23-30 April 2011

Last Sunday, Elder Matthews was walking the Fourjour baby in the halls so Kate (who will be baptized tomorrow) could stay in class. Kate is very concerned about her children being disruptive and Elder Matthews and Elder Brockbank have been fantastic at helping the parents manage the seven children.

After Sacrament Meeting I was privileged to ordain Andy Thomas an Elder. Andy is a rarity in that he is Belgian, a young adult and a convert. He was baptized last August and he will soon be submitting his papers for a mission. He's an amazing young man.

This was our last Monday lunch in the Brussels Mission Office. We had to take one last picture of the Office Elders and the Assistants on the balcony overlooking Brussels. It's transfer week so there are always changes. Elder Brockbank is staying as an Assistant but moving to Amsterdam. Elder Matthews is staying in Antwerpen as a Zone Leader. We will miss them greatly.

On Tuesday we received eight new missionaries. They are great. They're enthused and ready to go to work.

Unfortunately, with the welcoming in of new missionaries, we also have to say good-bye to some old missionaries. Elder Owens (in front of chocolate cake) was in the office when we arrived and we got really close to him. Elder Thompson is another missionary we've felt a special kinship with - he goes home to Orem and lives about 1 mile from our house. Sis Brubaker borrowed our special ward cookbook chocolate bundt cake recipe and Eveline made chocolate mousse - together they made a very delicious dessert.

We also said good-bye to our trainers, the Pankratz. We were able to share in the wonderful testimony meeting after dinner, where we were able to listen to and participate in sharing our testimonies and thoughts.

The missionaries often order these special hand painted plates from the Netherlands that have their names on it, their mission, and the cities they served in.

The movers are here! These are actually are three office elders, trying to figure out what to do. the movers packed the office up in its entirety on Thursday, taking it all up to our new office in Leiden the next morning.

Here's Loel in our new office in Leiden, wondering how we're going to make it all fit. We've probably got half the space in our new office than in our old. This is supposed to be our big conference room, but instead it's piled high with boxes from the cave (basement storage), which we don't have in the new office.

I have the biggest office but it's mainly all used for storage of all of our missionary supplies, Books of Mormon, pamphlets, DVD's, cards, etc. Loel is actually out in front behind the reception desk in a cubicle. One whole side of the office is windows from floor to ceiling facing a very busy street, right in the middle of town and a 5 minute walk from the train station.

(Loel) It's a little disconcerting to have a couple of people outside the window looking in and reading the papers on your desk. I'm still puzzling over how I'm going to manage that. Maybe I'll just leave a copy of the Liahona open on my desk for them to read.

We were there in the new office until almost 11 pm on Friday, trying to get the internet, fax machine, etc. working, as well as unpacking and organizing and trying to make things fit. We got a little punchy at end of the day. Here's E. Mueller dressed up in his orange raincoat, in preparation for Queen's Day, a holiday in the Netherlands, every April 30th.
Elder Benson is sitting in front of him. He worked with me most of the day and evening, organizing my office.

On Queen's Day in the Netherlands celebrates the Queen's birthday. I don't know what day her real birthday is. Everyone wears orange (for the House of Orange), they have big celebrations, children's parades, bands, orange balloons which they let go into the sky at a certain time, and anyone who wants can sell things on the street. This one day of the year, street selling is allowed with no permit. So it's like a giant yard sale! A lot of kids have tons of toys for sale, as well as adults selling flowers, baked goods, jewelry, and anything else they want.

In our little village of Rijnsburg, they put flags on the canals. Our apartment is right on the main city square so we enjoyed all the festivities first hand.

Here are all the orange balloons being let go into the air on the right cue. Notice the cute church in the background, which is right across the street from our apartment.

The biggest find for me at the big yard sales was a little boy's soccer jersey - bright orange with Holland across the front. I bought it from him for 2.5 euros! The office elders were so envious! They kept saying how much they wanted an orange soccer jersey. I wore it the rest of the day, Queen's Day, so I would be in style. Here I am in our old office in Brussels that we then traveled back down to on Saturday. It's completely empty now and kind of sad to go there now. We went to pick up the mail and any other stray things that were forgotten.

This really ends an era. The Mission Office has been open at this location for about 15 years. It has been the Mission Office for the Belgium Brussels Mission (French speaking), the Belgium Brussels/Netherlands Mission (French and Dutch speaking) and the Belgium/Netherlands Mission, since March 2010 (Dutch speaking).

We will write our blog from Brussels for one more week (maybe) as we will be in Brussels next weekend to pack up our apartment and finally move to the Netherlands.