May 21 - 28, 2011

We live across from the Town Hall, so many of the town activities occur in front of our apartment. Last Saturday there was a huge, all day religious fair with booths from different religious organizations, food, and what appeared to be an attempt to bring all the religions in the town together. We were told when we moved to this town that it is a religious town. We see lots of people walking to the various churches on Sunday. (There are three different churches within a 1/4 mile of the apartment.) This is the view from our balcony of the square.
We need to figure out how our church can have a booth next year.

We visited the Royal Delft factory. In the 1600's there were several factories in Delft producing the distinctive "Delft Blue" pottery that has come to represent Holland. While there are still many factories in the Netherlands manufacturing Delft Blue pottery, Royal Delft is the only one of the original companies still in Delft. They have kind of become the face of blue and white pottery in the Netherlands and they would have you believe that others are imposters. The difference is that all their pottery is hand painted, while the other factories may use transfers, or hand painting. Consequently, Royal Delft is usually much more expensive than the other pottery. But you can find some fantastic buys at flea markets and antique markets.

This is the signature of Royal Delft pottery.

One of the painters in the factory painting the white bisque with cobalt oxide, prior to firing. The paint goes on black and fires to the distinctive blue. The ability to create works of art by shading is really impressive. They also create works in polychrome (many colors).

This is a really impressive piece in the showroom. This is a full sized reproduction of Rembrandt's "Night Watch". The original painting is probably 6 feet by 8 feet and Royal Delft recreated the painting in Delft Blue, painting individual 6 inch tiles, firing them and placing them to replicate the painting. It took the painters over a year to complete it.

At the end of World War II, Royal Delft created a series of seven "plates", about 5 inches by 8 inches, commemorating significant events. This plate was created to recognize the U.S. Army Air Corps dropping food to the starving Dutch citizens. They did this for about two weeks from April 29th to May 5th, in 1945. I fell in love with it and Paula bought it for me for Father's Day. She got a really good deal at an antique market in Delft.

Last Saturday, we had the first baptism since we arrived in Leiden. This is Albert, an Indonesian student studying Mathematics at the University of Leiden. With him are Elders McCarlie, Benson and Mueller.

We spent Thursday and Friday in Brussels helping President and Sister Brubaker pack up the Mission Home for the move to the Leiden area. While we were there, we stayed in an available apartment in Brussels. This is the view from the window of the pretty little park across the street.

A view of an old building on the other side of the park.

We walked to the park and we took pictures of these trees. They train them so the are flattened not round. Richelle felt sorry for them when they had no leaves on them because they hold them in place with strips of wood and they looked constrained. This picture is for Richelle to show her that the trees are happy.

It's a pretty little park with grass, trees, flowers and fountains very close to the European Union headquarters building.

Loel and Sister Brubaker folding linens at the Mission Home.

On the way back to the Netherlands, we stopped in Antwerpen for a Ward party. It was advertised as a multi-cultural party and everyone was invited to bring a food from their country and some music to dance to. These are our friends the Andjoku's and Julie and Anja dancing. We picked up Anja's family and brought them with us and took them home afterwards. It was so good to see everyone again.

We went to a museum in The Hague that features some of the paintings of Rembrandt, Rubens and the painting by Vermeer of "The Girl With the Pearl Earring". I had seen mostly religious paintings by Rubens in Antwerpen, but his paintings in The Hague really captivated me. His depth perception and use of light is extraordinary. The Vermeer painting is beautiful. I became a big fan of all three painters.

These are two of our members and three investigators/friends at the Branch party in the Wassanaar Branch last night. The feature was "American" hamburgers and hotdogs (and they were). It's an international branch and there are several American families. This is Doralin (Romania), Li Ping (China), Xien (China), Alfonso (Ecuador) and Albert (Indonesia).

Doralin asked me to explain to some visitors from Croatia "how the Church affects my life". (I, Paula, took this picture as it was so cute of Loel, the missionary - I was sad it turned out blurry.)

Elder Mueller with the sons of one of our investigators (Jackson) from Kenya - Morgan and Quentin. Morgan is 15 and Quentin is 11 and they are investigating the Church also. They left Kenya about three months ago. I have been so impressed with the Africans we have met on our mission. Their spirit is so sweet and they have the deepest, simplest faith. They truly are God's children. They're kind of a welcome relief to the cynicism we often see in the Europeans.