Elder Müller in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission: Week 24: I'm Related to Elder Childs!!

Making Soup for the Homeless

Elder Pugh making soup!

Elder Muller chopping vegetables!

March 9, 2015

Hello Everyone,

So turns out that me and Elder Childs are related! Elder Childs was doing some family history, and he found out that he has ancestors named Muller. So yup. We're actually related.

So it's been a crazy week with transfers and all. That and I haven't been feeling that well, so that wasn't nice.

uesday was a pretty crazy day. We had to go to Sint Niklaas for district meeting, and I just felt horrible. I had a really bad cold. District meeting was fun though, sad that it was the last one, but oh well. (It was the last district meeting with this group of missionaries. Some of the group has been transferred to different areas.)

Last District Meeting Together!

When we came back to Antwerpen, Elder Shelton and I had to walk his bike up to Centraal Station for transfers. It took like two hours, and it was raining and hailing the whole time--not fun. We had a fun dinner appointment with the Evans Family though, so that was cool.

Wednesday was crazy, transfers whooo! So Elder Shelton left and is now in Rotterdam Zuid (South). From my district, three more missionaries left. Sister Mashburn is now in Amsterdam, Elder Van de Merwe is in Dordrecht, and Sister Jones is in Utrecht. (These three missionaries are now in the Netherlands.) So most of the day I waited in the Centraal Station for my new companion, Elder Pugh, to arrive. When he got here we went out to eat at Pizza Hut with a less active we've been working with named Ivan. That was cool.

That night we went to Boma and Tante Ingrid's to celebrate Boma's verjaardag. It was awesome! (Boma and Tante Ingrid are Elder Muller's Belgian Grandma and Aunt Ingrid. They live in the area where he is serving so he is able to visit them.) It's really a blessing to be serving here.

Boma's Birthday Taart!

Boma!!!

Elder Muller and Boma...picture from Tante Ingrid!

Another Picture from Tante Ingrid!

This is a link to a short video sent to us by Tante (Aunt) Ingrid!! What a wonderful surprise! Elder Muller is there celebrating Boma's birthday and this is him speaking in Dutch! I can understand all of it, but will take too much space to translate it for everyone! Suffice it to say, he is telling us - with Boma and Tante Ingrid as witnesses - that he CAN speak Dutch, and he rarely speaks English with them! And he wrote a birthday card to Boma in Dutch!! And he was very sick with a cold this day, and so he said he had to struggle for some of the words....but I think it sounds fantastic, and I wouldn't have thought he was struggling for words!!

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/9jip0b14vs21aat/AACUYXR7YBfGmb_f84jh8CQya#lh:6-2015-03-04%2018.37.17.mp4

Elder Pugh is a super cool guy. He's been out 20 months, so he's almost dead. (Missionary speak! The mission lasts 24 months for Elders, so whatever companion you have when go home is said to have "killed you off". So Elder Pugh is nearing the end of mission with only four more months left to serve, so that is what Elder Muller is referring to!) He's from the same group as Elder Hunt (30 Elders).(Elder Muller is referring to a group of 30 Elders that arrived in the mission field at the same time. That is quite a large group for his mission, so that means that in four months, all 30 of these Elders will be going home!) He's got a lot of experience and I'm learning a lot from him. He's a great missionary and a really funny guy.

Thursday we did a ton of finding/lookups most of the day. It was pretty fun. We knocked some doors and found some cool potentials. Not much else happened.

Friday we had some appointments, so that kept us busy most of the day. We taught a lady named Mevrouw Wauters on the door. She's super cool, they (Elders Reese and Shelton) found her by knocking doors, and taught her the first lesson. We followed up by giving her a Book of Mormon, and also a children's version. It was cool on the door lesson. I've never seen anyone so happy to receive The Book of Mormon. It was pretty special. (The children's version that he is referring to is one that is done with pictures and simplified versions of the stories of the prophets found in the Book of Mormon. My missionaries also brought me one of these when we were studying the Church in Belgium...made it easier for me to try and learn the basic stories from the Book of Mormon.)

We also had a cool lesson with a woman named Augustina. She was someone Elder Shelton and I found, and we finally were able to set an appointment with her. We taught the first lesson, and invited her to be baptized when she received confirmation that the Book of Mormon was true. She was super excited about it!

Saturday we had a pretty fun day as well. We started off by helping some members make soup for homeless people. It was a lot of fun. We had an appointment with an investigator named Yury in the afternoon. I think I said something about him last week... He's russian, but we've been teaching him. After that we just did some finding and some lookups but nobody was home.

Yesterday was fun. Church was great. We had a small miracle! A less active member called us up out of the blue wanting to come to church, so we rode the tram with him. Pretty fun. Church was cool, nothing crazy happened. We had a great dinner at Familie Schiltz. It's probably the highlight of my week every time we go there. It's just so gezellig! (comfortable and cozy)

Today we had a pretty chill P-day. We cleaned, shopped and then went around the city with the sisters. It was pretty fun. Nothing crazy. (P-day, or preparation day, is the one day a week the missionaries get to clean their apartments, do laundry and grocery shop, do something fun....and the most important event is to email home!!!)

Well, I wish I was better at writing emails... but that's all I've got.

I'll share a quote from Elder Pugh regarding missionary work:

If I have ice cream, I'm not going to throw it in their face. I'm going to cover it in chocolate and toppings so it looks delicious and they want it themselves.

That's how to do missionary work. Don't throw it in their face, but show that the message you have is lekker (delicious) so they eat it for themselves. :)

Love,

Elder Muller