Geachte familie,

I am currently sitting on a train hoping it will soon pull out of the Antwerpen Centraal station (usually their public transportation is super good, but our train's been delayed -- also, I think it's not as good in Belgium as the Netherlands). It was cool to visit Antwerpen today, even though we saw not very much besides the train station. By the way, the train station is huge (and beautiful  -- 4 floors of train platforms. Zuster N., my trainer, had to go to a district leader council meeting that involved the zone leaders, the district leaders and their companions, and us. We got up at 5:30 this morning, left at 6:30, and finally got to the church in Antwerpen at about 11:30. So, lots of travel. Normally it shouldn't have taken quite so long, but we had a few complications too. But it's fine, because I got to go to Antwerpen, which is a sweet city. Also, I got a chance to meet a few more missionaries here, which is always cool.  We're kind-of out in the boondocks, at least in terms of being far away from people. The closest missionaries are in either Eindhoven or Genk, about an hour away by train, so other than today (and on Wednesday & Friday when I met most of the other trainers), I haven't met too many missionaries yet. But we'll have district meeting tomorrow, so I'll meet a few more then.

Tuesday was Koninginnedag, Queen's Day. Also the day of the coronation. And that's what we flew into. There was a lot of orange all over in celebration. We all had interviews, went contacting in Leiden (we stayed in a hotel across the street from the mission office, because there was no room for us i the mission home [with 11 of us, I can imagine why]). And took a 2 hour nap. Then we opened our "calls" to our first areas. As I said, my first area is Heerlen. That includes Maastricht and clear up north to Roermond, and everything in between, so we're pretty spread out. Our ward has members in 3 countries -- Belgium, Nederland, and Germany. If ward members invite us to dinner, we can go to Germany, so that'll probably happen pretty soon. Apparently the Dutch accent is pretty weird here, being a mix of Dutch and Flemish, with German influences, but I'm so busy figuring out what they're trying to say, I can't really tell, to be honest. So I might speak pretty weird Dutch after I get transferred, but that's all right. Because our ward is a military ward, pretty much everyone speaks English, which is both nice and a bit of a drawback for my learning. But I just met another missionary who started out in Heerlen, and he apparently turned out all right, so I figure I'll be okay. The ward is great -- the members all love us and are way excited to have sisters. I'm pretty excited.

Part of the reason things have been a bit slower this weeks is because on Friday we had to go back up to Leiden to finish up becoming legal in the Netherlands, because the legality office was closed the day we got here, for obvious reasons. We'll get started for real here pretty quick, though.

Talking to people is definitely weird, especially with my limited language capacity, but people are pretty patient with me and mostly pretty kind. The Lord has been helping me a ton too -- so many tender mercies practically all the time.

It is so beautiful here. It really could be in a fairy tale or something. The architecture and countryside are something else. Everything is beautiful. Heerlen is the only area in the mission (at least in Nederland) that has any kind of hills. So that makes it harder to bike, but a lot more like home.

Funny occurrence of the week (or one of many): since they replaced Elders with Sisters here, we're living in a thoroughly Elder apartment, complete with little plastic army men all set up (no, I don't know where they came from) and a Nerf gun. And no food (although part of that was because they were closing the city indefinitely at the time). And until about a week or so ago, everyone thought sisters would be opening Hilversum and more elders could be going back to Heerlen. Accordingly, they decorated the new Hilversum apartment very appropriately for sisters and left Heerlen entirely alone. Well, they switched at the last minute, so Elder C. (from my MTC district) is opening Hilversum with pink duvet covers and I'm learning how to shower out of a hose (it is a shower, but the head came off and the hose doesn't hang up). It's cool though, because I don't like pink and our water is warm.

Sister N. is super cool. Everyone says we're super alike, and we are in many ways. We have lots of fun together and she's training me well. She'll have to be because out of necessity, I'll be training in just over 11 weeks. So I've got to learn fast.

That's good though, because it'll be evermore apparent how much this is the Lord's work and not man's. The Lord is hastening his work, which means that we have to do our best and prepare and work our hardest and then leave the rest up to Him. Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies, and that is definitely and absolutely true here. That's true there too, so if you ever wonder about that, just read the old favorite, 1 Nephi 3:7 (And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.) And remember that in this work, whether it be your calling or your life, He will stand with you and walk with you every step of the way. Much success!

Love

Zuster Stevens