Miracle Madness!!!

This week was amazing! I don't have a ton of time to email, but oh well. I'll just give you the highlights! I experienced a miracle that really doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but to me it was. Elder Bakaitis and I have a clipboard that we hold our dinner calendar for the month, and the weekly calendar for members to come out with us.  On Thursday night we got in and wanted to confirm a few of the members coming out with us and our dinner as well.  The clipboard had disappeared... We couldn't find it anywhere in the apartment, so we figured it was probably in the car. The next morning we checked the car and it was nowhere.  We just went out and did our normal old thing all day and checked a few places where we could have left it, like the church and a few member’s homes. It was nowhere to be found.  We got a little bit stressed, but just figured it probably was in the apartment somewhere and that we hadn't looked well enough.  We came home Friday night and looked everywhere again for it. Nothing... We couldn't find this thing ANYWHERE!!! We said a prayer together that we would be able to find it and know where to search, then we continued to look in the apartment. We basically tore the whole place apart! We couldn't find it anywhere at all! That evening when I knelt down by my bed I said a prayer and asked that we would be able to figure out where in the world the clipboard had run off to. I immediately got an incredibly strong prompting to go check in the ally way behind the Green’s house. I had no clue how it could possibly have gotten there, but I decided to accept the prompting anyway because of how strong it was. I told Elder Bakaitis that we needed to go check there and he agreed that if I felt like I had a prompting we needed to go check it out. We woke up the next morning and ran through our normal morning routine; exercise, breakfast, shower, study, then went out to our area for the day. Our first stop was that ally. It's a dirt road and overgrown with grasses and other weeds, so we drove through it to see if we could find it from the car. We couldn't see anything. We parked at the end of the ally and decided to walk it on foot and see if it was hiding in the weeds or under the grass. We saw nothing on our way through the first time and on our return to the car we also found nothing. I was just thinking the whole time, "Why did God give me an incorrect prompting? I know for a fact that that prompting was from God. I never before have had so strong an impression. I was doing all the right things." I said a prayer in my heart right then and there and asked God not why, but where?  “Where was the clipboard really? Why did you tell me to come here when the clipboard wasn't here?”  I don't know why he sent me to that ally way, but it very well could have been to see if I was willing to follow the promptings of the Spirit. ..a sort of test, to see how responsive I would be. Right there I got another really strong prompting, to go check the corner of 15th Ave and Cedar. It was a street over which was really weird to me because we spent almost no time on 15th, but we decided to go. We got near that corner and I could hardly believe my eyes. The clipboard was sitting there upside down on the side of the road. It had obviously been run over a few times, but that was okay! I picked it up to check for the papers, but they weren't on the clipboard. My heart sank. I thought to myself,” I was praying for the wrong object. I should have been praying for the calendars!” But, again, maybe the clipboard was the first step to the papers. I looked up the road a ways and found a paper. I went and grabbed it. It was sopping wet since it had rained the night before, but when I un-crumpled it, I found that it was the calendar for members to come out with us! Elder Bakaitis walked about 20 feet further and picked up another piece of paper, it was a dripping wet dinner calendar for the month! Another crazy thing about it is the pen we used to make the calendars, the ink had faded completely with the rain. We couldn't read a thing we wrote on it. But, all of the names and numbers had been written with a different pen and they were there! It was one of the most faith building experiences of my life to have that happen. It wasn't anything enormous , but it was to me. I hadn't received revelation like that before. I knew that I felt the Spirit and could discern that it was from God, which almost never happens to me. Usually I just feel like it's my own thoughts, but this time there was no doubt. I know that the prayer of faith does not go unanswered. The prayer of the wicked does, however. I had the righteous desire, I had the belief, I acted on my promptings, and I received my blessing. The Lord doesn't always work in this way in such a direct path, but He does do what He sees to be best. Prayer is an amazing thing. I know that it works!

Another amazing thing that happened, is our investigator, Carol, entered the waters of baptism on Saturday! The service was very powerful and I was so happy to be able to teach her. She is the first person I have taught that made that decision, so it was really exciting for me. President and Sister Jenkins were in attendance, which was really cool. But what was even cooler was that our 14 year old investigator, Daymian, talked to President for about 10 minutes before the service started. We haven't really been making him much of a priority, because he hasn't really seemed all that interested.  After the baptism Daymian came to us and told us, "I have decided that I want to be baptized." It was awesome! We set a date for the 28th of this month! We are so excited to be able to teach him! We visited with him that night at his home and found out that he's read through the last part of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon and that he has prayed about it and knows the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the Church to be true! He is racing Elder Bakaitis and I to the end of the Book of Mormon and we have all set a goal to have it finished by Daymian's baptism! He's a really awesome kid! He's super excited about the gospel and about the young men’s program. He came to mutual last week and seemed to really enjoy it. He's made friends with a couple of the young men and has been hanging out with them quite a bit!

Anyway, that's my week! I hope you all have a great one full of miracles! We can make miracles happen, that's for sure! I love the work and I love my mission! I'm having the time of my life out here!

Love,

Elder Mullins