Gardner and The Kid: April 2011

We go running every morning and vary our routes each day. We had not been this way for a while. We follow a canal with ducks and wooden bridges through the backyards of homes and school grounds. On the side of the path we found two bikes on top of a pile of garbage to be picked up from the curb. It was if they had fallen from heaven. There was a mens and womens style. The tires were flat but the bikes seemed to be in working order. We weren't sure if we could take them so we asked a neighbor who was walking her dog. She said they were garbage and we could take them. We had planned to look for bikes to purchase the next day. They are very expensive so you can only imagine our joy as we joggd home holding onto the handle bars. We pumped up the tires and went for a wonderful ride that evening after a light shower. The air was clean and cool and the country side was beautiful in the light from the sunset. The next day we rode into the city but I got a flat after about 3K and had to run the bike back to our apartment. We have since replaced the tires with nice puncture resistant Vredestein. They were expensive but we plan some long rides into the country side and don't want to have flat tires that far from home. Anyway, it was a wonderful gift.

Speaking of bikes, it is common to see a real senior out riding his or her bike. This picture is a good example. The ultimate was a man who came down to his storage room using a walker. The bikes are stored on ground level under the apartments where we live. Each apartment has a storage room. So he comes down using a walker and the next thing I see is him taking off on his bike. We saw him today as he returned from a bike ride. It took some effort to get his leg off the bike, but he is still riding.

On the 19th and 20th of April we went to the temple in Zoetermeer. The temple seats a few more than 40 so half the mission went the first day and half the second. This is Sister Reber and Sister Hill who work in Dordrecht.

After the temple and a devotional, we went to the famous Keukenhof Gardens. This is the car Annie used as a background for our blog. It is made by DAF which is a dutch company. A few of our zone leaders drove this type of car when I was on my mission in 1972. They had a 'rubber band' transmission - infinitely variable. They were terrible cars. The mission soon switched to VW Beetles.

This is half of our mission with President and Sister Brubaker in the front and center position.

This is the view behind the group picture of the tulip fields. The bulbs are allowed to blossom and then are harvested for shipment around the world.

Here are some of the pictures Carolyn took at Kuekenhof.

A few days after Keufkenhof, we were returning from a visit to the Elders in Alkmaar. We took a country road on part of the return trip and happened upon this field. The colors were striking.

This is Harry with his new missionary back pack. We got this photo after the devotional. Harry is over 80. He drives (fast). He goes to all the missionary meetings and works almost everyday with the elders. He helps with teaching appointments, contacting and transportation. The strap to his back pack was worn to a few threads. We happened to have one in our car that had been left behind by a departing elder. It was like new. We gave it to him. The elders said it was a 'real' missionary back pack. Harry said 'echt waar?' which means 'really true?'. The missionaries said yes and showed him that their back packs were the same. Harry got a real big smile on his face.

This is Elder Johannes Salden. He is over 70 and was born in the Netherlands. He has a home near Watsonville, CA and has worked and lived in the USA for Philips most of his life. He just returned with his sweet heart for their second tour of duty after 3 months off. He knows every apartment in the mission and what needs to be repaired in the apartment. He knows every bike in the mission. His wife knows every suit in the mission. They drive around the mission in an old church-owned van transporting bikes and furinture for the missionaires. He will work you in the ground. In this picture he is finishing off a carton of yogurt with chocolate flakes.

Donny Osmond visited the mission with all of his family. His son is serving in the Netherlands and is a wonderful missionary. They held firesides in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Haarlem. He talked for over an hour about the gospel and sang one song as part of his presentation. At the end, the Osmand family sang 'I am a child of God'. They did the last verse in Dutch. It was an impressive presentation and generated more than 150 referals.

This is a group picture with Donny, his wife and two youngest sons, missionaries and President and Sister Brubaker.

One Sunday we needed to meet the office couple to give them the keys to heaven (Rijnsburg). Kinderdijk is close to Dordrecht, and they were going there so we decided to meet them there. Kinderdijk is a protected area with 19 windmills that were constructed in the 1800's. There is no fee to enter. You can park and walk in or ride your bike to it any time. This was taken on the first really warm sunny day of the year. This row of molens is shown in probably every travel brochure about Holland.

We made a trip to Heerlen in the south part of the Netherlands. Heerlen has rolling hills and this Castle.

This is the inner court of the castle and the most beautiful girl in the world.

The week before we left Rijnsberg we had dinner with Sister Jongkees. She is from England and married a dutch man a few years after the end of WWII. He joined the LDS church after learning about it in a German POW camp. We tried to document her life while we ate. She had been married to her husband for 10 years before she joined the church. He was in the mission presidency when Elder Lee visited Holland. Elder Lee asker her why she had not joined the church. She said she did not want to loose her religion and friends. He told that the LDS church does not take away from her religion but it adds to it. She decided to find out if it was true and then she joined the church.

She said "then the calls started coming".

Her husband was the first president of a non-english speaking stake. Elders Peterson and Tanner were over the European area and made many visits to help train the new stake president. We ate at the table they did. Later he was called by President Kimball to be the president of the London Temple. This was before they retired so this was a financial challenge. She said they served for four years and prefered the blessings to the money. A few years after returning from London he was on the stand preparing to do translation for Elder Packer before stake conference. Elder Packer turned and asked if his life was in order. He said he thought it was. That was his interview. During the meeting he was called to be the Stake Patiarch. The meal was fabulous with cooked peaches stuffed with almond spice and this dessert which is made with cream puffs (close approximation but much better) and raspberries with white chocolate dripped over it. She ate two, I tried real hard to eat the rest.

We worked in the morning of Saturday April 9th to do final cleaning in the Rijnsberg Apartment. After Carolyn did not want to leave so she worked on her talk using the internet which we would not have in Dordrecht for at least a week. In the evening we went for a walk to our favorite places. The boat just appeared - the only time we saw a 'ski' type boat on the water.

This is our sweet spot on the walk. It was sad to leave but we get around enough we will be able to stop by and take the walk again and buy some bread at the corner bakery.