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