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.