this is our walden babe

i found out where beauty and the beast's belle keeps her horse phillipe-in the pasture next to us! i've NEVER seen a horse so massive or with such big bell-bottoms:)

call me a late bloomer but i'm just reading henry david thoreau's famous book "walden". sometimes it's nice to think that our situation is similar to throeau's, and sometimes i want anything but to live in my own walden pond... either way, i've been thinking about thoreau's insight as i trudge slowly through the book-so much insight takes my mind a while to process. without any warning last night devin said to me, "This is our walden babe." i guess out of the mouth of two witnesses...

i wholeheartedly have believed, i think since i was young, that simplicity is beautiful. but when we freely chose a simpler life by moving here, the beauty is at times hard to emphasize. easier said than done. i love my anthro. i love a good salad spinner. i love nail polish. i love having more than five pairs of shoes. i love a couch to cuddle on. i love carpet. i love a bike to ride. i love unlimited text messaging. i love a good lunch with a close lady friend, or better yet a sunday dinner with family. gratefully, words of a prophet changed my erroneous thinking that our newly chosen simple life should be a concern-free, effortless, and hearty life. he said, "(it) is simple but not easy."

despite the lack of ease at times, this is our walden and if only i could be a little more like thoreau. he soaked up life. to quote him,

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

my turn to soak up the marrow of life. I gotta love the rolling hills AND the smell of manuer. i gotta love the beautiful sound of french, AND that i don't fully understand sunday school even when everyone raises their hand but us and then they joke that we are americans:) i gotta love that i am surrounded by sweet design, AND that i live off a little suitcase of clothes. i gotta love the flat horizon sun rises AND the cloudy skies. i say gotta, because i'm trying hard to love the simplicity AND let go of the little details that prevented m

i am learning i can live, fully, with less. i am learning to appreciate the simple, even when it means sacrificing the ease. i am loving the reducing of cares, and the rush of realizing how little i need to live and how satisfying that can be. nevertheless i will i be excited to when our walden-living is up, and it's back to salad spinners and nail polish:)

beating the record

our longest record for consecutive outings has been, get ready, 3 days. today made it four. saturday=tourist brussels. sunday=church nivelle. monday=fhe waterloo. tuesday=home teaching ittre. :) i'm ever ready to stop driving, make a decent dinner, write some, and go to bed early.

for now, let the day go down in history as a dear friends birthday, complete with an achey legs run, witnessing the moon rise before the sunset, and forgetting the camera when you need it. good job tuesday, you were excellent.

here is the most recent footage of us. belgium only has hills, and this is the best view of brussels. the spectacular part about this sight is the rarity of being able to see for miles, that is if you can get past the fence and ugly building:)

belgian waffle take two

i've been visualizing, rather drooling, about what it would be like to try a real belgian waffle since the first time we saw one on the street. by real, i am talking about everything a food street vendor should be: temptingly warm, tantilizing smell, and not store bought. it does not get more touristy than vendor belgian gaufres, but even Elder Ballard specifically took time to say he tried a gaufre. we dove into the tourist pool head first. let the pictures speak for themselves.

last night we had our first guests over to our abode. two full time lds missionaries from our ward. i have never hosted missionaries all on my own. i was so excited to cook for representatives of Jesus Christ, to have representatives of Jesus Christ in my home, and to listen to the Lord's tool of carrying forth the gospel in the latter-days. i wasn't so excited to realize that i am older than a missionary... oh well. we called their families afterward and told them they were doing well. we then called our families afterward and told them we were doing well, doing well but i'm pooped. sorry for the lack of post yesterday. happy weekend.

cherished kpack fam photo july 2010 by him

as my nana used to say...

don't you think people have sayings that you remember them by? it is not something necessarily they've said, but something you just remember them by.

-my sister's is, "i never regret being a little too kind."

-nephi's was, "i will go and do the things which the lord hath commanded."

-my dance teacher's was, "excuses...stink." with a little in between there.

-devin's dad saying is "stick til the task til it sticks to you, beginners are many, enders are few."

-my favorite professor's was, "widest to the world."

-grandpa killpack's is, "if" by rudyard kipling.

-and tonight nana, my mother's grandmother, has a phrase that has been motivating me.

simple: don't go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.

i'm trying nana, i really am. i was never good at this before belgium. but having not too many dishes to use the next day, washing dishes by hand and thinking of you doing the same, and wanting to follow better in your footsteps leaves a wet, but nevertheless empty, sink overnight all in your behalf. hope you are smiling up there. i love you. i miss you. thanks for leaving a limitless effect on me.

patchwork quilt

when i showed my dad the google earth view of where we live he said, "can you say patchwork quilt?" yes i can daddy, patchwork quilt.

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we love that we get the chance to live in such open fields and wavy landscape. we're practically farmers:)

college town

we were tipped off that a good shopping port here in belgique was in a college town north of us. if we subconsciously missed provo, here was our shot to get a feel of the college vibe again. plus it was close, and we weren't up to making a big rendezvous this weekend. the shopping was -just a wee bit- more pricey than ptown, and nothing to write home about. but it was enlivening to be around young hip-happenin' people again, even if it meant watching a few too many people make out in the park(definitely not in provo any more) . AHH the park-this was the best part of the weekend. It was 24 degrees celsius(i'm trying to fully absorb the culture-in case you can't do math like me, thats 75 fahrenheit) clear skies, and the warmest it's been in four weeks. we napped in the park, listened to bells chime each hour, ate lunch, read books, practiced french, and oozed up every last drop of daylight. with a little bit of coconut and speculoos ice cream to top it off, i don't think we had any a single regret from the weekend...

while on our sunday walk this week...

...we found the first dance studio i've seen in belgium. wow is about all i can spit out.

it comes complete with any class imaginable. (except of course the most important form. hello?)

on to the rest of the walk and city square. nothing like a walk on sundays.

i believe in living prophets

Let this story illustrate.

In 1986, one month after being called to serve as an apostle, Elder Ballard was in Bolivia and Peru for conferences. He went to visit Lake Titicaca which is the largest lake in South America. That year the lake rose 10-12 feet in a few short months destroying surrounding farm land. Over 200 LDS members had property destroyed and 40 members lost their homes as a result from the flooding. Elder Ballard and other visiting authorities stood on the shore of the lake to survey the damage. When the other authorities left Elder Ballard had a feeling to bless the land. It wasn't a vision or a voice, just a feeling. Nevertheless he followed it, and called the other authorities telling them to come back to the ground. There, near the lake, Elder Ballard offered a prayer to God and said, "By the authority of the priesthood, I command the water to recede." He returned to his hotel room that night and thought about the prayer. As a new apostle he began to be frightened because there was no where for the water to go. Experts said it would take a couple years for the water level to return to normal. He prayed again and said, "Heavenly Father, maybe i have overstepped my boundaries, but I felt prompted. Grant it to be true." In less than two months he received newspaper clippings in the mail saying, "Lake Titicaca drops an unexplanable 10 feet. It's a miracle."

And one more story about how an ordinary man is purified to be a living prophet.

At the age of 30, Elder Ballard was serving as a bishop over a congregation. One woman in his area was a widow living with her daughter. She and Elder Ballard were close and he even called her his, "Grandma Friend." Late one night after meetings in the chapel Elder Ballard got in his car to drive home. He thought of his grandma friend and felt like he should go visit her. He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. "It's too late," he thought, "I'll see her tomorrow." He drove home and attempted to sleep but couldn't stop thinking about her. First thing in the morning he knocked on the door of his grandma friend's home. Her daughter answered, "Oh Bishop. Thank you for coming. Mother passed away two hours ago." He said he stood on the porch and wept. He got back into his car after consoling the family and uttered a humble prayer, "Heavenly father, I will never do that again. I will not argue with you. If you ask me to do something I will do my very best to do it."

After last night, after encouragement, after counsel, after answered prayers, my testimony was fortified that after all I believe in living prophets.

blogging on lunch break

after i declared all that inspiration to about hard work, here i am blogging on lunch break. alas, here is a minute from a momentous night at the killpack home. we needed something fantastic to eat on our new flea market plate so luckily had just the thing.

we tried our first belgian waffles!

pardon the gross pics.

regretfully the weren't from a street vendor(bound to try that soon) but the price=1.20 euro for ten waffles at the local bakery was much more tempting than the street vendor's 3 euro per sweet. don't let the bargain decieve-we were not prepared for how incredible they were. can't wait to get home to a belgain waffle maker and try my hand at mimicking them. in the meantime you'll have to make waffles for me and i'll just eat the storebought sweets:)

ps. i'm blogging on lunch break because tonight you'll remember we are going to listen to a prophets voice to hear the word of god. i'm practically bursting with anticipation.