I appreciate your comments, all. This, and the next part, are probably the best known parts of the story thanks to occasional references in conference during the years. The last two parts, though, I think will be new to almost everybody.

Isn’t it a pleasure to associate even vicariously with people like this? I mean, the same generosity and selflessness is a part of every service project we’re involved in, from fast offerings to chain-sawing trees brought down in storms … but we have never had to overcome the hardships of the post-war Dutch before we engage in that service …

I assume that the “Sonne” mentioned by last name only is Alma Sonne, assistant to the 12?

Thank you for this post, Ardis, and thank you especially for the extra effort to include the photos. They add a lot.

For a full week, President Zappey haunted the offices of the Potato Directorate, once informing the astonished men that “these potatoes belonged to the Lord,” and he would find a way to deliver them where the Lord wanted them to be.

(a) I have fun imagining the chutzpah (in the positive sense) of this guy hanging around government offices, telling people something quite so bluntly outrageous for the context, and

(b) the (anachronistic) echoes of the Blues Brothers getting their way every time with the line “We are on a mission from God” makes me smile.

And, I bet Dr. Cardon was of the Cardon Family of the French/Italian Saints from Piedmont, Italy converted by Lorenzo Snow. I connect up to the Piedmontese Saints through the Roman and Malan families. And 2nd-Great-Grandpa, Daniel Bartholomew Roman, handcart pioneer as a small boy, married a Dutch girl, Gertrude Ter Bruggen, so everybody connects up somehow, which is probably why we shouldn’t have enemies in the first place. Much better to share our potatoes!

As Coffinberry says, it makes our efforts seem puny in comparison.