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  More than half had out-of-date or incorrect addresses and bad phone numbers.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.