Tot Ziens Amsterdam!

Elders Taylor, Bean, Burton and Mower with Elder and Zuster Romig on our final P-day in Amsterdam.

    The final P-day in our Amsterdam apartment included a wonderful time with some very special young men!  The Elder's apartment across the parking lot from us housed Elders Burton and Taylor, the A.P.'s of our mission, and Elders Mower and Burton, D.L. and companion.  They brought all the ingredients to our home and cooked a delicious Nasi Goreng meal (Elder Mower's specialty) and we provided a delicious store bought Dutch pastry filled with whipped cream.  The following Wednesday would be transfer day for the mission.  Elder Mower was transferred to open the city of Sliedrecht and Elder Burton requested to finish his mission back in the field and was sent to Vlissingen.  We have been truly blessed to have these four elders enrich our lives and set such a great example to follow!  We anxiously await news of each one of them and hope to hear how they are doing in new areas with new companions.

We were delighted to discover that Emie and Mike Bishop (Emie is Suzanne's sister) were able to visit with us in Amsterdam for two days before heading on a cruise which included Germany where Mike served his mission.  We picked them up from Schiphol Airport early in the morning and brought them back to our apartment for a short nap.  We then took the tram to Amsterdam Centrum, then walked to the Anne Frank Home and Museum.  The tram ride itself was fun and full of sights, and the Anne Frank Home represents a part of history that should never be forgotten.

The four of us at a Pannen Koeken House before visiting  the Anne Frank Museum.

Rijks Museum
Amsterdam, Netherlands

We picked Emie and Mike up early in the morning for a day of sight seeing after a quick trip to Leiden to the Mission Office.  We delivered our old Amsterdam phone and picked up the Groningen phone and keys left for us by the Speks as they left the mission for Utah. We visited the Rijks Museum after about an hour waiting under umbrellas in the rain and a meal in a nearby restaurant.



Rembrandt's "Night Watch" is beautiful and one of the main attractions of the museum.

This original by Vermeer is beautiful!
His use of light is incredible!

It is almost impossible to explain
the beauty of the light and
detail in this painting of a little girl.

After visiting the Rijks Museum, we took Emie and Mike to the beautiful dorp (village) of

Zaanse Schans.  We had visited it earlier to see if it was worth taking them there. 

It was worth every minute and more!

This wall of schoenen (wooden shoes) is a small representation of the schoenen of every style and size.  There is also a section about schoenen throughout history and fun ways they are painted.  We saw an especially fun pair painted just for a dentist...we'd love to see it in our dentist/son-in-law's office.  We were also able to see a demonstration on the way the schoenen are made.  There are schoenen for Sundays, schoenen for work and schoenen for everyday.  Even a pair of schoenen for a wedding.  Traditionally, each region has it's own design.







Small canals (we'd call them ditches) are usually used throughout the Netherlands
 to divide properties.



Pastures for grazing sheep, cows and horses surround
each part of the dorp (village).

There are about ten working molens (what we call windmills
in the USA is a molen) in Zaanse Schans
 area. They all surround an inland water way used for shipping
and industry since the 1700's.

Zaanse Schans is similar to a Dutch version of Williamsburg, VA.  Families live in many of these beautiful homes
and work in the molens, museums and shops throughout the dorp (village)

Outside the lumberyard are piles of wood milled at the Saw Molen. 
Emie and Mile took better pictures of this wonderful Molen.

The Saw Molen  (Lumber Windmill) may have been the highlight of the day for us.  The molen was built using the detailed "blueprints" from a designer of molens.  He had recorded dimensions as well as kinds of wood  needed for different parts of the molen.  We watched a very interesting video of the present-day building of this molen using all the old methods and materials.  Absolutely fascinating!  It wasn't a particularly windy day, so the saws were not as fast as they could have been...

Leaving the dorp (village) if Zaanse Schans

 We finished the evening at an authentic Indonesian Restaurant in Amsterdam, where we (especially Brent) thoroughly enjoyed Nasi Goreng.  We decided it was a good thing we hadn't discovered this delicious food sooner...it would have been a nightly dinner destination!

Then it was home to the apartment, pack, clean, sleep (quickly) then wake up and head north to
                            Groningen!