What's not to love about missionaries?

   Our missionary activities started early in Dec. with our Zone Conference.  This time we had a visiting General Authority, Elder Johnson.  Three zones met together so we fed 90 people for lunch.  Elder Van Der Put asked me to be in charge of the lunch (me? The non-food soul?!)  I called my go-to-Sister Senior missionary, Zuster Hill and she worked it out with me.  (what will I do when she goes home in March? : ( ! 

We are the tiny couple in the middle of the back row! This is half of the mission!  President and Zuster Bunnell are 2^nd and 3^rd from the left, front row. 

 The song we sing to celebrate birthdays at Zone Conference....think our very own "haka" dance!  

 

 We had a district p-day ice skating activity.  In our town of Zeist, they put up a very small rectangular ice rink on the plaza in the centrum.  It had been quite cold but warmed up a little that day… lots of fun!

For the first time we had district meeting at our house instead of meeting at the chapel in Gouda. It was so nice to cook and serve from my own kitchen!  

It’s transfer week next week….we will miss the missionaries moving on.  We come to love them so much as we work and learn together.  

With the missionaries moving from time to time, their mail needs to go to the mission office.  It is distributed at zone conferences.  Because it’s Christmas, lots of packages and mail arrived after our zone conference on the 8^th.  So the senior couples went to Leiden to become Santa’s elfs!  The office elders helped us stuff it all into our car!  All of the senior couples have 7-8 missionary apartments they inspect quarterly.  We took the packages for our eight apartments.  We delivered to Almere, Hilversum, Amersfoorte, Gouda (2), Utrecht, Nieuwegein, and Den Bosch.  Including our trip to Leiden to pick it up, we drove 548 kilometers! Or 340 miles! The missionaries were so happy to get their Christmas from home that it was worth all the hours on the road! 

While in Leiden all the senior couples had lunch at our favorite pannekoekenhuis….lekker! (yummy!).  They are very large crepes that have sweet or savory toppings.  You cut them up or roll them, whichever you like. 

Our whole group, including the mission President in front of our favorite windmill in Leiden centrum.

The best part of Christmas was the beautiful Christmas program we had in the Utrecht Ward on Christmas Day and having 4 of our missionaries over for Christmas dinner and Skyping with their families.  Between our 2 laptops, 2 iPads, and 2 iPhones, all 5 of us were able to talk to our families at the same time! 

When I think of how hard it was to call home when we moved to Asia in 1999 I am so very grateful for the advancement of technology!  We talked to our kids and Mom several times each over the course of 24 hours!

It was hard to be far away from our families but these missionaries we love, both young and old, made it warm and a lot less lonely! 

(rear view mirrors for our bikes....we aren't Dutch...we need them!)  And Christmas love and jammies from home!