Groningen!

Dear family,

Hey there! It has been another FABULOUS week here in Groningen. What an adventure!

On Monday, President Brubaker called me and asked me to come down to Brussels to represent the Dutch sisters in a leadership council with all of the zone leaders from the mission. It was so cool! We had to leave Wednesday night and ride for 5 hours in the train and then find our way around the metros of Brussels to the sister's apartment there. Then we spent the night with two French speaking sisters and the next day sister Ekstrom spent the day proselyting with sisters in Brussels and I went to the mission home with the French sister representative Sister Frische. She is native to France, so communicating was really fun :) It was a 6 hour council that started with some training from the Assistants and President. In the training, they asked us (zr. Frische and I) to do a role play. We didn't know it, but they wanted to test the sisters and see how well we would react in a certain teaching situation. We went through the role play, and at the end, they were all super impressed and said things like "see, we knew the sisters would pull through". It was really funny. They pretty much drilled us sisters through the entire council. I think President Brubaker really has a lot of faith in the power of sisters in teaching, so he wanted us to be there to show the other Elders or something. It was really fun. After the training, we all got in cars and went to the memorial at waterloo. We studied the tactics of the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon in the battle that took place there and then talked about the battle against Satan and what it takes to be a good leader and take care of our "troops" in the mission field. It was amazing to be there, on the battlegrounds of waterloo, and compare the very real battle to the battle we fight as missionaries. It was such a neat learning experience, and I learned so much about mission leadership and leadership in the church in general. It was so cool!

I feel so privileged to have been able to go and have that experience in Brussels. It took a lot of time out of the work here in Groningen, but it was so inspiring. Heavenly Father has given me so many special opportunities to grow and learn in the mission, and I know it is because He will be requiring much of me now, and throughout my life, and I am so excited to apply the things I have learned to better serve Him.

I love you all!

Love,Zuster Cherie GUlliver