Can you keep a secret? Don't tell anyone.......we have the best senior couples in all of the world! Can you believe it! We have eight senior couples in our mission. President Brubaker and I are trying to figure out where they get all their energy and youthfulness!?! You will never meet a more dedicated, positive, talented, energetic, happy, loving lot than they are.
We all met at the Leiden office to share and learn from one another about how the Young Adult Centers are doing in our mission. We have six centers for Young Adults in the Netherlands and Belgium. The Beckstands are in Amsterdam, the Andersons are in Rotterdam, the Bushes will be taking the place of the Hofmans in Deventer, and the van Komens are in Groningen doing double duty as the Branch President in Leeuwarden, and the senior couple helping with the Center for Young Adults in Groningen. The other centers have a ward couple assigned, in Antwerp, and the Hague. the senior couples love to be together and glean ideas from one another.
"Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days."
D & C 64:35
After the meeting we all went to one of the oldest homes in Leiden. In Leiden today, traces of the Pilgrims are elusive. The best place to start is the tiny Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, a fascinating restoration of a house occupied around 1610 by the soon-to-be Pilgrims. The house itself dates from 1375, but the furnishings are from the Pilgrims’ period.
The City of Leiden in The Netherlands (Holland) is a unique destination for historians and other travelers interested in the pilgrims who sailed to America in 1620. The visit to the tulip and windmill city can be especially appropriate in connection with America’s Thanksgiving Day, which is closely linked to those pilgrims.
According to the Pilgrim Hall Museum at Plymouth, MA, groups of English men, women and children left England in 1607-08 in quest of religious freedom. They were not known as pilgrims then, but rather as "Separatists" who were out of step with both the Church of England and with the Calvinist "puritans" who were simply trying to "purify" the church.
The Separatists spent 12 years in Holland before moving on to America aboard the Mayflower. Holland was more tolerant than England because it had experienced religious persecution earlier under Spanish rule.
We all enjoyed a fascinating tour of one of the homes where the Seperatists lived.
They also were in search for a life free from persecution, and being able to be free to worship.
"Their hearts were knit together in love one towards another."
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