Easter Pageant and Fun!

Dear family and friends,

This week just seemed to fly by. The past several have gone by so quickly I can hardly believe it. We had a pretty good time. This week was the Mesa Easter Pageant, so that was pretty good! We went to it several times with investigators, less actives, and recent converts. The Easter pageant is seriously so much fun! There are so many missionaries there.  It's a good chance to get to know the new missionaries in the mission and talk with friends you haven't seen in a while. The pageant itself is really good too. It's the world’s largest Easter pageant. On Friday they estimated 15-16,000 people were there. There are only 12,000 seats, but tons of people use the grass and just lay out a blanket to sit on to watch it. It's incredible how many people were there.

Elder Edwards and I were driving around in our area and we found a place we had never been to. Driving through it reminded me of what I imagine Mexico looks like.  It was pretty run down and trashy looking.  Lots of people were out and about, so we decided to park our car and walk up and down the streets to talk to everyone we came across.  It was really good!  We got a lot of rejection, but for the most part the people were nice.  We came across a lady named Lisa as she was getting her daughter out of the car. We said hi and she was very friendly. She had her daughter tell us her name and was super friendly.  At first I thought she was LDS because of the way she dressed and acted.  I actually had to ask her if she was.  She told she knew lots of Mormons but wasn't one herself.  We asked if we could come by and share some about what we believe with her.  She said yes and that we could come by on Wednesday afternoon, so that was pretty cool!  She seems solid!  We are super pumped to be able to teach her!

On Wednesday we had dinner with the Arcos family. They all are recent converts. Andrea was baptized in May, Jesus was in July, and Sister Arcos was baptized just about a month ago. It was super fun to have dinner with them! Jesus and Andrea love it when we come over. They're ages 17 and 16. At the end of dinner we almost always share a message.  I usually share a scripture, but for some reason I decided to share a video with them. After I showed it Andrea was almost crying and said that it was exactly what she needed. I love when the Spirit prompts me to do things! It's great! She's a flute player and she really wanted to be in the All-State band. She practiced like crazy and she's one of the best flute players in her school. Her band director expected her to make it with the audition she had. She said she did really well and practiced like crazy, but she didn't quite make the audition. This is her senior year, so it was her last chance.  She was pretty upset, but after seeing the video it brought a lot of comfort to her.  It was a powerful testimony to me that the Spirit is real and that when we follow its promptings we can change people lives!

We also taught a guy named Brother Needham. We went by a couple of weeks before and invited him to church and he accepted to come. We came again and followed up with him. We hadn't seen him at sacrament meeting, so we assumed he wasn't there, but I guess he did show up. He was listening to one of the talks that he said seemed like it was written just for him.  He told us that it had changed his entire life and way of thinking . Every time he was feeling a little down he would think about that talk and it would make him feel better. It was awesome to see him from not coming to church for years, come that one time, and have it be so perfect for him. He came to church again this Sunday, so that's super exciting!

Stan, who I met in Apache Junction, moved into the ward I'm currently in and we work with him from time to time.  Last week we got a call from a brother in the ward and he asked us to go over to Stan's and offer a blessing for him. We went by and he said he'd love a blessing. When we walked into his house he was not looking good at all. He usually looks a little sick, but he looked particularly bad.

He had just gotten back from the hospital and found out he had several ulcers and a tumor in his stomach. He couldn't keep anything down. I honestly thought he might die he was so sick looking. We gave him the blessing and left. He said that we could stop by occasionally over the week to make sure he's still kicking and hasn't fallen or anything like that. We did and he was looking really terrible, but he kept vertical! We went about two weeks without going by because he lives quite far away, but on Sunday he came to church. I couldn't believe my eyes. I've known him for almost a year now and I've never seen him looking so healthy. He got surgery to remove the tumor, took some medication for the ulcers and he's completely better now. He says he hasn't felt as good as he does in a long time.  It was crazy!  The power of the priesthood is real!  Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Mullins