Sometimes I feel like Miss Congeniality

Happy Missionaries

Sometimes I feel like Gracie Lou Freebush, when she attacks that guy at the pageant because "he's lighting up a cigarette"...that's what I want to do to every smoker in Western Europe:)

Koning's dag was a marvelous success!  Sister Manning and I were at the park at 7:00 am to set up and the elders and some members came at around 9/10 and things really started a'poppin'.  It was basically a huge yard sale-a lot of people who were genuinely interested!

So the rest of the week we've been busy looking them up, having lessons, and bring the Spirit big time:)  There was one referral that the elders had given us and when we went to the address, there was a plaque on the door that said "Brotherhood of Maastricht"...and when someone opened the door, he was like, "oh, yes, he's here" and then he lead us into a "waiting room" of sorts...totally thought it was a cult.

Turns out, he works for the Catholic Church and he's super religious (obvi...) and believes that by reading the Book of Mormon he can come closer to Christ...yes, yes, you can:)

We also have this super sweet Armenian guy that we met at Koning's dag who is so excited and willing to learn and loves to barbecue - he cannot emphasize enough.

We also knocked the door of this guy who's apparently a judge and who gets regular emails from Joe Biden three times a week...whaaat??  It was cool; we were doing bells ups and this lady talked to us from her balcony and was super nice, but said she didn't have any time and ya-da-yadada, so we said our goodbyes and moved on-we were at the next building and SHE comes to us and talks to us for about 15 minutes and what we do and the importance of families and how she loves Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons *Waltons nerd out* 

She was fascinated that I'm from California-being from California is key; people think it's so cool and they always want to talk about the weather. It's not like I look like I'm from SoCal anyway; I'm whiter than a ghost...maybe that's why people close the door on my....maybe.

Anyway, Sunday was a miracle of miracle day:)  We met THE most amazing people, hearts were melted, wishes for hugs were had, and just a killer Spirit was felt. We were biking by and we started talking to this guy on the street next to the fietspad (bike path), kinda hard around the edges and we were talking to him about what we believe and he was pretty convinced that God doesn't exist because of how crap his life has been, etc....and then some of his friends came over and he biked away.

We started talking to his friends-one was super sweet and genuinely interested about the gospel and who already shares a lot of the same beliefs, the other, a wee drunk with fabulous face tattoos (he had a star under one eye and teardrops under the other) Apparently teardrop tattoos mean different things in the Netherlands...) Anyway, we never caught his name, so we just call him "Teardrop".

But we had a really interesting conversation with them.  The one interested guy we gave our number and he said he'll call us...Teardrop, well, Teardrop got a card too:)

Anyway, we biked away and we're doing our own thing and who comes biking up to us?  The same first guy that we started talking to!  His name is Nicky and said that he was embarrassed to ask in front of the other guys so he came back to find us and he wanted to know if we really thought that the Gospel could make his life better; he's had problems with drugs, alcohol, etc and his life, he said, is basically over.

He said he wants to give this a shot and see if it could help him-we bore testimony and promised him the blessings and happiness that come from the Gospel and so now we have an appointment with him this week:)  

It's amazing to me how happy I feel as I share the Gospel with people-in the mission call letter it says that I would experience happiness like never before and it's totally true-it's a different sort of happiness, a deeper happiness that comes from the happiness of others.

My happiness comes when the people I see and help are happy and I think that is what the Savior intended to teach us.  I love being a missionary and blessings are raining down (as literal as rain:)

Be excellent to each other:)
liefs, Zuster Dobler