18-24 September 2010

Here is Anya and two of her boys - they are the family from Russia that we have gotten to know and love. She came last Saturday to Brussels to do some sight seeing with a big group of us - there were 9 missionaries as well as Julie and a friend.

Here are Anya's 3 boys. The family is so welcoming to us whenever we come over to visit. We had a really fun day doing lots of walking all around some of the main historical places in Brussels.

Of course we had to get Belgium waffles - my favorite is with hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Before that, we all sat at an outdoor cafe and had fries, of course. Two very Belgium favorites - fries and waffles! (All low cholesterol.)

This is a monument to the Belgium soldiers in World War I and II.

A cool church we saw as we walked around that day - pretty impressive statues. The detail of the statuary on the churches and cathedrals is amazing. Then you remember that they did this all in the 13th-15th centuries, with primitive tools..An old puppet organ grinder thing on the Grand Place - this is a picture of the lady who operates it, plus Julie, the sister missionaries, and me.

Here are the Andersons, our new senior couple! We picked them up at the airport last Tuesday and spent the next 3 days with them here in Brussels, helping them to get acclimated to Europe! On the 4th day we took them up to Rotterdam in the Netherlands where they will be working as young adult outreach center leaders. They will be wonderful! They are from near Spanish Fork and are very hard working, willing missionaries. He served as a young man here so he knows Dutch and she's learning it. They were happy to let us drive them around as they didn't like the thought of driving in Brussels! The traffic is too wild.

The very night they arrived, we took them up to Dordrecht in the Netherlands for a senior couples dinner. This is the restaurant we went to - it's surrounded by really cool gardens where they make everything from what they grow there - very fresh and good. We had a really nice evening with all 6 senior couples and the Brubakers. I couldn't believe the Andersons stayed awake as long as they did! In the background is an old water tower converted to a hotel.

This is a cool midevil castle called Gravensteen, in Ghent, Belgium, built in the 12th century. We had to go look at an apartment here so we took the Andersons with us and stopped to visit this castle. Ghent is only about 45 minutes from Brussels.

This shows the knight's armour worn back then. They weren't very tall.

A big fireplace in the castle. They are huge, as you can see. The rooms are large, so they would need a roaring fire in the fireplace to heat the rooms.

Going up one of the many dark, steep staircases in the castle. There's another circular staircase that's steeper than this one. There's a rope all the way up to hold on to as you climb.

One of the views from the top of the castle. Ghent is a city of many canals and bridges, and churches, as shown here.

This is a guillotine that I'm looking at. This castle is actually called 'the gloomy castle' because of all the different instruments of torture it shows! I wouldn't let Loel take pictures of any other torture instruments besides this one. The castle was originally built like the castles built during the Crusades in Syria. This one was originally a Duke's castle and then later converted to a prison. It was during the years as a prison that the torture and executions took place.

More of the inside of the castle.

More of Gravensteen.

And another view. The castle was torn down after the 15th century and later rebuilt using the original stone. There are a few walls that go back to the original building in the 11th century.

While in Ghent, a street vendor was selling these cone shaped candies that I've seen a lot in Belgium. Sister Anderson bought some and we thought they were just okay so brought them back to the office elders. Elder Van Doesburg, next to me, is from the Netherlands, and he verified that they are a national favorite - kind of jelly like stuff inside. They actually kind of grow on you.

We spent two full days at zone conferences this week, leaving early in the morning and returning late at night. This is a picture of three of our missionaries singing a number - notice Elder Osmond (Donny's son) on the right.
We were in charge of lunch for 19 people at the leadership conference the first day. We did a potato bar and it was a big hit. The second day a member made a wonderful Indonesian dish called Nasi Goren that we all enjoyed.

This is Sister Hamblin sharing her final testimony at zone conference before she goes home next week.
This was a really wonderful two days of training with Elder Steeri, an area seventy from Norway. He gave really great counsel and advise to our missionaries on more effectively planning, dealing with discouragement and not being too hard on yourselves, and about the importance of knowing if you're doing everything you can as missionaries, being obedient, etc, the rest is in the Lord's hands. We don't "convert", we "invite" people to come to Christ. He talked about effective finding and how there are those individuals who are prepared or are being prepared for the Gospel and our job is to find them. It was excellent counsel.
We had a very busy, full week. Saturday we drove the big office van up to Utrecht with 4 missionaries with us, then on the way home, brought Sister Brubaker home with us. It really poured hard on the way home - winter seems to be coming as it's raining more and getting colder. We stopped in Antwerpen for a baptism of a nice man that the Assistants have been teaching. It was a very nice service and we loved it, of course.

11-17 Sepember 2010

We ended up with 12 people for lunch on Monday at the office. The Brubaker's daughter, Rachel, (on Sis Brubaker's left) is visiting from Philadelphia, and two French sister missionaries (on Sis Brubaker's right) dropped in to pick up supplies.

Elders Owens and Marshall helped me get all my missionary supplies together - behind them are the stacks they piled up as high as they could get them. They were a huge help and saved me lots of time.

A couple of elders came in for legality and threw a going away party for Elder Owens since he'll be leaving on this next transfer.

We had a Zone Training meeting in Antwerpen and then we had some time before another appointment with an investigator, so we did some sightseeing in Antwerpen. This is one of the boats at the maritime museum on the Scheldt River.

This is called the Steen - an old castle, the oldest building in Antwerpen, built in the 12th century, and is now the maritime museum. The boat behind Loel is an old barge that is in the maritime museum.

Across the street from the Steen is an example of an old building next to a new one. The one on the left was built around the beginning of the last century and the one on the right is obviously very new.

Another picture of the different ages of architecture, side-by-side, in Antwerpen. The building in the middle, back, is an old guild house built by the butchers in the 1500's. The guilds were protectionist bodies and political forces for the various trades in Belgium. The buildings in the foreground were built in the early 1900's. The building on the left is undergoing extensive renovation.

This is the front entrance to the Steen.

Afterwards we ate at this restaurant, which was one of many right on the Grote Markt, or the plaza, in old part of town. This is a huge container they gave me for my leftovers! It was a rainy, kind of cold day with bits of sunshine here and there - typical Belgium weather.

Last Sunday we enjoyed more general authorities - Bishop Edgely of the presiding Bishopric and Elder Teixeira of the Area presidency and member of the Seventy, and their wives, spoke to a special stake conference for the Antwerpen stake; but it was in Brussels so we didn't have to travel so far. They gave wonderful talks on the theme of rescuing those who are lost and not jumping off the ship (leaving the Church) if something goes wrong. We sat by Anya, the Russian investigator family, and her two boys. Pres Brubaker was asked to speak and he spoke for about 8 minutes in Dutch and then switched to English. We were very impressed! Just the week before we listened to him give a talk in French. Pretty amazing.

We were up in Antwerpen another night as the sisters asked if I would come and help them teach a new investigator that I had met earlier. Loel got a haircut while up there. I made peanut butter rice krispie treats for the investigator, for the sisters, the elders in the office, and for Anya's family.

The second night we were in Antwerpen we visited Anya's family with Elder Relitz - his companion went on a split with another member. Again, we had a wonderful visit with Anya and her boys. This time I brought up the ingredients to teach her how to make the traditional rice krispie treats with marshmallows. We had a fun time making them together in the kitchen.
Before making the treats, we had a wonderful lesson on family prayer and we gave them a review of the stake conference talks since they didn't understand them all. I'm amazed at how fast her 3 boys are picking up Dutch! Incredible. We had a sweet kneeling prayer at the end with the family. I loved listening to Elder Relitz explain things in Dutch for the boys as I explained them in English to Anya.

We spent a lot of Friday working down in the "cave" (French for cellar), our storage area 6 floors below our building, with the office elders. I told Loel that it's ironic that he has to clean out another basement, like we did at home before we left! This one has been collecting stuff for 15 or 20 years or more and there's a lot to get rid of as we prepare to eventually move the mission home and office to the Netherlands.

4-10 September 2010

Last Saturday, we decided to go down by the Marriott Hotel and become more familiar with the area where Elder Ballard would be staying. We were going to be driving him, Sister Ballard, Elder Rasband, Elder and Sister Causee for four days while they were in Brussels this week. When we parked the car, there was a group unloading restored wagons and beautiful horses for a very small parade. This old Opel pickup looks very much like an old Chevrolet pickup. Opel was a European General Motors company and it's obvious the design was used here also.

This is an old Model A Ford pickup that was used here.

Not far from where we parked is another old church, Saint Catherine's Cathedral.

When we heard Elder Ballard would be staying at the Marriott, I assumed it would have the large drive and plenty of parking by the front door to load and unload passengers. Not so. This is the front door of the hotel and there are three parking places in front.

Paula's standing on a typical downtown street. Barely two lanes wide and I spent four day driving a huge nine passenger van around these streets. If you've read our earlier blogs, you know how bad the traffic is. Elder Causee, who's from Paris, said Brussels traffic is worse than Paris traffic.

This was one of the wagon teams. Big, beautiful horses.

Another team. There were about seven or eight, all equally beautiful.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of these beautiful desserts we ordered at a wonderful French restaurant we went to here in Brussels. They were works of art as well as delicious to eat.

We visited the National Botanical Gardens on our last P-day. They are in Brussels and are huge and beautiful. It's over 220 acres of grass, trees, lakes and a castle. (They even have beehives.) This is the entrance to the gardens.

This was a beautiful castle in the gardens. It was my most favorite part of the whole garden.

Another view of this beautiful castle with the lake around it. There was a bridal party taking pictures here - what more romantic and picturesque setting could you ask for?

There were 13 greenhouses, all connected, each showing a different part of the world with plants from each area. These were some of my favorites - they reminded me of giant honeysuckle flowers.

These were kind of like giant water lilies - very unique. They can support the weight of a small child - about 45 pounds.

More beautiful flowers. This is a water lily flower.

Very cool cactus plant.

These looked like a bouquet of flowers, but they just grew that way.

We were in pretty good company here at this dinner at the mission home with the general authorities who came to visit our mission. Across from us are Elder and Sister Ballard, Elder and Sister Causse (First Quorum of the Seventy), Pres Brubaker, Elder Rasband (Senior President of of the Seventies), President and Sister Staheli (President of the Paris France mission), and us. We came early to help the Brubakers prepare the meal. Sister Brubaker put Loel in charge of the dessert - some kind of fancy chocolate souffle with ice-cream and 3 kinds of berries on top. It was a huge hit and the general authorities kept complimenting Loel on his cooking skills afterwards as well as Sister Brubaker's, as the whole meal was wonderful.

I wish I could describe what it was like to spend 4 days with these amazing people. We drove them to and from the airport, to hotels, and to all their meetings. Usually we had Elder and Sister Causse and sometimes Elder Rasband in our car, and Pres Brubaker and Pres Staheli had the Ballards in theirs. It was sometimes a little stressful to be manuevering a 9 passenger van around the narrow streets and horrible traffic of downtown Brussels, but Loel did it. We kept praying that we wouldn't hit any other cars, pedestrians, or bikers - and we had some close calls. My job was to carry on a conversation while Loel concentrated on the GPS and driving.

Elder Ballard made an immediate connection with Loel as Loel's dad's cousin was his missionary trainer. He loved this companion and mentioned it in one of our meetings - said he got him off to a great start on his mission and for the rest of his life.

We attended most of the meetings with the general authorities, which included one with the France missionaries, one with our entire mission, a member devotional, and a young adult meeting.

We had arranged ahead of time to take a mission picture with the general authorities. This was the sight that greeted us as we walked in with the Brethren into the cultural hall. Our entire mission, all lined up, quiet as a mouse, ready for the picture. They sat down, the photographer snapped the picture and we started our mission conference 10 minutes early. I have never been so proud of our missionaries as they were so respectful, attentive, interested, and asked very insightful questions in the question and answer period at the end. It was an amazing meeting, filled with the spirit and with great counsel for all.

At the end of the meeting, each missionary got to shake hands with all of the general authorities. Elder Rasband whispered to us as we walked by, "Be thinking of a good restaurant you can take us to at the Grand Place - we want the Ballards to see it and to have some Belgian waffles." The Brubakers were staying back to have a mission meeting with all our missionaries, so it was up to us and Pres Staheli to get our party to the Grand Place, find a place to park, find a restaurant, etc. Elder Causse and Rasband walked quickly ahead and found a restaurant. I couldn't believe I was sitting next to Sister Ballard (the sweetest lady you'd ever meet) and having lunch with general authorities at the Grand Place in Brussels!

Here we are, still glowing, after our lunch at the Grand Place. The general authorities had left for another meeting and we were casually walking back to our car, reminiscing on the experience.

We hated to say good-bye as we put them on the Huntsman jet to fly to Frankfurt the next day. They shook our hands, hugged us, and thanked us again and again for our service. We left having our testimonies strengthened that these men are truly men of God.

28 August - 3 September 2010

Last Saturday we visited the city of Antwerpen with Julie, a friend from our ward here. She's a converted Catholic, so she was an excellent guide to some of the Catholic churches. This is Julie and Paula in front of St. Andrews Church.

This a picture of the alter piece in St. Andrews. The alter piece was designed by Peter Paul Rubens, who was born in Antwerpen. He studied in Italy and then returned to Antwerpen. The painting in the alter piece is a copy of the original Rubens. The original was taken to Austria in the 1700's when the anticlerical French revolutionaries de-consecrated the church.

We had never seen a double-decker coach before. This coach is pulled by large draft horses that were used on the farms in Belgium.

This a grotto in an out of the way place at St Paul's Cathedral. It's created in a way to simulate a rocky cliff face and is very dramatic.

Inside the church are a number of paintings by Rubens. This one is the alter piece and the lighting really doesn't do the painting justice.

This wall in St. Andrews is covered with paintings by the Flemish masters, including Rubens and van Dyck.

This is the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerpen. This Church is the largest church in the low countries (Belgium and the Netherlands). The original design had five spires like the one here, but they ran out of money. This spire is the tallest in the low countries at 404 feet. Construction began in 1352 and was completed about 170 years later. The foreground shows the base of the spire not completed.

This is the beginning of a Dutch sandwich we wanted to introduce you to. The Dutch love their bread. A typical breakfast and lunch is bread with sliced meat and/or cheese. The bread may have just a thick layer of butter, or they may put jam on it. They get really creative with their toppings so they may start with a thick coating of peanut butter.

Then they sprinkle on chocolate sprinkles. These are the same sprinkles that we buy in the U.S. to decorate cupcakes. Except they sell them here in 1-2 pound boxes.

You can get sprinkles in a variety of flavors. We like the chocolate. This would be considered a pretty light coating of sprinkles.

Then it's just a matter of eating it. Paula eats hers open-faced. I prefer mine folded. I don't lose as many sprinkles that way.

This is Paula now. As Loel would say, "this is a slow news week," so we show pictures of chocolate sprinkles on bread!
We've actually had some great experiences this week - Loel went out driving around with Pres Brubaker to make sure they know the routes well that we'll be driving the general authorities on - they want to make sure they don't get lost! While they were practicing driving their routes, Sis Brubaker and I were shopping for supplies and going out to lunch to a cute little restaurant we drove by on our way home. We had a great time together.

This is Loel again. Our General Authority visitors will stay at the Marriot Hotel. It's located deep in the center of Brussels in an older area. I expected to see a "normal" Marriot with this big drive, a covered area over the entrance and a lot of space to park lots of cars. Not this one. This Marriot's entrance is right on the sidewalk and there is room in front, on the street, to park three cars while people unload their luggage. The street is this little two lane street with parallel parking on both sides. Very European and very tight spaces.

Tues we had a wonderful district meeting with some very spiritual role-playing with Loel as the investigator and the Assistants as the missionaries - done in front of our district. Even though it's a contrived situation, it was still a very spiritual and moving moment, to watch these missionaries so skillfully and spiritually handling any of the objections that Loel would bring up. It was wonderful to watch.
Then we visited Anya's family again and gave them a little lesson on prayer. I brought our family picture which they just loved and Loel brought pictures of the airplanes he flew that he gave to the boys to keep. I made rice krispie squares, which they had never had and they LOVED! She wants me to show her how to make them next time we come. It was a wonderful visit as we're feeling more and more comfortable with each other. As we drove away, both she and her husband stood at their door, waving until we drove away.
Then we got to go to dinner at a member's home with the sister missionaries! It was our 2nd dinner apt and it was a delightful evening, with Rene, the member, who made us a wonderful meal. He was baptized over a year ago and is preparing to go to the temple in a week. He has such a strong testimony and a love of the Gospel - it's wonderful to be around him.

Another highlight was attending part of a leadership meeting held at the mission home for the zone leaders and Assistants and one set of sisters. I helped with the meal. It was very inspiring to listen to the Pres and these young missionaries talk about how they can improve their teaching. They showed part of a new DVD called The District 2 - which is a real life filming of a district of missionaries in San Diego - they film them planning, praying, studying, teaching, driving, baptizing, etc. They film the missionaries talking about their perspective on things and they interview the investigators and you get their side of the story. It's incredibly well done and very moving. They have some real serious missionaries and some kind of goofy ones - it made for a great discussion after about what things they did well, and what things maybe not so well.
It was an excellent meeting. As we drove away, I said to Loel, "Someday soon we're going to look back on our experiences here and say, 'those were some pretty good times." He agreed.