Kobi, Femke and Benjamin

This is Benjamin and Femke. Thier mother is Kobi. They came to our apartment for dinner and to learn how to make oreo cookies. During dinner they got bored so they colored a picture. Femke's picture is below our family pictures.

Sister Everton told Femke she would teach her how to make the oreo cookies and then Femke to could teach her mother. Femke would not let her mother come into the kitchen after that.

Benjamin got bored of making cookies so we read "Elmo goes to the Dokter" several times.

Here are the completed cookies with Kobi and her children.

Kobi invited us to her home for dinner. She lives in a fairy-tale like home on a dike with a windmill just a few doors down.

Kortrijk

Kortrijk is a nice little city in Belgium and is the farthest elder's apartment from the mission office. It has not been kept up and has serious mold problems. This is the bathroom that someone (elders or a member) painted dark blue. The paint is peeling but luckily no mold in this room. I am scraping and sanding the loose blue paint before applying a coat of isolation primer. Notice the light wiring to the left. There are no light fixtures in the apartment - just bare wires to a light recepticle. The elders were down to one light bulb that was working. They either didn't know how to change lights or they were out of money.

Each night we cooked dinner for the Elders. This night the Saldens came down to deliver new wardrobe cabinets. The walls look good with a coat of isolation primer and paint on them.

This is the kitchen. There are no drawers in the cabinets. Virtually no storage. My good friend Elder Bastians is standing in front of the washer and dryer. Kortrijk has a dryer because the apartment is so small there is no place for drying racks.

After a long day, we drove through town about 9 pm. It was warm and the locals were enjoying the evening by dinning outside. How nice it would be to check into a hotel, shower and have a romantic dinner. Instead we drive home for 2 hours and then return the next morning. It just does not feel right to have the church pay for a hotel plus we need to do shopping in the morning and everything is cheaper and more easily available in Dordrecht.

Hoge Veluwe



Friday we met the other couples at the Hoge Veluwe park which is a large perserve. There is an admission fee which includes the use of these white bikes. We rode about 14 minutes to get to this hunting mansion which was built by Anton and Helene Kroller Muller in the early 1900s. Helene was also an art collector. With guidance from a professor of art she amased a collection of 11,000 items. Luckily the professor encouraged her to buy works by van Gogh who at the time was not popular.



The senior couples are young at heart. This is Elder Busch who is 73 and serving his second mission with his wife. He plays tennis frequently and likes to mountian bike when he is in Utah.



This is Sister Busch with Sister Everton.




This is the hunting house the Kroller Mullers built. The lake is man made. There was concern that the water would drain so there is a windmill to pump water to the lake but was never needed. Anton like to hunt in the area.



This is the dining room which over looks the lake. The ceiling is glazed brick supported from above. It took 3 years to build the home.

This is the blue room which was Helena's sitting room. It also has a view of the lake.

The Brubakers have thier own tandem bike that can be disassembled and shipped on the airplane. They rode it to the parachute drop rather than take the bus. On Satuday we drove to a commemoration of WWII parachute drop which was held in the South part of the Hoge Veluwe.

We waited for about a half hour and then they started to come. There must have been about 20 planes come over us to release parachuters.

This is our group at the site where the parachuters landed.

Hoog Soeren

We had a senior retreat in the Apeldoorn area. We visited the Hoge Veluwe parking Friday and Saturday. We stayed overnight at this bed and breakfast in Hoog Soeren.

We had a wonderful dinner with mussel bisque, sole fish and vegetables and ice cream with a berry sauce for desert. Sister Everton ate everything, even the desert. You will notice the Elder next to me has a black eye. He was hit by a drunk in Rotterdam.

The next morning we went jogging in the woods that surround this little town. We passed this home in the woods and I think it is our favorite in the Netherlands.

Other Events

We visited a delft blue factory in Goudarok. We took the coutry road home which was on a dike with a river on one side. We passed through Ouderkerk which is a very small and old town. Sister Everton went exploring and smelled sweet chocolate. She had to go inside to see what they were doing. These girls were having an activity building thier own little village from chocolate.

Sister Everton made black bean tortilla pie for district meeting. For desert she made a banana cake with fresh bananas on the top and in the middle.

This is sister Rich and Wassenaar at our apartment for Saturday dinner.

Peter is teaching Soule how to cut and cook Brussels Sprouts.

This is Milja. We had dinner at his home with his parents. He is an apprentice welder. He will go on a mission next year when he turns 19. This is his RC car. The car has a 3 HP engine that burns nitro. It was not running but he showed me a video. It is loud and fast.

Peter has been a regular at church. He wears a white shirt and tie sometimes.

This Naomi Noele with her Grandfather and mother. She is about 3 weeks old in this picture. She has two brothers who are 3 and 2.

Here are most of the sister missionaries in our mission. We were in Leiden for a Zone Conference.

Here is Elder Marshall, Waldi and Andrews after Zone Conference. Lots of energy to burn.

Sister Everton made cookies for Elder Mohrman's birthday.

Here are the Elders Guanuna, Klippel, Mohrman and Da Cruz. They live Hoagvliet in what we thought was the wort apartment in the mission until we went to Kortrijk.

We went to an open house for the new mission home that was held for the senior missionars. We had our second salmon dinner. The first was our first night in Belguim at the old mission home.