Christmas Eve



It is Christmas eve. I was going to write an email but I kept thinking about the photo's I wanted to include in the email so I figured it would be better to do it on a blog. We love being on a mission on Christmas Eve.

Saturday we visited Anja and her mother. Desi is holding Wanda the 9 year old chicken. It was a wonderful and spiritual visit with this dear family we love.



Sunday we spoke in church. I talked about all the wonderful things I had learned from the member in Utrecht. I talked about Zander who is in this picture with me. He taught be about 'goede moed' or 'good courage' in English. He did a perfect job blessing the Sacrament the first time he was asked to do it.

We made the 20 minute drive to Molenaarsgraaf to follow up on a 14 year old referral we had visited a few months ago. No one was home so we made the return trip later in the evening. We sang Christmas Carols to Joost and his parents. He had given a report on Mormons in school as part of a school project to learn about lesser known churches. He got an A but did not want to learn more. As we sang 'Silent Night' his mother brought anther guest to the door - their minister. He had a nice talk with him and left them with a good feeling.

This photo is out of sequence so forgive me. I had to get this family leaving the church in Utrecht on thier bikes.

Monday morning Desi and Carolyn invited our Iraqi neighbors over to learn how to make Oreo cookies. They have received Carolyn's homemade Oreos several times. Their mother asked for the recipe so we decided to have them over to learn now.

Carolyn said they were very quiet and polite. I would have like to be there but was working on the Elder's apartment in Utrecht. Another note, this Iraqi family with 6 children who is living in a 2 bedroom apartment will likely be moving into apartment when we leave. The mission has decided to close this apartment which has been used for senior missionaries for 10 or 15 years. It has four bedrooms. The family is excited to move in.

Christmas Eve was spent with Lucia and Henk. She cooked Roti with lamb and duck in a spicy sauce. We ate with our fingers using the Roti to pick up the meat and potato/bean mixture. We are not meat eaters and duck is not high on our list but this meat was very tasty.



Lucia called us earlier in the week and was very distraught. She is trying to get a visa for her son to come to the Netherlands to go to school. The application was denied. She has not seen him since he left on his mission 2.5 years ago. Elder van de Graaf gave her a wonderful blessing. The visit was a tender mercy for her. She lives in a city is 30 minutes from the Vlissingen Branch but requires a 5 Euro toll through a 6600 meter tunnel. It takes us 1 hour to drive to pick up the Elders in Vlissingen.  I just marveled that her maker cared enough to allow our visit to her home. It was with sadness we said goodbye.

Biking in Zeeland

I am posting this on Thanksgiving when it only occurred a week ago!  Some things are so beautiful to your soul you don't want to chance forgetting them.  It was one of the highlights of our mission. Riding bikes on a beautiful day through a special part of the country. It also was a time for me to remember Paul Nordin. He surely rode through some of the same villages. We could see Middleburg, which was Paul's first city, most of the time as we rode. Lastly, we are getting emotional as we see the end coming to a wonderful experience. As Sister Everton said tonight as we were discussing our rather dismal employment prospects (or more specifically, how do I explain in a job interview to someone who knows nothing about our church why I did this at this time in my life, what I did and why I enjoyed it), "regardless of our future, I would not trade this experience for anything in the world". Our ride in Zeeland was one of those experiences.

We had planned to go to Vlissingen in Zeeland to finish hanging drapes and working on the new apartment. It was a warm and sunny day so we put the bikes in the back of our car. Sister Everton's vriendin (girlfriend) in our apartment said we must ride our bikes from Vlissingen to Domburg because it is beautiful. We unloaded our equipment at the apartment and then unloaded the bikes and headed north.  We started out riding in groves of trees with the tall dike and dunes between us and the sea. We rode to the top of the dike at one point and took this picture looking back towards Vlissingen. We could see Belgium on the horizon.

The first town we came to was Zoutelande (salt land). We walked our bikes up 30 feet of stairs to get to the top of the dike. Zoutelande is charming with the red roofs and windmill.

This is the church right across from the dike. I think it is called the West Church.

The view South.

We rode on top of the dike.  Climbing the stairs had warmed us up. It was hot in the sun. The young man sitting next to Sister Everton had the reins. I would guess his grandfather is sitting next to him.

We returned to the wooded areas below the dike.

After about 8 KM the trail ran along this lake with a view of Westkapelle on the other side of the lake.

We were able to ride on top of the dike again.



The old church tower stands above the red roofs. The church was bombed out except for the tower. There is a light on the church tower to guide the ships.

The country to the East is beautiful with cows grazing in the marshlands.

The bike path turned into a dirt trail.

There was a golf course below us.

Nice view of the ninth hole.

We climbed to a high lookout point over Domburg. The red brick Victorian mansion is a hotel.

This is a view of Domburg with the church on the left and windmill on the right.

The current queen's mother like to stay at this hotel.

This is the town square around the church.

We rode our bikes through the narrow streets of Domburg. Many homes had room free signs meaning they had a room for rent which would include breakfast. They cater to summer vacation crowd. At this point we were about 15 miles out. The sun was setting. We were hungry and thirsty. We got some bread at the local bakery. We wanted to go through the fields on the return but I needed a map to do that. We bought one at the book store in this picture. This map marked the scenic bike paths in green.

We rode past the windmill on the way out of Domburg.



The sun was setting on the fields.



I need two pictures to capture this moment - the emerald green fields and the brilliant sunset. The man-made camera is no match for the wonder of the eye created by our maker.

The temperature started to drop quickly. We were glad we dressed warmly. We passed this windmill in Meliskerke.

It was totally dark when we got to Biggerkerke. There was a windmill we wanted to see but could not find it. We stopped and asked a kind lady. She said it was right there. We looked, there it was and it was running! She said they grind wheat in it. She told us how to ride our bikes to it. The video below shows it running. It is amazing to stand right next to it. There is so much power in the blades. We didn't think there was enough wind to turn the windmill but it had plenty of speed.

The owner and an old man (we guess his father) were loading sacks of flour in an adjacent building with an electric mill. The owner is weighing a sack of flour  then he will carry it on his back to the other sacks outside.   People come from all over the country to buy his flour.

The next city was Koudekerke (cold church). Another white windmill! Now it was very dark. We had trouble seeing the bike path. We had to stop often to check our position on the map. When we reached Vlissingen we had to stop and ask for directions to the Elder's apartment. We had traveled 27.6 miles in 5 hours. We shopped for tomorrow's dinner with Peter before the stores closed but it was too late to do much work on the Elder's drapes. Completely exhausted with beauty and joy, we made the 1 hour drive home.





 

More August

We were invited to dinner with our friend from Suriname Lucia. She showed us how to make a delicous drink.



Lucia has great faith. Her son has returned to Suriname after serving a mission in the East Indies mission. She is working on getting permission for him to come to the Netherlands to finish his school.



This is the Utrecht Bishops son who recently returned from a mission in London.





We had a Senior Missionary Conference at the mission home with President and Sister Robinson.



Tony on the back row right was baptized August 17th. The Ampens and Sisters Tanner and Schwab.



Tony brought his fish. He overcame tremendous addictions to be baptized.

Sisters Gallego, Nielson, Tanner and Schwab

This is our dear friend Anja. She has a beutiful view from the 12th floor of her flat. She always treats me to a Maxum choclate sandwich bar.



Here I am spotlighted with other missionaries with birthdays in the month of August.

On my birthday we needed to go to Brugge to pick up keys for the new apartment. The realtor's office was next to the old city so we put 30 minutes on the meter and went for a walk. We had forgotten how charming Brugge is. The building behind me was constructed around 1610. The man to my right is playing an accordion. The woman is playing a percussion instrument that is carved from wood and looks like a monkey clicking his teeth. You just have to be there to smell, hear and see everything going on.

We were eating at our favorite Italian restaurant in the old part of Antwerpen. This little girl was drawing on the sidewalk while her mother and grandmother eating dinner. She is cute enough to be one of our grandchildren.



When we left Antwerpen, this man was playing in front of the old cathedral. The sound reflected beautifully off the walls of the cathedral.

We went to the farewell sacrament meeting in Hilversum for the Sladens who served two 18 months missions with a few months in between. I was apprentice to Elder Salden during thier second mission. I assisted them with apartment and bike repairs.

Giethoorn

We were returning from buying curtains from a terrible smoky second-hand store in Assen which is in the North part of the Netherlands. We decided to stop in Giethoorn which is a community of homes accessible only by water. We drove through the town and thought this is not special. Then we stopped and found a path that lead to the homes.



We walked for maybe 10 minutes passing beautiful homes before we reached this home near the end of the path. A man came out dragging his garbage can. He rolled it 10 minutes to the road where it will be picked up in the morning



The area is surrounded by lakes. This house is located with access to the lake.

We are partial to homes with red shutters.



The church in Giethoorn is accessed by the canal.