Mission Update -- 12/3/08

Here's the latest email from Elder M. Make sure you take a look at the pictures he sent. They are posted below!


Hi,
This week has been pretty crazy and good! We've had some great success, but quite a few days where we didn't really proselyte... For legit reasons of course! I've been doing well though, and have stayed AWAP (As Warm As Possible)!
Thursday was Thanksgiving, and it started off well. We had a big Turkey Bowl up near Soldier Field, and it was really fun. We played for about three hours, then headed over to the Soldier Field Elders' apartment to shower. After getting dressed, Elder Gardner and I took a cab to Brother Mahon's condo. He lives on the top floor of a lakefront skyscraper, and has a ridiculous view of the city and the football stadium. Besides the Mahon's and us, the Bishop was there, and also some couple young couples. It definitely wasn't Reno [our family all got together in Reno for Thanksgiving], but it was a pretty good Thanksgiving.
Friday was pretty good as well. Elder Gardner and I went to the Zone Leader / District Leader meeting. It was actually pretty good, because we got a car and my bike! So, we have a car now... But almost no miles. We'll pretty much just have it to go to church and district meetings, but that's going to be way nice! After the meeting, we biked to some appointments. We got stuffed once, then went to the Leal's for dinner (the 1 family that feeds us). We had a good dinner, then went to visit William, the eternigator.
Saturday was probably the single most ridiculously productive proselyting day in the history of the Stockyards area. We still had our allotted miles for the month, but only 2 days to use them, so we went all over the place. We killed our media referral list, visited less actives, and also old investigators (Marco's investigator's old house was abandoned by the way). All in all, we visited 13 people! We dropped a good chunk, but got 3 new investigators! After dark, we used some more of our miles to go to Sam's Club... Where we got a few hundred dollars of food. We all just pitched in, since we're living the law of consecration.
Sunday was really good too. After church, Elder Gardner and I did the same thing we did on Saturday, but with much less success. We pretty much just dropped everyone we visited... Except the two investigators we had an appointment with. The lady has her own ministry in her apartment, and they were having a big service for a deceased relative. We were able to attend part of it, and were given the opportunity to teach the Plan of Salvation! It was actually way awesome. Everyone was extremely receptive, and we'll go back to visit them pretty often. Including Sundays. The minister had a less than Christlike past, but was prompted by the Spirit to start her church. We're going to tell her about the Cambellites and explain to her how she can bring her congregation into the Kingdom of God. Anyways, it was an awesome day.
Monday was interesting. We woke up to a few inches of snow. It's an understatement to say it's awful to bike through snow. We did though, and had 2 appointments cancel on us. This was pretty lame, so we went back to the apartment to make sure our last appointment would be there. They never would answer, so we didn't know if we wanted to bike to the absolute corner of our area (74th street and way East). We knelt down and prayed, and felt that we should... So we got up, and started on the most ridiculous bike ride I've ever gone on. As we were slipping around the sidewalk, a car started to pull in front of Elder Gardner. He was forced to suicide wreck so he didn't get ran over. It was alright though, so we just kept riding... Until we hit the train tracks. There was a train that was STOPPED on the tracks, and went completely out of our area! We had to get past it, so we ended up hobo-climbing it, and rode away on the other side. Somehow Elder Gardner's gloves got shredded while climbing. We kept riding though, and before too long, I pressed my brakes a little too hard, and ate some ice. We kept going though, then finally got to our appointment. We tried to watch the Restoration movie, but the DVD player broke. Then we were just teaching, and an insane man comes out and explains over 45 minutes how I'm his black brother. It ended up being me humoring this guy for another 30 minutes or so while Elder Gardner finished the lesson. We got a new investigator over there though, and committed a woman to baptism, so it was very productive. The ride home was pretty uneventful, but that's not a bad thing. Oh yeah, we couldn't unlock our gate because the keyhole was filled with ice. It took forever, but we finally got it open.
We woke up Tuesday and looked at the lowest low on our thermometer. It had gotten down to 3 degrees!!! We left pretty early, and met Brother Rann at a church near his house. He then gave us a ride to the Words of Wisdom bookstore, and the Temple. The Temple was awesome of course. After our session, we left for Brother Rann's house. We got some Buffalo Wild Wings on the way. We got a bunch of different flavors, and also 1 Blazin wing for everyone. It's the hottest of the hot, and it was AWFUL! I ate one bite, and it was alright.... for about a second. Then I felt horrible, and ended up drinking about half a gallon of Oberweis... Pretty fun! Haha. The rest of the day was good, but we were pretty tired.
Today's been good so far too. After I finish this letter, and one to President, we're going to head off to the Planetarium. It should be fun.
Anyways, I've been well, and am enjoying the work. The Lord has blessed us with 10 New Investigators so far, and I pray He'll bless us with more. I'm so grateful I have this opportunity to teach people about the Gospel. I know the Gospel is true, and I know it's neccessary. I love the Lord, and love serving Him!
I love you too! Take care!!
Love,
Elder Bradley Edward McMullin