We love the Netherlands

After our last zone conference finished, we hurried over to the Royal Delft Company headquarters in the city of....Delft, of course.  We didn't have much time to see their production and learn of their story but it was a lot of fun.  They were founded in 1633 as the Dutch were master merchants providing popular china when supplies of Chinese porcelain became tougher to purchase and too expensive.

The signature "delft blue" is what they are most known for.  

Delft tiles replicate the famous Rembrandt painting of the "Night Watch".

This artist was painting on the patterns seen on the pottery before they were fired and glazed.

We began our last day in the Netherlands by visiting the temple in the Haag. 

This temple was still closed due to the pandemic.

The Corrie ten Boom House is now a museum but during World War II it was where her father and her siblings lived above their watchmaking shop.  The ten Boom family were Dutch protestants who risked their own lives to hide, transport and protect Jews being sought by the Nazis who had occupied the Netherlands. They did so much good before they were eventually arrested and taken into custody.

Corrie was a single woman and the first Dutch female watchmaker. Amazingly, even though her sister and father perished in concentration camps, she survived the infamous Ravensbruk camp and returned to the city of Haarlem where she was from. She eventually wrote a well-known book, The Hiding Place and began sharing her testimony of Jesus Christ, forgiveness and charity.

The tour was free, conducted by dedicated Christian women who bore humble testimonies of the Savior that really filled our hearts.

The spirit was so strong as we went from room to room and learned of their sacrifices.

The people who were being hidden would crawl through the bottom shelf area on the left and then stand behind the brick wall when the Nazis came searching for the Jews. The false wall was built specifically for that purpose. Thus the name, The Hiding Place.

We learned so much about how important windmills were to the economy at the Windmill Museum.

They were used to grind grain, mill lumber and pump water. Many are still in use today.

This map shows the locations of existing windmills today in their country.

The windmill that we visited still grinds grain today and the drawings show how that is done.

This wheel is used to turn the blades toward the wind to be more productive.

Pointing to the spot where she had climbed up on one of the blades before the tour guide got 

nervous and asked her to step down. 

We couldn't leave Gouda without our very own stash of Gouda cheese. So many flavors, so delicious!

Just for the record, the pronunciation is not as we would normally say it. If you are Dutch, then it sounds more like "Howda" rather than "Gowda." We are always learning!  

Zone Conferences - Belgium/Netherlands Mission

 

With COVID-19 slowing down enough to allow travel across borders, we were invited to help

train missionaries in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission. The mission president asked me to help the 

missionaries learn skills about having effective companionships and the safe use of technology in today's world. The mission home is in Gouda, Netherlands so we stayed at a hotel there.

Most of the Netherlands seems to be built upon soil with very high water tables and sometimes

old foundations shift or wood pilons rot.  Case in point, see the church steeple in the picture above.

Gouda City Hall

Gouda has been a center of cheese production and distribution in this part of the Netherlands 

for hundreds of years. We learned the way most pronounce it (Gooda), is really Gowda. Some say Howda. 

This building was the center of that business and the carved stone shows 

rounds of cheese being weighed by merchants before sale.

Zone Conferences are groups of missionaries in geographic regions that come together every couple of months for instruction on how to become more effective disciples and missionaries for the Savior.

This mission held three different zone conferences over three days in different locations in the Netherlands.  Day one was in the town of Breda.

The last time I had trained missionaries at a zone conference was in 1975 in Liverpool, England.

I was a zone leader for the last eight months of my mission and provided training at zone conferences  often. It was exhilarating to be with missionaries directly instead of over the phone. 

President and Sister Buysse on the far left are the mission leaders for this mission. 

They are from Belgium themselves and are wonderful people. Both were raised as strict 

Catholics and they joined the church when they were newly married.

Day two took us North to the beautiful town of Apeldoorn. We loved the energy of these missionaries who have sacrificed so much to serve their missions. Their humble testimonies were amazing.

Day three took us south again to the town of Zoetermeer near the Haag and the temple. There was sister missionary who I had worked with (in Italy) who came over to say hello. She was from Holland and just completed her mission. She had heard that we were at the zone conference and came by to say hello. 

It was very good to see her again.

It was amazing to have my beautiful companion with me during these zone conferences and be doing them together.  She was such a support to me 46 years ago when I served in England and is doing so much now to not only fulfill her assignment in Europe, but also assist me.

Mission leaders are called to serve for three years and President and Sister Buysse will 

finish their mission in July of 2021, also.

Canals are everywhere in the Netherlands and we enjoyed one of last evenings walking around and marveled at the STOCKS still in place where people were punished for crimes.

Fortunately, eating this amazing Dutch apple pie wasn't a crime at our dinner in the market square of Gouda. Yumm.

Lucerne, Switzerland

Lucerne (or Luzern), Switzerland was our next stop with the Andersons.

We vowed to return to Lauterbrunnen very soon.

Part of the bridge complex is the octagonal 113 foot tall (from ground) Wasserturm, which translates to "water tower," in the sense of 'tower standing in the water.' 

The tower pre-dated the bridge by about 30 years. 

We had a wonderful dinner along the river with Ward and Karen. 

What an amazing setting for a good meal.

The mountain in the distance is Mount Pilatus that we had been atop earlier in the day.

Day two of exploring this beautiful city ... and we may have taken a few pictures of the bridge.

A large part of the Chapel Bridge was destroyed by fire in 1993. Of the 111 triangular paintings on the bridge at the time of the fire, 86 of them were burned either partially or beyond recognition.