April 17-23, 2022

SUNDAY

President and Sister Watson attended the Utrecht Ward today. Sister Watson's sister Simone was with them. She is a lovely woman. The Wolter's attended again. They are a less-active family who are just beginning to come back to church. Another investigator was also there. He is on date for baptism in August. Elders Mahe and Maxfield have been busy working with the members and others interested in the gospel. It's good to see how the ward members are welcoming them all in.

We are fasting again today in hopes that we can be directed to find a solution to the Driver License issue we are having here. The system for the missionaries to obtain a Driver License is no longer working since April. So many of our missionaries are no longer able to drive. It mostly affects those who have been in the country more than 185 days since their Registration, which means a lot of the leadership, ie Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders.

Thanks to Zoom, we were able to watch President and Sister Goaslind from the Arizona Tempe Mission speak in their ward. They were released a couple weeks ago. It was such a pleasure to work with and get to know them for the three months we were in the ATM.

MONDAY

The Monday Mission Zoom meeting is now mostly in Dutch. Partly to encourage the missionaries to use their language and partly to accommodate the Service Missionaries, some of whom do not speak English. I try to follow along, but have to admit I don't understand much. At church it is all in Dutch, but usually there is a translator which really helps. I understand some words but have not kept up with studying the Dutch language. There are times, of course, when I wish I could understand better. Thankfully, I have Google Translate, Doug and some of the Elders in the office to help out.

We started this week to have our weekly Office meeting on Monday afternoons instead of Tuesdays. This will help President Kleijweg (counselor in the mission presidency) because the Office Elders can always be there and actually make it better for us to have all the meetings on Mondays.

TUESDAY

A busy but quiet day. Doug and I were the only ones at the Office today since it is P-Day for the Elders and the VandeWal's went to Antwerpen to do some inspections and repairs in the apartments there. Even when it doesn't look like it will be a busy day, the time fills up with all kinds of things. 

We are trying to get Drivers Licenses for the missionaries and it seems like a lot of red tape with no real promise of it working. Doug is calling the doctor in Brussels who will do a medical exam that is one of the requirements. And he is calling the 3 Elders and one Sister scheduled for the doctor appointment to make sure they have everything they need. We are finding and printing their medical clearance from their pre-mission paperwork and then checking with the Area medical and the IFR to make sure we can use it. 

The mini-van was scheduled for an oil change, so Doug took it to Van Loon's and then needed to bike over when it was finished because there were no other vehicles at the office today. 

After the missionaries are registered in their Gemeente, they start receiving tax bills in their name and sent to their apartments. So we need to contact the Water Board in each District and have the name and address changed so the bills come to the office and can get paid in a timely manner without causing undo stress to the missionaries thinking they owe taxes.

I would have never imagined that we would be dealing with these kinds of things. It seems never-ending, and yet we love it still.

WEDNESDAY

Elder Weber and Elder Snow are the Content Specialists in the Social Media District . They work from the office three days each week and we have loved getting to know them a bit. Elder Weber was able to recommend a good camera for us so tonight they came to dinner and spent a few minutes orienting us to some of the features of the camera. He is also due to go home at the end of this transfer so it was good to meet with them in a less formal setting. 

Elder and Sister Glauser, Elders Atticus Snow and Jackson Weber

THURSDAY

We started the day by driving to Spijkenisse to replace a broken bike for a good one and to deliver a little package to the Elders. Since I am the Medical Advisor, I thought giving the missionaries a new toothbrush, some toothpaste and a bag of mandarins to remind them to eat healthy foods and use good hygiene would be fun. So this was our first delivery. Whenever we need to take something to the missionaries, we'll take this little gift as well.😁

Elders Glauser, John Brown and Thomas Jones

Our regular Thursday dinner guests, Elders Landon Boyer and Aiden Henrie.

FIRDAY

We spent the day helping the VandeWal's moving furniture from the storage unit to the new Senior Couple apartment in Rotterdam and then another load from the Gouda storage unit to the Leiden storage. Hopefully by next week we will have everything out and will be able to close the Gouda unit.

It's amazing how much stuff we can fit into the vans. Fridge, mattresses, bed frames, couches, book shelf, bedding and towels. We really enjoyed doing something a little different today! And since we were close to the Pannenkoekenborderij, we ended the day there for dinner. 😋

SATURDAY

We had a wonderful day cycling through the Hoge Veluwe, a National Park near Apeldoorn. Our friends from the Utrecht Ward, Mathieu and Annelies De Haas and their son Jasper invited us and the VandeWal's. We picked them up at 8:00, drove a little over an hour and started on bikes through the park. We stopped for about an hour for a museum, our picnic lunch and some time on the swings, then continued on around the park. We rode about 25 km! That deserves some ice cream, right?!

 

Annelies, Jasper, Doug, Mathieu, Norma and Gerrit

It was a beautiful day! We are so grateful for the opportunity to meet and get to know wonderful people like the De Haas family. They have been so welcoming since our very first day at the Utrecht Ward. And today we saw a little more of The Netherlands!