Hello,
So... I've moved! I'm now in Leeuwarden, and it's adorable.
It's at the top of the Netherlands. My new address is : (For Karoline's safety, if you want or need to send her a letter/card please check with me for her address. If you want to send a package, or card or letter, you can use the mission office address which is on the blog.)
Technically, transfers don't happen until Wednesday, but I
got a call on Friday afternoon that I was going to be in Leeuwarden the next
day, and that we needed to meet the other sisters at 11 on Sat. So, that was a
stressful day, because it was late afternoon, and we had no idea what was going
on. Anyway, I guess one sister had to do some updating of her medical records
or something, so she had to spend the weekend at the mission home and office,
so they had to transfer some people early. So anyway, that was pretty
stressful. My new area covers all of Frisland. It's huge. Oh my goodness. If I
stay here in the winter I'm going to die. This is one of the coldest cities in
the Netherlands, so I'm going to need to buy my winter coat and boots soon.
Yay! But this city is awesome. It's a traditional dutch town, and it's
gorgeous. Ah so cute. Also, we live almost at the top of our apartment
building, and the back view is a canal, so we get to see boats passing through
it all the time. Also, they speak another language up here. Fris? I'm not sure
if thats how you spell it, they also have a different accent, so it's going to
take just a little time to adapt to understanding this Dutch thing again. But
that's okay, I'm glad to be here. Also, they only speak Fris out in these
little villages, so that will be interesting to go there. We have to bike a ton
here, so my legs will get nice and muscular. :)
My companion is Sister Rosenlof. She was in the MTC at the
same time I was, but she was in the other district. I'm really glad I get to
serve with her, shes awesome, and just great. I was sad to leave Sister Raun
though. Actually, leaving Lelystad was harder than I thought it was going to
be, probably because it was on a weird day, and no one was expecting it, and we
were all wondering what the heck was going on that some of us had to leave early.
When I went to go say goodbye to the Suriname lady and her husband, she
starting sobbing, like sobbing sobbing. And then told us how she had a dream
this was going to happen but that she hoped it wasn't true. It was really
sad. And then we told the investigator who has a crush on me that I was moving
and I thought he was going to have a fit. He's like "you know I hate
these rules they can't have you Sister Western, I didnt even have time to get
you a gift!" It was getting ridiculous, but then he really pushed us into
getting breakfast with him before I left the next morning, so we did. But we
have breakfast with him every saturday.
Then, when we met up with everyone the
next day, sister rosenlof and I had to wait forever to get a train up north
because something was wrong with the tracks, so we waited for a couple hours.
Then it's a couple hours on the train, and it was packed. Ah, craziness, but we
made it, with all my stuff, and my bike, and we didnt even lose each other.
Good times.
Anyway, this last Tuesday, Sister Raun and I worked with
President. We thought for sure it was going to be super awkward, but it was a
lot of fun. Great experience. Also, their car was really nice. ha. We
went and looked up a bunch of people, and taught an investigator that we had
found a couple of days before. Then we had a member appointment for dinner, and
then looked up more people after. It was really cool to get to work with them.
So yesterday, we had three investigators in church. And all
three of them don't speak Dutch. So Sister Rosenlof translated for one, I
translated for one, and one of the Elders took one. It was crazy. Also, our
church is in a building that used to be a bank. The baptismal font is under the
floor. It's a cool little building, it's also three stories.
Saturday night, we had a member appointment for dinner. The
guy is Egyptian, and he's a convert of about five years. He's been through the
temple and stuff, so I was a little surprised to walk in and see a shrine to
Jesus and Thomas S Monson. Then I laughed a little. And he's like what? And I'm
like uh... nothing. He also has book of mormons all of his house. Like
everywhere. Basically, he's amazing, but it's like what the heck? But he's
super nice. Whenever he says anything, it's always like Thanks to the gospel of
Jesus Christ........ in the name of Jesus christ amen. Everything, he ends with
in the name of jesus christ amen. When you tell him his food tastes good he
looks at you and says " Ï'm chef cook", and "it tastes good
because I always pray in the name of Jesus Christ to make sure the food is
tasty. You can't go wrong." His Dutch is also really easy to understand,
so yay. He's really cool though.
Also, I got the envelope with my medicine on Tuesday, so
thank you!
Hmmmm so that's all I can really think of for this week.
Love you, miss you!
Karoline
This is the view from her new apartment in Leeuwarden.
Note: Wikipedia has some interesting information on Leeuwarden and also Lelystad.
