Dear family and friends,
This week was seriously
amazing! I had a great time! We had a few miracles that were so incredible! The
wards that we are working in haven't had a lot of work going on for the past
several months. One of the wards hasn't
had a new investigator for over six months.
Last week and this week together we have found five! FIVE PEOPLE! That
is five people who will potentially accept the gospel, raise their families in
it, and have a multi-generational family in the church. That means future
missionaries, producing future converts, creating an endless cycle! Isn't that
exciting? I love how the Lord blesses us when we do what's right.
Over the past three months we
have been going with our ward mission leader, Brother Allen, to active member’s
homes. We share a video with them about missionary
work and then invite them to pray as a family every day for missionary
opportunities to have an increase in missionary work in the ward. As the
members have been doing this diligently and faithfully, we have been seeing
miracle after miracle. I think I've already told you about Chelcee and Patrick.
Chelcee is investigating and is super excited about getting baptized and
starting over again. She is SO prepared for the gospel! We taught her a lesson
that Elder Jencks had never taught before. It's a really good one. I call it
the C-C-C-C-COMBO lesson. It's basically half of the plan of salvation, mixed
in with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and several of the commandments. We read 1 Nephi 8, which is Lehi's dream
about the tree of life. We talk about the iron rod, the straight and narrow
path, eternal life being the end goal, and being with our families for
eternity. Then we take a whiteboard and we draw out Lehi's dream. We draw a
straight and narrow path, and an iron rod following along-side it. At the end there's a tree with delicious
fruit, etc.. Then after we go through all of that we add two steps to the
beginning of the path and then draw a gate at the beginning of the whole thing.
The first step is labeled 'faith' the second 'repentance' and then the gate is
the gate of baptism. This then teaches the investigator that baptism isn't the
end goal and that there is much more to it beyond that and the end goal is
eternal life with Heavenly Father. We talked about how the iron rod is the word
of God. Then we also drew a temple and talked a little bit about the temple and
the blessings of the temples. Anyway, long story short, it was an awesome
lesson! Oh, and guess what? Also, Chelcee's mom, Sally, used to be pretty
against us coming over and she told Chelcee and Patrick to set up lessons at
times she wasn't around. Well, we have been so good to them and helped them out
so much with so many things that her heart has been softened and she sat in on
the lesson with us! It was awesome! She said she's pretty committed to her
church that she goes to, but that she is open minded and willing to listen to
what we have to say. She totally digged the lesson too! It was sweet!
We also picked up another super
solid golden investigator. Back about
ten months ago a girl named Shakyra got baptized. Her older sister, Destiny, just moved in with
her and her dad and is interested in the church. She goes to mutual every week
and we finally got in contact with her. We had a lesson with her on Friday and
it went really well. We taught her about the Restoration and the importance of
priesthood authority. She really enjoyed the lesson. It’s really easy to make
those two girls laugh, so they thought we were absolutely hilarious. I'm not
that funny though, so it made me feel good! I'm usually not the one cracking
off super good jokes! Haha! We taught her and she really enjoyed it. We invited
her to read the Book of Mormon and watch General Conference. I don't know if
she did or not, but fingers crossed!
We got word that Patricia has
been approved to be baptized! Yay! It took like a month to finally get the
approval, but it came. It's amazing! We will be meeting with her tomorrow to
set up her baptismal service. Elder Jencks and I are really excited for that to
be happening. I have really loved being able to teach her. She's been one of
the most golden and solid investigators I've ever had on my mission. I have
been amazed to see the changes that she has made in her life and the sincerity
she has in following Jesus Christ. I can't wait to see her be baptized!
I'm trying to think of what
else happened that was pretty exciting this week. Oh! I almost forgot! (just
kidding) General Conference was this weekend! That was pretty good. I think my
favorite talks given were Elders Cook, Oaks, and Bednar's talks. I loved what
Elder Cook taught about self-control and how it's like a muscle. The more we
exercise it, the stronger it gets. I thought about it for a bit and really
pondered on what that meant. I came up with this. Let's say that I struggle
with over eating. I just don't seem to have control over it. Well, that means I
need more self-control. I might have other temptations that take self-control
such as checking my cell phone incessantly, checking social media at
inappropriate times, biting my fingernails, and constantly cracking my fingers. As I exercise my self-control and master
those smaller things and become better and better at having that control, my
over-eating habit is going to disappear right along with those other things
because I know how to control myself.
Elder Oaks talk was really,
really awesome. I've been studying his talk in depth. Even when I'm reading
things that aren't about it I still pick out little things from it and focus
primarily on that. The thing he spoke on was one of my favorite verses. Alma
7:11-12. "And he shall come forth suffering pains and afflictions and
temptations of every kind. And this that the word might be fulfilled which
saith, he shall take upon himself the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which
bind his people. And he will take upon him their infirmities that his bowels
may be filled with mercy according to the flesh and that he may know according
to the flesh how to succor his people, according to their infirmities." I
think those are the verses. I don't have a Book of Mormon or my iPad with me
right now, so I can't look it up, but I'm pretty sure that's it. Anyway, it was
all about the strengthening, enabling, and healing power of the Atonement. It
was really good and I got a ton of great insights from that talk.
Elder Bednar’s was just spot
on. I can't wait to read that one and study it in depth. I honestly don't
remember a lot of what was said, but I do remember how strongly I felt the
spirit throughout. It was an incredible talk that he gave about several of his
dear and close friends and fellow apostles that have passed away since his call
as an apostle. It was seriously incredible. I would encourage all of you to
watch general conference if you haven't and to study the talks out in depth
when the conference report comes out. Something I realized as I watched
conference was that a lot of times members use conference weekend as a week
off. There are a lot of justifications too. The best one is, "Why would I
watch it when I don't get all that much out of it. It's ten hours out of my
limited weekend. Besides, I get way more out of the conference talks when I
study them in depth a couple weeks later when they're published." Let's be honest. Are you actually going to
read every single talk? Maybe. You might even study them constantly. It might
be the greatest studies you have and you might get a lot out of it. But you
definitely aren't going to study all of them in two days. As I sat there
listening to every word spoken and writing down the precious things that I
learned, I was able to learn things in the first sessions. As a result, in the
later sessions, those things were fresh on my mind. As I learned more from the
later sessions, I was able to build on those things that I had just learned.
Had I not watched all of the live sessions of conference I wouldn't have had
all of those things fresh on my mind and I might not have learned all that I
needed to. I would encourage all of you to watch all of conference. You have
six months to repent. Make sure you do
it! It's such an incredible experience
to see the questions and concerns that you have answered in perfect ways for
you.
I had a pretty dang good week!
Definitely in my top 60 favorite weeks as a missionary! I love and miss all of
you. The work is going fantastically right now! There has not been this much
work in the Globe wards as there is now in a very, very long time according to
the members. It's been amazing to see the miracles day after day. Have a great
week everyone!
Love,
Elder Mullins
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