I'm getting excited for that Mother's Day phone call, but I haven't said anything to Elder M about that (other than a brief mention that I'm looking forward to it.) We got the official letter from the mission president telling us when he would be released, and at the end he said something to the effect of stay interested in their mission. In other words, don't talk too much about when they come home, etc. There's still a lot of time left!! Brad is good at staying focused. I'm proud of him. I have to do the same! Here's his email:
Hello family,
Things are going well here! It sounds like you're all doing alright. That's good.
So, I'm just curious to hear where Caitlin is going to go to College! Tay Tay, I got your letter about the i Pod... We're going to have some problems... Just kidding! I've written a letter and am going to send it soon. I'll just tell you now what it said though - you can keep the i Pod! [Tay took over Brad's I-pod when he left as you can probably tell.]
Well, here I am at Chicago State University's library. Elder T is at the "trunky meeting," which is a how to get a job meeting they have for all missionaries before they go home. He'll be in Naperville with all the missionaries a transfer or 2 older than me. I'm here with 2 missionaries that are serving in Indiana, which is neat. We're probably going to play some sports with our district a little bit later today.
So here's a little bit of what's happened this week:
Last Wednesday we went to Chinatown, which was pretty fun. We also drove through some of Chicago and looked around. We then came back to our apartment and the Spanish Elders came over. We just hung out for a little while. We had an appointment with Charity and Esau in the evening, which went well.
Thursday was Zone Conference day! It was pretty nice not having to do anything. Zone Conference went pretty well. We gave the Sisters a ride there and back. We learned about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and quite a few other things. A major focus was helping Wards to follow through with their 5 Focus Families and have every High Priests Group, Elders Quorum and Relief Society contact 5 families from the Ward and invite them to take the missionary lessons. After Zone Conference, we came back for an appointment with Victoria, Errol and Mercedes. That went well. We also met an interesting woman. She walked into the house when we were teaching Victoria's family, and just stared us in the eye for about 10 minutes and wouldn't say a word. She didn't blink or move her eyes. I thought she was some sort of militant anti mormon person, and was just holding back from stabbing us because we were in Victoria's home. She then started talking with a thick accent (she sounded like she was from Ghana or something), and talking about how the Holy Ghost sent her to us, and she needs to hear the word. She could feel the Spirit was strong with us, and was saying a lot of off the wall things, all while continuing to stare us down. She then spoke in tongues. She let us teach her a bit, was interested... So we set up another appointment to teach her more. After that, we had an appointment in Cal City fall through which would have been our last appointment.
Friday went well. We couldn't contact the lady we met the day before, which may have been a blessing. We had a great appointment with Tonika. She is very excited to go to the Temple and wants to start doing baptisms ASAP! Awesome. We had lunch, then an appointment with Charles Williams. He's a good man, and wants to progress. He wants to start coming to church, and is moving in the right direction. We had an appointment with Terrell at the Ervins. Jazmin was also there. We went through the Plan of Salvation, and it went pretty well. We had a dinner appointment with Sister Tomoko. She is so nice. She always makes a huge dinner and even gives us wet hand towels on a tray like they do in Japan. After that, we went out to help the Childress family with some service. We helped them move a lot of junk out of a garage. We met a family friend that is from Ann Arbor there. I told him you had just gone over there and thought it was nice.
Saturday was good. We had basketball in the morning. After that, we went to teach Henry Webster. His LDS daughter from Tucson is coming to Chicago soon, so that should be good. We then went to teach Collette. That went well too. She's going through tough times, but wants to get baptized. We then went to Pep Boys to get our oil changed. The missionaries who were here before Elder T and I got transferred in had got a notice, and hadn't got their oil change... So we got told, "GET IT CHANGED!" We sat in the Pep Boys for quite some time, which was ok. We then had an appointment with the Rhodes that went pretty well. It started raining outside and the wind blew pretty hard too.
Sunday was good. We had our meeting in the morning. Church was great. We had an appointment with Sister Flowers after church. We then went out to do stop bys and got a hold of one less active member. We set up an appointment there, so that was good. Other than that, we just made some calls.
Monday went well. We had our District Meeting after the morning schedule. It went great. We then went to teach a member. We had gone through Elder Bednar's talk, "More Diligent and Concerned at Home" at church, and he had some questions. It turns out that he had never said, "I love you" to his mom, and was trying to get courage to tell her. We went through that, and he decided he would do it! So we've got a pretty unique follow up right there for this man. I hope it went well. After that, we took Brother Thomas out with us to teach Charles Williams again. That went great. We then went to visit Brother Moore. After that, we went to the Hills. They are doing great! I am really optimistic about Caraline progressing to baptism. She's on the right path. They got us Dock's, which is the best fish in Chicago. We ate perch, which was pretty good. The Hills love their fish, and I'm enjoying it too.
Tuesday was good. We went out to do stop bys in the morning and got a hold of Wendy Weather. She's had some things come up, and hasn't been able to get to church, so her baptism will be pushed back. Good news though... Her boyfriend wants to start learning so they can do it together. We're now trying to work around his schedule. After that we went out to lunch. I just made a budget for next month. I'm going to really try to stick to it so I get in good practice for when I'm home, and in the future with a family, etc... So, that means that we're going out to eat as much as possible before the end of the month! Hahaha. Not really, but we did go out to eat for lunch (...and dinner...). We're actually just out of food, and are about to go to a members home tomorrow who gives us groceries, so we don't really want to buy any. After eating lunch, we went out to do stop bys. We're trying to find someone out in the Calumet City area to reactivate so they can give investigators rides to church. We met one lady who doesn't have a car, but has a bus pass. We're going to figure out the route for her so she can come to church. She's an older lady and is quite nice. She lives in one of the buildings of a 10 story super senior center. After that, we went over to Henry Webster's home for another lesson. That went well. We then had an appointment with the Rhodes. That went well too. They're a great family. They love to talk to people they meet about the Gospel, and had some questions about how they could respond to some silly things that were said. We then went to Victoria's home. There is this old man named Joe that wanders around their block that is super funny. He approached us with a "200+ year old quarter." He told us it was probably really valuable, and he was lucky to find it. He asked us what we would give him for this valuable quarter. I looked at it, and saw a Maryland state quarter with 1788 written on it above the real date, 2000. When we told him he should keep his valuable treasure, he got upset and threw in on the ground. After this, we went to visit Altione and his daughter Phoenix, who we want to help get baptized. That went well. Other than that, we just went to Home Depot to get new circuit breaker plugs. The power to our AC went out, and the circuit breaker doesn't have switches... It has these screw in plugs. We figured it out though, and got power back!
Today should be good. We're going to go play sports with the district later.
Well, I hope you all take care! I love you and love hearing from you. Thank you for all you do. Keep sharing the Gospel. I'm grateful I was raised with the Gospel in my life.
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tonika's Baptism
Tonika was baptized on April 17th. What a wonderful investigator! Pictured are Elder Gates (who Elder M. replaced), Elvin (Tonika's boyfriend who baptized her), Tonika, Elder T and Elder McMullin.Mike C. from Naperville
Here's a picture of Mike C., who introduced the missionaries to so many people while Elder M was in Naperville 4th. Friends from Naperville 4th Ward
Here are some of the people that Elder M. taught and got to know while he was in the Naperville 4th Ward for 8 months. Front Row: Sister Drebenstedt and Brandon Back Row: Darryl, Damien, Nancy and Elder M.
Mission Update -- 4/21/10
What a good week; another baptism and lots of things happening:
Hello,
This week has been good. I'm glad to hear the trip went well, and things are going great. Send some pictures of that trip if you took any, please!
So, things have been great here. Grandma asked what type of neighborhood I was in if it wasn't an African American neighborhood... We actually are in an extremely Black part of town. It is interesting to see how racially divided Chicago is. We have pockets of Hispanics, and the occasional Caucasian or Asian, but other than that it's pretty much just people of African descent. We've got some old people that I've asked about the history of this section of Chicago. I love asking people about how things used to be. This is a great city with wonderful people, but I think it is long past it's prime. There are abandoned buildings all over the place. It's nothing like Stockyards was down here, but you can still tell the South Side is only a shadow of what it used to be.
So, here's a little bit of what's happened this week:
Last Wednesday we went to play some volleyball and basketball at the church. We also went to an appointment at Charity and Esau's home. It went well.
Thursday was pretty crazy! We had 6 appointments fall through. "We like these days, because we know the next day will be better!" That's the saying at least. It was a good day though. We had a great lunch appointment with Brother Moore. We also went down to visit the Matthews family. That went well. We're still just trying to get them to church. Other than this, we drove all over the South Side to try and teach people!
Friday was better than Thursday. We had a good appointment with Tonika in the morning. She's really wanting to get in depth with her studies. We went through the structure of the Church from the Ward through the First Presidency. It was pretty neat. It is also pretty hard to put onto 1 sheet of paper. After this, we had an appointment with the Ervins. Terrell is staying with the Ervins, and is taking the lessons. He's a 19 year old young man, and has got a pretty good head on his shoulders. We taught the Restoration, and it went well. We also had an appointment with Victoria, Errol & Mercedes. That went well. We're now working to get the new member lessons in there for them. We're going to be taking Brother Flores, who is a Ward Missionary, out with us to teach those. Victoria has a funny neighbor named Joe. We talk to Joe all the time outside. He's an old man who is quite the character. The first time we met him, he told us he had no food and resorted to eating dog food to survive. We had some in the car, so I went to grab it to give to him, and he yelled a little bit. He's always complaining, but has got a good heart. I think you would enjoy talking with him, Grandpa. We had a few appointments fall through, but it was ok. We went over to the Hills in the evening. Caraline is doing great. I really think she's going to get baptized soon. She made a commitment to come to the baptism for Tonika on Saturday. She's loving the scriptures, and it's a blessing to be working with this family.
Saturday was a pretty good day. We played basketball with the neighborhood kids in the morning, which was fun. We then had an appointment with Charles Williams, who had been taught a year or so ago. He just could not overcome smoking to get baptized back then, but hasn't been smoking as much lately. He really wants to make some changes in his life, and get set on the right path. We helped him set some goals, and hope to see him progress to baptism. We had a couple appointments cancel again, so made some phone calls and got things ready for the baptism. The baptism went great. We had some wonderful talks and Elvin did a great job at performing the ordinance. I got the package at the baptism, so we all ate Grandma's cookies! Thanks! I'll send a picture of the baptism for you.
Sunday was excellent. We went to choir practice in the morning. That was interesting. After that, we had our MCM meeting. We then had church, which went well. Elvin did Tonika's confirmation too, and it was great! The Ward really stepped up and welcomed Tonika in the Ward. It makes so much of a difference when people go out of their way to introduce themselves to investigators and converts. We also found out for sure that it's going to be Elders covering the entire Morgan Park Ward next transfer. I'll be living in the Sisters' apartment though... This is going to be crazy. This Ward used to have at least 7 sets of missionaries in it a couple of years ago. Some say it even had 9 sets at one point. We've got a lot of people in our area. They say Chicago 7th is going to get down to 1 set of missionaries too. That's where I was when we had 8 missionaries in the same Ward. Anyways, we had a good day after church. We went to do the Sacrament for Sister Flowers right afterward, then went to an appointment with a media referral we got named Laura Acklin. She's great! She lives really far away, but has a car and says it's no problem for her to drive to church on 111th and Vincennes, where we are.
Monday was great! We went by to Brother Thomas' home to share a message with him about the missionary lessons, then took him out with us. We went over to Charles Williams' home again, and had a great discussion there. Brother Thomas really brought a lot to the lesson, which was pretty good. We then dropped off Brother Thomas, and went over to Michael Moore's. He's doing well. After that, we went by Brother Tony Burton's home to give him a blessing. He came to church one Sunday in Stockyards because he thought he moved to the Chicago 7th Ward boundaries. He didn't show up again for a couple weeks, so we went by to visit him. It turned out he couldn't get a ride to church, so he was stuck. He lives forever away from the Chi 7th building. We found out that he actually lived in the Morgan Park Ward, so we referred him to the Beverly Elders. They helped him come to church here in Morgan Park, and he's continued to be a great active member. It was fun to go by that house again. After that, we went to visit Victoria and the family. Mercedes likes to do what Tay used to do... Dance with her friends outside. Arrow likes to skateboard. They had missed church, so we just went through everything that was talked about at church. It went well. After that, we went to the Hills and talked about commitment. It went well. Caraline took a nap and woke up to late the other day, but should get to church this Sunday. She is close, and we really hope to see her enter the waters of baptism soon.
Tuesday was alright. We had an appointment with the Ervins to teach Terrell in the morning. We went there, and it was productive. He hadn't kept his reading commitment, so we reviewed and went through some of that, then previewed the Plan of Salvation. We had quite a few people to stop by throughout the day, which which is what we did. Only one stop by really turned out, but that was at night. We had another appointment scheduled at the Ervins' home because they had someone else for us to teach, so we went back. The person didn't show, but we had dinner there. After that, we drove out South, and got tubed, so we stopped by Wendy Weather's home, and had a great appointment. She's the one that has set a target date for baptism. We went through the Restoration, and it went well. We all got on our knees at the end of the appointment and she said the prayer to ask God if this is all true. She felt the Spirit bear witness to her that it was. We asked her how she felt, and she told us "weird... but good. I've never felt like this before!" We told her it was the Spirit, and she was pretty excited. She wrote it down that she felt the Spirit for the first time in her life. Good appointment. That was pretty much it for the day... Other than that, we had some appointments fall through
Today should be good. We're going to go to Chinatown and try to see some things in Chicago. Tonight we have an appointment with Charity and Esau.
We've started a new workout schedule here. On Monday we went to do a "300 drill," where we did suicide like sprints, then jumping jacks, then sit ups, then pushups, then started all over for 15 minutes. It was actually really tiring, and made us perfectly sore. We should keep it up.
I'll make sure to take some pictures of the area to send. I don't really have any right now, but I'll send a couple of ones I have taken.
I love you all and love hearing from you. It will be nice to talk with you on Mother's Day. I hope you all have a great day!
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
Hello,
This week has been good. I'm glad to hear the trip went well, and things are going great. Send some pictures of that trip if you took any, please!
So, things have been great here. Grandma asked what type of neighborhood I was in if it wasn't an African American neighborhood... We actually are in an extremely Black part of town. It is interesting to see how racially divided Chicago is. We have pockets of Hispanics, and the occasional Caucasian or Asian, but other than that it's pretty much just people of African descent. We've got some old people that I've asked about the history of this section of Chicago. I love asking people about how things used to be. This is a great city with wonderful people, but I think it is long past it's prime. There are abandoned buildings all over the place. It's nothing like Stockyards was down here, but you can still tell the South Side is only a shadow of what it used to be.
So, here's a little bit of what's happened this week:
Last Wednesday we went to play some volleyball and basketball at the church. We also went to an appointment at Charity and Esau's home. It went well.
Thursday was pretty crazy! We had 6 appointments fall through. "We like these days, because we know the next day will be better!" That's the saying at least. It was a good day though. We had a great lunch appointment with Brother Moore. We also went down to visit the Matthews family. That went well. We're still just trying to get them to church. Other than this, we drove all over the South Side to try and teach people!
Friday was better than Thursday. We had a good appointment with Tonika in the morning. She's really wanting to get in depth with her studies. We went through the structure of the Church from the Ward through the First Presidency. It was pretty neat. It is also pretty hard to put onto 1 sheet of paper. After this, we had an appointment with the Ervins. Terrell is staying with the Ervins, and is taking the lessons. He's a 19 year old young man, and has got a pretty good head on his shoulders. We taught the Restoration, and it went well. We also had an appointment with Victoria, Errol & Mercedes. That went well. We're now working to get the new member lessons in there for them. We're going to be taking Brother Flores, who is a Ward Missionary, out with us to teach those. Victoria has a funny neighbor named Joe. We talk to Joe all the time outside. He's an old man who is quite the character. The first time we met him, he told us he had no food and resorted to eating dog food to survive. We had some in the car, so I went to grab it to give to him, and he yelled a little bit. He's always complaining, but has got a good heart. I think you would enjoy talking with him, Grandpa. We had a few appointments fall through, but it was ok. We went over to the Hills in the evening. Caraline is doing great. I really think she's going to get baptized soon. She made a commitment to come to the baptism for Tonika on Saturday. She's loving the scriptures, and it's a blessing to be working with this family.
Saturday was a pretty good day. We played basketball with the neighborhood kids in the morning, which was fun. We then had an appointment with Charles Williams, who had been taught a year or so ago. He just could not overcome smoking to get baptized back then, but hasn't been smoking as much lately. He really wants to make some changes in his life, and get set on the right path. We helped him set some goals, and hope to see him progress to baptism. We had a couple appointments cancel again, so made some phone calls and got things ready for the baptism. The baptism went great. We had some wonderful talks and Elvin did a great job at performing the ordinance. I got the package at the baptism, so we all ate Grandma's cookies! Thanks! I'll send a picture of the baptism for you.
Sunday was excellent. We went to choir practice in the morning. That was interesting. After that, we had our MCM meeting. We then had church, which went well. Elvin did Tonika's confirmation too, and it was great! The Ward really stepped up and welcomed Tonika in the Ward. It makes so much of a difference when people go out of their way to introduce themselves to investigators and converts. We also found out for sure that it's going to be Elders covering the entire Morgan Park Ward next transfer. I'll be living in the Sisters' apartment though... This is going to be crazy. This Ward used to have at least 7 sets of missionaries in it a couple of years ago. Some say it even had 9 sets at one point. We've got a lot of people in our area. They say Chicago 7th is going to get down to 1 set of missionaries too. That's where I was when we had 8 missionaries in the same Ward. Anyways, we had a good day after church. We went to do the Sacrament for Sister Flowers right afterward, then went to an appointment with a media referral we got named Laura Acklin. She's great! She lives really far away, but has a car and says it's no problem for her to drive to church on 111th and Vincennes, where we are.
Monday was great! We went by to Brother Thomas' home to share a message with him about the missionary lessons, then took him out with us. We went over to Charles Williams' home again, and had a great discussion there. Brother Thomas really brought a lot to the lesson, which was pretty good. We then dropped off Brother Thomas, and went over to Michael Moore's. He's doing well. After that, we went by Brother Tony Burton's home to give him a blessing. He came to church one Sunday in Stockyards because he thought he moved to the Chicago 7th Ward boundaries. He didn't show up again for a couple weeks, so we went by to visit him. It turned out he couldn't get a ride to church, so he was stuck. He lives forever away from the Chi 7th building. We found out that he actually lived in the Morgan Park Ward, so we referred him to the Beverly Elders. They helped him come to church here in Morgan Park, and he's continued to be a great active member. It was fun to go by that house again. After that, we went to visit Victoria and the family. Mercedes likes to do what Tay used to do... Dance with her friends outside. Arrow likes to skateboard. They had missed church, so we just went through everything that was talked about at church. It went well. After that, we went to the Hills and talked about commitment. It went well. Caraline took a nap and woke up to late the other day, but should get to church this Sunday. She is close, and we really hope to see her enter the waters of baptism soon.
Tuesday was alright. We had an appointment with the Ervins to teach Terrell in the morning. We went there, and it was productive. He hadn't kept his reading commitment, so we reviewed and went through some of that, then previewed the Plan of Salvation. We had quite a few people to stop by throughout the day, which which is what we did. Only one stop by really turned out, but that was at night. We had another appointment scheduled at the Ervins' home because they had someone else for us to teach, so we went back. The person didn't show, but we had dinner there. After that, we drove out South, and got tubed, so we stopped by Wendy Weather's home, and had a great appointment. She's the one that has set a target date for baptism. We went through the Restoration, and it went well. We all got on our knees at the end of the appointment and she said the prayer to ask God if this is all true. She felt the Spirit bear witness to her that it was. We asked her how she felt, and she told us "weird... but good. I've never felt like this before!" We told her it was the Spirit, and she was pretty excited. She wrote it down that she felt the Spirit for the first time in her life. Good appointment. That was pretty much it for the day... Other than that, we had some appointments fall through
Today should be good. We're going to go to Chinatown and try to see some things in Chicago. Tonight we have an appointment with Charity and Esau.
We've started a new workout schedule here. On Monday we went to do a "300 drill," where we did suicide like sprints, then jumping jacks, then sit ups, then pushups, then started all over for 15 minutes. It was actually really tiring, and made us perfectly sore. We should keep it up.
I'll make sure to take some pictures of the area to send. I don't really have any right now, but I'll send a couple of ones I have taken.
I love you all and love hearing from you. It will be nice to talk with you on Mother's Day. I hope you all have a great day!
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
Charity's Baptism
Charity was baptized on April 10 by Elder Gates, who switched places with Elder M this past transfer. He came back to baptize her. Pictured are Elder M's companion, Elder T, Charity's husband, Esau, Charity, Elder Gates and Elder M.
Mission Update -- 4/14/10
Here's Elder M's email:
Hello Family,
It sounds like your trips are going well! That's too bad Michigan was cold... It is absolutely perfect here! It feels like we've been in San Diego for the past few weeks.
Things are going great here! This area is so awesome! We've been able to find more people, and two of our new investigators set a baptismal date last night. We've got some other investigators with huge potential.
So, week in review:
Thursday we went to Brother Moore's for lunch. He is awesome, and has great stories of the South Side of Chicago. He fed us some lunch, and we shared a message with him. After that, we went to our appointment with Ashley, who gave us the fake phone number. She wasn't there! Who would have guessed... After that, we drove down to Calumet City, which is quite a drive on the freeway. We met with Esau to get some things going for the baptism. That went well. We then had another appointment with a new person fall through. We drove up to Chicago and stopped by a media referral we had. Tonja Rowe let us in, and we taught her. She is great, and has some potential. She just moved here from the South, and is about to make a quick trip back there before coming back to Chicago. We'll teach her a lot more soon. We then had a dinner appointment with the Hoffmans. They're really nice and had a great dinner. After that, we had another appointment fall through, so we made some calls I believe. This week was pretty bad with appointments falling through, but we had a lot of good too.
Friday was a pretty sweet day. We met with Tonika and had a lesson there. She's so smart and is ready for her baptism next week. It will be exciting. We want to start teaching her whole family to help them get baptized too. After this, we went over to meet with Victoria, Errol (pronounced Arrow) & Mercedes. That was pretty great. They're a sweet family. We want to help Victoria prepare for baptism. After that, we went to teach the friends of the Ervins. They had moved actually, but someone new was there. We'll start teaching him. Sister Ervin used to be a Jehovah's Witness, and is pretty good at finding us people to teach. After this, we had a foray into Calumet City again that was filled with cancelled appointments. We went out to stop by people, and stopped by one former investigator's home that I helped find while on exchanges in Calumet City when I was serving in Stockyards! Crazy! They weren't home though. We had a dinner appointment with Sister Tomoko, who is pretty outspoken and funny. She would always feed the missionaries until 2 companionships ago when she and the missionaries had a miscommunication and they missed an appointment. She got upset. The last remaining offending Elder got transferred out, so we called her and told her so, and she invited us over. She cooked a great meal. After this, we went out to Cal City again to have a last lesson with Charity and Esau before Charity's baptism. She also had her interview. She passed with flying colors! While she was being interviewed, everyone else went out back and threw a spear they had at a target. It was pretty random, and really fun. After that, we came home for the night.
Saturday was good. For the past several years, the Elders have hosted a weekly neighborhood pickup basketball game. We inherited that, and it was great. We had 20+ random neighborhood kids and men come play. There's some talk of beginning classes for them, so we'll see if we can get that going. After this, we had a fall through appointment, so we went to the church to start filling up the baptismal font. We then had an appointment with Brother Butler. We went through some scriptures and questions he had. After that, we had another appointment fall through, so we again went to the church to fill up the font. After that, we had an appointment with Michael Moore. He lives at a shelter on the South Side. He's a great guy, but has some things to overcome. We'll continue working with him. After that, we went to the church to do some baptismal preparations. The baptism went well. I'll send a picture of Charity at her baptism. After the baptism, our appointment canceled, so that was pretty much it for the day.
Sunday was pretty neat. We had a meeting with the Sisters before church to go through the Ward list and see who is in whose area. We then had MCM, which went well. We've got a lot of exciting stuff that's going on. We then had church. It starts with Priesthood last here. We had that, then Sunday School, then Sacrament Meeting. People just run up to the pulpit to bear their testimonies here. It's pretty interesting. We had some great classes today, and it was productive. We had a few investigators at church, and it was productive for them. After church, we drove out to Cal City to do the sacrament for Sister Flowers. We also helped her fix something in her yard and read the scriptures. Our other two appointments for the evening fell through. It was a good day all around though. Our Church starts at 1 PM, so that takes up a lot of the day.
Monday was a neat day. We had President's Interviews in the morning that went well. We then went to a media referral we had set up an appointment with. It turns out that Henry Webster's daughter is a convert that lives in Tucson. The lesson went well. The daughter is going to come up and visit, so I think that will be a huge help for us as we try to help Henry Webster come into the Church. After this, we went to Harvey, but had our work there not really work out. We then went out to stop by, and got to meet Altoine Barker, who is trying to get active. He's pretty much good to go, and has an unbaptized daughter. We want to help them get active and help the daughter, Phoenix, get baptized! It should work out well. After this, we went to go visit Michael Moore again. He's doing alright. We then went to visit Victoria and the kids. Errol had been a little distant since we got here, so we tried to befriend him and went skateboarding with him on the sidewalk. It was pretty fun, and he really opened up. We then had a good lesson. After that, we went to the Hills and had an awesome appointment! It was really really good. We were really open with Caraline about getting to church and getting baptized. She really wants to do it, and is going to come to the baptism this Saturday, and then should begin preparing for her own. They are such an awesome family. She's overcome a lot, and is great. We left them with Mosiah 3:19 to read and think about, but the paper we wrote it on got smudged, so Caraline just read the entire chapter and loved it. After this, we exchanged with the Spanish Elders. Elder Solis came to be with me in Beverly.
Tuesday was a good exchange day. We did some tracting before our first appointment. It was pretty unsuccessful. We did find out that someone actually called the number on the pass a long card we had left on their door Thursday! That is pretty rare, so it's exciting! So who knows, we could still find some investigators from where we tracted even though we didn't set up any appointments. After this, we went down to Cal City. Esau and Charity had asked us to come down because they had some questions. They had some events happen in their lives that caused some stress. The appointment was productive. After this, we had a couple of appointments fall through, so we went to get a Philly Cheese Steak for lunch. They've got all sorts of Steak and Lemonade stores around here. We found out that "Lemonade" actually means slushie. I had a good lemonade flavored slushie! We had an early dinner appointment that we didn't think about when we got all that food. It was not long in between meals. We got stuffed to the brim from our dinner with the Forrests, which was great. It's pretty funny... Sister Forrest is from Mesa and Brother Forest is from New Lenox. I knew his relatives in Frankfort! They also gave us a TON of food. It was great. They just loaded us up with a couple big boxes filled with all sorts of food. After this, we went to meet Collette, who has investigated for a while. She is so awesome. She just hasn't been able to get to church. We were very open about baptism and commitment, and she really wants to do it. She committed to all of that, and is going to figure out how to get to church on Sunday. Once she gets there, we can set a date for baptism. After the lesson, we helped them move a huge TV, which is a lot harder not having Elder T as your companion. After this, we went to meet Wendy Whether (I love the name!) and her two kids. They wanted to know how they could come unto Christ, so we discussed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They want to do what it takes, and have set the goal of getting baptized on May 15th! Diamonte, the son, was jumping and dancing when he accepted the baptismal date because he was so excited! It was an awesome appointment! After that, we went to exchange back. It was a great day!
Today should be good. We're going to play volleyball again. We then have a dinner appointment with Charity and Esau. It should be good.
Well, I hope you all take care! I love you!
Caitlin, I know Dad probably says this to you ALL THE TIME, but pick a winner!!! (for your college... of course!)
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
Hello Family,
It sounds like your trips are going well! That's too bad Michigan was cold... It is absolutely perfect here! It feels like we've been in San Diego for the past few weeks.
Things are going great here! This area is so awesome! We've been able to find more people, and two of our new investigators set a baptismal date last night. We've got some other investigators with huge potential.
So, week in review:
Thursday we went to Brother Moore's for lunch. He is awesome, and has great stories of the South Side of Chicago. He fed us some lunch, and we shared a message with him. After that, we went to our appointment with Ashley, who gave us the fake phone number. She wasn't there! Who would have guessed... After that, we drove down to Calumet City, which is quite a drive on the freeway. We met with Esau to get some things going for the baptism. That went well. We then had another appointment with a new person fall through. We drove up to Chicago and stopped by a media referral we had. Tonja Rowe let us in, and we taught her. She is great, and has some potential. She just moved here from the South, and is about to make a quick trip back there before coming back to Chicago. We'll teach her a lot more soon. We then had a dinner appointment with the Hoffmans. They're really nice and had a great dinner. After that, we had another appointment fall through, so we made some calls I believe. This week was pretty bad with appointments falling through, but we had a lot of good too.
Friday was a pretty sweet day. We met with Tonika and had a lesson there. She's so smart and is ready for her baptism next week. It will be exciting. We want to start teaching her whole family to help them get baptized too. After this, we went over to meet with Victoria, Errol (pronounced Arrow) & Mercedes. That was pretty great. They're a sweet family. We want to help Victoria prepare for baptism. After that, we went to teach the friends of the Ervins. They had moved actually, but someone new was there. We'll start teaching him. Sister Ervin used to be a Jehovah's Witness, and is pretty good at finding us people to teach. After this, we had a foray into Calumet City again that was filled with cancelled appointments. We went out to stop by people, and stopped by one former investigator's home that I helped find while on exchanges in Calumet City when I was serving in Stockyards! Crazy! They weren't home though. We had a dinner appointment with Sister Tomoko, who is pretty outspoken and funny. She would always feed the missionaries until 2 companionships ago when she and the missionaries had a miscommunication and they missed an appointment. She got upset. The last remaining offending Elder got transferred out, so we called her and told her so, and she invited us over. She cooked a great meal. After this, we went out to Cal City again to have a last lesson with Charity and Esau before Charity's baptism. She also had her interview. She passed with flying colors! While she was being interviewed, everyone else went out back and threw a spear they had at a target. It was pretty random, and really fun. After that, we came home for the night.
Saturday was good. For the past several years, the Elders have hosted a weekly neighborhood pickup basketball game. We inherited that, and it was great. We had 20+ random neighborhood kids and men come play. There's some talk of beginning classes for them, so we'll see if we can get that going. After this, we had a fall through appointment, so we went to the church to start filling up the baptismal font. We then had an appointment with Brother Butler. We went through some scriptures and questions he had. After that, we had another appointment fall through, so we again went to the church to fill up the font. After that, we had an appointment with Michael Moore. He lives at a shelter on the South Side. He's a great guy, but has some things to overcome. We'll continue working with him. After that, we went to the church to do some baptismal preparations. The baptism went well. I'll send a picture of Charity at her baptism. After the baptism, our appointment canceled, so that was pretty much it for the day.
Sunday was pretty neat. We had a meeting with the Sisters before church to go through the Ward list and see who is in whose area. We then had MCM, which went well. We've got a lot of exciting stuff that's going on. We then had church. It starts with Priesthood last here. We had that, then Sunday School, then Sacrament Meeting. People just run up to the pulpit to bear their testimonies here. It's pretty interesting. We had some great classes today, and it was productive. We had a few investigators at church, and it was productive for them. After church, we drove out to Cal City to do the sacrament for Sister Flowers. We also helped her fix something in her yard and read the scriptures. Our other two appointments for the evening fell through. It was a good day all around though. Our Church starts at 1 PM, so that takes up a lot of the day.
Monday was a neat day. We had President's Interviews in the morning that went well. We then went to a media referral we had set up an appointment with. It turns out that Henry Webster's daughter is a convert that lives in Tucson. The lesson went well. The daughter is going to come up and visit, so I think that will be a huge help for us as we try to help Henry Webster come into the Church. After this, we went to Harvey, but had our work there not really work out. We then went out to stop by, and got to meet Altoine Barker, who is trying to get active. He's pretty much good to go, and has an unbaptized daughter. We want to help them get active and help the daughter, Phoenix, get baptized! It should work out well. After this, we went to go visit Michael Moore again. He's doing alright. We then went to visit Victoria and the kids. Errol had been a little distant since we got here, so we tried to befriend him and went skateboarding with him on the sidewalk. It was pretty fun, and he really opened up. We then had a good lesson. After that, we went to the Hills and had an awesome appointment! It was really really good. We were really open with Caraline about getting to church and getting baptized. She really wants to do it, and is going to come to the baptism this Saturday, and then should begin preparing for her own. They are such an awesome family. She's overcome a lot, and is great. We left them with Mosiah 3:19 to read and think about, but the paper we wrote it on got smudged, so Caraline just read the entire chapter and loved it. After this, we exchanged with the Spanish Elders. Elder Solis came to be with me in Beverly.
Tuesday was a good exchange day. We did some tracting before our first appointment. It was pretty unsuccessful. We did find out that someone actually called the number on the pass a long card we had left on their door Thursday! That is pretty rare, so it's exciting! So who knows, we could still find some investigators from where we tracted even though we didn't set up any appointments. After this, we went down to Cal City. Esau and Charity had asked us to come down because they had some questions. They had some events happen in their lives that caused some stress. The appointment was productive. After this, we had a couple of appointments fall through, so we went to get a Philly Cheese Steak for lunch. They've got all sorts of Steak and Lemonade stores around here. We found out that "Lemonade" actually means slushie. I had a good lemonade flavored slushie! We had an early dinner appointment that we didn't think about when we got all that food. It was not long in between meals. We got stuffed to the brim from our dinner with the Forrests, which was great. It's pretty funny... Sister Forrest is from Mesa and Brother Forest is from New Lenox. I knew his relatives in Frankfort! They also gave us a TON of food. It was great. They just loaded us up with a couple big boxes filled with all sorts of food. After this, we went to meet Collette, who has investigated for a while. She is so awesome. She just hasn't been able to get to church. We were very open about baptism and commitment, and she really wants to do it. She committed to all of that, and is going to figure out how to get to church on Sunday. Once she gets there, we can set a date for baptism. After the lesson, we helped them move a huge TV, which is a lot harder not having Elder T as your companion. After this, we went to meet Wendy Whether (I love the name!) and her two kids. They wanted to know how they could come unto Christ, so we discussed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They want to do what it takes, and have set the goal of getting baptized on May 15th! Diamonte, the son, was jumping and dancing when he accepted the baptismal date because he was so excited! It was an awesome appointment! After that, we went to exchange back. It was a great day!
Today should be good. We're going to play volleyball again. We then have a dinner appointment with Charity and Esau. It should be good.
Well, I hope you all take care! I love you!
Caitlin, I know Dad probably says this to you ALL THE TIME, but pick a winner!!! (for your college... of course!)
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
Mission Update 4/7/10
I was gone from the 8th until the 16th, so have lots of posting to make up!! Here's Elder M's email after his first week in his new area:
Hello family,
This has been a great week! We had a good Easter, and I hope you did too. What did everyone do for Easter? It sounds like you had a good Grand Canyon trip! Are you going to do it every year now, Caitlin? Good job getting into so many great schools too! It will be nice to say you turned down them all to go to BYU. Are you excited to come to Arizona G&G? Are you feeling better Tay?
I think it is pretty neat that you are going to have a stop at Midway airport when you go on college visits! That is right next to my old area of Stockyards. You can look out the east windows and see the part of my area we never went to! I saw a member from that area that came down to Morgan Park for Conference, and it sounds like things are going well. The Chaparros, who we focused on are doing great!
So anyways, I'm now in Beverly and it's awesome. This area is sweet. We've been calling people like crazy and have set up so many appointments. There are a lot of potentials because this area had so many people in it until recently. It was a little weird at first, because neither we or the Sisters had an area map... So we accidentally contacted some people in their area. We live really close to the Church, and it's a pretty nice neighborhood. Our apartment is dilapidated though, and we had to do a lot of cleaning and throwing away. We walked into a dirty apartment, but a pretty good investigator pool. We've actually got 2 baptisms coming up!
Charity is a part member lady that has been investigating for a while, and is getting ready to be baptized! Elder Gates is going to come back to do that one. We've also got Tonika, who secretly investigated the Church for quite some time before coming to church a week and a half before we moved in! She is so awesome! She's super smart, and is committed. She takes notes as you teach, and loves to do her reading assignments. She has a boyfriend that introduced her to the Church in 2008, and he's going to baptize her. Awesome.
We also have some more sweet investigators... I'll explain a little bit more about them all later though. Here's some of what happened this week:
Wednesday was crazy. We said a lot of goodbyes and also had to drive some of Geneva's stuff to the Mission Home. We just barely missed the Greenie Giordanno's lunch! Lame. That took forever, but was good to do. We said goodbye to a lot of people including Mike, the Apodacas, the Gamboas, the Barlaugs, the Housers, the Matucks, and others. It was sad saying goodbye to the Popes, Matucks, Barlaugs, and everyone else that made so much progress over the last several months. It was nice already having the goodbye to the Hwangs and others out of the way. Geneva had to come spend the night with us because of their apartment getting closed. It really hit me about moving after our last stop by. It was a sad feeling. It was exciting to have a move though. I can only possibly be in Beverly half as long as I was in Naper 4.
Thursday was wild. We came to transfers, which was great. We couldn't fit both of our stuff into the car, so we had to have the Hyde Park Elders help us drive some stuff down. We had an appointment that was set up soon after the meeting. We went down to visit Charity. That went great. She's pretty much ready for her baptism. She was confused about prophets, so we taught with a couple of analogies, which she understood. After that, we went over to visit someone named Sister Flowers. She likes to read the scriptures with the missionaries, so we read out of the Pearl of Great Price. We then went to the church and met some members. We got to meet the Bishopric, who was there for a Bishopric meeting. That went well. They gave us a couple of names of people to contact and teach. We gave the church key to the Sisters, who needed it for an appointment they were going to have there. We got referred to an ill member, who we went to the hospital to give a blessing to. It went well.
Friday was great. We had our first appointment with Tonika, and were in awe at how prepared she is. It's a really different teaching environment than any other lesson, because she is so knowledgeable and attentive. We covered a lot more than we had planned on. After that, we went to visit Brother Moore, who randomly called us. He's an awesome member who used to be the Ward Mission Leader. He's a great member missionary, and will be a great help for us. He told us all about the Ward too, which is pretty neat. After that, we went to eat some lunch. My companion can really eat. I'm pretty sure my missionary money is not going to last very long, because we go out to eat often. They stopped having the dinner calendar in this Ward because there was too much confusion with missionaries areas... Thus, we don't have many dinners. After lunch, we went to visit the Ervin family. They're a part member family, and had a couple of friends over, who we taught. Sister Ervin is an ex-Jehovah's Witness, so she does a pretty great job at inviting others to take the missionary lessons. That went well. After that, we went to the recent convert / part member Rhodes family home. They're awesome! We're going to work with Brother Rhodes and try to help him prepare for baptism. We then went to visit the Hills. Eddie Hill is a 3 year member who was baptized in Mississippi. He is pretty awesome. He and his wife live with Caraline, who is not a member. She is shy and because of that hasn't come to church. She didn't sit in, but we got another appointment to teach her. If she will come to church, she'll pretty much be ready for baptism.
Saturday was Conference day! There were a lot of great talks at conference! I especially liked President Uchtdorf's from Priesthood Session! We went to lunch at the Sutarik family's home. They are really nice. It seems like just about everyone in this Ward are converts. They were baptized when they were young, and are a great family. They got us Chinese food. Other than watch Conference, we cleaned and fixed up our apartment! We also made some calls. I've spent a LOT of time on the phone going through old records. It's been super productive. We have been able to set up a ton of appointments with formers and potentials, as well as recently taught current investigators.
Sunday was a good day. We met with the Zonies in the morning to give them the old Chicago ZL stuff. It's weird, but kind of nice, to not have to take call ins and hunt down people that stay out late, etc like these Elders have to. After giving them their stuff, we went to teach Tonika at the church. We rolled through some more commandments, and also had her interviewed by Elder Davis. That went great. She's pretty neat. She's quite the political activist. We had some fun discussion when we taught about obeying and honoring the law. After that, we had more Conference! It was great. We had MCM in between sessions. That went well. Our Ward Mission Leader's name is Brother Beer. He's a good guy, and is getting ready to go to BYU Law School. We had dinner with his family after conference. That went well. It was a nice Easter dinner! We had some investigator that was taught quite some time ago call us, so we went way way down to teach her! Our area is huge. It took us a long time to drive down to teach Sherri Matthews. She lives on 170th street. We cover north to about 69th or something. That's 100 dense blocks of Chicago... And Lake Calumet. She is a teenage girl and has been taught with some siblings. The mother didn't even know we were Mormon, so we've really got some work to do there. We set up an appointment to teach the whole family.
Monday was a good day. We had our District Meeting, which went well. After that, we went to do some service for Sister Flowers. We then went to visit Esau, who is Charity's husband. That went well. We're getting things ready for the baptism. After that we went to visit Victoria, Arrow and Mercedes. Arrow and Mercedes, the kids of Victoria, were recently baptized, and are great. Victoria is who we want to focus on and help her prepare for baptism. After this, we made a ton of calls and set up a lot of appointments. We then went to the Hills again, and got to meet Caraline. We talked about the People of Alma, and trials that the Lord places upon us. It sparked some really productive conversation, and Caraline really opened up. She invited us over for a Tuesday night Catfish Fry! She's from Mississippi, and told us we just had to have some catfish.
Tuesday was awesome. Our first appointment with a member fell through. We were down there trying to find the apartment, and stumbled across a lady that accepted the invitation to investigate. That was pretty nice. We then went out to tract, and were able to find one person there who's going to investigate. She is not very solid though. She gave us her telephone number, so I wrote it and her address down. I then read the number back to her, but intentionally changed one number to make it incorrect. She told us the number I read was in fact her number. We now know she gave us a fake number... Ta da! After that, we went over to Brother Butler's home. He called us because his brother was in the hospital recovering from a surgery. He fed us some lunch, then gave us instructions on where to go and what to do. We met a neighbor of his out in the street, and he too accepted the invitation to investigate. The Lord has really been putting people into our path to teach! After this, we went to give the blessing. That went well. The man just got out of brain surgery, so he was confused, but it went well. We then made more calls, and got some more set up. At this point, we really don't have much time at all to fill with appointments. We're having to schedule things pretty far in the future now. After this, we went to the Rhodes home again. We had a lesson that went pretty well. We then went to the Hills for an awesome Catfish Fry! That was great. They are so awesome! Eddie is a pawn shop owner, and it sounds like a pretty cool line of work. After that, we went in for the night.
Today was great. We had a lot of issues trying to find a place to email. There was a ridiculous wait at the first library, then the second one wasn't open. We got some food then came back to the second, and it was then open. I sent that quick email. We then went to the church where we played basketball and volleyball with the District. That was pretty fun. After that, we found out we locked the church key inside, and had to go through a really crazy process of getting it back. That's pretty much the day!
Well, things are great! I love you and appreciate all you do for me. Thank you so much for the packages and the prayers! Keep reading the Book of Mormon. See how fast you can finish it!
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
Hello family,
This has been a great week! We had a good Easter, and I hope you did too. What did everyone do for Easter? It sounds like you had a good Grand Canyon trip! Are you going to do it every year now, Caitlin? Good job getting into so many great schools too! It will be nice to say you turned down them all to go to BYU. Are you excited to come to Arizona G&G? Are you feeling better Tay?
I think it is pretty neat that you are going to have a stop at Midway airport when you go on college visits! That is right next to my old area of Stockyards. You can look out the east windows and see the part of my area we never went to! I saw a member from that area that came down to Morgan Park for Conference, and it sounds like things are going well. The Chaparros, who we focused on are doing great!
So anyways, I'm now in Beverly and it's awesome. This area is sweet. We've been calling people like crazy and have set up so many appointments. There are a lot of potentials because this area had so many people in it until recently. It was a little weird at first, because neither we or the Sisters had an area map... So we accidentally contacted some people in their area. We live really close to the Church, and it's a pretty nice neighborhood. Our apartment is dilapidated though, and we had to do a lot of cleaning and throwing away. We walked into a dirty apartment, but a pretty good investigator pool. We've actually got 2 baptisms coming up!
Charity is a part member lady that has been investigating for a while, and is getting ready to be baptized! Elder Gates is going to come back to do that one. We've also got Tonika, who secretly investigated the Church for quite some time before coming to church a week and a half before we moved in! She is so awesome! She's super smart, and is committed. She takes notes as you teach, and loves to do her reading assignments. She has a boyfriend that introduced her to the Church in 2008, and he's going to baptize her. Awesome.
We also have some more sweet investigators... I'll explain a little bit more about them all later though. Here's some of what happened this week:
Wednesday was crazy. We said a lot of goodbyes and also had to drive some of Geneva's stuff to the Mission Home. We just barely missed the Greenie Giordanno's lunch! Lame. That took forever, but was good to do. We said goodbye to a lot of people including Mike, the Apodacas, the Gamboas, the Barlaugs, the Housers, the Matucks, and others. It was sad saying goodbye to the Popes, Matucks, Barlaugs, and everyone else that made so much progress over the last several months. It was nice already having the goodbye to the Hwangs and others out of the way. Geneva had to come spend the night with us because of their apartment getting closed. It really hit me about moving after our last stop by. It was a sad feeling. It was exciting to have a move though. I can only possibly be in Beverly half as long as I was in Naper 4.
Thursday was wild. We came to transfers, which was great. We couldn't fit both of our stuff into the car, so we had to have the Hyde Park Elders help us drive some stuff down. We had an appointment that was set up soon after the meeting. We went down to visit Charity. That went great. She's pretty much ready for her baptism. She was confused about prophets, so we taught with a couple of analogies, which she understood. After that, we went over to visit someone named Sister Flowers. She likes to read the scriptures with the missionaries, so we read out of the Pearl of Great Price. We then went to the church and met some members. We got to meet the Bishopric, who was there for a Bishopric meeting. That went well. They gave us a couple of names of people to contact and teach. We gave the church key to the Sisters, who needed it for an appointment they were going to have there. We got referred to an ill member, who we went to the hospital to give a blessing to. It went well.
Friday was great. We had our first appointment with Tonika, and were in awe at how prepared she is. It's a really different teaching environment than any other lesson, because she is so knowledgeable and attentive. We covered a lot more than we had planned on. After that, we went to visit Brother Moore, who randomly called us. He's an awesome member who used to be the Ward Mission Leader. He's a great member missionary, and will be a great help for us. He told us all about the Ward too, which is pretty neat. After that, we went to eat some lunch. My companion can really eat. I'm pretty sure my missionary money is not going to last very long, because we go out to eat often. They stopped having the dinner calendar in this Ward because there was too much confusion with missionaries areas... Thus, we don't have many dinners. After lunch, we went to visit the Ervin family. They're a part member family, and had a couple of friends over, who we taught. Sister Ervin is an ex-Jehovah's Witness, so she does a pretty great job at inviting others to take the missionary lessons. That went well. After that, we went to the recent convert / part member Rhodes family home. They're awesome! We're going to work with Brother Rhodes and try to help him prepare for baptism. We then went to visit the Hills. Eddie Hill is a 3 year member who was baptized in Mississippi. He is pretty awesome. He and his wife live with Caraline, who is not a member. She is shy and because of that hasn't come to church. She didn't sit in, but we got another appointment to teach her. If she will come to church, she'll pretty much be ready for baptism.
Saturday was Conference day! There were a lot of great talks at conference! I especially liked President Uchtdorf's from Priesthood Session! We went to lunch at the Sutarik family's home. They are really nice. It seems like just about everyone in this Ward are converts. They were baptized when they were young, and are a great family. They got us Chinese food. Other than watch Conference, we cleaned and fixed up our apartment! We also made some calls. I've spent a LOT of time on the phone going through old records. It's been super productive. We have been able to set up a ton of appointments with formers and potentials, as well as recently taught current investigators.
Sunday was a good day. We met with the Zonies in the morning to give them the old Chicago ZL stuff. It's weird, but kind of nice, to not have to take call ins and hunt down people that stay out late, etc like these Elders have to. After giving them their stuff, we went to teach Tonika at the church. We rolled through some more commandments, and also had her interviewed by Elder Davis. That went great. She's pretty neat. She's quite the political activist. We had some fun discussion when we taught about obeying and honoring the law. After that, we had more Conference! It was great. We had MCM in between sessions. That went well. Our Ward Mission Leader's name is Brother Beer. He's a good guy, and is getting ready to go to BYU Law School. We had dinner with his family after conference. That went well. It was a nice Easter dinner! We had some investigator that was taught quite some time ago call us, so we went way way down to teach her! Our area is huge. It took us a long time to drive down to teach Sherri Matthews. She lives on 170th street. We cover north to about 69th or something. That's 100 dense blocks of Chicago... And Lake Calumet. She is a teenage girl and has been taught with some siblings. The mother didn't even know we were Mormon, so we've really got some work to do there. We set up an appointment to teach the whole family.
Monday was a good day. We had our District Meeting, which went well. After that, we went to do some service for Sister Flowers. We then went to visit Esau, who is Charity's husband. That went well. We're getting things ready for the baptism. After that we went to visit Victoria, Arrow and Mercedes. Arrow and Mercedes, the kids of Victoria, were recently baptized, and are great. Victoria is who we want to focus on and help her prepare for baptism. After this, we made a ton of calls and set up a lot of appointments. We then went to the Hills again, and got to meet Caraline. We talked about the People of Alma, and trials that the Lord places upon us. It sparked some really productive conversation, and Caraline really opened up. She invited us over for a Tuesday night Catfish Fry! She's from Mississippi, and told us we just had to have some catfish.
Tuesday was awesome. Our first appointment with a member fell through. We were down there trying to find the apartment, and stumbled across a lady that accepted the invitation to investigate. That was pretty nice. We then went out to tract, and were able to find one person there who's going to investigate. She is not very solid though. She gave us her telephone number, so I wrote it and her address down. I then read the number back to her, but intentionally changed one number to make it incorrect. She told us the number I read was in fact her number. We now know she gave us a fake number... Ta da! After that, we went over to Brother Butler's home. He called us because his brother was in the hospital recovering from a surgery. He fed us some lunch, then gave us instructions on where to go and what to do. We met a neighbor of his out in the street, and he too accepted the invitation to investigate. The Lord has really been putting people into our path to teach! After this, we went to give the blessing. That went well. The man just got out of brain surgery, so he was confused, but it went well. We then made more calls, and got some more set up. At this point, we really don't have much time at all to fill with appointments. We're having to schedule things pretty far in the future now. After this, we went to the Rhodes home again. We had a lesson that went pretty well. We then went to the Hills for an awesome Catfish Fry! That was great. They are so awesome! Eddie is a pawn shop owner, and it sounds like a pretty cool line of work. After that, we went in for the night.
Today was great. We had a lot of issues trying to find a place to email. There was a ridiculous wait at the first library, then the second one wasn't open. We got some food then came back to the second, and it was then open. I sent that quick email. We then went to the church where we played basketball and volleyball with the District. That was pretty fun. After that, we found out we locked the church key inside, and had to go through a really crazy process of getting it back. That's pretty much the day!
Well, things are great! I love you and appreciate all you do for me. Thank you so much for the packages and the prayers! Keep reading the Book of Mormon. See how fast you can finish it!
Love,
Elder Bradley E McMullin
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