First Post From Florida

Hi everybody!

     Wow! It's been a crazy week! I flew out last Tuesday at 7 in the
morning and got into Jacksonville at 3 in the afternoon. My mission
president (the guy who is in charge over all the missionaries and
everything in our whole mission) and his wife are amazing! His wife,
Sister Lee, used to be a professional singer and she's going to start
a mission orchestra and choir. She asked me to play for it so that's
really exciting. Not many missionaries get to bring instruments to
their mission, especially in this mission, so I feel really blessed!
There are maybe 120-ish missionaries here, I'm not totally sure.

Sister Lee, Elder McMullin, Presient Lee: first day in Florida

My companion is Elder Day, and he'll be training me for the next three
months. He's really great! He's been on a mission for almost a year
now.

Elder Day and Elder McMullin: typing letters home

 We're in the Gainesville Young Single Adult Branch, which is only
people who are age 18-31. Almost all of them are converts and go to the
University of Florida. We spend a lot of time on campus because we can
talk to a lot of people. There are 8 missionaries here, total, in this
one branch, which is crazy! It's the fastest growing part of the
mission.




Our daily schedule is as follows...

6 AM Wake up and exercise. There are tennis and basketball courts
right by our apartments so we usually do that. We've also driven to a
nearby field and played ultimate frisbee with nearby elders.

7 AM Shower and breakfast.

8 AM Personal study of what we'll be teaching, scripture reading, and
just in general what I think I need to learn and think about.

9AM Companion study. Elder Day and I talk about things for the day
and I get trained on some things.

11 AM Lunch.

12 PM   Finding people! We spend almost all day finding people, a lot
of the time just walking around campus. We also bike around and talk
to people we see as well as knocking on apartment complexes. It's
really hot and humid, but it hasn't rained a single time yet. Saturday
night we were out knocking doors and taught a half hour lesson. Just
standing there in the heat, without moving, I was soaked I sweat by
the end of the lesson. It's good, hard work. I really love it.

I've learned to hate golf carts. We spend a lot of time in apartment
complexes and I guess that the apartment ranger people don't like it
when we tell interested people about Jesus Christ's love for them. Oh
well. We fear God, not man. But we still duck and dodge every time we
see a ranger driving a golf cart come around the corner.

5 PM Dinner

6 PM Finding people.

9 PM Back home to plan for the next day and study.

10:30 PM Sleep

My bed in our apartment.

     Sometimes we have little half hour lessons, but it's just so hard
to set up return appointments with college students, especially with
college finals this week and moving out, so we can usually just get in
one lesson on the street, campus, or a doorstep, then try to set up
another time with them. By the end of the day I'm always totally
exhausted. It's very satisfying though. Really fulfilling.

    The town is great! I haven't seen much of it. About 50 percent of the
population is black, and they're so awesome to talk to. The culture
down here really loves Jesus, and that makes starting conversation
easier. Just this afternoon, a man walked up to us as we were about to
pay for our groceries and paid for us because we had Jesus Christ's
name on our name tags and were spreading his message. He'd never heard
of missionaries before, just respected us.

     We work closely with two other elders because we're in a car share,
which means that else day and I get the car every other week. We give
each other rides a lot, though, so we end up working on campus
together a lot. Their names are Elder Batalla and Elder Pacella.
They're both Italian and really awesome, I love them so much. Elder
Pacella is on the left and Elder Batalla on the right. Here they are
playing pool on our preparation day (today)

Elder Batalla and Elder Pacella, playing pool on P-day