  This was a most lovely week filled with banana bread, long train rides, the temple(!) and tulips. 

Tulips!

Monday evening we were off to Den Haag to spend the night there, so we could be in Zoetermeer for our morning temple session.

Whilst on the train, Zuster Jensen whipped out her cross-stitching and I was writing a letter (we are both wearing skirts if that wasn't already assumed), so you can be sure that everyone else on the train though we were some sort of time-traveling miracle - I definitely felt like I was in the 1800's.

And to make matters worse, our phone rang (I'm pretty certain it's the pilot model of Nokia) and then it just sealed the deal that we are living in a different century. "Mr. the Kid, you handle time travel with the utmost of ease." So yeah, tubular.

Then we had a gezellig sleepover with the Den Haag sisters (Zuster Voss!) and Tuesday morning we were off to the temple!!! My first non-English temple session and it was just beautiful:)  

Den Haag Temple

After our session, we had lunch together at the Zoetermeer church and then took a big ol' bus on over to Keukenhof - the land of the tulips and Dutch galore. *Fun Fact* Apparently tulips originated from Turkey...

Tulips!

Anyway, we went wild in Keukenhof for several hours; it's like Disneyland, except instead of rides, there are flowers.
Mooi mooi:)  

Zuster Watts and Zuster Dobler

Going wild in Keukenhof

I may have fallen into a bit of water, or at least my back did, while I was trying to take a picture on a bridge...but water dries, right?  So I may have walked around Keukenhof with a big ol' wet mark on my back for a time; would've been totally fine with it except it got pretty darn chilly by the end of the day and that lovely damp sweater helped none.

Tulips!  I saw oh so many tulips:) Ik kan me niet beschijven.
(I can't even describe!)  

And more tulips!

Anywhoozles, moving on, people give us so.so.so.much food, well, let's be honest, chocolate and stol is not food.  In two days alone, we got two things of chocolate and an entire stol brood (stollen for you Germans, sweet bread for you Americans).  Oh, another member also threw Twix bars at us too!:)

Saturday, the zone leaders came to work with us and then we all went up to a baptism in Groningen, which was delayed about an hour and 45 minutes because the person getting baptized got lost on the way to the building...but it was very nice.

The news of all news this week is that I'm being transferred! Tot ziens my beloved Assen and Hallo Maastricht.  *Fun Fact*  Zuster Jensen just came from Maastricht 6 weeks ago. So I shall be moving on (or moving down to be more exact) this week and shall start the next part of my tour of the Belgium/Netherlands "mish".

Farewell to beloved Assen and Zuster Jensen

So, this week we've been focusing a lot on Jesus Christ and sharing the message of his ministry, atonement, death and resurrection.  I realized that throughout the Atonement and His crucifixion, the soldier and the Jews vying for His death, personally witnessed the paying of salvation of their souls. Their sins were being suffered for by Jesus Christ, who was suffering right in front of them and they didn't even notice. 

It reminds me of Isaiah 53:3:
"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not"

The esteemed Him not as the Savior of their souls all the while He is suffering for them and for all of us.

That also made me think: how often do I acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Savior of Johanna Dobler, not to mention the world?  He should be everything to us, for without Him, we would be nothing; our entire lives would have no purpose. They would remain topical and unfulfilling. But, because of Christ, because He lives, our lives have grand, divine purpose that surpasses all mortal comprehension.

Sometimes it's interesting to just look at one person and think about all the love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for that person...we say all the time that we know that they love us, but what about everyone else?  If we know we are special, then we know that every other person on this planet is just as special.

The Gospel is about love; love is patient, enduring and in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's case, perfect.  I am just so grateful for the opportunity I have to learn to love the way Christ does, to see people for who they can become.

Have a fantabulous week full of tulips (oh, wait, that's me:) and sunshine (that's definitely not me:)  I'll make my own sunshine, not to worry. 

Well, I love you all!
Liefs, Zuster Dobler

P.S. I finally got my naamboordjes (nametag) with my umlaut!  I'm officially representin' now:)