May 21 - 28, 2011

We live across from the Town Hall, so many of the town activities occur in front of our apartment. Last Saturday there was a huge, all day religious fair with booths from different religious organizations, food, and what appeared to be an attempt to bring all the religions in the town together. We were told when we moved to this town that it is a religious town. We see lots of people walking to the various churches on Sunday. (There are three different churches within a 1/4 mile of the apartment.) This is the view from our balcony of the square.
We need to figure out how our church can have a booth next year.

We visited the Royal Delft factory. In the 1600's there were several factories in Delft producing the distinctive "Delft Blue" pottery that has come to represent Holland. While there are still many factories in the Netherlands manufacturing Delft Blue pottery, Royal Delft is the only one of the original companies still in Delft. They have kind of become the face of blue and white pottery in the Netherlands and they would have you believe that others are imposters. The difference is that all their pottery is hand painted, while the other factories may use transfers, or hand painting. Consequently, Royal Delft is usually much more expensive than the other pottery. But you can find some fantastic buys at flea markets and antique markets.

This is the signature of Royal Delft pottery.

One of the painters in the factory painting the white bisque with cobalt oxide, prior to firing. The paint goes on black and fires to the distinctive blue. The ability to create works of art by shading is really impressive. They also create works in polychrome (many colors).

This is a really impressive piece in the showroom. This is a full sized reproduction of Rembrandt's "Night Watch". The original painting is probably 6 feet by 8 feet and Royal Delft recreated the painting in Delft Blue, painting individual 6 inch tiles, firing them and placing them to replicate the painting. It took the painters over a year to complete it.

At the end of World War II, Royal Delft created a series of seven "plates", about 5 inches by 8 inches, commemorating significant events. This plate was created to recognize the U.S. Army Air Corps dropping food to the starving Dutch citizens. They did this for about two weeks from April 29th to May 5th, in 1945. I fell in love with it and Paula bought it for me for Father's Day. She got a really good deal at an antique market in Delft.

Last Saturday, we had the first baptism since we arrived in Leiden. This is Albert, an Indonesian student studying Mathematics at the University of Leiden. With him are Elders McCarlie, Benson and Mueller.

We spent Thursday and Friday in Brussels helping President and Sister Brubaker pack up the Mission Home for the move to the Leiden area. While we were there, we stayed in an available apartment in Brussels. This is the view from the window of the pretty little park across the street.

A view of an old building on the other side of the park.

We walked to the park and we took pictures of these trees. They train them so the are flattened not round. Richelle felt sorry for them when they had no leaves on them because they hold them in place with strips of wood and they looked constrained. This picture is for Richelle to show her that the trees are happy.

It's a pretty little park with grass, trees, flowers and fountains very close to the European Union headquarters building.

Loel and Sister Brubaker folding linens at the Mission Home.

On the way back to the Netherlands, we stopped in Antwerpen for a Ward party. It was advertised as a multi-cultural party and everyone was invited to bring a food from their country and some music to dance to. These are our friends the Andjoku's and Julie and Anja dancing. We picked up Anja's family and brought them with us and took them home afterwards. It was so good to see everyone again.

We went to a museum in The Hague that features some of the paintings of Rembrandt, Rubens and the painting by Vermeer of "The Girl With the Pearl Earring". I had seen mostly religious paintings by Rubens in Antwerpen, but his paintings in The Hague really captivated me. His depth perception and use of light is extraordinary. The Vermeer painting is beautiful. I became a big fan of all three painters.

These are two of our members and three investigators/friends at the Branch party in the Wassanaar Branch last night. The feature was "American" hamburgers and hotdogs (and they were). It's an international branch and there are several American families. This is Doralin (Romania), Li Ping (China), Xien (China), Alfonso (Ecuador) and Albert (Indonesia).

Doralin asked me to explain to some visitors from Croatia "how the Church affects my life". (I, Paula, took this picture as it was so cute of Loel, the missionary - I was sad it turned out blurry.)

Elder Mueller with the sons of one of our investigators (Jackson) from Kenya - Morgan and Quentin. Morgan is 15 and Quentin is 11 and they are investigating the Church also. They left Kenya about three months ago. I have been so impressed with the Africans we have met on our mission. Their spirit is so sweet and they have the deepest, simplest faith. They truly are God's children. They're kind of a welcome relief to the cynicism we often see in the Europeans.

14-20 May 2011

Last Saturday we went for a walk along a canal about a 10 minute walk from where we live.

Notice the little receptacles to put the dog poop in! Quite a difference from Belgium and some other parts of the Netherlands where they just use the sidewalk and leave it.

A smaller little canal on our way home from our walk. How would you like to have your own dock in your backyard?

A huge, pretty house across the canal from our walking path.

A wooden shoe factory and demonstration at a place called Zaanse Schans, a Dutch village that has been re-created from original homes, shops, and windmills. We went last P-day with the Assistants.
The shoes in this picture are all unique to specific geographical areas in the Netherlands. The designs are influenced by the needs in a particular area. A shoe from a fishing village would be different from one on a farm.

They had so many different kinds of wooden shoes. Some decorated for fancier dress.

Even wedding wooden shoes.

And more.

Windmills along the canal.
(Loel) I've developed a real love for windmills. Some of these date back to the 1600's and were dismantled and reassembled here. They are all operational. There's one for grinding grain; one is a sawmill; one for grinding mustard (and they make some really good mustard on site); one for grinding paint pigment into a powder and another for grinding seed to produce linseed oil - together producing the two primary components of paint.
I'm intrigued that they understood the physics required to shape the blades (sails) to the required configuration to capture the wind. And how, at that time, did they understand the gearing required to transfer the wind power to a machine?

You can see it was pretty windy.

I had to have this picture in honor of my kids.

This is the original Albert Heijn, a major grocery store chain that is very popular. We have one within walking distance of our apartment now. Here I am with the Assistants - this store was built around 1882.

Mike and Ruth Stevens, friends of the Brubakers who came to visit. They attended a zone training with us in Leiden. They are delightful people.

Zuster Kremer and Zuster De Groot, with Elder Garrett, one of our zone leaders.

Three cute sister missionaries in our zone; Zusters Garvin, Harrington, and Welch.

All of us who had birthdays in the last few months are at the front of the room while everyone has one minute to say things they like or appreciate about each one of us. People were very kind - one of the office elders said I was a "rose among a bunch of thorns" in the office.
Our zone training was so inspirational - the President spoke a lot on teaching the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity - not easy subjects in the Netherlands.

We traveled back to Belgium this week to do some errands - I had to get a picture of our favorite kebop place just down from the old office. There are so many of these all over Belgium.

He's one of my favorite workers - even though he hardly understands English and I hardly understand French, I can make my wishes known - "frites with curry ketsup and mayonnaise." Notice the piles of fries behind him with the two deep fat cookers - they double fry them in beef fat - makes them better!! We miss the frites in the Netherlands!
We drove about 8 hours today, checking on an apartment in Kortrijk, then to the base for major shopping, then to Brussels for lots of errands and then back to the Netherlands.

We bought these flowers at a stand near our apartment and then I made a nice dinner of chili, rice, and bruschetta. Yes, I am becoming quite domestic. It's nice to have a little more space to cook.
We are getting to know more people in our new branch - it's English speaking, which makes it nice. We were invited to dinner at President Sterri's home last Sunday and had a wonderful meal with their darling family. He's from Norway and his sweet wife, Camilla, is from Sweden.

7-13 May 2011

We've made great progress in getting our new office in Leiden set up. Here is the before picture of my office/storeroom with E. Benson, stacked high with boxes.

And here is the after picture of my new office, all organized!

And here's how the rest of my office looks - notice how high E. Benson had to lift heavy boxes of Books of Mormons, pamphlets, etc. as we stacked them up to the ceiling to make things fit.

Here's the before picture of our conference room, full of stuff shortly after we arrived and unloaded everything.

This is the other side of the conference room, piled high with things, looking towards our little kitchen on the right.

And here's the after picture! Looks pretty good, huh?

Here's the front part of the office - Loel is in his cubicle with the three office elders by him.

We loved this scene - geese and goslings crossing the road. We had to stop the car to let them get across.

We got three new cars this week. Here are the Assistants, pretty excited about their new car. Elder Brockbank even brushed off the bottom of his shoes before getting in to drive it! He said it will probably be about 10 years before he gets another new car.

The Beckstrands were pretty excited about their new car, too, that they then drove off to Amsterdam where they serve.

Here Loel and I are in front of our new car. We don't think it's anything too special anymore - this is our third new car since we've arrived! We drive so much that we give our old cars to couples who drive less, to balance the kilometers (mileage) on the cars.

We did a lot of driving this week - to switch cars, pick up cars, back to Brussels to pick up mail and deliver a few things, etc. I'm ready to stay put for a while now.

We are really enjoying our new apartment. We've added lots of extras to it, all from the mission storage units! It's so nice and roomy and light.

We helped Elder Benson teach an investigator one night this week while his two companions did some other teaching and finding. It was a good experience to feel the Spirit as we testified. The woman talked about how peaceful and good she felt as she finished praying at the end of the lesson. We had met her at church on Sunday - it was the first time she had attended and she really liked it.

1-6 May 2011

Here is Sister Fritz, who went home in December and who is now Jillian, who came back to visit with her mom last Sunday in the Antwerpen Ward. Andy Thomas is on the left and Joseph Tunde, the man who brought him the gospel, is on the right. It was so good to see her again. The members were so happy that she would come back and bring her mother.

Oh happy day! Here is Anja and her son Djamal, standing next to Loel on her baptism day last Sunday. She requested that Loel baptize her. Djamal was baptized by a wonderful priest in the ward who was so pleased to do so. The other woman in white is Kate, the mother of the family that got baptized recently, so now their family is completely united in the Gospel. She asked Richard to baptize her. He's a new convert of last November and is now a ward missionary and is doing so well and is so strong.
Anja's family is Armenian but they've been living in Russia for years and immigrated to Belgium for political asylum reasons. She's been attending church for 5 years and finally was granted permission by her husband to be baptized. We feel sure that her oldest son will soon follow in baptism.
We have been visiting with Anja and her family ever since they moved here last July and have grown to love them so much. I felt very strongly that we were supposed to work with them from the very first day I met her. Nine months later, her dreams were realized. This was the most spiritual baptism I think I've attended. She was crying with happiness much of the day. I was crying so much, too, as it was our last day in the Antwerpen Ward and it was so hard to say good-bye to her and so many others.
Andy Thomas bore his testimony in fast and testimony meeting and thanked us for being his "father and mother in the church." Victor, confirmed this day, mentioned things that Loel had said to him at times when he was struggling and how much they helped him. So many nice things were said to us. We don't feel like we deserved them as we were just the office couple who mainly saw these people on Sunday at church with a few times outside of church where we helped the young missionaries teach a few lessons. Yet it was so obvious that we were put in this ward for this period of time to help move the work forward. As we drove home from church, I said to Loel, "These are the kinds of days that make senior couples go on mission after mission after mission."

Here we are with Anja and her three boys. She kept crying and say, "Thank you, thank you, for everything." Little does she realize that we are the ones who feel such gratitude for the blessings of getting to know her family and feel their love and their spirit.

Me, Anja, and Toki, a wonderfully loving African sister with 5 great kids.

And in the midst of moving the office up to the Netherlands, we welcomed a new senior couple, the Bushes from Ogden. They've already served a mission to Kenya and several temple square missions - pretty amazing people. He's 73 and I think she's 68. He's an avid tennis player and we had fun talking about the senior games he participates in. He's quite an active guy. They are heading up to Deventer to run a young adult center.

I know we have lots of pictures of cool churches, but this one was pretty unique in the little town or Weerde (pronounced Veer-da, not weird), near Brussels. The light tan stone contrasting with the gray slate roof is unusual and, I think, quite beautiful. The tall, thin spire can be seen over the tops of the town buildings and attracted us to this spot.

We've had a busy week unpacking tons of boxes up at the new office and actually getting it looking so good that the President was able to hold zone leader and district leader councils there on Thurs and Friday in the cleaned out conference room. Now we're back in Brussels, packing and cleaning our apartment to make the final move permanently, to the Netherlands tomorrow, Saturday.
It's interesting that we thought we'd be moving to the Netherlands right when we got here a year ago, but it is finally happening. So many times I wished we could be up there where people speak more English and where we'll be closer to the rest of the mission, to our ward, and the other senior couples. Yet now I see the wisdom in us staying here in the Antwerpen Ward, doing what the Lord wanted us to do.
When we first arrived, President Brubaker asked us to attend the Antwerpen Ward and, because of the large English speaking African community, become involved with them. We think we've been able to do that. It's been an incredible experience and one that is now very hard to leave. Good-bye Brussels (and Belgium)!

However, because of our responsibilities for apartments, we'll be back to Belgium often.