The Antwerpen Hand
Ok so here's the story according to
my understanding of the Antwerpen hand. Haha you can probably check it out
online for the full verhaal. So once upon a time a long time ago there was this
mean scary guy going around cutting off people's hand and throwing them into
the river to show everyone he was bigger and stronger as a way of asserting
power. People everywhere were terrified but someone somewhere got tired of
living in fear. The next time the mean scary guy came through town, this
someone (or a group of someones) cut off his hand and threw it in
the river, ending his reign of terror. The town was named after this occasion.
'Ant' is the colloquial shortening of the word 'hand' meaning hand and 'werpen'
is the infinitive form of the verb throw. Thus, Antwerpen. The End :)
Haha people here are very proud of
that story and have a lot of giant hand statues around the city, symbols of
hands in architecture, and they even sell chocolate hands in just about every
chocolate shop. I think it's cool for that they take pride in their
history.
Yesterday at church we had a great
sacrament meeting. One talk was over how we all need a purpose in life and we
can find that purpose in our families. The other was over family history and
the importance of looking for our ancestors to do their temple work. This was
pretty significant considering that at the start of the meeting the first
counselor in the bishopric read a letter from the First Presidency over family
history work. I know we would all benefit from taking more pride in our family
history, maybe not to statue-building, chocolate-making extent of the Belgians
in Antwerpen haha but definitley to the extent that we are doing something to
knit our hearts in unity and love with our fore-father. I know that as we take
more pride in this we can fulfill Elijah's prophecy of the hearts of fathers
and children turning towards each other (Malachi 4:5-6). I hope that we can all
find purpose in our lives by serving our family members, those with us here in
this realm of our existance and those who have gone ahead to the next.
Love you all, have a great week and
do some family history for me!!
Love, Zuster Becky Hinchcliff
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