Oma's Pages #27

Oma’s Pages #27

Well, I think this story has come up to Christmas Eve of last year. We were invited to go to the home (which is actually an apartment in a high rise building... but here they call wherever you live a house or a home. This was confusing to me when I first started coming to the Netherlands back in the late 1970’s and early 80’s but now I am used to it.) of Puck Boorsma.

Puck is a tiny widow with a big heart. She has one adopted son who has never married and who visits her for Christmas and I think she sees him a couple of times a year but that is all. She also has an older daughter who lives in the United States and she hardly ever sees her. Puck is always smiling. She is very much alone and is starting to have the kinds of problems that older people have and yet she is always smiling.

Her Christmas tradition is to invite the Missionaries over to her house for Christmas Eve each year. She also invited her friends, Hans and Doris. They don’t have any children. They have two dogs that are their children. These dogs act just like children. In one of the pictures Doris is giving them their Christmas gift and they acted just like a couple of kids who were so excited to open their gift. And they opened it by themselves. They are Tibetan Terriers.

It was an interesting dinner. When we arrived we had a small bowl of soup. Later she called us back to the table and she placed this work of art salad that I have posted a picture of. We all took a small helping of the salad. That was our dinner.

We opened the gifts and then we came back to the table and had a dessert. The Elders had to go home at 9:00 so we all excused ourselves and we took them home. 

Then we went home and prepared their Christmas stockings for them. That was a fun thing to do.

We went home again and used up some of our Vodafone prepaid minutes so we could Skype with the family for Christmas. It was long after midnight when we finally dropped into bed. I was so glad I could sleep in for Christmas... since we hardly ever got to do that.

Do you remember talking to us last Christmas Eve Day?

Oma's Pages #26

Oma’s Pages #26

We arrived in Groningen on December 11, 2010. On December 17, 2010 there was a dinner for all the older people in the Groningen Ward. We were invited. It was Opa’s birthday. We went. It was the first time we met the Gout’s. Buddy and Beryl Gout would become our best friends here. Buddy was made Opa’s counselor in the Branch Presidency in Leeuwarden. I have worked with Sister Beryl Gout in the Leeuwarden Primary.

In the first picture you can only see Opa’s arm reaching across the table. The first couple by Opa’s arm who are sitting across the table are Beryl and Buddy Gout.

In the second picture you can see the back of the white head of a lady in a wheelchair. I have a picture of her when she was a little girl in the Groningen Primary. It was in the photo album of Opa Pouwel Van Komen that Tante Jellie gave to me.

Also even though it was a dinner for the older people you can see lots of children in the pictures. It is because people here have to travel a long ways to come to the Church. So, if the parents have to be involved in the Church activities they bring their children with them.

On the picture of the white haired wheelchair lady, if you look way down to the end you can see Beryl and Buddy Gout. The man sitting next to them is the Groningen Ward Bishop. His name is Harm Jan deJonge. His wife and children are sitting next to him on down the table. He is part of the “deJonge” family that are the major part of the leadership of the entire Church here in the Netherlands. His brother Martin is the Bishop in Amsterdam. His brother Ekke is the Bishop in Zwolle. His brother Jellmer is the Stake President in Rotterdam. His sister, Marta is married to the counselor in the Stake Presidency of the Apeldoorn Stake. His brother Thies was a Bishop, and then a counselor in the Stake Presidency, and now he is the man we work with in just about all the things we do.

I bet those names are not like any of the names you have ever heard of before. When you try to say the names remember that the “J” has a “Y” sound. And when the letters “i and e” or “e and i” are together the last letter is the one that makes the sound of itself. For example Thies is pronounced Teese. They do not have the same “th” sound that we do.

This year we attended the same dinner on December 16th. We were supposed to bring an older couple but they didn’t want to come so we went by ourselves. I would have taken some pictures but they would have looked just like these pictures I already have.

Oma's Pages #25

Oma’s Pages #25

The day we arrived the Elders in our town were told to stay with us and help us in any way we needed. All I wanted to do was to sleep. I was so happy when they finally went home. However, our first introduction to what our duties were was at District Meeting. 

We were supposed to make dinner for the Elders every week at their District Meeting. On the day before the missionaries have transfers they all take pictures of each other. All of them except for Elder Sanchez. He hates to have his picture taken so you can see what the Elders did to “sort of” have Elder Sanchez in their picture. Elder Sanchez took the pictures for all the other Elders with their cameras. While he was setting things up I took his picture.

Elder Alexander is the redheaded Elder in front of us. He is one of my favorites. I love all the Elders but some of them we just get closer to than some of the others. He is definitely one of my favorites. I think all of the other Elders in this picture have gone home now. Elder Nielsen is still here too, but he did not make it into the picture that day.

Elder Sanchez always volunteers to take the pictures so I was sneaky and turned around and took his picture when he wasn't looking.

Elder Robert.... is the one in the front with the really tight gray suit on. He was the first of our Elders to go home. Elder Adams is the really blond Elder in the back. He was the second Elder to go home. The rest got transferred to other places so I don’t know when they each went home, but I know they are gone.

Oma's Pages #24

Oma’s Pages #24

One year ago today when we arrived in the Netherlands and drove to where we were going to live in Groningen, this is what our street looked like right by our apartment on Albertine Agnesstraat. If you look very closely you can see that the road is made of bricks. Each brick is put into place one at a time. The road was under construction. It was not very wide and with the construction it made it even smaller. We had to drive very carefully. I have included pictures of how the roads are replaced one brick at a time. 

Have any of you ever seen a road that cars drive on that is made of bricks?

Oma's Pages #23

Oma’s Pages #23

From our apartment we can see the apartments across the small road. As you can see none of the people across the way drive cars. They ride bicycles. You can go anyplace in this town faster on a bicycle than you can in a car. The brown thing you can see is a baby carrier on the front of the mom’s bicycle. 

Things are very different here than they are at home. How do Mom’s carry their babies around where you are? Do they have bicycle carriers like this one?

Oma's Pages #22

Oma’s Pages #22

After we got our big bed and some pots and pans, things began to settle down a little bit and I thought maybe we were getting into a kind of settled routine. We were still looking for another place to live and it was freezing cold in our apartment, but I was getting used to all the little nitty natty details and they did not bother me so much.

Getting comfortable as a Senior Couple missionary for me must not be allowed because as soon as I think things are finally going along okay.... something happens.

What happened this time was Opa and I had been out working all day. We were at JoVo”s until very late at night. We came home to find no place to park so we had to park over by a flooring store and shopping center. We had to walk about half a kilometer home in freezing wind. The road we had to walk home on went up a small hill and then down under a bridge, so it was very slippery. And I always have to wear church clothes so I also have to wear Church shoes that are hard to walk in even when the  weather is good.

It was nearly 1:00 am when we finally got back to the apartment. We were both exhausted. By the time we got everything put away and knelt down by our bed to say our prayers it was 2:15 am. We leaned on the bed and started to pray......

All of a sudden..... Boom..... The bed caved in on the side where we were praying. We now had a slippery slide for a bed. OH Darn!!!!!!   We were sooooo tired and it was sooo cold kneeling on that cold floor..... and the bed we were going to finally be able to sleep in, just broke. We both just dropped down on our behinds and started to laugh. 

Opa looked around the apartment. We had no tools to fix the bed with. Now that was a first... Opa with no tools! We had no bed, no tools, and no heat. It was 2:30 in the morning and we were to tired to think of anything else to do.

We each grabbed an end of the mattress, pulled, shoved, and pushed it into the living room. That mattress took up every bit of space we had in the living room and that was after we pushed all the furniture flat against the wall. Opa left a small space at the bottom of the bed so we could walk past the bed to get to the toilet. I put an extra pair of socks on my feet. We pulled our dek bed (duvet) over us and fell asleep.

The next day we had to find a home improvement store so Opa could buy the tools and parts he needed to fix our bed. The underneath part (like the springs part, or the box springs) of our bed is made out of bowed boards. We do not have box springs or springs of any kind like you have in your beds. Have any of you had your bed fall apart just when you wanted to go to bed?

Oma's Pages #21

Oma’s Pages #21

And then there was the door to the apartment. There was not any door nob like we have at home.

On the outside of the door it looks like a regular door nob but it does not turn. It is just a handle to hold onto. Below the door nob is where you put your key, hold the door nob, pull back and turn the key.... most of the time it worked. Occasionally Opa’s key would not work so then I would take my key and take a turn at opening it. I had to turn it all the way around until I felt it click. 

It reminded me of the old post office in Garland when I was growing up. I could barely reach the Buchanan post box. I remember turning the nob until I heard it click and then I could turn the small nob to open it. That is the way my door in Holland opened.

Just below the door nob was our mail post slot. We could receive anything that would fit through the slot. If it was bigger a man would come to our door. If we were not home, he would leave us a message and we had to go to a store that had a mail desk to get our package. 

On the inside of the door there was no door nob at all. Instead of a door nob there was a sideways latch with a pull string on it. You can actually lock yourself into your house from the inside. We know of mothers who lock their children in their house when they leave so the children do not go outside where it is not safe. Things are a lot different here than at home.