Mission Update -- 7/14/10

5 more weeks!! Here's today's email:


Hello Family,

Things are going well. This last week has been great! Thanks for all you've done for me! I loved getting the Birthday cards & gifts.

We're going up to the suit shop soon [Ed suggested that Elder M purchase a new suit while he is in Chicago since he won't have much time while he is home to do it], so I'll be brief:

Wednesday was good. We went out to Naperville, then came back and napped. It was really nice. We then went out with Brother Beer to teach Carolyn Hill. While driving over the top of a hill, we got rear ended. That was a mess. We had to spend a while in the police station figuring that out. The appointment went well though. [No one was hurt -- I read this email and quickly sent him one back to ask, and he said everyone was fine.]

Thursday was great. We did our planning, then went over to Brother Moore's home for lunch. We had a good time there, then went over to visit Charles. He is doing well, and wants to get baptized on the 21st of August. We then went to visit the Ervins, who are doing alright. We gave Towanda a blessing. We then went to a hospital and gave a blessing there as well. We then went to the Flores family home for dinner. They're awesome! After that, we went by the Motts' home and had family home evening. We played a pretty fun game called concentration, where you have about a second to name a book in the Bible no one else has mentioned. If you can't name another, you lose. After that, we went home. We've been busy, and it is nice!

Friday was my Birthday! We went to the Carlsons after our morning schedule, which was nice. Then we got Brother Moore to come out with us to teach Alfreda, who is doing very well (came to church, and is coming again)! We then went by and taught Henry Webster, who is going to be in Tucson for the next couple weeks. After that, we had a couple lessons not go through, so we went to get steak (we otherwise wouldn't have had an opportunity to). We went to an interesting steak house.[Elder M's traditional birthday dinner is steak, so we sent him a gift card so he and Elder G. could go out for steak for his birthday.] The second you stepped into the place you felt the happiness sucked right out of you. They were shocked I ordered a steak medium rare, and even more shocked when I turned down A1. The medium rare steak turned out to be a seared piece of raw beef, so I had to give it back to get cooked a little more. It came back pretty rare, but still was much better. After that, we went and taught Louis. We then had dinner at Tomoko's home. We then went by the Hodges, who are doing well. We then went to teach Carolyn Hill. She is really looking forward to her baptism. Overall, it was a good Birthday. We didn't really do much besides run from one appointment to another, but I'd definitely take that over anything else.

Saturday was fun. We had basketball in the morning and got a couple of new people to our class there. We had a great time playing ball too. After that, we went down to Calumet City and did some work there. The Childress family fed us some carnitas. We went by Victoria's home and had a lesson there. They now have an organ in their home, which is pretty fun. We went by Sister Prewitts home as well (she came back to church this Sunday!), which was nice. After that, we actually had some time to tract! We then had a fall through and went by the Howorths home to help bring a couch into the home... Which turned out to be crazy. We lifted this couch up over the balcony on the 2nd floor apartment because it wouldn't fit up the stairs. It was epic.

Sunday was pretty neat. We had some good people come to church. It was really nice having Alfreda come for the first time! She was taken aback because it is SO unlike Baptist church services around here. She said she needed to talk with Brother Moore about it, which got us a little nervous. We scheduled the appointment for Monday morning. After church, we talked with the Bishopric for a while. We're going to have a new Ward Mission Leader soon because Brother Beer is moving to Utah. We went by the Motts after that, and did some other stop bys. It was a great day overall.

Monday started early with an appointment at Alfreda's home. We had to cut our studies short to get Brother Moore and bring him there, but it went really well. They had a great talk, and she is going to continue attending. We're really excited about that. We then had our District Meeting. We have 2 north side sisters in our district, which are pretty cool. After that, we went out and did stop bys for medias and the like, We then had an appointment with Charles. He is doing well. We then went by and visited Lebron. After that, we met with Todd Romac! We gave him a blessing and got to talk for a while. He hasn't been to church in years, and is going through some really hard times. He should come Sunday, and really make some big changes. He's one that we stopped by and was so amazed at the timing. After that, we had dinner over at the Hills. They made us some catfish and spaghetti. It was good, and filled us up beyond belief. She asked Elder Gonzalez to do the confirmation and me to do the baptism. Sister Carlson and Sister Piecuch are going to give the talks at the service. It should be great.

Tuesday started off in the auto body shop getting an estimate for the repairs on our car. After that, we did our studies and headed out to visit Sister Prewitt. She is different now. It's incredible how much happier she is even from a few days ago. She's going to be solid now for church, and is going to be Carolyn's permanent ride. We're excited about that! We then did some stop bys and finding, which was nice. We also met a man that was convinced we were FBI agents even after we told him we're really representatives of Jesus Christ. He told us all about how we could get into military bases, and fly to Puerto Rico. He sees us young FBI agents cracking down on crime pretty often, which is nice. After that, we went by the Mitchell's home. We then had another appointment with Todd, and also met his sister in law, who isn't a member. That went really well. We then went over to the Ervins' home. They fed us some dinner. I ought to take a picture of some South side food sometime... After that, we went by the Hodges' home again. We got to meet some more relatives and friends over there, which was nice. We then went over to Melbria's. We also got a new air conditioner from the APs because ours broke! We became like most people we teach... Air conditioner-less.

Today is going to be awesome! We're going to take a train up to Chicago! Our plan was to go to Union Station, but I just realized the train from where we are now (Hyde Park) doesn't go there. After spending some time downtown, we'll come back here and play some volleyball. President Doll is awesome... We called him to get permission to go to the suit place in the Loop today and for when I pick my suits up, and he told us to go all around, including Navy Pier!!! When we go to pick up the suits, we'll go to Navy Pier. Today we'll probably look at the bean and some other cool stuff, then come back down.

Well, all is well. I'm loving my mission. I love you a lot! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Bradley E McMullin