Hardest Day Ever!

Today was our last Sunday in the Gent branch. I almost didn't want to go. I didn't want to say good-bye to the good friends we have made over the last year and a half. After church we mingled together for longer than usual and gave hugs and kisses good-bye. My heart had a familiar ache--like when we left Idaho back in 2007. I realized it was homesickness.

What a tribute to our Belgian friends who helped us feel welcome here. Except they did more than that. They helped us survive! When things were at their worst, we would go to church and feel safe. We would feel their strength and support which helped us through another difficult week, until we could see them again. Then came the time when we were adjusted and grateful that the culture shock was over. We were able to work together in our church callings and assignments. We grew such strong bonds of friendship and love through home and visiting teaching and serving in presidencies. The young women and young men were so fun! So positive! So enthusiastic!We enjoyed our life when we were doing things with the branch. Life outside of church remained difficult--the childrens' school work, Eric's job, normal tasks that should have been simple, but weren't. As I thought back over the last year or so, I could see how everything we went through was worth it. We were given a gift from Heavenly Father. I am so grateful we were able to come to this part of the Lord's vineyard. We have made dear friends that will always hold a place in our hearts! We know why we came here now. And we know that Heavenly Father is guiding us through the next part of our lives. We feel at peace. And we feel like we are leaving home, again.

Greatest Day Ever!

Yesterday we woke up at about 5 a.m., got ready and left at 6 a.m. for the Brussels airport to pick up Elder Wallentine. We were so excited! By the time we got to the airport we still had about an hour before he would walk out of the door into a very different world.

As soon as we held up our banner, a nice man came over and talked to us. He is the temple president of Den Haag Temple. He talked to us while he waited for his wife that was also on Jason's flight from Atlanta. He came to the Netherlands years ago and served as mission president for the Netherlands Belgium mission. He returned home to Salt Lake and was grateful to spend some time with his grandchildren who he hadn't seen for several years. He bought a new car and was ready to settle down. He got a call from the First Presidency. He is now back serving as temple president for several more years. We never can tell what we are going to be asked to sacrifice in this life. Those early saints that gave everything to build up Zion--there are some doing that same thing today. Jason's mission president is across the United States from a son with new triplets. This nice man is a world away from his grandchildren. My brother is embarking on a new adventure as bishop. All are sacrificing, but wouldn't have it any other way knowing what the blessings will be in the end.

In the midst of our conversation, Jason walked throught the door.

He looked so neat, clean, sharp, etc. Remarkable considering the 18 1/2 hours he was traveling. He's just spent 2 years working hard, sacrificing everything for the building of the kingdom. His future is bright!

Update

Okay, I'm sort of back. We still have the laptop, but I have to fight off all 5 kids to get to it. So, my blog entries may not be too regular, but I will use this to document the next 2 eventful weeks for my journal.

The packers worked for 2 days packing all of our belongings into boxes.

Eric and I had spent quite a few hours over the past few weeks sorting through the boxes that were stored in the basement from the time we moved here. We got rid of so many things quite easily. When you haven't used things for over a year, it's easier to part with them. Some things, however, were like seeing an old friend and made me anxious and excited to get back home to enjoy them again--my pampered chef baking stone, large cookie sheets, crockpot, and food processor. Even my old cd player makes me look forward to the day I can plug it in and turn it on--no adaptor needed! It makes me realize how naive we were when we came here. Why did we ship Eric's table saw, for instance. We actually thought we could use it here, and we would've, if we could have just plugged it in. We also brought our hammock--which never actually got put together. Reason--we never quite got to the point where we felt like relaxing in a hammock. It was in the "must load" section as I plan to use it when we get home.

Yesterday we saw the big truck pull up in front of our house. It was incredible! A year ago, I tried to dream of that day to help me cope with my life. I imagined alot of whoopla! In reality the feeling was surreal. We made it. We couldn't believe it!


Within 4 hours, the 40 ft. container was completely loaded with all our belongings, and those of our friends, by 5 men. I had left to pick up some doughnuts for the hard workers, but they were gone by the time I got back. Have you ever had Ikea doughnuts? Even though I bought enough for 5 men, 5 children, and 1 husband, the 5 kids and husband didn't have any problem finishing them off without a crumb remaining. I was sad I didn't get a picture of the truck leaving.

We have some friends in Kortrijk. They moved there about 3 years ago with a company called Barco. They used to live in Logan. About 4 LDS families came out here together and have been able to help each other through the culture shock. If only we could've been so lucky. We have very nice people willing to help in our branch, but they just don't quite understand the magnitude of culture shock here. We met one of the families, the Evans, at our first stake conference here. They were sitting in the little room where the meeting was shown in English. Becky Evans has the most radiant smile and optimistic outlook. Every time I talked to her, I felt better about being here and could see things in a clearer perspective. She helped me know where to find cocoa powder. She taught me how to greet Belgians by saying "dag" and told me success stories of sharing the gospel with them. She made me feel stronger and braver. We also met the Galloway family. Jennifer Galloway is the YW president in Kortrijk and we get to see each other at least once a month in our combined branch joint activities. She is not afraid of anything! At least that is what it looks like. She knows where to go to get almost anything she needs. Her counselor in YW only speaks dutch and Jennifer is able to work with her. She knows dutch very well. So do the Evans. We enjoyed Thanksgiving with all of them this year. They even knew of an American store in Antwerp. It was one of the best times we had here. We found many very over-priced things that we have missed during the time we've been here--root beer, pop tarts, peanut butter, PAM (one of my most missed items. I still couldn't make myself pay the required 6 euro price for it!), Betty Crocker cake mixes, Jello Cheesecake mixes, etc.

Back in November, they were planning to leave in June and we were leaving in August, so they sent a bunch of food stuff back home with me to start cleaning out their pantries. Who knew that we would be leaving sooner than them. As it turns out, they were all layed off around the same time we changed our job status. The Galloways had a few things they didn't want to part with and checked into shipping it back. We both wondered if there was a way to help each other by shipping their stuff with ours. We got a few bids and they got one bid on their 5 cubic meters. We had Team Allied figure in their stuff with our bid and there was no problem. On Wednesday the movers came and started boxing our stuff. The perimeter of our living room was full of boxes plus our couch. Jennifer came during the day and dropped off some of their things. Then later they came with the rest of their belongings. I was amazed at how much stuff can fit 5 cubic meters. Every bit of space was filled in our living room. I was a little concerned what the movers were going to do when they saw it. It would've been better if all the stuff had been here at the beginning. Even though it was figured into our bid, I didn't want them to think something was fishy. Galloways were very generous in paying us and tried to give us way more money than we wanted. Eric had handed Emily the money to look at and as the Galloways were loading in their vehicles, Emily said, "This is over a thousand euros". Eric said, "No, it's not that much", but quickly started counting and realized they didn't pay us 750 euros as agreed but 1200. I ran outside and told them they couldn't pay us that much. Jennifer told us they had figured it out by percentage--she is very smart--and it should be that much. I told her that was more than what their bid came out as. Eric handed her the extra money and she kept trying to give it to us. Finally, to help her feel better, I suggested she give me an extra 20 euros to give them as a tip the next day. She handed me two 50 euro bills. Naughty. As I ran past her husband sitting in the van--with his window down--I threw one of the 50's in with him and ran inside. They are very generous! The movers were a little shocked the next day, but we gave them pastries and a very nice tip. They seemed fine. The next time we see the Galloways, we will both be back in America. It will be a happy day and it's fun knowing that we would not be friends with each other if we hadn't come here.

Last night was our first night in the house without any of our beds. Becky lent us their very nice air mattress. Eric and I slept on that. Tyler, Emily and Caleb slept on an "egg carton" mattress pad on the floor and Brandon slept on a pad used for a lounge chair. Ashley slept on the reclining chair that we are taking to the container park before we leave. We all froze to death (almost). I had held out the 2 quilts I made, plus quite a few fleese blankets that are pretty warm. I hoped it would be enough if we had the heat on. It wasn't. Hopefully, tonight we can figure out a better way.

Today is Valentine's Day. We didn't do too much. Ashley went to the youth temple trip this morning and then went to Elke Goethal's house with Charlene. They spent the day together and then will go to a regional dance together. Ashley wanted to go so bad as it will be the last time she will see her friends from the Netherlands. Eric and I will go pick them up in Rotterdam tonight and get home at about 1 a.m.

It is strange being in the house without anything here. I have lost the urge to clean. I have plenty of food to try to get rid of, but cooking is difficult with the utensils I kept out. I only have 1 pot and a frying pan that doesn't work too well. The bottom is warped.

Last night for mutual we had a cooking evening and made a delicious dinner and ate it together. We had a YW from Brugge join us and she is a sweetie. Her name is Mbo and she recently joined the church, but is the only YW in Brugge. We made angel food cake for dessert, so I had to keep my pan out for that. Hopefully, we will be able to fit it in our suitcase. For dinner we had this chicken, pineapple, pepper thing sort of like sweet and sour chicken and it was served in halved pineapples. It was really beautiful!

Farewell

It's time to pack up the computer.

I have to go. When I return, we will no longer be in Belgium, so I'm trying to decide whether to end this blog and start another, or continue on with it and just change the URL. So many decisions to make:) I want to at least catch up on a few memorable moments here, so there may be a few more Belgian blog entries. Then it is off to a whole new adventure--not in another country, but maybe a whole new world.

One man's trash is another man's- - - Nightmare!

One of the most complicated things about living in Belgium is the garbage collection. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind recycling and it's not that big of a deal to separate your pmd (plastic, metal, drink containers), cardboard, glass, and biodegradables. Okay, yes it is. But, it's all good, right. Our cardboard gets collected once a month. We sadly found that the outside garage where we kept our old packing boxes (in case we needed to move ourselves back to America and could reuse the boxes--hmm) was flooded. The boxes were molding and disintegrating and smelled awfully bad. So, the day before cardboard pick-up, we hauled some of them out front to get picked up.

The next morning, like every other morning, I threw my coat on over my pjs and took the kids to school. As I drove into the driveway, I all of the sudden thought I should get the rest of the boxes out there. It was raining, of course. The boxes, which had become dwelling places for several hundred fast-moving, creepy spiders, were making quite a large stack along the side of the road. I could sense neighbors' eyes watching me as I kept dragging more and more out there--in my pajamas. The last boxes had to be scooped up with a shovel and made a moldy, smelly oozing pile of sludge. Gross. After about an hour, we were free from the boxes--well, not quite. They were still out front.

I nervously waited for the garbage truck. Soon I saw it pull up at the same time the doorbell rang--not a good sign. A man stood there looking at me like I was nuts telling me it was too much. I explained that we had a flood and I needed as much hauled away as possible--preferably the oozing ones. He said, "this once" as I thanked him profusely and then he went to his truck--and drove away. I thought maybe he was sending another truck, but after a couple hours, my hopes fled away. Calling the trash collection company was the last thing I wanted to do, but finally knew it had to be done. With my broken dutch and her broken english, I explained the situation and asked if a truck was coming to pick up the cardboard. She made a call to a truck and said they were coming. A while later, the doorbell rang again. Shoot! Can't they just pick it up and not bother me? It was a new guy with 2 others. There was confusion about why they were here. Not surprised. They explained how it was too much and usually you would have to pay extra to have it moved away. Really? I asked. Then the man said, "Well, if you give us a tip, we could move it for you." I ran to my purse hoping I had some cash. Found two 5 euro bills--needed three--one for each of them. Ran to our european coin collection chart and ripped off three 2 euro coins and gave them to the now pleased Belgians. Two scurried off to labor in the pouring rain while the other man talked about how cold it was and mentioned how nice it would be to have some tea or coffee. I got the hint and asked if he wanted some hot chocolate. He enthusiastically said, "yes". I put a pan of water on the stove to heat up and started putting the chocolatey powder in mugs. It was taking a long time to boil, of course. I kept wondering what else I could give them. I remembered the bottles of fake wine we bought for Christmas that turned out not to be fake. They could use those. I also had a bag of Hershey's Hugs brought clear from the land of the free and figured that was the best hug I could give them. Finally, the water was hot. I poured it in each cup. I loaded them on a platter and went to see if they were ready. They weren't even close. It had been over 15 minutes and it was maybe half done. I needed more cash! I searched my purse again and found a ten euro bill. After about 15 more minutes, they were finished and came inside to drink their hot chocolate. They were very nice and asked me all about America--whether I like our new president, if things are more expensive in Belgium, and similar topics. I gave them the other money, the wine, and the Hugs and as they walked out the door, they told me if I ever needed anything else picked up, just watch for their truck--#134, and they would pick it up. Before they jumped into their truck, they picked up every bit of leftover trash out front, put my glass recycling container over the hedge into our yard, and pulled my garbage can into the driveway--nice and neat. And that is all it took--26 euros, some hot chocolate, 2 bottles of not-so-fake wine, and some Hugs.

Our Righteous Wicked Weekend

Eric and I gave each other perfect presents last Christmas--a weekend in London and tickets to see Wicked. It was a blast! We spent the day strolling through The National Gallery looking at the paintings of familiar artists such as Van Gogh (a dutch painter whose name is actually pronounced Van Go(ck) (with the gurgly dutch G), Monet, Picasso, Rembrandt, etc. and other paintings of lesser known artists. We even splurged the 3 lbs for a tour guide headphone set that told the history of each painting. It was fun and I've wanted to do that since we went there the first time, but couldn't with all the little kids. They can only handle about 4.2 minutes before they go crazy in there.

We went to dinner at a cozy little restaurant by Trafalgar Square and then took the underground to Victoria Station to the Apollo Victoria Theatre. The show was amazing and I fell in love with the beautiful music.

Afterward, we took the underground back to Westminster and walked the bridge over The Thames to our hotel room where we could see Big Ben from our window and sleep while the lights of the London Eye twirled clockwise through the curtains.

After a restful and quiet (no children) ride back to Dover, we caught the ferry and arrived back in Drongen to find our children well taken care of (thanks Ashley) and happy once again to see each other!

Pretty as a Picture

The view from the Neuschwanstein Castle was breathtaking. It was freezing cold and you could feel the temperature drop by the minute, so we headed back down the hill. By the time we got down to the car, it was 12 degrees below zero. When we had left it was only 7 below.

Neuschwanstein Castle

We arrived in Munich on Saturday, the last stop in our adventure through Germany. We attended a little German ward on Sunday morning where we were warmly welcomed. We even recognized a few words that are similar to Dutch. After church we took a drive to Fussen and saw the Neuschwanstein Castle. It is beautiful and is probably the most photographed castle in the world. Even Walt Disney used it as inspiration when he designed the castles in the Disney parks. Too bad the story behind it is strange, but the castle is amazing.

Amazing pictures of Prague

This is the Prague Castle from far away.

This is the medieval astronomical clock that is famous in Prague. It was impossible for me to even see how it can tell the current time, but it supposedly tells much more--the seasons, the time of the setting of the sun, the day, month and year. At the top of the hour, twelve apostles move through the windows at the top and the four statues representing vanity, greed, infidelity, and death, begin to move. The skeleton, representing death turns over the hourglass as to represent how time is running out for everyone. It was interesting.

A Surprising Highlight of Prague

When the Czech Republic was under communist rule, they were completely cut off from anything having to do with western civilization--including toys. As communism took a back seat, they were completely obsessed and satiated with toys. They have a toy and Barbie museum displaying every Barbie that was ever created and toys from way back. We couldn't believe all the cases full of every kind of Barbie.

Notice the Rosie Barbie right there in the front center? And the Wizard of Oz characters.

But the most amazing Barbie I saw in the whole place . . .

A BYU Barbie! How did it get there? Really, think about it. Clear across the world where I doubt many people have heard of BYU. Pretty interesting.

Beautiful Prague

Eric standing by one of the castle guards.

We tried to get Ashley to stand by them and fulfill her dream of making

them laugh, but she chickened out.

All it would take is a little "knock, knock. . . ."

Freezing outside of the Prague Castle.

Our hotel room. Nice!

Prague at night!

A Sad Commemoration

Our trip through Germany would not be complete without taking a few moments to commemorate the millions who died in the concentration camps. There are actually thousands of concentration and extermination camps throughout Europe--Germany, France, Austria, Poland, and even Belgium. We visited Sachsenhausen in Northern Germany.

This is where many of the people were brought to be killed. One of the rooms was a gas chamber. It was mostly destroyed during World War II.

This is the road that all the captives had to walk down to enter the camp. It is long and sad.

This is the entrance into the camp.

Are we still in Germany?

As we drove through what was once East Germany, the buildings looked different. They definitely had a Russian/Prussian look to them.

The Gate in Chocolate

Lest we think that Belgium is the only place for chocolate, consider the following--

The Brandenburg Gate in chocolate!

Yum!

Checkpoint Charlie

Here are pictures at Checkpoint Charlie. This was the only place where foreigners and members of the Allied forces were allowed into East Germany. This is also one of the places where many East Germans tried, some successfully, to escape.

The Berlin Wall

There is only a small (in comparison) section of the Berlin Wall that remains standing, and it is protected, of course, to preserve history. You can see where people have chipped away at the wall to keep a piece for themselves.

These double bricks mark the path throughout Berlin where the wall once stood. It is amazing! Some of the bricks even wind through buildings that were built after the wall came down. It was thought-provoking to see this in person.

Jewish Holocaust Memorial

Just down the street from Brandenburg Gate is a memorial to the Jews who were killed in the holocaust. There is no "rhyme or reason" to the memorial except it is very "disorienting" once you walk down into it. That in itself is symbolic, I think.

Christmas in Berlin

Brandenburg Gate

This is one of the main symbols of Berlin and one of the most famous European landmarks. It is full of history and is where President Reagan made his famous speech for Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall. As we stood outside the gate--on the once Soviet side--you could almost imagine what it must have been like for those East Germans to finally be able to walk through into West Germany and see family and friends they had not seen for years--and be free.

Is that Curry you're wearing?

My dryer broke a 10 days ago. Even though my dryer is slow and inefficient, I miss it. Where do I dry laundry for seven people? Well, in the kitchen until this morning when I went to put on clean clothes and they spelled like the curry shrimp dinner we had the night before.



From now on, laundry will dry somewhere else. I don't know where yet, but somewhere else for sure!