Oma's Pages #41

Oma’s Pages #41

Something else we had to have was another refrigerator. 

Most of the people here have refrigerators that are much smaller than what we have in the US. The frig that came with the apartment is inside of a kitchen cupboard and it is very tiny. The freezer part is only four inches high.

We have to make so much food for the JoVo’s and we must do it on a very limited budget. So we need to be able to buy things when they are on sale, especially meat and stuff that is perishable.

Robert and I went out looking and looking for a new fridge that would suit our needs and was not too expensive. We thought about buying this lime green one. We knew it would be a favorite with Aunt Mary. Maar helaas... it was too expensive and it would not match anything else so we did not buy it.

We found a nice conservative white one that was a good brand and not too expensive. Getting it into our apartment was a bit tricky, but we managed. And now we can plan and prepare for our JoVo’s more efficiently.

You can see it is not too tall because of where the handle for the window is on the right side of the frig, and the microwave is on top of it and the cupboard frig is to the left.

As you can see Opa has it loaded with possibilities for  fixing dinners

The bottom of the frig is the freezer part

Oma's Pages #40

Oma’s Pages #40

I had to take a short break from Oma’s Pages for the past two months because I have been so busy with ‘vakantiehangers.’ (vacationers staying with us) We have had a great time, but it is also good to get back to our routines and other work here. 

So... back to the mission story...

The mission has a storage unit in Almere. We had helped the Beckstrands, the Pankratz, and the Andersons do an inventory of the unit so we knew what was in there. Now, it was our turn to go furniture shopping in that storage unit. The Mission Home in Brussels was also being closed down at this same time, so a couple of the extra pieces from that house were brought up to us as well.

Buddy and Beryl Gout, are our friends here in Groningen. Buddy and Beryl are serving a Mission from Groningen to the Leeuwarden Branch as well. Buddy serves as Opa’s counselor in the Branch Presidency. 

They gave us a desk that is open on both sides so Opa can sit on one side of it with his computer and I can sit on the opposite side of it with my computer. 

The Gout’s also gave us a couch, a love seat, a large area rug, a washer, a dryer, some pans, some knives, and a whole set of silverware. They have been very good to us. We are very grateful to them. 

After our first “shopping” excursion at the storage unit, the Senior couple named the Saldens who take care of the physical facilities here on this mission came up and brought us pieces to put together that they said would be a new set of bookshelves and closets for our clothes. 

Opa took the pieces and began putting them together. He did not have any instructions or pictures to follow. He only had the boards with holes and slots drilled into them. He had to figure out what putting them together would make. When he got the bookshelf put together. He found out that it had two pull out shelves in it, but he had several large boards left over that did not work anywhere with the shelves. He played around with them until they fit together and now we had a small desk. So we put it in the spare bedroom.