Leaving Heaven

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.

This is the living and dining rooms.

Dining room and Kitchen

Living space and view out windows to East.




View of church and shopping street.

 


Bathroom

 



Bedroom



View from Balcony. The clarion in the bell tower would play every 15 minutes during the day.