18-26 December 2010

We apologize for the length of this post. This has been a crazy week with delayed missionary transfers and Christmas. Danielle arrived and we've been playing with her also. So, this post is 9 days instead of 7. You can always just close and wait for next week. Guaranteed it will be shorter.
We went for a drive to the park near our apartment after the snow. It was beautiful and wintry. More about that later.
We took Danielle to the Grand Place in Brussels and enjoyed the Christmas decorations. We found that cobble stones are really slick with a little snow and ice on them.

After dark the lights come on and they have a light show multiple times every evening. The Town hall is used as a screen and colored images are projected on the building.

The colors are constantly changing from red to green to blue to white.

Europe was hit by a huge winter storm last week. We had 12 missionaries going home and those scheduled to go through London were delayed because their flights were canceled. This is our normal Monday lunch with the addition of Danielle and the five missionaries whose flights were delayed. They were scheduled to go Tuesday out of Brussels and their flights were canceled again because the Brussels airport didn't have enough de-icing equipment. We finally drove them to Amsterdam and they all got out on Thursday - five days late. They all made it home for Christmas - some on the 24th. We must have said good-bye to them about 6 times as they kept being delayed again and again.

Danielle wanted to see a concentration camp as her class had studied the Holocaust last year. While this isn't one of the extermination camps in Germany, Breendonk was a camp for political prisoners here in Belgium. It is one of the best preserved prisons and as we left, the lights on the guard tower, with the fog and snow, were a dramatic climax to our visit. Paula had been here before and, understandably, she didn't want to return. It's a cold, dank, dark, unpleasant place.

This is Paula now. Instead of going to a concentration camp in the freezing cold weather, Sis Brubaker and I went to lunch and Christmas shopping. Here she is as we had a leisurely lunch together in a really cute French bakery that we walked to just a few blocks from the office. We had a delightful afternoon where we enjoyed visiting without running around preparing food, etc.

We took Danielle to Brugge and when we went to the place where we have taken canal rides in the past, they were closed. There was ice on the canals.

One of the things we've always wanted to do in Brugge is stop in a chocolate shop and go to their little tea room for hot chocolate. This hot chocolate was exceptional. The sign outside says, "The best hot chocolate." They don't lie. To start with, the oversized cups are huge. This picture is not an optical illusion. It is really this big. They bring the cup about 1/2 full of hot milk and a chocolate cup of chocolate chips that you pour into the cup and whisk to make the chocolate as strong as you desire. Of course we all dropped the whole thing in and to say it was to die for is probably an understatement. Will we go back? Not will we, but rather, how many times?

The lights in Brugge were beautiful. There was a Christmas market set up in the main Centrum with an ice rink and little booths for food and items for sale.

The Bell Tower is magnificent at night.

It was really cold. But the lights were beautiful.

Snow kept coming all week. Paula and I had to drive about 25 kilometers early Friday morning after about 4 inches of new snow. They have no real snow removal equipment and they use salt to remove the snow from the roads. We've been told that all of Europe has run out of salt, so only the main roads are clear. The side roads are still full of snow, the parking lots are full of snow, and nobody has snow shovels so they don't shovel the walks. temperatures have been just below freezing, so the snow isn't melting either. Today was a little warmer and it's supposed to be warmer (35-45) for the rest of the week.This is the Mstoyan family. They are Armenians that have emigrated from Russia. We went to visit them on Christmas Eve afternoon and they surprised us with an amazing meal of Russian, Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish food. It was a feast.

Anya makes all her own pastries by hand. This meal was really incredible with a potato meat dish, lots of vegetables, feta cheese with herbs and bread, a filo dough thing filled with cheese, fried fish and onions, some fruit we've never heard of before, and it goes on. What an experience!

This was a surprise Christmas present I got for Loel. It's an abstract painting that he fell in love with in a B&B we stayed in in the Netherlands. Sis Brubaker went back and picked it up for me and hid it at her house (the paintings there were all for sale). I gave it to him Christmas Eve and he was totally surprised! I think that's the first time I've pulled off a surprise for him. We have it up on our wall in our apartment and it looks stunning. Now we just have to figure out how to get it home!

This is Christmas Eve at the mission home with 6 elders acting out the nativity. Pres Brubaker read the script, we sang songs, Loel and I were Joseph and Mary, and our elders were everything else. We were laughing so hard at their depiction of shepherds, wise men, and angels.

Here's Elder Keith (he's from Timpview), as the angel. He was great.

On Christmas day we invited these 4 elders over for lunch and to play the bowl game. We laughed so hard as they were acting out different characters. We had a great time together. Before they came over, Loel, Danielle, and I opened our presents.

Sunday Loel confirmed Charles (white coat). Richard was also confirmed this same day. Then we had two more baptisms after church - two more Africans. It was a wonderful way to spend the day after Christmas. Our ward also put on a beautiful Christmas program.

After the baptisms, we took Danielle into the Groen Platz and Grote Markt of downtown Antwerpen to see the huge cathedral there. They had Christmas markets going on, too, which are always fun to wander through.

The Brubakers surprised us with these beautiful hand painted wooden shoes, done by Pres Brubaker. The red and yellow shoe is the color of the Belgium flag (red,yellow and black) and the other, the Netherlands flag (red white and blue). He created this mission crest and he painted it on them. He also painted our names and the dates of our mission. They are beautiful and will always be treasured.

All our gifts are opened and are being used and enjoyed. We got to talk to all of our kids on Christmas or the day after, some on Skype. It's been a great Christmas; we've loved having Danielle here to experience so much with us. On Christmas day we were invited to a member's home for a wonderful 3 1/2 hr Belgium feast. It was superb.

We are blessed. Blessed to be here, blessed with the gospel of Jesus Christ, blessed with a wonderful, supportive family and blessed with wonderful friends. We hope your Christmas was wonderful as ours and we pray that your New Year brings you the Lord's richest blessings.