Mission Update -- 9/17/08

Here's this week's update. Sounds like it was a fantastic week!! My comments are in brackets again.


Hola!
This week has been pretty good and pretty crazy! Last Thursday was fairly uneventful, but Friday was AWESOME!
We went over to Rosa's family's house to teach the Plan of Salvation, and it turns out they had prayed... And wanted to get baptized! So... We're going to baptize Rosa and Isabelle on the 27th! Isabelle is so amazing... Like seriously incredible! She believes the church is true, and is pretty excited about being baptized. They lied to get out of going to band camp, so she really wants to be forgiven for that. (funny reason, but it's always good to be forgiven!) So we've taught them, they came to church, and we're going to teach them everything else then baptize them on the 27th! SWEET!
So after that amazing day, we got a call from Elder Na'a asking if we wanted to do exchanges on Saturday. We said sure, so the next day we drove up to Bourbonnais. I stayed there with Elder Grether, and Elder Na'a came down to Watseka. We all had lunch and met with a recent convert, then went our separate ways. Elder Grether and I went to some boondock place to meet with a media referral, but she wasn't home. We then went to visit a less active family that lived nearby. They had alot of cats. We did a lot of service in a basement that was unorganized. They were interesting people, and it turned out to be fairly fruitful because most of them came to church on Sunday.
I took a shower that evening, but didn't sleep well because my nose was a faucet [Elder M. is quite allergic to cats!]. I gave up at 5:45 or so and took another shower. A couple hours and a couple (over)doses later, I felt alright though. I read some interesting stories in Matthew. I don't have my scriptures or anything with me now, so I don't know the reference, but I found a new personal hero- the blind homeless man that Christ healed that completely trashed the Pharisees, then became a Disciple of Christ after he was excomunicated from his community.
Church was really good, but not many people showed up because of the rain... It had been raining pretty well for a few days, but really started up Saturday evening and Sunday morning. [This was the remnants of Hurricane Ike.] A lot of people near Kankakee had water in their basements, and one neighborhood even had waist deep water at their front door! They are all great people, and helped eachother out after church though, so that was good.
While they were helping each other out, Elder Grether and I were busy preaching the Gospel. We started out by giving a blessing to a man who hurt his knee the other day. After that, we went and tracted in the storm for a while. It was actually pretty fun, but we got a little bit wet. We had umbrellas, but they were going crazy because of the wind. The sidewalk was all submersed, so we had to walk in the street for most of the time, then jump onto driveways.
It was actually a pretty good day to knock doors, because no one was out in the storm. Most people were not receptive, of course. We didn't have anything too crazy, but we did get some doors slammed, and shooed away like flies once. We also set up three appointments though! That's the important part! A lot of missionaries do not like to tract because it's not very fruitful. They say you have to hit 99 doors before you find 1 investigator, so they don't want to do it at all. But fortunately I look at it as lets go hit those 99 doors so we can find that lost sheep!
After doing this, we went to an appointment with an 'investigator.' His family was all members, but they were inactive when he was 8. He is 10, and they now come to church all the time and he needs to be baptized, but since he's not 8 he has to go through the missionaries. We went through some stuff with the kid, then gave his sister (who was going into the doctor for who knows what) a blessing. It was all in all good.
After that we drove out quite a ways to our dinner appointment. We had a full on thanksgiving feast, and played a pig dice game with their kids. It was actually pretty fun! Some of the family was recent converts, so we also taught them a lesson. It went really well, and was fun. After dinner, we drove back to Bourbonnais to go to bed. Oh yeah, the Elders in Bourbonnais live with members. The Jacksons have a pretty big basement that has everything, so they house the missionaries there. I guess the Church is starting to do that more and more.
We had district meeting and switched back companions on Monday. Monday evening, we went to teach Rosa & Co. again. It went really well until they brought their stupid pug out. He is fat and screams like a dying pig. It was alright though, we finished and set another appointment. After the lesson, we bought some more bread from the store and got ready for bed.
Tuesday was pretty good. We went around and tried to meet some former investigators. We met with one who sounded pretty promising actually. She lives about 15 miles out of Watseka in Gilman, and goes to a church on her street. She said that if she was younger, she would probably have already joined the Church! Nice! We'll come back to teach her, which should be good!
Today has been good as well. We woke up and went over to the Clutteur's. We spent a good chunk of the day cleaning out the garage Brother Clutteur built with his son. It was pretty much used as storage and was unorganized, but we did a pretty good job on it. We did laundry there, and just barely left for the library to do email. We're going back over soon for dinner... Sister Clutteur is probably the best cook I've ever met in my life. She cooked pork with mashed potatoes and gravy for us last night, and it was great! They've got an apartment above the garage we cleaned that they're planning on having the missionaries live in after Andy leaves. They're an awesome family.
Thanks for your letters and emails! It's always good to hear from you! I heard that UNLV beat ASU... Let's just say I'm not from Tempe anymore... The BYU game was on when we were at the recent converts house, so we saw a little bit of the first half and oh my gosh!
I'm going to get a coat next time we can make it into the city or around Joliet. I would have earlier, but we carpooled with people and they had an appointment they had to rush to. I've been using money off of that, because I didn't budget my money very well. I ordered a mission shirt, but I don't think that's the worst way to kill a budget!
That's exciting about Mook's farewell and Temple trip! Tell him congratulations from me! Yeah, that'd be good to forward me his emails. When did Sue send me Matt's? In the mail I assume?
Good job on your debate Caitlin! Tell Mrs Peters I say hi! Hi Taylor!
Have a good week! I've been debating on whether to send G&G's letter to Arizona or to Nevada... I think I'll just send it to Nevada though, so they'll have something fun besides the Chamber and Lend a Hand waiting for them. Hehe. Have fun in Arizona G&G! It's too bad I'll miss y'all there!
Hey what town does Heidi Jarvis's brother live in?
Anyways, I'm glad I'm out here, and am really excited for the [sisters] that are getting baptized! The branch here is great, and they're so supportive of each other. Most members have a calling, and everyone goes out of their way to support the branch. It's really cool to see, and to help with. It's so different than at home where we have huge wards with a bunch of strong active members... Kinda interesting - the Joliet stakehouse is about the same size as the Lakeshore building... Maybe even a little smaller. Pretty strange! But, it's the people who meet there that make up the Church, not the building!
Anyways, the week's been good. Thanks for praying for me, you're in my prayers as well!
Love you,
Elder Bradley Edward McMullin