Now do the Haarlem shake!

Dinner at Charlotte's

Charlotte with Elder Clukey photobombing!

Single Young Adult Class on Sunday

Monday, March 7, 2016

Hey everyone, I got news. 

I'm going to Haarlem. Yep, after 8 months in Delft, I'm leaving. My journey northwards continues. 

So Haarlem is a pretty special city. You all know that movie The Best Two Years?* That was filmed in Haarlem. Yeah. It's gonna be cool. My new companion is Elder Leishman. We already have a unique relationship because I am his "mother". He is Elder Hills greenie that he trained right after Elder Hills was companions with me. It's gonna be a good transfer. 

So this week was really busy. Probably one of the busiest weeks of the transfer. We had several referrals that we looked up, taught some great lessons, got some good groundwork laid down for the next transfer. 

The highlight of the week was my exchange with Elder Henderson. He is going home this week and I was the last exchange of the mission. It was pretty cool because we got interviewed for a newspaper. I'm going to be in the AD, which is a pretty big newspaper here in Den Haag. It was a really good interview, none of the normal stereotypical anti Mormon questions, but more of trying to see the Netherlands and Dutch culture through our eyes. It was pretty cool. I'll send you a link when I get the article. 

This is the newspaper

I also got to work on the cow farm again, that's always fun. 

Other than that, I don't have a whole ton to talk about. Sunday was a pretty emotional day. I had to say goodbye to a lot of people, which is always hard. It's going to be strange going into a new area, I don't remember what it feels like haha. 

Well, that's it for this week. I'll be talking to you next week from Haarlem! 

Salutjes!

Elder Muller

*The Best Two Years is a great Church movie that chronicles the fictitious events of four young Elders who are serving in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission! It is one of our family favorites! It is a comedy as well as having a very meaningful message of how missions change our young men and women and the people they teach and serve. Please enjoy some of the music from the soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa-DL1_47bw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHZdrULIIKM&index=3&list=RDQa-DL1_47bw

This is a link to a clip from the movie The Best Two Years. Make sure to read the description before viewing. It will give you the set up of the movie! This movie is a wonderful movie showing the many emotions of being a missionary!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DepPik04us

Single Young Adult Class - Sunday

Saying good bye to members at Church on Sunday. I have not labeled each of these pictures for privacy purposes.

A Bara Gevuld - My Addiction

Lunch with "T"

"Skinnifying" Ties!

#Swagmaster

Nee, Hoor! (No Way!)

Directional sign shows Phoenix to the left!

Monday, February 29, 2016

Dames en Heren, op dit moment is er geen treinverkeer mogelijk tussen Eindhoven en Rotterdam Centraal. Hou u rekening met extra reistijden. (Ladies and Gentleman, At this moment, there is no train service possible between Eindhoven and Rotterdam Centraal. Make sure you plan for extra travel time.)

And that is how we come into the middle of the adventure that started more than 24 hours before. We'll get there in a second. :)

So this has been an extremely busy week. I was just exhausted yesterday. Thank goodness for P-day naps. We had a bunch of cool miracles happen, and really good lessons. We've been praying for help, and we've been getting it. 

I will share a quick story. On Tuesday we came out of a lesson with a less active, and had planned on knocking in his area. Instead we both felt like we should go visit an investigator that we hadn't seen or heard from in more than a week. We bike over, and right as we pull in the street who do we see walking home from grocery shopping? Our investigator. We had a really good talk with him, and were able to meet with him twice more this last week. :) Just cool miracles like that are happening every day. It's really strengthening my testimony of hard work and faith. We gonna change this city, yo!

So on Friday I was on exchanges with Elder Henderson in Zoetermeer. Almost the whole day we built a fence for an investigator. It was fun work actually. That night we had a sick dinner appointment with a less active named Mary Lou. She is from the Philippines, and she is an AMAZING cook. She made us tenderloin steak, and other goodies.  (See below for pictures!)

The next morning, I went on a three man split to Eindhoven with Elder Henderson and Elder Leishman. We went to attend the baptism of someone that I met on the music project. It was a great baptismal service. I also got to see Elder Shaw which was awesome. 

Now we go back to the start of my email. So on our way back to Den Haag, they shut down all the trains running between Eindhoven and Rotterdam (time to go pull out your maps of the Netherlands) so we had to travel through Utrecht. All three of us had appointments at 3:30, so we needed to get back on time. Our train from Eindhoven to Utrecht was also delayed by 5 minutes because of a train in front of it. We pulled into Utrecht Centraal just in time to see our connecting train pull away from the spoor. (track) #treinleven  (#trainlife) With that delay we were going to be cutting it close. 

We called our companions (who were in a three man in Den Haag for the day) and figured out that we wouldn't have time to switch back to our normal two-man companionships. So we three headed to Zoetermeer to make the Zoetermeer Elders' appointment. We had to acquire a third bike, which involved achteroping part of the way (go do an image search of that). 

(I believe he means one of the Elders had to ride on the back of the bike part of the way to acquire a third bike! Always a fun sight to see! Especially young men in suits! I was unable to find a picture of missionaries "achteroping", but these two photos should give you the idea!)

The appointment was a BBQ for the young men, (mostly the less actives) and we had a giant rubber band war with them.We then traveled back to Den Haag and switched back to our normal companionships. It was a crazy day. 

Well I'm out of time... I hope you all have a great week. Love you!

Elder Muller

Doing service!

Building a fence!

The fence!

The delicious dinner!  Elders Clukey, Henderson (?), Isaksen and Muller

Elder Clukey looks like he is enjoying it!

Pure deliciousness! 

CIM: Den Haag

Elder Muller and Elder Foltz

Goedemorgen Dames en Heren,

(Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen)

It has been another week here in Delft. A very, very emotional week, I might add. Lots of ups and downs, but I ended on an up, so that's good. :)

First off, I had a lot of things to take care of today, so this will be a short email.

We had Zone Conference this week in Amsterdam. It was a good conference, but also very hard. The Sisters from my group gave their "dying" testimonies at this conference, so it was pretty emotional for me. A lot of really good friends are leaving in a couple weeks. It's kind of hard to accept actually. (The Sister Missionaries that Elder Muller has known since entering the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT on September 17, 2014 are now completing their 18 month missions, and are headed home at the next transfer.)

Friday was a really good day. I was on splits with the Zone Leaders while Elder Foltz was in Belgium for legality stuff. It was such a good day for me. I had so much fun just working. It was exactly what I needed after a pretty tough, emotional week. The title of this email is the initials of these three Elders: Clukey, Isaksen, Muller.

Saturday we helped a family move the whole day which was a lot of fun. Reminded me of all the times that I've moved. There were a lot of people, so it was a party.

So to close off this email, sorry that it's so short, here is the "song of the week"

RELENTLESS by Hillsong United

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N9mCUsTapY

That is what we are -> Relentless. Remember that.

Love you guys!

Elder Muller 

The adventures of Elders baking!

Stroop Waffles in an open air market! Elder Muller loves Europe! 

Elder Muller is loving the chocolate milk!

February 15, 2016


Hey everyone!

I had a pretty good week. We taught a lot of lessons this week, and we had some cool answers to prayers happen. 

So if you remember last week I said something about a visit being mom approved? Well we went back this week to look that young student up. The thing that we've been struggling with most in Delft right now is finding new investigators. We've been doing a lot of finding, and we are trying to turn it around. Friday we prayed specifically for the opportunity to have a RAD (a first lesson with a baptismal invite). We practiced giving RAD's in companion study, and we were just really looking out for any opportunity to share one. 

We knocked on the door, and the girl, I---, was home. She was actually pretty excited to see us again. We asked if we could share with her a short explanation of the Book of Mormon. She was like "Ik heb net een tosti klaar gemaakt, dus ik wil niet dat het koud wordt. Kunnen jullie heel even de kern van waar het boek vandaan komt uitleggen?"" ("I have just made a toasted sandwich, and I don't want it to get cold. Could you give me a really fast explanation of where the book comes from?) I was like this is my chance! So I launched into the fastest 2 minute first lesson with a baptismal invite of my whole mission. It was so cool! So we got a RAD. She didn't really want to know any more than that, but for us, our prayers were answered! 

Yesterday was also Valentine's day. During the week we made cookies and brought them to a lot of the members and investigators in Delft. It gave us a good opportunity to visit people that we haven't been able to get in with for awhile, as well as a great introduction to new people we met. 

So, real short, here is the message that we shared with people. 

Reading from the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moroni, Chapter 7, versus 47-48:

47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

 48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

So this time of year we celebrate romantic love! We wanted to talk about a very special kind of love that trumps everything else in the universe. That would be the pure love of Christ, or charity. There are two very important things we learn about charity from these two verses. First, charity is a gift from God. It is a spiritual gift that we are given. Do you know what is cool about spiritual gifts? We can ask God for more of them :) and, just like this verse says, we can pray to have more charity. 

The second is that it is through the love of Christ that we are cleansed from sin. 

We shared this Mormon Message: 

Enduring Love - Showing Love & Giving Service To Build Strong Marriages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdCPMwhvJ88

It is a tear jerker, isn't it!? So my invitation to you is to think about how you can be more charitable to your spouse. This couple in the video do not live in the "ideal" situation, but they have overcome that through their pure love for each other. Love can change the world :) 

So this is my message to you this week as well. Cling unto charity! Charity never faileth.

Love you guys!

Elder Muller

Song of the week, shared with us by my great friend, Cleo! :) 

Tamela Mann - Take Me To The King / I Surrender All @DAVIDANDTAMELA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqHgZpdZJvo

Here is a link to read the complete Book of Mormon. In chapter 10 of the Book of Moroni, you will find the following promise:

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng

Mom Approved!

Elder Muller

Hey everyone! 

It's a gorgeous day here in the Netherlands! (aka that means it's not raining... yet) 

We had a pretty good week. We just went ham on finding and teaching. We came out with a new investigator, so I'm satisfied. 

We had a pretty intense lesson with one of our investigators/my best friends this week. It was the most spiritually powerful lesson on my mission up to this point. I'm not going to go into detail about it, but suffice it to say that there were tears all around. 

The Atonement is real, and if we let it change us we will achieve heights that we never thought possible. 

We had a really cool experience at Institute this week as well. Hans Noot (the head of Institute in the Netherlands) taught the lesson, and it was awesome! It was all about the temple and applying what we learn there in our daily lives. It really strengthened my testimony a lot, and answered a lot of questions I had. 

Another cool story, I was on exchanges with Elder Richards (my new DL) here in Delft. We had a really good day of just finding. We looked up a potential that Elder Foltz and I found last week. She is a student at TU (University of Technology) here in Delft. We gave her a Book of Mormon, and were just following up with what she though about it. Turns out she was in Spain on a school trip, but her mom was home. 

Now normally if we look someone up but get their parents, the parents just tell us to go away and not come back. It's pretty frustrating. This time was different! Her mom told us that her daughter had actually shown her parents the Book of Mormon, and the mom invited us to come back when I--- was back from her trip. We got Mom approval! That made us pretty happy :)

So I'm about out of time, but in closing I would like to share a song with all of you that has been close to my heart this week. It's called Oceans. I add my testimony to that of the song. :) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBJJJkiRukY

Love you all, and have a great week! 

Elder M

Delft

Elder Muller showing off his cooking skills!! Veggie stir fry with rice!

Look at that pan of yumminess created by Elder Muller!

His mission has surely blessed Elder Muller with a taste for veggies!

Lucky companion gets to enjoy Elder Muller's cooking!

Final product!! Broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, carrots and green beans!!