Sept 7, 2008.

O.K. This one might be long, because we haven’t posted anything for a long time and things are poppin’, a little.


This is a nice family we’ve visited twice, and are trying to “bring back.” They’ve felt “excluded” and that’s too bad. Their last name is Parmentier.

















This is a decoration on the side of their house, made by the lady: It’s kind of like a “plastic of paris mural.” Then after she made it, she cut it into 6 pieces and hung it on the wall.

















The next part is not very well organized. Sorry. I wrote a long explanation about the community singing we've joined, and put it AFTER these pictures. It's imbedded in an explanation about a funeral we attended last Saturday. Not well organized. Sorry. Just read (and re-read if you have to) to understand.


These are members of the commmunity choir at a “party/barbecue.” Yes, they called it a “barbecue” pronounced with a strong French accent. Lots a people know English words, but they can’t string them together, and their pronunciation is totally French. But lots of them, especially the better educated ones, can at least read English, and some can speak it fairly well.

























The question Americans HAVE to ask is How do these people avoid putting on weight? Look at that cake covered with strawberries, on the left! And this is only a small part of all the food.



















This next picture is NOT a good picture! Too light. You see Alice! To her right, you see the shorter lady, Sister Sautier, diagnosed with lung cancer about 3 years ago, but she’s beating it! Along with all the other emotions that go with such a catastrophe is the question “Why . . . ? since I have never ever smoked in my life?” The younger man, white t-shirt and levis, is her son-in-law, who is the contractor for the house (beautiful!) they’re building. The blue-t-shirt man is Brother Sautier, released as Stake president, probably 5 or 7 years ago, a member of our ward. The oldest guy in the picture looks really pretty old, doesn’t he?!! (Picture taken by one of the contractor’s hired hands. . .not very skilled!)



















Date: 7 Sept. 2008. Yesterday we went to a Catholic funeral!

I’ll explain.

We have joined a community choir. . . you know that. The choir is called “Samm’ Chante.” The Samme is a small river in the area of Seneffe, the town where we live, and "Chante" means "sing" of course, as all of you French speakers already know!! We sang with the choir at the marriage service of one of the grandchildren of one of the choir members a few weeks ago. After the service, we went to a bar and had our Sprite with other choir members, while they had their wine or beer (Belgians drink beer, not wine, usually). (See our blog of Aug 18.) A week ago Saturday, we went to a “Barbecue” . . . well, . . . they served less meat than in the US, but a lot (a lot!) of good food, and we ate outdoors. I would have called it a picnic, but for them, a picnic is really out in the wild! It was hosted by the Samm’Chante.

I'm still explaining, so just stay with me. We (Samm'Chante) rehearse every Wednesday evening, and we learned last Wednesday that the father-in-law of one of the members had passed away, and so we were asked to sing at his funeral service in the local church. Well, this time, we asked to be excused because we didn’t know the music. But we went to the funeral anyway. . . more than anything out of curiosity. It wasn’t too big of a surprise. But at one point, everyone there (except us and about 2 other people) went toward the priest and kissed something he held out to them. We couldn’t see what it was, and I thought maybe they had changed the way they gave “Communion.” Then later in the service, they DID have “Communion.” So after the service, we got to talking to one of the other choir members, comparing funeral services. She wanted to know if our services were very different than theirs, and so we explained, of course. She explained that the “kissing” mentioned above was a “personal farewell” to the deceased. The priest (and one other guy, a “lay minister?”) held small oval picture of what I think was the deceased, of maybe just a small oval picture of a cross, which each person kissed, and which the priest wiped on a cloth before the next person kissed it again. We’ve never been to a Catholic funeral before, so this was new to us.

It’s quite obvious to us that “Mormons” are still very very (!!) unknown here (except of course, for polygamy). In France and Belgium, you’re either Catholic or agnostic/atheist. (Sure, they’ve heard about Protestants, but I think even the Protestants and Jews seem “weird” to these people. And Muslims. . .these Europeans are actually kinda racist about Muslims. African-Europeans get less flak than Muslims do.) I thin k most people here still confuse us with the Amish. And of course what they see on TV about the FLDS strengthens that false idea. Whew!!

The lady who asked us questions thought, of course, that our church had its origins during the 16th or 17th centuries. It’s hard for these people to understand the concept that an Apostasy occurred shortly after the death of the apostles, and that a restoration was necessary.




Today in Fast Meeting, our host, Oliver Snickers, who works for the town of Seneffe, mentioned that a member of the town council has mentioned us to him. I guess we’ll have to see if they tell us at the next rehearsal whether or not we are still welcome to sing with them. I think they won’t kick us out, though, because we add something (we sing pretty well) and because we brought food to the picnic (mentioned above) and we helped wash wine glasses at the last rehearsal (yes, they had a little champagne at the last practice).

Thanks to those who post responses to these blogs. (If you don't, don't feel guilty, really!) We are really (!!) blessed. We wish we could see more people become active or come into the fold, but still, even so, we're blessed.

26 Aug 2008.

Hello all,

Well, we still are not meeting as many people as it seems to me that we used to in Strasbourg. It’s sad that I keep on comparing Belgium to Strasbourg. Not everything was great there! Not by a long shot. But the more time passes, the more it will probably seem like it was just perfect.

Anyway, the sisters took us on a visit to a lady who seems as sincere as I have ever seen anyone. She kept nodding positively as they made their presentation. Admittedly, she said she would come to Church, and then didn’t make it, but I think it was for a legitimate reason. People are coming back from vacation, and there truly were quite a few people at Charleroi last Sunday (Aug. 24). I gave the Priesthood Lesson and had 80% of the chairs filled (probably 16 people). . . not bad for the mission field. It was usually about like that in El Centro, and often smaller.

I have just given you an example of a terribly written paragraph! Each one of the sentences has little to do with the other four. So I’m going to re-write it.

Here it is again:

Anyway, the sisters took us on a visit to a lady who seems as sincere as I have ever seen anyone. She kept nodding positively as they made their presentation. Admittedly, she said she would come to Church, and then didn’t make it, but I think it was for a legitimate reason.

People are coming back from vacation, and there truly were quite a few people at Charleroi last Sunday (Aug. 24). I gave the Priesthood Lesson and had 80% of the chairs filled (probably 16 people). . . not bad for the mission field. It was usually about like that in El Centro, and often smaller.

* * * * * *

Two weeks ago, the stake executive secretary, Yvan Leonard, invited us to dinner for Aug 24, and we went and had a great Chinese dinner (yes, in Belgium). Wow, did he talk a lot! And asked us a lot of questions about the Church in Utah. His son was a missionary in Ogden, and even a zone leader. But while there he heard a lot (lots!) of people who said, “Why does anyone want to go to BYU? You should go to U of U, not BYU!” We told Yvan (the dad) that in Utah we now have “ La Sainte Guerre” (the Holy War) which is BYU/U.U. football rivalry, and which can get pretty serious!! He also heard about gun-totin’ racists in southern Utah! Yup, that’s what he heard about! You know, the big question of immigration! What surprised him most was that SLC is less Mormon than other areas in Utah (certain suburbs, Provo, etc.). It sounds like the European press/media picks up more of crazy things than a person would think, especially about the FLDS. Today, we even learned from some Belgians that the CIA and FBI have found some skin-heads planning to bomb the Democratic Convention. We haven’t heard or read about that yet, but maybe I will tonight after I finish this.

Among other things, Yvan Leonard told us is something we have sensed for a long time, and that is that the Church leaders in Europe seem to be a lot more strict than in the US. The current stake president in Brussels is (is!) an American, however, and he is trying to help the bishops and high council to be a little less harsh. This is interesting to me, because I think that in El Centro, the person who was stake president most of the time we were there was pretty “hard line.”


A letter from the European Area Authorities was read in Charleroi’s Sacrament Meeting, in which it was stated that Bern Temple has an urgent need for more senior couples. So we are going to do all we can to get ourselves called to go there next year. You’ll hear more about that project as we get our plans firmed up.


Today we had a (quite) enjoyable lunch with two retired couples who are members of our community choir. Both families are native Belgians, but spent many years as young marrieds in Congo (Africa). They even served us a Congo dinner (well, the main dish): first, soup, second, rice covered with chicken in a yellow sauce, and dessert, ice-cream. The only really Congo part of the meal was the rice and chicken with sauce. It so happened that the host showed us a new kind of can opener which opens the can so that there is a kind of “cap” to the can, and we happened to notice that it contained the sauce for the rice! (I was surprised, but didn’t mind it.) So this “African” meal is apparently well known in Belgium, since it’s sold in grocery stores in cans!

I was surprised how much these two couples (80’s and 70’s) shared with us! About the only time we could talk about the Church was when we talked about our kids and their travels, and not drinking alcohol, coffee or tea. But they, on the other hand, told us their “life stories!” We haven’t experienced anything at all in comparison to them!! Of course we encouraged them to write their experiences, and they admitted that they should. They seemed to appreciate us, because the hostess invited us to “drop in” on her at any time. We probably won’t, but I’m still amazed that she would even say it, because these people are really quite “protective” of their space and time. Twice before, when I’ve called the host, and his wife answered, she lied to me that he was not there, and then admitted, after she knew it was me, that she had lied, because so many telemarketeers call them.


This evening we met a less-active family with kids aged 15 and 11. The mother is Peruvian, the father half-French/half-German. They met in Cuzco, Peru, and had only English in common. They (probably) married and (for sure) moved to France, then Belgium, probably 15 years ago. All four of the family are listed on the ward records, but seem to have almost no interest whatsoever. However, the mother, Roxana, volunteered to us that several of her family are members, still living in Peru. She even has an active sister in SLC! It’s interesting how some people hold on and others simply do not! Why is that? I’m baffled!


Thursday we get to play “slow ambulance,” driving a member from Charleroi to a hospital Brussels and back. (C’mon, learn some geography! Look at a map of Belgium on the net. Charleroi is about 30-35 miles south of Brussels, but sometimes it feels further.) Charleroi has hospitals, but this member needs some specialized help, I guess. I don’t know what she’d do if we didn’t help her. Members here are a little less helpful during the week than what we hear is the case in Utah. Since we have not lived there for decades, we really don’t know!


That’s about all for now. I don’t write often, and when I do, it feels to me like I don’t really say anything of very much importance. We really have not been able to re-activate anyone, or be really involved with someone’s baptism. But a few of the Strassburgers remember us (and write us to thank us for having been there ) and maybe that’ll happen here too.

Alice just reminded me that actually, we have provided real missionary support than we ever did in Strasbourg. The missionaries need rides, because the distances are greater, surprisingly. We spend a lot of money on gas!


At least you know we think about you.

26 Aug 2008

Following are pictures of Yvan Leonard and his wife Dolores. Funny story: Both members of the Church since childhood; married each other, divorced each other, then re-married each other a second time! Wow!



They have a big (!!) acquarium. Gold fish and. . . purple fish! Yvan claims they are smart! And jealous (of their territory). He spends 2 or 3 HOURS per week cleaning and maintaining his/their (the fishes') acquarium.

The "bulbs" hanging from the tree are Kiwis. The kiwi tree is in the Sadzot yard. She's the lady who was baptized in 1962 in Nice. Alice arrived in Nice in 1963, after the lady had left Nice.

Pictures #2 and #3 show two of the FOUR fishponds they have built in their yard. Very attractive (any little boy would have trouble resisting trying to catch those fish with his hands).



Backyard. This picture does not do it justice. It is green, green, green!

Pictures. The commentary is in the next blog. Sorry, I'm still not very good at this.

The Friendship Beer-joint! Aug. 18, 2008

I think that most of you know that Alice took RyanAir from Charleroi to Madrid last weekend, where she met up with Stacy. They had a nice time.

Saturday, Alice and I went to Brussels because Stacy had told us about the display of flowers at the Main Square of Brussels. It’s kindof a long drive to Brussels (about 30 miles) and so we decided to take the train. We got off at Central Station and walked down the hill to the Grand’Place (Big Plaza). There were lots of foreigners there (can’t imagine why!), mostly Italians and Spaniards. (In Europe, vacation is BIG! People in the north go south and vice-versa!)


New subject:

We think that the “long” summer is drawing to an end, and hopefully people will be coming back to Church. Attendance was a little better the last couple of weeks than before.

This morning I happened to see a story on the web about something crazy going on at an LDS chapel in London. I’ll give you the site: http://abev.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/too-much-excitement-for-sunday-or-on-burning-down-a-mormon-church/

The second half of the story tells about the allegedly crazy guy had cuts on his hand, and when asked about it, he seemed to admit, by his body language, that he was guilty of the arson. This reminds me of Helaman 9:24-41, which you might want to re-read.

Speaking of the BoM (Book of Mormon), I have found a site which I really like. It’s a very detailed commentary on the entire Book or Mormon, by an LDS named Brant Gardner, who sometimes publishes in the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Study at BYU. http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/commentary.htm

Here’s more about this man Gardner, and about the many other active LDS who are doing scholarly research on LDS themes: http://farms.byu.edu/authors/?authorID=78
I continue to have problems with our blog site. It rejects my password every time I use it, so I have to reset the password every time I want to post something new to the blog. That’s a real hassle. I have written down the username and password very clearly, and know that I’m not putting in something weird. If anyone has any ideas on how to get around this, I’d like to know.
Because of my problems with the blogsite, I’m not able to post the pictures until later, when I have 2 or 3 hours to work on it.

Luv, Dad/Gerry

If I am able to get back to his blog site later, I'll do that. Meanwhile, here's the commentary that you can read before you see the pictures (if I can ever get them up).


Regarding some of the pictures : when I push the button, the camera beeps 3 times. I keep thinking the first beep is when the picture is taken, but after looking at some of the “pictures” (junk, really), I’m beginning to think the picture is taken only after the 3rd beep, and sometimes by that time, I’ve lowered my hand holding the camera.

You see 2 or 3 pictures of a bunch of old people, dressed mostly in blue or green tops. I’ll explain.

We’ve joined a singing group. . . they’ve been nice to us (because we are pretty good singers). On Saturday, the group sang at the wedding, in a local Catholic church. The pieces we sang were all in French (no Latin) and were almost “folk songs.” We sang with them, of course, but didn’t make the sign of the cross when they did. After the wedding, the group of singers went down the street “to have a glass” . . . (of anything). The placed was called “Taverne de l’Amitié.” English speakers all understand “Taverne.” Well, maybe not. In England, they would call it a “pub.” And in the US., we might call it (at least people of our age would) a “beer-joint.” So the translation would be “Friendship Beer-Joint.” I thought that was funny. I wanted to get a picture of the name of the place and tell you how it would come out in translation, but Alice said, “let’s photograph the group too.”

We had Sprite, while most everyone else had a Belgian beer.

I’ve struck up a friendship with one of the other basses. I asked him some questions and he told me some interesting things about “State-religion” connections. All the churches are kept in repair by the government. If we see a church that is not in repair, it’s because of a government problem (funding, etc.). Even more amazing, all priests, rabbis, ministers, etc., even Moslem clerics, are “state employees!” They come under the supervision of the Minister of Justice! (Maybe it’s because they are supposed to help keep “order in the state!”) I don’t know why I have never picked up on this in the past. It truly is amazing to an American to learn of this, and yet it is probably the norm in almost all the world (Europe, south America, much of Africa). In Asia it might be entirely different! I don’t know about Canada, but I suppose Mexico follows this norm, which may explain why the Mexican govt. for many years wanted to “own” all LDS chapels. All this helps explain why certain people are so anti-religious. . . I’ve known for a long time that the Catholic hierarchy and the royalty worked hand in hand to “keep the people” in control. Now it’s even more obvious how this worked, even though most European countries are democracies (even if they have a king). So. . . only in American could you find such a tenuous link between the “established church” and the govt., that a young man like J. Smith could come along. In any other country, the governor of Missouri or Illinois would have had even greater power to quash an “upstart” religion, and especially one which viewed itself as “the kingdom of God.” Kinda makes you think!

Aug. 16, 2008.

I don't normally forward internet addresses, because of the possibility of viruses. But I feel comfortable posting this one. http://www.eurobru.com/visag040.htm It's about a "carpet of flowers" which is "laid down" in the Main Square ("Grand Place") of Brussels. We have not yet seen it, but hope to today, tomorrow or Monday (Aug. 16-18). Stacy told us about it. If you prefer to simply look for it in Google, just type in "tapis de fleurs" and "bruxelles" and it should come up. The commentary will be in French. Sorry about that. If you write "flower" "grand place" and "brussels" in Google, you might find the same thing in English.

We'll add to this a little later.

A pretty good day.

Well! Today has felt like Strasbourg. By that I mean, I feel like we had a “good day,” the kind we had quite often in Strasbourg. We haven’t had them anywhere near as often, so we’re thankful for this one today.

At 10 a.m., we met with Sister Monique SADZOT. A less-active member, she had granted us the opportunity to talk with her about genealogy, and nothing else, about 3 weeks ago, before she went on vacation. When we arrived today, she had her genealogy on the table in several binders, and within 10 minutes, she had pulled out her baptismal certificate, dated July (I think) 1962. We looked at it. She had been baptized in Nice, by Elder Kent Greene. Mom/Alice recognized the name of this Elder Greene! But neither Sis. Sadzot nor Alice remembered each other. But they both mentioned to each other things about Nice at that time period. So we think they should know each other.

We spent 1 ½ hours with her talking about several things, much of them related to genealogy, but not all, and she was almost apologetic for returning to other Church themes. She showed us her beautiful backyard, and we’ll try to remember to get pictures of that the next time we’re there. Her grandson, not a member, was able to recite the names of his paternal line back five generations. How many of all of us can do that?

She showed us several pedigree charts, which included not only her handwriting, but also some notes/writing by someone else, who, she said, was a person at the Family History Center. She was highly offended that he had written on her pedigree charts (!) (in pencil!) and had stopped doing any genealogy thereafter! So it was really lucky (or something else!) that we ended up using genealogy as a way to spend more time with her, back when we first met her a month ago.

I asked her if I could copy some of the info with paper and pencil, and told her I would do some research for her. But she offered to photocopy 4 of those sheets, so I brought them home and looked in Family Search for some of her ancestors’ names. I found very few, but I did find one family (1730’s) of parents and 4 kids, the names of which had been submitted probably by another church member. I’ll have at least a little bit of good news for her when we see her next time.

As we left, I mentioned what I often do, that is, that it’s we who make the visit who profit as much from the visit as do those who receive the visit. She certainly agreed!

We then went to see Sis. LEBLICQ. She had her 11 yr. old granddaughter Estelle with her. We brought the Casio keyboard with us, and sang three songs. At first hesitant, Estelle warmed up a little. (I am amazed at how shy, if not downright distrustful, many people in this country are! We’ve heard Hispanics living in Strasbourg and here complain that these French speakers are not “warm” enough!)

Anyway, we sang 3 children’s songs. We asked if Sis. Leblicq knew of anyone who might like piano lessons, free. We mentioned we could give lessons in other things too, like English, or even reading French. She said she needed help with that. So Alice came home and looked on the Church site for “literacy programs.”

Then we tried again to find a person who has “escaped” us once before (many have!). He is Johnson EDIKU (I’m writing lots of this for myself, as well as for you guys). Our bishop asked us to go find him. He’s married, has 2 kids, non-member wife. He was a little distant at first (yeah. . . of course!) but then his wife joined him at the door and she helped warm things up. Although we just stayed at the door, that was our 3rd good meeting today.

Last, we called up the PIRLET family. The papa had called me up yesterday and said they had to cancel our rendez-vous (appointment). But we called them today on the cell phone (I’m finally starting to us it a little!) and they said they’d let us come. I wanted (like I always do) to stay a short time, and leave them wanting us to come back (instead of staying a long time and having them feel like, “Wow, no more of that!”). Well, we sang a couple of songs with them (I think singing is the best thing we do!! I really do!) and I was ready to go. But then a relative came, then they offered us drinks, then the relative left, then the father told us the long-drawn out story of the tragedy of their second child (born after greast labor on the mother’s part) born with an open space on the top of his head (and water on the brain) who would, had he lived, been a vegetable. I am amazed that the few people who are not shy or distrusting “let it all hang out!”

However Bro. Pirlet is not dumb! Here’s why I say that. He said, as we were leaving, “Your name is not American.” (By that he meant it’s not like the names of most of the missionaries: Smith, Jones, Brown, etc.) “No,” I said, “it’s Swiss-French.” “Oh,” he said, “I thought, until you told us you were Americans, that you were Swiss German.” And he repeated it! Now that. . . that is the highest compliment I’ve ever had! What he’s saying is “You’ve got a little accent, but it’s like a German accent, but not really like a real German’s. So you must be Swiss.” I walked on Cloud Nine all the way back to the car (about 50 meters).

So, when we got home, we realized we had had four pretty good meetings with people today. First time that’s happened since we came 3 months ago!

Last Thursday we drove from Seneffe (near Mons, near Brussels, if you want to look at a map) to Calais (northwest coast of France) in about 2 ½ hours. Then took a ferry to Dover, on the coast of England. We stayed in a bed and breakfast, then took a train to Cantebury Cathedral (the “mother church” of the Anglican Church (Episcopalianism). Guess what the Canterbury Tales are named after? Geoffrey Chaucer, in the 1300’s, wrote stories of Pilgrims wending their way from northwest England to Canterbury to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Beckett, who was martyred in this cathedral.

Friday evening we found Stacy, We ferried and drove back to Seneffe, arriving at 2 a.m., and then Stacy accompanied a small ward choir on her violin Sunday morning. Did I already tell you all of this?

Well, I’ll end abruptly. Things could be better. But they could be MUCH worse too.
Luv,
Gerry and Alice (Dad and Mom).

I will trust you! (Wow!)

Something very unusual happened today. I want to write about it, first for you guys, and then for myself. This is something I must never forget!!

Yesterday we made an appointment for an oil change. I was blown away by the amount they wanted. . . 70 euros, and with the dollar being worth only 63/100’s of a euro these days, it was especially hard for me to swallow! An oil change for about $105-110! After talking with the service personnel a little, it became clearer that in addition to changing the oil (about 40 euros. . . $60), they would also change the filter (well of course!) and do some “checks” on tires, other fluids and electrical system. It still seemed awfully steep to me! I stopped at a gas station (not a garage) and found out that a can of 10W40 oil costs 10 euros! That’s about $15 for what we’d pay about $5 for in the US. (Of course, by now a can of oil might be $7 or even higher in the US!)

But we needed to change the oil, because we’ve put nearly 20,000 kilometers on the car since buying it last August, and never yet changed the oil. And tomorrow we’re going to Calais, on the French northwest coast, then to Dover England, to get our passports stamped so that we’ll be legal on the continent for another 3 months. Stacy will join us and come with us to Seneffe, where we are in Belgium and then take a high speed train back to London, where she will arrive after a 2 hour trip. (Wow, again.)

All of this is introduction to the story.

We were supposed to arrive at “Auto 5,” kind of like Pet Boys, at 9:15 a.m. Our appointment was for 9:30, and they wrote on the work order, “Promised for 10 a.m.” We drove up to the garage and people were standing around outside! The sign said “Open at 8:30 a.m.” but it wasn’t, and the people standing around were employees! But the shift manager, with the key, had not arrived! Finally about 9:40 or 9:45 the “general manager” arrived and said we’d be served first. Alice had a piano lesson to give on the other side of town. I told the manager about that, and asked if I could come back at 10:15. OK, they said. So I drove Alice to her lesson and came back at 10:05. They didn’t get started until 10:15. None of this sounds worthy of remembering. You can imagine that I was not happy about things.

Then I realized that Alice had all the money in her purse. I seldom carry much money. I have a US Visa card. We have a bank card for our French bank, but Alice had that too. I told the manager I had the Visa, but that it might not work. I told him I would have to take the car after the oil was changed, go get Alice and the money, and come back and pay him.

Now the surprise.

He told me he would trust me to do that.

Wow!

I waited for the work to be done. He came over to me after a while and apologized for not having the shop open (it was his mid-level manager who goofed). I said, “things worked out, and I especially appreciate your willingness to let me take the car and go get the money to pay for the work.”

Afterwards I reflected on why this happened. We certainly sense less of a “we’ll trust you” attitude in Europe in general, and in Belgium in particular. Maybe the guy felt guilty. Maybe, and I really do think this is the real reason, maybe it was because I have white hair (am an older person), and was dressed neatly, and was shaved and had a neat (conservative) haircut. In other words, I really do believe appearance had a lot to do with it. And that’s what I want to remember. Oh yes, maybe the fact that I speak French fluently, but I really do think that was less of a factor.

Anyway, that’s the “aventure du jour.” (Note: aventure, not adventure.)

I still feel like things are not rolling nearly as well as they did in Strasbourg. In Strasbourg, people going on vacation was not such a problem as it is here. Yesterday I called a guy and asked if we could come, and he said, “Yeah, after Sept. 15.” That’s 6 weeks away!!!

Alice seems to be picking up some more piano students. I think she says she has six now, but most of them are at a pretty basic level, and we have to go to their house. Most of them are active members, some are inactives, and one is a non-member (and she’s going on vacation for 3 weeks! Dang it!).

Music can certainly help! I believe that almost anywhere outside the US, there is a crying need for more music in church! And hopefully we can use it to get more people either re-activated or interested in investigating.

The rest of this message is especially for Marc and Gloria Woolley, since Marc mentioned in a recent email to us that he knows the areas where we are: Nivelles and Charleroi. Yesterday, in Nivelles, we visited with the Robaeys family: Marie-France and her mother. They do not remember you, Marc, but have seen so many, many, many missionaries, that that is not surprising. But they told us about people who were among the first members in Nivelles: The Delauws (André and Anne), and their sons John and Johnathan (yep!) and the former stake president, Michel SAUTIER and his wife Franca. They mentioned other names too, but I didn’t recognize them. Marie-France’s sister Christiane is married to Christian NICOLAS, and they have 2 sons, Kevin and Jason, who went with 12 other kids from the Brussels Stake to Utah for 3 weeks, including EFY, etc. etc. I wish I had been able to hook you up with them, but we were not even able to get our daughter Nicky and her husband Benjamin to spend time with the son of the family with whom we are living. I guess their schedule was very full.

They mentioned that the VanNuvel brothers are relative newcomers to Nivelle. Probably the same for Jorge VARELA, who lives in Waterloo.

One other family in Nivelles you might recognize is Brogniet, owner of a jewelry store, and presumably the first family baptized in Nivelles, maybe in the late 60’s. He was the first person baptized here, and was the branch president, about 43 or so years ago, but is now inactive.

In Charleroi, we are closest to members of the bishopric in Charleroi First, located rue de la Tombe, south side of Charleroi, as you know. The bishop is Philippe WERY, a “Santa-Claus” type of guy : big, big-hearted, and big testimony! He says he’s been a member for 19 years, and this is his second stint as bishop. He was released as bishop about 10 years ago, I guess. His father & mother are members too. I am a little surprised by this, because maybe his parents joined shortly after or before the time he did, but it’s not frequent for "grandparents" to join after their adult kids join. The bishop has white hair like his mother but his father has semi-black hair, and I almost did a double take when he said he was the bishop’s father. Most interesting of all, is that he reminds me of Keith Johnson (same size, same face, but speaks French instead of English, and has a little more hair).

The Charleroi ward is mostly older members. . . many of them probably baptized in the 60’s. There are few youth, and when youth do join, they leave because of the depressed economics of Charleroi (old coal mining and smelting town. . . now 30% unemployment). Some older members are Ben COMELLI (a sealer in Holland temple), Xavier ROUSSELOT (patriarch), Claude YYPERSIER (who takes a group of Francophones to Church sites in the US every other year), les BULTIELLE, and a family we really like, Claude and Hediwege HAVRENNE. Sis. Havrenne seems to me like a Gen. Authority’s wife! Truly a wonderful person. They travel nearly 40 kilometers every Sunday from their very lovely home located southwest of Charleroi (right on the French border). Last Sunday she gave lessons in both R.S. and Sun. School! (Too many people on vacation!) They invited us, 2 elders and a senior couple from Brussels to dinner at their place 2 weeks ago. Exquis! (That’s “exquisite!”) They’ve done a temple mission at Frankfurt, and hope to do another one there soon, but they’ve heard that temple may soon close for renovation (surprises me). They “pressured us” to go to Frankfurt too, because there are few French speakers there, and that temple services much of northern France.

We've also met Robert LEONARD and several of his descendants. Also had contact with the daughter of Fr. DELOGNE, who was patriarch during the 80's. She now lives in Michigan. We helped her by getting together a lot of genealogy work he had collected. Then we mailed it to her.

Sorry for stopping so abruptly. Gotta get ready for this trip to England. I wrote all the proceeding while Alice was teaching 3 piano lessons.


luv,
Gerry and Alice (or otherwise appropriate parental titles).

More musings. July 11, 2008. Some day I may regret this post.

Dear ones,

I just happened to see this site on "Mormontimes.com" Please copy and paste it into your URL address box.

http://www.mormontimes.com/ME_familyhistory.php?id=1487

It certainly made me think of Greg and Amy's report of their trek. Their report was even more "graphic?" or "eviscerating" (gut out-wrenching?) than this one, however. Why? Because it sounds like Greg and Amy's group had to kill and eat a seagull, and then the day after, they had to eat crickets. (I'm think I'm right about that, am I not?)

Anyway, I'm so grateful for the communication that the internet allows us to have. . . it encourages truth-telling!

Tomorrow I'm speaking in Church. I'm going to talk about "Why is there so much evil in the world? No, change that, why is it that I see so much evil in the world! or as subtitle, Is my cup half empty or half full (see Psalm 23)." I chose the topic. . . it was not assigned. In connection with that, I happened to notice this site, also on mormontimes.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700241315,00.html Please copy and paste it into your URL address box.

Well, you can see I don’t have enough to do!

Oops, take that back. The elders just called this minute called again and asked us to go out with them again. We do it fairly often, 2 or 3 times a week, but not as often as I wish.

Before I found the mormontimes site, this thought crossed my mind:
“Everybody is so concerned about all the evil in the world, but nobody drives any slower or more carefully!! ARRGHH!” So you see, I too have ups and downs.

The next few paragraphs were also written about 30 minutes ago; if you’re able to follow all my ramblings, you could probably become a writer of modern fiction. “It's a brand new day! But not anything planned to do. Unfortunately, we are much less busy, even though we drive a lot more, than was the case in Strasbourg. We've helped the sisters mish's give lessons 2 days in a row, though. Great sistuhs! Pretty good contacts too.”

It seems harder for us to find people (inactives) to visit than in Strasbourg too. But yesterday we did find 3 groups of people at home.

Wednesday night we did go to the local community choir and sang with them, and they accepted us as well as did the one in Strasbourg. Unfortunately, they're taking the summer off for 6 weeks. Wish we had made contact with them earlier! 30 minutes later: One of the choir members offered to give us a copy of the un-copyrighted music. Nice of him. So I called him up to tell him we’d be coming, and his wife answered the phone, and when I asked if her husband was there, she said what we hear so often, “WHY do you need to talk to him?” “Oh my golly! Is she his secretary?” I thought. French is a nice language, but some French speakers seem intent on making themselves less-than-likeable. OOpps! Sorry. I’m letting it all hang out. I’ve got to read my own talk and do some fast repenting!

Sat. morning, July 12. We went and visited this couple. The man gave us the music. The lady apologized for her abruptness! She said they get lots of calls from telemarketeers, and she thought I was one. So she apologized profusely. Very nice couple. Lesson learned: I've got to remember that there are lots of telemarketeers out there.

Luv,
Dad/Grandpa/Gerry

Incidental pictures. June 2008.

Ah! Maybe I've found the secret to adding text to pix. This is Amélie. Unfortunately, she cries a lot. Can't figure out why she's unhappy so much. Near the end of May, there was a "End-of-the -School-year-Community-Show-and-Tell" day, and most of the kids did some kind of dance or other activity. In Amélie's class, they put red circles on the little girls' cheeks and kerchiefs on their heads and had them dance.




There was a baptism last week. Aimé KOFFI and Charles MUGANGA were baptized. The wives of both these men are still in Africa. It will be a challenge for these men to stay active, but the Elders are called to preach the Gospel to all the world, baptizing them. The older man in white is Marc VanNuvel, 1st Counselor in the Stake Pres. and a member of our Nivelles ward. The elder in a suit is Elder Stowers, from Draper, whose mother Bonnie knows.



About 10 days ago, we went to see a re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815). I'm sorry we didn't get Napoleon's face. . . only his back. Oh, a little later, you'll see his face in profile.


What is kinda amazing here is that it looks like it's 2 in the afternoon, but it's about 10 p.m. It stays light a L O N G time! The actual Battle of Waterloo didn't get going until around 11 a.m. It had rained heavily the previous night, so the French couldn't get their cannons into position. The last charge of the battle wasn't until about 6 or 7 p.m. and the final retreat of the French about 8 or 9 p.m.



Some of these guys are pretty old! I wonder if they survived the original battle of 1815!! I couldn't figure out what the white aprons they are wearing were for.




I think this is Napoleon again.





Can you imagine what war was like in 1815? Rows of soldiers standing (standing!) 100 or 200 yards apart and firing at each other!

Are humans dumber than lemmings?

I had hoped to get a picture of the cannon firing, but wasn't successful. There were too many infantry standing around blocking the view.

Isn't it amazing that for many years (1955-1995), U.S. high school bands wore more or less the same uniform as these 1815 soldiers!!

At the top of some of these pix, you see more spectators. The village green was on an incline. We were at the bottom.


Scottish troops, kilts and bare knees. But everything else well covered up. Can't figure why they dress like that!


Not all the "actors" are male. There were a few females too. . . some of them dressed (well. . .kinda) as "camp followers." They not only did the cooking and laundry for the soldiers. . .but (ahem!) sometimes even provided "entertainment" for the soldiers. (Again. . . I say "ahem.") (Luckily, there were no demonstrations of any of *that* kind of activity! Whew!)

After the battle, each unit marched (paraded) off the battle field. Miraculously, of the many casualties we saw on the field at one point, not one was left there as they paraded off!



Voila! C'est fini pour aujourd'hui!

If someone wants to tell me what I need to do to add text, I'd love to see your comments. In pic. #1, notice the long narrow back yard of the Snickers family. They have 7 kids, and I can't explain where Lorraine (13) and Amelie (4 1/2) are. The baby is Amandine. I don't know if the two black adolescent kittens have names. During the first two weeks, we frequently ate outside, just as you see Mom doing here. But generally we don't do that anymore. It's a hassle to carry food clear out there.