Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Trip Down Memory Lane

My incredible companion can remember exact addresses of places he lived when he served his first mission in The Netherlands back in 1962-1965.  We went to Schiedam in January to look for Westvest 10.

Alas, after driving up and down the roads all around the area we finally determined that the apartment building where he lived had been torn down.  He was a little sad.  But after all, it has been 47 years. 

Our next attempt at locating a former address was in Amsterdam.  He lived at Courbetstraat #38- I  for 13 months when he was singing with the Mormonse Vier (Mormon Four).  Our faithful TomTom took us to the correct street with no problem.  It really is a handy little missionary helper.

He easily recognized the building and the stairway leading up to their room.  They didn't rent an entire apartment in those days, they just rented a room in the home of a Dutch family.  This particular family had six boys of their own.  I was told that the missionaries had to keep one eye open during the prayers at mealtime or the boys would sneak all the food before the elders could get any. 



They rode their bicycles to the central train station where they caught whatever public transportation they needed to get to their appointments.  The trip to and from the station took about 20 minutes.

As near as we could tell from the advertisement in the window, a modeling agency now occupies the set of rooms where they used to live.  Back in the day, their Dutch mom cooked their meals and did their laundry.  Pretty spoiled, right?


Our next search took us to The Hague where Linford lived with Moms Hoekstein.  That address was Loosduinsekade 572.  (How does he remember this stuff??)  That's our cute little silver car out in front of the building.



Voila!  The entrance to the building.  They stayed here with Moms Hoekstein for about 4 months.  She called the missionaries 'her' boys.  She eventually was baptized into the church from their stellar example.  After we were married she came to Utah to visit and spent some time with us in Logan where we were attending school.  She was a cute little white-haired lady who spoke very little English.  What communicating we did was by gesture and pantomime.

This blog is probably of small interest to a casual observer, but it was a very enjoyable trip down Memory Lane for my faithfull missionary companion who counts his time here as a young elder among some of his most memorable experiences.

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