Mission Update 7/28/10

Elder M. left 2 years ago! He left on the 30th, but it was on a Wednesday and today is the Wednesday closest to 2 years ago, so close enough!! Wow! Here's his email. Only 3 more after this and he'll be home!


HELLO FAMILY,

I hope you are doing well. It sounds like you are. Good job at your swim meet Taylor! It's pretty funny... Elder Gonzalez has a little sister who sounds a lot like you... And she was just at a big swim meet at the same time as you were!

Things are going so well here! Everyone we're working with is now giving us referrals like crazy! We've found so many new investigators even though we've only had time to eat once and tract for a few seconds. We've really been blessed, and I'm grateful for it. Here's some of what's been going on this week:

Friday was an interesting Preparation Day. We emailed after our morning schedule, which was great. We then went to Pep Boys to get our car fixed. While we were waiting, we walked almost a mile to a hair cut place. After I got my hair cut, we walked back to the auto shop. We had quite a few appointments scheduled before they told us P Day was switched, so we changed the one we could, then went to the afternoon and evening ones. We taught Louis first, which went well. We then went over to eat at Tomoko's. That was great. We then went over to teach Tony Burton. After that, we went over to the Hills to have the last lesson before Carolyn's baptism! She was so excited! (she always says, "I'm
SO excited" or "I'm SO happy!" )

Saturday was great. We came to the church early to set up for the baptism. We had the basketball people still come, and taught them as we filled up the font. We kicked them out before everyone showed up. President and Sister Doll tried to make it to the baptism, but the freeway was flooded, so they couldn't make it! To answer Grandma's question - no the roads didn't flood around us, except for one place. A ridiculous amount of peoples homes have been flooding pretty regularly throughout the summer though. The baptism went really well. She felt great about it, and is so excited for the Gospel. Her goal is to get her whole family in the Church now. After the baptism, we went down to Cal City to teach Collette. It's pretty tough doing this, but we had to tell her that we're going to drop her if she doesn't progress soon. They say it can take more faith to let someone go than it does to find someone. After that, we went to Baracco's Pizza for Elder Gonzalez's early birthday dinner. It was pretty good, but we decided it was inferior to Edwardo's. The only place we have to test now to see if it's the best is Gino's East. We found out there is one really close to our house in the area next door too! Pretty neat. After that, we went to the church for a multi-church choir. They were really good. Sister Beer directed it all, and it was pretty neat. We then went over to Charles' home. Then we went over to visit Errol and make sure he called a member for a ride. We then went over to the Motts' home and had an FHE with them. After that, we went over to Melbria's home and had a lesson. She's doing really well. She is such a strong member! After that, we went over to Sister Tomasello's home to teach one of her friends, but the friend left, so we read some scriptures before leaving. That was it for the day!

Sunday was really neat. We got a referral for some people that live in Markham... which is this strange little finger in the southwest corner of our area (it's fairly close to Frankfort!). It's a lot like Mokena (I'd say it's more sub-rural than sub-urban... ditches instead of sidewalks, tons of trees, etc) down there, which is awesome! We got to teach Helen, who is an awesome old lady that baked us a cake, Susan, who is her grown daughter, and got to meet Uncle Jim, who lives there with them. One of Helen's daughters is a member in Canada, and absolutely loves the Church. We gave Susan a blessing, and have our next appointment tonight! After that, we went to MCM, which was our last one with Brother Beer. We then had a great day at church. Elder Gonzalez confirmed Carolyn, and it went perfect. We also stood in the circle for Errol's ordination to the Priesthood! After church, we took him down to Sister Flowers' home and did the Sacrament. We then went over to the Jenkins' home for dinner. They are so great. We had an awesome meal and sang Happy Birthday to Elder Gonzalez. We then went to Sister Howorth's home and gave her a blessing. After that, we went to the Motts' home. We sang again to Elder Gonzalez, and it was pretty fun. We also had a lesson, then went home. We had a great week... Probably our most productive one ever actually. It was pretty sweet.

Monday was a good day. We taught Alfrieda (we've been misspelling her name! Oops) in the morning. She's doing well. She's been reading all of her baptismal calendar scriptures and writes her interpretations of them on paper. After that, we had District Meeting, which was great. We then went to visit LeBron and watched part of the Special Witnesses DVD. We then went over and taught the Ervins. After that, we went over to visit Charles. He's doing better, which makes us happy. We brought him some gum and some grapefruit juice to help him stop smoking. After that, we went over to the Flores home and taught about the Plan of Salvation. We then took Lorenzo with us to teach Marge again. The lesson went really well. She had some concerns that we talked about for the whole lesson, and Lorenzo did great. It was very positive and she should progress well. We then went over to the Hills and met a relative named Casimir. He stayed in and we taught him the Restoration. He had a ton of great Plan of Salvation questions, and wants to take more lessons! We have another appointment with him on Saturday. Carolyn did great at helping us teach! She's going to help us teach Vera at our next appointment there, which we are so happy about.

Tuesday was another good day. We had an appointment in the morning fall through, so went out to do stop bys. We met our mailman friend Torey Moore again, who gave us a referral for his brother. They are a family of ministers, and are really into selling some strange miracle coffee made with mushrooms from Korea. They just want to get us involved with their marketing system! After that, we went over to Charles' home and taught him. We then went and taught Kathy. She's doing well. We then gave Sister Mitchell a blessing. After that, we went over to our appointment with Joe Thompson and he had a friend over that we're now going to teach! We then went to Vera's home. She is preparing for baptism now, and is doing so well. The Spirit was there really strongly. She expressed her concerns - when she joins will she get a calling, will we still visit her, and has there really been a prophet in the last 20 - 30 years because of the wickedness of the world. To her last question, we ran outside and got our Special Witnesses movie and played Gordon B Hinckley's testimony of the Restoration and the Savior, then asked her to be the judge. Without hesitation she exclaimed that he was and is in fact a prophet! They watched his testimony with rapt attention and jaws dropped. It was awesome! We then went over to the Hodges and had a lesson over there. They also fed us some pizza. They were going to have a friend over for us to teach, but he couldn't make it so we'll teach him next time hopefully. He is going to come to church too. After that, we felt kind of strange and prayed about what we should do. We were led to visit someone who was in trouble. They weren't home, but we were led to find them on a street after taking some strange turns in a maze of houses. It was pretty cool to be led by God just like a GPS. We came home after that, and had a great night.

Today should be good. We may go up to the Science and Industry museum, or may just relax. I suppose we better decide soon.

The Gospel is true! The Lord's work is going so well here. I am loving my mission so much! We're really happy for all of the people we're working with that are progressing. Elder Gonzalez is doing great too! He's an awesome companion.

Take care and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Bradley E McMullin