Elder Müller in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission: We Met Vinny James!

Entering a tunnel on road trip to Brussels, Belgium!

Elders in Brussels, Belgium

Brussels, Belgium

Market Square in Brussels, Belgium

Park in Brussels, Belgium we used to walk in with our kids!

Not a picture a mom likes to see! Police with machine guns.

Missionaries in the van for trip to Brussels, Belgium

Brussels, Belgium

Today we had a surprise email from Elder Muller. It seems his preparation day was switched from Monday to today, Saturday, April 25. We didn't know this was going to happen, so we had not sent him all of our weekly emails:( We normally do that on Sunday evening, so I was very sad to have missed "talking" to him this week. Now I have to wait until Monday, May 4th! Seems like forever from now:( But he sent a wonderful email filled with amazing stories!

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Hello everyone,

I'm sure this is a surprise. Our P-Day was moved to today, because Monday is Koningsdag (King's Day) here in Nederland, so it's going to be crazy. We will be working the whole day having a booth and giving out copies of the Book of Mormon. (This is the day spent honoring the King of Nederland)

So Vinny James... Elder Paur and I were on our way to do a lookup when we saw this guy hanging up posters for Koningsdag.(King's Day) We decided we would ask him if we could get one of the posters and ended up starting to talk a bit with him. Turns out he was Vinny James! One of the headline DJ's for the biggest concert in Rotterdam on Koningsdag! Pretty cool, and we got a free poster out of if as well.

Well it's been a pretty cool week. Short, but we had some cool miracles happen. We had a really cool lesson Tuesday with a girl named R---. She has been progressing slowly with the Elders for awhile, but Tuesday apparently she was a lot different (It was the first time I taught her). She actually admitted that she wanted to change her life and that she wasn't happy with the way she was living. According to Elder Paur, before, she kind of danced around it a bit. We taught the Restoration as well as watched the movie and just bore testimony. It was amazing. There really is nothing like bearing testimony; it can change lessons, people, and lives. I've really seen that.

Something else that is really awesome that we've been working hard on, is testifying about what our companion taught. When we teach, we do our best to teach in unity, each of us normally teaches a principle, and the other will pick up when that principle is finished. We've found that instead of just going into the next part of the lesson, stopping to bear testimony to support your companion has improved our unity immensely. It's something that Preach My Gospel teaches us, and something we've been focusing on. It shows people that we know what we are teaching is true, and that we aren't just saying memorized lines. We are teaching THEM, not a lesson. Anyway, it was a really spiritual lesson. Awesome! :)

We had another cool miracle Wednesday. We taught J-----, the woman I talked about who came to church last Sunday. It was another great lesson. We taught the first lesson and invited her to baptism. She accepted! We are hopefully going to set a date with her this week. She is just super cool. She has been reading in the Book of Mormon even when she had stopped meeting with the Elders. AHHH! So much faith it's awesome! I love it! :)

Thursday we had even more miracles! It's just been a week full of miracles! We went on splits with the Silva team (Elders Silve and da Silva....Elder Muller's friends from the Missionary Training Center) because we have an investigator whose native tongue is Spanish. She can speak Dutch just fine, but we figured it would be cool for her if we brought someone who can speak Spanish. So I was able to teach with Elder da Silva again for the first time since the MTC! It so cool! We talked about the Plan of Salvation. Where we came from, why we are here, and what the purpose of this life is. We only got about half way through the full Plan of Salvation lesson, but we were able to talk a lot about Christ and why He is important to her, and how He has helped her in her life.

We walked out of the lesson and freaked out a bit. We can actually teach now! Our language skills have come such a long way as well, it's amazing. We can actually speak Dutch now! We aren't flipping through books trying to find out how to say a word. It was great. It really showed me how far I've come in six months in the land. Glad I was able to get that perspective. Sometimes as a missionary it is hard to see improvement in yourself. It's easy to see what you still lack, but not what you've gained.

Click on this link to learn more about the Plan of Salvation

http://www.mormon.org/beliefs/plan-of-salvation

What was even cooler about this day was that Elder Paur and Elder Silva had a really awesome lesson as well! They looked up a potential (Someone they had talked to on the street previously who had showed interest in us teaching him) in the same building as the lady we taught. They taught him the first lesson, and he also wants to get baptized! This city is on fire! We have no idea what is going on, but the Lord is just pouring out blessings on us this transfer! This area is just amazing!

Friday was fun as well. Miracles happened. It's just great, Elder Paur and I just can't get over how many miracles we've seen. :)

Friday I actually went to Belgium! Woohoo! It just couldn't keep me away! I traveled down to Belgium with the office Elders and some other missionaries for a legality trip. When you come into the country, you have to sign into a city and receive your ID card (a little bit like a green card I guess... I don't know, I don't have one. :) ) That is what they were doing. I had to go down to get signed into the city, and also activate my electronic signature on my Belgian citizenship card. That took the whole day. Something cool though, I'm going to get a Belgian drivers license! I don't know why, but the office Elders have begun my process to switch out my American one for a Belgian one. I guess I'll have to drive in the future... I don't know haha. It was a fun day. It all took place in Brussels, so we spent an hour or two there. I got some waffles and fries for lunch... looked at some sights, it was fun. I didn't realize just how much I was going to miss the waffles and the fries here in Nederland... They just aren't the same.

The miracles happened back here in Rotterdam. Elder Paur and Elder Bean were on exchanges because me and Elder Bean's comp were in Belgium. They had two really cool miracles. They were able to teach a referral from the Elders in Rotterdam South, and turns out that he wants to get baptized as well, AND serve a mission! He's a 21 year old African kid who is really awesome (According to them... I haven't met him). #blessings

The second miracle is that they were walking on the stadhuisplein (City Hall Square) when this blind elderly woman came up to them and stopped them. She told them that she had sensed their presence, and that she knew they were messengers from God. SO COOL!!!! We will hopefully teach her next week. :)

Well today has been fun as well. We had a pretty chill P-day. We went shopping in the market and got some great deals. I got hipster glasses for .50 cents, a button up shirt for 5 euro, and a cool watch for 10 euro. It's been a great day so far! Tonight we have a super member present met zin 6 dinner appointment, so it's going to be a blast! (Member present lesson with six missionaries, dinner appointment!) Well I hope you all have a good week!

Love ya!

Elder Muller