Mission Update -- 11/19/08

Elder M is enjoying serving in the city. Here are his emails. He did a quick one on Tuesday the 18th to ask if we could send him his bike and then another quick one on Wednesday. Here they are:

11/18/08:

Hey Mom!
I'm here at the library... My companion is getting us museum passes for tomorrow... We're going to the Science and Industries Museum, and if we get the passes here today it's significantly cheaper.
Anyways, I'll still email you tomorrow, but I'm just letting you know I'm alright! This new area is AWESOME, and my new companion is AMAZING. Seriously, this transfer is going to be phenominal.
It's been cold, but I've stayed warm. My coat is great, and bike riding keeps you warm... Actually you start sweating after a couple miles, but it's alright.
Anyways, they told us at the beginning that we may get a car, so I haven't bought a bike. There was an old crappy bike here that I've been riding, and it's pretty bad. It's going to be awful riding on this, so I pretty much need a new bike. Since I've got this junkola one, I can get around until you send me mine from home... That one's pretty nice, and I would do all but kill to have it. So would you mind looking up the price to ship it and stuff (apparantly it's about $100), because I'm pretty sure that'd save, and I'd be happy to ride around on a junk bike for a week until that one came if it meant that I could get a nice electric shaver, and save you some money! :-) And actually, it would pretty much be a pain to buy one here, since the shop is miles away...
But, please let me know what is best for you and what you want to do. If you send it to the mission office, they'll get it, then the APs will just bring it to me the next day... They're pretty much the delivery boys for the Chicago Zone.
Thanks, love you! I've been doing well, and having a lot of fun. Elder Gardner is a great missionary, and he's very easy to work with. We're getting caught up with all the referrals they had jammed up, and have a good amount of appointments set for Thursday! This area doesn't really have any members, so food should be interesting... But I've been cooking some mean quesodilla's with the stuff I bought at the mexican store right next to us. We live on Talman and 51st by the way... The house with a McMullen Realty sign in the yard!
Anyways, gotta go.
Love,
Elder Bradley Edward McMullin


11/19/08:

Hello family!
Will you please forward this to G&G, I've got 15 minutes, so I've got to pump this out fast.
Anyways, this week has been SO good. This area is so awesome, and my companion is great. We've gotten organized, and are going to be exceedingly busy, but that's good. Neither Elder Gardner or I like the cold, but we both want to work hard more than we hate it out side - so we ride our bikes ridiculously far every day. I've been getting pretty beat up from the bike I've been riding, because I can't really sit on the seat. Haha, anyways, I'm super excited to get mine in the mail! Maybe just call the office if it's not going to work.
So, we had quite the experience moving in because we had to refurnish the apartment. It was pretty crazy because there were only two beds there. [There are 4 missionaries sharing the apartment.] We got some new ones and moved desks around, and now are totally situated. The apartment has two heaters and is pretty warm.
I forgot to bring my planner here today (I'm in jeans and ready to go to the science and industry museum), so I don't have my list of all the crazy things that have happened, but I'll try to say some.
On Thursday we had transfers. For transfers, everyone meets at the Pulaski Chapel (which is mine now), and after a meeting, packs up and goes to new areas. That's pretty much it for the day besides unpacking.
Friday was good, we did a little work, but mostly rearranged the apartment. The APs brought over the new beds, so we set them up. We also went out to a couple of media referrals, and went to dinner at the Leal family home near Marquette Park. They live about as far south as our area goes... And Elder Greenway's bike tire popped right by their house... So we had a long walk! We also had MCM with Brother Patton, the ward mission leader at about lunch time.
Saturday was very good. We had a bunch of media referrals, and rode bikes a lot. It was exciting just to see the areas, some of which were pretty trashy. One area we spent a while in was pretty bad... Like every other duplex was boarded up, and there was trash EVERYWHERE. Actually, that's pretty much my whole area. I don't think I've seen an unbroken sidewalk brick in Chicago... Or one without grass growing through, and with trash all over. It's ok though, the people are nice. Funny thing of the day - we saw 2 guys with eyepatches.
Sunday was good, I'll tell you more about church next week though.
Monday was excellent. We did a lot of delivery and tracting. We were really far south east... Like 78th and Yale, if you look that up. A kindergarten age kid told me "give me yo bike!" it was pretty funny.
Gosh, I hate having this limit... This library I'm at is the Englewood library, and has a lot of computers, but you can't go on for long w/o a library card... I don't have one yet.
50 seconds.
Love you!
Take care!

Elder Bradley Edward McMullin