day sept

today was nothing spectacular, not bad but not great. i wasn't in my normal spirits, and not quite at home with things and while making dinner these words helped:

"The challenge to remember has always been the hardest for those who are blessed abundantly. Those who are faithful to God are protected and prospered. That comes as the result of serving God and keeping His commandments. But with those blessings comes the temptation to forget their source. It is easy to begin to feel the blessings were granted not by a loving God on whom we depend but by our own powers."

from the beloved Pres. Eyring

"Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. Your character will grow; your faith will increase. There is a relationship between those two: the greater your faith, the stronger your character; and increased character enhances your ability to exercise even greater faith."

from the all knowing Elder Scott

Thank heavens for living prophets whose words unceasingly bring our spirits up, and our heavenly home nearer.

day six:

weekend recap:

devin and i in ikea=can't wipe the smiles off our faces. not only where things written in a recognizable language(swedish) but every employee we talked to spoke fantastic english. That is not the story of our little village. also, ice cream for less than a dollar, way good for europe.

spent a lot of time making our apartment home: hand sewing some fabric curtains, putting together all our kitchen supplies. there is beauty all around, when there is love at home.

heard a donkey ew-aw from only a few feet away for the first time since i can remember. squealed for fear and fun.

drove around the bruxelles, what a quaint town. can't wait to head back this weekend and actually get out of the car.

saw a rainbow.

church was a maze to find, but so rewarding to be among the saints. we hardly knew what to do with our time on sunday because we had early church and no family dinner. sunday is such a rejuvination when done right.

still in awe that people actually live in these houses...uhmazing.

found a perfectly inspiring road for a run. since i haven't gone running since we arrived and i dont want my new habit to melt away, i need a place to go thats both inspiring and safe:)

got our hands on some non sparkling water today. the best thrist quencher in the world.

blew out our last converter fuse, and therefore no talking with family until we bought one today.

had a better grocery shopping experience-everything is on the up.

life, after this weekend, seems like it could really work for us here.

tips from sandra

a sweet woman in my neighborhood, in lay-un, is from belgium. she gave me the low down about belgium. i loved every tip. some will keep me on my toes and some even made me giggle. read in a french accent. everything is better this way.

...we(beglians) can always pick out you(americans) out from a mile away by your trainers. you always wear trainers. we only wear those excercising, not around the streets.

(i was clueless by what she meant by trainers. i assume tennis shoes. haha)

... dont wear those saggy bum jeans. those will make you stand out. our jeans always fit much better in belgium.

(i was self-consciously checkin my jeans. are they saggy?)

... put on make-up. my mom wears make-up when she goes to get bread in the morning.

(gotta look nice. and how picturesque-get bread every morning!)

we finish our very helpful conversation and she calls me back and leaves a voice mail with the last few pointers she forgot:

...everything closes earlier there so you have to be organized. you can't run to walmart at midnight.

(dang. everything really does close at 8 pm, and they won't let you in the door at 7:30 cause they want everyone gone by 8. and you can guess when we leave the grocery store everytime? yup right at close)

...dont look around while walking in belgium; the streets are dirty and if you are not watching where you step you will step in dog poop. if you need to be on your phone or something stop walking.

(i probably will not be able to follow this tip. hopefully my shoes stay clean)

day trois:

FRIDAY baby!

blew out the other converter with my blow dryer! sheesh, why does my hair have to look mangey in europe? they both are fixed, and i'm wondering if i can pull of six months sans blow dryer...? haven't dared the straightener yet. will risk it tomorrow.

gradually adjusting to the time zone, getting up earlier and earlier.

worked almost a full day-i think i could get used to this full time work thing. this is the first time in my life i've had a 9-5(or a little later for the jetlagged) job. its not too bad.

finding myself missing the women in my life. everytime i see a women i wanna squeeze her because i love the feminity.

muesli!!!!!!! breakfast and i are becoming fast friends.

finally finished unpacking and rearranging furniture. so far i kinda like our 350 sq ft studio apartment feel-a fun challenge.

made my first meal, took quite a while. i couldn't read the directions on the gravy mix, and used milk instead of water-tad to thick. this guessing game is going to be the story of my life with anything food related here. also, used this lettuce head from my grocery guessing game. when devin saw the bottom part of the lettuce head he asked, "what, are we supposed to plant this or something?" dunno if you can see on the right, but the roots are fully connected, just like a flower ready to plant.

french phrase of the day, stolen from a native, and perhaps my favorite learned so far: bon weekend. (weekend said frenchlike: a soft -w and silent -d) "have a good weekend." hah.

our (w)eeken(d) will see the likes of ikea shopping, first time ward attending! woo, little extra working, my favorite-grocery shopping, and lots of sleep!

bon (w)eeken(d)!

day deux:

day two:

presenting our little village:

watched the sunrise. like from dark all the way to light, couldn't sleep and it was sooo pretty.

fell head over heels for little french speaking children: four playing around the clothesline in their backyard which opens up to a field, three next door riding trikes with mom, two playing tag in the grocery store, and one who counted to two (yes i know that much french) over and over again as she stole a cracker from the bakery in the grocery store.

laughed with devin until i cried-good tears. oh so therapeutic.

drove to ikea to get loaded up on supplies, and got lost. (while loving it here, i'm realizing many blessings about the USofA, like a GPS and a cell phone... and i'll stop there... sigh) after i got over missing out on our ikea visit, we ended up going to carrefour this time for food- and i was in utter shock at how difficult it is to grocery shop, like serious grocery shop, in a foreign land. i already am a slow grocery shopper, but now i'm crawling. it took two hours, patience, good eyes on how to copy cat for the scale in the produce section, more money than in the USofA, and out of it all we got out of it was food for half a week and laughed at in the checkout stand. huge incentive to learn the language, like enormous.

worked today, amazed what engineering and human machines can do. i feel like i'm living in the tv show, "it's a wrap." fascinating.

turned on the blow dryer for the first time, and blew the fuse in our converter-good thing we bought two. first time i went to europe i singed my hair to the root with my straightener-good thing it was short. you would think i'd learn.

discovered, on accident, a peanut butter which has the slightest resemblance of maple syrup mixed with peanut butter, which takes me back to waffles at my house as a kid. HEAVEN.

just two down, and i feel like i've been here for ages.

here we are

I am thinking i may try to log events from every day while we are here, excepting weekends.

pictures from my moving car of greater brussels area.

the half day we arrived plus day one:

sleeping fifteen hours after the awful jetlag.

not eating cause i was sleeping so much. waking up shakey. eating chocolate bars for breakfast.

sparkling water instead of water. guess i'll have to start liking this stuff.

a call to family and a few tears.

prophetic words, "hope ya know we had a hard time" soothing my soul.

realizing i'm not in utah anymore, fees to use public restrooms, i can wait.

pizza hut express: one large pizza=19.50 euros! guess we wont be eating out much.

2nd largest grocery chain next to walmart=carrefour. got sheets, dish scrubbers, food.

boxed milk, the kind that doesn't need to be refridgerated, is also not my favorite.

european yogurt on the other hand-mmmm can't get enough.

long drive through a part of brussels and mainly the country side, great.

absolutely dying to attend the ward on sunday.

really feeling the need to learn the language.

really feeling the Lord's love as I try and make this adjustment.

listening to mo-tab as i fell asleep and loving the lyrics that take me back to white christmas:

if you are worried and you can't sleep

just count your blessings instead of sheep

and you will fall asleep counting your blessings.

generally it was a day one full of growth. this experience is going to be really good for me

these hills are alive

another thing i will miss about utah is the layton hills. this is where i can officially say i fell in love with running-which i count as a miracle. these hills are alive with about one trillion runners per square inch, i swear everyone in our neighborhood has a few marathons tucked under his or her belt. to say it was an inspiration meeting all these runners would be an understatement. still, i cannot consider myself a runner, and yet i have gotten to the point where i enjoy it. these hills are my home. hopefully i can keep it up in the new country.

image from brussels 2009 marathon, ranked in the top 6 best races in europe. too bad it is on a sunday this year.

ps... less than four days left!

Heard this poem recently and find myself repeating the last two lines over and over again-it is that beautiful. Oh how I long to be a morning person, as most people that I admire are. Thankfully Devin is teaching me.

"I met God in the morning"

I met God in the morning

When the day was at its best,

And His presence came as sunshine,

Like a glory in my breast.

All day long His presence lingered,

All day long He stayed with me,

And we sailed in perfect calmness

O'er a very troubled sea.

Other ships were blown and battered,

Other ships were sore distressed,

But the winds that seemed to drive them,

Brought to me a peace and rest.

Then I thought of other mornings,

With a keen remorse of mind,

When I too had loosed the moorings,

With the presence left behind.

So, I think I know the secret,

Learned from many a troubled way:

You must seek God in the morning

If you want Him through the day!

By Ralph Cushman

pic in paris 2009

trio

we made a girls lunch date last week in salt lake, and trio was our place. (i told my beehives that i went to lunch earlier that day with my mom to cafe trio, and they thought it was a crazy cafe rio wanna-be. love em) the food was exceptional and i can't believe i have been missing out on this place. the salmon was amazing, and my butternut squash ravioli was so refreshing. i will surely be getting the rosemary flatbread appetizer again next time. yum.

such a princess

he couldn't take his eyes off that meatball for a pic

afterward we went next door to tulie bakery. it was a charming atmosphere-loved the brick walls, wooden tables and wall decor, and metal chairs. i thought it was good but am not dying to head go again.

it took us ten minutes to decide what to get at tulie, and at trio for that matter. isn't ordering food sometimes so hard?

if there is one thing i will miss in belgium it surely will be loved ones.

carpet of flowers

a few people have asked what i'm looking forward to doing in belgium, and i always say i want to see the castle where william tyndale was imprisoned and then killed in 1536 (you will remember that story from this past conference in his talk). it is only an hour from where we are living.

besides that, i haven't investigated much... until saturday. i googled images of brussles and these fantastic flower carpet pictures kept popping out. i thought it was a one time thing and was in awe of how pretty it was.

then a day later, i noticed that this flower carpet event happens every two years and the last time it happened was in 2008. i hunted down the date, and you can bet that this is where we will be on august 12, 2010!

ONE WEEK LEFT!