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!