A Joyful Message to Share

Hallo! It's been another wonderful week at the MTC!

At our devotional yesterday one of the speakers mentioned a Gordon B. Hinckley quote about how the three things a missionary should do are 1. Smile 2. Smile and 3. Smile. I thought, woohoo! I've got this one! I feel blessed for my positive nature. I'm not struggling as much as some others are here. Of course, maybe I should try to stress more and work harder... But I think there's a balance to be achieved. This is a joyful message, and I'm excited to prepare to share it! Even if the language is hard sometimes.

Dutch Zusters with our flags!

So speaking of the language, who wants to learn some Dutch? Zuster Robbins and I have a hard time occasionally when Dutch words sound silly in English. For example, Baptism = de doop, pronounced "dope." We almost laughed out loud in a lesson when we were trying to talk about John the baptist and the investigator was like, "Oh yeah, Johan de dooper (dope-er)." But maybe we are just crazy missionaries (gek zendelingen). Dutch is fun because the guttural "g" just makes every word exciting! There are no hard "g's" ever, unless they're next to an "n." And since the language is so literal, some words are just really long. We have great teachers though who make learning exciting, and we can already speak a lot of Dutch just during the day. It's fantastic.

We said goodbye to the 12 crazy Danes and 3 awesome Icelandic missionaries in our zone on Sunday after taking some sweet temple pictures. We will miss them but it's nice to study uninterrupted haha... And we are getting a new batch of Danes today! I'm excited to welcome them.

Our zone picture before the Danes left! I think it's so cool to see all the flags represented- Suriname, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium- the only flag missing is Iceland. The Danes have left but we're getting a new batch today!

Along with the language, we are learning how to teach, and more about the Gospel. The MTC is like majoring in Theology, Education and a language all at once and packing it all into six weeks which can be crazy. my perception of missionary work is so altered. It's not awkward or naive as portrayed in popular culture... It's about loving others and showing them how the Gospel can meet their needs. It's about establishing friendship and trust. I'm even more excited now to serve. We just passed our hump day, of sorts- less than three weeks until I leave for the Netherlands!

Zuster Robbins and I enjoying a beautiful day at the MTC!

I hope all is well at home! I'd love any e-mail/letter updates from friends, even if I can't always respond right away- and if anyone would rather get this post as an email instead, that might be an option. Tot ziens! Ik hou van jullie!

-Zuster Voss