Are You on a Mission or a Vacation?

This is the question Russ asked us when we were chatting and mentioned we had been exploring more of the Netherlands!  Almost everyone here takes a vacation between mid-July and the end of August.  The school six-week holiday is staggered by 2 weeks depending on where you live in the country.  But just about everyone has 4 weeks off at the same time. That means the YSA’s are also on holiday……so no institute for about 4 weeks. 

The missionaries take no breaks so our assignments with them carry on as usual.  We had district meeting, zone conference/lunch for 52 with Elder Sabin of the Europe Area Presidency,

 

 joint teaches with Elder Lewis and Elder Watson and Paul……

  and of course, fun P-day activities like biking or hosting the zone (24) for lunch and games on zone p-day!   Anything we do with the missionaries makes us so happy and brightens our day.  We love these missionaries!

  It was a sunny day for a barbeque : )

Just chilling and playing games.  

 

 A few weeks ago, we had no commitments between Tuesday 1 PM and Thursday at 7:30 PM so we decided to head north and explore the island of Texel. 

Because the ferry leaves from Den Helder we took Elder Jeanfreau and Elder Ballard to dinner at The Subway shop.  It was so fun to see them.  We have missed Elder Jeanfreau!  And it was great to get to know Elder Ballard. 

We rode the ferry across the channel, a short 14-minute ride.  The island is about 15.5 miles long and 5 miles wide.  

 

 We were able to get an attic room at the last minute which turned out to be super luxurious in the little dorp of Den Hoorn.

We visited a working windmill that was grinding wheat and bought some fresh ground spelt flour.

 

We had lunch at the beach where Joe did his usual first day vacation activity which is lay down and nap wherever it’s semi-flat : )

 

We hiked to the top of the light house on the north shore.

 We managed to squeeze in a couple of maritime museums.  (ever wondered what you can find on the bottom of the ocean that qualifies as flotsam and jetsam? We can tell you!)  Plus we visited Ecomare, a seal/porpoise  refuge.

We visited a large dairy that was an ice cream laboratory and had delicious ice cream and inspected the stinky dairy : )  

We enjoyed driving around the country side, out of the hustle and bustle of the cities!

Of course, I found the best chocolate shop on the island!  It was really delicious: )

And lastly we had a yummy dinner at a house-turned- restaurant as we watched the sun set over quiet farmland. 

It was a refreshing 48 hours of R&R…and to answer Russ’ question, we are definitely still laboring in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission!