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

What a Week!

Dear family and friends!

This week was the best week I've had in a loooooooong time. Like, since I was in Apache Junction with Elder Sweeten well over a year ago. This was an amazing week! So, it all started on Tuesday when we were invited over to the Buchanan's to teach them. The dad is a member, but the mom and three boys aren't. We're primarily focused in their son Zach right now, but I'm sure with time the younger two boys and mom will be baptized. Zach is 13 and told our stake president and young men's president that he wanted to be baptized. We talked to his parents about it and they said they would be willing to support him in that. It was pretty awesome! This upcoming week we will put him on date to be baptized. So, basically in a single lesson we picked up four new investigators! The rest of the week was good. We taught a few lessons here and there and had a few angry people told us not to come by anymore, but that's fine.

On Thursday we went and taught this really old guy named Ike. I mean, really old. He's got to be in his late 80's or early 90's. His youngest son retired about five years ago.  Ike really likes working on cars. Whenever we go over there he shows us the progress he's making. I feel bad for him because his wife passed away a few years back and so now he's super lonely. He loves that we come by and visit with him. He talked our ears off for an hour, we told him we had to go, and about 45 minutes later we got out of there. Haha!  Hopefully we can get him to progress in the gospel and start attending church.

Sunday was what really made the week amazing. Since it was fast Sunday I fasted for a couple of purposes. The first was for Connor, our neighbor who left on his mission only to return home three days later because a biopsy came back with a positive result for cancer. The second one was that the work in our area would pick up and we would have people to teach for my last three weeks as a missionary. Well, guess what happened? We contacted a lady named Adriana. We were told she was a potential investigator, but it turns out she was an inactive member. However, she has a daughter who is of baptismal age and a fiancé that is a non-member as well! We haven't met the fiancé yet, so we don't know if he's really interested or not, but the daughter totally is! She goes to church with her aunt and uncle from time to time and absolutely loves it. We talked about the importance of the Sabbath day observance and Adriana told us she really wanted to go to church and meet some people so she could have more friends. We invited her to come and we set a return appointment for Wednesday!

Boom! Another new investigator!

Later Sunday night we got a text from our Ward Mission Leader telling us he had a referral for us to go by. Her name was Nakea. She's a mother of three and super nice. We went by and found out that she has been reading from the Book of Mormon and been talking to one of her coworkers about the church. She's been to church a few times with her and said that in a couple of weeks she'll be coming to our ward. She's going to Maine for a while, so that's too bad, but when she gets back we can teach her! We got a return appointment set for my last full day of proselyting. August 28th! She seems very promising.

This week we got 6 new investigators. Our previous record for investigators in an entire month was 2. We tripled that in a week! The Lord is blessing us. We've been working so hard to find people and it seems that finally, at long last, the flood gates are beginning to open. The drought is ending. Hopefully this next week goes just as well as this one did. Six new investigators in a week is fairly impressive for any area, but for this area it's almost unheard of. To make this miracle even more miraculous, five of those six were found in the Red Mountain Ward. That ward has almost nothing going on in it. It's seems as though it's nearly impossible to find in that ward. I know that the Lord blesses those who are obedient to His commandments. There's no way this could have happened if we weren't being obedient. Have a wonderful week everyone! I'm excited to see you all, but I'm still loving life as a missionary. I have very mixed emotions for sure.

Love,

Elder Mullins

A Baptisimal Date! At Last!

Dear family and friends,

I don't have a ton of time to write, so I'll write fast. This week went pretty well. We're starting to see some progress in the area. I don't know if I told you last week or not, but one of our investigators finally is back in town. Matthew is 10 and had been in the great state of Texas visiting his dad for the last six weeks. We went and taught him last Sunday which went well and then we taught him this Sunday which went even better! He's on date to be baptized on August 27th! My two year mark! It's also my last full day of proselyting. That's pretty exciting. Hopefully it actually happens because he's had a couple of dates before. We're very excited for that though!

This upcoming week we will be getting some new investigators! They're potentials right now, but we have a return appointment to teach them.  It's a part member family that we'll be teaching and the one that's is most interested is their son Zach. He's 13.  He told our stake president and former bishop that he wanted to be baptized. So, we decided that we'd make the sacrifice and go teach him. Life's hard when someone is begging to be baptized you know. (Intense amounts of sarcasm behind that comment.)  I'm excited to report on how that lesson goes. He can be baptized any time he wants because he comes to church almost every Sunday.

Yesterday we got a text from one of our investigators, Tim, telling us that his wife had made us some blueberry sweet bread. We went by to pick it up and he answered the door naked. Haha! And then he invited us in! Oh man, what an experience.  Fortunately, he had a blanket around his middle, but it was a pretty small blanket. Haha! Oh man, it was definitely very funny. I guess it's good that he's that comfortable around us. I think?

Brother Jones gave one of the best lessons I've ever been to yesterday. He's one of the best seminary teachers in the state and everyone in the seminary world knows him. He gave a lesson on the Final Judgement. Usually when it starts getting to those topics in the gospel principles book I just skip back to the front. It's a class designed for investigators and when you get into these doctrines it kind of gets a little bit deep. However, the way he taught it I felt totally comfortable having investigators in the room. I learned so much. I'm excited to keep studying this week on the things he taught us there. It was incredible how in depth he went while keeping it simple. Man, my mind was blown over and over and over again as he taught that class. It was crazy. He talked about how there are different laws that people abide by. We read D&C 88:36-38; 88:21-24 There are celestial laws, terrestrial laws, and telestial laws, as well as even lower laws, that's where things like outer darkness come in. When we talk about people being disobedient in the church we're usually talking about disobedience to celestial law, or the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we are judged we will look at which law we obeyed and lived up to. Then he wrote out a list of about five scriptures that talked about the things we are judged by. Words, thoughts, deeds, desires of our hearts, and the things written upon the books in heaven, or the book of life and other records. I could go way more into it, but it was a super good lesson. There was a lot in there.

Well, I had a wonderful week with some success! It was great! It feels like we finally are gaining some traction. The past three months we just have kind of been spinning our wheels. I love you all! You'll only be getting three more emails from me after this, so that's pretty crazy. See you in a month!

Love,

Elder Mullins