Crazy Week!

Dear family and friends!

I don't have a whole lot of time to email this morning as we have a very busy day planned out today, but I'll get what I can in!

So, Monday not a ton really happened, but it was fun! One funny experience we had was going through the car wash.  It's one of those where you're on a belt and it pulls the car through a bunch of machines. We went through that.  Elder Bakaitis joked about rolling down my window and locking it when we went through, so I was holding it up the whole way through just to make sure it wouldn't happen. We got to the end and I relaxed and let off.  He rolled it down! The blowers that were drying off the car were the only thing going so it was just really loud, but then Elder Bakaitis rolled his window down too, and then the back windows. It was all fine and good until the side blowers came on. All the sudden I was slapped by a Restoration pamphlet, Tupperware containers were flying from the back seat to the dash to the back again. My jacket flew out the window along with a few papers.  The only thing that stayed in place was my scriptures in their case! It was pretty crazy! I made Elder Bakaitis go back in for my jacket.  He felt pretty dumb with the workers staring at us. It was okay though! It was just super funny!

Tuesday was a pretty good day too. We went to a lesson with our investigator who is getting baptized on Saturday at the Talley's home. Her name is Carroll. It was awesome because I'm finally to the point where a lot of questions people ask I can answer with a scripture.  It was fun to have that lesson because she had question after question, and I had scripture after scripture! After that we went with a member over to Floyd's to talk to him about baptism. His mother, Barbara, joined us and read from the Book of Mormon with us. We set a baptism date with both of them.  That was Barbara’s first lesson! It was great! Barbara also told us where her sister lives, so we went over there to see if we could find her. No success... But we did find Shawn and Jessie! They're pretty cool, but I'm not sure how interested they really are... We'll see!

On Wednesday, Elder Green trained in our district meeting about how to live worthy of the Spirit. He gave 8 simple things to do.

1) Pray and fast.

2) Repent every single day.

3) Humble yourself and recognize that you are nothing without the Lord.

4) Study the scriptures daily.

5) Learn and follow the will of God.

6) Pray for Charity specifically.

7) Learn and teach doctrine straight from the scriptures.

8) Increase and exercise your faith daily.

I really enjoyed that training and I'm striving to fully follow that in my life!

Thursday we went to an investigator named Robert with Brother Chambers. Robert is one of the funniest guys I've ever met! A lot of it is just because of how awkward he is sometimes, but it's pretty great! Elder Bakaitis decided to borrow one of my ties that day for some reason, but when we went to Robert’s the first thing out of his mouth when we walked in was, "Purple tie today, huh?" Elder Bakaitis, "Yah, thought I'd..." Robert cuts him off mid-sentence, "Weird." It was hilarious!  Then later, mid conversation, Robert’s cat started pawing at the door. It's been raining for quite a while here, so Robert went to let the cat out and goes, "Don't you know it's raining out there you stupid moron?" to the cat! It was so funny! But here is the real humdinger! He’s really ADHD so mid conversation again, he stands up, heads over to the fridge and asks, "Can I offer you any salami?" What the random?!?! Haha! After we said no he proceeded to pull out this package of salami and sat back down and just ate plain slices of salami. It was pretty great! I wish I had a picture of him.  It would be way funnier.

On Friday we discovered our area’s paper area book. We have iPads, so our area book is electronic, but we looked at the paper one to see if it had much in it. There were records mostly from 2005-2009.  There were tons of names and super golden looking investigators. We went out and tried to find people out of the book, but the majority were in trailer parks, so most of them have moved out. It's good to find people and have an excuse to be knocking on the door! We were weekly planning at the Talley’s that day. Brother and Sister Talley are basically parents to the missionaries that serve in their ward. We have our own fridge and they have a missionary wall up with pictures.  They have it set up as a second home for us. It's really nice to have somewhere to go when we need to plan or teach an investigator in a member’s home. We finished up and were getting ready to go when Brother Talley came in and told us to get Ronnetta, the nurse that lives with them, because she had just had a stroke. We asked if there was anything we could do and he told us it was probably best that we just leave since he had to take her to the hospital. She has kidney failure right now and her blood pressure keeps dropping. Keep her in your prayers. She's had many health issues in the past, but it's never been this bad.

Saturday and Sunday not a lot happened, other than Elder Bakaitis's birthday was Sunday, so that was good.

I love it out here and I;’m learning so much I can hardly believe it! I miss you all, but I am so grateful that I can be out here in Mesa, Arizona serving the Lord! Keep the faith!

Love,

Elder Jayden Mullins

The ghetto of all ghettos.  This is the sketchiest trailer park in Apache Junction

Heiroglyphs at the end of our hike this morning

Saguaro cactus that fell over as a result of all the moisture.  They get too heavy and fall.