July 3-9, 2010

On our P-day we visited an African Congo museum outside of Brussels with the Assistants and office elders. It's housed in King Leopold's old hunting lodge - a very huge, amazing structure with huge beautiful grounds outside. This is a 70 foot dug out canoe, made from one log, that we saw along with many other artifacts, musical instruments, weapons, etc. from the Congo.

Outside the museum are all these elephants made from wood. It kind of makes it look like you're in Africa with elephants walking all around outside.

This is Sister Kay Hanson, a very dear friend of my parents. She was the RS pres when my father passed away and spoke at his funeral. She is now serving a mission in Frankfurt, Germany and travels all around Europe, training the senior couples who run the young adult outreach centers that are so successful here in Europe. She was here in our mission doing some training so we arranged to meet her and her companion at the Brussels airport for dinner one night. We had a delightful time together.

This is a picture of the three sister missionaries who were in Antwerpen together, myself, and the redhead is Katie (kind of cut off), a Canadian, working on her Ph.D in Philosophy - she invited all the missionaries in our Antwerpen ward over for a 4th of July barbecue after church, plus it was her birthday, too!

We were pretty proud of the spread we all brought! The elders even made jello salad and another fruit salad for the occasion - we were impressed! The sisters made a birthday cake for Katie. She lives in a cute little apartment with an amazing view of the old part of Antwerpen. It's on the 5th floor and has no elevator! Great exercise for us all.

Elder Relitz offered to be the cook out on the balcony - that was nice of him as it was a pretty hot day. Katie even bought this cute little grill for the occasion. Notice the tile roofs behind him.

Here's our whole group that day - we sang The Star Spangled Banner, waved our flags, you can see we tried to wear red white and blue, and generally had a great time together. Our church was even let out early as the Tour de France was coming through town and they were closing all the roads and the trains, etc.

Now how many people can say they saw the Tour de France ride by!!! On Monday, Pres Brubaker said, "Let's go do some street contacting out on Montgomery Circle - the Tour de France is riding by!" We raced outside, walked about 4 blocks, and here they came! It was pretty darn impressive and very fast - over in 32 seconds!!!

I tried really hard to find Lance, but no luck - too fast and there were tons of riders - maybe 100??? It was really a thrill to see them.

Following along behind the riders were tons of these cars with lots of bikes on top of them for spare parts, etc. It's out of the picture, but at this point the race was about 15 minutes old and this car had just changed a flat tire for a racer here in front of us. The cobblestone streets in Belgium did a number on the bike tires.

This is Pres and Sis Brubaker with some of the elders, walking back to the office after the tour rode by. I liked the Brussels buildings in the background. The Pres and the elders all had a great time visiting with all their former French missionary friends who used to be in this mission but are now in the Paris France mission. They were there, too, to see the tour and it was a happy reunion for all of them.

Loel liked this picture of all the bikes lined up for rent at the train station here in Brussels. Each transfer week, Loel spends quite a bit of time, driving missionaries to and from the train station - he used to get lost, but he's gotten a lot better at it now!
(Loel) Like Paula said, the train station has been my nemasis. It went better this transfer. you can find these bikes all over Belgium. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I suspect you pay a fee and drop the bike at a place like this near your destination.

This was the dinner we attended at the mission home for the 5 departing missionaries who went home this week. Here they all are with the two assistants, us and the Brubakers (I'm taking the picture). This is always a very busy, but rewarding day. As the missionaries come into the office from their various areas, Loel brings them to the office from the train station with their luggage in the mission van. They all have their interviews with the President, while I collect their email addresses, home addresses, and their most memorable mission experience that they've written up. Later I type these up for the Brubakers to have and also put them in a book. I also offer to visit with any who may have a need for some schooling or career counseling. They all took me up on it, so one by one, we met in my office and talked about their plans for the future, schooling, scholarships, transfer credits, majors, classes, etc. It is such a wonderful experience to have a little time to visit with each one individually, to feel of their goodness, and learn a little more about them. I call it "career counseling with the spirit," as I feel prompted many times in the things I say.

I was invited to attend a kind of wrap-up meeting that Assistants do with the departing missionaries where they ask questions like what is the most important thing that you've learned and how can we better improve the mission to achieve more baptisms and thing of this nature. I was so impressed with their insightful comments and great suggestions. Something that really stood out to me was how they kept saying, over and over again, "The Lord is in the details of our lives." Little things they were prompted to do or not to do ended up making the difference in big ways. I, too, have felt this very strongly here on our mission. My prayers have been answered so fast, I almost feel like I need to be careful for what I ask as He answers and blesses me immediately! I've realized that I can ask Him any little thing and I can receive an answer and feel so carefully watched over.

Here are the 5 departing missionaries - Zuster Fowler, Zuster Stapleton, Elder Black, Elder Stringham, and Elder Lystrup. Here they are, holding their certificates and an old antique key the Brubakers give to each one to help them remember that "love is the key." We had a very spiritual testimony meeting with them as we listened to the things they have learned, their love for the people and their mission, their wisdom and goodness. Pres Brubaker asked Loel and I to share our testimonies, also, which was a real priviledge. I had a hard time speaking as I told them that after only a couple of months, I feel so proud of them, like I'm their parent, and how much I've loved our interactions with them. Loel gave them some good advice on serving in the church after their missions and how they would be the leaders in their wards and stakes. It was truly one of the choicest experiences I've ever had to be there.

We all just didn't want to see the evening come to an end. The elders offered to sing a hymn together, so they sang "Nearer My God to Thee," in Dutch, of course, harmonizing perfectly with each other - we have some very musically talented missionaries. Sister Fowler played a beautiful number on the piano for us earlier. Afterwards we went inside the mission home and had a kneeling prayer with Pres Brubaker praying for his departing missionaries. We didn't get home until 11:00 pm; very tired, but very happy.
We were up bright and early the next morning to the mission home to drive the van with all the luggage to the airport. Two elders were meeting their parents there who had come out to pick them up - the other three flew off. I always wish I could hug these elders, but I can't, so we give great handshakes. But I can hug the sisters and that's wonderful. The elders and Loel and the Pres all give each other big hugs.

After leaving the airport, Loel and I drove the van up to Rotterdam where it was needed and then did an apartment inspection up in the Netherlands. It always feels different to go from Belgium to the Netherlands.

Moving on to more worldly things . . . we got to attend a huge tennis match, the most attended match in history even, here in Brussels, at this huge stadium. (The goal was to break the Guiness record and I think they did - of course the announcing was all in French, so I couldn't understand much of what they were saying. It was originally called "The Best of Belgium" with Kim Clijsters playing Justine Henin (they are both famous tennis players and are both from Belgium.) So of course, we had to go! Unfortunately Justine Henin pulled out because of an injury, but Serena Williams stepped in for her, which was very nice. So they then called it the Best of Belgium vs. the Best in the World! It was fun to watch big time players. Clijsters won, much to the delight of all the Belgium fans.

I think there were close to 40,000 people there. It's still a little stressful to go to unknown places in a country where you don't speak the language. We had to kind of guess at where to park and ended up walking quite a ways to get to the stadium. Then we had to figure out how to get in, which gate, where our seats were, etc, all the time hoping people would be nice and speak English! They were.

Sister Brubaker is an amazing cook and an extremely creative person who makes the most gorgeous displays that look too good to eat. This is at a leadership conference we had this week at the mission home - she always makes lunch for all the zone leaders, assistants, and one sister companionship gets to come. This time it was the Antwerpen sisters, the ones I get to see a lot since they're the only sisters serving in Belgium (the rest are in the Netherlands) and we're in the same ward. I brought a potato salad to this lunch. I also brought tons of boxes of supplies for the zone leaders that I have been collecting during the month. They are always so grateful to receive them, plus I bring their mail, which they love.

About once a month we go about an hour away to Chievres, a military base, and do major shopping for the next month. Here is a picture of how much stuff we bought! A nice bag boy helps us get it in our car.

I was supposed to go on a missionary visit to an investigator's family with the sisters one night this week. Loel was driving back from Rotterdam with the van, so we had arranged for him to do a joint teach with the assistants in Antwerpen on his way home. This meant that I had to drive, by myself, to Antwerpen, which I was pretty nervous about, but I did have my GPS. I left the office with plenty of time to spare and got stuck in a huge traffic jam right outside of Brussels. Three hours later and only inching along, I had to cancel with the sisters and try to get off the parking lot of a freeway to get home. I finally did. It was very boring yet I did learn that with my GPS, I'll be fine driving. That is, of course, if I ever get out of traffic jams to drive. I'll let Loel talk about his experience with the elders - it was much better than my evening.

(Loel) I only got stuck in a traffic jam for 1 hour, so I felt really sorry or Paula. I was in the same traffic jam, about 4 hours earlier as I left Brussels for Rotterdam. I had planned on meeting the Assistants to the President (APs) in Antwerpen. They scheduled an appointment with a young man who is a friend of an African member. They work together and the member had introduced this young man to the missionaries at a pickup soccer game. The member left Nigeria and settled in Antwerpen. He's married and has a little boy and he has the most amazing testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Church. He's a joy to have at a meeting with an investigator, because he freely testifies about any aspect of the gospel. And it's great to teach in a members home. That is absolutely the best situation.

As we arrived at the member's home, the first miracle was finding a parking place right in front of the apartment. If you've traveled in Europe, you know what I'm talking about. Parking is really scarce. The investigator is a young Belgian and that's somewhat uncommon. He became interested through the member and is searching for religion. He's studied other religions, including Islam and he seems truly interested in the church. The Elders had given him a reading assignment in the Book of Mormon and he read that plus the Joseph Smith story at the front of the book. He was excited about the story and very interested in an angel visiting Joseph Smith to tell him about the gold plates. He seems to accept Joseph Smith with no reservations. He was very attentive and seems to be genuinely interested in the gospel. He speaks good English and that made easy for me to be a part of this teaching experience. Elders get to know each other well and they know when their companion will speak. It's kind of an intuitive thing. Not being with them regularly, I was taken off guard when they would ask me a question or ask me to share something. This was a great experience for me and it's wonderful to feel the strength of our missionaries as they teach with the Spirit. The Elders are meeting with this young man three times a week and it appears to be going well. They called me after their meeting with him on Thursday and told me how well the last lesson went and that he said he felt the Spirit strongly in the meeting on Tuesday. Our mission has 50 baptismal commitments right now. That's with 37 sets of missionaries.

Back to Paula - We had a really fun experience today as Bev Christiansen, from our home ward, came through Brussels on a layover from Germany and we went to the airport to visit with her for about an hour. It was so fun to see a friend from home and to be able to share part of our mission with her. She was so interested and sweet - even wanted to take some notes so she wouldn't forget anything! It really made us happy to visit with her.

26 June - 2 July 2010

We had 8 baptisms this week in our mission, which is a record - last time we had that many in one week was a year ago! We attended this one in St. Niklaas, one of our favorite little cities near by. This sister is Columbian. We actually went first with one of the office elders to Leuvan, a city about 30 mins away, picked up one of their investigators, and brought him with us so he could see the baptism. It was wonderful to listen to Elder Bell talk with this investigator from Nepal in the backseat about baptism, the gospel, etc. This man really enjoyed the baptism and on the way home spoke of his own baptism coming up, which we told him we would love to attend. He was very appreciative of us taking him with us.

This week we went to Ghent, a cool city in Belgium, which is somewhat similar to Venice as it has lots of canals going through it, guild houses, cathedrals, etc. We needed to look at a new apartment for the elders there, so we went a little early so we could enjoy some of the sites. This is a view from St. Michael's Bridge, looking at one of the main thoroughfares of the city. This the old port of Ghent from the 16th century.

We took a canal tour and these are some of the things we saw. This was a lock where the water could be raised in the canal.

A picturesque little boat by someone's house on the canal. You see boats docked by homes all along the canal. Most of the buildings are being converted to clubs and restaurants. Ghent is a city of about 250,000 and there are a large number of students that live here.

Colorful flowers on the canal. This is just someone's balcony overlooking the canal.

The guild houses along the canal. The guilds were the most powerful institutions in the society in the 1500's and 1600's. These were organizations that organized for their particular industry; cloth makers, butchers, bakers. This port had a very high tax and one house was just for the storing of grain that was taken as an import tax.

I didn't want to go into this castle - it's called Gravensteen, the gloomy castle, as it's famous for it's torture chamber and different ways of killing people! They say it's popular but that people are always glad to leave. I've heard that it's been turned into a hotel, or there's a hotel by the same name nearby.

More picturesque scenes along the boat ride.

This is St. Niklaas Cathedral and a big central square area of the city. We got there and saw a big screen TV (it's the pink thing in the back), and we just happened to get there in time to see Kim Clijsters playing a match at Wimbledon! We got some Italian ice-cream while there, also.

This is St. Baffs Cathedral - it was huge and very ornate. It houses some special altarpiece, which is known as one of the 7 wonders of Belgium. I guess I've seen too many ornate cathedrals, as I didn't want to spend too much time in here. It was cool; very gothic.

This is Elder Owens in the office, dying in the heat. Brussels has been having unseasonably hot weather and our A/C doesn't work very well in the office - except for my office! I'm very comfortable, but no one else is! Poor Loel has a little office with horrible ventilation so he's roasting, along with the office elders in our lobby area.
This week the office elders invited us to lunch at their apartment, which is across the street from the office. They live with two elders from the Paris France mission who serve here in Brussels. One of these elders, Elder Duarte, is from Portugal and is a wonderful cook. He made us a great lunch and then Loel did an inspection of their apartment - routine, has to be done every 3 months. We were so impressed with the elders' apartment and how clean, organized, and tidy it was. We were also very jealous of it as it's over twice the size of ours! Very roomy, 3 bedroom, 2 baths, big living room area, nice kitchen, they even have a dishwasher!!! We asked them if they wanted to trade.

This is a funny picture of our district after a meeting in Antwerpen. We all lined up our cameras, put on the timers, and then you can see Sister Fritz was dashing to make the picture and didn't quite make it! We have a lot of fun with the missionaries - we always have lunch together first and get to hear lots of funny and inspirational stories of how their weeks are going. Then we have a good meeting. This week Elder Owens, our district leader, divided us into two teams and we had to ask each other hard questions about the Gospel that we could only answer with scriptures. One question we got was about why a person couldn't live with their boyfriend. As soon as the question was asked, all the elders on our team turned to Loel and said, "Bishop Tibbitts . . ." Kind of like, you answer this one!! We all got a good laugh.

This is a crane thing with a little motorized platform on the ladder that they use here to move furniture in and out of apartments. The elevators are way too small to fit anything big in them so they do this and go through outside windows. Very elaborate system. Loel took this picture right out of our office window. The extension ladder is on the back of these little trucks and you see them driving all over Brussels. They send this big platform up the ladder, take the furniture out through a door or window (the windows are big here), load the furniture on the platform and lower it to the moving truck. You've seen the pictures of our elevator and stairwell. That's why you need these lifts.

The flowers are beautiful on the streets of Brussels.

More flowers - our apartment building is in the background. This is a little park thing with a statute of the mayor in this part of Brussels!


The Netherlands and Belgium are really lovers of flowers. Apartment houses will have little flower boxes on the porch railings. We see very small, but beautifully landscaped yards as we walk, as I look over the railing at our apartment, and the apartment on the ground floor has a little private garden hidden by a hedge that is full of flowers.


These are some orchid plants that Sister Pankratz left in our apartment - they are really beautiful and grow profusely. At home, if we got one or two flowers, we were happy, but these produce many. They must like the Belgium climate.

We went to Waterloo on P-day - the place where Napoleon's last battle was fought. It's just about 20 minutes from where we live. This is a hill with the monument on top - see the steps going up? We climbed them!

This is the Lion's Mount monument at the top.

It's a beautiful view of peaceful farmland all around - hard to imagine that 45,000 soldiers died or were wounded in this battle in 1815. It involved 6 or 7 other countries and changed the course of European history - and was the end of Napoleon's reign. The weekend before we visited they did a yearly re-enactment of the battle.

I read about this old 13th century castle, called Kasteel van Beersel, just 5 miles outside of Brussels, so we went to see it. The 5 miles took us 45 minutes through Brussels traffic, but upon arriving, we were the only ones there, along with some workers taking down booths from the night's festivities before. We had read about all the cool things you could see inside, but as we walked across the drawbridge over the moat, we got inside to see nothing - only old bricks, no tour guides, no brochures, no entrance fee, no English guidebook, no mausoleum with alabaster effigies, nothing. Maybe it's under renovation or something, but we kind of laughed, felt kind of stupid, and walked around the whole thing taking a few pictures. It was a cool looking castle from the outside.

20-25 June 2010

This is a baptism we attended last Saturday in Eindhoven, Netherlands. We like to attend baptisms when we can and this was the only one in the mission last week. It was about 1 1/2 hrs away and of course, we got lost. We thought we may have missed it, but when we got there 15 mins late, it was just starting. We love going to baptisms. I was able to download a picture for Sis Brubaker to put on the mission blog along with the story that Elder Matthews, above, wrote. Of course we got lost on the way home, too, since the GPS kept trying to put us back on a freeway on ramp that was closed.

This is my new toy - a little notebook computer. I really love it. Now Loel and I don't fight over who gets the computer. I love it, also because I can fit it in my purse and I can take it with us when we have to drive and I can work on my journal, etc. I've taken it to zone conf and took notes on it - later Sis Brubaker asked me for my notes so I was able to quickly send those to her. I can download pictures on to it quickly and put them on the blog or send them on. I'm becoming really high tech!

This is an apartment the church rents near the office that the elders call "The Spy House." It's like something out of a Jason Bourne movie. Even the neighborhood feels that way. It used to be used by a public relations couple to oversee European Union family issues, but now it is empty. The Pankratz stayed in it until just last week when they moved up to Amsterdam. It's quite interesting - you can see that it's very narrow - yet it's 5 stories high so it's straight up and down. It even has a cool address - 7 rue Fulton. As you enter there is a basement office and bath down a flight of stairs, then it goes to a landing with a living room and parlor, then another flight up to the bathroom, then up to the kitchen and dining room, then a half flight up to the bathroom, another half flight up to the two bedrooms and a ladder to a loft.

Loel went there today to do an inspection and to water the plants, which we have to do once a week. This is what you see when you first walk in the front door - it has about 13 or 14 rooms in it, so it's a good size, but very narrow and tons of stairs. I wouldn't want to live there, even though you do have lots of space - too many stairs!

Just another picture of this interesting apartment - kind of typical of European places. When the Pankratz moved a week ago, we volunteered to help them. Loel helped Elder Pankratz load the van and I vacuumed and dusted all 5 floors! It took me two hours.

This is a basement room, 6 stories down from the main floor (we're on the 8th floor, so it's quite a ways down from our office) called "The Cave." Cave (kahv), in French, is cellar, and this definitely feels like a cellar. It's where we store all of our mission supplies, so I frequent this place a lot. Behind me are lots of Book of Mormons in many different languages.

We have so many different languages, as seen here - many that I had never heard of before. Not only do we have many Books of Mormon in lots of different languages, but also lots of pamphlets, pass-along cards, etc.

This is another view of all the boxes of Books of Mormon and other supplies in the cave.

This is the view of the cave as soon as you open the door. Loel has to start cleaning all this junk out and he's not real excited about it! There are kitchen supplies, beds, frames, tools, microwaves, sheets, old mission records, you name it, it's here. Today he found 7 huge boxes of braille Books of Mormon! (Straight back with the tan tape on it.) He's not looking forward to this project as he barely finished cleaning out our garage before we left.

I had an interesting experience last Saturday when I got my hair colored - I went to a little shop in our apartment building, and of course, the lady spoke no English. She was very nice, but we had to decide on color, etc, all with gestures and a word here or there that I understood. I told Loel that I hope I don't come back with purple hair - he said, "I hope you come home with hair!" It really turned out okay, but was a little nerve-racking.

(Loel) I went shopping for a new cordless drill (the last one was left in France when the mission split) and some car stuff (windshield washer fluid and oil). this doesn't seem like a big deal, but I had TWO sales people (one at the hardware store and one at the auto parts store) willingly speak English and wish me nice day as I left. Paula was talking to one of the French elders in the office, about customer service. He's currently working in Brussels and he said Brussels is pretty nice. He said he served in Paris and customer service in Paris is really bad. We see a huge difference between Belgium and the Netherlands and between Flemish Belgium and French Belgium. President Brubaker was talking about how public transportation is the best way to meet people. (We were in Flemish Belgium at the time.) He said the Dutch (and Flemish) want to talk to everyone. It's easy to start a conversation. The French think your literally crazy if you try to talk to them.