Mission Update -- 8/26/09

Another great week in the Naperville 4th Ward and Naperville Zone! Here's Elder M's email for the week:

Hello Family,

How are you doing? Hopefully well. Dad, if you can, will you please make up a package to give that Naperville lawyer to give me? I can't think of a better way to give us a potential investigator! Seriously. Happy early birthday, Grandpa! I'll send you something soon.

Well, we've had an incredibly eventful week. Thanks for the prayers... They really helped make it a good week. Here's what happened:

Wednesday was pretty good! We had Zone Activity. We went over to Phillips Park, which is in Aurora, to play volleyball and football. It was pretty fun, even if our Zone is pretty small. After that, we came home for some splits. Elder Denter went with Corky Clark to visit the Zacas, and I went with Brother Mitchell to go to the Gamboas. The Gamboas weren't home (a relative had a baby), so we went to stop by David. This is when the stress came. David told us that he had got in a fight with his parents, and they said he couldn't be baptized. We scrapped our lesson plan, and quickly set up a meeting with the family for the next day. We set it up with a high councilman that used to be the Bishop of the Spanish Ward to come and talk to David's parents the next day. They speak mostly Spanish, so Brother Osorio was perfect to bring the next day. After this, we met back with Elder Denter, and told him the news. He was pretty shocked. We then started praying. That night, we split with the Assistants... They started praying too.

The next day was pretty good too. I was with Elder Aragon, who is from Phoenix. He went to Central High School, and worked in the building to the north of the AIG building right by Dad's office. Pretty funny. He never went to Pino's either! Well, we spent a lot of our day in the mission office. There was a lot of work to do to organize the statistics and results from the Gladys Knight referrals. We were there for a long time. After that, we went home for lunch and some Zone review discussion. The Naperville Zone is doing incredibly well. August has already been the most productive month of the year by a considerable amount. We hope September can be just as good. We're already starting to get baptisms planned for September, so things are looking good. Anyways, after the review, we went out to do some stop bys. We didn't get much, but had a pretty funny conversation with an investigator's wife. She tried to refer us to all of her "rude neighbors" who needed the Gospel. She also tried to refer us to a homeless protester that is annoying everyone in Naperville. He's been sitting outside in downtown Naperville, which is a lot like downtown Tempe, for quite some time. After getting those "referrals" (one of them actually had referred the missionaries to this woman's home, and said she really needed to hear the Gospel), we left for dinner. We had dinner at a really nice family's home. The Herberts cooked us a country dinner, which was great. After that, we went back to meet with our companions. It turns out that the meeting with David's family went pretty well. Brother Osorio did a great job. David's dad was ok with baptism, but his mom was still not for it. They got an appointment for us to go Friday.

Friday was great! We had an appointment with Jeremy pretty early in the morning. We discussed charity and service. Jeremy is doing very well. After that, we went to District Meeting and President's Interviews over at the mission office. That went well. After that, we drove over to Aurora to discuss David's baptism. The Lopez family wasn't there at first, so we taught one of their neighboors. They soon came home, so we met with David and his parents. We talked with them for a while, and explained how the church fully supports children respecting parents. They liked it, and both agreed to let David get baptized! It was really awesome. They both even talked about coming to the baptism and church. After that, we mini-split with Elder Sorensen. Elder Denter went to an appointment, which cancelled, and I took Elder Sorensen to interview David. He passed, and it was good. After we got our companions back, we went to visit Amanda. She's still unsure about surgery, but it should be figured out soon. We had a good lesson though. After that, we went to the hospital to visit Mike C, who is a not really recent convert that we meet with regularly. He had to go in for some gall bladder surgery. After that, we went to dinner at the Eldredges' home. We had a good dinner and lesson there to end the day.

Saturday was awesome. We went to an 8 year old's baptism at 10, then got ready for David's baptism. His father came to the baptism. I gave one talk, and Brother Osorio gave the other. Brother Osorio pretty much just challenged David's father to learn about the church, and prepare to join it. It was awesome. The Spirit was there really strong, and it was a great baptism. After that, we went to a ward party for a good chunk of the rest of the day. We had an appointment, but it cancelled on us. We played volleyball and softball in our shirts and ties... It was pretty silly, but fun.

Sunday was productive. We had PEC and Ward Council in the morning, which went well. It's always fun to wake up at 5:30 AM... After those, we went to Aurora to show people where church was. We had 2 investigators at church. We had Kim, who we've been teaching with some young women, and David's mom! Church went really well. After church, we went to visit Mike C again. He's doing well, and is already at home. After visiting Mike, we went to teach Kim. We had a pretty good lesson. It was pretty neat... The girls had been talking about scripture reading the day before, then in Young Women they talked about prayer, then we covered both of those topics in our lesson. They liked it, and we should hopefully see some good things happen there. After that, we went to the La Plants' home for dinner. They're a really great family, and cooked us some good dinner. They had to run to a seminary fireside, so we didn't have a lesson there, but it was still good. After that, we went over to Sister Brown's home. We went through the ward list (I got a new copy at church) and came up with a list of quite a few people for us to visit. It was pretty productive. We love Relief Society Presidents. After that, we came home for some plannning, and ended the day.

Monday was good. We had District Meeting in Prestbury. Our District won the commitment contest, so we ordered some pizza. It was good, of course. After that, we went to teach a less active sister, Sister Williams. We went with a member of the Relief Society Presidency, and it went pretty well. It was funny... We were sitting in our car outside waiting for the Sister to come so we could go in, then eventually found out she was already in there! The Sister that was going to come with us got sick, so she got someone else to come. After that, we went to visit another less active family, the Apodacas. Sister Apodacas son is active in a local mega church. He sort of bashed with us, which is always awkward. It's sometimes hard to be nice to people when they've got such corrupt doctrine. Anyways, it went pretty well. After that, we tried to visit one of our Gladys Knight referrals. We've delivered half of them, and haven't got much luck so far. We've got one more that's a member, and one more that is "busy." Hopefully we can begin teaching the busy lady. Anyways, that evening we got fed by the Tevagas. They had to go somewhere, so they bought us some Portillos. They got us a ton of food. We had 3 slices of cake, 2 huge sprites, 2 Italian beef sandwiches with Italian Sausages inside and French fries. It was really good. After that, we went to help a member move a piano, but it was already done when we got there. We ended up sharing a message with the family. Brother Adams is pretty old, and is a pretty big time scholar. It's really fun to hear his experiences and knowledge about the Gospel. After that, we came home for the night.

Tuesday was pretty good too. We went to the Hesed House in the morning. We had a good time serving there. I don't know how I feel about these homeless shelters that take care of people for years. They feed them better lunch than most people, besides Dad, eat. They say it's Thanksgiving every day! Some of the residents are nice, but some are really ungrateful. It's nice to work for the grateful ones, but I think I'd kick a lot of people out if I was running the place. Anyways, after working there, we went to lunch with Brother Rann. He's the guy that took us to the temple when I was in Stockyards. He lives in Wheaton, but came down to take us out to Famous Dave's. We got some BBQ, and had a good time there. After that, we went to teach Jeremy. We discussed Faith, Hope, and Charity. He's a good guy, and is doing well. His wife signed up for a 5 week English class in Chicago... On Sundays. He's got to go up there next week, then the 4 weeks after Labor Day. We were thinking Uh oh at first, but then we got him the address of the church up there. The classes are all day, so he's got a lot of free time, and is going to go to church at the Chicago 7th Ward. That's pretty cool, because that's where one of the first missionaries that taught him is serving now! Elder Eyi was pretty excited Jeremy was baptized, and will be thrilled to see him at church. After visiting Jeremy, we went to teach Nancy. They had some trouble yesterday with their car, but it's all cleared up now. After that, we went to teach David, and to make plans to teach his whole family about the Gospel. They're actually looking pretty good now to join the church. It's pretty great. After that, we came home. Our dinner appointment had cancelled because they were ill, but they gave us some money. We also found out who all the Home Teachers would be for our recent converts. It'll be nice to start them on the new member lessons.

Today should be pretty good. We helped a member move this morning. It was alright. They had way too much stuff. I'm pretty tired, and still have to do my perfect pushups for the day. We're going to go to a liquidation mens warehouse place today, so that should be fun. Other than that, not much is planned.

Well, I love you all so much, and am gratefull for all you do. I hope you have a great week! I'm excited to hear how those study calendars are going. Please let me know! Please tell me about missionary moments you have too. Pray to have one every day... You'll get them.

Love,

Elder Bradley E McMullin

PS the picture will come in just a minute.