Today is already Wednesday, the 25th of February. Sister Vander Veur and I have really struggled with all the electronics. A new laptop computer and tablet purchased shortly before we left, both with Microsoft 8.1, trying to locate websites to help us with our languages classes, figuring out our church-issued phone......and then learning how to maneuver our new blogsite.
Two weeks ago, February 11th, I started a new post, but never completed it.

I want to share those thoughts now.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015
After quite a bit of typing, deleting, pushing buttons and struggling with downloading our photos....I think we're ALMOST able to really share pictures and experiences that weren't captured in the first 2 posts. Like my dear, sweet Mom (now in her 92 year on the planet) always says......"There's so much going on".
Before I talk about us and some more our missionary experiences thus far, let me share some feelings about two dear friends and neighbors and my cousin Pete who all 3 gave us advice and encouragement to move forward with our mission plans.

All three have recently been called home, Dan Hillesheim in early January, Brother Rick Parry about a week ago and on February 9th, my cousin Pete Dirkmaat.

Dan has been a wonderful neighbor and a friend for many years, not just to me, but to everyone who ever met him. He faithfully and lovingly served for 5 years in our ward bishopric. He was a wonderful Dad and granddad.  He loved the gospel.
We attended his funeral on January 9th, just 3 days before entering the MTC. As his 23 grandchildren sang, it was apparent that Dan and Debbie had their own Primary! Dan loved to help people. He was always there to assist and advise us and the other neighbors. If the task required some muscle....he was definitely the one to call (as I often did!).
Last spring as I was working in the garden in front of my house, I heard Dan holler my name. As I looked toward the sound, I saw him up on his roof! He loved weather patterns, forecasting and watching the clouds, but this time he may have been removing Christmas lights. As I walked the 2 doors down, and joined Debbie in the driveway, who was apparently supervising, he announced that they needed to sell the house and that he and Debbie needed to immediately move to Texas to manage the business venture he was involved with there.
The Hillesheims and the Vander Veurs were blessed as my phone rang and rang and the house was sold. Dan knew they needed to go and they knew we were saving to go on a mission.
I know the sale was an answer to their prayers as well as ours as we as we prayed for success in my business to get us financially prepared to serve.

Rick and Judy Parry lived in our ward for many years. I first met them when they purchased their home that I had listed. Rick was a wonderful example of Christlike service. He served faithfully in about every calling in the Church. His cancer diagnoses shocked all.  For several years he was a full-time Service Missionary and seemed to be over the cancer, but it came back.
He underwent a procedure that required him to be isolated in the hospital for some time. On a visit to him in the hospital, we spoke about my plan to sometime go on a mission with Kathy, but that I was concerned about the cost and how I could afford to serve.  In his wisdom, he asked me how much I thought the monthly cost of the mission would be.  I told him.  Then he asked me......"What does it cost you monthly to live here in your home in Sandy?" My answer surprised me...it costs about the same as the mission!  Then he said, "Well what are you waiting for?  Go!"

I then went to the Lord with my feelings and received the answer that the way would be prepared, the finances would come.  I still hesitated to commit and went back to the Lord with my concerns about finances AFTER our mission.  I again received the reassurance that all would be well upon our return.

My Cousin Pete Dirkmaat is the oldest grandchild on the Emo side of our family. Pete's mom, Aunt Alice, was my mom's other sister. The past few years as we talked about Kathy and I planning to serve a mission, Pete always encouraged us to request Suriname, a Dutch speaking country in South America.  Pete and Renee served there several years ago and loved the experience. My answer was well, we really would like to back to Holland (Europe) where I served as a young man 50 years ago.
As I was planning the 2013 annual Emo Family Reunion, held for about 60 years on the 24th of July, I called Pete with some questions. He said, "Martin, I'm turning 70 but feel like I'm 80". Weeks later his colon cancer was discovered and he was told he didn't have much time, maybe just a few months. He stayed in touch as we continued our mission preparation. Last July 24th (2014), he was still able to attend the reunion. At a later time as we spoke on the phone, he told me about the plans he'd made.  He had written his family history and distributed it, he made burial and funeral arrangements including the service and jokingly added "It was kinda fun!" After he heard about our call to the Dominican Republic,Santo Domingo East Mission (not Holland) he congratulated us even though it wasn't to Suriname. He asked to be contacted so he could hear us speak prior to leaving.  He was weaker now, but made the effort to come down from Idaho to hear us. Now as we complete the first month of our mission, Pete was called home. Pete was a wonderful man. We appreciate his example of missionary service and his kind words of encouragement to serve as soon as possible. He loved the gospel. He endured to the end. He's now having a wonderful reunion with those he loves on the other side of the veil.

These 3 brothers, who have all passed on the past few weeks helped make it possible for us to serve here and now. I'll be forever grateful for each of their contributions.


All who have developed their faith in Christ and received a testimony of the truth are called to invite and to share the message. The atonement of the Savior, the  marvelous plan of salvation, living apostles and prophets, priesthood authority and the coming forth of The Book of Mormon,are for all of God's children.. By obedience to the commandments, blessings will follow. Our Heavenly Father is aware of everyone of us and knows our needs, our desires, our hearts, our pains, our challenges. He loves us!

Life on Kaya Rubi

     There's no place like home...away from home

     Our little patio just outside the front door
The flowers came from a hedge (I think are rhododendrons) about 8 feet high in the front yard.  Elder VV had just cut them down to 3 feet, so all the beautiful blooms were laying on the ground. Due to the high cost of electricity the land lord said we could use the laundry room if we worked in the yard. Apparently electricity is pretty expensive and Martin loves to work in the garden so we agreed instead of going to the laundromat which is very expensive.

Living Room and Kitchen separated with counter
In Sociedad de Socorro (Relief Society) we had an activity making Valentines decorations so I made this banner for my landlady upstairs. She couldn't come that night. In the background is the living room. It is a daylight basement apartment with lots of windows so there is good light and  good and vital! air flow

Whistle While you Wash
 (I spend a lot of time in this spot) 

      We keep all the windows open all the time because the breeze can be so pleasant. Lately, the last  few weeks or so, the weather has been quite nice. Humid but not too too hot. It has been raining each day for about a week. 



Sweet Dreams
My favorite place on the island right around 9 pm
These are the pillow cases the walking ladies gave us and all the children and grand children autographed them
 

Master bath off the main bedroom

 
 
 
 

A spare bedroom for visitors

The main bath

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Iggy the resident iguana

Sunbathing by the pool
They can really run fast and jump! They are as scared of us as we are of them. - (I think) Creepy



 Bye for now - We love you








 

On the playa



A great way to start the day

 

     Every morning except Sundays we get up early- between 6 and 6:30 and drive down to the playa for our morning walk. It takes about an hour to walk from one end to the other but it is only a couple of miles. As we walk we are greeted with "Bon Dia!" (good morning in Papiamento) from the people passing by. We have met people from Holland, America, the DR, Curacao, Aruba and many Bonaireians.  Americans and some Dutch have stopped us after a few days curious about our badges so we explain that we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they smile and walk on. Just curious.

 

 Heading Home



     Martin has had fun talking to the Dutch people. The natives all greet us and are friendly as we walk but they don't stop to visit except for Eddy who is very friendly and told us about himself and how he is a religious man and that he had met the missionaries before. Often the walkers are on vacation for weeks or months at a time or from the cruise ships. A couple we speak to each day is from Holland here for a month. They are so nice and very friendly. We see them each morning, sitting on a bench eating their breakfast looking out at the sea. Then we ask what they will do that day?  Run, snorkel , bike ride, go out to the salt pans, dive, hike, or swim? They are very active. They go home next Tuesday so we will give them a note with a pass-a-long card. The Dutch woman looks just like Cathy Longstroth  (a woman in our home ward) but she speaks Dutch!  



Where is my fishing pole??



     We watch as the huge cruise ships come in to the dock and sometimes there are two docked at once. Sightseeing boats and busses are waiting for their loads of tourists. They take tours of the sights of the island or sail or motor boat out to Klien Boanire (small Bonaire) which is a desert island next to the main island. Bonaire is one of the top destinations in the world for scuba diving. People come from everywhere to dive here in the beautiful blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. Small fishing boats dot the bay area and larger sail boats. It looks quite idyllic.



Choo choo tourist train for a tour of the city -  ( Luke this is what I was telling you about)




Here they come again!

     Last Sunday, February 15th, a dozen members from an American cruise ship came to our Sacrament  Meeting. They used all of our headphones and listened as Yomely, a young woman in the branch, translated into English. We were left hoping for the gift of tongues, as the meeting proceeded in Spanish and Papiamentu. Our biggest language challenge is at church.  All the guests were a great boost to that days attendance. They told us there were  about 3,000 passengers on the  ship and a few thousand crew!! It's practically like a floating city.
      This time of year there are 3 or 4 days a week that a cruise ship arrives.  Each morning when the ships come in the locals are all ready to greet the "income" with their souvenir booths, tour busses, diving and snorkeling businesses, restaurants, etc.. Tourism is what keeps this island going.

This morning when we were on our walk it started to rain, so we ran for cover. It doesn't rain for long but it comes down pretty hard. As we waited, looking out to the sea, we saw a beautiful double rainbow. Just as the ship was sailing in. What a gorgeous sight!

    "Somewhere over the rainbow..." -     What a gorgeous sight!

                       The picture does not do this justice!

Well Bye for now, We hope all is well. We love you. 













On the Island

 

The island of Bonaire is a big mountain, mostly under sea level, consisting of igneous rock mainly covered with limestone that emerged out of the sea. The Spanish and Dutch were the first explorers and were not impressed with the island because  there were no precious metals like silver or gold nor much vegetation. Later however they discovered the great value of the salt pans on the island and the Dutch made it big business. Salt was very important for preserving food and the Dutch were shipping 30,000 tons of salt per year to Amsterdam. Their supply was cut off from Venezuela because of a war so they had to find a new supply. Bonaire was the place. The white gold was just lying in the natural salt pans for them to grab.  

We finally arrived in Bonaire on January 24th. The couple we replaced (the Bawdens) picked us up at the airport around 4pm. We drove to the apartment, dropped off our stuff then went to the grocery store. The next day we jumped right in and started visiting investigators, members, and less active members. They showed us around the island and we saw several of the sights. Bonaire is a small island only about 20 miles long and 5 miles wide.


On Seru Largu with the Bawdens. This is the highest point on the Island

Our first impressions of Bonaire. Tiny narrow streets, (Brigham Young had nothing to do with the layout of this city!), confusion, bumpy roads, fast drivers, no traffic regulations, not quite as much honking as in the DR, but there is honking. It is humid, hot, not nearly as dirty as the DR, hot, a desert island, tall, tall cactus, fences made of cactus, beautiful blue waters, (did I mention hot and humid?), bright, sunny days, cooler, clear warm nights (we can see all the stars), wind from the northwest, always blowing providing natural evaporative cooling, beautiful flowers - not in abundance however- and it has the salt pans and salt mountains and did I mention it is hot? .The people are very friendly they will let you in when driving, they always greet you with Bon Dia!  Which means - Good Day! We thought we would never find our way around but now we even know the short cuts!    
 

On the street where we live

Home sweet away from Home

Bas and Ellie  Noij are  our landlords. They are from Holland. Ellie is a member of the church and comes with her children......darling daughters. Mayra who just turned 5 yrs. and Yali, just about 3. They came to Bonaire to get away from the rat race in Holland and live the dream. Bas loves diving and owns VIP Diving, It is an award winning scuba diving company.                                                     
  We live in the basement apartment in this big lovely home on Kaya Rubi which means Ruby street.
At first we thought all the fences were to keep out the criminals but it is also to keep out the wild donkeys and goats that are all over walking in the street and yards.


We live up on a hill so the view from the Noij's balcony is great. We are welcome to use the pool since we are Senior Missionaries and our rules are different from the Elders. Elder Vander Veur has gone in the pool a number of times and really enjoys it. It is not heated so it is not my favorite, but I understand in August and September it will be (are you ready for this???) HOTTER. So then I will probably jump.... in the pool that is. 

 

Our little patio

Well, Bye for now!

The pool is a favorite spot for the iguanas to sun themselves and poop on the deck



The Missionaries- Elder Packer, Elder Vander Veur, Sister Vander Veur, Elder McCary

THE BEGINNING

At laaaaaast (think Etta James) After a bumpy start,  
               here we are finally writing on the blog!    

I will give a brief overview of our last four weeks.......  

Our district at the MTC

We arrived at the MTC Jan.12th after a lovely, hectic and emotional week of wedding celebrations, packing, being set apart as full time missionaries, last minute farewells from lovely friends and neighbors Sunday evening, and saying our last goodbyes.


This is the place! (on the MTC map)

The MTC was a week of  being filled with the spirit, filled with food (what choices they have at that cafeteria!), filled with admiration for all the wonderful faithful couples we met who were preparing to go out into the world, we were filled with love for our young teachers who knew so much. We were filled with anticipation and excitement about the unknown. Then it was over.

We got on the plane with the help of Ben and Courtney. They just got married January 10th, 2015 and are living in our house while we are gone. We flew to New York, had a brief layover and then on to the Dominican Republic (DR to us world travelers), the city of Santo Domingo. We were met by hot humid air and the Mission President Ahmad Corbitt, his wife Jayne, and Elder Ron Smith, the Mission Financial person & Sister Loretta Smith (named after Loretta Young), his wife who works at the front desk of the mission office. They are from Sugar City Idaho. And the Corbitts are from New Jersey. The Smiths took us to stay with them in their high rise apartment building which had 2 bedrooms and it was very nice.
As we unpacked it was late at night when we discovered we had left one of our suitcases at the airport! Elder VV and Elder Smith went back and we finally plopped into bed about 1AM.

Elder and Sister Smith at the Los llyomos Branch

    

With President Corbitt in the Mission Office

The next few days we followed the Smiths around. We went to the Mission office and drove 2 1/2 hours to a tiny branch to go to church on Sunday. We met many people. Elder Mortenson and his wife took us to the Colonial part of town (Columbus landed in Santo Domingo, not New Jersey). We saw many things, went to the Temple twice and had FHE with lots of the senior couples in the area (about 35 people came). We had a lovely visit with President Corbitt to catch his vision for us, and we walked and walked. Santo Domingo is a busy, dirty, noisy city. It is not without its charms however; the Temple is beautiful, there are lots of businesses, many goods are available, the beaches are nearby, it has nice big parks, big high rise apartment buildings, and there are lots of faithful Saints. It is the center of the Church in the Caribbean and Columbus is buried here.

Santo Domingo Temple (Martin took this picture on his cell!)

  


Martin and Columbus

Now on to Bonaire!