Hey everyone!
This week flew by! It's incredible how quickly the weeks go
by. I love it out here despite the
temperatures. It's not supposed to drop
below 85 degrees this week and the lowest high is going to be 110. It'll be...
Awesome? Haha… nah, I'll survive it!
Fortunately I'm not on a bike, otherwise I'd seriously die. This week was awesome!
On Monday evening, Elder Ulrich hung out with us because
we got caught in traffic and didn't get back into Apache Junction until about
6:20. His companion went with another
companionship and we formed a trio. That
evening Elder Sweeten went with Brother Hudson to teach Matt, and Elders Ulrich
went with me to the Springer’s. We hadn't been to the Springer’s in a long
time, so it was good to get over there. Jimmy is doing really well considering
all the things he's going through right now. He has been working like crazy. He
does concrete and masonry I think. I know he owns his own company. They're
doing well. They don't trust Thor anymore around us anymore, because last time
we were over he bit both Elder Sweeten and me, so they took him to the back room.
Thor is their German shepherd. We caught them in the middle of dinner, so Jimmy
served us plates of some DELICIOUS BBQ chicken. It was pretty much delicious.
Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Reekie. Elder Reekie is a pretty good guy. He's been my roommate for five or six months
now and he became the district leader a couple transfers ago. He is a super
nerd for sure! He loves video games and things like Dungeons and Dragons. He was way into Starcraft and Runescape before
his mission. He's super funny too just
because he nerds out super hard all the time! Haha! You should see him play D&D. He gets way
into it. We went out and visited a lot
of people. We went over to Daymian's to
check up on him and see how he was doing. He's been doing great! He's been
keeping himself out of trouble. He goes to his grandma’s every day until his
dad gets home from work. He does chores
for her around the house. I'm sure with as much time as he spends over there
her house sparkles! We asked what he does and he said he just cleans. He's
worried that with the frequency of her making him clean the toilet that he's
going to rub right through the porcelain.
Haha! That night we also went out with the ward
missionaries and found an inactive couple. Her active mom was there at the
time, so they couldn't really tell us to go away. It was a really good visit. Sister Merrell seemed more interested than her
husband, but she told us she’d think about coming to church. We told her that
if she didn't come in the next month or so that we'd come pound on her door
again. She didn't come this week, but
she's got three more weeks!
Wednesday I was back with Elder Sweeten and we destroyed!
Kinda... We went to the temple that morning and then had a visitor’s center
training. After the visitors center Elder Sweeten and I went to the foot doctor
because I had an ingrown toenail like you wouldn't believe! Even the doctor
whose been practicing since '79 was impressed by it! He numbed me up and I
watched him cut about a third of my nail off and pull it out at the roots. The
part that was growing into my nail was HUGE! I didn't know that it was even
possible for that to happen that badly. He shoved all the root endings back
into my toe and then cauterized it. It was pretty nasty. He told me to take it easy today and to only
go places where we had appointments, so we went to dinner and mutual. It didn't
hurt too bad that day.
Thursday morning I woke up in such intense pain I
couldn't believe it. It was pretty bad. I got up and hopped in the shower after
unwrapping my toe. Wow... That was painful to say the least. I could hardly
walk all day and I had to wear a flip flop because a shoe hurt too badly. We
went out and did work that day though. We had a lesson with Dan. Dan is a huge government
conspiracy theorist. In the past we've gone over and accomplished nothing
because he spent the whole time talking about shadow government, and J-Helm, UFO's,
and all sorts of just crazy things. This time though for some reason he was a
lot more interested in what we had to say. He asked tons of questions about the
Book of Mormon and the Restoration, so that's what we taught him. We taught the entire Restoration to him but
there was no particular order. He would ask a question and we would answer it.
Then another and we'd answer, again and again until we had covered the entire
Restoration and didn't even have to add any extra points in! I don't know how
close he is to baptism, but he's closer now than ever before!
Friday the pain was much, much less severe. Hallelujah! I
still had to wear that stupid sandal, but whatev's. I just wore a pocket square
that day on my suit to make me look classy again. We had a meeting with
President Jenkins that morning on keeping the Sabbath day holy. It was an AWESOME meeting. The Brethren had a meeting right before
General Conference about it and we got to see a lot of it. It was basically
awesome. I love when President teaches because my mind is blown probably about
four times a second when he opens his mouth. There was one thing he said that
was just like one of those, "Oh! I get it! Wait no I don't... Oh now that
explained that I really get it, okay... I didn't know anything until just now.
KABAM! …mind blown further. KAPLOOEY! Dang! This is intense!" Etc etc... It was just one point that I'd never even
thought about that just kept growing and growing and growing. I still don't
really fully understand it, but it's at least a seed planted in my head.
Saturday… Man, Saturday was just legit! We dominated our
area like it’s our job! Plus I was able to manage a shoe that day. No more
awkward, uneven walking because my legs are different lengths because my shoes
are different thicknesses. We went over to Alisha's and we finally caught her
home! We walked with her to the grocery store so she could grab a few things.
That day it was about 106 when we were walking, so that was pretty intense. It
was a mile and a half walk one way, but we were able to talk with her quite a
bit. She has been having a rough time, but her life is starting to look up!
She's almost got a job, her car was broken but she found someone who would fix
it for free. Her kids are in day care
and love it. Her mom isn't being a crazy
person nearly as much anymore. It just keeps
getting better and better! And she's lost 60 pounds in the past 5 months. She's
working like nobody’s business to drop weight and learn he gospel. She says
that she prays and reads every day, so it's great! We also went over to
Daymian's. He started the Book of Mormon over again. We assigned him a few chapters
to read too, so he was excited to read those. He's been doing pretty well. Jasmine, his dad's girlfriend, was super sick
when we were over there. I felt bad for her. Elder Sweeten suggested that
Daymian could read her to sleep with the Book of Mormon. She kind of stared at
him like, "No..." Haha! It was funny!
She just kind of hates the world at the moment. Dayvid,
his dad, really likes us now. He invited us to come over for dinner sometime,
so we're pumped about that! His dad even asked Daymian if he was going to
church the next day. Daymian jumped right on that and said ‘heck yah’! When we
left, Daymian came outside with us. The second we closed the door he was
smiling from ear to ear and in total awe at what just happened. He told us that
his dad hadn’t let him go to church for the longest time, but for some reason
he was in a good mood! It was pretty
funny to see how happy he was!
Sunday was awesome!!! Matt, Daymian, Carl and his family,
and Randy all came to church! It always is fun to see who will show up to
church. I gave Daymian a tie to wear. I
tied it for him. He really likes it! Sacrament meeting was super good too. The speakers spoke on Sabbath day observance.
Brother Shope spoke, which was good, because we had dinner with the Shope's a
couple nights before and were able to tell them all about the meeting we had
about the Sabbath. The talk was pretty
good because he was able to include a lot of the things we learned. I enjoyed
it quite a bit. The rest of Sunday was great! Brother Lorenz got called as the
new ward mission leader. We went to his house in the evening and were able to
talk with him a little bit about that. He's ready to go full steam ahead, so
that's going to be great! This area is about to have like twelve thousand
baptisms! That was my week! I hope
everyone had a great one too. Again, I
love my mission! It's been the greatest thing ever! The amount I've grown in
the past 9 months is unreal. It's also
crazy that it's already been 9 months. It certainly doesn't feel like it… that's for
sure! Talk to you guys later!
Love
Elder Mullins
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| The Hodges-Jimmy has investigated the church for 17 years. He attended general conference in Salt Lake in April. He knew he wanted to be baptized when he heard Elder Perry speak about our church being the only one to teach about eternal families. |
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| I taught Daisy one lesson. She just got baptized |
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| My ingrown toenail after surgery |
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