I'm With Welchy Boy!

Dear family and friends,

Sorry I didn't write an email last week. I wrote one, but I guess I never sent it! Oops... Anyway, I'm pretty excited about my new companion. His name is Elder Welch. You'll never believe where he's from. He's from Farmington, Utah. Not only that, but he's right on the Kaysville/Farmington border. Our houses are just over a mile apart. Isn't that pretty crazy? Unfortunately, he went to Viewmont because he had a variance, but whatev's. I've forgiven him for that.  He's a pretty cool guy. Oh, by the way Ben, he's Stockton's cousin.  Pretty sweet huh? I'm still up in Globe. I had forgotten how confusing the streets are. Seeing Elder Welch drive around here is hilarious. He can't figure out which way is up or down half of the time. I was the same way four months ago though. He'll get it figured out. I like to say it seems like they stuck a cow in front of a bull dozer, and wherever the cow walked, that's where they put the roads. It's like mini Virginia or something. The roads are everywhere here! But at the same time it's pretty sweet because you can get anywhere about five or six different ways because of all of it. Anyway...

This week was pretty good. I dropped Elder Jencks off at the mission office on Monday. When a missionary goes home, we say they die. So their last companion 'kills' them. Elder Jencks killed my trainer.  Trainers in the mission are called dads. So, Elder Jencks killed my dad and I killed Elder Jencks. My final words were, "My name is Elder Mullins. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" It was so perfect!

Haha! President Jenkins overheard and thought it was pretty hysterical.

I spent the remainder of Monday, all of Tuesday, and the morning of Wednesday with the San Carlos Elders; Elders Myers and Svedberg. That companionship was the greatest trio this mission has ever seen, and as a result we got a companionship tie. I'll send a picture of the three of us. We went and said bye to a lot of people since Elder Svedberg was getting transferred. One of their recent converts was making a parade float, so we helped them out with that. Wanna know what we spent an hour doing? Unfolding napkins and visiting with them and their friends. It was pretty awesome...

Our entire companionship we practiced lip syncing a song together and on Elder Svedberg’s final descent from the mountains of Globe on Wednesday we took a video of it. I had to cut it a little bit short since it wouldn't quite fit, so I cut out the first couple of minutes.  You get to see the best part of it though! I hope you enjoy it! I'll send it in a separate email. Feel free to do whatever with that video.

Post it on social media, make it go viral, make us three famous, whatever... Haha! But seriously, I feel like it's a pretty good video!

Wednesday I was feeling kind of sick, but I just pushed through it. I woke up with all sorts of problems, but I had to go down to the valley to grab my companion. By the time transfer meeting was over I was much more sick. I was about ready to throw up, the room sat at an angle.  I was light headed and super dizzy.  The room felt like it was spinning.  I mean, I was sick! Fortunately our roommates drove, so I just sat in the back trying not to throw up. I succeeded!  Unfortunately we spent the rest of the day inside and I slept while Elder Welch did who knows what. I woke up and the apartment was super clean though!

Thursday went a lot better. We went and helped someone in Miami move in the morning. That went by fairly quickly. Then we came home, did studies, ate lunch, and then went to the church building to set goals and make plans for our area, companionship, and individually for this transfer.   We sat down, pulled up a blank document, and then we got a text. "Elders, you haven't turned in your gas receipts and I need them by 5 o'clock today." Oh no... I forgot... I didn't take them down with me on Wednesday... Shoot! So, we drove all the way to Mesa!

Yay! An hour and a half down, signed a paper, then drove an hour and a half back. Then you know what happened? Elder Welch got sick... So then I sat in the apartment the rest of the day. Fortunately it was just in the evening for a few hours, so that was good.

We met with Patrick and Chelcee to introduce the new Elder to them.  They like Elder Welch pretty well. We talked about how they've been doing with the stop smoking program and they said not well. They told us they would sit down together as a family and pick a quit date together. Then on that date we would go over to their home, teach the stop smoking program to them, and then they would quit. We are so excited to see them progress and start living the Word of Wisdom!  It'll be incredible to see it happen!

Saturday morning we went on the most brutal run of my life. I've only done it one other time and I couldn't even finish it. Elder Welch couldn't finish it, but I made it! It's a two mile run, that's it. But here's the kicker. It's one mile down a fairly steep hill. Then at the bottom of the hill you have to turn around and run another mile up the hill. It's pretty intense. I'm still sore today! It's pretty bad.

Saturday was a great day! In the morning we had a baptism! Destiny got baptized!! Woo! I'll have to see if I can get a hold of the picture.  It was a great service! The talks were on point, the music was great, and the most important part, the baptism went perfectly! She only had to be immersed once! Destiny is 15 and has been looking forward to her baptism for a while now. It was fun to see how happy she was. Her dad even came! He's a non-member, but he seemed to enjoy the baptism. We played a ton of Mormon messages before the baptism because there was no one to play some prelude music or anything. He sat and watched those. I think he felt the spirit during the entire time he was in the building. It was a great place for him to be and an awesome experience for him. Maybe one day his heart will be softened and he will become interested in the gospel. Right now he's just too involved with the things of the world to see the necessity of religion. Oh well!

Sunday was awesome. We had stake conference and it was a broadcast to the entire Southwest area. It was really, really good. Elders Lynn G. Robbins and Dallin H. Oaks gave some really good talks. Elder Oaks talked about how the world hates the things of God. The world is going to hate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from time to time. You can pretty much count on it. Elder Robbins talked about simplifying. Simplify life by removing useless apps from your phone that don't have much of a purpose, give up that tv show you're addicted to, get rid of that video game that really doesn't accomplish much of a purpose. He talked about how our lives are so full of things that in the end don't really matter, that we feel like we are way busier than we really are. It was a really good talk. If anyone knows where I could get copies of talks given at stake conferences, let me know. Those two were absolutely incredible!

I had a fabulous week this week. Elder Welch and I are getting along well. It's going to be a fun transfer. Hopefully we can stay together for two transfers and celebrate Christmas together. That would be nice. But we'll see what happens. Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Mullins

Elders Svedberg, Mullins, and Myers

Elder Welch and Elder Mullins

Elders Welch and Mullins