Dear
family and friends!
Never
in my life have experienced anything like I did this week. As a mission we have
set a goal to baptize 100 people in March. In order to facilitate that goal we need
to find 1500 investigators as a mission. That boils down to 10 new
investigators per ward. We had miracle after miracle after miracle all week
long! In the month of November we found one investigator, in the month of
December we found zilch. This week alone we found 11 and as a zone we found 65
this week. Our mission found 26 in all of December. It's been crazy! I'll tell you a
little more about all of this excitement.
On
Tuesday during companionship study Elder Parker suggested we study a talk by Gene
R. Cook called Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It goes through the steps of
faith and how we need first to have a belief, then we have to commit ourselves, do our part, then expect trials of our faith, and finally, expect the Lord
to act. We decided that that day we were going to exercise faith and go through
all the steps. We set a goal to get 3 new investigators that day. It was going
to be really hard since we only found 1 in the past two months, but we went
forward with faith. Let me tell you, we experienced miracles! We had a few
appointments at Silvercrest, the old folks home in our area. It's owned by
Salvation Army which has its own church, so we aren't allowed to proselyte
there, but we can go visit people who invite us over, so it's nice. We came
down into the lobby from those appointments and saw a lady sitting down in a
chair. We like to introduce ourselves to everyone there and just let everyone
know who we are. Most of them really
enjoy us being there and are just wondering what we're doing. We went and told this lady our names and
before she even said it's nice to meet you, or told us her name, she said,
"I'm religious. You guys should come visit me in my apartment sometime!
Come by anytime!" So we were just like, ‘what the heck just happened?’ We
haven't had any investigators for over a month. We set a goal to go out with
faith and find 3, and one just fell right into our hands. That was a total
miracle! It was absolutely crazy! I've never had anything like that happen. Our
second investigator we found was a former that we had. She kind of just blew us
off a couple of months ago, but we texted her and she said it would be great
for us to come and visit her, so we went with a member over there. Glenda is about
65 or 70. We had a good lesson with her and invited her to
go see 'Meet the Mormons' at the visitor’s center with us. She became a new
investigator again. As we were going around doing a couple of visits in the apartment
complex in our area we ran into this lady named Jolene. She had spilled her
mail on the ground as she was getting it out of her mailbox. We helped her pick
it up. She said missionaries used to come over to her apartment all the
time. We asked her if she would be interested in having missionaries over again
and she said yes. Before dinner we got our three investigators! It was nuts!
I've never experienced a miracle like that. It was absolutely incredible to see
the Lord’s hand in this. We were both very excited and very thankful.
Wednesday
we had a zone meeting. At the end of the meeting our zone leaders got up and
challenged the whole zone to get at least one new investigator before dinner
that day. We went out and didn't find anyone before dinner, but after dinner we
found two. It was another miracle this time! Elders Foulger and Anderson, our
roommates, street contacted these two ladies in our area about 3 months ago
named Daisy and Regina. They said they might be interested in us coming over.
They got their address and gave us the referral. When we initially knocked on
their door 3 months ago, they gave us the cold shoulder and weren't interested at
all. They didn't want to set up an appointment. This time we knocked on the
door and they answered. Both of them were miraculously there since Regina works
6 days a week. We went in and got to know them a little better. We found out
that Daisy was trying to recover from a couple of surgeries she has recently
had. We offered her a priesthood blessing.
We explained the priesthood and how blessings work. She said she would
love to have one. We gave it to her. It
was super powerful. She was crying and Regina cried. It was amazing how
powerful the Spirit was. We asked if there was a time that we could come by and
teach them about the Restoration. They said we could teach them right then. So
we happily obliged, sat down, and taught them. It was really powerful and they
accepted it really well. We committed them to baptism and to come to church on
Sunday. It was an amazing lesson.
Thursday
was another great day of finding! We were at the library transferring some
pictures from our iPads to external drives to free up some room. As we stood up
to leave, a guy named Javier stopped me and asked me where atheists go when
they die. He said his brother told him that they wander forever blindly through
endless fields of grass. I explained the Spirit world to him and that they
would have the opportunity to learn about the gospel. He said that that made
way more sense than what his brother was trying to explain to him. I asked if
he'd like to meet with missionaries and learn more about our religion and he
said he'd be super interested in it! He's homeless, but he usually sleeps in
our area, so he's up for grabs! He's awesome! Some other missionaries heard
about him, then ran into him, and they
said he's totally prepared for baptism. It's awesome! Later that night
after dinner we found another person named Gabriel. He has a son and lives with
his girlfriend. We found him a couple of months ago and never have been able to
get in contact with him, but I told Elder Parker that I knew Gabriel was home
and that he was going to answer the door. He said, let’s try then. We went over
and you'll never believe what happened. We knocked on his door and there was
Gabriel answering his door! It was incredible! We have knocked on his door
probably 6 times before and he's never answered. It was amazing that he
answered and then he told us to call him, gave us his number, and told us we
should come over and teach his family. It was awesome! So we got another
investigator that day!
Friday
we got even more! Three to be more specific! We were feeling pretty discouraged
since it was 7 and we hadn't found anyone at all. We searched and searched all
day and there was nothing. 7 came around and a 16 year old girl named Dionna
came over, stopped us and asked if we could talk to her. We told her yeah, got
her number, invited her to church, got her address and boom! Another
investigator dropped from the sky! It was incredible! I've never had miracles
happen like this! Later we were going to meet up with Elders Owens and
Rosenbalm for Elder Parker to meet some of their investigators since he is
covering that ward next transfer. As we were biking there we ran into a lady
named Roxann. That afternoon her husband
had taken her son away from her and ran off with him. She was feeling pretty
down. We asked if she would be interested in having missionaries over and she
said yes. It was awesome to get to know her and we look forward to getting to
know her better! After the Visitors Center it was 8:50 and we were
supposed to be heading home in 10 minutes. We determined that we needed to get
a third investigator that day. We headed over to a former’s house named Tiffany
who we found about 4 months ago. She has always been a bit of a flake so we had given up on her. We had faith that she
would be home and answer the door. We haven't been over there in probably 2
months. We knocked, no answer. We
knocked again, no answer. We knocked a third time, nothing. We usually give up
on 3, but we decided to knock one last time. We knocked that fourth time and
she answered! She said she would come to church and that she wanted to come
with us to the employment night at the Stake Center since she's searching for a
job. It was great to get a third investigator! In a four day period we met what
we were hoping to accomplish in a month! It was absolutely incredible!
Saturday
was a good day although we didn't find any investigators for ourselves. Elder
Parker and I were going to meet up with Elders Anderson and Raisor to do an
exchange. On our way there, we found a lady in Pioneer Park who only spoke
Spanish. In very broken Spanish we asked her if she would be interested in
meeting with Spanish missionaries. She said yes, so we got her information and
sent it to the Spanish Elders in the area. They called us like 10 minutes later
asking where she was and we explained. An hour later we got a text from them
saying she's committed to baptism, and her entire family was going to come to
church the next day! It was incredible to see even when we talk to people
with a language barrier, miracles can still happen! We helped a less-active
member move out of his apartment since his dad has a court order against him
and he wasn't allowed on the property. He greatly appreciated the help and took
Elder Anderson and me out to lunch at Rosa's. I got some nachos that were
loaded! They had beef and cheese and beans and all sorts of amazing stuff! I
couldn't eat even close to all of it! It was crazy! After that we went out to
try and find new people to teach since we didn't have anything set. We talked
to literally everyone we could and got rejected all day long. It was fine, but
a little disappointing at the same time. We went to the church for Elder
Anderson to use the bathroom and I saw a homeless guy setting up in the church
doorway toward the back. I went and asked him if he wanted a meal since I left
my leftovers in the fridge at the church. He said that would be great. I asked
if he'd ever talked to missionaries before and he told me he had read a lot of
the Book of Mormon and believes it to be the word of God and Joseph Smith to be
a prophet of God. I went into the church building, grabbed Anderson and told
him about this golden investigator, and grabbed the nachos. He's a pretty awesome guy to talk to. He was a lot more respectful than a lot of other homeless people we've talked to. He
was super interested, but we found out he's not so interested in joining the
church as learning about our doctrines because he believes us to have a lot of
the truth. He wants to start a church in North Dakota that's open 24/7 that
people can sleep at, and participate in the garden, and all sorts of stuff like
that. He has it all figured out I guess, but he still needs to read a lot of
the Book of Mormon and learn more about the Apocrypha and read the lost Gospels
and all before he starts his church. He said he was hoping to join us for
sacrament meeting in the morning since he'd never been to a Mormon church
service before and was interested. We talked to Nicholas for a solid hour and a
half before we had to get going. He would have been a new investigator, but
since he's homeless and travels around quite a bit, we can't teach him, but
that's fine. He doesn't seem like he would get baptize and is just interested
in learning more.
Sunday
was great. We had ward council at 6:30 that morning. It was awful to have it that early, but it was
all good since we had a ride. The ward council was very impressed at the 10 new
investigators that we got. We went out to call everyone and we woke Nicholas
up. He came in and sat in the chapel studying the Book of Mormon and the
Bible side by side with us until sacrament started at 9. Daisy and her grandkids came
to church, but Regina was stuck at work, so that was sad, but the rest enjoyed
it. We were talking to them at the end of sacrament and asking how old the kids
were so we could take them to their classes. We found out that Senna was 8, so
we got 11 investigators in a week!!! It was amazing! They all really enjoyed
church! After church at 5 we had a ward potluck for all the investigators,
recent converts, less-actives, recently activated members, and a few active
families that come every once in a while. Daisy came with her grandkids and
they all enjoyed it. It was great to see Daisy feeling comfortable and making
new friends. She says that they never really leave the apartment and that she
doesn't have too many friends, but she especially liked the Navajo family in
our ward since she's Navajo herself. It was fun to see how welcoming the ward
is!
Today
we got our transfer news and I'm going out to Apache Junction with Elder
Bakaitis! I'm so excited to be out in AJ! It's going to be a blast! I don't
know much about Elder Bakaitis, but I'm excited to get to know him and be his
companion! I am getting along with Elder Parker a lot better now, but I'm
definitely ready for some change.
This
week was absolutely amazing. I've never had such a great week in my entire
life! It was incredible to see the Lords hand in all of this. I feel so humbled
to see what happens when we put our faith in the Lord. I have never had an
experience like this before. It was incredible! I love and miss all of you, but
I'm absolutely loving being out on a mission! Have a great week everyone! Also,
just continue sending mail to the mission office. They forward it to me, so it
should be all good. Just send it there always! If you want that address you can
ask my mom whose email address is, mdahlene@msn.com
you can also just google it I think, but I'm not sure.
Love,
Elder
Mullins
Misson
Home Address:
Arizona
Mesa Mission
2525
N. 32nd Street
Mesa,
AZ 85213
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