Wow, what a week! I figured since Emilee was doing such a good job at blogging, that I should help contribute once in a while.
The biggest issues this week were the school and finding an apartment. Overall work is going slow, but well. Once we get our developers over here and wade through the starting a new business in Luxembourg hassle, we're hoping to meet some important dates in March and June. We've pretty much finished fund raising and are focusing on working with our key partner here, Kneip.
The school issue is a big one. As you read in Emilee's blog, school didn't go over well. Between the accents, curriculum and school "technique" environment our kids really don't want to go back to Lycee Michel Lucius. However, we found out this week that it is illegal to have our kids in online school. The ministry said that child protective services would take our children away if we go down the road of an online school.
We begged and pleaded at the International Private school to no avail. There are really no other options, so we're hoping to get an exception for one year that would allow our kids to attend school online. Except Ashton, who would attend a local school in Kehlen and learn Luxembourgish. We talked to several people at church today who have been able to get exceptions for one reason or another so we have a little bit of hope.
We also decided to go for "the barn" in Kehlen. It is only 12 minutes from the Gilstraps, 15 minutes from the city center, 7 minutes from shopping, etc. We were worried about being way out in the country, but it really is close when you compare it to anything in the states. Kim and I drove out there late Saturday just to confirm and we found tons of people running and mountain biking on farmer country roads that don't have cars on them.
It is super, super beautiful with fields, forests and our own little small european town. Anyone that comes to visit will appreciate that we chose this place. There is a park, pharmacy, bakery, table tennis, 3 soccer fields, forests, catholic church, small store, etc. all within 2 minutes. We figure that mountain biking and running on the paths and through the forest will be the perfect thing for the kids to get away from 6-8 hours of online school.
If they force us to do the online school at a school, we still think Kehlen is a great option for our family.
I'll have a 20-35 minute commute in on a bus, but it will be productive time. I think it is a small sacrifice to live in such a beautiful place.
Young men's and Young women's and Seminary is on Friday night. They worked on familysearch.org and helped the members type in information about their ancestors so we can take them to the temple later this month. It was awesome to have the kids do some actually work that mattered to some one. Pretty cool.
Saturday morning we got up and cleaned the church and then went and played soccer with the ward members, missionaries and Ami's (Friends) that are investigating the church. 40% of the population is portuguese, so I've been able to use my language skills a lot to talk to members and those investigating the church. Gilson is a young man that is going to be baptized next week. He speaks Portuguese so it is awesome to be able to make a connection with him. I also spoke to a man and his son that played soccer. They are being taught right now, so that was fun as well.
Later in the day on Saturday we walked down town from our apartment and got some souvenirs. It was about a 20 minute walk. We tasted our first meringue, which is basically a yummy sugar treat. We are eating way too much bread and croissants everyday, but it is too good to pass up at this point in the adventure.
Kim and I found a big, nice and cheap grocery store called Auchan. The missionaries said it was cheaper and they were right. It felt good to walk out spending about $100 bucks, but feeling like we got a good amount of food. Everyone is complaining that they are hungry. It feels like we are always eating, but I guess the carbs are keeping us full!
After church today we took a drive to the Mullerthal region. It is called "Little Switzerland" http://www.mullerthal.lu/. It was a nice drive through the Luxembourg countryside. We ended up driving along the border of Germany and took some pretty pictures on a bridge.
Tonight the Whites invited us and the Gilstraps to dinner. They are a super nice family. Darrel works in Germany. They lived 5 years in Chile and have lived in Ogden and Spokane. He is the Vice President at a company that makes conveyer belts for mining operations. He and is wife are the young men's and young women's presidents. They've been here since June. They made fajitas for us and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal. Emilee said it was the first time she was actually full!
They had some glass doors in the house and Ashton ran right into one because he didn't see it. It sounded like something big had fallen on him, but it was his forehead smacking right into the glass. There were tears for about 5 minutes, but he is OK. He has a big red mark on his forehead, but that is about it. He loved the chocolate chip cookies and ice cream! Their family has had to use the social healthcare here 3 times and has had really good experiences. Their daughter broke her collarbone yesterday playing basketball and they were in and out in about an hour. No cost, except their taxes.
It has been nice to have more interaction with the missionaries. They are coming over again this week for dinner and to help us with French.
We are also having Ahmed come over for dinner. He was baptized a few weeks ago and is now blessing the sacrament. He is a refugee from Somalia that is part of the red cross refugee system. He is an orphan that has been shipped to Greece, Turkey, Somalia and now Luxembourg. The young men's president said that he lives on about 170 euros a month. That is not much considering the cost of food here. He goes hungry and won't say anything. We are hoping to influence the ward to use fast offerings to help him. Talk about trials in life. He makes the rest of our trials look like a walk in the park. He wants to go on a mission and has really grabbed onto the gospel. I'm excited for him to talk to my kids tomorrow and help them realize how much they've been blessed with.
It has been quite the roller coaster this week. We are still working on a visa, an apartment, schooling and work, but we'll keep at it and figure out a way. We've all been working on French and really hope to be fluent by the time we come home. It feels much harder than Portuguese, but I'm remembering how much effort it is to really learn a new language. The problem with French is that you don't pronunciate it the way it looks. So we're struggling to even read it correctly. Everyone was excited at the small progress we've made. Kim and Emilee both recognized "troi" which is 3 and Cher Per Celeste, which is Heavenly Father. I recognized a lot more, but that is because Portuguese has many similar verbs and I'm a little bit more accustomed to getting the "gist" of it.
Looking forward to talking to the Grandparents tonight. It is tough if we miss them because once they get out of church it is 10:00 here.
Here's my favorite new saying that I learned this week!
A Plus - "a ploo" which means See you later!
Ben
Week 1 Pictures
Week 2 Pictures
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