Are You Your Word?

Dear family and friends,

I hope you've all had a wonderful week!

Tuesday was a pretty good day. I went on an exchange with Elder Anderson, who was in my MTC district. That went fairly well. We taught a bunch of older ladies at a retirement home, but nothing really exciting happened. After our exchange we went to pick up some letters from our bishop that he had written. They basically are letters inviting people out to church and offering them service, things like that. Our goal is to put every single house in the ward into a document. When we have everyone recorded the ward leadership and future missionaries over this area will be able to know the area a lot better. Our first stop was at one of the street corners. A fairly nice man came out asking if we were politicians.  When he saw who we were he said, “nope, but your pretty $@^#$%* close!” He was probably 60-65 but he was super nice! I was expecting him to yell at us to get off of his porch, but he was fairly friendly. He definitely had no interest in our message though, so that's sad. We went to a few other houses, but nothing too exciting really happened there. 

It was getting a little too late for us to go door to door because people were starting to put their kids down to bed, so we decided to go visit one of our members. We were on our way when we ran into a guy that looked like he was looking for something. He had the light on his phone on and he was searching the ground. We started talking to him and found out that he was missing a spare key. As we helped look for it we started talking about Christianity and families. We found out he has 2 sons with 2 different women, but he's in a solid relationship with his girlfriend right now who lives with him. He told us about a miracle he had witnessed the day before. He was crossing the street when he had the right of way.  The little man appeared on the ‘walk sign’ so he started crossing and a car came hauling around the corner and didn't see him. He jumped back out of the way, but when he got out of the street he realized that he didn't think it was possible for him to jump that far. We assured him that it was a miracle that had happened to him that day. He also told us that he didn't think it was a coincidence that we were talking to him right then, the very next day. He invited us to come over another time.  We set up an appointment which, sadly, fell through since he was out on a run. Saturday we went by but he was doing some grocery shopping.  However, we got to talk to his girlfriend for a bit. She seems really nice and his son is pretty awesome too. He's probably 9 or 10. We plan on going over again in the next few days to talk to him. It was a really cool experience! 

On Wednesday we didn't really do a whole bunch of stuff. We spent most of the day in the family history center finishing up the design for the t-shirts!!! I'm so happy those are done!!! We can get work done now! Yay!!! Anyway, we spent 6 hours there that day until dinner. We went out to eat at this super good Mexican restaurant called Rosa's right across from our church house. It was pretty good! That's basically Wednesday for you...

Thursday I went on exchanges with my zone leader/roommate, Elder Foulger. It was really good! We went with a member from his ward to go to some appointments.  His name was Jarod. He likes to go by jay-rod though, so kind of a funny guy. He looked, sounded, and acted kind of like Steven Sharp Nelson from The Piano Guys! It was pretty great! We taught a few lessons with him before we went to dinner. We went to dinner with a family named the Morry's. They were a pretty awesome family! The dad loves classical music and is a pianist. It was pretty fun to be able to talk about music for a bit! He's also in a really prestigious choir and talks about how hard core the director is. It was pretty fun to have someone who understood what it feels like to feel you're super solid and prepared then to go into a rehearsal or lesson and feel like you're the worst musician in the world. Ha ha, it was lots of fun! Later that night we went to the old folk’s home in their area and did a Book of Mormon study with them. It went really well. They had a ton of recent converts there, a couple investigators, and a few lifelong members. It was pretty neat!

Friday, oh Friday... Spent another 7 hours at the family history center finalizing how many shirts we needed to order and the design on the shirts... You wouldn't believe how much Elder Parker spent on those things. $1600!!! Absolutely insane! Hopefully everyone that ordered one from him decides to pay him. If not he'll be way in the hole over this. While we were sitting there not really doing anything I decided to do a little bit of family history. I found probably 5 or 6 names on familytree.org. It went really well and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately the family history center is going to be closed for remodeling from tomorrow to January 4. So I probably won't have access to computers too frequently for the next while, but oh well!

Saturday was a pretty big and long day full of appointments and meetings. Not so much meetings, just one in the morning with the stake presidency and all the missionaries in the stake. We discussed what is going on in our areas and talked with each other to find ways to improve. We shared ideas that we can use to strengthen the work. It was a pretty good meeting. Right after that we went and helped a part-member family load some chairs and tables from the church into a truck for a party they were having for the Arizona State vs. Notre Dame game. It was a lot of fun. and we got to know the dad who is a non-member. We met his wife and kids at a dinner a few weeks ago, but we just now met him! He seems pretty friendly. 

After we helped load those up we talked with our bishop for a bit. He was helping out there too. His wife is in New Zealand right now and he's getting kind of lonely I think, because he's been texting and calling us two or three times a day recently as opposed to the two to three times a week, like normal. He talked with us about passing out more of those letters with us.

After helping out with chairs and tables we went over to a member’s house and helped them take things down at their yard sale. I actually got a couple of snow globes there and one of them has a music box in it! It's pretty nifty! They fed us lunch afterward!

Later that day we went with bishop to go out and deliver some more of those letters. We started heading down the street and the first side went fairly well, but on the way up the other side we ran into a man that told us a story that inspired me. He didn't give us a name, but I'll call him Lee. A few years ago Lee was battling cancer. He was part way through his treatments and was in a lot of pain and very sick. He could hardly even move around his house. One day some missionaries came by his house and asked if he was interested in the gospel. When he told them no and that he had his own religion they asked if they could do anything for him. They offered yard work, or house maintenance, or painting, or anything he needed done. He told them his lawn needed to be mowed. They told him they could do that and that they would be by sometime to get that done. Lee waited and waited. A few days turned to a few weeks, which turned to a few months, and then to years. No one ever showed up to help. About a year or so later a neighbor from the ward came around asking if they could mow his lawn for money. They said they were doing a fund raiser and were trying to get a little bit of money. He told them they could mow it for some money. He again waited and waited. No one ever showed up to mow his lawn. 

At the time he really needed it done and didn't know what to do. His lawn became overgrown and he couldn't do it himself. Because of these two experiences with people he knew were Mormon, he doesn't trust members of the church. It isn't the greatest excuse, but it's offended him. It hurt him and as a result feels like we don't live up to our word. A question I once heard asked by one of the assistants to the president was, "are you your word?" When we say we will do something, we better do it. When you do what you say you will, it builds trust both from others around you and from the Lord. When you say you'll be somewhere at 1:30 you better be there, not at 1:45 or even 1:32, we need to do exactly what we say we will. 

We also ran into an interesting man that evening as we were walking down the road. He called us over and was upset about something. I honestly don't know what, something about trespassing on his neighbor’s property or something, which really isn't his business. We went to that neighbor’s house, and he welcomed us and talked to us for a while.  I guess this other guy was angry that we were allowed on the property when he wasn't…something like that. He called us over and was telling us everything that was wrong with our religion. He started off with how the church teaches that women are to be not only lower, but inferior to men. He told us about how he observed his neighbors who he knew were LDS. He saw the children had no respect for their mother at all. She would call them in for dinner and no one would do a thing. She would ask them to do chores and they wouldn't do them, just things like that. But the thing he found "interesting" was that when the father got involved the kids were whipped right into shape and did exactly as was directed. He claimed that the church taught that the men were superior to women. Then he talked about how when that family moved they were packed, house painted, carpet re-done, all in a week flat. He said that the church forced them out to "cover up the Mormon identity".  We told him that what might have happened was members went over to help them with their move, but he refused to believe it wasn't the church trying to cover up their identity and trying to keep their name clean.

When he asked Bishop why he and his wife were not equals, Bishop had the greatest response! He told him that his wife wasn't equal to him at all. She is his superior. As soon as he said that it stumped the guy so badly that he didn't even touch on the subject again. Haha! It was awesome. Then the man started talking about how when someone is ex-communicated that they can never come back into the church. He said they were damned in the after-life as well as in their earth life. We told him they could come back, and no matter what we said he told us that they couldn't. I finally told him that I've seen a few excommunicated members get baptized again and brought back into the church. After that he was just like, “well ya, they can get baptized again back into the church, that's true.” So in that sentence he was stumped and didn't really know what to say, so he just admitted we were right. He kept coming up with things that were wrong with our church, but as soon as we would get something in that he couldn't argue, he would give in and admit that he was wrong.  It was kind of funny. The best part of this whole thing was at the very end of our conversation he told us that this was the third time he had ever talked to a Mormon; once in high school, once in college, and just then, probably 30 years later. So you know how accurate his information was. It was kind of funny to see how ridiculous some of the accusations he came up with. So that guy was pretty funny! Our bishop called him Corihor, because we never caught his name and he needed a name to call him. Haha!

Not much really happened on Sunday. We had meetings from 9-1 and then church was from 2-5. We had a potluck dinner afterward at our ward mission leader’s house with the recent converts and investigators, which went fairly well.  After that we just went home because I was feeling pretty sick. I'm okay today though, so don't worry!  Something I learned in my studies this week was kind of cool! I've been studying faith.  Since prayer is something we do to increase our faith I've been using prayer as kind of a background focus. I've recognized a pattern followed by the prophets as they pray to receive blessings, whether they are blessings for knowledge, strength, healing the sick, or anything else. There are four simple steps that I have identified to receiving answers to our prayers. 

1) Desire with righteousness

2) Ask with sincerity

3) Believe with faith

4) Receive with gratitude

One example that follows this pattern very well is when Nephi is bound by his brothers with cords. He first had a desire to be freed. He doesn't want to perish in the wilderness.  He wants to help do the Lord’s work, and help his brothers soften their hearts. Secondly, he asks the Lord to be freed. Third, he has faith that he will receive the strength to break the cords. Fourth, he receives this blessing with gratitude and humility. He goes to help his brothers, and he helps to soften their hearts to the point of getting them to repent and give burnt offerings to God. 

That was my week for you! It was a really good week and we got a lot of work done! Elder Parker and I were not really getting along, but this week it all resolved suddenly! It was really good!

I love you all and keep being amazing! The church is true and I'm loving the work!

Love,

Elder Mullins