We Found Dwayne!

Dear family and friends! 

I can't believe it's already Monday again!

Last Monday not much happened.  We just played sports and emailed basically all day, but that evening when we got home things got exciting! We decided to put the scorpion in a glass jar that I had instead of just keeping it in an envelope. We named him Dwayne. We wanted to find something for him to fight or to eat, so we went outside to find a cricket. I was kicking around the bottom edge of our apartment when a lizard popped out from nowhere! I caught it and we put it in a separate jar from the scorpion. We also caught a cricket. When Elders Foulger and Anderson got back to the apartment, we put all three of them in the same jar. You would expect total chaos or something, but they all were scared of each other and stayed as far from each other as possible. It was kind of dumb.  We were expecting a fight, but oh well... We released the lizard the next day and kept the scorpion.

Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elders Park and Rosenbalm. They're the two tallest missionaries in the mission at 6'9"! They're way tall! They aren't normally companions, just for the day, so we were in a trio. We went over to one of Elder Park's member’s houses to help them move. They had a ton of stuff in about 4 storage units packed clear full of stuff. It took a moving truck and 3 pickup trucks making 4-5 trips each to get everything unloaded. We were there from about 10:00 to 4:00 just helping them move. We also set up a few of their beds for them. 

For dinner we went over to the Morris’ and had pizza. It was pretty good! Elders Park and Rosenbalm both said it was the nastiest pizza they had ever tasted, but I enjoyed it! The Morris’ are somewhere in their late 50's or early 60's. We were talking to them and found out that Sister Morris loves video games. She told us that one time she was up for 48 hours just playing video games! This was only about 2 years ago! Her husband said that it was the worst two days of his life, because she wouldn't talk to him or do anything at all... It's pretty crazy.  I've never heard of a 60 year old woman being that obsessed with video games, but apparently she is... 

After dinner we went to visit Francine, Cedric, and Jonathan, the kids from the Congo. We found out that the reason they moved to America is because they were running from the military and government there. Francine told us that they would do things like stay under a church building for protection. When they could hear the bombs and missiles coming though they would run out from under it, look down the street and just run as fast as they could to get away before they blew up. It's pretty scary over there, I guess. How they got the money to come over to the States is a mystery. I'm almost positive the way they obtained it is extremely illegal if they did it in the States. The kids are doing great! They were sad that we weren't having church today because of the Phoenix temple dedication.

We also went and visited Helen and Roy Layton that night. Those two are super awesome! Roy is a member, but hasn't been active in years. He goes to church every once in a while with his step grandkids though, so that's good. He says that he doesn't believe in God and that Jesus is the Son of God, but when we were getting ready to leave he was very sure to have us say a prayer. He asked me about 3 times to say a prayer before we left, so there's something still there... Helen is 83 years old but still is as full of energy as your average 16 year old! It's crazy! She's really talkative. When we go there we have to have about an hour set just for them because when you tell her you gotta get going it takes about another half hour to get out of there! It's awesome! Roy also has a prosthetic leg because he lost his leg in a motorcycle accident about 5 years ago. He's pretty fun too!

Wednesday was pretty good! It was zone conference from 8-3. It was SO long! 7 hours of meetings with an hour lunch break in the middle. It was forever, but it was pretty good. We had a bunch of trainings and I learned a lot. I didn't even know a few of the things we learned, so it was good to have that meeting. I have been incorporating some of those things and really been having success with them!

We had dinner with the Barnwell’s who are some of my favorite members in our ward! They are awesome! They also have a son who is a priest. He hopefully will start coming out with us every once in a while now that he is a priest. He just turned 16 about 3 weeks ago, but we haven't had normal church in quite a while so we hadn't been able to get his number until dinner that night.  Their dad actually removed his name from church records a couple of years ago, but he loves the missionaries and always talks about his mission. He's a pretty nice guy and you would never guess that he had his name removed. He's awesome!

Thursday was by far the best day I've had on my mission! It was super fun and we had a lot of success! I went on an exchange with Elder Gillett. He's Elder Parks companion, but since Elder Parker is a district leader he has to go on exchanges with every elder in our district, which is just Elders Park and Gillett since the other missionaries in our district are sisters. Elder Gillett is 23, from Oregon, and was diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes when he was 16 years old. He also has a little bit of a speech impediment so he can't make the 'ng' sound as in tongue or dang, so when he says dang it, it sounds like dane it. It's pretty funny to be around him sometimes!

Elder Gillett and Park came over to the apartment that morning for breakfast right before our exchange. We were messing around with the scorpion a little bit.  We were putting him on the table and my desk, letting him run around, and we had some fun with him. The fun really got started when Elders Parker and Park decided to release Dwayne under Elders Foulger and Anderson's door. The door was locked because they were doing studies and they didn't want us disturbing them. When we told them that there was a scorpion in their room they didn't believe us because of how many times we had tricked them by doing things like throwing grape stems at them claiming it was the scorpion or saying it was on their shoulder. Finally after about 15 minutes of trying to tell them that they had a scorpion in their room they finally opened the door. At that point the scorpion was nowhere to be found. We searched the room for a solid two hours before we finally gave up and went to Karl's Junior for lunch. 

Elder Gillett and I went to the church to do some online proselyting after lunch.  I talked to a few people from our area to set up appointments and also to some friends from back home who are struggling a little bit. That went really well! Right after that we went over to a lady named Glenda's house. We've visited with her a few times.  She's not really interested in  the church, but she enjoys having us come over and share a message with her every once in a while. That went well. 

We went over to Francine, Cedric, and Jonathan’s after Glenda since they live in the apartments right next door to her. Elder Gillett really enjoyed those kids! The kids always enjoy it when we go over there because I always have candy with me. They struggle with money pretty badly since Francine has Sickle Cells and they have to pay for blood transfusions every three to four weeks for her. They are low income and the parents don't really speak English.  They struggle just to buy enough food for their family. We take extra food there every once in a while to help them out.

We also went to Marie's to visit with her. She's the recent convert that is super solid! She just got her patriarchal blessing on Tuesday and was super excited about that. She told us the Spirit in the room was electric, it was so strong. She told us all about her experience there. It sounded like she really enjoyed it! When we get to her house she always has a drink for us of some kind. She gave us this drink and told us it was really special and that she wasn't going to tell us what it was until we tried some. It was a red-ish gold color and had ice in it. Elder Gillett was mid swallow when she told us it was tea. He spat it right back out into his cup and asked with a very concerned voice, 'Is this iced tea?!" It was pretty funny! She assured us that it was an herbal tea made from hibiscus, so he finished it up, but his reaction to it being tea was hilarious!

Friday morning was not a good morning for me. I've been sick recently with a sore throat and sinuses, a headache and congestion. We woke up to go work out with our member and I just sat in the lobby of his gym in my hoodie and slept in a chair. I was pretty miserable. After the workout we came home and had to clean our apartment because we had inspections at noon. Something amazing happened! We lost Dwayne (our scorpion) on Thursday morning, but as we were getting done with cleaning Elder Foulger calmly said “Guys”, and pointed at  the floor. We all looked, and there was Dwayne, crawling across our kitchen floor! We hurried and caught him and put him in a Tupperware dish which is a ton nicer than a glass jar. We also fed him a cricket that evening and I made a time lapse of him eating it that night in the jar. 

That night we fed the ducks in the canal with my 9 week old bread. It wasn't even moldy which I was shocked by, but it was fairly dry in some spots. We got about 30 ducks congregating below us in the canal, so that was pretty cool. Not much else really happened Friday.

Saturday I was super sick so we didn't really do much. Sister Jenkins told me to just take a nap if I felt like I needed it. I definitely needed it that day. We went to the family history center so that Elders Parker and Owens (co-district leaders)  could plan for district meeting on Wednesday. After that we went and did a little service with Elders Foulger and Anderson with moving a few tables and a greenhouse from a backyard to a trailer.  We went to dinner right after the family history center and then we went home for the night. I went to bed super early and woke up on Sunday around 8, so it was a really good night sleep!

Sunday was the Phoenix temple dedication! I don't really remember much of what was talked about because they told us to turn all electronic devices off.  I couldn't take notes since I didn't have any paper with me. I do remember Dieter F. Uchtdorf talked about how in 1952 he was certified to go into any air combat for the U.S., but that in the same year he became certified for the real combat of this world. Life. He received his own endowments in the Mesa Arizona temple! The other speakers obviously spoke on temples and the sacredness of them. I'll have to see if my companion has any notes. He's clear out in Globe, an hour away right now though, so I'll have to see tonight when he gets back. I was still feeling sick yesterday so after dinner we came back home, planned, and then we went to bed!

That basically was my week! It flew by! It was by far the fastest week of my entire mission! I loved this week even though I was sick for the last bit. Have a great week everyone! Be good to each other! Practice kindness, it will bless you more than you could ever imagine! I love and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Mullins