Easter Weekend Pictures

Hello everybody!

    I don't have much time this week so I'll just share an experience I had at church. The program was musical numbers and then scriptures mingled together. I played a solo piece at the beginning and it went well, then there were powerful musical numbers after. I felt the Spirit so strongly.  It really hit me.   "He is not here, for he is risen."    (Some of my favorite words in scripture, when they come and try to see Christ in the tomb.)

Here are some pictures:

Easter Party at the church

Here's us at the members' who fed us at night. We had super tasty food and they gave us TONS of food.

As close as we can get to the beach! It's so pretty... I love the ocean. The breeze is so refreshing and it's just awe inspiring to watch the waves. This was on Preparation Day and my vote was to stay there and just stare for 8 hours, but nobody else wanted to....

New Companion / Baptismal Service

Hello Everybody!

So yeah, I was transferred! Surprise! I'm now in the same ward but in a different area - since our "wards" (basically congregations) are geographic, so you go to a certain church building if you live in a certain area, my old area was the west half and now my area is the east half. So I packed everything up and moved a stunning 2.6 miles to be with Elder Wilson!

Bio of Elder Wilson, my new companion. He is from Ririe, Idaho, a stunning town of about 650 people, or so I hear from him. At home, he spent a lot of time doing video editing and splicing and went to a number of national competitions with a high school team for developing and editing video. He's a really good teacher, confident speaker, and likes bubbles. See below picture. 

We had a baptism on Saturday and it was amazing!!! It was for a girl named Danielle, who has extended family who are church members but no immediate family. She had been exploring Mormon.org for a few weeks and finally got the courage to call us and see if we could come teach her. She has such a burning desire to learn about the gospel - Danielle works teaching dance at a studio and has a crazy busy schedule, but we would go by at 9 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon at her 30 minute breaks to teach her. 

Elder Wilson, Danielle, Brother Gordon, and myself

Her baptismal service was powerful, the Spirit was strong there and everybody there knew that what Danielle was doing was right. And I got to play viola there! So it was even better! (Well, I thought it was fun, I was probably the only person who enjoyed that part.) She was baptized by an amazing member, Brother Gordon. 

Love you all lots! Spring is here (well, in Florida, at least) so enjoy it!

Elder McMullin

People come, and people go, and we still keep working.

     Hello everybody! This week had been a good one.  We've learned lots of things about how to be optimistic all the time. We've really been cultivating our attitudes and gaining a better eternal perspective.

      This past week we had a lot of struggle moments... At the start of week, we had a lot of coals in the fire, so to speak. Several investigators on date for baptism, lots of investigators to go and visit at night with members, many investigators that we were going to set baptismal dates with, etc. Lots of things to do and lots of possibilities.

      BUT since last week we've 1) Lost contact with them 2) Had them text us and tell us that they're not interested in learning anymore 3) Had many of them move. So hence, not many people for us to teach right now!  This week is going to be a lot of time knocking and talking to church members trying to find people to teach... which is one of my favorite things to do in missionary work, so I can't complain!

    Here are some fun pictures - love y'all!

On Saturday morning, we volunteered downtown at a "Color Me Rad 5k run". We threw paint at everybody running and it was crazy fun!  Some people got mad at us, haha. They signed up for it! But we had some great opportunities to share he gospel with some people there.

We went to a showing that another ward out in of "Meet the Mormons" on Friday night! It was super fun! Brother Dodge, a great member is on the left, and our investigator Darrell is on the right. It is an amazing movie! Watch it! (click here)

Meeting new people left and right...

Hello Everybody!

        This week has been great! The members here are so great. They're so kind and willing to help in the work, whether it's inviting our investigators to sit by them in church, or inviting us over for dinner on the fly, or coming to lessons that come up on the fly. They do so much and it's so great to be in a ward where the church members have such a desire to be involved with missionary work.

        We've been sharing "miracles" with members a lot recently, For example, we had an experience on Tuesday where Elder Willets and I had 30 minutes in between dinner and several lessons that night and wanted to know where to go to find somebody who was ready to hear the gospel. We both prayed to know where to go and the same apartment complex came to mind, so we went there.

Then we prayed to know where to go in the complex, and biked around until we found a building that we both wanted to knock. So we go there and after 20 minutes, we knock into somebody who moved in recently and doesn't have a church to go to. We teach her (her name is Brianna and she has two adorable young kids) and set a baptismal date.

It's been fun to talk with members and get them excited about doing missionary work.

        Love you all! Here are some pictures from the week.

We did service helping with a fence for this lady, Sister Cheng. She was a movie star back in China and has some amazing stories. She also makes really good friend rice and egg rolls. AKA it's actually Chinese food, not Panda Express.

Left to right, a great member of our ward, Johnny, then our investigator Daniel, then us. This is usually what a lesson setting looks like, except here we got dinner together which isn't normal. 

Yeah ok, kind of random picture, but in church, there was a member's ADORABLE son who's just learning to walk and he was playing with the camera on my iPad and took a picture of himself and you've got to admit that he's pretty cute. Right? Right? Ok maybe I just miss my little brother.

Good Church Members in Florida

Hello everybody!

This week has been just a really good one. It's shown me the power that church members have in being a "light to the world" as Jesus Christ so well puts it. There are just so many amazing members here in Fort Caroline! They're incredible at sharing the gospel with their friends by example. 

It's amazing to see the many walks of life that the members here come from. One of them is in underwater construction and electrical work (scuba diving and working on bridges and such.) Another works developing prosthetic limbs and travels across the world to different countries for marketing every week. One amazing lady works as a cafeteria worker and house cleaner at her son's school. I love hearing about their lives and hearing how the gospel of Christ has blessed their lives. 

     The relief society president here is one of the most Christlike people I've ever met . You can just see Christlike love all over her face. She's always talking with members of the relief society. Whether it's a young mother who needs help with her kids or she's sitting down and holding the hand of a 95 year old lady, she's always ministering to the one. 

       

     This is us at the Garfield's home! They're an amazing family here and Brother Garfield loves coming out with us to lessons. They're really great people and their kids are adorable. And it was just super fun to have a bonfire!

 I missed s'mores. They were really good...

     This area is very different from my last, as far as meals provided by members go.  We get fed so much! Every single night this week and six nights next week. This week is amazing. We do eat some seafood here! I've had oyster, clam, lots of crab, and some squid. It's good! I don't really like oysters but everything else is good. Cold seafood is gross though. Not good leftovers 

Our investigators are doing really well! It's hard to watch them make decisions against what what we're teaching them, especially when they know that what we've taught them is true. But it's so amazing when investigators are living the Gospel of Christ, and studying the scriptures and praying, and just tell us that they feel such a difference in their lives.

I might start closing all of my emails with the words of Elder Holland because they mean so much to me. "Keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever." 

Love you all! 

Elder McMullin

Obstacles We Encounter, Meet My Awesome Companion...and a Lizard

Hello everybody!

        This week has been great! We've definitely learned a lot  - it's been a really good week to build my testimony that the gospel that we're sharing is true and there are so many things trying to stop us from sharing it. There are just so many things that just get in the way of us sharing our message with people and helping them to build their faith. Some of them are tiny little things - extra traffic on our way to an appointment, our investigator gets an important phone call in the middle of a lesson, etc. Some of them are big! The wife of one of our most progressing investigators passed away from brain cancer last week. So many things try to stop us from talking to people, and stop people from talking to us, which just builds my testimony of how true the work is.

I thought I'd also write a short bio on Elder Willets, my companion, because I feel like I haven't shared enough about him. He's from Utah and has a brother and sister in high school, 8 year old sister, and younger twin brothers with cerebral palsy. He is really loving and great with kids. He is a REALLY good snowboarder and skater. He is also an amazing mountain biker. He talks about the trails they biked and it just makes my legs hurt thinking about it. He also loves Disney and can basically quote every line from every Disney movie because of watching them with his youngest sister. 

I love how unique every single person is, but how the gospel of Jesus Christ still applies to all of us. It's been a real blessing to be able to talk with so many people, who are all SO different, and still know that the gospel of Christ can bless them, no matter their situation. Whether they own a Lamborghini and 3 houses here in Jacksonville or they're homeless, whether they have lived great, moral lives and are very healthy or they've run their life into the ground with bad choices and are terminally ill. It can help all of us grow and progress, and that just makes me glad.

Love you all! Here are some fun pictures from the last week...

Here's an apartment complex and Elder Willets yawning. Spanish moss is hanging off of all the trees. It's kinda ugly but I think it looks nice now.

This is a lizard we found while visiting a member last night. Lots of lizards here. They're nice.

And a basic missionary selfie while knocking doors because stereotypes and whatnot.

Opportunities to Serve Others

This week we did a ton of service, so I'll tell you about that.

   So we do something called "Habitat for Humanity" - you should look it up! Basically we can all just volunteer and we help to build houses! There are also people there who are doing sweat-equity labor.  Theywork for 300 hours and then they get a home! It's a really great program. Elder Willets and I have helped to paint, caulk, put in doorknobs, put in mirrors, towel bars, and do lots of other fun stuff. It's actually super good experience and it makes me feel like I'm actually a useful human being who knows how to do handyman stuff instead of just a music and writing person. Hahahah. It's good experience for when I have a family.   I'm actually really grateful for it. We usually go for 4 hours every Wednesday morning.
 
      We also helped at "farmshare" which I've been to three times now.  They have a huge warehouse in Arlington, right next to Fort Caroline. They bring a truck to a location, we help them unload it, and help give food to people.
 
     It's really great!  I love doing service so much now.  It's funny, before the mission I couldn't stand service. I was like "Helping an old lady rake her lawn? I could be wasting my time on facebook and YouTube!"  But now I love it to death. There really is a spirit that comes into our lives as we serve others. I don't know the mechanism behind how God works and how the spirit comes, but we definitely build charity and feel the spirit more when we serve.

     Also, I want a pet snake. We were weeding as a district (us, the other Fort Caroline elders, and the Jacksonville beach elders and sisters) and one of the sisters said. "Wow, this is a really big worm." 3...2...1... "Ahhhhhhhh!" Wow she screamed the loudest scream of all time. So I grabbed it with the professional snake-grabbing hold by it's head and it was like the cutest thing on earth! When I put it down a ways away it tried to bite me though. Whoops. Ungrateful little thing. We could have just cut it in half with a shovel, so we were helping it out.

  I'm glad that it's warm there! I remember those days where you walk outside, expecting arctic chill, and it's a pretty spring day! None of that here - I've been enjoying the 70 and 80 degree weather before we get back to summer…

 Love you! I hope the weather stays warm :)