Mission Update 5/19/10

Elder McMullin's first week with his new companion, Elder Gonzalez. We enjoyed getting the pictures this week! Here's his email:

Hello Family,

This week has been a good one. I hope you are all doing well.

Here is some of what we've been up to:

We just went around and said good bye on Wednesday after playing basketball. We did a lot of cleaning as well. Ugh.

Thursday started off really early. Elder T's MTC group wanted to get a sunrise picture at the point. We woke up before the crack of dawn and went over there for that, but it was foggy, rainy and cold outside. We all ended up just going to the Hyde Park apartment for the little while before transfer meeting. We then went to transfer meeting early, because that's when we had the secret greenie meeting. All the trainers got there before the truckload of new missionaries did. We waited, then they came in. President Roach just asked us a few things and had us teach some principles. After that, we had transfer meeting like normal.

So it turns out Elder Gonzales has been living in South Korea for the past 4 years. His family works for the government and was over there for that. He is originally from Miami, and is a Cuban. He played in a band at home, and is pretty good at music. My last 3 companions now have been incredibly talented at music. I started learning some ukelele with Elder Boyer, then got better with Elder T. Elder Gonzales is now going to teach me how to sing. We tried to sing a song last night, and boy it's hard to sing and play at the same time. It's pretty fun though, so I changed the lyrics and sang Elder Gonzalez a goodnight lullaby. Haha.

Anyways, back to Thursday. We had Elder Maliwauki with us for a lot of the day because his companion hadn't come in yet. He [the new companion] is from Gilbert and was on a mission to Bulgaria before he got ill. He then made a brief stop in Mooker's mission, which it seems is pretty common for people that get ill in eastern Europe. We went to a couple of appointments that we had set up for Beverly. We also did some tracting, which was good. Elder Gonzalez did really well. We put him on the spot and had him do a lot. We went out to eat for dinner and got I 57 BBQ, which was delicious. We also got some supplies Elder Gonzalez needed. It was a good day of proselyting, and we made a lot of contacts. Everyone we taught was in Beverly though, but it was still a good experience.

Friday was good. We did some tracting in the morning, and had lunch with Brother Moore. We took the other Elders over there to introduce them to Ishman. After that, we went by the Carlsons and practiced teaching them. We didn't have anything set up, so we have had a lot of time for tracting. We met with a less active man and taught him a lesson, and also met another less active man doing stop bys. He let us in and we were over there for a while. It was pretty good.

So I don't have much time, so I'll just say a few things.

Saturday was great. We did some tracting in the morning. We've met some awesome people tracting. We met a family that let us in and we taught them. They are pretty interested. We also set up an appointment and got a few contacts. We went over and taught a member that is just starting to come back to church. We also went by to teach the friend of a member. Sister Tomasello's friend Lucy was experiencing the 3rd anniversary of her fiance's death, so we taught her the Plan of Salvation. It went really well.

Sunday was good. We did some tracting before church, and got shut down hard. We did it in the rich neighborhood, and people are especially rude there. We had MCM which went well, and also ran through more things for the Beverly Elders. Church was great. We went out to do the sacrament for a shut in member in the evening and did more finding.

Monday was the start of our appointments. We went by to teach Van after District Meeting. We then did finding and had one appointment fall through... So we did even more finding. We've been getting a lot of potentials. It's pretty fun actually, we're really trying to go out of our way to recontact people we other wise probably would have just dropped. We also taught Tony Burton. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this, but he came to church one Sunday when I was in Stockyards. A member from his old ward had really been following up with him and took him to church. We got his contact information, but just never saw him again. We set up an appointment with him, and then found out he actually lived in Morgan Park. We transferred him down to the missionaries here, and he started coming to this Ward. He was going less active, but in some small way we helped him get to church here in Morgan Park! Elder Gonzalez and I had a great meeting with him a year and a half after that.

Tuesday was pretty good. We had tracting and an appointment with a less active man named LeBron Hale. We had a few appointments fall through, so we did a lot of finding. We had our first dinner appointment in the area. It was with the Kingsnorth family. Yummy. We were able to contact some awesome people by phone and were able to set up a lot of good appointments too, so this next week should be a lot better.

I'm doing well, and Elder Gonzalez is too. We're working hard and are enjoying the environment. We probably have the most diverse area in the mission right now. We have some really nice areas and some not so nice areas. We've met a lot of interesting people, and seen some crazy things. Here's one tracting experience we had:

We were walking down the road and saw some cops staking out a house. We gave them a pass a long card so as not to bother them on the job. As we were coming back on the other side of the block one of them waved to us. We walked over and gave him a pamphlet about the Restoration. He said he appreciated what we were doing. We then kept going on, and he ran up to us. He ended up telling us that he and his partner in crime prevention always fight about religion. He had been inspired and told his Muslim friend that God would send him the truth that very day. That happened. We told them we were representatives of Jesus Christ when we spoke with them and both Cops really perked up. They read the pamphlet and both are interested now!

Anyways, I'm doing great! I really love my mission. As I've looked back through my mission with Elder Gonzalez, I've really come to realize a little more fully the extent of the blessings I've received while serving the Lord. This is an awesome work, and I hope to get everything out of the last several months that I can!


LOVE YA,

Elder Bradley E McMullin