WHEW!

November was a crazy busy month!  (I had forgotten it was exactly the same last year : )  We had Zone Conferences, YSA Fall Camp, missionary apartment checks, Joe’s birthday,  zone p-day turkey bowl, a missionary blitz in Amersfoort, dinner/institute classes, Christmas decorating, dinner with friends, made matching district t-shirts, celebrated Thanksgiving, took a trip to the Amersfoort zoo,  and attended the usual weekly missionary district meetings.

 Joe’s birthday was special…Elder Lewis made him a cake that was so delicious!

We were invited to dinner in Den Bosch at Hiromi’s home.  There was a wonderful, peaceful feeling in her home that was much needed in the midst of so much busyness.  (Her husband plays cello and was at orchestra practice).

Collin and Ellen Stomps also invited us to dinner. They live in Tiel and their son Jeremy, a returned missionary, was one of our institute students last year.  He is in Germany this year at university. We miss his energetic contributions! 

Zone Conference in November is the yearly temple trip.  Antwerp and Eindhoven zone meets Tuesday, Apeldoorn and Amsterdam zone on Wednesday and Den Haag and Rotterdam zone on Thursday.   The missionaries attend the temple in the morning then have lunch and conference meetings at the Zoetermeer chapel.  They love getting to the temple!

 Our responsibility this time was to be at the temple early Tues. and Wednesday to hand out temple clothes to missionaries, then go to the church to set up lunch.  They order pizza for this lunch so we just set tables, make green salad, serve and clean up.  Tuesday we went to Leiden after lunch to get our car serviced, then back to Zoetermeer for dinner with all the senior couples.  Because we needed to be to the temple early and the traffic is so unpredictable, the mission had us stay in a hotel.  It was so nice not to have to drive back and forth every day!  On Thursday it was our zone’s day.  We handed out clothes then attended an endowment session.  Another couple handled the lunch so it was like we were guests!

The meetings were wonderful.  It was fun to be there all three days because we saw all the missionaries in the mission!  We know so many of them now and don’t often see them once they get transferred out of our zone.

  

In the midst of all this, Sister Lechtenberg and Sister Hardy offered to help put up our Christmas decorations and I didn’t refuse the help! 

 

We finally met Sister Daryl Hoole’s sister-in-law, Marijke Hoole and two of her daughters.  We had a lovely Sunday afternoon visiting her in Zwolle, hearing wonderful stories of faith, conversion, and Dutch life. 

We saw our first “gas station laundromat”.  We pulled into this gas station and there were 2 large washers, one dryer and a dog washing station!  There aren’t any one stop shopping stores here like Target or Walmart  but this??  We laughed all the way home :) 

  I spent a long morning making 5 dozen cinnamon rolls.  They provided brunch for district meeting and dessert for all three nights of institute.  I think they are everyone’s favorite dessert.  They request them oftener than I have time to make them : ) 

District meeting:  Chocomel, cinnamon rolls and fruit…lekker!

l to r; E. Lewis, S. Williams, E. Thomas, E. Derochie, S. Gillespie, E. Diaz. 

Our district consists of 4 elders and 2 sisters in the Utrecht area and a pair of sisters in Amersfoort.  On p-day we often see the missionaries in the Utrecht area.  We have been feeling like the Amersfoort sisters were left out so we decided so spend a p-day with them.  We decided to go to the zoo!  It was perfect weather, there were no crowds and the animals were all outside and active.  Can you see that little baby elephant?  He was so adorable 😉!

Sisters Williams and Gillespie.

We have been running on high speed for a month and hope things slow down just a little!