Monday, October 23, 2017

Farewell to the Bookers...

Hey everyone!

Hope you're having a good day. It's pretty cloudy here in Florida right now. Lost of mist rising from everything. Florida's still confusing with with the weather... One minute, we'll be driving in torrential rain and thunder, the next minute we'll be out sweating to death walking around, the next minute we'll be getting blown away by wind. 

A lot happened this week and I've been really exhausted for the last few days. My companion and I do "tradeoffs" with the other 8 Elders in our district here in Gainesville (basically we just switch companions for the day, just to make sure they're doing well/feel loved/aren't breaking any mission rules.) We had three, back to back, last week, and that was really tiring, though also fulfilling. BUT it was all made up for by last night. What happened last night?

The "Why I Believe" devotional in Jacksonville! Since I play viola, I got to go play with our mission orchestra and choir because we did a musical number. There were a couple other musical numbers and several beautiful testimonies from recent converts. The Spirit was strong, lessons were learned, and it was great to see the missionaries in Jacksonville.

We got a ride up with the Bookers. Here's a picture of me with them that we took last night. Just so you know who is being talked about.



    The Bookers are one of the best, most loving, most caring couples I've met in my entire life. They were baptized when they were both 26 - they'd only been married for a few years, and they were living in LA. They had a little baby girl and another was on the way.

Now, fast forward 40 years. They have 8 kids and many grandkids. They just served a senior couple mission teaching religion classes at the church building off campus here at the University of Florida. They've blessed many, many, many lives of people inside and outside of the church. They go back home to their family in Utah this Friday.

The missionaries who taught them had absolutely no idea the impact they made on the Bookers' lives, and on the lives of thousands of other people, including my life. They taught and baptized the Bookers, who have taught and helped so many others. They helped me when I started out my mission in Gainesville as a nervous 18 year old a long ways away from home. Even the first time that I met them, I could feel of their loving kindness.

Point is, they've helped me understand that everybody makes a difference. We usually don't recognize the differences that we are making in people's lives, just like those missionaries who first taught them didn't know all the long-term repercussions of teaching the Bookers. A lot of people don't want the loving service you want to give, but it makes a difference in the long run.

Love you all - I hope you have a great, fun filled week!

Elder Rice has been out for just over a month and we had an exchange. He is going into veterinary medicine when he goes home. He loves dogs. A lot. He has charity for them. 

The city of Archer! I finally got a picture to out to the place. It's my favorite place in our area - the people are so sincere, honest, and humble.
    This is Cherrie, a lady the other elders have been teaching. I know her daughter and grandkids well from Wisconsin.  Her daughter asked my mom to tell me to check in on her during the hurricane last month. The other missionaries live closer to her, and they helped her out and talked with her a bunch. Long story short, she's being baptized this Saturday, and I interviewed her for baptism last Saturday. Exciting? Yes!


Monday, October 16, 2017

"Focus on the little moments and be glad."

Our wonderful zone here in Gainesville! I knew that I was short before I left on a mission, but being out here with all these tall people is just really letting it sink in. Love it :)


Hey everyone!

This week was probably the most productive week of the last two transfers. We haven't talked to a lot of people since I came into the area, mostly because the people here have million dollar homes and are very at ease with their lives. This week, though, we had a few great miracles that just carried us through the week.

As a missionary, life is pretty hard. At home, there are a lot of things to look forward to and that you find fun. What was fun for me? Playing games with friends, playing tennis, being around family, practicing viola, concerts, writing, listening to music, and so on. Being focused on my purpose of bringing people to Christ, I choose to do basically none of those things, so I had to learn to find joy in other things. There are usually a few little experiences or moments that carry us throughout the week in the face of constant rejection and getting cussed out - here are two of them.

I was on a companion exchange with Elder Brown - he's an amazing missionary with a powerful testimony, and a very talented singer. We were walking around an apartment complex - it was hot and the sun was beating down. We were sweating hard (we were biking that day) and nobody in the complex had wanted to hear our message or watch a video about Jesus Christ. As we are getting our helmets back on, and getting ready to peddle away, a car pulls up and a middle aged gentleman with a tucked in button up shirt runs over. He calls out in a southern drawl, "Hey y'all, I saw Jesus Christ on those nametags and just felt like I gotta come talk about the Word with y'all. What've ya got for me today?"
So we talked to him for 10 minutes - it was a great conversation and we were able to bear testimony of the restored Gospel and faith in Christ. We set a time to come back and see him, then biked away. We smiled as we biked away - those 10 minutes had made the previous 2 hours worth it.

Another experience - just yesterday afternoon. We were sitting in church next to a great lady who had agreed to visit church with us. A wonderful sister was speaking on the Book of Mormon and the Spirit was strong in the room, despite the incessant crying of little children. I was getting ready to go up to the front of the chapel to perform - I was playing a duet with our wonderful organist, Brother Cornely. Out of the corner of our eyes, we saw a couple walk in the doors on the far left of the chapel. At first I didn't recognize them. I probably wouldn't have, but my amazing companion Elder Butterfield, with a huge smile on his face, whispers to me, "That's Rey and his wife!"

I wrote about Rey last week - we met him last Saturday and he said he'd come to church with his wife, but then didn't show up. So here he his, with his wife and two kids, walking into church after we haven't talked with him all week. As a missionary, that never happens. It usually feels like we're dragging people to church, and here they just show up. I can't even describe the joy we felt that they came - it just made our day. I'm smiling about it right now just thinking about it. 

So it's little things - moments and experiences with people and the gospel - that carry us through the week. Listen to these words of Joseph Smith - "You know that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves." Lots of applications here, but one is that, in the storms of life, we should let little pockets of light brighten our way and steer us through the day.
I love you all! I hope you have a great week. Focus on the little moments and be glad.


Elder Butterfield and I drove to Jacksonville to get the car fixed and it was fun being back in Jacksonville. It reminded me of the 6 months that I spent here and the special moments that I loved from serving in Fort Caroline.

The sunset was beautiful, and we were biking, so here you go. The sunsets here are always nice, but this one looked especially good.



Just the sunset.



Monday, October 9, 2017

A visit to Archer, Florida

Hey everybody! 

This week was good - we're still getting used to Facebook, having smartphones, and some other new things. It's been quite the adventure! Trust me, after using a flip phone for 15 months, trying to type on a screen has been quite the experience. I feel like a clumsy elephant trying to play piano. But hey, that's how I am with most things, so it's nothing new.

We had an amazing experience out in Archer on Saturday. What's Archer? Thanks for asking! Let me explain it for you in poetry.

This town is like no other,
It obfuscates my mind.
Epitome of "southern",
Is how it is defined.

With stray dogs running wild,
And old cars parked on grass,
The old town's tone is mild,
There's nowhere to get gas.

The people here are sincere,
They say what's on their mind.
The sounds of gunshots we hear,
Though everyone seems kind.

Anyway, so that's Archer. Just imagine a town that was build 50 years ago, and then no maintenance or repair was done on anything (stores, houses, cars, people's teeth, etc.) and that's Archer. I honestly absolutely love it. It's so much more fun to be in then rich neighborhoods where nobody will talk to you. Everybody in Archer is genuine, though maybe also crazy. 

Anyway, so we were walking around talking to people in the streets, trying to share videos about Christ, and a little message with them. We met this one man who was grilling out front of his little house. On the grass parked in front of the house was a Challenger and a Mustang - there's another thing about Archer, some people have really nice cars, and keep them in good shape, and then their house is just falling apart. Priorities...?

Anyway though, back on topic, his name is Rey and he has a thick black beard and a southern drawl - he's wearing a white tank top, like 99.9% of the male population in Archer. He tells us that he's recently lost his father and grandfather, and has been looking for where God is in his life. We shared a video on how, because the gospel and authority of God have been restored to the earth, our families can be together forever. He said that he'd love to come to church. We swapped phone numbers, said goodbye, and drove off. Twenty seconds later, we get a call from a random number. It's Rey's girlfriend, who was also at his house but didn't talk to us. "What do y'all believe?" She asks, seeming a little suspect. 

"We believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God - that he came to the earth to give his life for us, and that if we have faith in him, repent, are baptized, and endure, that we can be clean and return to live with God."
"Ahhhhhhh sounds good. We'll be comin' to y'alls church tomorrow."

So why is this cool? Because they called and confirmed that they'd come to church! Usually it feels like we're calling, texting, and trying to pull people to church so they can feel the Spirit and have better lives, but she called us! So that was fun.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week. Help others. Say hello to somebody you don't know. Reach out to somebody in your class or at work who looks down. Go make a difference.

Love you!

Elder McMullin