Yello from Prague!!

January 28, 2012

Hi there family!

Sooooooooo today is a good day! We had a good week overall and I'm excited to tell you all about it. First off, to answer some questions:

1.  With you being over the cars will you be driving?  You may get to learn how to drive a stick shift....fun stuff kiddo

Yes, I will be driving next transfer - gotta do all of my application stuff for my license. But I don't have to worry about driving stick (phew) - there are only 2 stick shifts still in the mission and neither are in Prague. Yipee!

2.  Do you get to go to baptisms and do you have any responsibilities for such?

No responsibilities in organizing baptisms - office elders used to be in charge of that, but it was changed last year because of an overload of responsibility. 

3.  Do you travel at all with this new calling?

I travel a lot around Prague, but as far as travelling elsewhere not much. Every once in a while we'll get assignments, but not much.

4.  Will you help with mission conferences etc?

Only when there is a specific office item of business (ie phone problems/updates, etc.)

5.  Anything we can send you to help?  What about the adobe software??

I love getting letters, and we get them super prompt (got your package last Wednesday) because we're in the office. The adobe software would be wonderful to have here - but do we even have it on PC? We'd probably only have use for the design suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), as we already have some decent video editing software. I'll have to double check with President Irwin (he's in Vienna right now), but I think it would be much appreciated. We'd love to have it here, and if President really doesn't want it in the office I'll send it back (I'd be surprised though if that was the case, since we already have photoshop elements haha)

6.  How far is your apt from the mission home?  Are you in the same building as the AP's or Bohnes?

Our apartment is literally around the corner from the building, which is across the street from the office. We live the floor below the APs, and the Bohne's live in a different building close by. It's all super duper convenient. I love working with everyone here - I just love that we are all just normal people from all different backgrounds and places along this journey, but are all called and qualified to serve the Lord in our respective responsibilities. It is a beautiful and marvelous thing to me.

This week we actually got to do a decent amount of proselyting, which is way exciting. I love the people here so much, even though sometimes they're a little rough around the edges when I first try to talk to them on the street haha. I think I told you this once before, but Czechs are like m&ms - a little crunchy on the outside at first, but nothing but sweet as soon as you really get to know them. I love getting to know them and each of their stories. We had the wonderful opportunity to teach a couple amazing people this last week.

Mainly, I just want to tell you about a special investigator. It has been quite the week with her - we met her on Sunday evening. She is so, so special. She contacted us back in December first through email and after reading some material we sent her agreed to a meeting. She travelled an hour from her village to visit us at the building for a lesson. She is just so prepared by the Lord - she found faith in Christ 14 years ago, but for the last couple of years she hasn't felt peace in her life. She is the only believer in her family and said that when she came into the chapel, she felt a peace that she hasn't felt in a long, long time. She wants to feel it again, is reading in the Book of Mormon, and says that she believes it is true because of how she feels when she reads it. She is just so prepared - we went to visit her yesterday and taught her.  Oh my, I have been praying so hard for her. She is like a little spot of light shining outside of Prague and I just don't want it to go out. But recently we received a text from her, just about an hour ago, saying that she and her children really liked the cookies I brought (she has a 16 and 19 year old son), they were Rob's Oatmeal! But they loved them and she wants the recipe. She was so grateful for us and the influence the Gospel is having in her life. She is so, so special - please pray for her. She can't come to church this Sunday because of family, but she said she wants to come and to meet. She even has a baptismal date for the 25 of February. I am excited for her, yet am very prayerful that she will be able to continue to learn.

Another cool thing today - there is a baptism for a man from Plzen, and the man we taught in Plzen who joined the church is here! So I get to go over after the Baptism and say hi. Apparently he is doing quite well and is trying to do missionary work - he's even brought a friend to church apparently. But he is there across the street and I get to go say hi! I'm super excited - this will be my first meeting with him since after I left. I'll try to snap a picture while I'm there to send home.

So yeah, all is well here. Office is busy, Missionary work is happening, and the word is being preached. It's hard to see people reject it, but seeing the acceptance and the light makes it all worth it. I love this work and love you all!

S laskou,

Starsi Mullen

January 19, 2012

  The office! Elder Meiling, Shumway, Mullen, and Dietrich. Good looking, group, huh?

Starsi Mullen on vaclavske namesti in the snow today. So pretty!

 Starsi Mullen and Dietrich in Jicin visiting a baptismal service

 Elder Coleman, Dietrich, and Mullen - Elder Coleman is who I replaced as office manager. Office elders are the best haha!

 My last Sunday in Olomouc - all of the kids crowded around to watch me draw something - 

I love this picture! One of my favorites.

 My friend in Olomouc - you can finally put a face to a name haha! 

Sorry it has been so long.

  I love these people from Olomouc so much!

Life is good in Prague

January 21, 2012


Hello, family! So here I am, another week already gone by - man, where does time go? I guess time's fun when you're having flies haha. I absolutely loved your email. And oh my goodness, how cool will it be to get in contact with your friends family! I will for sure call them tomorrow to set up next week.  I will keep you very much informed with what happens. I'm so glad that you and Chris and Jenna got the packages! And of course that Aunt Sue and Uncle Steve got to open their package. I love you all so much and hope you know that those little tokens are something small that represents a lot more. 

So now for your questions!

1- I love the atmosphere of the office - it's so cool doing business type stuff in an environment that is filled with the spirit. And sister Bohne reminds me so much of you, Marmee! Oh my, you would (and perhaps will) be such good friends! And it's a wonderful experience to work so closely with the Assistants and President and Sister Irwin. I love it.

2- I did get to see some of the elders from my MTC group! Starsi Heath, Gabrielsen, and Salas all came in to pick up a new missionary companion. They were super excited, and it was very fun to see them and even tell their new companions a little about them while we worked with them on visa registration. It's interesting to see how truly individual each mission is for us. I often wonder what it is about me and about this calling in the office that is exactly what the Lord wants. But, like I said, it is comforting to know who is in charge.

3- Oh mylanta, Church was so, so great! It is a totally different experience than both Plzen and Olomouc, which both had relatively similar branches. There are around 120+ people who attend every week - families everywhere, parents taking restless kids into the foyer, an organ - it's wonderful. I'm already in love with the branch here. There's a young mens and young women's program, a huge YSA program, a strong priesthood quorum and relief society - I kind of feel back at home sometimes. It is a wonderful branch of saints. I gave a "missionary moment" talk in Sacrament meeting that only lasted about 4 minutes, but it was well received. I got to talk with a lot of people afterwards and started to really get to know them. Oh my, I can't wait for you to meet them one day. 

4- Probably my favorite experience was...well, ok, I'll write 2 because I can't pick. First happened yesterday - we had a lesson set up with an investigator and the district relief society president. She is such a solid member and a true saint. Our investigator unfortunately didn't come, so instead we went upstairs and practiced teaching with Sister M. Afterwards, we talked together for a bit and came to find out that her husband is very much against the church and is not a member. We talked with her for a while and came up with a plan to stop by next week on Thursday with cookies (courtesy of the baking package haha) and fruit salad (because he loves fruit) when he gets home from work and try to at least make positive contact. I'm super excited - but please, please pray for him to be open to at least talking with us.

The other happened actually today! We had an amazing first lesson with a new investigator. He was a referral from a member in Ostrava and has met with missionaries in the past (around 4 years ago) - super cool guy. The lesson was absolutely wonderful. It was so refreshing to hear how big of a role God plays in his life. It's not the norm here to hear somebody say honestly that everything they have is only thanks to God, that commandments are for our safety and good, and that we should wake up every morning and pour out our thanks in prayer for all He has given us. I'm way excited to continue meeting with him - we commited him to baptism and he said that he might, but wants to know more about what it entails before he commits to it.

5- Yes, we do get to visit local sites on P-days. It's such a big and beautiful city. So much going on and so much to do! You'll absolutely love it and I'm excited to take you on a personal tour one day. (btw, is it bad how excited I am to bring you back here? I'm just so excited for it haha! ) Anyway, Starsi Dietrich took a walk through the center today and went shopping on Vaclavske namesti - I bought myself a new suit! It was for a pretty good price and looks really, REALLY good (if I do say so myself haha). Thank you!

So yeah, life is good in Prague. Lots and lots and lots to do, both in the office and as a missionary (although both of those are in reality intertwined). It's all the same, glorious work - just different applications. Know that I love you all and think of you often. This work is so, so good, and the gospel is so, so true!

S laskou,

Starsi Mullen

Welcome to Prague!!

January 16, 2012


Well, hello family! Elders Dietrich, Shumway, Meiling, and I are all sitting here typing to our families in the office. It is such a cool opportunity to serve here. 

What a fun week you must have had all together! It sounds and looks like Landon had a blast (almost as much fun as his parents, Marmee, and Tata!) And while part of this Disney fanatic uncle wishes he could have been there to share in Landon's first Disney experience, I know that this is where I need to be, and even better, where I WANT to be. Your questions cover a lot of what I'd want to say this week, so I thought I'd just start out by answering those!

How is it serving in the office? - It is wonderful, stressful, rewarding, uplifting, tiring, and did I mention wonderful? I love it here. 

What are your main duties? - K, theres a lot of stuff I keep up with and monitor, but some main responsibilities include: monitoring, ordering, and shipping missionary and office supplies for each companionship and the mission as a whole, fleet manager for all mission vehicles, incoming and outgoing mail (organize, ship, pick up, etc.), monitoring the phones at the office for when someone calls who can't speak english, and running/monitoring the phones and phone plans of the mission. Other than that, I have a bunch of little side jobs and duties that I take one at a time. Its a lot of work, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. It helps that I can call Elder Coleman (the last office manager) whenever I need, and that Elder Meiling is serving as an AP in the office (he was the office manager before Elder Coleman) - they're willing to help train me on things when I have questions. But I think I'm handling it pretty well - you know me, one day I'm feeling on top of everything, the next 5 things come up at once and I feel overwhelmed. But that's life, and I still love it!

How is your new companion and how are you getting along? - Elder Dietrich is my new companion and is a hoot! Like I said, he's from Germany and loves to play the piano and soccer. His English is very good and we have gotten along great so far. So yeah, I'm one of 2 missionaries who have now served with both of the German speaking missionaries haha! (The other is Elder Uremovic) 

Did you get our birthday packages?  Is there anything else you would like to have? - I did, and I got them on my birthday! (since I came to Prague Sunday afternoon). Thank you so much! Still the only thing I can think of is some Tea tree gel (don't know if you already sent that). But one major perk of serving in the office is I get mail right when it comes! I've already received some recent letters and figured it takes about 9 days to get from the post office in America to my hands in the Czech Republic. How cool is that? What a blessing it is to serve here!

Do you get to proselyte at night and on the weekends?  How do you proselyte after dark there? - This is the only downside of the office - we don't get as much proselyting time. Actually, we get a lot less. We looked through our average schedule and figured we get about 3 solid hours of proselyting time a day, as long as something urgent doesn't come up in the office (which has already happened haha....) Our average day goes like this:

6.30-8:wake up, get ready, etc (same)

8-9: Personal Study

9-10: Comp Study

10-12: Office

12-1: lunch

1-3: Office

3-5: Proselyting time (finding activities, lessons, etc.)

5-6: Dinner

6-7: Calls/additional Proselyting time

7-8: office

8-9: Language study

9-10.30: plan/prepare for bed/sleep

So yeah, that's an average day for us now. It's for sure a different type of missionary work. But I know it is important and that I am here for a reason. The lyrics of the song "I'll go where you want me to go" come to mind: "It may not be on a mountaintop, or over a stormy sea, it may not be at the battle front, my Lord will have need of me." That really spoke to me with the change this transfer. I love being here, and I'm doing what the Lord wants me to be doing. 

Where did your MTC friends end up?  Are there any in the Prague Area with you?  You should ask Elder Meiling if he knows Randy and Carolyn Johnson. We used to be in the Encinitas ward when we lived in San Diego. Small world huh? - the only MTC friend who is in my district now is Sister Bean. The Prague district has 8 missionaries: us, the assistants, Starsi Ingalls and Stradling (Yeah, Elder Ingalls is back in my district!), and Sister Bean and Dolinar. It is a wonderful group and I am so excited to serve around them all.

How is your apartment? - our apartment is a lot smaller than the one in Olomouc, but is pretty nice and has a beautiful view of Prague. It is everything that a missionary apartment needs to be.

Do you need us to send you your adobe software? - OOH! I'll ask! good idea!

What scriptures are you studying now?  Any favorites that you've shared with investigators? - Right now I have a new years resolution to do every personal study activity in Preach My Gospel, so I'm doing those in a special journal, and that involves a lot of scripture reading. I recently finished reading through the entire New Testament, which was wonderful. Definitely some of my favorites to share with investigators are 2 Nefi 28:30 and Alma 7:7-11, the first because it lays out so clearly how the Lord teaches us - little by little - and the second because of how beautiful a description it contains of the atonement and how Jesus Christ suffered not only for our sins, but also our pains and weaknesses. It is a beautiful verse that explains this beautiful principle.

And, despite the severely reduced amount of proselyting time we had this week, we still had some wonderful experiences. We talked to this lady in the metro stop and she is so funny. She is a self proclaimed "stara baba" (old gramma), loves to talk and has a TON of questions that she really wants answers for. We agreed to meet at the building on last Thursday and she came! It was really nice - she loved seeing the chapel and we had a good first lesson with her. She told us at the end that she felt very very good with us there and would like to come to church as long as she isn't outside of Prague this weekend. 

We also had a cool experience finding people on the namesti yesterday - we talked to this girl on a park bench for a while. We taught her about God and Jesus Christ - it was so great.

I love you so much! The Gospel is true!

S laskou,

Starsi Mullen

Happy Birthday Joseph!!

January 9, 2012

Hello, Hello, Hello, family!

Well, this week definitely brought a few surprises! I'm emailing today from a little bit of a different and unexpected, but nonetheless WONDERFUL, place...the office in Prague. Yeah - kinda crazy, huh? 

So here's the story, starting with my last week in Olomouc:

Last week was absolutely wonderful. I don't have a lot of time right now (just a quick 10 minutes or so) to describe everything, but we started teaching some amazing new people who are just so willing to learn. We continued meeting with one of our investigators. But BEST of all was the weekend. On Saturday, we were in the building cleaning and vacuuming for Sunday when we hear the phone ring. Starsi Buhler answered it and I overheard that President Irwin was on the other line. So then I hear these words come out of Starsi Buhler's mouth - "yeah, he's here, one second." He hands me the phone. I hear his wonderfully British voice on the other line, and he told me that I needed to pack my bags because I wascoming to Prague on the first train after Sacrament Meeting on Sunday to serve in the Office.

WAY unexpected. But way exciting!

So on Sunday we had a wonderful Sacrament meeting - three investigators came to church! It was so great! For my last Sunday, my birthday, one of our investigators we had so hoped would come,  came to church with his wife and really enjoyed it. It is his birthday today, so we all sang him happy birthday and everyone was so good and happy to see him. His wife was so happy too. Because it was fast sunday (did it a week later here), I even got to bear my testimony. It was perfect - a perfect way to end my time in Olomouc.

So here I am, emailing you all from the office in Prague! P-days in Prague are on Saturdays, so I'll fill you in more this Saturday. I've been called as Office Manager, which puts me over a bunch of logistical stuff in the mission, and it is going to be such a wonderful experience. I spend about 7 hours a day doing office work, either in the office or out running errands. My companion is Elder Dietrich, who is awesome. He is from Germany - my second foreign companion! Haha but he is awesome and a total riot of a missionary. We love to joke around and he speaks english super well. He says hi, by the way!

I already know I will be here in the office for the next 2 transfers, which is kinda weird to already know. But what an opportunity! I get to serve around President Irwin every day - he just walked in, in fact! This is going to be great.

Have fun in DisneyWorld! I'm a little jealous, but I love where I am. I will definitely miss Olomouc - it's a city and a people who are close to my heart. But I'm excited for something new and something as exciting and special as this opportunity. 

I love you so much!

S laskou,

Starsi Mullen

We got PICTURES!!

January 2, 2012

 Some relaxing time on Christmas Weekend!

 Celebrating the season with the Branch President's family

 How do you like my new piano?

 The Christmas feast awaits!

Thank you to the Erbs for taking such good care of our Elders...

Who's winning this round?

HaPpY NeW YeAr 2012!!

January 2, 2012

Happy new year, family! No, the world hasn't ended here in the Czech Republic (although we might have thought that due to the lack of people on the streets yesterday...Czechs like their alcohol haha), and I'm happy to be here! Thank you for all of your many emails - I have copied them into a word document and will read them all in depth later today, but I made sure to skim them all. What a fun day Christmas was! I, like you, also loved our phone call. I hope I could give you at least a taste of the Czech Republic and that you could hear how I'm doing through my voice. You even got to talk to Starsi Rhodes for a bit haha! But it was a real treat to talk with you all. And, just in case you were wondering, no crying followed the call - all of us gave each other the update on the fam, then we went and played with the remote control helicopter/cars again haha. It was truly a fun night.

But now it's back to work!!! This week was pretty good overall. We've been picking up some really cool potential new investigators that we are in contact with but don't have a solid meeting set up for this week yet - please pray for them to be able and to have the desire to meet and talk about the gospel.

Our investigators are doing pretty good - one of them is in Italy for the week, so we won't get a lesson with her, but please continue to pray for her. It's kind of nervewracking for us with transfers coming up. President Irwin is predictably unpredictable, and we really don't know what will happen. But just in case I do leave, I have begun passing around my pamatnik (memory journal that Sis. Abinante gave me - thanks Sister A!!! Luv you!) to be written in. But if there is one thing I do know, it's that whatever happens will be for the best and will be exactly what should happen.

Another of our investigators didn't come to church yesterday, which was a big bummer...he brought up a concern last week in one of our lessons that he has joined organizations in the past where it started out all great but after a couple months started getting angry when he didn't do something that he didn't know he agreed to. Because of that, he is scared of the baptismal covenant. We've been teaching everything very clearly and hope he will overcome his concerns. We need more solid priesthood holders in Olomouc!

We had a way cool lesson with two of our other investigators last week. We had another lesson with them on baptism and the importance of the baptismal covenant, and for some reason this time it really hit home with one of them. We taught the restoration with the Gospel Picture book Gram Libby and Sherry sent me for Christmas (thanks, guys!) and it clicked. When we taught about authority to baptize, I pulled out my priesthood line of authority (thanks, tata!) and she absolutely loved it. We commited her to baptism and she got it this time. She said that she wants to learn more before making that commitment because she is an active roman catholic, but is going to read in the Book of Mormon, pray, and wants to visit another baptismal service (hopefully our other investigator's!) to see it. Please pray for her to receive a confirmation from the Holy Ghost of the truthfulness of this message - for it is true!

We had a specialized training last Wednesday also, which was great - super focused on working with members and the branch council. Starsi Erb has been such a huge help already in this branch. Sister S. is the relief society president and an english teacher, so she can translate for him in Branch council. Having his experience with leadership in the church is helping leaps and bounds here. It's so true what Elder Holland said - that there is a maturity and experience that a senior couple brings to an area that no number of 19 year old boys can. I am grateful for their presence here, and know that you two will also be a blessing to your mission when you serve (wink wink).

I also gave a talk yesterday in church, which went quite well! It was on using time wisely and setting good goals, and I used a lot of material from Starsi Ardern's conference talk last conference. It was well received by the branch and I got lots of compliments on it. How crazy that I can give a 15 minute talk in Czech?! Miracles happen!

We are going on a vylet (day trip) to a museum with the Erbovi and another couple from the Branch, and are leaving in about a half an hour. We're all wearing our Czech pants (I just got my pair this morning shopping at Globus - they were on sale!) and are going to have a great time.

Know that I love you and pray for you often. I know that this Church is true and what I am doing here is right. How grateful I am for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ!

S laskou,
Starsi Mullen
(ps...dum dum!)