Elder Müller in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission: Have you ever imagined that your umbrella is a nuclear weapon?

September 7, 2015

Elder Muller's shoes were made for walking! They are falling apart....life of a missionary!

So I'm starting a new thing for the next while. The subjects of my emails will be quotes from Elder Conatti. Last week was one as well...

Soooooo! So much to talk about, so little time.

First, Happy Birthday to Alyssa! I can't believe you are turning twelve! That's crazy! I hope you have a great day.

I would also like to thank everyone who has sent me letters. I wish I had time to respond to them all, but with traveling and everything, it makes it difficult to find time! I really appreciate them though, so thank you! :)

So the adventure of this week begins last Monday. We were waiting the whole day for a phone call from Sister Bunnell (Mission President's wife) to let us know when we could go to the hospital for Elder Hunter. That call never came.

We were at a dinner appointment with the Stake President and his family cooking THEM dinner (we made sloppy joe's). When the Stake President heard about Elder Hunter's situation, he told us he would help (he's very good friends with Elder Hunter) . So long story short, that night we were sitting in the church working on some stuff for the music project, and he walks in and is like "Elder Hunter, I'm taking you to the hospital."

So I won't get into all the nitty gritty details because of time, but I was left behind at the Den Haag church while President S. took Elder Hunter to the hospital. (They only let one other person back with you in the hospital, which is why I couldn't go with.) I was put in a three man with the Den Haag Elders for the night. At like midnight Elder Hunter called me from the hospital and told me he was coming home. We got back to Delft at like 1:05AM. (picture :) )

Getting home at 1:05 in the morning!

Elder Hunter is doing ok. Again for sake of privacy I won't say too much, but he's seeing a specialist tomorrow to determine if he needs surgery.

We took it pretty easy the next couple days because of that, but we still had some really cool experiences. On Wednesday morning, we got a call from a former investigator that he needed to meet with us that morning. Unexpected, but awesome!

It was an awesome lesson. We talked about a whole variety of topics, but mostly we were able to address his concerns that had been holding him back from progressing before. At the end of the lesson he was like "Where do I sign up for church?" Pretty crazy! He's not ready for baptism just yet, but he's willing to start coming to church every week. It's a start!

We hit the road again this week. We worked in Zwolle and sang in Stake Conference.

I have to say hats off to the Zwolle Elders. They did an awesome job. We were booked with appointments, with investigators, less actives, recent converts, and strong members. It was really good. It's really cool to see how people get really excited about the project. Most people ask for three to four invitations to give to other people. It's getting members excited about missionary work! That's the goal of the project, get members and missionaries working together to find new people, and strengthen the existing members.

So we also sang in Stake Conference in Apeldoorn. That was also just an amazing conference. The talks were amazing and really uplifting. Like I said, we also had the opportunity to sing for the members there. We sang two songs, Gentle Shepherd, and Abide with me tis Eventide (but translated into Dutch) (here's Gentle Shephard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej5cXox_50k#t=126 It's actually a Baptist song, but it's so goooood! We didn't do the narration though :) )

Yesterday we also had two of the greatest lunch/dinner appointments on my mission. The first was with Family Spijkerman. As Elder Hills would say, they are soooooo goooooooood. We sang a bunch of songs with them, because they all have beautiful voices. We sang the songs we had prepared, but also Homeward Bound (translated into Dutch....I posted a recording in my picture folder as well :) ) and Come Unto Christ (Youth theme from last year. It was pretty special, because Elder Hunter wrote that song, in case you didn't know :) my companion is famous ;) )

That night we also had a dinner appointment with an awesome family from Curaçao. The AP's (Assistants to the President) were supposed to come as well, but things happened so they couldn't. So Elder Neptune and Elder Ames, we missed you :) #APshoutout. They made delicious food. All of us there were either missionaries or returned missionaries, so the entire appointment we just talked and laughed about missionary life and how ridiculous it is. Great appointment.

Great dinner!

Well, I don't know what else to really say. We've had a really fun week. Can't believe that I will hit my year mark in ten days. I already have less than a year to go. Pretty insane. My group is now the "old missionaries". About a third to a half of the mission are greenies. It's so weird.

It's great though, the work is progressing, and that's all we can ask for.

Love you guys!

Elder Muller

(aka Shamu - Elder Hunter's nick name for me. It's all good though, because killer whales are his favorite animals.)