Oma's Pages #43

Oma’s Pages #43

Now that we finally had all of our day to day living problems worked out we could shift our energies more on our missionary work.

We did do our missionary work from the moment we arrived, but having to get the apartment things taken care of took a lot of our time.

What were and still are our responsibilities?

Well when you get to be a Senior Couple the responsibilities and the rules are different from when you are young missionary. As a young missionary there are so many things you still need to learn about the Church, about being a good leader, a good teacher, the importance of good leadership, how to discipline yourself, and lots of stuff about people.

I guess that Heavenly Father thinks that by the time you are old enough to come on a Couple’s mission you should have learned most of those things. And so now we, as couples, had to learn other things.

Anderson's; Pankratz (Sis P. is sitting); Van Komen's; Saldens (Sis S. is sitting); DeLeeuw's standing next to us; President and Sister Brubaker sitting in middle; Sister Anjewierden next to DeLeeuw's; Bushes (Sis B. is sitting) Elder Anjewierden standing next to Elder Bush; and Evertons. These are all the Senior Couples serving here right now (Well actually we do have a new Mission President but more about that later)

We have certain responsibilities that are always the same:

Monday: is Young Single Adult (here it is called JoVo, sound like Yo-Vo) Family Home Evening

For this we prepare something for the group to eat and then we have a short message and then we play games.

Opa playing a very fast chase around the table kind of ping pong game at Family Home Evening

Tuesday: we feed the missionaries a healthy warm meal for their District Meeting. 

We have the opportunity to sit in on their District Meeting and listen to their stories of miracles and how they are learning all the things they came here to learn.

Can you see the steam still rising from the Wok? We usually feed 10 to 12 very hungry Elders every Tuesday.

Thursday: we make a full dinner for the JoVo’s to eat before they have their Institute 

class.

JoVo Institue night is always larger than Family Home Evening we can feed as many as thirty on Institute night

Every other week we have to fix dinner for the entire Zone when we have Zone Training Meetings. We prepare for about forty at Zone Training. They are usually held in Apeldoorn or Zwolle and we have carry our food and sometimes our pans with us to prepare the food for everybody there.

Every quarter we have to inspect the Elders’ apartments and we have to make lots of reports. Opa hates doing reports. He has to keep track of how much money we spend for JoVo’s and report all of that both to the Stake and to Frankfurt and to the Mission Office.

We also have to make reports to the Church headquarters in Frankfurt Germany on what is happening good or bad in the JoVo center here. Do we have any missionaries going out, is anybody getting married, and do we have specific concerns we need help with etc.

He also has to make reports to the Mission about finances and other things as well. Lots of paper work..., or should I say computer work. He must keep every receipt for every thing that we spend and sort out what each thing is for and which organization he has to report it to. Ugh. Neither one of us likes that part.

In all of the other spaces we do service, visiting actives, less actives and people who are not yet members. We also go on joint teaches with the missionaries, do simple repair work in the missionaries apartments. We attend all the Ward meetings,activities, baptisms, and lots of other stuff.

Oma's Pages #42

Oma’s Pages #42

To celebrate finally getting everything in order with all of our living things Opa bought me tulips. These were my first tulips in this new apartment, however, over the months since we have been living here we have fresh flowers on our table about 75% of the time. 

Flowers here are so much less expensive than they are at home. I can buy a bunch of hyacinths or tulips for 3.99 euros when they are in season. I can buy roses and other flowers for between 4.99 and 6.99. This year I bought 50 tulips for 4.99 euros.

It is so much fun to walk through the flower markets and see all the flowers. Sometimes it is too hard to choose which ones to take home this time.

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.

Oma's Pages #39

Oma’s Pages #39

Now we had a place plenty big enough for a table, but we did not have a table to put in the place.

With all the Senior couples gone we needed somebody to help us with some of the big stuff. A lot of the furniture was in pieces and had to be assembled.

This is our closet and it came to us in pieces with no instructions. We one of these for each bedroom. In the Netherlands they do not build closets into the house. You must buy a free standing box of some kind to put your clothes in.

It was a Monday night so we invited all the JoVo’s to come over and see our place, have  Pizza and help carry the big pieces of stuff we still needed to move.

These are the JoVo's and Elders who came to help us that night. 

When everybody helps it is fun and you can get things done without so much stress.

Have you learned that in your short lives? When everybody helps... it is fun and you can get so much more done than when somebody has to do it alone.

Oma's Pages #38

Oma’s Pages #38

The City Groningen, where we live is so far away from all of the other cities where the other Senior missionaries serve that it made it a real sacrifice for the Senior couples to come up and help us. When they came up to help us put in the flooring in our new apartment, they brought up the mission van. We had to take advantage of having both the van and people to help us by moving our stuff whether we were ready to do it or not. 

It was January so it was cold and this was the only place in the whole house to put our coats

Sister Pankratz helping

Sister Pankratz, Elder Pankratz, Elder Beckstrand, and Elder Anderson

The Pankratz working side by side to get our floor in as fast as possible

This was the only way we could transport our furniture and stuff from one place to another.

This was also the first day I drove a car here in the Netherlands. Driving here is very very very very different from driving in Utah. I was scared, but somebody had to do it. The other Senior sisters would not even try to do it. None of them had ever even been up here in Groningen except the Andersons when they brought us our bed, and then they did not stay very long. Negotiating the Dutch streets and road rules when you are familiar with them is a challenge. None of the other Sisters had the expertise of this town to even attempt to drive. We had to go over to our old apartment to clean it and pack up all the rest of the stuff. So I did it. I took a deep breathe and said, “I can do it.” 

I prayed as I drove away from the new apartment to go back to the old apartment with Sister Beckstrand and Sister Anderson in the car with me. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes... Oh wait, I am the one driving... so I opened my eyes real quick. I only took one wrong turn. I realized it was wrong right away. It took me into the center of Groningen which is the one thing I did not want to do. I also did not want to panic the other sisters so I just let my instincts and my memory of things I saw when I was riding in the car with Opa take over. Very soon I connected with a road where I knew exactly where I was. I was so surprised that I was able to drive us back to my old apartment. We packed up the stuff without much problem at all.

Sister Beckstrand making lunch for everybody

All of the big stuff was moved that day even though the floor of the new place was far from being finished. The men finished laying our bedroom and part of the kitchen. Opa and I did the rest of the floor by ourselves one day at a time after they all left. The Elders volunteered to help us once for about two hours. Other than that we did it all by ourselves.

We would get up and work for awhile and then go out to do missionary stuff, come back and work until we had to quit which was about 10pm. This apartment building has a lot of rules about living here... no noise late at night is one of the rules. Sawing and hammering make a lot of noise. 

Oma's Pages #37

Oma’s Pages #37

Once we had made all the legal arrangements to get the apartment then we had the massive job of finishing it. Yes I said finishing it. In the Netherlands when you rent a place most of the time what you get to rent is an empty shell. We were so lucky that this place did have a bathroom that was finished and it had a stove and very small refrigerator.

This is the master bedroom looking out of the window

This is the master bedroom looking from the window to the door

This will eventually be our laundry room

The sink is straight across from the shower

To the far left is the toilet, then the shower stall... yep, no shower door or curtain at this point, and the tub is a bonus since hardly any homes in the Netherlands have tubs... It is an American thing. The edge of the tub shows on the right side of the picture.

What looks like a small cupboard that Opa is putting things into is actually the total size of the refrigerator, including the freezer. It is three tiny shelves and a freezer that is four inches high

Our new adventure was in finding flooring and light fixtures that did not cost a lot of money but were still good quality. It was a lot of work. All of the other Senior couples who were here on missions came to help us. I was so glad that Opa was a builder all of his life so that he could tell us what to do and how to do it. And he could tell whether things we were doing and buying were good or not.