Mission Update 1/28/09

Before I get to his email, I just have to point out that on Friday the 30th, Elder McMullin will have been on his mission for 6 months!! Transfers are next week; it will be interesting to see what happens. I think he'll stay where he is (obviously just a guess).

Now, here's his email:


Hi everyone!
Happy Birthday Tay! I've got something that I'm going to send you... I've been meaning to mail stuff for such a long time, but just have never got around to it. Sorry!!! But it will be there soon, and you should love it... I hope :)
Anyways, sounds like you've all been doing well! That's good to hear. That's funny about all those books you've been reading! We were talking about how crazy Captain Ahab was in Moby Dick just the other day! Elder Gardner was getting pretty excited and wanted to read it, but we assured him that MOST of the book was pretty dull. Haha.
Grandma asked if we're allowed to read non-church books or play games. The book part is an interesting question. You're not allowed to study books outside of the "missionary library," which is the scriptures, Preach My Gospel, Jesus the Christ, and like 2 or 3 other books. So no Moby Dick for me. As for games, yeah we're allowed to play games. We play cards all the time, since we have to be in really early. We also play some board games and stuff, and I used to do a lot of crossword puzzles.
Since we have from like 6 to 10:30, we do a lot of random stuff. Don't worry Dad, we don't make chlorine bombs or anything crazy... But one missionary did get some remote control helicopters the other day. They're actually really fun! They're made to fight, but they're pretty hard to control in such a small apartment. They end up going kamikaze after 30 seconds or so... If you're good.
But yeah, other than that, I make a LOT of phone calls, and do a lot of planning. It probably takes about 15 phone calls to set up one appointment out here, and when you're shooting for at least 20 appointments a week, that means a lot of time on the phone. 20 is the coveted mark that L Tom Perry set for missionaries (he came to the stake conferences like a month before I got here), but is seemingly impossible for people to get here. It's funny, I was reading Mooker's email, and it had said something like "we're not in America, so it's pretty tough to get appointments" which is kind of like what they say here... It's "impossible" to get 20 lessons. Everyone in America is satisfied and doesn't want to hear anything... Which is for the most part true, but Proverbs 3:5-6! Trust in the Lord, and make a ridiculous amount of phone calls! Haha. But yeah, it's pretty hard here, and I'm sure it's harder to get people to talk over there in Europe. We're definitely not in South America... But anyways, we got our 20 lessons last week! It was pretty exciting! We still haven't got anyone to church, other than less actives, but all of our return appointments definitely give us hope.
So yeah, I guess I left off on Wednesday for the Daily Update. After I wrote, we went and played snow football! It was awesome! It was so fun. The second play of the game, I cought a long bomb and did a half flip dive into the endzone for fun. It was fun, but I ended up getting snow not only inside my pants, but inside my thermals... So it probably wasn't worth it. It ended up being a really good game, and we had to have a couple overtimes. Elder Atwood, who drove Elder Gardner and I to the Hyde Park Pointe (where we played), lost his keys in the almost knee deep snow. We all had a prayer, and actually found the keys! It was pretty amazing, so we had a thank you prayer too. After that, we went to the Hyde Park church, which is right next to Obama's house, and had a pot luck lunch. It was really good, and pretty fun. After that, we played some ping pong, dodgeball, and basketball. The Lobo, Elder Stratton was there. He's a really cool guy, I'd love to be his companion some time. We're both pretty stoked for the Arizona Cardinals to win the Super Bowl next week! Anyways, after Zone Activity, we went over to the Bishop's house for dinner. They cooked some awesome twice baked spaghetti, and we had a lot of fun. Bishop Haydock does a lot of top secret chemical engineering, so he was telling us about some of his projects. They sounded pretty sweet.
Thursday was pretty good. We got dumped, and ended up only visiting William. He's a pretty avid gardner, so we taught him the Allegory of the Olive Tree! How many investigators do you think get taught that? Elder Gardner and I spent a while going through it pretty thoroughly, so we'd be prepared. It turned out pretty well, then we went home for the night.
Friday was good. At about 3:30, we were walking down the road, and pretty much got overran by 20 cops! I have no clue what was going on, but it was definitely something. You pretty much never don't see a cop rolling around here, but this was insane! It's alright though, we are 100% definitely kept safe around these crappy neighborhoods. The Lord takes care of his servants. We ended up having some awesome lessons, including some random dude that approached us on the street. We got one new investigator that had found a discarded pass a long card on a bus, and decided to call. We had an awesome lesson with her, and she ended up wanting us to come back... Then she gave us the name and phone number of some people she wants us to teach! It was great. We then went to William's again, since he's been working hard to stop smoking, then went home.
Saturday was the most packed day ever. We had 9 appointments scheduled before it began. It started off with a tube, so we ended up going to some taco shack that had a sign saying "Top 5 tacos in Chicago, - Chicago Tribune," or some thing like that. It was actually really good. After that, we had a good appointment, then one that stuffed us. We definitely got inspired at that point, and called a less active family. They had been pretty sick, so we went over there, had a good lesson, then gave the wife a blessing. We ended up having 4 more awesome lessons after that, so our day was really really productive. I also ordered some new scripture marking pens.
So, Sunday was pretty good too. We had MCM, church, then left for home. This crazy man in the ward wanted us to help them carry a fridge over a fence (don't even ask why he wanted us to go over the fence... We were pretty confused too), so we were all getting ready to do that, when we got a call. He said that the pipes had broken in a house, so the door was froze shut, and we couldn't get the fridge now. From this, and some other clues, we came to the conclusion that this crazy man wanted us to help him steal a broken fridge out of an abandoned house. What the heck? We were all dressed in P-Day clothes at this point, and it was dark, so we just lounged around all evening.
Monday was weird. We had district meeting, then I went on an exchange to Calumet City, with a zone leader. Our first appointment was for a media referral that ended up being a RIDICULOUS aggressive woman. It was pretty hard to restrain myself from telling her how stupid she was, but after scriptorally shutting down everything she said, we ended up just asking her to show some faith in Christ, and just pray. After that, we went and had a really good lesson somewhere else, then went to a dinner appointment. The woman we had dinner with was from Mesa, so she was really nice. She ended up giving us a TON of food, so I definitely came home richer. I got a ton of ramen, a couple loaves of bread, soup, frozen pizzas, noodles, and some other stuff... It was pretty sweet.
Tuesday was good too. We switched back, then went out for a couple appointments. Anyways, the day ended up pretty well. Oh yeah, our phone had broke, so we got a new one, and when we were trying to activate it, everything went crazy. We got an old one from the Peoria mission, and when we got it activated, we accidently stole the Springerville Zone Leader's phone number! Ooops!!!
Anyways, my time is up...
take care, love you, the church is true,
Elder Bradley Edward McMullin