Apache Junction

Dear family and friends!!!

This has been an incredibly amazing week! Monday was Alexandra Hawn's birthday. She's one of Elder Parker's converts. She's heading out to the Mexico MTC on Tuesday the 20. She's so awesome! She's going to learn a ton out there. We went hiking for her birthday to the Wind Caves. It's a pretty easy hike that's just a couple of miles. We went to the top and watched the sunrise. So that was pretty fun! When we got to the bottom of the mountain I was with Elder Smith, (he's Bishop Smith's nephew) Alexandra, and Elder Clegg. Elders Parker and Foutz were still up on the mountain taking forever to get down. About a half hour later, we were trying to decide whether we should go back and look for them.  About five minutes later they got to the bottom and met up with us. Elder Parker had a great big scrape clear up his forearm from his wrist to mid-bicep! It was pretty intense. That night we had a lesson set up at the visitors Center with Daisy, Regina, and Senna, (One of the families we found last week) but they never showed up. We found out that Daisy had been at the hospital and couldn't make it. She called us that night around 11 and apologized for not showing up and explained everything. She's fine.  She just had some issues with one of her surgeries that needed to be taken care of. That night we went to Bahama Bucks which is a really good shaved ice place with Alexandra. We were the only ones there, so when she showed up, us and the staff all sang happy birthday to her. It was great! That was the day I got transfer news too and found out I was going to go to Apache Junction in the Meridian ward with Elder Bakaitis!

Tuesday was my last day in Mesa. We played a game I've never heard of called K-ball. It's basically ultimate frisbee, with a soccer ball, on a basketball court.  To get a point you shoot it into the hoop. It's a pretty fun game! We played with the whole zone, and then we had breakfast afterward which was amazing! We came home from that and I packed my entire desk away into a few boxes and then got all of my clothes and other miscellaneous items into my suitcases. Things got a little crazy at one point and we were videoing, so Elder Parker took a great big bit out of an unpeeled orange like an apple! It was so funny! I went and said good bye to a few people like Francine and the boys who I'm really going to miss a ton and also Marie. We also went to one of my favorite member’s house to say bye to their son Josh, who is pretty much the sickest kid I've ever met! He's awesome! Haha! We left our bikes at the visitor’s center on Monday night, so Tuesday night we went back there to pick them up. On our way home we decided to go check out Elder Parkers new apartment since he was picking up another ward on top of Cornerstone and that apartment was in the area. The two Elders living in it both went home, so it was empty and we had the key. We went in and raided it and took quite a few things that were just left behind. I got a really nice and smaller bag to put a Book of Mormon and my iPad into. It's been treating me pretty well so far.

Wednesday was transfer day! We went to the transfer meeting at 10 and after that we loaded everything up into the car. Elder Bakaitis and I went shopping from there and then talked about the area for a little while. Elder Bakaitis is from Illinois, just south of Chicago. He's been on his mission for 17 months and is an incredibly hard worker. He is very studious and an extremely good teacher. I am going to learn a lot from him for sure! He's a really great guy and very easy to get along with. I have loved  getting to know him and serving with him. He's super into working out and is ripped! His arms are enormous! He's super kind and although a little awkward at times, very genuine. Wednesday we had dinner at the Greene's who are a part member family. She's a member, but none of the kids or the husband are. They're a super great family that I've really enjoyed talking to and getting to know. Later that day, in the evening, I started feeling pretty sick to my stomach, but I just kept working. Not much else really happened that night.

Thursday was bad, but we got a lot done at the same time. I woke up at 6 to go work out, went to the bathroom, and then threw up. It was no fun... I went back to bed and tried to study while Elder Bakaitis worked out, but I just ended up falling back to sleep. I woke up again at 8:30, showered and begrudgingly got ready for the day. I read over the Plan of Salvation since we were planning on teaching it that day and then we headed out. We taught a lady named Carroll in the Chambers' home. Elder Bakaitis had only met with her once before, so it was good for me to get to know her.  She's about 30 and is having a fairly rough life right now. She loves meeting with us and came to church last week and this week! We taught her the Plan of Salvation, but it turned into more of a lesson on forgiveness since that's something she feels like she needs to work on is forgiving a few people in her life. One of my favorite quotes on forgiveness is from Joseph Smith. “Ever keep in exercise the principle of mercy, and be ready to forgive our brother on the first intimations of repentance, and asking forgiveness; and should we even forgive our brother, or even our enemy, before he repent or ask forgiveness, our Heavenly Father would be equally as merciful unto us.” I shared that with her and it helped her understand why it's so important to forgive others. She wants to work on it. We also talked a little about Christlike attributes and how humility, especially, is an attribute you should seek for as you try forgiving others. She really liked the lesson and received it well! A lot of the time since we have limited miles in the car we like to just walk around the trailer park or the neighborhood we've been teaching a lesson in unless we have an appointment. I hadn't been feeling that great all day, but I was walking with Elder Bakaitis.  After we had tried knocking on someone’s door and they didn't answer all of a sudden I stopped, said, “wait for a sec”, then threw up again. I was just glad that it was on the side of a dirt road in our area. We were up in a pretty remote spot.   After I had thrown up a guy named Keith came over and asked if we would like to come to his house for a glass of water. He's super hardcore Pentacostal and he had just been out in the desert "praying in tongues" for the past hour. It was really funny because he said he was praying to be able to find more meaning to life and more truth. He ran into us and we were like, ‘well hey, answer to his prayer right there’! But he was like ‘nah, the Mormons don't quite have it right’.  It was a pretty funny thing! We went to his house and talked to him for about an hour about the Bible and a lot of the prophesies of Isaiah and other stuff which was fun. He told us a super funny story about one of his first encounters with Mormons. He and his wife were taking a Sunday afternoon nap when his 15 year old skater son came into their room saying, "There's a boy here asking for a quick offering." He asked, “What?” His son repeats, “There's a Mormon boy at the door asking for a quick offering”. Keith told his son that he wasn't interested and to just tell him to leave. At work the next day he was telling this Mormon co-worker about it. She was on the floor laughing her head off, crying! He wondered ‘what is going on?!’ She said to him, "That boy didn't ask your son for a quick offering, he asked for a FAST offering!" She went on to explain fasting and fast offerings and he thought it was hilarious! It was way funny to hear that story.  He's a really nice guy and really respects us for all that we as missionaries do. Dinner that night was kind of awkward, because I told them I wasn't feeling quite up to snuff and didn't have much of an appetite, so I didn't eat. It was with the Hodges, who are a part member family. The dad and the two sons are interested in learning more about God and the church and want to get baptized. They're coming to church every week and studying out of the Book of Mormon every day. Jimmy, the dad, has lots of questions and likes to dig down into pretty deep topics, because it interests him. He knows all the basic principles and now it's a matter of him getting confirmation from God that it's all true. That was a pretty great lesson.

Friday was a good day. We planned the week in the afternoon and then in the evening we did some other stuff.  A member named Tom Gordon got us some lunch. We were talking and somehow the topic of a sister missionary came up who had started some page on Facebook. I recognized the page and said, "Wait, are you talking about Sister Dyer?" It was her! It was pretty fun! I guess he was her ward mission leader for a while. That night we had two dinners and I still wasn't feeling 100% but it all turned out fine. We went to dinner with a really old lady in our ward name Sister Harlow. That went well and we had a good conversation with her. After that dinner appointment we went with the Rodriguez' to Fuddruckers. It was delicious! I only was able to finish about half of my burger just because I was feeling a little sick still, but it was still really good! We went with their son, Moses, who just got back from his mission to make a few visits. Unfortunately, nobody answered their doors, but that was fine. I was feeling like I was going to throw up around 8, so we went home a little early.

Saturday was much better! I was finally feeling significantly better and had a lot more energy! That morning I read Jesus the Christ on my iPad while I was on the eliptical. It was a pretty great way to multi task! Something I learned that I've never really understood was about Matthew 5:13 which is the beginning of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. He calls the disciples the salt of the earth then goes on to say, if the salt loses its savor, what will be used to salt the earth because it will be good for nothing and have to be thrown out. Salt is known as the great preservative. Egyptians used it to preserve mummies, people use it to preserve meat.  Almost anything can be preserved with salt. So he calls them the salt of the earth, or the ones who are sent to preserve the people of the earth to bring them eternal salvation. That verse is saying, if we want to go out and give people the gift of the gospel, we need to be as pure and as worthy as possible so we can have the Spirit with us as we teach. I've never really understood that verse, but now it makes so much more sense! That morning we went over to the Greene's and helped hang some drywall since they're building an extension to their house. We did that for a few hours, then came home, showered, and ate lunch. From there we went to the Lopez' who are a less active part-member family. They're awesome! We went over and they needed some help with organizing their garage. We gladly helped with that. It was a lot of fun to do. Brother Lopez was really appreciative of all the help. After that service we discovered we had a low tire. We went to the tire shop to get that fixed and as we were going through the area book when we discovered a name we had never heard before. We looked at the teaching records and there were all sorts of things like members present at lessons and other missionaries’ names that we'd never heard of. We went over to an address and found a part member family who had been meeting with missionaries for a while and then moved and lost contact. David is a member although he hasn't been to church since he was 13, but his 14 year old son and his girlfriend and one of her daughters are interested in getting baptized and finding a new church, so we told them come to ours! They're an awesome family and we found a few new investigators out of it! It was awesome to see that miracle. They're really nice and funny! We are definitely going to have a great time visiting and teaching them!

Sunday was pretty good too. I got to meet a lot of people so that was really nice. Everyone was really excited for me to be there. I helped with blessing the sacrament, which I haven't done for a long time now. We had a few of our investigators that came to church. We even had one potential investigator that we must have told where the church was and what time we met. His name is Lloyd. He came to church, so he is a new investigator! He's a pretty good guy. I guess he's been in prison for quite some time now and just got out. He's trying to turn his life around by starting to get to church, quitting smoking, and getting rid of his alcohol. He's taking care of his mom since she's in relatively poor health, so he's doing great with that too! She says that she wants to start coming to church too. They're awesome and are both trying to quit the cigarettes. They're really nice people trying to change a lot. Later that evening we found a new investigator! There's a part member family named the Dobbins. Their son Alex wants to get baptized, so we went to see him.  We taught them about keeping the Sabbath day holy. He's 9, so he's a little difficult to teach, but he paid attention fairly well as we taught him last night.

Apache Junction is definitely a lot different from Mesa! We've got a few places in our area that I wouldn't be comfortable walking around past dark, but most of our area is fairly safe. There's a lot of crime and poverty in the area and not a lot of law enforcement, so they just let a lot of things happen. It's pretty crazy!!!

I'm having a great time out here and am meeting all sorts of people! Keep the faith!!!

Love,

Elder Mullins