Dear
Friends and Family!!
Monday
evening, I think,
was the strangest night of my entire mission. We went to meet with Anthony at
about 7:00 with Brother Lorenz. He was drunk out of his mind. He’d had three 40 oz. and a 24 oz beer in the
past four hours; that's like a gallon and a half. He was pretty wild when we first got there
but we got him fairly calmed down. At first he was crying and telling us the
same twelve-second story over, and over, and over without a break in between; then
he would ask us to help him. We told him
to go to CBI, which is a place that helps people who struggle with alcoholism.
Then he'd ask us to help again. He just sat there saying, "help me, help
me, help me, help me. Please, please, help me, please help me." So, we
told him again to go to CBI. We got a hold of Brother Lorenz's son-in-law, Sam,
who used to have a pretty insanely rough life and now he's a rehab councilor.
He tried helping. We finally called the police and told them we needed someone
to come check Anthony out to see what needed to happen. About forty minutes
went by and no one answered, so we called Mercy Maricopa which is a place that
will send someone out to assess an individual, and see if they need to take
them to CBI. About twenty minutes after that a random car pulled up and parked
right in front of us. All the sudden this super drunk guy got out of the car
and from the trunk jumped the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It
was called an Akita. It's basically a wolf husky mix. This drunk guy walked around for about five
minutes, and the dog ran around peeing everywhere in the parking lot. The drunk
guy was yelling random things but then got back into his car and they drove
off. Don't worry, he wasn't the driver... There were two other guys in the car.
Finally a cop showed up two hours after our phone call. It was 9:30, which is when we are supposed to be home, but since
we're the ones that called the cops and Mercy Maricopa we had to wait. The cop
talked to him for a while and we kind of relaxed a little bit. Finally at about
10:00 the psych
people from Mercy Maricopa showed up. They assessed Anthony and determined that
he needed to go into a detox/rehab center. They offered him a ride and he got
all mad because he didn't want to go to one of those places. He kept insisting
that Elder Sweeten and I would be the ones that got him through this. We kept telling him we couldn't help him the
way he needed us to. He finally stormed off and we got ready to leave. All the sudden Anthony
turned around and shouted, "Can I ask a question?" from the other
side of the parking lot. He got closer and he looked at all 7 of us who he'd
gathered to help him and asked us, "What can you all do for me? Right.
Now. This. Instant?" They told him again that they could give him a ride
to CBI. He finally accepted it and went with them to CBI. So yah.... That was
the most random, strangest, and most stressful night of my whole mission! Haha!
It was pretty awesome... And that Akita just tied it all together! Haha! It was
nuts...
Tuesday was a lot better. Anthony
called us at 2:30 am, 3:30, 4:00, 5:00, 5:30, 6:15, 6:30, and then finally
got a hold of us at 7:15. He let us know that he was at CBI and that he wasn't
quite sure how he got there. We told him he promised that he would stay there
if we got him there last night. He told us that he needed to get a few things
out of his storage unit and we said we could get him a ride around 4:00 or so.
He called again at 2:00 asking if we could get him a ride by 2:30. We
told him that we could do it at 4:00 because everyone we know with a pick-up
truck works, so 4:00 would be the earliest. He called again at
3:00 to let us know that he needed $20 to cut the lock on his unit. We
told him we had no money and that we didn't know anyone with money, so he just
stopped calling us after that. It was kind of nice. We were told by Brother Lorenz's
son-in-law that we need to cut contact with him. We've given him everything we know how to and
now he's just trying to use us and take advantage. Hopefully he's done calling. The rest of the
day was pretty smooth though. We went over to the Bybee's place to see how they
were doing. Brother Bybee isn't doing so well, but his wife who isn't a member is
doing great. She just needs a friend. We've never really been able to get in the
door to teach them, but she offered to teach us how to cook! (We kind of know
how already, but when you pretend you don't know the difference between flour
and baking soda she REALLY likes you.) Sister Bybee loves to cook and loves
teaching people how, so that's kind of how we plan on getting her baptized!
haha! We also went out on visits with the ward mission. It was really cool!
Brother Pearson, a returning member, came with Elder Sweeten and me to go teach
Carl! We had a super good lesson on the commandments and repentance. Brother
Pearson has a super strong testimony of repentance, so it was great to have him
with us!
Wednesday was a pretty good day too. Elder Sweeten and I went to a lady named
Jenny's house to do some yard work for her with her missionaries, Elders Earl
and Johnson. We pulled a lot of weeds. It was crazy, we got there at 7:15 in
the morning and it was already 90 degrees. It was absolutely ridiculous. I
almost died, I swear! After that we went to Sonic to get some drinks and then
came back home to shower and do a little bit of studying. From there we went to
a couple of doctor appointments for check-ups on my toe and on his gums. We
were in Mesa for quite a while because his appointment was at 11 and mine was
at 2. Those appointments went well. We both are recovering nicely and should be
totally better eventually! My foot should be good to go in about a week, so
that's good. I'm starting to run out of band-aids to put over it. We had dinner
with the Springers that night! They're awesome! Jimmy isn't a member, but he loves
meeting with the missionaries. He said he might come to church next Sunday.
He told Elder Sweeten and me that we are by far the best missionaries they've
had yet, so that's pretty great! Transfers happen on July 1, so that's
sad, but I'm hoping that Elder Sweeten and I can convince President
Jenkins to keep us together just one more transfer. We've been companions for
three transfers which translates into about four and a half months. It'll be rather impressive if we do end up
staying another transfer together. I would LOVE to spend a quarter of my
mission with Elder Sweeten. He's my favorite companion by far! We both are
crossing our fingers that we'll be able to stay another transfer, so wish us
luck! If we did stay together I'd have only had three companions in the first
year of my mission. Also, the Springer's dog, Mickey, is insane! They have a
bike tire hanging from a tree that she plays with. She'll jump way up, latch onto it and won't
let go. She hangs two or three feet off of the ground for about two minutes at
a time. It was kind of funny. His son
sat right underneath her while she attacked that thing. It was pretty sweet!
I'll send a picture! Oh yah! We also had an awesome lesson with the Riffels!
Colten is investigating the church and he just got married a member. They are
awesome! They live in a fifth wheel for now. He says it's just until they get
on their feet. We asked how much it cost them to live in it. He said with an extremely high power bill,
it's $300 a month. My jaw about hit the floor. That is SOO cheap! The fifth
wheel is his parents, so he doesn't have to pay anything for that. It's just
the lot and power, and the lot cost includes things like water, trash, sewage.
We got to know them pretty well, but we've never sat down and had a lesson with
them. We're stoked about it though! Colten is 100% golden! There are a lot of
investigators I've taught that seem golden at first, but then it turns out that
they aren't. Colten is so perfectly
golden it's unreal. No Word of Wisdom problems, no law of Chastity problems, no
disbelief in the Church, no problem with church attendance, literally nothing!
The only thing we have to do is teach him all the lessons to make sure he knows
them all. He met with missionaries for a bit in Queen Creek, so we have to
reteach everything since we don't have a teaching record.
Thursday was awesome! We met with
a couple of people that were kind of interesting. Daymian was living with his
grandma this week, so we went over there to meet with him. We ended up mostly
talking to his grandma though. She's a huge government conspiracy theorist. I
learned all sorts of things that day! Did you know that by September the US is
going to be switching over to the Euro? Yep, I guess that's happening... And
also, the US government is going to start instituting WWII style concentration
camps and put all of the illegals in there. Apparently they're already training
for pick-ups and drop offs. Haha! It was a pretty interesting conversation for
sure! The things that we run into out here in Apache Junction are pretty
interesting most of the time. We also met with Dan, one of our investigators.
He also is a government conspiracy theorist. Those two would get along great! I
also learned from Dan that Obama is actually Osama Bin Laden, just clean
shaven. And also, did you know that by the end of August we will be in a civil
war, people against government. I guess the US military is going to storm the
nation and people will go against them with their own guns. So people, prepare
yourselves. We'll be in civil war in a couple of months. Oh man, what a great
day that was!
Friday. Oh Friday. Those are the
greatest days because you get there and you're just like, "Wow.... It's
already Friday. That was quick." That night Elder Sweeten went to the
temple with a recent convert for their first time and I stayed behind in the
area to go on a split with a priest in the ward named Joshua. I wasn't feeling
very good and didn't want to get up in the middle of the session and have to go
to the bathroom, so that's why I didn't go.
Joshua was with me for about four hours. It was sweet! He really enjoyed
it and I had a good time as well. We taught Matt. Matt had a pretty interesting
life before he started meeting with us. He and Joshua clicked PERFECTLY! It was
so awesome to see! I just sat there and let Joshua talk to him. They've had so
many similar struggles in their lives. The only thing I really did was share
scriptures that back what he was teaching. Matt’s well versed in the bible, so
if it's in the scriptures he believes it.
I enjoy being able to find scriptures about what we're talking about.
Joshua works at Subway, so at the end of the night we went to Subway and he
paid! He gets a huge discount, so it was good to go with him. Oh, something
really cool about Joshua and Matt being there-- At the end of the lesson Matt
asked Joshua for his number so he could call him sometime. They got each others numbers. It was really
cool to see how perfectly Joshua was to take over there. We talked a lot about a ton of things. Joshua
is preparing to serve a mission and is hoping to put his papers in in the next
couple of months. He's a pretty cool kid. He actually is older than me which
was super weird to him. He kept kind of tripping out over it. It was kind of
funny actually!
Saturday was awesome again! This
whole week was just great. I loved every second of it! In the morning we went
over to Alisha's. We met her mom too. You would never guess she was her biological
mother because she's white, 5 foot 3, and Alisha is black and probably
5'10". Her mom is wild! She's so loud, it's crazy! She was yelling the
whole entire time. It was super funny. She told us stories about Alisha when
she was little and a super awkward story about when she gave birth to Alisha. Her mom used to be totally against the Church
until Alisha started investigating and she realized that we aren't a bunch of
weirdos that drink battery acid and worship Satan. Later in the afternoon we
went to the Bybee's to help with a little bit of yard work. If you've never
pulled weeds in the sun when it is 115 degrees, I highly recommend it. It's
really good for cleansing your skin. I guarantee you won't get a single zit the
rest of your life if you do that an hour a day three days a week! Let’s just
say that I looked like I had poured a five gallon bucket over my head by the
time we were done. I probably drank close to a gallon of water during that hour
too. It was pretty bad. That night we had dinner with the Higley's. It was
super fun! They have five or six kids and another one on the way. It's nuts!
They live in the middle of nowhere. I'll have to send you a picture. Dinner was
really good, but after dinner Brother Higley asked if we had anywhere to be. We
told them not until 8:00, so he had his son pull out his trumpet and have me
play it. It had never come up that I play the trumpet, so they wanted to hear
me play! I haven't sat down and practiced in ten months, so I wasn't very good.
It's alright though, they were really impressed. Teancum, their son, has only
been playing for about a week, so they really thought I was good! Haha!
Sunday was good. Happy Father’s
Day by the way! It was kind of disappointing when we got to church. Nobody that
we're working with was there... It was pretty lame... That's okay though. There's
always next week! We'll have plenty there next week for sure! We had dinner
with the Latuselu's that night. They're a Polynesian family and there was only
the mom and her youngest son Peni that was there. Peni is 16. The amount of
food they made was literally intimidating. I couldn't believe how much food she
made for the four of us. We ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. It was just like a
second Thanksgiving with how full I was by the end of it. We ate until it was
all gone. I seriously almost popped right open. We talked with Peni for quite a
while about the gospel and about serving missions and how great it is. He has 9
brothers and 4 sisters and none of them have served missions. He's the last
one. He's going to be serving a mission for sure! No doubt in my mind! It'll be
so sweet to see him become a missionary. He's got about two years left. He's
going to be putting his papers in in about two years from now, so that'll be
exciting for him. I've only known him for about 6 months, but to see his
progress and his excitement of the gospel has been awesome!
Next week I'll have my transfer
news. Elder Sweeten and I have been together for three transfers now, so that
means most likely I'll be transferred out, but we'll see what happens! We're
hoping for another transfer together, but I don't know that that'll happen.
Fingers crossed though! I had a fantastic week this week. I love being a missionary more and more each
day! It is so awesome to be able to do the things we do! I hope you all have a
great week!
Love,
Elder Mullins
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| The Springer's baby boy underneath Mickey destroying a tire |
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| Yah...it was kind of hot this week |
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| Me with a trumpet! |
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| Across the street from Higley's |
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