23-29 October 2010

Here we are on our fun P-day activity, in Oostende, a resort town on the coast in Belgium - about 2.5 hours from Brussels. It's right on the North Sea and on this day it was cold, windy and, as you can see, it was raining! Here we are at the pier with Andy, who came with us and the Assistants.

It wasn't just raining, it was POURING!! Here are the Assistants, huddled under one umbrella on the pier, and me, next to them under my umbrella. You can see how wet we were getting. Our pants, skirt, shoes, socks, coats, everything was getting soaked.

Here are the Assistants, wanting to document this event! Elder Brockbank, on the right, is from our home stake, and Elder Relitz is on the left. Elder Brockbank insisted on running to the end of the pier - quite a ways away. Andy went with him; neither of them had an umbrella as Elder Relitz, Loel and I returned to the car.

We were so wet, it was comical. We couldn't help but laugh - notice the rain on my coat, my hair; even my umbrella was leaking!

A cool boat went by as us crazy people were standing on the pier in the pouring rain. And then the thunder started.

Notice Loel holding down his umbrella - several times the wind blew so hard, it blew his umbrella inside out!

This was inside a neat church in the downtown area of Oostende - lots of stain glass windows. We went inside to escape the rain and to look around.

Here is the outside of that church, with a ferris wheel in front of it - kind of a blending of the old and the new. By now it had started to hail!

But we were hungry and had to stop at this stand and get frites (fries) and olliebollens - a Netherlands treat usually served around Christmas time. When the elders saw they had it, they insisted we had to get some.

We were not disappointed. They're kind of a deep fried doughy thing with powdered sugar on them, plus we opted for the chocolate sauce, too. They were delicious!!! We can't wait to have more. We then drove home, having a great discussion on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with the Elders and Andy. Andy used to be Muslim so it was really interesting.

It was Elder Brockbank's birthday, so we celebrated at our Monday lunch at the office. I made a sort of pecan pie thing with whipped cream and chocolate sauce for his cake, putting a couple candles in it before we cut it. They seemed to enjoy it.

We spent two days up in the Amsterdan/Den Haag area this week at our temple Zone Conferences. The temple is in the little town of Zoetermeer. Half of the mission came each day, then we went to this chapel, had lunch, and had our Zone Conference after. It was wonderful to spend those two mornings with all of our missionaries in the temple. It was all in Dutch! This is a picture of the door going into the chapel - it's a rented space, in a building, in a shopping mall! You'd never guess a church was there - it's up on the 2nd floor. You have to park in a parking garage for the shopping mall in order to get to the rented chapel. The parking gives three hours free. After that, it's $4.20 an hour.

I was asked to give a 10 minute talk on the importance of referrals, since I'm the referral person who sends them out, gathers the results, and sends on referrals they give me, that go to other missions.

The Brubakers asked if we wanted to go to dinner the night we were up there (we stayed over two nights in an empty apartment near Amsterdam). We went to a cute little Italian restaurant that was very good. This is a picture of our fancy chocolate souffle dessert - very tasty. Dinners in Europe take a whole evening sometimes, as they are not rushed at all - this probably took 2 hours at least, but it was very enjoyable.

Here we are at the end of our delicious meal. Sister Brubaker and I had this homemade ravioli with pears, cheese, asparagus, and other exotic things - very different yet very tasty! After dinner we had to drive over an hour to get back to our apartment so it was a late night. Then up again, fighting early morning traffic for 1.5 hours to get back to the temple. Traffic jams are a fact of life around here - we spend a lot of time in them. If the GPS says you should get there in 50 minutes, you usually double the time.

This is a mission tradition to honor the birthday people at each zone conference. You will notice Loel up there on the far left. Each person is in the spotlight for 1 minute while anyone who wants to jump in with anything nice to say that they appreciate about this person. Many, many nice things were said about Loel - he's spiritual, warm, funny, selfless, and on and on. It was very heartwarming.

16-22 October 2010

We decided to take in some World War II history and catch some of the fall colors on our last P-day, and so we drove to the far east side of Belgium to Bastogne, right near the Luxembourg border. Every little town in this part of Belgium has their own World War II tank. Remnants of the Battle of the Bulge.

Bastogne was the focal point of the Battle of the Bulge toward the end of World War II. Without going into great detail, U.S. troops were resting at Bastogne and the thought was that the end of the war was near. Germany attacked in early December 1944, knowing that the U.S. was not expecting it. The early days were bad for the U.S., but the troops resisted until General Patton was able to break through the German lines and bring relief to Bastogne. In a period of less than one month, Germany lost 100,00 troops and the U.S. lost 50,000 troops, 19,000 killed. The front line at that time was about 95 miles long, north to south.

Outside Bastogne, a memorial has been built. It's probably 5 stories high, in the shape of a star and open. The names of all the states are inscribed around the top. Near the memorial is a very well managed museum. The museum was the dream of a man who grew up in Bastogne during World War II. The museum is very well done and had the support of both the German and U.S. Generals, at the Battle of the Bulge.

This is from the top of the memorial. The city of Bastogne is in the background.

After leaving Bastogne, we headed off through the forests on little country roads so we could see the fall colors. Unfortunately, they hadn't turned too much yet, but it was still a very beautiful drive. We went through this little town called La Roche de Ardennes, and this is what we saw there! A really cool old castle - mostly kind of in ruins, but still very cool - we would have liked to stop but had too many things we had to get home for. I want to go back as they do let you walk around this medieval castle.

On this trip back, we drove by Namur and to this abbey called the Floreffe Monastary. This is one of the main buildings there. Something was going on inside that we couldn't understand the signs for, but walked inside anyway.

A cool peacock we saw on one of the walls by the abbey.

This is the main gate going into this abbey. Inside they had some booths set up, people selling things, kids playing games, food, etc. We timidly walked around, wondering if we were crashing a private party. We talked to a lady at a booth who spoke a little English and found out it was a kind of fundraiser, so we bought a piece of an apple pie tart that was really good. By the time we got home, we had been driving for quite some time, but it was really beautiful scenery, and actually some hills and valleys!

We had stake conference on Sunday and afterward Loel ordained Joseph to an elder. It was a beautiful blessing and Andy was there there, too. Joseph introduced Andy to the Church and baptized him. Our stake president was there, also. He gave Joseph some beautiful advice after the ordination - told him the first thing he should do with his priesthood should be to give his wife a blessing. He also talked to Andy about serving a mission, which Andy wants to do. It was truly one of the highlights of our mission to be able to take part in this.

Here is his wife, Grace, and their darling little baby boy. This is the baby that they asked Loel to bless back in July. Grace is the one who cuts our hair. They are a stalwart family in the ward - they are wonderful missionaries and love having the full-time missionaries over. After the ordination, she kept exclaiming, "I'm so happy, I'm so happy!" Now they can prepare to go to the temple.

We've spent a lot of time and late nights this past week at the Spy House, a 5 story apartment the church was renting, but is now closing down. We were given almost all of the furniture and everything in it for our missionaries, so we've been over there, packing boxes of stuff, taking apart furniture, bringing the elders over to help move things, etc. Two other senior couples came down from the Netherlands to help us move things up there in our two vans to a storage unit. We were working from 10 am and finally returned home at 9:00 pm, an example of one long day. Tiring, but rewarding as we have lots of nice furniture for the missionaries as they need things and some we could use to furnish an apartment for ourselves when we finally move to the Netherlands.

9-15 October 2010

This is the cool train station in the middle of Antwerpen - it used to be a palace or something! It's pretty grandiose for a train station.

Last P-day we were trying to find this chateau in a little town south of Brussels in the French speaking part of the country - we got lost, and had to stop and take a picture - it was really pretty, even though we were lost! The GPS took us down this little one lane road that seemed to be in the middle of no where. Our destination was just around the next bend.

We found it! This cool chateau that was having a Scottish medieval festival. This is the entrance.

Of course they had to have a bagpipe band. Very cool to listen to. The day couldn't have been more beautiful - Indian summer weather in the 70's, gorgeous scenery everywhere.

This is an owl that Loel loved. There were also lots of cool hawks that were trained to fly around as their owners would call them. This is the first time I've seen owls used as hunters.

Some fancy guy on a horse. Loel said this festival reminded him of a medieval mountain man rendezvous - everyone in costumes, hanging out in tents, cooking over open fires, etc. Except the funny thing was, they all spoke French! And the weapons were quite a bit more primitive.

A cool archer. If you look closely at the arrow, the tip is blunted and he is shooting across a moat at some people.

More French people hanging out in mountain men costumes, pretending to be Scottish medieval people. They had a lot of artisans here. One couple was making willow baskets and carefully trimming the willow so it could be easily woven and because it was so exact in thickness and width, the baskets were very tight. They had a blacksmith, with a small forge, a seller of reindeer skins and a lot of sellers of "stuff".

One day we went to Kortrijk to inspect a missionary apartment - it's way far west. While there, we stopped at a Beguine convent and saw these cute little school kids all dressed up on some kind of a historical excursion.

I don't think this convent is used as such any more, but it was like a quiet little town in the middle of Kortrijk. With me are Elders Johnson and Leash.

Notice the cute little alleys, white brick buildings and red tile roofs. Very picturesque. And don't I look European? Notice the shoulder purse, the scarf, and the black tights. Everyone's wearing them!

Close to Kortrijk is the town of Ypres (French) or Ieper (Dutch), which was a town completely destroyed during World War I. The entire town was rebuilt around 1920 and they tried to rebuild it just as it was before. This is the town hall, now made into an In Flanders Field Museum. A very small part of the Town Hall (originally built in the 13th century) remained after the war and was incorporated into the new Town Hall. It's said that in this part of Belgium, there was not a square centimeter of ground that was not torn up by exploding shells.

This is the Menin Gate, a monument to 55,000 unidentified or unknown British soldiers who died here . Each night at 8:00 pm, there is a Last Post where they play a bugle to honor those lost in war.

A view of the town of Ieper, looking down from the Menin Gate. The history books say not one stone in the whole city was left after the war. It's unbelievable that they rebuilt the city in the medieval style.

One of hundreds of military cemeteries, some quite small, throughout the whole region. Now it's all beautiful farmland. There are monuments, memorials, and cemeteries everywhere. Very somber feeling to the area. Thousands and thousands of men died here - Germans, British, Canadians, Australians, Americans, etc.

When you hear the story of the story of the soldiers coming out of the trenches on Christmas Eve to celebrate Christmas with their enemies, it was along this front. Not actually in this area, but not far away.

This is a monument to the Canadian soldiers who died - in a very picturesque, serene countryside. This is the site of a battle site called Sanctuary Woods, or Hill 62. Paula mentioned that there is some of the feeling of Gettysburg here. Very peaceful, green farmland. However, it's much, much bigger than Gettysburg.

We picked up a new van in Rotterdam this morning. It's bigger than the last one! Loel is going to enjoy driving it around the narrow streets of Belgium and the Netherlands, dodging bicycles, pedestrians, and traffic! Luckily we have a smaller car for every day use.

Lest anyone think that all we do is sight see, we had a very nice meeting with Anya's family with the Assistants this week. We set a day to pray and fast with her and her boys, that their family would be able to join the church. It was a very sweet evening, filled with the spirit in their humble home with her 3 boys.

We also received a letter from Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband, thanking us for our service in helping drive them around during their visit here last month. They also thanked us for helping out with the meal at the mission home! Signed by both of them, this is something we will always cherish.

2-8 October 2010

This week we were invited over to Joseph's apartment for African food. He is a recent convert in our ward, from Gambia. He lives in a one room apartment with his roommate, Baks (pronounced Bugs). It was a party! Even though it was literally a studio apartment near the middle of town, there were about 15 people there at different times, including the Assistants, the sisters, and us - 6 missionaries total.

Before the dinner, we had a little time to visit a diamond museum here in Antwerpen, which is supposed to be the diamond capital of the world. We talked to a man who was demonstrating how they polish diamonds and he was very negative about the whole diamond business, what a racket it is, how you always get ripped off whenever you buy diamonds, how he hates his job, etc. Not much of a salesperson for buying diamonds in Antwerpen! He said never buy diamonds unless you have a trusted friend who works in the business. So any thoughts we had of picking up a diamond or two while here, went out the window.

Here's Joseph, holding a friend's baby, welcoming us to his home.

Joseph and Baks made two dishes this night. The first (pictured above) was rice with a peanut sauce and chicken wings - and very hot peppers.

The second dish has a delicious kind of sauce with chicken wings in it and fried kasava root, then poured over rice and put in a big bowl. You all grab a spoon and dig in! It was really fun and very delicious. Kasava root is about 6-8 inches long and about two inches in diameter. It grows like a potato and tastes a little like potato with a hint of coconut.

You can see the two sister missionaries and Elder Relitz here, along with another friend of Joseph's. They put a couple of red hot peppers in it (Scotch bonnets) and they cautioned us to be careful of those. Elder Relitz wanted to try just a little of the juice from one with his rice - but it was so hot and spicy that his face turned red and he could hardly talk, had to motion for his companion to get him some milk fast!

Loel got a big kick out of the cute baby (Owa) that was being passed around as everyone wanted to hold her. We had one round of food, and then Baks came home and started making another round. The other missionaries all had to leave for appointments, but Joseph begged us to stay for the 2nd round, so we did. It was similar food and again, very delicious. We were there for 3 hours! I told Loel that we probably looked a little out of place - the only old white people there! Most Africans speak English, but when they're all together, they speak their own language and the Belgium girls that were there often spoke Dutch, so we heard a myriad of tongues during the evening. It was a really fun, cultural experience.

We really enjoyed general conference last Saturday and Sunday. It felt kind of strange to be watching it over the internet at 10 pm at night! We kind of take conference for granted in Utah, as we can watch it on TV on numerous channels, or listen to it on the radio, or watch it on the internet. Here, if you have internet, you can watch it live at 6 PM and 10 PM. If not, you wait until it's re-broadcast at the Stake Center. We have many in our stake that drive for close to two hours, one way, to watch conference.

We went to Antwerpen for Loel to watch the priesthood session that was re-broadcast on Sunday morning and I went out with the Sister Missionaries to visit an inactive member. She made us Belgium waffles, hot off the grill, with powdered sugar and whipped cream. We had a very nice visit and Sister Fritz felt like it really helped that I was there, as she opened up more than she had in the past. Maybe it helped that we were close to the same age. I hope I can go back.

We had kind of a wild day this week driving to Leiden, in the Netherlands, for a leadership conference. I had boxes and boxes of supplies, plus was supposed to take notes, plus had to help with lunch. Eveline (the Brubakers' helper) cooked two crockpots of sweet and sour chicken, so the day before, Loel and I did the food shopping, brought the food to the mission home for her to cook , and then picked it up at 7:15 am the next morning. We then drove about 2.5 hrs to Leiden, through two bad traffic jams which made us late. Loel dropped me off at the church there, and headed up to Amsterdam, in the van, to pick up Elder Pankratz, then to Almere to the storage unit to get a bed, then way up to Heerenveen, one of the farthest towns north we have missionaries in, delivered the bed, then back to Amsterdam to take E. Pankratz home, then back to Leiden to pick me up. Then we had to drive home. We figured out he had driven 9 1/2 hrs that day! Needless to say, we were tired; especially him.

25 September-1 October 2010

This was the last lunch for Elder Owens and Elder Wells. Elder Owens has been the Mission Secretary and Elder wells has been an Assistant to the President since we arrived. Both have been transferred to Zone Leader assignments. Notice the chocolate cake with chocolate sprinkles - Elder Owens' request.

These are our newest missionaries arriving on Tuesday morning. Elders Nielsen, Bjork and Benson and Sisters Ence and Perry. They are a great group of enthusiastic people. Both the sisters have already graduated from college.

We had three missionaries depart this week. Sister Hamblin and Elder and Sister Salden. The Saldens are a unique couple as he's from the Netherlands so really understands the Dutch way of doing things. They've been so valuable helping with all the apartments, bikes, etc that is needed. The missionaries love them so much.

We were invited to drive south of Brussels to pick apples. As we were driving, we passed this entrance to a small, old chateau. The entrance was open and they were mowing the grass, so they invited us to walk inside and look at the chateau.

Across the road from the entrance to the chateau is this old hand forged wrought iron fence. The original road to the chateau is behind Sister Brubaker and Paula, and it appeared that this fence was the boundary to the chateau.

This is the original tree lined lane into the chateau.

The chateau with what could be the remnants of a moat in the foreground. Next weekend this will be the site of a Scottish medieval festival.

The countryside is charming and so different from Belgium to the north of Brussels. The country is divided culturally, but it also seems to be divided topographically too. The landscape is just so different.

We finally reached the orchard. Impossible to do without a GPS. Paula needed to sample the apples before she could decide which variety she preferred. She settled on Suntan, a variety unfamiliar to us, but very tart and tasty. My preference was Jonagold.

Sister Brubaker and Paula in the orchard.

I'm used to orchards with trees tall enough to require ladders. All the trees here were short enough that we could pick from the ground.

They provided these little carts to pull through the orchard as you pick your apples. They had little carts like we used or carts big enough to hold 4-5 boxes of apples. It was a beautiful, sunny day (unusual), the drive was gorgeous through the countryside, and it was a great escape after a very busy week.
With transfer weeks like this, we are up early to the airport, helping with lunch for the new missionaries, getting missionaries to the train station to travel to their new areas, helping with dinner the night before the departing missionaries leave, taking part in the testimony meeting at the end, back to the airport early the next day, etc. It's always bitter sweet to have to say good-bye, but also so nice to have the opportunity to get to know the new missionaries just coming in. We are always in awe of each new group that comes in - they are so prepared and ready to serve.