26 March-1 April 2011

Here we are with our best friends on a P-day at the Atomium, in Brussels.
At 102 metres (334 feet) high, with its nine interconnected spheres, it represents an elementary iron crystal enlarged 165 billion times.It was built as an exhibit during the 1958 World's Fair of Brussels and is quite the landmark. You can actually go into all the spheres of the crystal, which are museum rooms, but we didn't take the time.
Another picture more close up. They have escalators running between the spheres.

Our wonderful Antwerpen sisters came to Brussels to the office on Monday for their P-day and also to have interviews with the President. They stayed and had lunch with us and also were a tremendous help in getting my supplies ready and gluing Donny Osmond testimonies into Books of Mormon. We glued a total of 600 testimonies into Books of Mormon to be distributed at the Donny Osmond devotional firesides.

This is the Fourjour family - the father was already a member, but the three children who were old enough were baptized last Sunday in our ward. The Assistants each baptized one and Andy Thomas baptized another. The younger little girls were squealing with excitement and wonder as their siblings went under the water.

The day after the baptism, we volunteered to help the Assistants with their American hamburger night they had planned for the Fourjours. Here we are cooking burgers, cutting up onions, tomatoes, cheese, and lettuce, at their apt. to take over to the Fourjours.

As soon as we walked into their modest apartment, the little girl in red ran up and gave me a hug. It melted my heart. They were so happy to have all of us there at their home and so excited to have American hamburgers!

This family LOVES the elders and have so much fun with them. You can see one of the little girls planting a big kiss on Elder Matthews' cheek, much to his surprise!

Everyone is always fighting to see who gets to sit next to the elders. It's so cute. The children are 15, 11, 9, 7, 5, 2, and almost 1.

Here's Loel with three of the little girls - they are all beautiful children. They kept thanking us all for coming. The mother speaks just a little English. She kept saying, "I am so happy. I am so happy." The little kids speak mostly Dutch so the elders would translate for us.

This is the Leiden chapel in the Netherlands - the one we'll be attending when we move up there the end of April. I wanted to catch the daffodils - they are growing everywhere, coming right up through the grass all over town - it's becoming very beautiful and colorful.
We were there to help with a district leader council and to move a few more things into our apartment up there. We actually held the meeting in our new office, although nothing is in it yet. The Assistants moved chairs and tables over from the Leiden chapel and we helped move them back.

Another view of pretty flowers and green right beside the Leiden chapel.

We have been busy this week cleaning, packing, and de-junking a lot of our current office and the cave (cellar) in the basement, getting ready for the move. It's getting exciting yet kind of sad as we will really miss the Antwerpen ward.

I had the unique experience of teaching Relief Society in the Antwerpen ward on Sunday. The RS president translated for me so people who needed it in Dutch had headsets on. Most of the women spoke English and we had a great discussion. If a comment or question was made in Dutch, another sister was sitting right next to me and would tell me what they said. Later, several of the African women came up and thanked me, saying how wonderful it was to have a lesson they could understand.