Dear family and friends!
As I may have eluded in my last email, I was pretty sick
for about 8 days. It felt amazing to finally get out of the apartment again on
Saturday evening! On Tuesday not much happened. A few other elders from our
zone came over that morning since they all were sick so that Elder Parker and
my roommate, Elder Foulger's, companions could go out and work. We switched
quite a few people around to be on exchanges for a few days, so that was fun!
Anyway, those elders came over played some card games with us and just hung
out. Some sisters from our zone came and knocked on our door to give us some
meds like Wal-phed and Nyquil and some herbal tea. As they were getting ready
to leave they offered to grab us some Subway sandwiches! It was amazing of them
to do that for us! They're saints!
On Wednesday I had to go to district meeting despite
feeling pretty lousy since I was in charge of training. I gave my training on
the importance of goals and goal setting since it was New Year’s Eve. I didn't feel like it went too well just
because of how tired and sick I was, but a couple of sisters really enjoyed it.
They came to me and told me that they really needed to hear that message. Goals
have been a huge part of my life. I've set several, especially when it comes to
music and education. I've experienced accomplishing and falling
short of the goals I set. It was great to talk about something that I actually
felt like I knew fairly well. I went to bed around 6 pm that night because I
wasn't feeling very well. I woke up around 11 and my companion was just hanging
out watching Saints and Soldiers on the couch, so I joined him. At midnight we
had a little celebration and drank some sparkling cider, but that was about it.
I couldn't fall asleep, so I decided to look at this Catholic Bible that
someone let us borrow. It had a few pieces from the Apocrypha in it. From what
I read, it's basically the Old Testament as far as how it's written. I definitely prefer reading out of the New
Testament and the Book of Mormon! It had some great things in it, but it was definitely
an interesting story.
On Thursday we had a mission New Year’s party! It was 28
degrees that morning and it had rained that night, so we moved the party from
outside to the Stake Center across the street from where we were originally
planning to do it. It was a ton of fun and we played some games. They fed us
lunch too! It was hamburgers, which were delicious! It would have been a much more
enjoyable party if I hadn’t been coughing up a lung the whole time.
Friday was my last day being sick! My mom sent me a
letter that I got that day with The Living Christ enclosed. She told us that
the Bishop at tithing settlement had challenged everyone in the family to
memorize it. I was still sick, so I spent the next 5 hours, off and on, trying
to get it memorized. I was quite impressed with myself when it came to bedtime
and I had half of it memorized! That night we also finished our Book of Mormon
tower we've been working on for almost two months! We've been taking a couple
of boxes of copies of the Book of Mormon from the mission office every time
we've gone by to pick up packages or drop off baptismal records or whatever for
the past two months or so. We finally have gathered enough to build a tower
from Elder Parker’s desk to the ceiling! I'll include a couple of pictures of
it in this email! It consists of 404 books, it weights approx. 300 pounds, it's
5'7" 101 layers tall, and consists of over 310,000 pages!!! It's crazy!!!
Haha! It was quite a quest trying to build it square! We didn't want it to lean,
so we had levels and all sorts of other things to try and keep it straight! It
was awesome!
On Saturday, I woke up on time, 6:30, for the first time
since getting sick. I was feeling much better. We did some service that morning
pulling some big, tall weeds from a member’s backyard. They had a row that was
60 feet long and 5 feet wide packed full of weeds. It took us forever
considering how many people we had, 2 hours!
It was probably 35 degrees that morning, and I don't have a coat so I
was pretty chilly. It was good though, one of the members helping us had 3 jackets
on and decided he had too many, so he let me use his, which was nice of him. I
greatly appreciated it! We also did some service for one of our members trying
to get a walkway laid out in front of his house made from brick. I think they're called pavers? I'm not positive though. We also did some
transplanting for him since he's super into his garden. We also cut down half a tree for him. It was
pretty fun! We got back from that and I continued to memorize The Living Christ
from lunch to dinner. I got it all memorized, recorded it, and sent it to my
family. It was a great experience to memorize it. I have never read that whole
document all the way through before.
It's so full of doctrine. It tells
who Christ is and was. I could hardly believe
it. There are many messages in it that will be great to have when I need to
answer questions for people. I loved the part that says ‘He entreated all to
follow His example. His gospel was a message of peace and goodwill’. It explains
what following Christ is really all about and why we are on our missions
spreading the good word.
That evening we had a lesson with a man named Carlos who
is a professional photographer for celebrities and fashion models. He gets
invited to all the huge parties in Phoenix to take pictures. He's good friends
with Larry Fitzgerald, a famous football player for the Cardinals. He knows all the big names out there. It’s crazy! We had a lesson with him, and
talk about GOLDEN!!! He came to the lesson and talked about what he had read in
the Restoration pamphlet we had given him. He said it was about when God came
to earth in the modern world to the boy Joseph Smith and how His church and His
priesthood had been restored to the earth once again. He acknowledged Joseph
Smith as a prophet and talked about how exciting it is that there is a prophet on
the earth today. He is basically already converted. He just needs to learn more about our
doctrines and other beliefs, and he should be set! It was an amazing lesson!
We also went to Silvercrest, the old folks home in our
area, that night. We forgot to stop by someone’s apartment and had gotten about
half way home before we remembered, so we turned around and went back. When we
got to Silvercrest a crazy old lady named Patricia was standing at the doors
telling us to go home and that it was WAY too late to be coming. "It's a
9:15 curfew! You can't be here!" she shouted at us. We went in any way since
she has yelled at us before and we knew she was just going kind of crazy. She
told us she was going to call the police. A lady named Myrtle was there to save
the day! She isn't a member, but she called Mary over to tell Patricia to go
upstairs. Mary is the person in charge over there. She's pretty old and lives
there, but I think they pay her as a manager of the activities room or something.
She used to hate us, and used to be kind of anti, but she came and told
Patricia to go to her room upstairs. Something she said that I loved and never
would have expected it out Mary's mouth 4 months ago when we first met her was,
"These are good Mormon boys. They're teachers. They're here to help
us!" It's amazing how running these family nights there and her being on
the other side of the room just kind of half listening has absolutely changed
her attitude toward us. We visit with them from time to time when she and
Myrtle are downstairs in the lobby visiting and they've really started to enjoy
talking to us. Elder Bednar once said, "The reason people invite the
missionaries back into their homes is not because of the message they share,
but the Spirit they bring." I truly believe the reason that dynamic duo, Myrtle
and Mary, were able to help us that night is because of the Spirit that we
bring!
Sunday was a pretty good day! We visited an inactive lady
and her non-member husband. He's not interested in the church at all. She claims she has a hard time getting around
but she seemed fine to me. They're interesting people. He was a miner for 39
years in Ray, Arizona in a pit mine. He showed us a picture of him next to one
of their haulers and that thing was HUGE! It weighs 400 tons and the wheels are
about twice as tall as him. He said when you're driving it you're sitting about
18 feet off the ground. I have never seen anything like it! It was crazy! He
also had a dish full of pieces of native copper he'd found just lying around on
the ground. He let me and Elder Parker
each take a piece, so I've got a pretty neat looking piece of copper! There was
a fireside that evening that was pretty good. A bunch of us from our zone sang.
Elder Tuipelehake sing in Samoan, Sister Taumarawa sang in Vietnamese, and
Sister Redford signed, then we all sang the first and last verses in English.
It was awesome! After the fireside I also talked to Elder Smith for a bit. He
asked where I was from and I told him Kaysville. He asked who my bishop was and
when I told him Dave Smith he got this HUGE smile on his face. I asked him if
he knew him and he said he was his uncle! We took a few pictures together and
plan on sending them to Bishop today! It was awesome to find a mutual friend
with someone in the mission! There are a few people that know the same people
as me, but no one from the ward until then! That night we had a little surprise
party for Elder Parkers birthday which yesterday! We had that fireside, so we
kept him distracted afterwards while the rest came and decorated the apartment.
He was not expecting the apartment to be all decked out like that! It was great
to see his reaction. He says he hates it when people celebrate his birthday and
tell him happy birthday, but he really enjoyed it. It was a great way to
conclude the day!
This week was fantastic. I had some great experiences and
some fun too! I loved memorizing The Living Christ! It was a wonderful thing to
do while I was sick. If any of you have the will to do it, I would highly
suggest it! It is a great thing to have memorized! I learned a lot and was able
to give myself a serious challenge! I had some great teaching opportunities and
met a few really interesting people! I am loving every second of my mission,
both the ups and the downs. Especially
when the downs are over! I love and miss all of you! I hope to hear from you. Transfer
week is coming up quick. If you want to send me anything after Wednesday just
send it to the mission office. The address is on the right hand column of this
blog. Anything before Wednesday you can send to my
apartment at:
Elder Mullins
1233 N. Mesa Dr. #1197
Mesa, AZ 85201
Love,
Elder Mullins!
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| The Tower of Babel....I mean...The Tower of Books of Mormon! |
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| Awesome! |
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| Professional Brick Laying |
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| Tree trimming is our Specialty |
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| Me and my Buds |
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