Week 45: "If he walks into the room, he's got swagger!" - President Robinson

Hey family and friends! Haha I hope that everything is going great with you guys. I sure miss ya but things are going sooo great here. Capelle Aan Den Ijssel is the place to be. haha We have been sooo blessed this week..it's literally insane. Sadly I left my planner at home so I don't have something to remind me of everything that we did but I will try my best to add the most important stuff.

We picked up two new investigators this week! Neda and Job. Neda is the woman from Iran that we met last week and the other is a 85ish yr old man from the Netherlands. It was cool how we found him. We had just finished talkin to one of our investigators at the door and we were heading to our bikes. He came out and started talking to us and invited us to drink something. So we sat in his backyard drinking Cola and talking about religion. At first he was like...NO I DON"T WANT A BOM. and then we shared a scripture and prayed with him. Afterwards he accepted it. We are going to visit him again soon.

We also had a wonderful Zone Conference where are the missionaries in Antwerpen zone came to Rotterdam zone and we heard from the APs and President and Zuster Robinson. We learned about an emergency plan and also about raising ourselves to a higher level so that is what we have been trying to do! We have been seeing sooo many miracles because of it. We found 5 potentials and set 2 appointments on one day. It was amazing. We are so excited. The work here is going so well. The members are great...even though I don't know them very well..haha That will come soon!

On the waterbus going to zone conference

We have been fed really well here..In fact we are fed way too much. Haha Zr Brophy and I are going to start out "6 months til sexy" when we hit our year mark soon. haha PRAY that that will go well. haha

I got another flat tire this week and have been trying to fix it..but I have been failing. Haha I think it is the pump that I bought...it like doesn't fit on my tire. LAME. haha

We heard that we can move into our apartment now so we are super excited. We will probably move tomorrow. haha FINALLY. They really cleaned out the bathroom and fixed the mouse problem so I am super excited. haha

The Deepest Point in the Netherlands

Windmills! Kinderdijk!

 The Lord is amazing. He seriously loves us and wants the best for us. I hope that I can keep my expectations high and make you and the Lord proud. I love this work. Definitely the work of the Lord. (:

I love you and miss you! TIME IS FLYING SO MAKE THE BEST OUT OF IT!

I should be sending pictures in a second. We went to Kinderdijk today! It's where all the Windmills are! So much fun!

LOVE YOU!

Zuster Kohlert

Week 44: "When in doubt....just CREAM!" - Zuster Brophy

Hey family!! How is everything going???? AHH mom said it has felt like forever since we've talked..and I am going to have to second that. This week has been one of the most tiring, stressful, long, blessed, and crazy week of my mission...And I wrote a more detailed letter to you guys (at least I think it is more detailed..haha) My brain is just fried. haha but it is going really well.

Zuster Brophy and I

So transfers..that was exciting. Some other missionaries and I ended up stealing someone else's bag..oops haha and my companion and I are living in Den Haag...haha Let me explain. haha So we get to our apartment in Capelle and we were so excited. It's just this cute apartment, kinda antiqueish(?)....At least we thought it was cute..turns out there was MOLD and a MICE infection. The mold was so bad that someone came and checked it and told us that it was dangerous for our health to be living there and that we had to move...so that's exactly what we did. We are living with the sisters in Den Haag and traveling to Capelle everyday, working there and then coming back at night. CRAZY.

.....just some mold.

 I think I went to bad late almost every night this week..so I am pooped. We also deep cleaned the kitchen and got rid of all of the food so that hopefully the mice wont come back...but we will see. We should be back there in 2ish weeks..but we are not sure yet. So ya. That is life. haha Exciting huh? The great thing is that the Lord has really been blessing us. We had a couple of referrals to look up so we did that and of course they weren't home so we did some door knocking and found 2 really awesome potentials. One of which we will be visiting tonight. We were home (in Den Haag) a little early one night so we did door knocking in their area and found this really positive Polish lady who we are going to go give a BOM to right after emailing. (we stayed in den haag today for emailing).

 

Studying in our temporary apartment

We were accidently late to church...haha our first sunday in the ward but the people were sooo AWESOME! So they were so understanding. We are being fed every night this week so that was super nice of them. The ward is great. we even have a group of Portugese people that have their own set of Portugese speaking missionaries. Cool huh? We have 7 missionaries in our ward.

 

So yeah...I feel like that is just a summary of what happened. So much more happened but it would take forever to go into details. But you know what? Even though it has been exhausting, Zr Brophy and I have had such an amazing time. seriously. We have laughed nonstop and that really helps. I am so grateful that I knew her from when we both served in Belgium. It totally made this adjustment (boy is that an understatement) a whole lot better. haha I am also super grateful for our Heavenly Father who has been looking after us this whole time, putting people in our paths that are nice and aslo open to hear his words. We have picked up the investigators of the previous sisters and that is awesome. We haven't met any of them yet but This we will! Sometimes "it's the load" that helps us return to live with our Heavenly Father again. 

 

I love you guys sooo much! I hope that you have a wonderful week. 

 

When in doubt, just cream. is our motto this week/transfer. haha ZR brophy was so tired our first night that she accidentally said "cream" instead of "cry and scream". Let's just say we are having a blast! Can't wait to hear from you! LOVES

 

LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU TONS!!!! (:

 

Zuster Kohlert

Week 43: Best Ever Birthday

Hey family! (: It was So awesome talking you guys. Mom, I love you and I hope you had a wonderful mothers day!! Just like Kristy said, talking to you was so wonderful and SO HARD because we totally just want to be with you guys again. I miss you so much. 

I had a wonderful birthday here in Almere. Seriously. Not saying you guys are bad at birthdays but there is something totally different and awesome about having your birthday on your mission. It's great. I really love the people here. I can't even explain it! It's so great. Thank you for both of the packages! I made a bracelet for a little girl in our ward and she loved it! (: Still haven't played with the legos but maybe someday soon. haha 

My Birthday Cake

Happy Birthday!

Chaya and Rueben

We were able to meet with Aji and henry this week and it was fun to talk with them but also sad to tell them I am leaving. I am going to miss them soo much. One thing that I LOVE is that henry said we planted a seed in him and we make him think. THAT IS A GOOD START. Haha I love them. I attached a picture of me with them. Aji, Jack, Henry and me! 

Aji, Jack, Henry and I

 This other picture is of Familie Reiche! He is American and she is Dutch and they threw me a lunch birthday party. They are totally awesome. We feel like they are just our good friends. We can literally talk about anything. 

Familie Reiche

On Mothers day sister Seel called us up and said she had something for us! And she ended up dropping off flowers and telling us thanks for being so awesome. And happy mothers day! haha We aren't even mothers yet and people still show us their love and appreciation. She is so awesome. 

Sadly a lot of your lessons fell through this week but we did have a lesson with Netty! She is so cool. But was awesome about this lesson is that it started to get a little out of control when it came to baptism and whether babies should be baptized or not. And sister Taylor and I didn't really know what to say and then the Spirit just kicked in and totally gave me the right words to say in order to get the lesson back on track. That, my friends, is a WONDERFUL feeling. There is really no replacement. The spirit really is our Silver Bullet. (: 

I am soo grateful that I have the opportunity to be here serving the Lord. Ya, it's hard but it's TOTALLY worth it. (: I love you guys so much and miss you like crazy. I will see you in 7 months! Crazy. 

LOVE YOU AND MISS YA!

Week 42: THE SUN IS SHINING!

Hey family..Yet again I don't have much time so I will try my best to get everything out to you. First. Transfers are in a week so if you are going to send anything..I would probably not do it now. Maybe hold off until next week when I tell you where I am going, if I do end up leaving.

Mission Temple Trip

This week as been really good. It flew by. We got to go to the temple on Tuesday and then right after we went to the Keukenhof which is the place with all of the pretty tulips! I will probably send pictures later(: Sorry. haha And it was so much fun. I hung out with Sister Taylor, Elder Gomez and Elder Sumter. It was way fun. We didn't get home until 8:30 pm so we hurry and ate, planned and went to bed because we were sooo tired from all the traveling. Totally worth it.

Kuekenhof without alot of Tulips

Kuekenhof

Kuekenhof

We met with Sonja alone this week and it went really well! We just did a review of the restoration and committed her to reading the BOM. She said she would do it so we will see how that goes this week. (: Aji and Henry still have TONS of questions. Yesterday was a hard lesson because he is very out spoken and will say exactly what he thinks but luckily we had an AMAZING joint teach, sister Seel, and she really helped out. More details are in my handwritten letter. so sorry I can't do more details. We haven't met with Cassandra for almost 2 weeks it feels like..sad. Her neighbors daughter died so she has been helping with that. Adrienne is doing good...Johan is still holding her back from coming to church :(  

Adrienne and Johan

Oh Today we went to Marken (really close to Amsterdam) with Sister Koens. She is from Utah but married a Dutchman and so she is really awesome. She has 2 adorable boys and we just had a really good time! I BOUGHT WOODEN SHOES! And some Delft Blue stuff. Hopefully they will still last the rest of my mission. I just thought, this is is probably one of my only chances to get this..so I did. haha I also got some cool chirstmas stuff. Don't be too excited. haha But we had a blast. (: Her and her husband are probably going to be moving to Utah at the end of this year so I can party with them when I get back! Woohoo.

My New Wooden Shoes

My New Wooden Shoes

This weekend is like Memorial weekend for the Dutch and one thing that is really cool that they do is have two minutes of silence at 8 o'clock on the 4th of May. And it's way crazy how things just die down. We got to see the king and the queen on the TV haha it was fun.  We also had a really cool fireside yesterday that we helped plan it with one of the members and it was on Mormon.org profile stuff. It's super important to have one of those here especially because lots of people think that our church is just an American church. So as the members make profiles, people will begin to see that we are normal and also believe in Christ.

I gave my testimony yesterday..man, it's hard speaking a different language when you are nervous. haha..but here is pretty much what i said..or wanted to say:  I am SO grateful for the plan that Heavenly Father has for me. We have been watching the Because of Him video with pretty much everyone that we meet with and EVERY time that I watch it, I get goosebumps and just an overwhelming feeling that Christ did this for me. And that Heavenly Father loves me. How great is it to know that we can be with our families forever? I think I ask that way too much but it's true. It's awesome. And my letter home really goes deeper into how important it is that we take care of our family and make sure our children stay on the right path so that their children will stay on the right path and in the end, it will make a huge difference in the world. We can't effect people in India, BUT we can effect our generations and those around us. That is why the Gospel of Christ is so important.

I love you guys so much. Sorry I don't have time to write more but know that the members are taking care of us! This week we have dinner appts and lunch appts almost every day. They are great. (: LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU! I'll talk to you soon!

Zuster Kohlert, aka Colie