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.