Hello Everybody!
Well the time is flying by at this point. Every night when I'm sitting at my desk studying I just think "it feels like just an hour ago when I was doing this last night". It's just really weird. Time seemed to drag by in high school, go quickly in college, and just zips by on a mission. It's a little bit scary, but I'm glad that it's going to quickly.
My schedule has stayed the same, for the most part. For some reason I agreed to play basketball on Monday morning but once I got there I remembered that I'm just really awful at it. Whoops. Probably not making that mistake again.
I leave next Tuesday, the 26th, at 3:30 A.M. I'll be flying on a plane with everybody from my district, which is really neat. The flight leaves at about 6:30 and goes to Atlanta, Georgia, which is where the other 6 missionaries from our class/district are going. That'll be really nice to have. We have an hour long layover and then we fly to Jacksonville, planning on getting there around 2:30 P.M. Then everything goes on from there! I'm a little nervous because it'll be something so new but mostly just excited. I'm glad that I only have to be in the MTC for 3 weeks. Some of the Elders and Sisters here who have to learn challenging languages stay for 9 weeks and that would be really hard for me. I would be pretty tired of the MTC by then.
I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable teaching. At the start of last week I relied a lot on my own personal planning and having everything perfectly laid out that we were going to teach. 15 lessons later, I rely on God a lot more while teaching. I have faith that as I prepare and spend a lot of time thinking about the people that Elder Fischer and I are teaching, God will tell me in the moment that we're teaching what I need to say to really help them.
The weather here is the same. 90's and totally dry. It'll be a start contrast getting on the plane in Salt Lake City and then getting off the plane in Florida, land of humidity. I've heard lots of exciting stories about the south from one of my teachers, Brother Wright, who served a mission in South Carolina. He's told us a lot about how the people there aren't super religious but they completely respect and fear God. He says that there were at least 3 times when they were knocking doors, trying to find people to teach, and they could hear an audible shotgun click followed by a loud "Who's there!?" As soon as they spoke up about who they were, and how they were representative of Jesus Christ, the door would open and they'd be let in. Brother Wright says that he always felt safe walking in dangerous neighborhoods with a name tag bearing Jesus Christ's name on it because of how much the culture there loves and respects Jesus Christ. He had a lot of pretty crazy and wild stories about how leaders of gangs and drug lords would offer to escort him and his companion, protect them, or give them thousands of dollars. They wouldn't accept any of this, of course, but he said it was reassuring to know that he was so safe there in a place where it seemed so dangerous.
I get to play violin in church on Sunday! I've been able to practice it maybe 2 hours in total so far, and it's been really enjoyable. Unfortunately they have no violas, so it was between a violin, cello, and flute. It's a really nice violin and a lot of fun to play on. It's a little weird practicing an instrument that I've never played before, except when goofing off with other members of my string quartets, but I've really enjoyed it so much. I'm part of a 1200 missionary choir that's singing backup on 3 songs to the Nashville Tribute Band coming this Sunday. That'll be an exciting concert, but we're pretty unprepared. Oh well! It's a lot of fun.
I miss all of you! I think and pray about all of you back home every day and night. I hope that everybody continues to have a great rest of their summer, coming quickly to a close. At least that's what if feels like here...
-Elder McMullin
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Here's our whole district! Elder Kingfisher (front and center) and his companion Elder Dosdal (far left in the pajamas + suitcoat combo) are part of another district that came in the same day as us but we love them so much that we've basically adopted them. Elder Kingfisher just dislocated his arm so he'll be spending 9 weeks resting at home before he leaves to Reno, Nevada for his mission, which is really sad. His companion, Elder Dosdal, has finished 4 novels and I love talking with him.
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