A new missionary

On August 4, 2024 Elder Haines was set apart as a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He will be doing 9 days of training online at home then he heads to Brazil ultimately to serve in Bahia for two years. 

He flew out on August 14.

He arrived in São Paulo on 15 Agosto

Rotterdam (and London)

 This year the EUNOS meeting was held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Jen accompanied me on the trip to Europe.

Laurel, Grant and Spencer went to Florida to spend a week with their grandparents.

Clark decided to stay home alone for the week.

We left on Saturday night and had a layover in London, Heathrow Airport and then on to Amsterdam. 

Day 1 Zondag

We grabbed a meal of sorts from the Dutch snacks vending machine.

You can get snacks like hot kroketten right out of the vending machine wall.

We got a train direct from Schiphol Airport to Rotterdam Central station and then a metro ride to get to our destination.

We just popped out onto the streets of Rotterdam, but we were able to navigate the streets and learned our way around pretty quickly.

We booked an apartment on a house boat in the city center. It was super cute and super fun. Rotterdam is a major harbor, so it just made sense to stay on the water. 

That boat painted with steampunk turtles is where we stayed. Our apartment was on the back in the deck and captain's quarters.

The apartment had this living room and two small berths for sleeping. It was cozy and romantic.

The ceiling was just tall enough for me. Maybe not both me and my hair, though...

The kitchen was the best part- the captain's bridge.

Then there's the bathroom. One of the quirks of living on a boat. 

You have to climb down through this tiny door in the kitchen to access the tiny bathroom below. There is just a tiny sink, show and toilet in that little space.

That first night, I made some traditional Dutch food called Hutspot with Rookworst

For the rest of the week we had breakfast on the boat but ate most of our other meals out.

As it was a Sunday, we decided to go to a church. Laurenskerk is a beautiful old church, which was heavily damaged during the bombing of WWII. It is the only Gothic building in the city that survived that attack.

Once a month they hold a special service in English. This happened to be the right night.

The organ was amazing. The choir was also impressive. I love the bells. I had an uplifting spiritual experiencing worshipping with these Rotterdammers.

After the church services we wandered a bit on the way back to our houseboat apartment. 

Lots of bikes in Rotterdam

The "White House" is another building that survived the bombing. This 11 story building was Europe's first "skyscraper."

Most of the city was rebuilt and, frankly, they got a little bit creative sometimes. There is a whole neighborhood with these odd cube houses. 

Day 2 Maandag

On Monday we had a decidedly Dutch day with windmills and gardens.

We walked to the iconic Erasmus Bridge and caught a waterbus to the nearby UNESCO world heritage site, Kinderdijk

We used many different forms of transportation throughout the trip. It is always fun to get on the water and see things from a different perspective. 

Kinderdijk shares the purpose of all those windmills in The Netherlands. It is principally about water management. Most of the country is below sea level, so they need all those windmills to pump the water out of their fields.

All over The Netherlands you see a windmill here or there. But at Kinderdijk, you can see what things looked like back when all they had was wind power to keep the land dry. 

Those millers really needed to wear wooden shoes in those days.

Now-a-days they have modern diesel and electric pumping stations.

We took the waterbus back to Rotterdam and went to the Trompenburg Botanical gardens. Tulip season is over, but plenty of other things are in season in June.

The weather was wonderful all week. It was certainly chilly for what I am used to in June, but we saw almost no rain all week. Just one night it rained while we were asleep.

This tree looked large until we realized it is a Giant Sequoia. Jen thought it was pretty cute.

Dutch Irises, of course

That night we had dinner at a Surinamese restaurant. Because of the Dutch history of colonialism, there are a lot of ethnic restaurants. I ate a dish made out of Pom. The English translation was earth fruit. It was a bit like sweet potato and very savory.

Next to our houseboat was the Maritime Museum. They have some outdoor exhibits that we walked by regularly.

This lighthouse is an example of a "lower light". There was also a big lighthouse and this lower light was placed in a way that if both lights were aligned the incoming ship could be sure that they had the right position in the channel.

Day 3 Dinsdag

On Tuesday I spent a lot of time at the conference. Jen explored a little on her own. Her favorite thing was finding licorice at different shops to try. For example, she accidentally discovered mint-licorice.

The conference center is also a music hall right downtown.

After the conference we walked to the Kralingse lake. (A long time ago Rotterdammers mined peat from the land for fuel, but they had to stop doing that, since they don't have a lot of extra land. The lake was left behind from the peat harvest.) It was beautiful. 

We found an adorable Pannekoek Huis in the adjacent forest. It was a fantastic meal with unusual pancakes like tomatoes and olives or chicken shawarma. We also had a classic apple strudel pancake for dessert. 

Day 4 Woensdag

I spent nearly the entire day at the conference.

We did go out for dinner at Markthal. They have a myriad of shops with all sorts of different options from all over the world. We had Chinese dumplings, Japanese soup, Indian lassi and Dutch puff pancakes for dessert. 

It was probably too much, but we had a hard time limiting ourselves.

We ate a lot, but we also did a lot of walking, so neither of us gained weight on this trip!

Day 5 Donderdag

We both thought this was the most fun.

The conference ended before lunch. We called a water taxi and went to a cute Rotterdam neighborhood called Delfshaven and then rented bikes and rode to the nearby city of Delft.

The water taxi was a fun way to travel.

Delfshaven is cute and historical. Although it is near Rotterdam, it was originally built as an extension of Delft, so they could avoid the taxes in Rotterdam Harbor, but as Rotterdam grew it eventually incorporated the whole area. It is also famous as the starting point of the Pilgrims. I remember learning that they went to Holland before they left to settle the New World.

We listened to an audio tour. My phone didn't work since I don't have international service. So, you see Jen and I sharing one earbud each.

It has always been a immigrant community. 

The combinations of cultures led to a new food, now popular all over the world. 

Kapsalon is basically fries with shawarma, cheese and salad. "A calorie bomb in an aluminum tin."

The bike ride to Delft was just fantastic. They have bike paths just about everywhere. Everything is flat and the weather was cool but sunny- perfect!

The bike paths are typically marked with red pavement

Even the stairs are equipped with a track to bring your bike along. 

The trip was about 10 miles each way. 

Our first stop in Delft was the Royal Delft pottery factory. Famous for the Delft Blue.

Then we tried to make a visit to Jen's cousin, but unfortunately, we never caught anyone at home. We just tried to drop in.

We visited here a few years ago when we went to Delft the first time. Amazingly, we found the address.

We then went to the market for dinner. We had some pastechis and ice cream. We saw both the Old Church and the New Church and visited the Catholic church this time. 

I took this picture because they use the same dogwood blossom decorative motif that we have in the Richmond Temple. I was pretty excited to find that.

Day 6 Vrijdag

We took the metro train all the way to The Hague. We went to a few museums and just got to know that city a bit.

When we arrived at the Binnenhof, we saw someone being interviewed by the News. I recognized him as the (former) Prime Minister.

Jen checking on the kids.

Traditional Dutch food includes pickled herring covered with raw onions. I decided to give it a try. It was good, but my hands smelled like fish all day.

They warn you that the sea gulls will try to get your fish. They are not kidding.

I was suspicious of this guy. 

Just as I was going for a bite, this guy jumped onto my shoulder and snatched it as it was almost in my mouth. I have no idea where this one came from. 

Next time I was a lot more guarded while posing to eat the herring.

Day 7 Zaterdag

This was our last day in Holland.

We took one last walk across the Erasmus Bridge and around the cruise terminal.

We saw it go up to let tall sailing ships pass.

That was supposed to be the end of the trip.

However, our connecting flight in London got canceled and we unexpectedly ended up with 24 hours in England.

Bonus Day 1 Saturday

We had no plan whatsoever. 

We decided to just get on the tube and go into town.

We stopped at Hyde Park Corner because it sounded like something I'd heard of.

We wandered around Mayfair and saw all the fancy people driving their fancy cars and their posh houses. In fact, we saw a Lamborghini and a Ferrari speeding down the roads of London. Then about 30 seconds later a police van following after. I doubt they were ever caught.

We literally wandered into a cute delicatessen and ordered meat pie and sausage roll and scotch egg.

Then we found Buckingham palace.

We also wandered the streets and did some souvenir shopping.

This is the very first thing we saw as we popped out from the underground.

Bonus day 2 Sunday

Seeing as it was a Sunday, we didn't want to go to the usual tourist locations. We scouted out a map and found an old church built in the 13th century. We just walked there, and worshipped with them and walked back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day in the airport and travelling back home. Unfortunately our bags haven't made it home yet. Cross your fingers.

I had a full English breakfast at the hotel. Jen was more into the porridge.

This mailbox was all decorated with poppies because of the recent D-Day 80 year memorial.