Thanksgiving



Thanksgiving was celebrated over several days. On Thanksgiving Day the YSA had a traditional American Thanksgiving meal including turkey and dressing. We cooked sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. About 60 people had dinner that night.

 There are not many trees with fall colors. The leaves on most trees turn brown and drop off in a few days. The trees in front of our flat were colorful.

We had dinner at the Misson Home Saturday after Thanksgiving.

President and Sister Burbaker cooked the turkey. It was huge, 30 lbs I think.

Here are the Senior Couples in front of the fire place.



Cylcocross Track



There is an American that lives about a half hour from us that has a son that is a hot shot Cyclocross racer. He trains at a track in Dordrect. We got a call from the member on Thanksgiving Day that he had a deep fried turkey for us. We met him at this track to pick it up.



You will notice the lights on the adjacent hill.

So this is the ski hill next to the track. The snow is a plastic surface kind of like AstroTurf. They are spraying water on it. The top of the hill is what you see.

the Grote Kerk in Delft

We met the Roberts and Sister missionaires at the Grote Kerk in Delft.

Sister Roberts, Sister Moses, Sister Hill and Sister Everton

Under this cover is the royal tomb where all the royalty are stored.

This is the coffin for William of Orange. He liberated Lieden from the Spanish to end the 80 year war. His dog is at his feet. We had heard his dog died soon after he did and was also buried in the church.

President and Sister Willems

I forgot to include this picture of President and Sister Willems. They live in Ieper. She cooked a wonderful dinner for us on Memorial Day. The black and white picture on the wall behind them is a family photo when Sister Willems was a child. There were 14 children in her family. She has a twin sister. The picture was taken when the oldest child was married. Her father died two days later.

Sinterklaus

Sinterklaus arrives in Holland on November 12th on a steam powered boat. He says until December 6th. On the night of December 5th he visits each home leaving chocolate letters, cookies and candy. Sinterklaus is Saint Nicolas who lived around 300 AD. He was the Archbishop of Myra located on an island in present day Turkey. His parents were wealthy and died when he was a young man. He gave his fortune to the poor and entered the priesthood. Legend has him putting bags of gold in the shoes of poor maidens needing a dowry and saving sailors on the ocean. In this picture Sinterklaus is on his horse coming down a narrow street in Dordrecht with the Grote Kerk in the back ground.

Sinterklaus waves to all the children on the street and in the windows.

Sinterklaus rides a white horse named Amerigo which means grey or white horse. In Belgium the horse is named "Slecht Weer Vandaag" which means "bad weather today". the Belgiums are funny. Sinterklaus is surrounded by Zwarte Piets (Black Petes). These are servants that travel with Sinterklaus. They have a large bag like a gunny sack filled with pepernoten (pepper nuts) which are small round cookies with the taste of the cookies on delta airlines. They give the cookies to the children. When empty, the bag is big enough to put naughty children in to take back to Spain where Sinterklaus lives.  In 1973-4 most of the kids were afraid of Zwarte Piet because he was such a tease.

Most of the children dress up like Zwarte Peit and some like Sinterklaus.

WWI memorial day in Iepers, Belgium



This is the town square of Ieper (pronouced Eper with a long E). Ieper was a key city the Germans used to enter France in WWI so it became the location of many battles. The city was leveled and rebuilt after the war. The large building on the left was destroyed druing the war and rebuilt after the war. The reconstruction was completed in 1967.



The old Menin gate to the old city was destroyed during the war. The English built this memorial at the Menin gate location to remember the missing soldiers. There are 55,000 names in this memorial. Hitler was wounded it the Ieper area in WWI and rode in a jeep through this gate in WWII to signal his triumphant return.

Every evening at 8 pm since 1928 the Last Post Ceremony occurs at the gate. The Last Post was a bugle call played in the British Army to mark the end of the day's labours and the onset of the night's rest. In the context of the Last Post ceremony it has come to represent a final farewell to the fallen at the end of their earthly labours and at the onset of their eternal rest. This ceremony has been conducted 28673 times as of 11/21/11.
http://www.lastpost.be/en/index/index/slug/home

We stood on a retaining wall to get a better view of the parade of participants entering the memorial. Our guide was President Willems of the Kortrijk Branch and the Branch Clerk Eric van der Kerkhof.

Each year the memorial features a different aspect of the war. This year they invited all past participants in the Olympics to honor Olympic athletes who died in WWI. Everyone with a white scarf participated in the Olympic Games. The Keynote speaker was the chairman of the IOC who is a Belgian. The annual event is organized by a local committee and paid for with private funds.

England had a large presense of military forces in Ieper. The army was staffed with representatives from all the English colonies. These are Shieks from India.




We also watched the arrival of Princess Mathilde from the Belgium royal family.





Mathilde was the first to place a wreath at the memorial.

This is the USA color guard. Notice the red paper poppy flowers on the ground.



The poppy petals were dropped from the top of the memorial as the wreaths were being placed and music was playing. They were floating like snow outside the memorial where we were standing. The band then played "Abide with Me; 'Tis Eventide". Sister Everton came up to me with tears in her eyes. She reminded me it was Paul Nordin's favorite song. We both stood there with tears in our eyes remembering our dear friend.



Eric and Elder Calkins are being interviewed for TV at the enterance to Tyne Cot cemetary. They were looking for people who had relatives in the Cemetary. Neither did so I don't think they made the nighly news.



There are 11,000 buried and an additional 35,000 names of missing at this cemetary which is one of 163 in the area. The numbers of dead and missing are incredible. I think the total death toll for WWI was around 350,000. Each year a few more bodies are uncovered by farmers. If the body can be identified, the name is removed from the list of missing. The local people have a great respect for the sacrifice of these men and want to keep everything up to date and correct.

This memorial in Tyne Cot encases a bunker

You can also climb on the memorial to get a better view.

The poppy flower has become the symbol of the memorial. From pictures you can see the area was totally stripped of follage and bombed out. The next spring the wild poppy flowers came back. This was the inspiration for the poem by John McCrae titled "In Flanders Fields" written in 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I never understood the last line "We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields". Now I do.

The visitors to the cemetary come from all parts of the world. This group from Scotland were so impressive I had to stop them to take a picture. They did not seem to mind.

This is a smaller cemetary in the Polygon Woods. It is a very quite place - perfect for meditation.

This is Hill 62 which was a strategic location for both sides. In the back ground you can see orange roofs. This is the location where on Christmas Eve 1914 the German troops on the front line sang Stille Nacht and the English soldiers responded with an English carol. Thus began the Christmas truce that has been retold many times.

Liege, Belgium





We needed to visit Liege which is a French speaking city in Belgium and is technically out of our mission. We stopped at a Doner (Shoarma) Shop which is usually run by Turkish people. At this shop, the owner asked for our order and then said "you are from Utah, you are Mormons".  He had had the lessons from the Elders a few years ago. This is the square in the old city. Sister Everton and I are next to a fountain. One nice thing about our mission is that we get to travel to many locations in the mission. This week we were in Belgium 5 days.