My Week

Dear family and friends,

This week was a pretty good one full of success! It wasn't quite as successful as last week, but it was still great! Tuesday night we got ANOTHER new investigator! It was awesome for that to happen! We have found 8 new investigators this month now! The girl we found was Monica, a 17-year-old who is dating a member getting ready to leave on his mission. He plans on leaving around January. When we got there she told us she wanted to be baptized, but that her parents were making her wait until her birthday in June.  Her dad is a member, but isn't interested at all. Her mom isn't a member, but she also isn't interested. We taught Monica the message of the Restoration. It went really well and she loved the message. We invited her to read from the Book of Mormon and then set a return appointment for the next Tuesday, so we will be teaching her tomorrow! We are excited for that!

This week we also made some pretty good progress at the halfway house in our area. There are three guys there that talk to us. John, Bradley, and Justin. Justin is an active member, he just doesn't have a temple recommend right now due to some word of wisdom issues he's dealing with right now. On Thursday evening we went by to talk to Bradley, but he wasn't home. We talked with John and Justin though!  Eventually it was brought up that I play the trumpet and John piped up that he had a trumpet. He asked if I would play it for him. I said “sure”, so he went and got it. I was quite surprised when he brought it to me and I saw that it didn't have a single dent, it was polished and shiny, it's slides all worked, and the valves were well oiled. It was still only a $300 trumpet, but it was nicer than any trumpet I've had the opportunity to play on my mission. I played a few things for them and then played a hymn. They loved it.

We had a great lesson on fear and love with them. We went intending to teach faith and repentance, but both Justin and John brought up fear. They talked about what they were afraid of and it was kind of interesting. They both have a sad story. Justin lived with his mom his entire life, but a year and a half ago she passed away.  Justin's probably about 40. He told us that he had never been on his own until now, and he's just trying to get on his feet. He told us he worries about being active in the church sometimes. He says he doesn't want to commit to it only to fall away a few years down the road. He knows that the sin of denying the Holy Ghost is the greatest sin you can commit, so rather than getting and staying active, he chooses to be partially active. He says he knows it's a silly thing, but it's what he is afraid of.

John on the other hand has pretty low self-esteem. He isn't the smartest person in the world and he often feels like people are bullying him. He overthinks things a lot, so when he's going down the aisle of the grocery store, as he passes people he thinks that they're saying or thinking bad things about him. He also is afraid of interviewing for a job because he knows if he gets rejected that it's going to lower his self-esteem further than it already is. I really feel bad for the guy. The lesson we had was exactly what both of them needed. By the time we were done they were both super pumped to come to church in the morning and to start looking for job opportunities! It was awesome! Justin totally came to church too! We'll see if John starts applying for jobs. Oh, by the way, John became a new investigator as well! BOOM! 9 new investigators!

Last night we had an absolutely hilarious experience.  At the end of the night we will go to the Cox's from time to time to get some water.  Their daughter and Elder Ojala kind of have a thing for each other and it's kind of funny. Don't worry, they keep it professional and nothing inappropriate happens... I make sure of that.  Anyway, we were over there and we were all sitting together.  All of a sudden, Elder Ojala's biggest fear came to be. He farted LOUD sitting right next to his crush! Hahahahaha! Oh man! We were all dying and Elder Ojala just walked away with his back turned to us all embarrassed. I was still dying ten minutes later when we were in the car heading back home. Oh man, it was the funniest thing I've ever seen! His reaction was priceless! He's still pretty embarrassed about it right now, so don't tell him I included this in my email. I just thought it was funny enough that it was worth sharing.

Those were probably the biggest highlights of the week. It's hard to believe that a week from now will be my last time emailing. I'm going to push through these next two weeks as hard as I can! I love the gospel and I love being a missionary. It's coming to an end, but just because my quantity of time is sparse, doesn't mean the quality of that time has to be low. I love you all and can't wait to see you all again!

Love,

Elder Mullins