Teamwork with the Leuven Elders and a Visit from Peter Hedderich

This week, our district class was moved from Tuesday to Wednesday and from Leuven to Turnhout so that the missionaries could be interviewed by President Bunnell.  Without traffic, Turnhout is an hour drive.  You have to drive through Antwerpen to reach it and the traffic in Antwerpen is usually quite heavy.  We started for Turnhout an hour and a half early and discovered that the two northern freeway entrances in Mechelen were closed because of a major road construction project.  After wandering around Mechelen for 30 minutes in rush hour traffic, we decided to head to the southern freeway entrance.  This turned out to be a great decision because we got right on the freeway.  Traffic in Antwerpen was surprisingly good and we ended up only being 10 minutes late for the district class.

We enjoyed our meeting with the district since we had many new missionaries since the last transfer.  We also enjoyed visiting with President and Sister Bunnell and Sister C prepared a lovely taco salad for lunch.  It was well received by the missionaries and President and Sister Bunnell.

Sisters Voss and Goodman with bicycles decorated with flowers, of course.

The Turnhout district (minus Elder C, the photographer).  Great missionaries all.

This week, we really enjoyed the team effort with the Leuven Elders.  We had about 100 less active or inactive members on the membership rolls in the Leuven area.  It seemed quite overwhelming to visit this large list of members.  Thanks to Google Maps, we were able to organize the list for efficient visits.

Because parking in the inner city is expensive and difficult to find (about $2.50 per hour), the Elders concentrated on the members inside or near the ring road and we took the outlying addresses.  Between us, we were able to visit about 40 addresses this week.  The majority have long since moved and it is impossible to find out where they went.  The Elders did pick up one new investigator through this process.  They are extremely efficient at using this activity to do more contacting and usually knock about ten doors in the area they visit.

Wednesday evening, we drove to the Brussels South - Charleroi airport to pick up our nephew, Peter Hedderich who has been on a two-month jaunt across Asia and Europe before he begins medical school in the fall.  The main Brussels airport is ten minutes from our home with great bus and train connections.  The Charleroi airport is favored by the discount carriers and looks and feels more like an airport in the third world.  It is difficult to get to.  Mass transit is pricey with complicated connections and service that stops early in the evening, so our only option was to drive down there to collect him.  It is about a 75 minute drive each way and he arrived at about 11:00 PM.  We were certainly glad to see him.

Peter Hedderich in front of the Brussels City Hall

Sampling the Brussels waffles

Enjoying the traditional mussels and frites lunch

One of the great restaurant streets

Peter by the Manneken Pis statue

Peter in the famous and gorgeous Antwerpen train station.

Peter demonstrating the famous "hand werpen" or hand throwing technique of Brabo.  One legend has it that
the giant Antigoon would extract a toll for crossing the river Schelde (or Scheldt) and that he would cut off
the hands of those who would not pay and toss them into the river.

The young hero Brabo cut off the giant Antigoon's hand and threw it into the river.  It may not be true
but it makes a nice story and the statue in front of the city hall is certainly unique.  Handwerpen (or
hand throwing) became the basis for the name of the city Antwerpen (or Antwerp in English).

Sister C in front of her favorite Onze Lieve Vrouw cathedral in Antwerpen

On Thursday, we decided to go to Brussels and Antwerpen with the train.  In Brussels, we went to the Grote Markt (Grand Place), Manneken Pis, ate a waffle, had a delicious and inexpensive lunch.  We spent a lovely morning and early afternoon in Brussels and then took the train to Antwerpen.  Antwerpen is the largest city in Belgium and bustling with energy and commerce.  It still has a lovely historic section and is a fun place to visit.  We were able to spend about an hour in the Rubens Huis (Where Rubens lived and worked for most of his career).  It certainly shatters the image that artists must be starving.  Rubens was a highly successful painter and diplomat and was knighted by two kings during his lifetime.

Since we are still missionaries, we tried to combine work with some tourist hosting.  On Friday, we arranged to inspect the missionary apartments in the Ghent district.  We visited the District Leader apartment and the Sister's' apartment in Ghent and then drove to Brugge and inspected the apartment there.  These take some time, because the elders, in particular, usually do not know the basics of housekeeping and need some assistance and instruction.  We keep reminding ourselves that most of these missionaries have never lived away from home before.

We ran into a Filipino sister and her husband on the Grote Markt in Brugge

Sister C and Peter in front of the City Hall

Peter attacking authentic Belgian frites

By the canals of Brugge

Riding on the canal boats.  Keep your head down - low bridges

Despite the beautiful, historic building McDonald's cannot compete with Belgian frites

Peter in front of the Bell tower

Peter by the canals

More Brugge canals

Traditional Belgian tatting

After completing our apartment inspections for the day, we drove into the center of Brugge and parked in an underground parking garage.  We had never been to Brugge before so this was a treat.  We walked to the Grote Markt when the city hall and bell tower are located.  The bell tower is the tallest brick tower in Belgium and was used as a lookout post as well as housing a clock and carillon.  These were prestigious undertakings in the middle ages.  As we entered the Grote Markt, we were greeting by a Filipino sister and her husband.  She is a member of the Church and they were visiting from Hong Kong where they now live.  We managed to snap a picture.  A few minutes later in one of the churches we were greeted with "Happy Pioneer Day" by a sister from Los Angeles.  It is nice to have name tags that make us so identifiable.  Sister C gave both of these sisters a big hug.

In Brugge, we introduced Peter to real Belgian frites.  These were a bit pricy, but very authentic and delicious.  The frites stand on the Grote Markt has been around for a long time and they did things exactly according to the historical formula.  Belgians invented the French fries and they are called French because of the cut of the potato, not because the French invented them.

On Saturday, we needed to visit Elder and Sister Johnson in Rotterdam.  They are returning home this Thursday and the mission is closing the apartment.  The mission home wanted us to go by and pick up things that might be useful in our apartment.  On the way there, we made a quick stop at Kinderdijk where there is a large collection of polder mills.  There were a large group of people there from a Viking river cruise, including a large LDS family.  We recognized their BYU sweatshirt and they recognized our name tags and gave Sister C a big hug.  They had been hoping to see missionaries in the Netherlands.

We enjoyed a nice visit with the Johnsons and Sister C collected a few useful items.  It is sad to say goodbye to these wonderful couples.  They are leaving on the same flight as the Romigs.  After the visit to the Romigs, we headed north to the Zaanse Schans.  This is an area of the Netherlands that used to be the industrial section powered by wind.  They had an industrial revolution more than 100 years before the rest of the world due to harnessing wind power.  Unfortunately, the wind was overpowering.  This was the worst summer storm on record in the Netherlands.  There were many wrecks on the freeways and limbs down everywhere.  We later learned that a tree had fallen on a car in Amsterdam and killed a person.  A tree also fell on a car in Rotterdam.  We spent a couple of hours visiting various shops, but never made it to the windmills.  Peter had no coat and got thoroughly soaked.

The weather wasn't too bad in the early morning at Kinderdijk

Peter enjoying the sights and 17th century technology

Just proving that we were all together

Enjoying Dutch apple koek

Arriving at the wooden shoe shop

Gale force winds get you wet in a hurry.

I'll bet you didn't know that they made violins from wooden shoes - neither did we.

The wooden shoe demo area at the Zaanse Schaans

Peter watching from the wings

A very wet, but friendly Peter in front of the windmills

The reward for having endured the gales

The rotating pannekoek machine

My reward!

We consoled ourselves by visiting the pannekoek restaurant.  It was a bit expensive, but the pannekoeken were wonderful.  We had an uneventful, if somewhat stressful return journey due to wind buffeting on our way home.  As we crossed the border from the Netherlands into Belgium, sunlight broke out.

Sunday morning, we picked up Brother Van Es and drove to the ward meetings in Leuven.  It takes about an hour with the detour on the freeway.  We enjoyed a great sacrament meeting talk by Elder Clukey and then a talk by Brother Van Kerckhoven from the high council.  Sister C was sustained as the Primary Chorister.  She is thrilled with this calling and is now madly learning the primary songs in Dutch.