Happy Valentine's Day

Dear family and friends!

Not much really happened on Monday, but we did have a lesson with a media referral. We sometimes get a text with someone’s name address, and phone number.  We can go over and teach them because someone submitted their name online. So... we went over and met an 11 year old boy named Jeremy. We had set up the appointment with his mom who is a recent convert.  Jeremy just had a few questions. We had a good lesson with him, but the whole time there was a sense of awkwardness because his mom kept hinting at the fact that she was cooking dinner. We finished up the lesson and she said, "Alright Elders! Dinner is ready!" It was kind of unexpected, but our member, Brother Fluharty,  brags about the benefits of going out with missionaries.  He got fed pork chops and some really good mashed potatoes with bacon in them . It was kind of funny. Jeremy plays the trumpet and I tried convincing him to pull it out, but nothing ever happened.   I've been out for almost 6 months and still haven't even looked at a trumpet, so that's sad... But oh well! I would probably sound like garbage at this point.

Tuesday was great! We had a zone conference where we were trained by President Jenkins and his councilors, and the Assistants as well as other mission leadership. It was a really good meeting! We learned a lot about how to teach with power and how to better invite the Spirit into our lessons by doing things such as using scriptures, opening and closing with a prayer, bearing frequent testimony, expressing love and gratitude, sharing personal spiritual experiences, giving priesthood blessings, etc... Something that Gene R. Cook says that I really like as it pertains to using scriptures is, "Why would you use your own words when you can use the Lords?" I thought that was pretty good. We then went over to Daymian’s house. That kid is progressing like nobody’s business! He's going to get baptized on the 28th of this month!!! He's reading through the Book of Mormon like crazy.  I don't remember if I mentioned that Elder Bakaitis and I are racing him to the end and plan on finishing it by his baptism.  We got there and started teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ; faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We got to the repentance part and Daymian says, "Oh! There's a really, really good verse about repentance I found. It's in *I forgot the scripture*" When we read  it was seriously the most perfect verse ever! It was awesome! He's paying attention as he reads plus he's racing us to the end! He's kicking my trash too, so... I gotta get reading. He's done with Alma by now, I'm sure. Yesterday he was on Alma 55 and I was on Alma 45, so that's pretty intense. Lisa also came out of hiding on Tuesday. We lost all contact with her two weeks ago and she basically had fallen off of the face of the earth. We called and went by the house, and texted, and tried seriously everything for  a week before we finally just gave up and decided she would find us again…well, that happened! Unfortunately she missed church the Sunday, so she has to have her baptism pushed to March 7th now.

Wednesday we went to the Jaenicke's (Jan-icky) and worked on demolishing the house a little bit more. A member lent us 4 sledge hammers, so that went a lot more quickly this time, and we really did some damage. We've got half of the roof down and torn off, so now we have to start on the other half of the house. I went on an exchange with Elder McDonald, which was really good despite all of our appointments falling through AND all the members signed up to come out with us canceling. We went by a few people’s houses and talked at the door really briefly.  We didn't really have any full-on lessons. We taught few principles and offered service. We dropped by Daymian’s since he got grounded from his phone, and we needed to check up on his Book of Mormon reading.  I was still a chapter ahead at that point!

Thursday we got to go to the temple as a zone. It was really good! It was kind of interesting because we have the American Sign Language Elders in our zone, so we had the sign language going too which was pretty cool. I really enjoyed the temple despite having to wake up at 5:45 to make it to our session. After our session we had a Visitors Center training which went really well. I've only taught there once, so I don't really know how to teach there that well. It was good to see the different resources they have. We went and taught an excommunicated member named Cynthia. She's a really nice lady! She actually just had her records removed because she was rebelling against her family, but she deeply regrets it and wants them back. She's just recently started coming back to church again. She isn't a member so she can't really hold a calling, but she misses feeling like she's contributing.  She gets food stamps, but it's just her and it is WAY too much food for her, so she said she'd get us some food and also gave us a few things before we left. She's awesome! She loves the missionaries! We also had a lesson with Floyd and taught him about the Restoration. His mother was smoking inside the whole time, so we really smelled like smoke when we got out of there, but that's okay. It just means we're doing the good work! We had dinner with an investigator named Ronda who basically is Mormon, but won't get baptized. She reads the Book of Mormon often, she comes to church, she knows the general authorities, she reads the Ensign every month. We just can't figure out why she won't get baptized. We brought Brother Fluharty to that, so he really enjoyed two dinners with the missionaries in one week!

Friday was really good! We had a lesson at the Visitors Center with Carol, our recent convert. I saw Elder Parker there, so it was fun to talk for a little bit while we waited for Carol to show up. He's doing great and it seems like he's having a much better time now. Carol felt the Spirit so strongly in there.  It was funny because we came out of one of the presentations and she said, "I don't understand why such a happy thing is making me so sad!" ,because she was crying. Sister Chambers, her fellowshipper explained that that was the Spirit. Carol told us that if that's the Spirit she wished it was so strong all the time. Haha! She loved it! I'm running out of time to email, so I'll just wrap the rest of the week up!

Saturday was Valentine's Day and Lisa's birthday, so we called her and sang happy birthday over the phone to her, which she really appreciated. We did some drywall mudding at the Green’s, which I think I am getting pretty good at. We met a really cool guy named Danny who got in a motorcycle accident about a year ago and is missing a leg. He's a rocker too and he told us that he's writing a song about Apache Junction called Bicycles and Cigarettes. If you came to AJ you would understand that.  Literally, the economy is based on bikes and cigarettes. You can trade bikes for cigs and cigs for bikes. That's about all it consists of. Oh! And you can buy a trailer for $500 and then pay $150 a month to rent a spot. That's how scary some places here are... Haha! It's pretty ghetto! We had dinner with a part member family. We had baked spaghetti , which was delicious! After dinner we went to a lady named Dorothy's house and Robert was already there, so we killed two birds with one stone. We had a wonderful visit and lesson.

Sunday was kind of lame outside of church. Daymian was grounded until he got the backyard weeded, so he could only make it to the 3rd hour, but that's okay because he can still get baptized!!! Not much really happened though... So yah! That was my week! Life's crazy out here and I'm meeting all sorts of interesting people! I love it out here! All of you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Mullins