19-25 February 2011

Here's a windmill I snapped a picture of out our front car window as we drove past it on our way from the North Sea coast to where our new apartment is - I thought it was cute, that right by the side of the road, here's a windmill. That's the Netherlands for you.

Last Saturday we drove 2.5 hrs up north to the town of Deventer for a senior couples lunch and meeting. Afterward several couples wandered down into the center of town where a market was set up. Here I'm holding a bag of split peas I found for a very good price. They're kind of hard to find in regular stores around here.

This man is making stroopwafels
which are a favorite in the Netherlands. He has hot caramel that he's putting in between two waffles.

This is the booth with the stroopwafels - our new couple, the Evertons are on the far right with me and Sister van Komen next to them.

Here we are, stroopwafels in hand. I got mine dipped partially in chocolate.

You can't really see this bag of fruit that Elder Everton bought at one of the stands, but it was very colorful with a whole variety of fruit in it.

Here we all are. This was all the senior couples in the mission at the time, plus the Brubakers and the Noots, one of the counselors in the mission presidency. We had a wonderful pot luck lunch and a nice meeting, mainly about the Young Adult Outreach Centers that most of these couples are involved with. Since this meeting, the Saldens, another couple, have returned to serve a second mission here, so we now have 8 couples. On April 1st, another one arrives and we'll have 9 couples in our mission. That is really pretty amazing.

This was our second trip to Deventer. We love the little town and the beautiful huge apartment where the Hofmans live and operate their young adult center out of downstairs. I think all the other senior couples were impressed with their space.

On Sunday we had a neat experience watching one of our new African members bless the Sacrament. He's probably in his 40's and was very nervous. Elder Matthews, one of our Assistants, stood right next to him at the Sacrament table and was his example and support. It was very touching to see this young 20 year old missionary helping a man twice his age, yet the African man was so humble and sweet and wanting to be involved in using his new priesthood.

I've been busy working on the Donny Osmond firesides, which will be happening in mid-April. Donny's son is in our mission and Donny has a tradition of coming to his son's missions and doing these missionaries firesides where he discusses his beliefs, shares his testimony and sings a couple of songs. He's bringing his entire family - all of his children, their spouses, and the grandkids, so they'll sing a couple of songs as a family. I'm working on a committee getting press releases ready, articles for the Dutch and Belgium websites, announcements for the bishops to make, and posters made to put in chapels. This is a total missionary effort. The ticket to get in is to bring a non-LDS person with you. We'll be holding 3 of these firesides on three consecutive nights. It should be really fun.

12-18 February 2011

Another Monday birthday celebration at the office - the third week in a row. Elder Marshall just turned 21. I made him Jonny's famous cheesecake and everyone loved it. We had two extra elders with us this day.

We picked up our newest senior couple, the Evertons, from Centerville, Utah, at the airport on Tuesday. We asked them if they wanted to go rest or go with us to a Zone Training in Antwerpen and they opted to go, even after hardly sleeping much the last 2 nights. They loved the training and being around the younger missionaries.
They are pretty amazing. They are younger than me (Paula) and so are now our youngest senior couple. She was sitting in a stake conference about 5-7 years ago and the stake president asked couples to set a goal and a date for when they would serve a mission. She wrote down 2010 and so they're here! She's been a nurse for 32 years and left a wonderful job to serve. He's an industrial engineer and also quit his job. They said they are not retired; they will go back and work and hope to find jobs when they return home. They left 5 children, the youngest is a 20 year old daughter at the U of U. Sister Everton will be our nurse specialist and help with the missionary's medical needs. Elder Everton served here as a young man so speaks Dutch.

Everyone loves to take a picture of the Brussels skyline from our office balcony, so here we are. The first night they were here, we all had dinner at the Brubakers and the next day we picked them up to take them up to our new apartment where they'll live until the office is moved up to Leiden; at that point, they'll move to another apartment and we'll move into this one. We had a brand new car for them to drive. Loel took them to buy a GPS and then they were off, following us up to the Netherlands. Elder Everton has done a ton of traveling so is pretty familiar with overseas travel and has many frequent flier miles.

We got them settled in and then drove out to the coast to the town of Katwijk, on the North Sea. We wandered around a little through this walking mall, which is very typical of shopping areas in Holland.

We wandered down the Boulevard, which is the main street that runs along the ocean. This was a cool old church along our walk.

The beach was massive with tons and tons of sand. It was a pretty sunset. Notice how empty the beach is - it's still winter, although the two days we were here, it was beautiful, sunny, and almost 60 degrees at times. (Today it's back down close to freezing.)

We stayed at a little B&B there in Katwijk - first went out to dinner and called it our Valentines celebration since we didn't have much of one on Valentines Day. Loel snapped this picture of me all bundled up in our little room, trying to get the internet to work on my little laptop - the room was very cold until the heater started working.

In the morning we went for a walk along the beach again, but it was still dark!!! This was a neat monument in front of the old church - it was all in Dutch but we think it was a mother and child mourning the loss of a father maybe, who died at sea? They are staring down at the sea (carved in the stone).

All along the beach they had these lighted monuments - not sure what they stood for but maybe this one was a bunch of fish???

Now this one was really cool. These were big metal sheets bent like paper pages. The sheets are about 1/2 " thick. They have been cut by laser with the names of all the men from the local area who died in the North Sea since 1919, listed by year with their names and ages. It went up to 2000. I asked the B&B lady if this was a particularly dangerous sea and she said, "All of the ocean is dangerous." This monument was on kind of a point - the ocean is behind me and the monument. The black stones set in front of the "pages" are men who died since 2000.

Obviously, this is a much photographed spot as the empty metal sculptured chair was just waiting for someone to sit in it and take a picture. You can see it's just getting light and the ocean behind me.

Here's that same church with the wide expanse of sand and ocean across from it, looking down into the town where the lights are. It's almost light now at the end of the walk.

If you can read the words on this hotel it says Hotel "Noordzee" - meaning the North Sea.
We had a wonderful Dutch breakfast of different breads, butter, sprinkles, fresh squeezed orange juice, hot chocolate, yogurt, meat and cheese, and a hard boiled egg. Delicious.
After breakfast we went back to the apartment where the Evertons are staying (and were delighted to realize it is just 8 minutes from that apartment where we'll eventually be living, to the ocean!) We told the Evertons as they're joggers and they were excited to try jogging along the coast. We helped them with some computer internet hookup stuff and then were off to leave the van in the Netherlands and got a ride back to Brussels. The van is needed up north as the Saldens, our senior couple friends who went home in October, are returning for their second mission here - this next week! We can't wait for their return. They've been gone for 4 months and we have missed them.

5-11 February 2011

These are the Boegaerts - a really nice family in the ward who had us over for a wonderful dinner on Christmas Day, with Danielle. Their son is Micheal, who is a very stalwart 17 year old. The Young Adult program is a really big deal in this part of Europe and receives attention right from the Area Presidency. The Boegaerts are over the Young Adult Outreach Center in the Antwerp Stake.

Guess where we are? Since we're in Belgium, we HAD to take advantage of this Fed cup tennis tournament with Belgium's darling, Kim Clijsters, who is #1 in the world. The Assistants noticed a poster, got permission to attend, and so we went last Saturday on our P-day!

We got tickets on the 18th row; the closest I've ever been in a professional tennis match.

Here's Kim, getting ready to receive a serve.

It was a USA vs. Belgium match. This is Melanie Oudin, from the USA team who was playing Kim. She's only 19. Brad and I saw her play in the US Open a few years ago when she was 16.

Of course Kim won, to the delight of the home crowd. 6-0, 6-4. Here she is being interviewed afterward. The Elders translated the interview for us as she was speaking Dutch. We actually watched another singles match first of a different Belgium and U.S. player. Belgium won that one, too. Some of our Belgian friends told us it was too bad that the Williams sisters are injured right now. The U.S. was pretty badly outclassed in this match.

We drive by this sports palace every time we go to church in Antwerpen so it was fun to actually attend something there, and especially to attend a tennis match. The Assistants said they'd rather go to a tennis match as it's much calmer than some of the soccer matches here. Andy Thomas, our new convert, is a very good and avid soccer player and he told me on Sunday he didn't want the missionaries going to a soccer match because the fans are so rowdy and the language is so bad.

Last Monday it was in the 50's and sunny, so Sis Brubaker had to get a picture for what she called, "The first day of spring!"

This week we celebrated the President's birthday - we made hot fudge brownie sundaes.

Here are the Assistants, after teaching the Zone Leader Council on Thursday and on Friday, the District Leader Council. They were both in Leiden and we made the main dishes for both days' lunches. We spent both days and nights up in our new apartment in the Leiden area. That was nice not to have to drive back and forth to Brussels. I went for walks both mornings there, kind of discovering the new town we will soon live in. It was so picturesque with little roads, canals, bridges, cute little townhouses, big churches, lots of bakeries, shops, etc.

On our way back to Brussels, we stopped in the town of Gouda, where these two sisters are in the process of moving to a new apartment. The Pankratz were up there, installing things, cleaning things, getting them a new fridge, etc. This is the church right across the street from their new apartment. You would never know it was a church other than by the sign - it just looks like a regular apartment building along the street. The sisters are so happy to have a new apartment so close to the church. They've been traveling about 45 minutes, by train, to get from their old apartment to church.

29 January-4 February 2011

Last P-day we went with the Assistants to the town of Maastricht, which is in Limberg province of the Netherlands. Elder Brockbank served in that area for quite some time and so he was our tour guide. We first took two mattresses to the Heerlen elders apartment. We parked at the train station and walked into town. This is the Maas River with a view of the big boats and skyline. It's an old Roman city. Very fascinating.

We found a flea market! It was fun wandering through it.

These are the two assistants, Elder Matthews and Brockbank. This was a cool old church that has been turned into a big huge bookstore.

This is the big centrum or city center with the big empty square in the middle and the cool old buildings on all four sides.

One of the cool churches in the centrum. It was a beautiful, clear, blue sky day, but cold.

The trees in the winter are so funny looking with little knobs on the ends. Here is Loel with the elders in front of an old museum.

I loved the colors here - notice the red stone tower on the right, the yellowish church building in the middle, the green grass and bushes in the center and the blue sky above! It was so beautiful and picturesque. We wish we could have climbed the tower but it was closed.

Looking up from the bottom of the red tower. Isn't the blue sky gorgeous with the red stone next to it? This is a natural red stone.

The top of the red tower - it was very ornate. If you look closey you can see the clock on the tower.

Here we are in front of the Maastricht train station as we walked back to the car with our bakery items ready to taste. This town is famous for its pies, but unfortunately, we didn't buy the right kind! We bought some others that were good but not as tasty as the creamy ones we found later.
Before we ate our pastires though, we got some tradition Limberger sandwiches which were really good.

The office surprised me with little heart shaped cakes that Sis Brubaker made for me since my birthday was this week. I was completely surprised!

These are my best friends. They made me a beautiful birthday card which they all signed with very sweet notes. (Well, Loel's a friend too, but he was taking the picture.)

We had four new missionaries arrive this week! Two from Brazil (they had been delayed 3 months because of visa problems). The American sister and other elder were both from Arizona. Here we are at the airport picking them up and all their luggage, with the assistants and the Brubakers.

Then the next day we had 6 elders come into the office before going home the next day. Here we are at dinner together at the mission home and then had our wonderful testimony meeting with them. I was able to visit with each one about their school plans, etc, during the day and had some great visits.
We also were busy this day making a video clip with the assistants at the President's request. We were showing how the missionaries use the baptismal calendar as they teach people. I got to be the investigator. I think we taped our little clip about 5 or 6 times! I lost count, but they were happy with the end result.

Here is a final picture of 3 of the elders we drove to the airport as they are leaving with their luggage to check in. It was my birthday and I told them it wasn't a very nice birthday present to have to say good-bye to three friends.

As soon as we left the airport, we were on our way to the Netherlands to finalize our new apartment! This is the picture of the outside that we posted a couple weeks ago when we first looked at it with the Pankratz. Ours is the one on the top floor on the right side. The building has just 4 apartments in it - the bottom floor is a dentist's office.

This is the old church that is right across the street from us. The carillon bells play pretty songs on the hour. The apartment owner told us they played the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" just before we arrived. We are actually on the village square so when festivities happen, they will happen right in front of our apartment.

We can walk across this little bridge and canal to get to the shopping area of the village, which is all a walking shopping mall. Our favorite Netherlands grocery store, Albert Heijn, is there, which made us happy, plus several delicious looking bakeries, a few little clothing stores, several deli's, etc.

We met the owners while there and they gave me a bouquet of flowers!

The apartment is in Rijnsburg, near Leiden. We will actually not move in until the office and mission home are finished - sometime in March or April, we hope? We have a new senior couple arriving in mid-February who will live there until the office moves. We love this apartment as it's on the 2nd floor on the corner, with big windows on 3 sides, so it's very light. It came fully furnished, which makes things very easy for us. This is a picture of the living room, looking out on to the street. Rijnsburg is considered a "village" and it's very Dutch looking with cobblestone streets, canals, bridges, etc.

This is the kitchen, and as is very typical in Dutch apartments, it is open to the dining and living room area - all one big room. This kitchen has a dishwasher!!! No garbage disposal and a very small freezer, but you can't have everything.

The kitchen is on the left; this is the dining area and I'm standing in front of a small second bedroom. Both the bedrooms have doors going out onto the balcony in the back of the apartment.

This is the master bedroom - we actually slept here the first night and the bed was really comfortable. We have a nice balcony outside our bedroom. The best thing about this room is a very large built in closet!!! Wall to wall on one side! That may not sound like much in the States, but it's unheard of in Europe!

We love the bathroom! it's at least 3 or 4 times the size of the bathroom we have now and it has a bathtub AND a separate shower, sink and toilet with plenty of room to walk around in! All nice white tile. We thought the apartment looked really clean, but the Dutch are fastidiously clean and they were not happy with it so will be hiring professional cleaners to come and clean it, plus do the windows, etc. We said, okay, that's fine with us!
One of the really nice things about the apartment, also, is that it has two bathrooms! Well, one is just a half bath with toilet and sink, but that is amazing, too, for Europe.
It's owned by a very nice brother and sister as it used to be their parent's apartment. They came and met us and showed us everything we needed to know; they were so kind and helpful. We can walk about 2 blocks to the shopping area, which is very convenient and cute.
After spending the night, we drove to Rotterdam and picked up another new car for this new senior couple and then I followed Loel home in the other car. (This is a big deal. This is the first time Paula's driven in the Netherlands.) So it's been a very busy, but productive week.