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| My District Before Leaving the MTC |
That's right! My first area here in the Belgium Netherlands mission is in Brugge!!!!! More on that later....
So, what a crazy week and a half. So much has happened, I don't even know where to start. I guess with the MTC.
So the last couple of days in the MTC were pretty tough. My companion Elder Matos had knee surgery, so Elder da Silva and I had to take turns taking care of him. It wasn't hard, but it threw a wrench in our schedule.
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| Elder Matos |
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Coolest District Evah!!
Something really cool happened while we were waiting for Elder Matos in the hospital. Elder da Silva and I were reading our scriptures together, when this lady come up to us and was like, "Are you reading the Book of Mormon, or the Bible?" and we were like, "the Book of Mormon", and she was like "Why? (Really confrontational) why always the Book of Mormon? Why never the Bible? The Bible is God's love letter to us" etc. So we explained that the Book of Mormon is supposed to support the Bible, not replace it and that we do read and study it. She went away for a couple of minutes, and so Elder da Silva and I talked about a scripture to share. We both felt prompted to share a scripture in Matthew 5 that talks about the light upon the hill and letting it shine forth.
When she came back, she was still confrontational, so we shared the scripture, and her attitude completely changed. She broke down in front of us, and started telling us her life story, and how she had always tried to live her faith, but she had lost it and now was trying to get it back. We were able to share the first part of the first lesson with her, God is our Loving Heavenly Father. That seemed to comfort her. We ended up talking about God's love, faith, and Jesus Christ for about and hour with her in the waiting room. We mostly just bared our testimonies to her. It was awesome. The greatest part was at the end. She looked us both straight in the eye and said, "I will never forget you two. Thank you so much." Elder da Silva and I both just about lost it right there. The fact that the Spirit was so strong in a hospital waiting room just goes to show that it doesn't matter where you are, people can always be taught. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm serving a mission.
Anyway, so after that Spiritual pumped experience, we went in to see Elder Matos. We stepped into the room (he was just waking up from anesthesia) and he looked at us and was like "Are you angels?". We laughed soooo hard. Elder Matos is normally very reserved, so it was really funny to see him so loopy. He said a ton of funny stuff.
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| Last Gym Day - Mustache Thursday! |
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| Shaniqua |
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| Shaniqua |
So some thing else pretty funny happened: Shaniqua.
We came in from class one night, and there was a mannequin head in Elder Hunter's bed.
It really freaked him out, cause it's pretty scary looking. We had a bunch of new Elders going to Norway and Sweden, so we decided to have some fun. We put Shaniqua on top of Elder Silva's head, and run into their room. That's what the pics are.
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| One more day at the Provo Temple |
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| Tripanionship of Destiny with their teacher, Brother Wells |
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| Our Departure Ritual |
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| Elder Muller and his teacher, Broeder (Brother) Wells |
Our last day in the MTC was really hard (sad hard). We had a testimony meeting that night that really changed my life. Probably the strongest I have ever felt the Spirit in my life was that night. All of us Elders gave all of the Sisters blessings, and it was absolutely incredible. We all said things that we know did not come from us. They were things that the Sisters had been struggling with, or were worried about that they hadn't told anyone, but we were prompted to comfort them. The worst part was that we could only shake each other's hands!!! The Spirit was so strong, and we were all crying and just wanted to do a big group hug, but couldn't. It's times like that that I wish the rules were allowed to bend just a little. Oh well, they protect us, and I haven't had any problems with them so far. (Missionaries have many rules that are in place to keep them safe. One such rule being that they should not have physical contact with members of the opposite gender. So that is why after giving such spiritual blessings, the Elders were not allowed to give the Sisters hugs. I will explain Priesthood Blessings in a separate post.)
The testimony meeting was absolutely incredible. We still had the Spirit from the blessings, so we were all just on a ridiculous Spiritual high. I can't even share much, because it was so personal. It changed my life, and my testimony.
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| On the train to the Salt Lake City Airport |
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| Look at all that luggage! |
So travel to the mission. Pretty crazy. We took a train to the SLC airport (pictures of us in the album) and from there flew to Seattle. From Seattle we met up with another Elder going to our mission who had been waiting for his visa. Then came the 10 hour flight. OOOOOOOH BOY. I sat next to Elder Silva on both flights, which is funny, because I'm the tallest Elder, and he's the shortest. On the flight to Amsterdam, he was trying to get comfortable. He finally gave up, and tapped me on the shoulder. "Elder Muller, is it okay if I sleep on your shoulder?" I just laughed a little and said yeah. So he slept on my shoulder for 4 hours.
On the second half of the flight we got to talking with the lady sitting across from us in the aisle. It all started because I went to the W/C. When I came back and sat down, she stopped me and showed me a picture she had taken of me and Elder Silva totally OUT! It was really funny, we both had the masks and ear plugs in and everything. That gave us the opening we needed, and we started talking to her. For the next two hours we talked about what we did as missionaries, etc. She was really interested, and wanted to read out of my Dutch Book of Mormon (She's from the Netherlands). She read the introduction, and we thought that was going to be it, but she was like, "Who's Moroni? And where can I read this scriptures?" SHE WANTED TO READ MORONI 10:4-5!!! GOLDEN!!!
So after we landed we met President and Sister Robinson. They are sooo awesome! The AP's are really cool as well.(AP's are Assistants to the President. They are Elders just like Elder Muller who have an assignment for part of their mission to work in the mission office reporting directly to the Mission President.) Something funny, one of the Office Elders knows of me. Elder Evans. Apparently his parents know you, so yeah, he was expecting me. Pretty cool I guess. He's from Antwerp. (Elder Evans is the son of some friends of ours from when we lived in Mechelen, Belgium...which is where lived when we joined the Church!!)
We had tons of training and stuff, but within 3 hours of us landing, me and Elder Hunter this time went contacting with one of the office Elders. It was really scary, but really fun. We only did it for an hour or so, but we met some really cool people. We got 4 potential investigators!!! (not in our area, but still, not bad for being jet lagged and half asleep!)
So that night we found out where our first area would be, and who our trainers were. I of course am assigned to Brugge!!!!
We got sent all over the place, which is sad. Most of the people in my district are in the Netherlands, but two Zusters, Mashburn and Hanson are in my zone in Belgium. It will be nice to see familiar faces.
My trainer's name is Elder Childs. He's from Utah and is pretty awesome. I am still getting used to him though. I was so tight with Elder da Silva and Matos. We were like brothers. Elder Childs and I are really different, but so far we are working well together. He has a very American attitude, and I'm used to Europeans haha. He's a cool guy though.
Our area covers all of Brugge, Oostende and everything else north and west of Kortrijk. It is absolutely HUGE! We have a small branch in Brugge with about 30 active members, but they are all really strong in the gospel, and cool people.
We don't have a ton of investigators, but that's what we are here for! To build up the Branch! We've done a lot of contacting, and gotten some good potential investigators. We've only taught one lesson so far, the others have all fallen through. Next week we should have more though.
The language is really hard haha. I was hoping it was going to be easier but that's not how a mission works. It's not supposed to be easy. There are a ton of different dialects here in Brugge because of all the tourists, so that makes it harder. I'm doing my best though! I haven't bought a bike yet because we just take the bus or train everywhere, so I don't really need it here.
Anyway, I don't have much more time, but Brugge is awesome. The mission is really hard, but it's really worth it. I've only been out here for a couple days, and everyday is hard work, but I love it. There's nothing like coming home and feeling like you did a good job that day. Anyone who's on the fence about serving a mission, stop thinking about it, and just do it. It's worth it, trust me.
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| Elder Muller's favorite Belgian food...horse meat! |
Anyway, talk to you all next week!
Elder Muller
P.S. I met Elder Cooper, he's training Elder Hunter. Pretty cool guy.
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