Week 12 Adventures

Dear family and friends! It's been a great week!

Last Monday after the day was pretty much over, Elder Foulger wanted to bike 2 miles to a Circle K and see if they had a black light flashlight so that we could go find scorpions at night. It was about 9:15 and 45 degrees or so, but he and I went anyway.  I was wearing flip flops and a t-shirt with shorts and it was a chilly ride! We got there and sadly they didn't have a light, but, oh well.  My toes and fingers were numb, but it was a lot of fun!

On Tuesday we needed to get a phone upgrade, so we biked all the way to mission office 5 and a half miles away. It only took about a half hour, but it sure felt longer with the couple of hills we had to climb! On our way back Elder Parker said he knew a member from one of his last areas who would take us out to lunch. We went and visited a man named George Smith. He is a man who has had many opportunities in his life. He's 83 and has accomplished more in those years than most people would even if they lived to be 300! He was a starter on the University of Utah team at age 17.  When he graduated he was offered a spot on the Celtics in the NBA which he turned down.  For 8 years he was an advisor to President Ronald Reagan. He went from being the principal over 78 students to the superintendent of 78,000 students in his career. He has a Jr. High named after him. He became a self-made millionaire at age 50. There's a ton more that I can't even remember, but he has lived an insanely successful life filled with opportunities! I have never met a man who has done so much with his life.  It was incredible to talk to him. He didn't take us out to lunch, but he gave us $20 and told us to treat ourselves, so we went to a really good Mexican restaurant called Rosa's.

Wednesday I finally started overcoming my cold I've had forever! I had really swollen tonsils and a killer headache for about a week and a half.  Then Wednesday I lost the headache, tonsil soreness, and the sinus soreness.  So that was pretty great! Not a lot of things happened that day, but dinner that night was pretty neat.  We didn't have anyone signed up to feed us, but Elders Foulger and Anderson called their dinner appointment and asked if we could join them. We went to the Roberts’ for dinner.  As we walked in they showed us a wall filled with pictures of their grandkids. I looked at one of them and asked if his name was Tyler Jordan, and sure enough! It was! Tyler was in band with me for two years.  He's a year younger than me.  He also was one of my co-workers at McDonalds! It was pretty cool to have that happen.  I've only met one other person who knew someone I did from home, but they lived in Utah and were just visiting, so this was pretty neat! After dinner we went outside, and there was a guy who pulled up in a truck and was talking to us. He was a stake president of one of the bordering stakes.  He asked where I was from and when I said Kaysville he asked if I knew Gil Miller. I told him that he was in my stake and that I went to school with two of his daughters. He showed me a picture of Gil's daughter,  Megan, and sure enough! Haha! So two people in one night knew people I did! It was a very good night!

After all of that we had family home evening at Silvercrest which is a place that provides housing for elderly singles. There are a few people that are very negative toward Mormons there, but for the most part it's pretty good. This time one of the families from our ward was in charge.  They have a bunch of little kids and a Japanese exchange student named Mia who is 19. They are a great family! I really enjoy them.  We learned about gratitude because Thanksgiving is coming up. They showed a couple of Mormon messages, and we sang a few hymns about gratitude.  It was a really fun family home evening!

On Thursday during studies I was reading the lyrics to a song that we sang at family home evening the night before. It was “My Heavenly Father Loves Me” from the Children’s Song Book. The lyrics really impacted me and showed me how I can know that Heavenly Father really does love me. They go like this:

"Whenever I hear the song of a bird or look at the blue, blue sky; Whenever I feel the rain on my face, or the wind as it rushes by; Whenever I touch a velvet rose or walk by our lilac tree; I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world Heavenly Father created for me."

"He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings. He gave me my ears that I might hear the magical sound of things. He gave me my life, my mind, my heart: I thank him reverently for all His creations of which I'm a part. Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me."

I loved that song and it was exactly what both I and one of our investigators needed to hear that day.

That morning we went to the temple.  I received some answers to prayers that I've been seeking for a while now. It was great! We just biked to the temple since it's only about 3 miles away.  On our way home we stopped by both, the Distribution Center and Deseret Book. At the Distribution Center I got a HUGE copy of the Book of Mormon.  It's lots of fun to study with because all of the margins are so big that you can write about as much as you want in them! It's been great to study with it every morning this week.  At Deseret Book I got a study guide for “Jesus the Christ” since I'm reading that now. It's incredibly difficult to read, because about every 10 words is a word that I have never heard in my life! It's pretty good with the study guide though, because that way you kind of know what you're going to be reading;  then when you read it you get the idea, then after reading the chapter, you read the study guide again, and you have that chapter down! I'm on chapter 9 now and I'm learning a lot! It's an 800 page book and I'm on about 110, so I've still got quite a ways to go, but there’s a ton of information in there that I've never even thought about before!

That evening was a baptism for a man named Marvin that our roommates, Elders Foulger and Anderson have been teaching. We took one of our less active members we're working with to it. It was pretty good, but Marvin and his wife's children are very wild and undisciplined. Their youngest during one of the most spiritual moments of the baptism went to the back of the room, opened one of the doors, and SLAMMED it as hard as he could! It made everyone in the room jump, including the speaker, and completely drove away the Spirit. The parents didn't do anything about it either.  The mom just turned around and told him to be quiet. It was an example to me that I can't just let my own children get away with whatever. I'm glad that out here I am able to see others examples, being able to see the mistakes others make, and being able to learn from them. That's one thing I'm grateful for going on a mission is that I am able to learn so much more than just about the gospel.

On Friday I got a package from mom! I actually saw it in the mission office the day we went to go get our new phone, but it was too big and heavy for me to bike home with, so I just told them to forward it to my apartment. It was really good to get those new shoes and all my roommates love the jerky! Thanks mom! We went to visit Francine and her brothers that day, but her brothers ran off to play with friends, which is understandable since they're 5 and 7 years old. We had a great visit with Francine though. I'm a little worried for their family. They don't have a turkey for Thanksgiving because they already spent all of their food stamps. I wish I could just go out and buy them one, but I don't really have any money either, and Elder Parker is $1,600 in the hole right now because of the t-shirts he bought for the entire mission. Hopefully everyone pays him back. Francine also is picked on at school and by her 'friends' a lot, I think. She hasn't said it directly, but just the way I've seen her with her friends, I can just kind of tell. I wish we could help her more, but we can't. She loves coming to church though and looks forward to it every week! She's turning 12 on January 1st and is super excited for young women’s. Her older sister, Aline, who we've only talked to a few times is going to start going with Francine too! It will be awesome to see if she progresses at all or if she still is kind of hesitant.  Hopefully I stay through to next transfer to see what happens.  We get transfer news on Saturday, so I should know by next week.

Saturday was a great day and the morning was packed with service! We went to the food bank and helped put together boxes for 75 families to come pick up who had small children for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun! We got in an assembly line and had sisters on one side of the tables putting food into the boxes.  The Elders were holding the boxes, passing them down, putting lids on, and stacking them.  It went by fairly quickly. As soon as we got everything organized the way we needed it to be it only took us about 25 minutes or so to get all of the boxes done.

After the food bank we went to a ladies house that had flood damage in her basement. Her basement is separate from the rest of her house, so we had to go outside and into the carport to get to the basement door. I have never been in a place that reeked like that. It was a very pungent, sour, moldy, mildewy smell.  In some areas it smelled like animal urine, and rotten who knows what. It was really bad down there. The lady had no clue how much stuff was in her basement.   She didn't even know how big the basement was for sure. She told us she hadn't been down there since the 70's. When we got down there there were shelves, and shelves, and shelves of garbage. Old newspapers and books, little objects,  just old stuff that was of no value before, but at this point after the flood had become almost negative worth money. Like, just crap. It smelled awful and everything fell apart in our hands. It was one of the most disgusting places I have ever been. I felt like I was going to get some sort of disease because of the mold spores you could see floating around down there. We cleared all of that stuff out. Then we tore the shelves apart and took those out since they were homemade wooden shelves. The wood was super rotten and moldy too.   I think that's what caused a lot of the mildew smell. The lady we were doing this for was in tears by the time we were done, because of how grateful she was for us to come and do that for her. She couldn't understand why so many young people would be so willing to come and help her like that. She wasn't a member, so it was a great missionary opportunity. I think the Elders in her area invited her to the Christmas lights, so that's great! Who knows how much good we might have done for her that day!

Sunday was awesome! We told Jonathan and Cedric that if they came to church we would go to primary with them. They came, and for second and third hours we went to primary! It was so much fun, especially the junior primary! All of the teachers and primary presidency were laughing at me the whole time because I did all of the actions like when we did “Head, shoulders, knees and toes”, and “Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam”, and” Book of Mormon Stories”. All the little kids loved it though! Apparently, Jonathan never participates in those along with a few of the other kids I was sitting around, but they did that day! I'm glad I was able to help them out. I had a great time too, even if all the adults thought I was having a little too much fun ;) Haha!

After church there was a fireside called "A New Day for the Book of Mormon." They showed a documentary that was just put out by BYU.  It's about various leaders and ministers from other religions talking about the Book of Mormon.  It was incredible to see a Baptist minister, a Catholic Theologian, an Evangelical Professor, and a few others talk about the Book of Mormon! I have never heard of anything like that and I think it was a great fireside for people of other faiths to come to.   We had a few investigators there and their desire to read the Book of Mormon increased tenfold! It is incredible to see how big an impact that documentary had on so many people.  Something it mentioned that I had never thought of was that as you are driving through Utah or living there, when you think about it, everything that the state is, was created by one book. That's something powerful that I really loved. That was wonderful fireside and the cookies afterward were great too! Elder Parker had 23 and I had 17 of them. Don't worry, we made sure everyone got what they wanted first! It was a great night!

This morning we ran the mission wide 5k! I saw everyone from my MTC district there and we had a great time! I got 25:26 which isn't bad for someone who hasn't run for 3 weeks and has a pretty bad cold! I was proud of myself anyway! It was a great run and we all had a wonderful time!

This week was amazing and I hope to hear about all of yours! I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be on a mission. I'm learning so many lessons that I know I'll be able to apply my entire life! It's a wonderful experience.   If any of you are questioning whether or not you want to go on a mission, do it! It's been an experience I am so grateful to have. Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Mullins