I Got a New Companion!

Dear family and friends!!!

This week was amazing! We got our transfer news on Monday and, shockingly, Elder Bakaitis was transferred. I think I mentioned last time that I was getting Elder Sweeten. He is awesome! He's from Rexburg, Idaho. He is super positive all the time and loves to have fun. We have been having a party here!

Monday and Tuesday all we did was say ‘bye’ to people. Tuesday we had a pretty neat experience with Jim who we met last week on Saturday. Elder Bakaitis told him that he was getting transferred and Jim was pretty bummed out about that. Jim told Elder Bakaitis that he could come back when he got baptized. We hadn't even talked about baptism at that point, but Jim looks at him and says, "Well, I guess I'll be seeing you in 3 or 4 weeks," It was awesome! We had him pray to set a baptismal date and we determined that he would be ready by March 21, my mom’s birthday! He is seriously the greatest guy ever! He has 4-6 months to live with his liver failure, unfortunately, but he is doing so well with the gospel. He used to avoid the church at all costs because he wasn't really interested, but on Saturday night the Spirit was super strong and he loved the feeling he got when he talked to us. He is on fire! He missed church yesterday because of a few extenuating circumstances, but that's okay. He's still set for the 21^st. He has a little grandson named Dominic.  He is seriously one of the cutest and most loving individuals I have ever met! He actually only has 4 fingers on one of his hands, so I'll have to send you a picture of me with him so you can see. It looks like you just can’t see one of his fingers, but trust me, it’s gone!  It's pretty intense! He's super into soccer and baseball, so we go over every other day and have a lesson with Jim and we play soccer with Dominic. He's really a cool kid!

Wednesday I got my new companion, Elder Sweeten. Our area is HUGE compared to the areas in Mesa. In Mesa my area was a sixth of a square mile. In AJ our area is about 20 miles up and down and a mile across.  Elder Sweeten had me get certified to drive because of the immensity of our area, and because I know where things are... sorta... It's kind of weird to be driving after 6 months without driving, but that's okay. It's fun! We had a party all day long. We shopped and unpacked, and did all sorts of different things. We went out into the area that day and said hi to Jim. He likes Elder Sweeten quite a bit I think, he just is bitter about Elder Bakaitis leaving... Haha! Jim gets along well with him, he just throws a few different comments in there against Elder Sweeten. It's kind of funny! Not much else happened that day.

 Thursday we went out and explored the north part of our area for a while since I don't know it very well. We taught 6 or 7 lessons that day to a whole bunch of people. It's kind of funny because sometimes we have so many lessons that I don't even really talk about them because, there's too many, so I don't really know who all we taught that day... We did go talk to Daymian, though, who is getting baptized on Saturday, so that's awesome! He's a super solid kid!

Friday we weekly planned like all day long because Elder Sweeten doesn't know the area very well yet. We have an enormous teaching pool full of investigators and inactive members. We seriously went through probably 30 or 40 people and talked about them. I was kind of shocked at how many people in our area book that we are working with. It's no wonder I'm having such high stress levels! Haha! I have to lesson plan and study for that many people. That means we are having at least 5 lessons a day, usually 7 of them though! This area has NO down time and if it does that means we are being lazy. That night was awesome. We had dinner at the Shope’s that night. We were talking about what we were going to do after our missions, and I told them about my plan to study music. They asked what I played and Brother Shope goes, "Oh! I have a trumpet! Do you want to play it?" Of course I said yes! Haha! We finished up dinner and then we played for a bit. I was kind of shocked at how much I still can do with it. My range is still exactly where it was 6 months ago.  My tone is kind of awful, but it's still good-ish.  My endurance is still there, my tongue is still working.  It was a ton of fun!  Then after the Shope’s we went over to the Ayala’s. They're a semi active family. We were talking to Sister Ayala and her daughters who play the violin and cello. Elder Sweeten plays the cello, so we both got to play our instruments the same night! It was a lot of fun to do that.  I forgot how much I missed the trumpet!

Saturday was full of appointments. We did service in the morning and taped up windows at the Green’s so that Brandon could texture the walls and ceilings. After that we had a lesson with Jim, which went really well.  After Jim’s I don't really remember what we did. I just remember we had enchiladas for dinner and the lady that made them is from Puerto Rico, so those were pretty good!

Sunday was an awesome day! Daymian even stood up in sacrament meeting and bore his testimony! It was the most amazing thing ever! It was super powerful, so that was awesome! We actually did a lot of things at church that were just super awesome. In young men’s quorum we played a game that the young men’s president designed called LDS catch phrase.  It pops up with a word like temples and you have to describe that word until your team guesses the word. It was pretty fun! After church we ate with all of the Canadian winter visitors in the ward, which we do every Sunday. Then we went to Jim’s again and played some soccer with Dominic while we talked for a bit.

 I love all of you and can't wait to hear from all of you! I enjoy emails and I respond to all of them, so send them if you want!

Love,

Elder Mullins

Elder Mullins and Dominic

Elder Sweeten and Dominic

Elder Mullins and Elder Sweeten