7-13 May 2011

We've made great progress in getting our new office in Leiden set up. Here is the before picture of my office/storeroom with E. Benson, stacked high with boxes.

And here is the after picture of my new office, all organized!

And here's how the rest of my office looks - notice how high E. Benson had to lift heavy boxes of Books of Mormons, pamphlets, etc. as we stacked them up to the ceiling to make things fit.

Here's the before picture of our conference room, full of stuff shortly after we arrived and unloaded everything.

This is the other side of the conference room, piled high with things, looking towards our little kitchen on the right.

And here's the after picture! Looks pretty good, huh?

Here's the front part of the office - Loel is in his cubicle with the three office elders by him.

We loved this scene - geese and goslings crossing the road. We had to stop the car to let them get across.

We got three new cars this week. Here are the Assistants, pretty excited about their new car. Elder Brockbank even brushed off the bottom of his shoes before getting in to drive it! He said it will probably be about 10 years before he gets another new car.

The Beckstrands were pretty excited about their new car, too, that they then drove off to Amsterdam where they serve.

Here Loel and I are in front of our new car. We don't think it's anything too special anymore - this is our third new car since we've arrived! We drive so much that we give our old cars to couples who drive less, to balance the kilometers (mileage) on the cars.

We did a lot of driving this week - to switch cars, pick up cars, back to Brussels to pick up mail and deliver a few things, etc. I'm ready to stay put for a while now.

We are really enjoying our new apartment. We've added lots of extras to it, all from the mission storage units! It's so nice and roomy and light.

We helped Elder Benson teach an investigator one night this week while his two companions did some other teaching and finding. It was a good experience to feel the Spirit as we testified. The woman talked about how peaceful and good she felt as she finished praying at the end of the lesson. We had met her at church on Sunday - it was the first time she had attended and she really liked it.