A QUICK TRIP HOME

In many parts of Europe, Easter is celebrated with Good Friday and Easter Monday as a four-day weekend.  And while many in Europe are no longer religious in their belief in God, they are religious in observing (taking off work) those religious holidays.  With our office closed for those days and General Conference being .this weekend (no regular Sunday services in Frankfurt), we decided to take a short trip to Belgium and the Netherlands.

Our first stop was to see Pierre Pouken and his wife.  We have known each other since 1999, when I (Russell) hired him as our head of internal audit at Huntsman International.  Since I retired in 2012, Pierre has kept in touch with me and friendship has grown even though we have been far apart during the last 14 years.  Pierre now lives not far from our prior home just southeast of Brussels.  He has a very nice home that he bought and restored just a few years ago.  He has also purchased two adjacent fields of land so that he now has a number of acres on which he is going to build a vineyard.  When I commented that Huntsman must be treating him good, he said Russell, “I sold at $30.”  Pierre’s children and four young grandchildren live close to him and will enjoy the property with him.  As I left, I thought how fortunate I was to have made some good friends during our years in Belgium.

Just up the road, a couple of miles closer to the ring road around Brussels, we stopped in Overijse for a few minutes to take a few pictures of our home there.  We loved our time living in Belgium (1999-2001) It was the time, when as a family, we were the closest.  I miss those days.

On Saturday morning we were able to attend the temple in The Hague, Netherlands.  The first session of General Conference doesn’t start until 6:00 PM local time, so the temple was open in the morning.  Since the current temple president was/is Buddy Gout, I asked to see him and explained that I had served as a missionary in Indonesia when his father Hendrik Gout was mission president.  I  served in the mission office for the last nine months of my mission and worked with him on financial matters.  Hendrick Gout was the first president of the Indonesia Jakarta Mission, which was created on July 1, 1975.  I was in Cebu at that time waiting for a visa.  For the five years prior to then, the elders serving in Indonesia were part of the Singapore Southeast Asia Mission, the mission to which I was originally called.  Eileen and I enjoyed the time which President Gout took to talk with us. 

Last evening and today we have enjoyed the opportunity to listen to General Conference from the comfort of our hotel room.  We both feel privileged to have been able to raise our arms in sustaining Dallin H. Oaks as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and along with the other apostles, as prophets, seers, and revelators.  We appreciate their messages and counsel to us.

During the first session, I was particularly touched by Elder Bednar’s message on enduring valiantly to the end.  He taught that it was not enough for us to just hang on and suffer until our life is done, nor was it enough to just do good deeds until life was over.  Elder Bednar said, “In a spiritual context, enduring is far more than merely persevering tenaciously to complete demanding duties or challenges.”   He went on to say, “As we align our character, desires, actions and what we truly love more closely with God’s will, the Savior can bring about a comprehensive and complete change in us.”  Of the many spiritual gifts that can come from aligning our lives with God, Elder Bednar focused on charity, the pure love of Christ as how we should endure to the end.

In 1st Corinthians chapter 13, Paul talks about charity and our need to possess it.  He recites several great deeds and says even if we do all these things that if we “have not charity, it profiteth [us] nothing.”  At times Paul’s words have bothered me, appropriately so, as I have struggled to always do the right thing for the right reason.  All too often I find myself, while managing to keep my words and actions doing what is right, having my thoughts and feelings not being completely there yet. My hope is that with time I can align my character enough with God’s that I can enjoy that “comprehensive and complete change” Elder Bednar spoke of in me."          

We are so grateful for the beautiful gift of the atonement and resurrection.  It has been a blessing to listen to the Church conference messages and hear our leaders talk of forgiveness, love and hope.                                                      

This was our house when we lived in Belgium for two years. We have many fond memories of our time there. 

                                         

We visited the Hague temple and had a personal visit with the temple president, President Gout.

                                         

                               

Russell, Eileen Pierre and Michalene.  In the background you can see the property where a castle used to be.  The castle was bombed out in the war and now there is a large mansion in its place. 

We saw tulip and hyacinth fields along the road.

It was a cold day at the beach. There were an abundance of European Razor Clams shells on the beach. They crunched under our feet when we walked. 

Russell threw several star fish back into the ocean.   

                                                          

We were delighted and proud  or our grandson Connor (who is only 8 years old), when he spoke last week in Sacrament meeting.  He seemed so young to speak in church, yet did a great job.