Tribulations are Cool

 

This week has been pretty good. We taught some lessons, met new people, one of our friends even paid for us to go bowling with him. His name is Matthew and he has a lot more faith than he thinks he does. As soon as he comes to understand what faith looks like and how strong he is, he'll be ready for baptism.

 As good as the week has been, today has been pretty difficult. I'm writing this in someone else's apartment right now because I'm locked out of mine, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

 We went and knocked some doors this morning, and when we came back to our car, it wouldn't start. We had just gotten done knocking every door in sight, so we went and re-knocked some of them to see if anyone could give us a jump. For some reason the mission car doesn't have jumper cables, I have no idea why. The people around us were either unwilling to help, or didn't have jumper cables to help us. We ended up calling a member to come give us a jump, and he got us moving.

 Our vehicle coordinator told us to take it to a dealership to get a new battery, so we did that. They're keeping the car over night because the check engine light also turned on and they want to make sure everything's running right for us.

 It wasn't until we were half way back home tonight that we realized the apartment key was with the car keys, so that's why we're locked out of our apartment. We ate a very light breakfast this morning, and missed lunch because of the car troubles. I had dinner at In-N-Out, but elder Layne didn't get anything because he was going to cook food at home (we didn't know we were locked out yet). The elders who drove us home live in the same complex as us so we're staying with them tonight, and Elder Layne cooked himself some eggs, but we're sleeping on their floor tonight and don't even have a change of clothes.

 But as difficult as today was, we're in it for God, and we did have a good knocking session. It doesn't matter how bad things get on my mission. As long as I know I'm doing my best for God and my neighbors here in Texas (and I do), I'll put up with whatever comes my way.

New Transfer, New Me

 

Transfers happened and it's been good so far. My trainer and I are still chilling in Decatur, but now we have another pair of elders here with us. We're still figuring out how to split up the work, but it seems like they're already doing fairly well, and our teaching pool has never been more rich.

 We met a guy named Ray this week who said he wanted to be baptized, so we taught him about covenants and baptism and set a tentative date for him to be baptized in October. We've only met with him once though and there's a lot to cover, so we'll see where that goes.

Our schedule is going crazy, we had like 10 lessons this week which is insane. We'll probably end up being just as busy this week. It's been insane seeing the work start from a crawl when we first got here, and then steadily speeding up week after week. Each week keeps getting better and it doesn't show signs of slowing down, I don't even understand how we're so blessed.

Everyone says Decatur is a slow area and everyone was skeptical when they heard we were getting more missionaries out here, but if the work keeps moving forward like this we will not be able to do it alone. It's a really good thing they're out here with us now.

Scripture of the week:

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Matthew 5:9

Elder Mullins 

It's Been A Great Week!

 

Hello friends and family,

This last week has been awesome. We've been looking through our area book for people who were previously taught, but had stopped meeting with missionaries, and we found a girl named Sadie who looked promising. So we went over and met her, and set up an appointment to come teach. She's awesome, and is super excited to learn more about God. We invited her to church this last Sunday, and she actually came!

We've also been talking to a lady named Mirna and we invited her to church too, and she came with her son, Leo. They both had a great experience and they both look forward to meeting with us more. Mirna's super curious about the temple and wants to be baptized, so that's exciting.

Sacrament meeting was awesome. Until this week, we hadn't gotten anyone to come to church with us, but this week we had three people show up. Fast Sunday is always an interesting one to invite people to, you never know how it's gonna go. But this one was super good, all of our new friends that came had a great experience and can't wait to learn more and come again next week.

Transfers are tomorrow, but my companion and I are both staying in our area for now, though our area is going to be splitting. We helped prepare a new apartment for a new pair of elders who will be coming in. We still don't know exactly what the split is going to look like, but I just hope we don't lose Sadie or Mirna to it. But if we do, I guess we can still work with the other missionaries to make sure they get what they need. They're connected with the ward too now, so I'm sure they'll be taken care of whatever happens.

 Have a good week!

 Elder Mullins

I Hit One Month in the Field!

Hello friends and family, I attached pictures before I started writing so that I won't forget to send them. There's one of my trainer carrying me, he wanted to do that because he's gotten that picture with all of his trainees. There's another one of me in front of the world's largest Bowie knife in Bowie, Texas (I wonder where that town got its name). Those two pictures are both from my first week here, but I have one more I took on Wednesday of a cicada. Elder Rawlinson (white shirt) and Elder Sorensen (gray shirt) decided to jump in the picture, so you get to see them too. They're a couple elders in my zone, the picture was taken after zone council. 

 Not a lot of crazy stuff happened with teaching this week, but on Tuesday someone told me for the first time that I was going to hell while I was knocking doors, so that was fun (they don't even know what we believe). We also had a few good interactions while knocking on doors, so it's not all bad. We've been sharing scriptures from the Book of Mormon when people answer, and then teaching the principles from the scriptures. It's been working well to get our foot in the door, Christians are usually willing to hear a scripture. The trick is to not bring up the Book of Mormon until after they commit to listening. 

We did some service on Saturday for a food drive run by the united Methodist church here in Decatur. While we were helping out, it started raining really hard, and then lightning struck like two blocks away, it was crazy. I've never been that close to lightning before. I heard the thunder (it sounded more like cannon fire) and looked up and the sky was still glowing, and there was steam in the air where the lightning bolt had been. Crazy experience. Everyone went inside for like an hour after that happened, but we did come back out and finish the work after that. 

 Also, I hit one month in the field this last Friday. We got ice cream to celebrate. 

 Stay in school, don't do drugs, read the Book of Mormon, Elder Mullins

Bowie, Texas was named after the guy who

made the Bowie knife

My Trainer, Elder Layne

I have a cicada on my hand. 
 Elder's Rawlinson and Sorenson are in the photo too