A Bit About Our Teaching Format

Hello Everybody!

      

   This week was great! Campus has been very busy lately so that's very good. It's funny to see all of the little things that remind me of going to Lawrence last year - acapella groups practicing in little campus corners, four square tournaments on the plaza, guitar sing alongs on the plaza, etc. We are meeting with a girl who just read the entire Book of Mormon in about a week. She's really great and has a lot of amazing insights that help me learn! I'm learning more out here than the people that we're supposed to be teaching.

       

   So our lessons usually go as follows - I thought that I should give a little briefer on what the discussions that missionaries teach are like. I love teaching lessons, it's really fun and an amazing, spiritual experience. The hard part is finding people to teach, and that's what we do a lot here.

     When we teach, we open by praying to invite the Spirit - a lot of the time either I or Elder Day, my companion, will say the opening prayer and then ask the person we are meeting with to say the closing prayer. Then we follow up on their commitments - we always invite people to do something during a lesson, whether it be to pray on their own, come to church, read from the Book of Mormon, and many other commitments. These things help people to come closer to Christ and so it's really important for us to follow up on them to make sure that they are doing these things, or to check in to see if we can do anything to help them keep their commitments. 

    Then we teach them something that we feel will benefit them the most - we always focus on what they really need and do that by thinking a lot about what they are going through or what could bless their lives the most. We invite them to do something, related to what we taught or what they most need, then close with prayer.

     Most of the lessons that we teach are just 1 on 1 on campus - this means that Elder Day and I split up and walk around a little plaza finding people to teach. We are able to talk to more people and teach more lessons this way since there are so many people to talk to. We also have lessons in our church building, which is really nice because it's away from the distractions of campus and in a place where, hopefully, they will be able to come to for church on Sundays.

           Here are some pictures from this week...

Here we are at a huge antique car collection that we were able to visit today. It was really amazing! I've never really been into mechanics or cars or anything but it was really neat to hear about all of the history behind the cars. The man who runs the place has stories for almost all of the 200+ cars here. We went with all of the missionaries from Gainesville and Ocala, where the collection was.

Here is me looking awkward while playing viola in Zone Conference last thursday. Our zone is about 40 missionaries, coming from Gainesville, Ocala, and Chiefland.

Here is everybody in the performance - Sister Koener and Elder Faust sang along. We performed a hymn called "Be Still my Soul", which is one of my favorites. Sister Koener came into the mission at the same time that I did but Elder Faust is going home in three weeks.  They sing very well and it was amazing to be able to perform here!

So there it is! Everything is good here in Florida, and I hope that it's good everywhere else!

       Until next week,

             Elder McMullin

Visiting a Swamp with Alligators

Hi everybody,

     

   We were able to go to an amazing walk called Payne's Prairie today.  It

was a strange mix of swamp and prairie It's a place just outside of Gainesville.

It reminded me of some places in Wisconsin, just with alligators and some different

plants. 

     There weren't very many alligators though, apparently the water is too low right now for them to be really up and close. But, we got to watch an alligator sneak up on a heron, and that was exciting! The heron was just standing by the water and the alligator was swimming slowly towards it, and slowly moved its head under the water. It was pretty creepy! The bird moved away from the water so it didn't get eaten.

The Gainesville YSA Elders at a swamp place called Payne's Prairie. 

The swamp! It's really beautiful in its own special way.

Elder Pacella and I at the swamp

Just another picture of the prairie and swamp being amazing.

     And  now for some goofy pictures from this week, on campus at The University of Florida.

People ask to take pictures with us a lot for campus things... Here is one more interesting one.

Me, John, and Elder Foust. John is amazing and he is a recent convert who is super nice to us missionaries and brings us Gatorade daily while we are on campus. 

I'll write more next week!  

Gator Football Season..

Hello everybody!
        It's been a pretty normal week! It's really strange being in a
branch full of college kids because I feel like I'm still in college
sometimes, being on campus with all the events going on and bringing
our investigators to church potlucks and whatnot. I love it a lot, but
it's just strange because this branch is so much like the one that I
was in while I was in school at Lawrence.
      
   I got to play viola on campus while we were looking for new
people to teach, and it was one of the most amazing experiences I've
had yet! We had all 8 of the missionaries from the branch teaching
people on the plaza while I played church hymns for about an hour and
a half. It was one of the most spiritual, peaceful atmospheres I had
ever seen and just amazing to be a part of. I'm so glad that I was
able to bring my viola on my mission!
     
   It's a miracle that I can still play. I started our just
playing the melody for most of the hymns, which went well, but then I
decided to add in double stops (playing two notes at once) for
harmony. Many of you will know that double stops are, and have always
been, my worst nightmare when it comes to music, and that I can't
really get them in tune because I haven't practiced them enough. Lo
and behold, I started in on a hymn and decided to just play all of the
double stops. Somehow, every single one was in tune. I don't know how.
I can't play chords, but somehow I was able to. Crazy things happen on
a mission, and I don't think that my playing would have turned out
well were it not for God's help.
      
    There are huge football games here almost every Saturday for
the University of Florida and we've been able to be on campus, trying
to teach during 2 games and their tailgates so far. It's been pretty
interesting! This past Saturday somebody gave us a ticket for the
game, and wouldn't let us say no, so here it is. We didn't go to the
game because that would just be a waste of time, but it's still a good
souvenir...

First Hurricane, and Potato Chip Sandwiches

Hello everybody!

      

    Sorry that it's been a few weeks, I've been super busy on Mondays lately. We had a "Zone Preparation Day" last Monday, which is where a bunch of missionaries from around here got together and we played Frisbee and soccer and had a good time. Hence, I didn't really have time for emailing, so I'm sorry about that!

      

   These past few weeks have been great! We've been spending a lot of time on campus and have found a lot of new people who want to meet with us, which is great! There was a football game this past Saturday night and we were out trying to teach people but it was pretty hard to teach people who can't put together a straight sentence because of drinking all day. Oh well!

    

    I was playing Frisbee two weeks ago and sprained my ankle, which was awkward. Apparently spraining an ankle on a mission doesn't work too well, because I've was walking on it all day for the last two weeks and it's getting better really slowly. Whoops. No rest for the weary!

     We had a hurricane here this past weekend!I It was pretty exciting. The storm hit late on Saturday night and was basically done on Friday morning, in Gainesville at least. We weren't hit as hard as up north a little bit, like in Tallahassee. Still, our mission president asked us to be in our apartments at 6 and stay there until Friday afternoon. We had a lot of wind that ended up knocking out a power line during the night.

      Elder Day and I woke up to an 85 degree apartment. Not very comfortable... Our power was out until we got back at night, but a member who lives close was kind enough to refrigerate our food so nothing really went wrong. We went for a walk in the morning and it was just weird... It was a little windy but there was just no sound. No animal noise, which was really weird... Altogether, pretty neat! We didn't hear anything about it really, just an alert that there was going to be a hurricane coming through, some emergency procedures, and nothing more. That was weird, not knowing everything about the storm. 

First thing we saw outside our apartment. Usually this is a 25 foot deep hole for water drainage so it was weird to just have a new pond at our doorstep just from the night's rain. 

This is Abraham left, and Ade. Abraham was baptized two weeks ago. He's so great, I love him!

Besides young missionaries like me, couples can go on missions after they're married. Sister and Elder Booker are so great! They don't have the same schedule as missionaries like me do - instead, they teach classes here, make dinner for church events, and other great things. 

I had to include this picture of my dinner a few nights back. Sometimes you have to be creative when it's the end of the month and most of your food is gone. Don't question the nutritional value of this meal. Trust me, there was none. 

      

   Have a great week everyone! Good luck to my Lawrence friends who will be starting school next week!

                             Elder McMullin

Asher gets into the arts: Graffiti and Viola

     Hello everybody! Just a quick note this week because there are some
pictures that better sum up the exciting things!

       This week was great! I've been so happy lately, it's great!
Waking up is a struggle sometimes... I literally roll out of bed,
kneel down at my bedside and "pray" AKA fall asleep for another 10
minutes. It's a little rough. Ok, so after the first 10 minutes of the
day I'm happy and everything is great.

        Abraham is doing so well! I love him! We've really come to be
just great friends with him and our other investigators, they're all
so nice. I really love the south - people are just kind here. We ran
into a few very anti-Mormon people while we were knocking apartments
and it was pretty interesting.

         I'm so excited for University of Florida to start next
Monday! Without people here for us to find and teach, we've just been
focusing on teaching Abraham and then doing service as well as talking
to the members. We don't have a lot that we can do since nobody is
here, but when school starts next week we'll be really busy!

When you're caught a mile away from the apartment and there's a Florida thunderstorm.

We got to paint a graffiti wall as a district and it was amazing!

The 34th Street Wall is a 1,120-foot-long retaining wall along SW 34th Street.  The wall is most famous for being covered with layers of graffiti - up to as many as 250 layers of paint thick in some areas.   The wall has been accepted as a Gainesville landmark and is considered a "community bulletin board".

We sketched out a simple "plan of salvation" picture, which sums up our course and purpose as sons and daughters of God.

MY VIOLA IS HERE!!! I get to be part of a mission orchestra and play on Sundays and it's so amazing! I feel so blessed to have a mission president, and his wife, who let me bring my viola. SO lucky, it's a miracle. Very, very few missionaries are able to bring their instruments.

Love you all! Enjoy the rest of the summer!

"Trade offs, and Lots of Biking"

Hi everyone!
       
     Just a quick email about how this week was. My companion is
the "district leader" which means that we go on "trade off's" twice a
week. A trade off is where my companion and I swap companions for a
day and go with a different companionship from around our area. So for
example, what happened this Wednesday was that I went with Elder
Kautai to High Springs and then my companion stayed with Elder
Kautai's companion in Gainesville where I usually am.

Here is some country land from when we were biking around on Wednesday. For a second I felt like I was in Montana or something!

      Neither Elder Kautai or I can drive so we biked all day long. We had a lot of places to go so we ended up biking 30 miles between noon and 9PM.  It was a good time! It's really helpful to see how missionary work is done in other places. We had some great lessons!

That face when you just spent ten hours biking 30 miles and teaching. (Elder Kautai in background.)  We slept well that night.

        

    We've been teaching a man named Abraham this week - he's
really amazing!  He's going to be baptized on the 21st of this month.
It's amazing to see how people's hearts can be prepared for our
message before we meet them. Very few people we've taught are as
excited about the gospel as he is.

                                   

Here is what we spend a lot of time doing - knocking in apartments like this. We try to spend more time on campus and on the street because we can talk to more people that way.

          These next few weeks are rough because the University of
Florida is out until fall, and everybody has left their apartments, so
we are really going to have trouble finding people to teach. That's ok
though! I know that something good will come up as long as we have
faith and work our hardest.

Here we are at Campus Plaza where we spend most of our time.   We get to teach a lot of lessons here. It's amazing to get to talk to other people my age and see how the gospel can bless their lives.

          Well that's  about all this week. Not too much. Some
little storms the past few days have bee fun but that's been about it.

Here is my current address, I can receive snail mail or packages at it for the next couple months (until I transfer).

Elder Asher McMullin
2330 S.W.  Williston Rd
Apt 1116
Gainesville FL 32608

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