Here's Elder McMullin's update for the week. Too bad about the mail mix-up. Poor missionaries! If you get a chance, sounds like he would love a letter. Here's the email:
Hello,
I just got an email from dad saying we're finally out of the depths of winter... It just barely got to 20 degrees outside... It's pretty cold again! It has been nice temperature wise, but there's been a lot of rain and some flooding this last week... And funnel clouds that almost turned into tornados on the border of the Watseka and Bourbonnais areas! Nobody got hurt by the flooding or the funnel clouds though.
Our letter situation has been weird for a while and we just found out why... The office messed up and has been forwarding all of our mail to the wrong zip code. I just barely got one from dad and from mom / caitlin. Elder Wiser hasn't got much, except from one person that just sends to the Swensons, so we're afraid we've lost mail (that's somewhat more comforting than the probable truth... People are just forgetting about us). Bummer. We called the office when we found out, and they fixed it though.
I hope you're all having fun at home, especially those that are making calls to collect money in these tough times. [I told him that I'm collecting money for the high school orchestra tour.] That's going to be fun. It seems like everyone around here is scared of getting laid off. There's randomly a lot of linesmen in this area, and they're getting fired like crazy. The Swensons daughter got laid off, so she may be moving out of Downers Grove to Texas or something.
How was having the missionaries over for dinner, G&G? Did they teach the first lesson? I teach that lesson a lot, and really enjoy it. There are so many truths in it, and best of all, there's proof! The Book of Mormon combined with prayer is an infallible way to find out the truth of the Restoration. All we really have to do as missionaries is to get people to sincerely pray about Christ, the Book of Mormon, and prophets, and then God will do the rest. I think it's a pretty sweet deal. One of the investigators we found a couple weeks ago has been praying sincerely. She's had a lot of deep questions and concerns, but has been reading from the Book of Mormon, and has been praying sincerely... I'm excited for our appointment tomorrow, because she'll probably have that answer. When explaining this, I usually bring in Alma 32 to talk about how we can't know for a fact that God the Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith... But we can pray, and know for a fact how we feel when we pray about that, and with that perfect knowledge of how we feel when we pray, know that God is acknowledging the truth of the Restoration. Pretty exciting stuff!
Anyways, I've had a really excellent week since I last emailed. Right after I wrote, we left for Zone Activity. We went there, played volleyball for a while then left for bowling. Bowling was pretty fun! We got there and there were somewhere between 20 and 30 lanes open, but the workers got upset when we told them we had 20+ people coming to bowl. They said, it doesn't look busy, but it is!!! Not. It was pretty funny though. We spread out over a few different lanes, and bowled. I won both times on my lane, beating Wiser by one, then Baum by 2, but didn't score quite as much as one sister that was getting strikes like crazy. She was really really good, it was pretty funny. After that, we went back to the church to play basketball and eat hot dogs. Then we left to go eat dinner at the Dupins. That was awesome, but we had to get out of there to go on a split with President Fredin and John Guymon, who's a priest. We went and taught the Restoration to a less active family. It went well.
Thursday was great! We started off by teaching Sharon about tithes and offerings. We then went to give a blessing to a sick young woman. After lunch, we taught Jim and exhorted him to come to church (he hasn't yet), and the Branch game night we're having this Saturday. After visiting Jim, we taught Erica with Sister Carlson, and it went really well. She's sincerely praying, so she's going to progress very well. After that, we stopped by the Cravens, but they weren't home so we tracted for a while until our dinner appointment with the part member Portwoods. That went really well. We should have a baptism there pretty soon. Brother Portwood is a great guy, so hopefully that will happen soon. After that, we left to visit Gina and Will, who we had tracted into a while ago, but they were unavailable, so we came home.
Friday was just about as awesome. We helped Sharon with some yard work and taught her in the morning, then came back to Mokena. We went to the library and made some maps and routes for stop bys on Google. That was actually pretty frustrating, and took forever. We later figured out we could've just put all the names in our GPSs and done it way faster. Bummer. It was ok though, because we put it to good use and got a hold of 4 people to teach throughout the rest of the day.
Saturday was pretty good. We taught a couple people in the morning, gave a blessing, then headed out to tract / stop by former investigators. We did pretty well, and got a new investigator. Josh is the brother of a guy that met with the missionaries a couple years ago, but is in jail now. He won't be back for another year, so we unfortunately can't teach him... But his brother is nice!
We're going to try and teach his whole family, so that could be awesome. After that we went to play basketball with the Elders Quorum and the nonmembers they should've brought. The gym ended up being closed, so we went all around trying to find somewhere, which took forever. We drove with Brother Foerster, which was nice for miles... But it eventually led to us staying and playing basketball far too long. I started feeling ill, because we had eaten White Castle (which is the worst place in the entire world!), so I was glad to leave. When we got back into the car, Brother Foerster realized that his wife had been calling, and was pretty upset. I was given the phone to call her and get him out of trouble... She answered with a rough, "What the h...?!?" She was embarrassed, and it was pretty funny! After the call, Brother F was out of trouble, as long as I didn't get his wife in trouble. Haha. We got back, didn't have much time to do anything, and were really hungry... So we headed out for McDonald's, but I saw something amazing on the way. As we drove by Mindy's Ribs, I saw what looked like a drive through. We took a U Turn to check it out, and found out that Mindy's indeed has a drive through. I got a half slab of baby backs, and Wiser got a rib + shrimp combo. We didn't go to McDonald's, but we had an awesome kind-of-fast food dinner.
Sunday was pretty good. We had church and MCM, then left for lunch. Before going home, I asked Sister Foerster how the h... she was doing, which she got a kick out of. I can't remember what I ate, but probably eggs and a bagel or something like that. After lunch, we went on a team teaching trip with Brother Willis... But our appointment, and our back up plan both fell through. Then we went and stopped by places, and our C, D, and I think even E plans fell through too. BUMMER! We had one appointment with the Johnsons that we were able to go to though, so that was good. After that, we ate some dinner, then went to a fireside. Brother Vines' ex wife's father was in the Polish Army and the British Air Force in World War II, and had some pretty crazy experiences and miracles. He gave a good presentation, and it went really well.
Monday was pretty good. We had District Meeting, which went well, then all went out to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. I'm not a big wing fan, but it was pretty good. At least my Honey BBQ wings were... My teriyaki wings were nasty! After that we headed for home to do some work. We didn't find anyone new, and only had one appointment that didn't fall through, so it was fairly disappointing... But our appointment was great. We had dinner at the Fredin's home with Sharon. We taught about the Plan of Salvation, and went through some questions Sharon had. President Fredin had been the stake president for 10 years, and in another stake presidency forever before that, and is now in the mission presidency... So he and his wife were able to help us out quite a bit. It was awesome. They also sent out a spam email to the ward about our dinner calendar... Which was pretty much stolen by our new ward missionary. She's in charge of getting us at least 4 appointments a week, so we gave her our calendar after writing down our weeks appointments in our planners. She disappeared the next Sunday, so we not only missed out on people signing up for dinner, we had no clue where we were supposed to go. Fortunately, we got a hold of her and found out, but it wasn't until after the spam. We got a funny call from one member telling us that we had missed a lunch appointment with him on Sunday, and how his wife set out so much food which was amazing, but went to waste since we didn't show up. Hahaha.
Tuesday was alright. I don't know how this happened, but both Elder Wiser and I fell back asleep after waking up in the morning, so neither one of us was able to "save" the other. We unfortunately wasted quite a bit of time, but eventually got out for the day. Jim told us our appointment was actually for Thursday (not true), and his house was too dirty, so we left there after giving him another flier for the branch game night. We then left for the library, and gave them a flier for another Branch Activity that's in April. They said they'd hang it up, but I don't see it up today, so we may have to try again. We didn't find anyone between then and dinner with the Murphys, so it was a slow day. Dinner was some excellent meatloaf (yes, excellent) with mashed potatoes and some other awesome sides. Sister Murphy is a really good cook so it was all pretty good. After leaving them with a message, we went and visited a part member family named Lovelace. They are really awesome! Brother Lovelace had just barely flown home from Tempe, Arizona! They'd been 4 wheeling in Wickenburg, then stayed in Tempe their last night before coming home. The trip was organized by a member of the stake presidency here, so it was funny to hear that they accidentally went to a hooters-esque restaurant on Mill Avenue. Apparently it has good food, but I'd still watch out for "the library" on Mill.
Well, there's my week! Today we're going to go down to Bourbonnais for P-Day, and then I'm going to go on an exchange to Watseka! It should be really fun going down there, but the Clutteurs are probably out of town. Bummer.
Well, I just want to let you know that I love you! Thanks for everything you do! I know the church is true, and am happy to be out here serving the Lord. I hope you have a great week.
Love,
Elder Bradley Edward McMullin
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