"Good Mornin' Boss!"

"Hey good mornin' boss!"

        I've decided to open my weekly emails now with ways that
people here in the south greet us. This was my personal favorite this
week - an old black man sitting in a wheelchair just yelled it out to
us across the street with his hand raised and a big smile and it
literally made our lives complete. People here are so expressive and
unique, nobody is bland. Point to be taken from the story? 1) Don't be
boring 2) Say hello to people, it makes a difference!

       This week was incredible though. It's humbling to be on a
mission and I can't explain the love that we feel for the people here.
That's probably been the biggest part of my mission - learning to
love.
    
      We had a powerful experience on Friday night. We have an
investigator named Samantha - young mom with a pretty hard family
situation. We went to teach her, and her boyfriend was there - a super
nice man named Bobby. We're teaching Samantha  and we have been for
about half an hour - we're answering some of her questions about
prophets and the Book of Mormon. Then, out of the dark, I feel a hand
in my shoulder. A little surprised, I look back and see Bobby. He's
standing there, smiling, and holding three bowls. He gives one to me,
then walks to the couch where Elder Stuart and Brother Jack, a member
of our local congregation, sits. He gives a bowl to each of them.
       
     Inside the bowl are two hot dogs and fries, all covered in
chili. It's sloppily put together and a little cold. Let me say - that
food tasted better than any chili/French fry/hot dog hodgepodge I've
ever had. For this family, that much food was a huge deal. It built
our testimony of charity - they gave out of pure love.
      
  So on the topic of love and charity... Here's a poem about charity!

It starts as a feeling,
As small as a seed,
But quickly it blooms,
From a thought to a deed.

Far stronger than armies,
More grand than the sky,
Pure love leaves its mark,
Sometimes unseen by eye

All thoughts lead to actions,
So where does love go?
It's brings us to charity,
Which isn't for show.

Charity ne'er faileth,
It's part of our soul.
So all over the world now,
Our love now will flow.

Feel free to hate on the rhythm - charity ended up being an awkward
word to use in poems because of the three syllables and strangely
stressed foot but OK MOVING ON!

I love you all! Continue to have a great summer :)

        Elder McMullin

Elder Head and I on tradeoffs

Hello Everybody!
        This week was great! So many great experiences.  Friday- Saturday we
had a tradeoff with the Assistants to the President (basically, the
missionaries who help President Lee with everything he has to do.)
Elder Stuart stayed with Elder Botalla here in Gainesville, and I went
with Elder Head to Jacksonville.Here's a description of Elder Head if
he were in a movie.

       The driver's door opens. A man steps out. White shirt. Black pants.
Blue paisley tie. Nametag. Nothing out of the ordinary so far.
        Black hair, European complexion, five o'clock shadow to rival even
the finest con-man. Shoes that have been scraped and polished, scraped
and polished so many times that they're more polish than shoe.
        He closes the door and it shuts with a bang. An infectious smile goes
ear to ear. His warm brown eyes are fiery and lively. He walks toward
us, with an awkward gait that goes along with his tall, lanky stature.
You can feel his love from 20 feet away. 15 feet away. Then ten feet.
Five feet. A warm hug follows, and I feel like I'm getting squeezed by
a black bear. His voice is deep and warm, belying his love and
strength.

Elder Head and I

        I would keep going but oh well, we only have oh so much time. Our
trade off was great though. We had found a lot of GREAT people who were
interested in the gospel, then we get to 8:59 PM and 20 seconds. Why is
this number significant? Good question! As missionaries, we have to
head home at 9PM , unless we have a lesson in progress, then it is 9:30PM. 
So we had 40 seconds to find somebody who we could teach and invite to learn about Christ.
       
      We start running. It's raining. We're drenched but laughing because
of how bizarre we must look. We're just looking around this apartment
complex for people, and see a lighted apartment. We sprint there and
knock the door. We talk to this amazing, sweet, kind lady who is
interested in learning more, and accepts our invitation to learn more.
She said that she'd been looking for a way to build her relationship
with Christ.

        But yes, I just love being a missionary. It's so fulfilling. I love
being able to just focus on one thing - helping people build their
faith and progress. When I get home, I'll never have that same
opportunity because I'll be thinking about family, church, work,
school, etc.
    
       Here are some pictures. First Elder Stuart
in our natural habitat. Walking to and from peoples' doors...

Then this next picture.  It's hot in Florida. We drink a lot of water! We're
away from public restrooms a lot. So this was like manna from heaven.  

Seeking Correction

Hello friends!

        I hope you all had a great week! This week has been busy - we've had a lot of lessons and have been able to be in lots of homes! There's such a difference between having lessons on a doorstep and lessons inside a home. It's always better inside a house, especially in a member's home, because of the Spirit that's there. 

      

  This week we had zone conference, with all the missionaries from the bottom half of the mission.

Southern half of the Jacksonville Florida Mission 

 There were great trainings given and the Spirit was felt. One of my favorite things, that can really be applied no matter who or where you are, is on seeking correction. 

President Lee teaching the missionaries.

   Instead of just obeying out of obligation and a sense of duty, we should be asking for what we can do better. For us, that means asking the missionaries in our zone and the members what we can do better. Especially asking what we can improve to serve them better. 

      

    BUT THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU TOO! The same idea can be applied in home, at work, in church, etc.  Imagine if, in a family setting, everybody was always sincerely asking each other how they could improve. Or at work, asking co-workers how you can help them with their work or uplift them?  Asking friends in college how you can help them and how you can be a better friend? Asking our professors what we can do to be a better student, a better learner? The image that comes to mind is one of those helix wind chimes that spin around and looks like it grows infinitely up. I firmly believe that that's how it will be with us if we seek correction always!

          Anyway, enough if my weird ranting. Here are some poems about prayer. We've been praying and asking questions, and we've seen many miracles as God answers our prayers. 

"A kinda basic haiku on prayer"

In prayer we ask God

How we can serve his children

Answers always come

A kinda poorly written poem on prayer

A prayer with faith is a powerful thing,

With hearts aflame our questions we bring,

Then pause now and listen to His quiet voice

And each time unfailing He guides to a choice. 

Heartfelt prayer is a gift from above,

A way to show Heavenly Father our love.

Sincerely we pour out our hearts to Him,

Our prayer rising up, like an heavenly hymn. 

Love you all! Have a great week.

Gainseville Zone at the conference. Love these missionaries!

My Trainer, Elder Day, and I - one year after he first started training me.

Teaching Eugene

Hello Everybody!!!!

Ahhhh what a week!  It's been incredible and I LOVE being a missionary. Seriously, if somebody had told me a year ago when I left that I'd feel the fire that I do now, I would have just smiled and nodded and been like "Ok, yeah sure." I love the members, our investigators, the missionaries in our zone, and especially my wonderful companion! Elder Stuart and I get getting along better and better everyday. He's so unique  - haha - and not afraid to be himself.

We're so busy! We have several people who have baptismal dates right now. Two of them are 9 year old kids whom we are teaching and preparing for baptism in a few months. They're so great! Their families haven't been to church in a long time but it's powerful to watch them change as they come back to church and the Spirit enters their lives again. They just get happier and happier every week.

This week, instead of writing a poem, I think that I'll describe one of my favorite people using verbose vocabulary that I'd use if I were writing a fantasy novel. So I'll describe our investigator Eugene, an amazing, brilliant man who has his PhD in anthropology. He's preparing to be baptized next month. Here we go...

A clap of thunder shakes the windows of the church. Rain pelts down in sheets as we wait patiently, yet anxiously, for the phone call to come. We've planned. We've studied. We've spent days, even weeks, preparing for the next hour. This is the time when years of study finally pay off. We talk quickly but quietly in hushed and reverent tones, our voices echoing in the chapel hall of the church. We discuss scriptures, stories, all things to assist us for what is about to come.

The phone rings. We answer. A monotone, yet energetic and calculating voice comes over the speaker and we converse for a moment. He's here. It's time.

Up we stand, pacing briskly to the foyer and then to the door. We continue talking, finalizing plans, offering insights, preparing always. We open the door, the pouring rain splashes us. We look around for a minute, searching the wind swept scene. Branches fall in the wind and rain, leaves scatter across the parking lot. Then, squinting, he comes into view through the darkness.

Head down, hands in pockets, he approaches. Around the corner, down the sidewalk, across the parking lot. The rain doesn't phase him. His purple button down shirt is tucked into grey slacks, which fall a little short, revealing white socks that strike dissonance with his black shoes. He raises his hand to push his wide rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose, then raises his head as he comes closer, raising his hand in salutation.

His appearance is humble, even ragged, but the fire in his eyes gives off his burning intellect. They look this way and that, glancing about in such a way that paints of picture of numbers and objects constantly flowing through his mind; always calculating, always learning, always growing. He's come prepared, and so have we.

So anyway, cliffhanger to an incredible lesson that we had on Thursday night with him! He's so incredible - he thinks very logically but he's changed so much and it's been powerful to watch his faith grow and grow.

Love you all! I hope you have a great week!!

Transfers! Leaving Jacksonville...

Hello Everybody!

HOLY COW THIS WEEK HAS BEEN INSANE. So there's not any other way to put it. I'm totally brain-fried from everything that's happened this past week. Sometimes you just have weeks and days where not only does time fly by, but it just leaves you totally exhausted and wondering how everything happens so fast.

So yeah this week was great because so many members came out teaching with us! It was so great - the testimony of members really does bring the Spirit and totally changes the view of the people we teach. The Spirit is the real teacher, and we just bring the Spirit, as missionaries. 

So we had a transfer call on Saturday night! My companion Elder McBride is going to stay here with a new missionary - he will be training the new missionary! - and I will be going back to GAINESVILLE. GAINESVILLE. Sound familiar? I'll be headed back to where I spent the first 6 months of my mission! I'll get to see the members and missionaries that I knew back when I was serving there, which is really exciting. I wouldn't want to be serving anywhere else.

  So then the next day, Sunday, we had church and it went well. We then took off right after church, to a southern gospel choir devotional that some of the missionaries were invited to sing at, and I got to go play viola and perform there.  It was, how do you put it... Intense.  I felt like an 1800's missionary yelling "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" "Thank you Jesus!" And many permutations of those all mixed together.

This is us at the Genesis Southern Choir Invitational.

    Then, off to a devotional that we'd been planning for a few months. All 4 missionaries in our congregation spoke, members bore testimony, and we had special musical numbers (and I got the privilege to play viola there too, which was fun). It was all centered around the Jesus Christ and the restoration of his Gospel. It was a powerful, spirit filled, LONG day.  

Too lazy to rhyme right now (oops, sorry.) And so here's a random probably terrible free verse poem that sums up how Elder McBride and I have felt this week.

 "Feeling Tired? Good work."

We're tired.
        Very tired.

Cold, wet, exhausted, sunburnt

          Time for bed.

But wait!

Time to pray,

           To thank God

   For the day

Kneeling down in gratitude.

                       We're exhausted.

 We're tattered.

  We didn't sleep last night.

But why are we so happy?

Why do we feel so good?

Because exhaustion from service is really exhilaration

            God rewarding us for serving his children.

Peace, joy, love, 

      They all come from God.

Yes, serving him feels good.

We lay in bed, still exhausted,

                        But in a good way. 

   We smile,

Already excited for tomorrow

To press forward in God's work. 

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

I LOVE OUR DISTRICT and will miss them all so much. I've learned a lot here.

A super cool Polaroid camera picture. Our district and our wonderful Zone Leaders after our last district meeting.

I'll miss these Elders when I leave. Ahhhh they're so great.
Also, note sure why I'm the only one not wearing a suit.

FORT CAROLINE:  P-Day outing

We went to the French fort - Fort Caroline - today and walked around and learned more about the history of the area. Basically, French Colonists came and settled here in the mid 1500's.

They set up a fort and made friends with the local Timucan Indians.

Timucan Indian Hut

     But then... an awkward situation arose when, down the river in Saint Augustine, there was a huge Spanish settlement. Basically, the Spanish came in and totally wipe the little French colony out. Now, I don't have Google, so I'm just going from information boards... Correct me if I'm wrong...

Elder McMullin

A Very Soggy Week Biking

Well hello everybody,

        This week was nice but also extremely exhausting. We had interviews
with our mission president and when we have interviews, his wife
Sister Lee and the assistants to the president are always there and we
have a district meeting. It's a little stressful to be running a
meeting with them all there but it went really well and we learned a
lot.

Fort Caroline District:  Sisters Gilbert and Hoffman, Elders Rodger, Marchant, McBride, District Leader McMullin, Elders Antares, Walker, Assistants to the President Ward and Botalla, President Lee.

      We found out that we will be singing at a devotional in Dunn
Avenue this Sunday! We'll be singing with a choir that our church runs
but anybody can come sing - it's called Genesis. It's a big southern
gospel choir that sings southern gospel hymns and so we're SUPER
EXCITED to go and get to sing there!

        It's been rainy in Jacksonville this week. Extremely rainy. Elder
McBride and I were on bikes from Monday- Thursday and it actually
rained every day that we biked. It didn't just rain, though. All three
days, it poured and poured and poured from 6-9 at night while we were
biking. We stayed out the whole time and kept on keepin' on, of
course, but when we got back to our apartments at night, we were just
totally soaked. It got to the point where we'd just bike through the
huge foot deep puddles because we couldn't get any more wet than we
already were. It was also pretty cold, and I guess that our bodies
don't like getting cold and wet all week, so I've had a pretty nasty
cold from Friday until now, but thankfully we haven't missed any time
out proselyting. Word of the week? DayQuil. It's my friend.

   This picture is right before we went home one night when we
were both already soaking wet and couldn't be any wetter. I think this
pictures explains it well. 10/10 would do again.

 This next picture is a beautiful day in Florida. I
love Florida. So much. And we thought that the clouds looked pretty.

        So here's a "Elizabethan Sonnet" I'll call it, even though I'm about
99.9% sure that the form is wrong. I'll email my wonderful English
major mother today and ask her for help.


"Service"

The Christ gave his life,
In service for us,
He did away strife,
He healed and build trust.

So what must we give,
In thanks for His gift?
Let's change how we live,
Let's change how we lift.

Our lives should be spent,
In doing God's work.
We should be hell-bent,
We never should shirk.

Our struggles God knows,
Let's serve him below.

Thoughts on Doctrine

    One thing that I've become obsessed with is doctrine. What doctrine does for us and what the purpose is. By doctrine, I mean the foundation behind everything that we do, the reasoning for our actions.

I memorized 2 Timothy 4:1-8 the other day because I love these last verses that Paul writes. One thing that he says stands out to me. He's talking about the last days, and how to be a good evangelist in times when people "turn away their ears from the truth, and are turned unto fables." He says that we are to "rebuke, reprove, exhort, with all long suffering, and doctrine." I love how he instructs us to rebuke and exhort people with doctrine. Doctrine is what will change a person's nature. Understanding doctrine leads to a love of God and faith, which changes a person's nature. Fear just changes behavior.

So in this last district meeting, I decided that everything that we do as missionaries as we learn should be focused on better understanding doctrine so that our natures change. We have a goal-setting session in district meeting every week, basically 10-15 minutes where we review last weeks goal, after looking at our district total key indicators, and set goals and make plans for how to increase our numbers for the next week. It would be easy to set a "behavior changing" goal, like "everybody find 7 new investigators this week" or "hand out 15 copies of the Book of Mormon." But a focus I've been working on is setting nature changing goals, ones that help us understand doctrine and therefore help us BECOME more like Christ instead of just ACTING like him.

So yeah that's fun! I realized that I was super excited and always studying at the start of my mission. I read the whole Book of Mormon, I read doctrine and covenants, I studies for an extra 45 minutes in the morning and then for an hour during lunch and dinner. It's harder to study now, with everything as a district leader, but I want to get back into that routine of always having the scriptures open and reading. 

   Jesus Christ lives. He guides us every day. He leads this church. It is his work. He knows each of us and does everything that he can to touch and bless us. As long as we have faith and look for the miracles in our lives, big or small, we'll see them.

So this week's poem is short because ain't nobody got time for long emails when we have 2 hours to write everybody we know back home.

Miracles

We see them every day,

As we look into the light.

Our life is never gray,

As we're living in God's might.

His hand is all around us,

In every little thing.

We need not make a fuss,

So thanks to God we sing.

The miracle of family,

The miracle of joy,

Not one of these come haply,

So thanks to God employ.

Love you all!!!!! Hope you have a great week :)

We found a Wisconsin license plate. Enough said. 

Being fed dinner by some generous church members.