23-29 July 2011

Last Saturday we went to Enkhuisen, an outdoor museum that is a re-creation of a Dutch village, vintage 1890-1932. The buildings were dismantled in other parts of the Netherlands and rebuilt in Enkhuisen, a town on the Isselmeer. We went with the Beckstrands, another senior couple from our mission.

There were several of these old sailing vessels from quite small to medium sized. this one has been restored and is beautiful.

They've attempted to make this like a working village with a net maker, blacksmith, lime kiln, tannery, laundry and all kinds of shops. Here the eel nets are hung to dry.

The setting is quite beautiful and picturesque on the water.

As we walked through the village, we stopped in one house and the gentleman there explained that the Dutch noticed that flies didn't like the lavender flower and so they created a paint the same color as lavender and painted much of the insides of their houses (especially the kitchen) in this blue, to repel flies.

The Dutch love their sweets. So, of course, there's a candy shop.

This is a dining room. I thought the stove was unique.

A mobile knife and scissor sharpening cart. The grinding wheels are turned by pushing on the foot pedal.

This is the fire department pump wagon. The capacity of the water tank is quite small, so a very active water brigade would be required to carry water to the pump. Of course, water is something that's not in short supply in the Netherlands.

A pretty little setting as we walked through the village.

A cute little house with two old bikes.

This is a little hard to see, but this is a dike. On the left is the water being held back and on the right you can kind of see how much lower the land is on the dry side of the dike.

Every Dutch village needs at least one wind mill. This mill raises water about three feet.

The cheese shop. All this is real cheese. We also experienced eating ice cream made from sheep's milk and smoked herring, smoked in a little backyard smoker made from a 55 gallon barrel.

This house has a roof that is a combination of both tile and thatch. The thatch is made from tightly wrapped local reeds and has a life span of about 50 years.

This is Lil, and her daughter, Kim. They are members of our little branch and their family invited us to dinner last Sunday at their house along with the 3 elders. She's a really good cook and we had a really nice time.

This past week, I had to make a quick one day trip to Frankfurt with one of our elders. This is in front of the Frankfurt train station. It's about 5-5 1/2 hours to Frankfurt from Leiden.

This is a walking area in the middle of the original old part of the city. This area is all little restaurants with the walkway through the middle. We grabbed a great German Bratwurst here, for lunch.

One day we went out to Gouderak, a cute little town with a blue and white porcelain factory where we bought some things to take home. On the way home we ended up taking this little ferry - backing the car onto it and then crossing it. This is a picture of the canal as we were riding it across to the other side.

Zone conference time! We attended both of them this week as we needed to help. These are all the sisters in two zones with Sis Brubaker and I.

Loel had to give out fire extinguishers to each apartment and explain how to use them as he is doing here.

Here's our two zones at the end of the conference.

The second day we got to go back to our old Antwerpen Chapel. This is Sister Herring again, a new missionary from my old area in California - she's doing great and has a wonderful trainer in Sister Garvin, who goes home next month.

Here's a picture of the other half of the mission on the 2nd Zone Conference day. The young man sitting in the front holding a big white envelope, is our good friend, Andy Thomas, and he's holding his mission call! We saw him get baptized last August and now he's going on a mission! He waited 2 days to open his call so we could be there. Then the President asked him to speak in Zone Conference and so he opened it at the end of the meeting.

This is right before he opened it - all the missionaries were so excited to see where he would be serving! He's going to the England Manchester Mission! He kept saying, "My joy is full." He is such an inspiration to all of us. He calls of his "parents in the church," and we feel like he's one of our kids.

Here we are at the end of the day - Joseph is the member who introduced Andy to the gospel. Andy is holding up a picture of his friends and the missionaries after playing soccer. An interesting thing about Andy, is his soccer game is good enough he was invited to try out for a professional team in Spain. He decided a mission would be better for him.
Unexpectedly, Pres Brubaker invited Loel and I to share a departing testimony as this is our last zone conference before we leave in October. We were completely surprised as we figured we'd be doing this at our zone training day in September. We both just cried a lot as it was such an emotional day with Andy Thomas there ready to open his mission call. It doesn't feel like it's time to go home as it isn't yet!
We spent all day Saturday helping to move 4 elders from one apartment to a new one in Amsterdam with 3 other senior couples helping out. The elders are always appreciative and do all the heavy lifting of furniture, etc, getting it up the narrow staircase to the 2nd floor. The Saldens have worked so hard to fix up this new apartment and it is a considerable improvement over their old one.

16-22 July 2011

We drove down to Belgium last Saturday to switch cars with the elders there. Here they are, getting ready to drive off in their new (not brand new) car that had a stick shift - and they hadn't really driven one much!

After we left them, we drove to the base to do some shopping - another 1.5 hrs. We're not nearly as close to the base as we used to be. This is a really cool chateau we passed on our way down - the French part of Belgium has a very different feel to it.

This was another cool house with lots of pretty plants on it down in the French part of Belgium.

On our way back to the Netherlands we had driven right past Anya's house so we had set up a visit with her family. It was so good to see them again!

Here's the family minus Djamil who was in France. We had a great time. She, of course, made us some wonderful food, and we had a great gospel discussion with Aziz with Anya translating. There's a very good spirit in their home. Anya has been so happy since being baptized and Aziz is now very supportive and positive about the church.

Aziz and Loel have always had a special bond.

A beautiful garden we pass as we walk along the canal in Rijnsburg.

We also passed this man sculling in a shell on the large canal near our house.

We had a wonderful baptism on Sunday in the Wassenaar Branch - Quentin, the young boy, was baptized by his father, Jackson, who had just been baptized himself a few weeks earlier. It was a beautiful service. So now the father and two sons are in the church. Their mother comes from Kenya in August and we're excited to meet her, too.

We got 9 new missionaries this week - 4 sisters and 5 elders. They all looked so great. Here we are in the office, having them fill out forms, etc. We then fed them lunch and then took them home to the mission home for a nap. They had been flying all night.

Later we walked with them into downtown Leiden where they did some contacting and then we had dinner at a pannenkoeken house. These are two of the sisters showing off their huge pannenkoeken dinner! The one on the left is Sister Herring, who's from California and is the granddaughter of my old bishop who called me on my mission when I was younger. Her family is good friends with my brother, Phil's family, in Danville, CA.

These are the dessert pannenkoeken's we all enjoyed! We shared them.

We just get all the new missionaries off to their new areas with their trainers, when the departing missionaries then arrive at the office. Here they have their final interview with the President, weigh all their luggage, get rid of lots of stuff, and they can talk to me about school and careers if they choose. This is Elder Matthews, one of our great friends as we served together in Antwerpen. I'm holding up a pretty interesting purse that a missionary didn't have room for. She was also trying to give me all the clothes that she couldn't fit in her suitcase - so I also have one of her jackets on that was way too small, but the elders and sisters kept insisting that the jacket and the purse looked great!

Here's Sister Holbein, who was one of the missionaries leaving. She got here a little before we did and we loved serving together in Antwerpen. I hated saying good-bye.

She also gave me this winter coat, which I think I may keep!
It was a wonderful evening at the mission home where we had our final dinner and then testimony meeting. I love listening to these missionaries' thoughts as they share things they've learned, how they've changed, their testimonies, etc. It's always a very emotional and spiritual meeting. Now when we have to say good-bye, the missionaries say, "Hey, Sis Tibbitts, we'll see you in a few months in Provo!"

This is our ward mission leader in the Wassenaar Branch. He rode this bike with the kiddie box on front with his little baby to our meeting. This is how he and his wife get around here. They don't have a car. It's the coolest thing.

Here's his cute 2 month old baby asleep inside. You can see the other two little kiddie seats inside. We've seen boxes like these that hold up to 7 or 8 little kids!

These are the Brobbey's, a wonderful member family in our branch who invited us to dinner. The meal was fantastic and we had such a nice evening with them. She's from St. Martin and he's from Ghana. Sister Brobbey teaches at the American School here in Wassenaar. They have three beautiful daughters.

Here's our three office elders who also were invited to dinner with the Brobbey's - they invited all 5 of us to dinner! Here they are, patiently waiting for dinner. The one on the right is a new elder in the office, Elder Alexander. He's training to be the new secretary and he's very good with computers.

9-15 July 2011

We had a delightful get-together with all 7 senior couples in our mission on our last P-day. Here are the van Komens showing off their delicious caesar salad.

Here are most of us. The Beckstrands hosted our gathering at their lovely Amsterdam apartment. We had a delicious meal, visited a lot, and watched a movie together.

Here we are watching the movie.

A really pretty Dutch townhouse we often pass on our walks around town.

I loved the flowers and the little wooden shoes, used as decoration.

On Monday we made our regular office lunch and then on Tuesday we made a second lunch for our district meeting. Here is most of our district - the biggest in the mission. We have 13 of us.

Here's Loel cleaning up afterwards in our little office kitchen.

Here's our district, minus me as I was taking the picture. We have four cute sisters in our district, which is fun.

Other then that, it's just been a regular week in the office. We are trying to find a new apartment for missionaries in a town the President would like to open up in Belgium near the border.