Week One at the MTC! "Just Get Up, and Do Your Best."

Elder Muller and his companions in front of the Prove, Utah Temple! (That is his ID tag hanging out of his suit!)

 Elder Muller and his District at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah

Elder Muller with his District...three Elders and six Sisters!!

Elder Muller running into Elder Alexander in the cafeteria at the MTC!  They are buddies from our Ward here in Florida. They overlapped by a few days in the MTC.  Elder Alexander is in the Argentina Mission!

The Scottish Elder favoring them with some Bag Pipe music!

Elder Muller and his trio in the classroom!

Elder Muller in his dorm room with roomies!  Elder Muller holding the Belgium flag!!!  Go Belgium!!!

Hallo van de MTC!!!!

It's been a crazy first week here. Every day feels like two weeks, and the week seems like a month. Reminds me of college a little bit.  I'm sure that it will start moving faster soon. 

So a little about the mtc.... I'm in a trio companionship with Elder Da Silva and Elder Matos. Elder Da Silva is from Portugal, but lives in Brussels. His mother works in the EU Parliament. He is called to speak Spanish, which he already knows, but has to learn Nederlands as well. Elder Matos is originally from Peru, but now lives in Canada. He is also called to speak Spanish, but must learn Dutch as well. 

The rest of our district is made up of sisters, 6 of them. They are all wonderful and are amazing examples to us. 

There is another district of Dutchies that is very similar to ours, there is one companionship of elders, Elder Hunter and Elder Silva (ya it get's a bit confusing at times haha). Elder Hunter is from Scotland, and is pretty amazing. He worked in a couple of the Church Pageants and has an amazing voice and is an excellent actor. He is the only other Elder called to speak just Nederlands like me haha. Elder Silva is Brazilian, but lives in Portugal. He is so funny. He speaks good English, but sometimes doesn't know how exactly to say something, so he makes up is own names for things. He is full of funny stories, and is just a great Elder. 

I'm the district leader for our district, and it's been quite fun. Mostly my job is to be a mediator in our district meetings. They are an open forum, and I'm just there to guide them along. Our zone leaders a lot of fun. Elder Reber and Elder Goodmunson are learning Danish, and are the only two elders in the world learning that language right now. They like to have fun with us, which is great. 

Our zone is made up of several different languages. We have the Swedes, the Nords, the Danes, the Dutchies, and the West Indies (which is funny cause the rest of our zone is in Europe). They're grouped with us because they speak Dutch in Suriname. 

So the language is coming along well. We've taught 4 lessons so far all in Dutch. Onze onderzoeker's naam is "John", en hij kompt uit den Hague. (Translation: Our investigator's name is "John", and he is from den Hague.)  We've taught him about the Atonement and God's love for him. Yesterday we taught him the Restoration. We watched the restoration video that I found on lds.org with Dutch subtitles. The Spirit was incredibly strong as Elder Matos, da Silva and I bore our testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel and of the Book of Mormon. All three of us were crying a little at the end. 

This past Sunday was a such a Spiritually charged day. We started it off by taking part in the Ogden Temple dedication. It was incredible. The closing hymn was The Spirit of God. Imagine 3000 missionaries all in the same room singing that. Yeah. Amazing. 

We had the privilege to hear from Elder M. Russell Ballard last night for devotional. He gave a great talk, and what I think might be my motto for my mission. "Just get up, and do your best." 

So some exciting news, Elder da Silva and I were selected to sing in the MTC choir at General Conference!!!! It is going to be in Priesthood session, so Papa and Jeremy better keep an eye out for me!

Anyway, that's about all that I have time for. Below are some pictures for you. 

Talk to you next week!!!!!

Elder Muller