Wow, I can't believe that Elder M. is staying in Naper 4 for another transfer! This will be 6 transfers in one area. He'll have 3 transfers left after this one is over at the end of March, so he thinks he'll only have one more area after this one. Wow!
Here's his email:
Hello Family,
How are you doing! It's good to hear from you. I'M EXCITED ABOUT BYU CAITLIN! [Caitlin just got her acceptance letter from BYU yesterday and Brad has been pressing her to go up there with him next year. She is not committed to going at this point, but he's hoping!] It will be fun to go to college together! I am glad you're going to go check it out though. That's what made me want to go there. I have to admit I never really did before going to check it out.
So, here's the news. I'm staying here another transfer. It's pretty crazy. There are very few missionaries that have stayed in an area this long. We're not having too many things change around here. Elder Gates is leaving Prestbury to take Elder Denter's spot up in Chicago. Elder Bird is taking his place. The Naper 6 Elders are both going to Chicago, and Sisters are coming in to take their place. They're putting Sisters in both Naper 6 and Wheaton with the intentions of combining the areas next transfer. Pretty crazy. The only other change is for the Spanish Sisters. I am now the single longest serving member of the Naperville Zone. Sister Gutierrez came in at the same time as I did, but is gone to near Chicago now. I'm happy to stay here another transfer. We have a lot of neat things coming up soon, and I really love the area.
So here's some of what happened this last week:
We had dinner with the Coopers on Wednesday, which was great. They're a nice family, and are doing some great missionary work. Sister Cooper is working with the manager of some snowboarder named Vito... It sounded like he's good. Have you heard of him with these Olympics going on? After dinner there, we went over to the Mitchells to help them with missionary work. They're going to do some great things. They're going to hand out a Book of Mormon and 2 DVDs. Easter will be a perfect time to give out copies of the Lamb of God DVD or the Finding Faith in Christ DVD. What an excellent way to share the Gospel. Missionaries would be more than happy to give anyone a copy of them.
Thursday was a pretty good day. We volunteered at the Hesed House which went well. The Hesed House where we volunteer had someone that was infected with TB staying there, so we had to get tested. I got tested last week, but had the return appointment Thursday, and I am NOT infected. We had almost a 0% chance of catching it since we have almost no exposure, but they asked us to get tested just to help the County see if it spread to anyone. The place is sanitary, don't worry. We then went and got a pie for Sister Apodaca. It was pretty neat because that ended up being an answer to her prayer she said. We had a good discussion with her and John. We had a lot of different things happen throughout the rest of the day, but I can't really tell what exactly happened from my planner, so I don't know what to say. We did have dinner with the Adams though, which was great. We had chicken parmesian, which is one of my very favorites! We then went on exchanges with Naper 6. Elder Kotowski came over to be with me in Naper 4.
Friday was a great day. We had an appointment with Amanda in the morning. It went well, and she's working to try to get work off on Sunday. We went to Maple Terrace and taught a couple lessons there. We taught Sue, Lorenszo, and Wilma. Wilma is an old lady and is scared of going to church in the snow. She does have a Jazzy brand electric scooter that she feels confident riding though. It just so turns out that a member from our Ward makes his living by selling Jazzys! We're going to bring him to prove that he can dissemble and reassemble Jazzys, and can bring her to church. He's pretty excited about it, as are we. It should be good. We also went over to teach a less active member that just moved into our are named Brother Ottinger. He has many non members living in the home he moved into, so we hope to begin teaching them. We did some stop bys for Elder Kotowski to meet people he had taught before. We also visited Nancy and company. We then went to visit the Glavianos, which was great for Ariel.
Saturday was an interesting day. We had MCM in the morning which was productive. We then went to part of the Youth Basketball games to try to meet with less active and part member families there. We saw a less active, but the part members we really wanted to set up an appointment with were unfortunately not there. It was also fun to see the youth in action. The Newcombe family from the Ward does a lot of coupon shopping and gets a ton of stuff for free. The called us and had us come over to "go shopping" in their pantry which was really nice. They gave us a lot of supplies. We got to visit with Ben Kaval's grandparents, Brother and Sister Eis, and have great hope for the family progressing. They are really nice. We also had a lesson with the Langstons and talked with their father for a while. We then had a lesson with Adam and Nancy which went well. When you call Nancy, it plays some obnoxious country song instead of having the dial tone... We made a deal with Nancy that if she said the prayer, I'd sing the song for them. She said the prayer, so I sang the song... And found out they were all in league with Elder Boyer and recorded me singing it! It was pretty funny. I just may have a future as a country singer.
Sunday was a crazy day. We had PEC in the morning which went well. Church was great. Ben came to church and absolutely loved it! We're really excited for him. He fit in really well with the Young Men, and was excited for mutual. After church, we had a few members to stop by and drop off media for them to hand out. We've got some great member missionaries in this ward! We had dinner with the Glassets, which was fun. They're a very nice family and are going to do some awesome missionary work. A son there just got back from his mission to Baltimore, and told us about how he got visited by some big time general authorities like we are. It sounds like they changed the P-Day over there to Monday, so maybe they'll do that for us. I hope they don't. We also had an appointment with Bobby at night. That was pretty much the day. There was a funny baptism that happened for the Wheaton Sisters this week. They're both going home this transfer, and really wanted to finish their mission with a baptism. Their strongest investigator knew this, and refused to accept a baptismal to make them anxious. He finally accepted one, and got baptized, then told them he really wanted to for a couple weeks, but just wanted to make them anxious!
Monday was a good day. We had our District Meeting, which was great. We got taken out to lunch afterwards by Brother Rann who came to Naperville to feed us Portillos. He's pretty nice. We also went by and taught the Zacas. That went well. Kayla gave a sweet prayer and thanked the Lord that we always offer to help the family out. We went to the hospital to give Adam a blessing. His leg got infected, so he's in there on a ton of antibiotics. Derrel and Nancy were over there too, and I think it was really productive for the whole family. Derrel is starting to talk about coming to church now because he appreciates how the church (we) helped take care of Sister Drebenstedt when they were in Florida. He's also planning on quitting smoking now, which is really exciting! After this, we had dinner with the Andersens, which was great. We had a good time over there, and are excited for them to do missionary work. They're doing some good work, and are ready to do more. It's pretty funny, because we were really close to tracting their street out just a few days ago. We had done quite a few stop bys, and had one on their street, then debated tracting it. We decided not to, and went on to another stop by. We talked with them, and will do it now. We lost our cell phone, and spent the rest of our evening looking for it, which was a bummer. We were going to try to stop by Amy Gonzalez, but she'll have to wait. We did find the phone buried in some snow, so that was good!
Tuesday was a good day. We started our proselyting by teaching Amanda. We then went to read the scriptures with Mike. After this, we took Brother Adams out with us and went to teach Derek, a former investigator turned new investigator who had gotten into the Greek and Hebrew translations of the Bible. The lesson went really well, and Derek should progress! We then went out with Brother Newcombe and visited a less active named Tim. Tim is very nice. After this, we went to the hospital again and taught Adam, Derrel, and Nancy the Plan of Salvation. Derrel is always friendly, and likes to cook us food, but this is the first time he's stayed in for a lesson. It was really really great. We talked about the temple and it was perfect for the family. Brother Newcombe did a great job at helping us teach too. After this, we went over to Jeremy Hwang's home for our last appointment. It went well. They're set to move to Korea on Friday. It is pretty awesome to hear about their story. I can't remember if I've told you before, but here's some of it here:
Jeremy and the Hwang family moved to the United States for a job, which he soon lost. He moved to Illinois to look for work, and stopped at Temple Square on the drive up here. He met missionaries, and was baptized here. He hasn't been able to get a job, even though he is qualified, because of his visa situation. He is going to move back to Korea to live with his parents for a little while. They live about a block away from a newly constructed church building in the northern suburbs of Seoul, Korea! It is very exciting, and we're sure he is going to help strengthen his Ward, and will be in the right place for his family to progress in the Gospel. He bore his testimony on Sunday and promised the Naperville 4th Ward he would stay true to the faith and keep the commandments in Korea.
After dinner there, we had a lesson which went well. We then went by the Gaffneys and had a lesson there. We also went to the Matucks for a lesson, and awaited our transfer news there.
Today should be an ok day. Elder Boyer isn't feeling the greatest, so we probably will not do much. I've just asked the front office ladies if they have a camera I can use to upload pictures, so we'll see what they can get for me to use. If they don't, we'll go back home and get Elder Boyer's camera and see what we can do.
Well, you have a great day and week! Share the Gospel - It's true!
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
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