July 10-16, 2010

On our P-day, the elders had invited us to go to this Tall Ships Race in Antwerpen. There were about 100 tall ships docked in the Antwerpen piers that we were able to look at, and actually go on board and look around. The ships arrive in Antwerpen each year from around the world to participate in a race from Antwerpen to Norway to England. Many are crewed by young men as a nautical training experience. We actually got lost trying to get there as we had left our GPS in a different car and it was locked in our office garage - so this is not a good situation in Antwerpen, the 2nd largest city in Belgium, trying to find your way without a GPS! Luckily, the Brubakers were coming, too, so they guided us with their iPhone to where they were and we parked. We met up with our whole district there, including a member couple and an investigator the elders are working with.

More pictures of tall ships. They were really cool looking - some were as old as 1915 - they were from all different countries. Unfortunately, we were still having unseasonal hot weather and it was in the 90's that afternoon, so it wasn't real comfortable.

Kind of a cool picture Loel took of the old way, with the compass, and the new way, with the GPS! On this ship, a young adult aged girl came up and started talking to Loel, thinking he was the captain of the ship since he had a name badge on!!! Sis Brubaker was with us at the time and so of course, she's really great about joining in the conversation, explaining who we are, what we do, our message, the Gospel, etc. Loel and I joined in at times, I found a pass along card in my purse which we gave to her, Loel told her a little about the Book of Mormon, etc. We tried to get her phone # but she said she'd call the sisters if she wanted to learn more. She kept talking to us for about 25 mins. It was pretty cool.

This is a really sweet Russian family that we visited after the tall ships, taking the sisters from Antwerpen with us as they live kind of far away and it's hard for them to get there on the train. Only problem was, we had to find it without our GPS!!! We followed the Brubakers to the freeway and then used the elders' directions and we made it pretty well. We had a really nice visit with them (although it was was very hot still) and then took a few pictures afterwards.
Now came the fun part - getting back to Antwerpen, which we did, but we got lost trying to find the sister's house with no GPS. It was starting to really cloud up and had gotten very dark (even though it was only 8:00 pm), so it was practically impossible to read the street signs - the sisters don't drive anywhere so they only know the way home on trains, and we were driving around in circles - one time ending up on tram tracks going the wrong way!!! Finally, the sisters said, "There's the train station; we know how to get home from here. Just drop us off and then you can just try to find the freeway home to Brussels." So we did that, both of us praying the whole time that we would make it home okay. I suggested we just drive to a main street and then maybe we could find some signs to the freeway. We actually did just that! Loel started to recognize the area we were in, and all of a sudden, we were on the freeway driving home to Brussels. It was kind of a miracle. It poured buckets on the way home. We had to stop and get fries by our house to take home and eat for the dinner we had missed.

On Sunday we attended a correlation meeting with our wonderful ward mission leader, Brother Nuyens. He is around 72, so dedicated, carefully would review each investigators with the 6 of us missionaries in the meeting, discuss which members should work with each one of them, etc. He speaks no English and we speak no Dutch, so the elders and sisters translated. It was really a pretty special meeting. At the end, Loel asked the elders to translate and he told Brother Nuyans that he had been a bishop and he was very impressed with his dedication to a calling as a ward mission leader. He got kind of emotional and so did Brother Nuyens. At the end of the meeting, Brother Nuyens gave Loel a big hug.

Guess who our first visitors were???? Brad and Emily! This is the happy reunion in the train station with all their backpacks, where we picked them up. I couldn't stop hugging Brad and crying! Emily's looking on, and behind Brad, you can see Tiffany, one of their friends who came with them watching and smiling. Pres Brubaker is so great about having family come to visit the senior couples - we worked hard before they arrived to make sure we were completely caught up on all our work and always keep our cell phones with us in case we're needed.

We took them to the Grand Place, where we take the new missionaries, (which they were very impressed with) and then to the Greek restaurant where we also take the new missionaries. They LOVED the food! Big gyro type things with tons of fries and 5 different kinds of fry sauce. The owner loves missionaries and I think gave us extra portions of fries. We couldn't eat all our food. Course we walked around for a while and then had to get Belgian waffles - again, a big hit.

The next morning we dropped Brad and Em off bright and early at the train station so they could use their Eurail passes one more time and go to Luxembourg free for the day. We also then took Mike and Tiffany to the airport as they were flying home that morning. They gave us the sweetest note as they left, thanking us for being the best host and hostess of their entire trip! (I think we were the only ones!!) This is a picture of the airport - instead of "Park and Ride" it's "Kiss and Ride" here.
We worked at the office today and then came home to make some dinner from Brad and Em when they returned around 9:15 pm to the train station. Except they called while we were waiting to tell us that their train had been delayed because of a big storm we had that night and wouldn't be in for another hour and a half maybe. Then later they borrowed another person's cell phone to call us around 11:00 pm to tell us they were not coming to the train station we thought, but a different one we had never been to.
So we took off pretty worried with our GPS at 11 pm at night into an unknown part of Brussels (not a very good part of town) hoping we could find them - the worst part is trying to find each other at a huge train station when they didn't have a cell phone and we didn't know even where to park or where they might come out. Loel parked illegally, left me in the car, and took off to find them. I was terrified, praying, and in about 1 min, they found each other and returned!!! kind of a miracle, really.
The next day we took them to Antwerpen with us for Zone Conference - they helped us carry in all my boxes of supplies and got to meet lots of our missionaries - plus the Brubakers. It was so fun to introduce them to all our friends! Then Loel took them downtown Antwerpen to hang out for the day while we went to zone conf. It was a great conf again - we loved it, and then we picked them up at the end of the day and went to dinner at a yummy Italian restaurant in Antwerpen that a member is a cook at - but he wasn't there that night. We ate outside and it was great.

Here we are on the balcony of our office building - we had to stop and pick up the zone supplies for the next day that we were taking to Amsterdam. It's about 2.5 hrs away so we left early, got the supplies all set up, got to introduce them to more missionary friends and then we left to all go site-seeing in Amsterdam. We left our car at the church, bought a day pass for the trams, and got on a tram to downtown - it worked great for the whole day and was well worth the 7 euros.

Brad and Em loved Amsterdam, as did we. They loved walking around, and we did that a lot, and loved the canals, the buildings, the feeling, everything. This is just a cool picture along one of our walks.

We went to the Anne Frank house, which was very inspiring and sobering. While we waited in line, Brad and Em walked around, scoping out where we would eat lunch. This is a picture of them returning to meet us in line as we were about ready to go into the Anne Frank house.

Our "Post Card" photo of a canal in Amsterdam.

Standing in front of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. There are always long lines, but they move quickly. We stood in line for about 30-40 minutes and it was worth it. The impact of Nazi Germany on the Netherlands is visible in reminders and museums all over Amsterdam.

Another "Post Card" photo. There are flowers everywhere.

This photo shows the bikes in Amsterdam. Most Dutch cities are like this. We've been told there are more bikes in the Netherlands than cars. I believe it. The streets are small, there is very little parking and there are "millions" of people.

Lots of bikes all over Amsterdam.

In front of the train station and a big tram square in Amsterdam.

A plaque on a wall describing what the Jews had gone through under the Nazi regime. If you can read it, this building was an entertainment center in the old Jewish area of Amsterdam. during WWII, it was turned into a deportation center for thousands of Jews. Most did not not return.

In the Netherlands, there are bike paths in pink brick along all the streets. These bike paths have people zooming by constantly, so you have to make sure you stay off of them. They are "roads" for bikes and they treat them as such. They'll run over you if you don't get out of the way. There are cross walks on them and you're expected to us them. This picture even shows how they have little stoplights for the bikers - the big green light is for the cars, and the little green light is for the bikes. There are places where the bike roads are larger (wider) than the auto roads.

Brad and Em on the tram in Amsterdam.