Settling In and Working Hard

This past week, we began settling in to a more normal missionary routine.  We had a nice and helpful FaceTime call with Elder and Sister Allphin (Dave and Linda) serving in Norway.  It was fun to see them live after so long and to be sharing the missionary experience at the same time.  Bonnie served her first mission in the Netherlands/Belgium when Dave was on his first mission in Norway.  They told us that they cook for their district class every week and charge the missionaries about 2 euros per week each.  That encouraged Bonnie to consider doing the same for the missionaries in our district (there are four companionships or eight missionaries, not including us).

We called Elder Johnson, our district leader with the proposition that we would cook for class each week and he was thrilled with the idea.  Bonnie also proposed teaching the missionaries a Dutch/Belgian folk song in district class and Elder Johnson also supported that idea.  Bonnie has worked up a few on her guitar and on Sunday night, I figured out the ukelele chords to match.  We taught the missionaries "De Kleinste" (The Smallest) on Tuesday and they seemed to like it.  It was in the old MIA songbook.  It has a great spiritual message and also seems to capture much of the mentality of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands).

We have pretty much finished up visiting the inactive members on the ward list in the Mechelen area.  More than half had out-of-date or incorrect addresses and bad phone numbers.  We dutifully visited every address and checked with current inhabitants to see if we could track any down.  I don't think anyone has done this.  According to the reports of the members, there has been no home or visiting teaching in this area for many years.  It was hard work, but certainly worth the effort.  We have located about eight member families (or individuals) who will let us come back.  We are still trying to contact three, but I suspect two of them have passed on and one of the other families we were told were very hostile and the husband had been excommunicated.  The area is very spread out, so we have done a lot of driving.

We will move on to other areas of the ward this next week.  We had a great Ward Council meeting and missionary coordination meeting this past Sunday (June 22, 2015).  The ward council was well run and the two ward missionaries are knowledgeable and dedicated.  They gave us a lot of help and assigned us some families to visit this week.  We will have to do a bit more driving to reach them.

Now that we have Internet, we were able to have a FaceTime visit with both of our kids on Sunday (Father's Day). It was nice to visit with them and we especially enjoyed our grandson, Tait (Maggie was visiting with her dad when Alicia called).

This week, we also located the Carrefour Hypermarket in Mechelen.  It had moved and our Garmin GPS had not figured that out yet (despite a 2015 database).  The Carrefour is the French WalMart equivalent.  We found the Carrefour because we were looking for a bicycle shop that was supposed to be next to it (according to a local advertisement).  We found the shop and ordered two bicycles.  We have to wait about a week to get the one for Bonnie because she needs a larger frame for her long legs.  Bonnie has been anxious to get on the bicycles ever since we arrived.  We bought two nice Dutch bicycles because we plan to take them home with us when we leave.  Since they will be used by us for more than a year, we will not have to pay customs.  I suspect that we will be way below our limit when we return at any rate.

Bonnie at the bicycle shop (fiets)

Enjoying a tompoes pastry

On Monday evening, June 22, we held a family home evening at our apartment.  We had invited three families, but only two showed up.  One family attends the Antwerpen Ward and the other the Leuven Ward.  They had not seen each other in some time and enjoyed renewing their friendship.  We showed the movie, "Meet the Mormons".  Since it was only in English, Michael, a recently returned missionary from Lyon, France translated for Brother van Es (the member attending the Leuven Ward).  It was a lovely evening and confirmed the value in holding these once a month.  We will have a separate Family Home Evening for the family who was not able to attend.

We were also blessed with the company of Elder and Sister Butler who are working with the Young Single Adults in the Eindhoven ward and who are our closest senior couple in the mission.  They arrived for dinner and Sister Butler brought Bonnie the gift of a precious Hema rookworst.  Here she is enjoying it for dinner the next day.

Bonnie with her first Hema rookworst since arriving in the mission

On Wednesday morning, we had to go the chocolate shop called Sjolaa to pay for Bonnie's truffle and praline workshop.  It was about a ten minute walk from our home.  The wife runs the store and the husband is the chocolatier with 40 years experience.  Needless to say, the products exceeded our expectations.  This is probably one of the best shops in Belgium.  We purchased a few delicacies to take to Doris van der Wal (Bonnie's friend from long ago) and her children.  Bonnie also had to try the marzipan.  Bonnie's workshop will be on July 4 and you have to pay in advance.

Zuster Caldwell outside the Chocolate shop

Some of the amazing varieties available - so amazing!

Wednesday evening we had a lovely visit from our landlord and his wife, Tony and Linda van den Berghen.  They brought a couple of maps and a tourist brochure and showed us where the attractions are, the supermarkets and the bicycle trails.  We feel very blessed to have this lovely apartment since many will not rent to the Church.  We have become good friends over the last couple of weeks and we are so grateful for their kindness and help.  Ironically, they also brought a box of Sjolaa chocolate with them.  We got to enjoy these wonderful treats that we had seen earlier in the day.

We returned to the mission home in Leiden on Thursday, June 25 to finish our immigration processing and collect our Dutch ID cards.  Elder Clement was his usual efficient self and we were finished with Leiden in about 10 minutes.  We then drove to Rijswijk (a suburb of The Hague) to collect our new ID cards.  They have a lovely hologram picture of us on them.  Same old folks, however.

Bonnie had set up an appointment to visit her friend Doris van der Wal.  Doris worked as an au pair for an LDS family in our ward in North Carolina 18 years ago.  She and Bonnie became fast friends and even took a trip to the Hill Cumorah Pageant and Manhattan together.  They have stayed in touch over the years and we went to her wedding in the Netherlands about five years ago when we were living in Kuwait.  We also visited two years ago.  Now we were able to see her two charming children - a four-year old and a two-year old.  She is an amazing mother and a well educated person.  We had a lovely visit in her backyard garden and the weather was perfect.

Bonnie and her long-time friend Doris van der Wal

We also went to a supermarket in the area to stock up on Dutch edibles that are difficult to find in Belgium - rookworst (smoked sausage), vla (a custard-like pudding) and Leidsekaas (cheese with cumin named for the city of Leiden).  We also found a small Hema nearby (a sundries store famous for their rookworst).  While they were too small to have a restaurant section, they did have a small refrigerated display with the rookworsts.  Bonnie decided that they would become the main course for the District Class on Tuesday in honor of the departure of President and Sister Robinson.  President Robinson has become legendary for his love of the Hema rookworst.

On Friday, we picked up our new bicycles.  Bonnie was trying to figure out how to ride them everywhere.  She did agree that Leuven was perhaps a bit too far.  That evening, we had a meeting with Brother and Sister Fuenzelido.  Their names were given to us by Sister Rebecca Fairbanks who had been our native speaker/tutor through the Senior MTC language training program.  They attend the Antwerpen Ward and Brother Fuenzelido attends every week despite being 80 years of age and using mass transit.  Sister Fuenzelido's health does not allow her to attend often.  They were very helpful in terms of giving us contacts in the Mechelen area for genealogy.  They have a very faithful home teacher from the Antwerpen Ward.  It also turns out that one of their sons was married to the daughter of John and Sijnie Van Fleet, our long-time friends from Bonnie's missionary days.

A typical "ring up" apartment building.  You press the button for the family
 you want to visit and they buzz the door lock for you to enter the building.

The Fuenzelido Family

On Saturday, June 27, we began the process of inspecting missionary apartments with a visit to the Elders in Leuven.  Elders Besendorfer and Clukey keep their apartment in a neat condition, despite it being the oldest apartment in the mission and some of the furniture badly in need of replacement.  While in Leuven we also attempted to locate members from the list given us by the ward mission leader.  As usual, some had incorrect addresses, but we were able to make an appointment with one to drop by after Church on Sunday.  We were also able to take about an hour bicycle ride along a main canal that connects Mechelen to Antwerpen.  The weather was perfect and it was a beautiful ride on our new bicycles.  We rode about 12 km.  The canal is only a block from our apartment so it was easy to reach.

Sister Caldwell enjoying her first long bike ride along the canal

Beautiful scenery and weather

Sister Caldwell's companion

Elders Besendorfer and Clukey - Wonderful missionaries

Bishop Dixon with the Elders

On Sunday morning, June 28 we arrived at the Leuven Ward building and were greeted by President Dagmar Buysse, Second Counselor in the Stake Presidency who asked to meet with us both.  After a short visit he extended a call to me to serve as second counselor in the Bishopric of the ward.  This was a total surprise because we had been expecting another call to come to Bonnie.

Bishop Dixon is an American married to a Dutch citizen.  They met on their mission in the Provo, Utah mission.  They came to Leuven about 10 years ago while Bishop Dixon completed a masters degree at the University of Leuven and felt impressed that they needed to stay.  They have two charming boys.  He is the humblest of men, but serves with dedication and joy.  The First Counselor is brother Viktor Pushnoy, originally from the Ukraine.  He works for a automobile paint company that used to be part of DuPont.  He also has three very cute sons.  They are both great men and I feel blessed to be able to serve with them.

Arrival in Mechelen and an Action Packed Week

On Tuesday morning, President van der Put picked up our luggage in his van and we went to the mission home to collect our car.  We then followed President van der Put to our apartment in Mechelen.  It is about an hour and 45 minutes from the mission home.  We arrived just before noon.  Our new apartment is lovely and well furnished from Ikea.  The Robisons, the Johnsons (a couple serving in Rotterdam who are leaving soon) and President van der Put worked hard to get the apartment ready for us and we were overwhelmed with their thoughtfulness.  Sister Robinson (the wife of the mission president) had also purchased food and some flowers to make us feel welcome.

Pres. van der Put had prepared a sign to welcome us back to the mission after 44 years

Our living room with IKEA decor

Even a picture of Keukenhof on the wall

Bonnie was thrilled to have a potted plant and fresh flowers courtesy of Sister Robinson

The zone leaders, Elder Bernier and Elder Nye arrived shortly after noon to deliver a telephone that the sisters in Antwerpen had used and was now available for us to use.  Our SIM card had just arrived by mail at our apartment, but was not yet available for use in our iPhone.  The phone was extremely helpful for the first few days we were here.  Tuesday afternoon, we went to the Mechelen city hall to make an appointment for our registration.  We had to report to the city hall within eight days of our arrival in Belgium to meet the conditions of our visa.  We were able to make an appointment a week later on May 16.  This was the day of our district class, but we were able to schedule an appointment for 2:35 in the afternoon.  We were anxious to get started, but we had no information on ward members as yet, so we simply unpacked and retired a little early (still suffering from a bit of jet lag).  We saw a sign for a bakery that had been operated by the same family for seven generations, so we decided to give it a try.  That evening, we located a neighborhood Friture (French fry place) and had our first serving of famous Belgian Frites.  They are made from fresh potatoes and fried twice.

At the main square (Grote Markt) in Mechelen

Enjoying an eclair after visiting the city hall

Genuine Belgium Frites!

Wednesday morning, we drove to a suburb of Brussels called Machelen to a store similar to Costco called Makro.  They started in the Netherlands in the late 1960s.  In the Netherlands, only businesses can join, but in Belgium, individuals can join.  A wonderful lady at the service desk helped us sign up for one day since we need our Belgium resident ID card for long-term membership.  This was a big break because we needed a lot of items to get started.  We purchased about $1,400 worth of goods, but all of our credit cards were declined when we tried to check out.  We drove to a nearby bank and found that our cards were also blocked from getting money out of the ATM.  Bonnie noticed that there was a number to call on the back of our credit card.  Thanks to the phone the Zone leaders had given us, we were able to call and get the cards unblocked.  We then returned to Makro to pay for and pick up our supplies.  A bit more of an adventure than we expected, but we were blessed greatly.  It did make us miss the great international service we enjoyed when we had accounts with the National Bank of Kuwait.

Thursday we had a Zone Conference combining the Antwerpen and Eindhoven Zones.  Since this is the last month for Elder and Sister Robinson, they held this combined conference.  We enjoyed the conference and a nice lunch served by the Butlers, a senior couple serving with the young single adults (Jovoos) there and by two sisters from the Eindhoven ward who assisted.  At 6:00 PM we had a lovely meeting with President Boom (stake president of the Antwerpen Stake) and Bishop Dixon (of the Leuven Ward).  Bishop Dixon gave us a copy of the ward directory and lists of members by area.  There are about 350 members listed in the ward boundaries, but only about 60 attending.  The ward is very spread out and it is overwhelming to track them down.

Friday we began the process of seeking out the members.  We started by telephoning some of the members in Mechelen that we had phone numbers for.  We reached a few and one of the men said that I could call again next week.  In the evening we drove out into the countryside to visit a couple of members.  One of the addresses was no longer current.  It was in a beautiful area and we enjoyed the drive.  The other, the man was home and was not unfriendly, but indicated that he no longer had interest in the church and he thought that his married children were no longer interested either.  We left our card and he promised to check with his children.  That at least gives us an excuse to return.

On Saturday morning (June 13) we arose early to drive to the Spijkenisse Ward building for a senior couples meeting.  There are currently eight couples serving in the mission.  Two will return near the end of July.  President and Sister Robinson were also there, along with President and Sister van der Put and Elder and Sister Boom (Elder Boom is an Area Authority Seventy).  Elder Boom’s younger brother serves as the president of the Antwerpen Stake.  Elder Boom had also served as stake president and he told us that the Marien family was the key to the Mechelen area.

The whole gang at lunch in the Spijkenisse Ward building.

We had a great meeting in the morning followed by a light lunch served by the sisters of the Spijkenisse Ward.  It was a traditional Dutch bread meal, accompanied by soup.  We then drove to the Delta Park Neeltje Jans.  This is a combination recreation park and museum about the world famous Delta Works Project.  The Delta is where three major rivers in Europe converge and flow into the North Sea.  Since President Robinson owns a civil engineering firm, he wanted to see this ultimate hydraulic engineer project first hand before he returns.  We have wanted to see it for many years as well, but have never had the time.

Elder en Zuster Brent Romig

Elder en Zuster Gary Romig and Elder en Zuster Brent Romig

Zuster en Elder Johnson en Elder Robison

Zuster en Elder Kleyn

Zuster en Elder van Dam, Zuster Butler

Zuster Caldwell with Zuster en President Robinson

President van der Put with Elder en Zuster Robison

We watched a 30-minute video in Dutch about the background of the 1953 disaster that sparked the 30-year effort to provide protection, while maintaining the health of the Delta estuary.  We went on a one-hour boat ride to tour the project.  A sweet lady on the boat gave us a serving of rookworst (smoked sausage) that was not on the menu free of charge.  Bonnie had been hankering this since we arrived and had not been able to get one, so she was thrilled.

Walking to the sluice gates.  Amazing engineering!

After the boat ride, we walked to the nearby sluice gates to see the project up close.  The gates are massive and well engineered and maintained.  They allow the water to pass freely from the Rhine, Scheldt and the Mass rivers and the high tides to refresh the estuary.  When abnormally high tides occur, usually in the winters due to the storm surge of winter storms, they can close to protect the other dikes from being flooded and destroyed as they were in 1953.  They are used about once every other year.  At 5:00 PM after the park normally closes, the museum director generously showed us a film that is generally not publicly displayed.

The private showing

After this film we all drove to pancake house in a windmill.  It was a very busy place and it took us a while to be seated, but the service was fast and the food was great.  It’s hard to beat Dutch pannekoek.  We drove back to Mechelen and arrived before dark since summer sunsets are at around 10:00 PM here.

A beautiful grain and saw mill with the pannekoek (pancake) restaurant.

Delicious Dutch pannekoek with fresh strawberries.

Sunday morning, we drove to the Leuven Ward.  The fastest way there (without traffic) is to drive to Brussels and then back north to Leuven.  The Leuven building is hard to see from the road, but we were prepared due to a previous session with Google Street View.

Monday was our preparation day.  We did our laundry, found a fairly large grocery store nearby and tried to find an Internet connection to check our email and download our call letters for the immigration service.  In the evening, we went searching for more inactive members.

Tuesday, June 16 we drove to Leuven to attend district class.  Our district leader is Elder Johnson.  There are six elders and two sisters in the district.  The class was well organized, instructive and built our spirits up.  These are great young people and we feel blessed to serve with them.  Bonnie prepared a wonderful lasagna and fresh salad for lunch.  The missionaries also seemed happy with the Mars and Snickers bars we provided for dessert.  We left around 1:00 PM to return to Mechelen and our appointment with the City of Mechelen to be registered.

Back at the Mechelen City hall for registration

Part of the Grote Markt.  There are Petunias in baskets everywhere

A nice lady was prepared for us and had corresponded with Elder Clement to receive some of the documents in advance.  They still needed a few documents to copy that I had fortunately brought with me.  As we were being registered, Bonnie noticed that most of the people walking past the office were eating Italian ice cream (Gelato), so naturally we had to celebrate completing this next step with a small cone each.  We had to pay €20 each to have a police officer visit us at home to verify our address.  We will then receive an invitation via mail to return to the city offices and complete our registration process.

That evening we again went looking for Mechelen members.  We visited one address where the people had moved and the family didn’t know where they had gone.  The second house was on the Wittebroodstraat (White Bread Street).  We didn’t have a house number, so we walked along the street and looked to see if we could find the name.  We found that number 13 was listed with a hyphenated last name for the wife, Sarah Baudewijns-Marien.  Marien was the name we were looking for so we rang the doorbell.  A friendly young man opened the door and told us that his wife was a member and that his father-in-law lived at number 23.   He telephoned his in-laws and found they were not home at the moment.  He invited us in to visit with his wife.

Sarah was a delightful young woman who told us that she had not been active in the Church since she was 19.  She is now 33 and has two very cute children (five and three).  She told us that she had difficulty making friends because of her adherence to Church standards and that she had not really had friends in the Church either.  She also told us that she still kept Church standards, especially with regards to the Word of Wisdom.  She had a great spirit about her and we were impressed with her husband.

A few minutes later, Sister Marien came along and asked us to return with her to number 23.  We were invited in and she offered us a beverage.  We spent the next two hours in the company of an amazing family.  Sarah came over after she had put her babies to bed.  He had been the branch president twice and had served on the High Council.  They had done a lot with genealogy work and run many seminars for the communities throughout Holland and Belgium.  When the Mechelen Branch was dissolved for the second time, about six years ago, they had driven to the St. Nickolas branch for many years.  The drive finally became too much for them and they were burned out after having built the branch up twice, only to have it dissolved again.  Two years ago they had stopped attending, but had maintained Church standards including daily prayer.

During the meeting we felt inspired to suggest that we hold a monthly family home evening for the members in Mechelen.  Today, the few remaining active members attend four different units and have nothing to hold them together.  They liked that idea.  We also thought of developing a family history research center in partnership with the city of Mechelen to enhance tourism here and give the Church a more enduring presence.  This is an early vision that will take time and patience to develop.

We have not had Internet at our apartment and it has been somewhat difficult to arrange for its installation.  In the Netherlands, they order the service over the Internet.  Here we had to go personally to an office in Mechelen.  The office had moved and they had not updated their address on the web, so it took us a bit to find it.  Our first order attempt was unsuccessful because our email address was entered incorrectly.  We did not find out it was unsuccessful until we finally got our SIM working in our phone (late Friday afternoon).  On a return trip to the office they informed us that our installation would be delayed a week.  Fortunately, we received an SMS message (called an SKSke here – it means little SMS) on Monday asking us to confirm an installation appointment for Wednesday, June 17.  That afternoon, we ended up with an extremely efficient Internet installation and almost immediately received a FaceTime call from our daughter and granddaughter.  Happy day!

A Fabulous Week at the MTC, Quality Family Time and Off to the Netherlands

We entered the MTC on Monday, June 1, 2015.  We entered with a group of 41 couples and five single sisters.  We enjoyed getting to know most of them during our time there.  It is a pretty impressive group of people and we enjoyed many spiritual experiences together.

Here we are with part of the group.  They took four group shots to fit us all in.

In the afternoon of the first day we were divided into districts of four couples.  We were blessed to be in a district with three other couples:  The Camerons were called to serve a "Stay at home" Member and Leader Support (MLS) mission in Lehi Utah.  We were touched by the incredible power that accompanied their testimony of the gospel.  The Gunnersons are from our same stake in Washington, Utah where he served as the Stake Patriarch and are headed to Nagoya Japan as the mission office couple.  In addition to being our District Leader, they kept us cheered up and positive.  The Merricks are headed to the California Oakland mission where they will work with a Samoan Ward.  Sister Merrick is Samoan and they met and married there.  They are dedicated workers with strong testimonies and we know they will be a great blessing to the members and the ward there.  We enjoyed every second we spent with these great couples.

We can truly say that we never had a discouraging moment at the MTC.  Our morning instructor was Brother Gubler from Santa Clara.  We were thrilled to learn that he is the son of Shandon and Sue Gubler.  He served his mission in the Alpine German Speaking mission.  He was organized, efficient and spiritual and we learned a lot from him.  Sister Lane was our afternoon instructor.  She served a mission in Japan and taught us a few Japanese words to get us over our fear of the role play situations.  She is a new instructor, but brought energy and dedication to the group.

We also had an inspiring devotional with Elder Christofferson on Tuesday evening.  We enjoyed singing with the young missionaries in the MTC choir.  On Thursday evening, we were blessed to see a recording of another devotional given a couple of years ago by Elder Bednar.

At the MTC, we were surprised to see the sister of Chrystaline Lim Dalumpines on her way to the Hong Kong mission.  Her lovely companion was on her way to Viet Nam and knew Sister Caldwell's cousin Lewis Hassell on his way there the week before.  We also saw our grand niece Sister Sarah Oliphant (Kendall's daughter).

Our son picked us up on Friday afternoon at 3:30 and we headed up to his home in Bountiful.  Our daughter-in-law suggested that we go to the food trucks for dinner.  That turned out to be an inspired decision since we ran into my wonderful cousin Julie Oder and her two children and grandchild.  That was an unexpected blessing.  

After dinner, our son loaned us his car and his son (our grandson) so that we could visit Bonnie's sister Marilyn in the rehab facility.  We had a lovely visit and were delighted to see her doing so well.  As usual, our grandson Tait was charming and interested in his great aunt's health and welfare.

Saturday morning, we went to the airport to check in for our flight to Amsterdam and drop off our baggage.  We then went to see Bonnie's aunt Farrol who is in her late 90s.  She is a lovely lady with great wisdom and a great sense of humor.  We always come away blessed and uplifted and this visit was no exception.  She told us that she had more energy because she had the battery replaced in her pacemaker.

We were able to join two of my sisters and brother and their families at Chuck-a-Rama for a farewell luncheon.  Both of our children and their families were there as well.  It was wonderful to be together for a few minutes.  It did make leaving a bit harder knowing that we were going to be gone for 23 months.

We headed back to the airport for our flight to Amsterdam.  Our Delta non-stop flight from Salt Lake to Amsterdam was easy, if a bit cramped.  As usual, Bonnie did not get a lot of sleep on the flight, but we arrived in Amsterdam at about 10:45 AM.  The Amsterdam airport is undergoing renovation, so things were a bit disorganized compared to previous visits there.  We cleared immigration, collected our baggage and were then met by President and Sister Robinson and President van der Put.  It was wonderful to see President Robinson after more than 40 years.

From the airport, we went directly to the Soetermeer Ward.  Soetermeer is the location of the temple and the previous building was torn down to construct the temple.  For many years they met in an office building that was difficult to reach, but are now meeting in a beautiful new building.  It was ward conference and we enjoyed the speakers and the music.  We were able to understand everything said during the meeting and also to converse comfortably with the members, so I guess we haven't lost too much of our Dutch.  We do have a fairly heavy accent that we hope to lose again soon.

We stayed in the Golden Tulip hotel across the street from the mission home.  On Monday morning we walked to the mission home and began the process of immigration, driving training, etc.  We also had a lovely interview with President Robinson.  Elder and Sister Robison, the mission office couple have worked tirelessly to take good care of us with the able assistance of President van der Put.  We are so grateful for their many efforts and hard work on our behalf.  It makes us even more determined to work hard in the service of the Lord and the mission.