Mission Update 8/4/10

Hello Family,

Things have gone well here this last week. I can't believe how soon it is til I see you again. I'm really going to miss my mission. This is my favorite thing in the whole world to do. If I didn't have a great family waiting for me at home I don't even know what I'd do! It is going to be great to see you! Thanks for planning something so fun for when I get home (dentist), mom... You really know what I enjoy!

So, we've had a good week. We've had our teaching pool change quite a bit lately! We're just continuing to teach new people, which is really nice. Here's some of what's happened over the last week:

Wednesday we went to the Science and Industry Museum. It was pretty fun. After that we went down to Markham and taught Susan. She is doing pretty well. We then went over to the Motts, which was good. They're thinking about moving.

Thursday was a great day. We had Charles after our studies. We went over to Brother Moore's after teaching Charles. We went to teach a new investigator named Manny after Brother Moore's. He didn't even believe in Jesus Christ, which is very atypical for this area. We defended the Savior, and that was our appointment. He's the boyfriend of a member in a Spanish Ward. We then went to visit Todd. He's doing alright. We then went to teach Cedric, a random former investigator who we had felt prompted to stop by a few days ago. We taught him about the Restoration and set up another appointment. He seems great! We then went to Tomasello Martha's and taught Marge. I'm still winning in our races to type in the key code for the apartment building. Our lesson with Marge went great. She seems to be progressing. After that, we went way over to Joe's to teach him and Tiffany, but ended up just teaching him. On the way back we took a wrong turn and hit the Indiana State Border (where we turned around...it's not far away from his house), then had tons of fire trucks cut us off because a burning building, and got stopped by a train. We got back a little late, but we made it.

Friday was good. We saw LeBron, who we had been worried about because he hadn't been answering his phone. He's doing great though, so we're happy. We brought him a fan since his house is hot. We went out tracting and met a guy named Ron who invited us in and we taught. He was kind of interested, but didn't want to learn any more. We later taught Louis. We also went to the Leals for dinner. They made us Nopales... Cactus sandwiches! They were different, but pretty good. We then went over to Babatunde's home. He read the entire book of Moroni, and loved it! He gained a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Joseph Smith is a prophet! We're super excited about that. He is really high up in his church though, and was conducting services on Sunday, so he couldn't make it to Church. He doesn't want to prepare for baptism just now, but we have pretty high hopes for him. We then went over and had a lesson with Sister Hill... Who was getting ready and excited to help us teach on Saturday.

Saturday went really well. We had basketball in the morning. None of the basketballers are really progressing as we teach them classes, so we're probably going to cut back or stop basketball. We taught Vera that day, and had an excellent lesson. She and Marquis are both preparing to be baptized now!!! They want to get baptized on September 11th. It's a ways off, but that's when they feel they can be ready by. We're very happy about that. We had an appointment with the Rhodes, who are doing well. We were stopping by Alfrieda's when some guy and a woman started talking with us about the scriptures. We bore testimony of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, but nothing really happened after our near hour long conversation.

Sunday was great! We had Susan come to church for the first time. That went well. Vera and Marquis were there too, which was nice. They had some sort of Relief Society conference, so they had men help out in primary. I was with Brother Jenkins in Nursery watching 3 kids. It was tough. Really tough. I figured out the best thing to do was just look interested in some toy, because then someone will really want to take it from you and will be interested for a little while. After church, we tried to take some things over to Sister Howorth. She was not feeling good though. We had our dinner with the Jenkins, which was great... As always! They are the best family ever. We drove down to Calumet City after that.

Monday was a pretty good day. We ate at I - 57, which filled us up beyond the brim. We were stuffed. We had an appointment with Melbria and helped her clean out her oft flooded basement. We also had an appointment with Sister Prewitt. We sit on her porch and talk, which is nice. After that, we went and taught Cedric. That appointment went really well! He was pretty excited about the Plan of Salvation. We taught him all about it, and he will come to church on Sunday, and should progress. We then taught Susan again. She fed us a surprise dinner, which was great... But we were really full and had a dinner appointment right afterwards! We ate up though, then left for the Childress family home. They didn't have food for a while, which was really nice. It was really good, and we packed it all in our bellies. We then watched the Lamb of God movie with them.

Tuesday was a good day. We met with Charles, who is doing well. We also met with Vera and Marquis, who are doing really really well! We had a lesson with Alfrieda, who has had some trials recently, but is doing really well now. We told her about how we were led to find her. Out of the 500,000 + people in our area, the Lord took us to her home in a spare 20 minutes we had. After that, we went to teach Joe. We then went to Melbria's for her first home teaching appointment with Brother Sutarik. We then went to the Hodges home. They're really nice. We did this neat priorities object lesson I'll have to show you, and ate some fried chicken and greens for dinner. We then came home.

Today should be great! I get my new suits, which will be exciting. We're also going to eat at Gino's East, which is pretty exciting. It's the last one we have to try to confirm Edwardo's really is Chicago's Best Pizza! Let's see how it measures up!

Family, I love you so much. I am grateful for all you do for me. I appreciate your prayers and your support. I'm trying to do my best out here. I love what I'm doing so much, and am grateful for the 2 weeks I have left to serve.

Take care. Know this Gospel is true. It blesses lives. I am so grateful it's blessed mine.

Love,

Elder Bradley E McMullin