20-26 November 2010

Last Sunday we attended a baptism in St. Niklaas and were invited to Sonny's house afterwards for Indian food. He's the ward mission leader and does an amazing job. He joined the church about 3 years ago, married Saskia, this Belgium woman with 2 kids, and they've been sealed in the temple and are so faithful. All the missionaries love Sonny. He made us a delicious meal and kept telling us over and over what an honor it was to have us (and Sis Brubaker who was with us) in his home. We enjoyed the afternoon so much with these sweet members.

The senior couples in the mission all got together at the mission home on Tuesday for our Thanksgiving dinner. Sis Brubaker always sets such a beautiful table. We all contributed something - Loel and I bought the turkey at the base as it's difficult to find one around here. We had such a good time, sitting around the table after dinner, sharing things we were thankful for. We hung around all evening, enjoying each other's company and laughing a lot.

We got another new car!! This is our third new car since we've been here! It pays to have Loel in charge of cars! I like this car a lot - it's a little bigger than the others and has that brand new smell. I love waiting in the lobby of the car dealer's while Loel spends about an hour checking it all out and trading in the old one. I drink hot chocolate and type in my journal and relax.

After picking up the new car, we met the Brubakers in Delft, a cool city in the Netherlands, for a little outing. This was a neat mosaic, done all in Delft blue tile, on a building we noticed as we drove by.

Delft is one of my favorite cities in the Netherlands. It's just a quaint town with a really great feeling. The center of Delft, like all other towns, has a big town square with old churches, lots of shops, town halls, etc. This is called the new church - even though it was built around 1375! That's pretty old to be considered new. We wandered around the shops, stopped at a bagel place and got lunch, and just enjoyed the afternoon.

Delft is famous for its Delftware porcelain. This is one of the factories where they make it. We went in for a demonstration and watched the artists hand painting everything. It was fascinating. The porcelain is beautiful and very expensive.
After leaving Delft we headed up to Leiden, where we would spend Thanksgiving the next day. We first went to the chapel there and set up the table and brought in all the food for the dinner. We made lots of food on Tuesday and brought all the extras on Thursday - great plan!

We stayed in one of the Brubaker's favorite bed and breakfast places in Leiderdorp, a town nearby. This is the little balcony off of our room - you can see a canal in the background. During the night we could hear the barges going by.

This is another view from our balcony of the canal. I watched a barge go by and a jogger was keeping up with it. They don't move very fast.

This home was recently remodeled and the rooms were so pretty, spacious, so light, all light colors except for the splashes of bright colors in the beautiful art work they had in each room, as you can see above our bed.

We loved relaxing here after a busy day - we even had a nice flat screen TV which we enjoyed watching some English stations. We had driven to Den Haag the night before with the Brubakers to a wonderful Argentinian restaurant they love there - we had steak and potatoes! Plus this dessert called "Chocolate chocolate chocolate." Some choc cheesecake, choc mousse, and choc ice-cream - all outstanding!

This is the breakfast that greeted us in the morning - traditional Dutch breakfast of hot bread, meat and cheeses, bowl of fresh cut up fruit, fresh squeezed orange juice, hot chocolate, a hot hard boiled egg, and lots of other bread toppings, like chocolate sprinkles, of course. It was wonderful.

This is what the outside of the house looked like where the B & B was. I think it was built in 1923

After breakfast we got to attend a special program put on every Thanksgiving in Leiden, honoring the pilgrims who actually lived in Leiden for 11 years before they sailed on the Mayflower to America. They loved it in the Netherlands and were accepted and embraced, but were afraid their kids were becoming too acclimated in the Dutch culture and losing some of their own so they left.
This is Pieterskerk, the church where our program was and where the pilgrims attended church. The Pilgrims built a little community in the area of this church and there is now a Pilgrim museum owned and run by an American that's considered the expert on the Pilgrims.

Abigail Adams (John Adams was the first Ambassador to the Netherlands), on entering the church, wrote the following: "I would not omit to mention that I visited the church at Leyden, in which our forefathers worshipped when they fled from hierarchical tyranny and persecution. I felt a respect and veneration upon entering the doors, like what the ancients paid to their Druids."

I loved this big, beautiful, old church, I think a lot because it wasn't a gaudy Catholic one. It is a protestant church and the program was very inclusive with many different churches being represented - Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic, even a Jewish rabbi, all taking part in the program, along with wonderful musical numbers mixed in. Some we got to sing to. It was very patriotic feeling as we sang American the Beautiful and God Bless America - mostly Americans were there. We all got to sing a rousing rendition of "God of our Fathers" with the organ in the background. It was a lovely program and very emotional.
Pres Brubaker tried to get our church on the program but didn't have any luck. He'll try again. We talked with the organizers and they have been doing this for years and it's obvious they take ownership for the program and exercise complete control. President Brubaker talked with one lady that said that change comes slowly and it make take some time, but we my be able to be able to participate eventually. Since their point is a celebration of religious freedom, we'll see how long it takes to include the Mormons.

We were there with all 9 of our district leaders and the assistants and the Brubakers. I felt so blessed to be there - to really experience the very beginning of our country and the place where the pilgrims started off. I felt like we were able to experience the true Thanksgiving - it was a day I will never forget. I will have many years of feasts with the family, as I already have; this was such a unique opportunity for us to be here in Leiden where it all began.

I loved this paragraph written by Thomas Boyleston Adams on the first Thanksgiving. It was on our program:

"For one brief moment of Indian summer, that gives each fall promise of another spring, on that first Thanksgiving red man and white sat down together in peace and cheerfulness. The golden afternoon arrested the spirits of all men. Savage competition was for a moment stilled like the sea currents resting at full flood before they are seized with the madness of the ebb. Freeborn American and freedom-seeking European, under the same magical sky, shared equal plenty, rejoiced in hope, forgot the miserable past and perched on the narrow edge of an unmeasured land, cut off from the custom by ocean and the shock of new ideas, dared to believe in the brotherhood of man and a loving God. It was but a moment. And Bradford put it in words of immortal measure, 'As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation."

I loved the little cobblestone streets around the church. This is one of them all decorated for Christmas.

And here we are afterwards, having our second Thanksgiving feast with our missionaries at the Leiden chapel. Everyone loved it. Loel and I and Sis Brubaker cleaned up while the district leaders received their training from the President and the Assistants.

It's been a good week. We had an interesting experience today in the office. We got a call telling us that 4 elders were stranded in the Brussels airport, having missed their connection here that would take them home. So they needed a place to stay for 24 hours. Loel and the office elders picked them up at the airport, brought them to the office, had them phone their families to let them know they wouldn't be home today after all, took them to our favorite kebop place for lunch, and then Loel dropped them off at the Grand Place for a few hours, as they wanted to experience Brussels! They had been serving in the Baltic States mission - Estonia and other exotic countries. They said Brussels was beautiful compared to some of their cities that used to be communist - lots of concrete gray apartment buildings. We'll be returning them to the airport in the morning, for their happy reunion with their families, one day late. They'll spend the night with the office elders and some French elders' apartment nearby. They looked really tired and I asked if they wanted a nap and they said, no way, we want to experience Brussels!

16-19 November 2010

We don't have many pictures this week since we just posted our blog a few days ago, but this is one of me and Sister Hofman, one of our senior couple missionaries. This is in the town they live in, Deventer, which is 3 hours north of us in the Netherlands. We drove up there early one morning to switch cars with them and while there, they took us on a little walk around their town. This is their little city centrum. We loved their town - the little shops, the cobblestone streets, the friendly shopkeepers who all spoke good English, the bakeries, etc.

We especially loved their big, huge apartment!! This is part of it here. They are in charge of a young adult outreach center and the whole downstairs of their big apartment is where their young adult kids meet a couple of times a week. The elders also use their center for teaching investigators at times. Their apt is newly remodeled and beautiful and HUGE!! We were pretty envious. Upstairs they have 4 bedrooms and two huge bathrooms, and an office area. They have big windows looking out on their cute street. They can walk to their cute downtown area where they grocery shop, go to bookstores, tailors, bakeries, sandwich shops, etc. Their apartment is so light and nice, we loved it! They are the sweetest couple.

Just thought we'd throw in a few pictures from last week - the Grand Place at night is pretty impressive - even in the rain.

Here it is again, the town hall at the Grand Place, in Brussels.

More windmills at Kinderdijk.

This is the Amsterdam harbor we saw on our canal boat ride last week.

6-15 November 2010

We're always fascinated with the flowers around here. Belgians LOVE flowers - check out this big planter box, just on a street corner, full of mums.

The Brubakers told us about a farmers market right by their house so we went. It was rainy, but not too bad. This is just some of the flowers they sell - they sold everything else you can imagine - Moroccan food, olives, clothes, bakery goods, seafood, etc. It was lots of fun. We bought some delicious Moroccan bread, humus, bakery goods, etc.

These are the three sister missionaries in our ward and Anne Marie, a woman they taught who got baptized. She was a really golden contact who was introduced by her best friend, next to her, who's a member. Her best friend's dad baptized her. It was a wonderful service with her bearing a beautiful testimony at the end of it.

After the baptism we went to Katie and Andrew's apartment, up 5 flights of stairs, for dinner with the sisters. We brought the pasta sauce and bread, the others brought the rest.
The sister on the end was in a threesome for about 2 weeks - she's from Hungary, a new missionary, and knows 5 languages.

These are our five departing missionaries who recently left us. Elder Relitz, in the middle, was one we got really close to as he was in the office a lot. We enjoyed their final evening with them at the mission home. I got kind of emotional as I had to say good-bye the next day at the airport.

I don't know if this picture really captures the green moss that is everywhere because it's so moist here. These are the president's front stairs - notice how green the brick is.

We had our second group of visitors come!!! This is our apartment, turned into a dormitory with 4 mattresses on the floor for Dustin, his daughter, Hadley, Carin and Heather. You could hardly walk through the little living room. They seemed surprised at how small our apartment was.

They arrived from Germany on a Thurs night. This is our first full day together. We were headed to see a castle in Gent, but got a call from some of our elders whose apartment had been broken into the night before, so we changed plans as we were only about 30 mins from them, and went out to help them out by giving them some cash, as it got stolen, etc. It was actually kind of interesting to be able to show the kids what kinds of things we do, meet the missionaries, see a missionary apartment, etc. Afterwards we went to this little convent village place in Kortrijk to show them as it's so quaint and picturesque.

Next stop was Brugge. Of course we had to go on a canal ride, which we all loved.
Right at the end of the canal ride it started to rain. We had left all the umbrellas in the car. So we got kind of soaked.

But the rain didn't stop us from getting olliebollens with powdered sugar on them! Everyone loved them.

One day we took them to the office to show them the things that we do - they were so interested and cute in their enthusiasm for our work here - took lots of pictures, videos, etc. Then we had to take them to the kebap place down the street for lunch, which we all enjoyed. After lunch we went for a drive around Brussels to let them see the sights. Brussels is a very visual city, with as much diversity in architecture and neighborhoods as there is in the ethnic mix here.

This is a beautiful little garden with statues all around it, fountain in the middle, close to the Royal Palace - it's called the Petite Sablon. It was designed as a children's garden. We loved it.

This is a cathedral, we think called Notre Dame (not the one in Paris), that you can see is across the street from the Petite Sablon - the gardens are in the front.

It rained the entire day!!! Never stopped. But we just walked around with umbrellas and drove around to lots of sites. The Brubakers were so kind to offer to let us use their van instead of the huge 9 passenger van we were going to use, so driving and parking was much easier.

Belgium waffles with hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream was a must. We found a store awning so we could stand under it and put down our umbrellas to be able to eat our waffles - they're kind of messy but so good.

We planned to get to the Grand Place with some daylight left but also wanted to see it at night. Here's Carin and Heather in front of the historic 800 year-old town hall. You can see how wet it was with the reflection of the lights off the wet cobblestones.

It was so fun to bring the kids to our ward in Antwerpen where they met our missionaries, ward members, and investigators. Loel and I taught the Sunday School lesson and had a really big class. We asked Dustin to participate. Carin went to the Young Women's with Hadley so she could see how it was in Europe - she had quite a time there!! Heather came with me to RS and loved it as Sis De Groot translated for us. This is a picture of a really cool restaurant where we met the Brubakers on our way up to the Netherlands.

This restaurant is small, but we were able sit a table right by the window. President and Sister Brubaker found this little restaurant and we felt fortunate to find a little window in their schedule that we could introduce the kids to them and spend some time with them eating lunch.

After we left the restaurant, we wanted to visit the windmills at Kinderdijk. We didn't know the road would take us to a ferry, but this was an added bonus to our drive. It was late in the afternoon, but it really wasn't as dark as it appears in the picture.

Kinderdijk is a "must see". There are 19 working windmills here. In other places you won't see more than two or three at a time. It was late in the afternoon, but it was still pleasant and we could see the windmills just fine.

We spent Sunday night in an empty apartment near Amsterdam, so we were able to get to Amsterdam earlier in the morning. We parked at the Amsterdam chapel and took a tram to the train station. Near the train station we were able to get a boat to tour the canals of Amsterdam. Amsterdam has about 60 miles of canals. This is from inside the boat.

Along the canal banks, there are hundreds of house boats parked along the bank. They ride their bikes to the boat and park them along side. Some have a smaller boat that they can travel away from the boat. If look closely at this picture you'll see the top is kind of like a patio. There are plants and you can see a barbecue grill in the center of the boat.

This is the last shot of Amsterdam from a bridge over one of the many canals. this was taken close to the Anne Frank House and Carin and Heather were in the museum, so they weren't in the picture.

We did some shopping most every place we went. We walked a good bit around Amsterdam, stopping in many little shops to buy licorice and Stroopwaffles (strope-waffles). Licorice is a big deal here, with many different types - salty, sweet, etc. Stroopwaffles are 2 thin waffle-like cookies with caramel in the middle. I haven't met anyone who didn't like them.

We looked for a place to eat and ended up eating at McDonald's - all except Dustin. He said he wasn't going to eat something in Amsterdam that he could eat at home. They did have some variations on the menu that you wouldn't find in Utah.

We dropped the kids off at the airport this morning and realized as we drove away that this was the second week of saying goodbye to those we love - our missionaries last week and our family this week. This is one of the hard parts about being here, but we feel so blessed that we've had an opportunity to spend time with our family and share some of the things we do and let them feel the spirit of the missionaries and the members here in Belgium.

30 October-5 November 2010

Our last P-day was spent with our district in Brussels at this beautiful Chinese Pavilion and Japanese Tower, built by King Leopold around the early 1900's to encourage Asian trade with Belgium. The fall colors were absolutely gorgeous!! This is the Chinese Pavilion.

And this is the Japanese Tower.

Our assistants, enjoying one of their last P-days together on the grounds on these beautiful sites on a gorgeous fall day.

This was my favorite garden at the Japanese Tower. The colors were superb.

More of the gardens.

This gives a more close-up of the elaborate architecture on the Chinese Pavilion.

Inside the Chinese Pavilion - very elaborate, beautiful mirrors - here we are taking pictures of ourselves in the mirrors. This particular building was built with large, open rooms hoping that someone would open a restaurant here. It would have to be a huge restaurant.

Again, the Chinese Pavilion inside. I'm listening to my little audio guide as I wander around.

This is the park by our house that we sometimes walk through in the mornings. I wanted to catch some of the fall colors.

Me jogging in our beautiful park.

This is actually one of the roads in our park, covered completely with leaves.

And more . . .

A pretty view from our apartment balcony.

A very foggy day in Brussels - the view from our office window! We haven't had much fog, but on this day we could barely see the buildings across the street - probably less than 50 yards.

These are all 14 of the sisters in our mission, together in the mission office for a sisters' training. i helped with the lunch and the dinner. They spent the night in the mission home and had a great time together. They are incredibly talented, cute, and amazing missionaries.

I loved this pretty fall garden we happened to walk by one day. It was the back of a restaurant in a town called Diest about 45 mins from Brussels.

We got a new car this week! It's a an Opal Meriva and it's brand new and pretty cool! We drove to Rotterdam to pick it up, trading in an older one. The Andersons, another senior couple, also got a new car the same day. This is one of the benefits of being in charge of the cars in the mission. Actually the car we've been driving is the second oldest car in the mission. We will have this car for about two weeks, until we take delivery of another new one. Then we'll have another new car to drive - until January when we get two more new ones.

We were supposed to have a baptism last Sunday that didn't happen, which was sad, but we still have hopes for this individual. We also spent one day driving furniture around to two missionary apartments in Belgium, delivering things and visiting with the elders. One set of elders was in Gent and we delivered two lamps, which improved the lighting in their apartment dramatically! We then went to lunch with them and had a delightful visit as they told us about their mission so far, different areas they've been in, etc. They had both served in both the Netherlands and in Belgium and loved them both for different reasons. The countries are very different, but both very cool places to serve.

We also got invited to a very nice dinner at a member's home in Antwerpen who are stalwarts in the ward. He's a sealer in the Den Haag temple here. It was fascinating to listen to their conversion stories, 35 years ago. Almost all the conversion stories I've heard from their time were about missionaries tracting and finding them. Something rings true and they listen and receive a witness. This man's wife wasn't interested and wasn't baptized until ten years after he was. He actually stopped attending church for a couple years at the request of his wife, and then received a letter from the church, asking if he wanted his name removed. He said he couldn't stand the thought of that happening because he still knew it was true, so he started coming back, with his wife gradually coming with him. It was a delightful evening of making new friends, wonderful conversion stories, and outstanding Belgium cooking.

I received an exuberant phone call from one of the sister missionaries yesterday in Amsterdam. They had checked out a referral I had sent them and this lady was golden. She listened, wanted to learn more, and committed to a baptismal date in December - said that would be her Christmas gift to herself. It was so wonderful to share in the sisters' excitement and enthusiasm and to feel a part of this work.

We are often asked if we like working in the office. I think many feel that our work must be boring or mundane, because it's in an office. We have felt especially blessed as we've found so much variety in what we do from working closely with President and Sister Brubaker, to visiting the missionaries in their apartments, to teaching a family as we did today, to driving to the Netherlands to pick up some new cars. We are challenged and we love what we do.