Learning Lessons from President Lee

Hello Everybody!

       This week we traveled around the mission and gave a training to lots of missionaries. It was amazing to be able to be with them, love them, and try to serve them in every moment. I love being able to turn outward! Way more fun than focusing on ourselves, and it gets a lot more done.

         One thing that has impressed me this last week is how different everybody is. Our mission president, President Lee has said to me several times since I’ve been in Florida, “Now remember, not everybody is an Elder McMullin”. Then he goes on to explain how it’s important to look at where other people are coming from - Family, background, talents, desires, motivations, dreams and aspirations, etc. In our mission, the missionaries have SUCH a wide variety of personalities, desires, talents, and backgrounds. So does everybody on earth! It amazes me that we are all so different, but that God can work with each of us to do his will.

          Lots of amazing opportunities to learn from President Lee this week. After one meeting, he took us and four sister missionaries out to dinner at “Bubba-que’s” - a tiny little barbecue place in the thriving metropolis of Williston, Florida. He talked about his experience as a mission president and the growth that he’d felt since coming from Idaho. Another time we learned lots from him was just driving in between meetings - me driving, Elder Masino in the passenger seat, President Lee sitting right behind us. I asked about career advice and how to manage work and family. Whooooo!  President Lee is full of wisdom!  45 minutes later we got out of the car and I felt like I had the next 30 years of my financial life figured out. What a blessing to be able to learn from him. 

          I had a tradeoff with Elder Birch this week who I trained! I love him! He is so 100% himself and has grown since I served with him six months ago. I love watching how the missionaries who I’ve seen months, even years ago, change and just blossom.

          Love you all! Have a great week.

Elder McMullin

Us and the Waite’s, the senior couple in Gainesville. I love them! They are just so loving and your can feel their love just when they look at you. 

ELDER BIRCH! 

Insights to Life as an "AP"

    Our schedule has been pretty sporadic. It changes day to day, so it’s hard to plan out really in advance. 

The first day, for example, we trained the new missionaries and their trainers, dropped off a set of keys to missionaries who had left them, helped some sisters with a bike that was falling off their car, cleaned up the church building, proselyted for an hour then filled out a report for the stake presidents. 

AP's Elder Masino and Elder McMullin

Elder Masino training new missionaries

Elder McMullin and Elder Masino role-playing during new missionary training.

    Thursday we went to campus all afternoon with the YSA missionaries to show them how to find people to teach on a college campus. That night we had three hours to proselyte. 

    Friday we went on an exchange - I went with zone leader Whittle to their area and we had a good day.

     Saturday was a pretty normal day. We met with President and changed all the contacts in his phone because transfers happened. He has been in Orlando at a conference, and he told us all about it. He made us lunch after, then we went out for the day. 

     It’s super weird to spend so much time at the mission home with President in “casual” situations. Just having lunch together, etc. He’s a very real person! But he acts the same conducting zone conference as he does in the little mission office where we meet with us. He’s really funny! We played racquetball with him Saturday and then again this morning - there is an indoor court at our apartment complex.

    On Sunday night, we had a meeting with him from 8-9 where we basically presented what we think would be good train on in mission leadership conference this Wednesday - chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel on Finding. I think that a lot of being an assistant is counseling - especially with president. Helping him to see things from the missionary’s eyes and helping to demonstrate how to effectively carry out his plans for the mission. 

     I enjoy it! I feel a little spoiled. We eat with President several times a week, he is really kind and casual, but also 100% himself and dignified, while he’s around us, our schedule isn’t as strict because we have to prepare trainings and things, and we spend a lot of time helping missionaries out with basically anything they need. 

     The hardest thing has been figuring out how I can serve the missionaries in the mission. I’ve never had such a strong desire to minister to others and build them up- I want it SO BADLY. It’s hard, though, when given a new assignment - it’s like being moved from being a nursery teacher to an elders quorum president. How do you build up the people in your elders quorum?  But hey it’s literally been 5 days, so I’m still figuring it out. Time is flying by - it’s insane. Here’s a picture of our monthly schedule - what our transfer looks like.

    So... busy busy busy! Elder Masino and I don’t have another full day proselyting together until May 17th because of interviews, MLC (Mission Leadership Conference), zone conferences, and tradeoffs. We are blessed in the short amount of time we do have to work, though. Yesterday, for example, we had church, studies, preparing our training for MLC, dinner with a member, and our meeting with president.

      We had 20 minutes to go out and find new people to teach.  We go to an apartment complex, see a girl walking her dog, and Elder Masino and I just look at each other and say, “She’s the one.” We talk to her, have a lesson there on the spot, and will be teaching her again on Wednesday.   God certainly magnifies the time that we have to use, even though it’s not much! 

Here's a picture of Elder Masino and I this morning.

   Yes,  we cook our own food - we really don’t spent any time at the mission office. We go there to use the computer to prepare trainings, we pick things up that need dropped off, we help with things once in a while, but we don’t go there much. The senior couples handle finances, apartments, vehicles, technology, etc. from there. We don’t interact with them too much, but we do stop by the mission office every other day because of things we need to pick up or drop off something. 

I love you mom! I’m really happy. I’m really excited and eager. My mind is 100% focused on the work and focused on others. I’ve been dreaming about PMG (the manual "Preach My Gospel")  for the last 4 nights haha. I will get home and I think my mind will explode because I won’t know what to think about. I feel like I’m understanding now what it means to have power and authority as a missionary.

Love,

Elder McMullin

People Finding the Elders in Lake City

Hello everybody!

        It’s been quite the blessing of the week here in the Sunshine State! Not as much sunshine this week as some weeks before - there was a huge thunderstorm on Tuesday and then again yesterday. I’d forgotten what Florida rain, lightning, and thunder are like since last summer! I love the rain because that just means that everybody is inside - what a perfect time to visit people in their homes!

If there’s one day of this last week that stands out, it would be Wednesday. Such a crazy day! We had a tradeoff with some of the elders in our district until 2:00, then Elder Jenkins and I were back together and drove back to our house to pick up some things before we went out for the day. We got a text from some other missionaries, telling us about a man who wanted us to go and visit him to help his family life the gospel more. We go see him, sit in his warm, small home, and talk about the blessings of the gospel to families. He was very grateful and asked us to come by again in a few days. His two middle school aged kids came home from school and they sat, cross legged on the floor, and listened intently as we talked. Such a good family, and so ready for the gospel!

So, we are on cloud nine (finding somebody who wants to change and learn is the BEST feeling on earth), and bike back to our house because we need more copies of the Book of Mormon. As we’re about to leave, a guy drives past in a beat up old white sedan, and as he passes, yells “Elders!!” We wave, thinking that it’s a member, but then he flips the car in reverse and backs up. We meet him in the middle of the road and talk with him for a second - he has met with missionaries in the past and asked us to come by that night to talk.

So, 6:00 PM comes around and we go to his place. He felt like he had a lack of direction in his life, so we taught how the gospel will “point us in a straight course to eternal bliss”, as the Book of Mormon helps us see. He was really grateful and also asked us to come by later.

We felt like we could bike 80 miles an hour, we were so excited! It built my testimony that God prepares people to change - we didn’t do anything to find any of these people, but they all found us.

I’m being transferred to serve in Jacksonville with Elder Masino, who I’ve served around a lot before! I’m really excited to be able to finish my mission there. 

The last picture of our district before most of these missionaries break up and head to other parts of the mission. Transfers and change is always sad, but also really exciting as we look forward with hope.

Elder Berg and I! I respect him I a lot - he’s hands down one of the most kind, caring, patient people I’ve ever met.

Us and “Peanut”. One of our investigators has a lot of dogs, and this is just one. Actually, all of the people we teach have a lot of dogs...

Brother Waters and Kirky. We’ve been meeting with them for the last three months and I love them.

All of us missionaries + Missy! She received her patriarchal blessing on Sunday and let us come to be with her - a really special experience!

Lake City life, lots of pictures

Hello Everybody!

This week has been a blessed one. We spent a lot of time biking this week! You will see that highlighted in Elder Jenkins’ face and my face. Very red... It’s been really fun though to be able to bike in such beautiful Florida weather. It just builds my testimony that God is there, that he loves us, and that he cares! It will be hard going back to Wisconsin when two years is up. Florida has my heart.

But the people here are even more amazing. One person we are teaching right now is Jerry. He has had a pretty rough past and a crazy life. His wife is a member of the church and they have an ADORABLE one year old redhead son. He has come to church for the past few weeks and it makes my day to see his face light up when he’s at church. He, like many other people here in Lake City, is naturally just filled with charity. He spends hours helping his older neighbors and making sure they’re safe and ok. We stopped by one hot day, and he made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, gave us ice cream and bottled water, and sent us on our, now much merrier, way.

General Conference - a biannual church broadcast was this last weekend. The new prophet, President Nelson, gave an amazing talk about revelation. (Read it or watch it here) It’s something that I feel really strongly about! We are entitled to have God speak to us, usually through feelings like love, joy, and peace. What a blessing to be able to learn from Him, in times we need him most.

  Here are pictures from this week:

Trade-offs:  Elder Jenson and I! He’s amazing, has an incredible sense of humor, loves the Book of Mormon, and can connect with anybody.

There are a lot of goats here in Lake City. Some of them are even in yards or fences. 

Yes, we were being 100% safe taking this picture.

Here’s us + the sisters in our ward. In the sun at 7 at night. I’m not actually that sunburnt, the sun just makes it look like that. The Robinsons, a member family, fed on us Easter. They are really loving and hospitable! They’re really Christlike people.

Us and sister smith! A recent convert. Such a Christlike lady.

Zone preparation day! Lots of frisbee, lots of baseball, it was a fun day. I love our district - so good. Transfers are in a week, and I think that the district will get shaken up. I’m pretty sure I’ll finish my mission here... we will see. 

        What else this week - oh, karate! It was really good - we mostly did a strength and endurance workout that left us sore the next morning. We practiced basic punches, and will be doing lots more tomorrow morning. The Sisters were exhausted but said they’ll still come. It was so fun!!!

       We are going to try to work up to the certification test thing that you need to take before you get your first belt. Apparently it takes about an hour, so we will have to get up extra early that morning. The lady who does it, Sister Lindboe, is like a drill sergeant. We started out with jumping jacks, and she said, in her commanding voice, “Everybody count with me! 1...1...1...1...1...1...” Then we realized that she wasn’t moving on from one until every person in the room was counting with her. So we did! “2...3...3...4....5...5...5...” It was fun. I love Sister Lindboe - we are trying hard to get them back to church. 

Love you all! I hope you have an amazing week.

Easter Haikus

Hello everybody! 

        This week has been good. Very busy visiting people and lots of appointments. I am really excited for Easter this weekend! What a blessing to be able to focus a little more on Jesus Christ. Here are some short haikus about Easter, because I don’t have time to write much today. 

The Lord Jesus Christ,

He saves us from the darkness,

I love him dearly. 

This is Easter week,

A time to remember Him,

Let us serve our Lord. 

Love you all!

Here are a couple pictures from the week:

Elder Boehme and I! He’s from Canada and one of my favorite missionaries in the mission. He is so hardworking and funny. Also, sorry that his eyes are closed, but this is the only picture we have. 

A member’s kids got a hold of my iPad. This is one of my favorite families here in lake city. So fun, so lively, really funny. 

PS:   Addition from Asher's mom:  In my letter this week,  I asked him about the epic highs and tragic lows that missionaries experience.  He laughed, and responded with a good description of what his Sunday was like. I thought some of you might enjoy a glimpse of regular mission drama.

"Yes... I do feel like that many days. For example, Sunday morning!

   On our way to church at 8, we stopped by and knocked on the door of an investigator family (they fasted and prayed all day Saturday that they could come to church). They came outside and pointed to a trailer next to them, which we then noticed was charred inside and out, and the trees around it were covered in ash as well. Apparently, somebody had been smoking at 4 in the morning, with oxygen tanks in their home, and the trailer had exploded. So nobody got any sleep and they couldn’t come even though they’d promised to come the day before. That’s the 5th week in a row that something crazy like that was happening.

Then, we head over to the church and try to send a text to the ward council about investigators to expect at church. It won’t send. We ask our sisters to send it, and it sends, but is total gibberish. Finally, we send it to a member and he sends it to the ward council group text. Satan doesn’t want out investigators to come to church, apparently.

Get to church, and a family walks in, the Davis’, who were supposed to pick up our investigator Jerry and his member wife Cami. But it’s just the Davis’ walking in. They had stopped by and nobody was home.

 Then, we get a text from a member family, the Hansens, who we have been meeting with and working with to help them invite their friends. Sister Hansen tells us that Zoe, her 7 year old daughter, is bringing one of her friends to church, and tells us about the amazing natural missionary conversations that Zoe has had with her friend. So that lifts our spirits at least a little.

No investigators show up to sacrament meeting - we walk to the foyer and see Steven, a member referral from Raymond, also in our ward. That also lifts our spirits, and he stays all 3 hours and we met with him yesterday afternoon. He loves the Book of Mormon and especially when we shared 1 Nephi 13 - the prophesy of the colonization of America. 

So yes, I understand what you mean with the ups and downs :)"

Exhilarating Week

Hello Everybody!

      This week was exhilarating! Lots happened last week, but the big highlights have been from last Saturday through yesterday. Lynn G. Robbins, one of the church leaders, came here from Utah to speak here in Lake City Saturday night and Sunday Morning. He also spoke at a mission leadership conference Monday, then again on Tuesday.

Elder Jenkins and I at the conference.

Dozens of pizzas to feed everyone.

Good to see old companions there, like Elder Stuart.

Missionaries and Leader attending the Mission Leadership Conference

      Saturday night I was asked to play prelude music for the church session - so I was standing up at the front playing hymns with a pianist accompanying me. Quite a few people came that night - probably between two or three hundred. The church leadership had a meeting until five before, so most of the time I was playing, nobody was up on the stand. Then I see a few people walk in. First, the Stake Presidency, who are responsible for eight or nine congregations around Lake City. Then, our mission president and his wife walk in. Right behind them is the Temple President from Orlando and his wife, who are in charge of coordinating everything with the temple there. Right after them come Lynn G. Robbins and his wife. They make their way up to the front and sit on the chairs right behind me - you know, all of them between ten and fifteen feet away. At this point, I’m really grateful for my wonderful teachers and professors for teaching me how to play and not get nervous, because otherwise my bow would have been shaking like a deer in headlights. Anyway, it was fun to do and made me grateful for being able to play viola.

Playing prelude with Sister Cabral

      Lynn G. Robbins spoke then, and then in each consecutive meeting, about different things, but each time the Spirit was strong and his words were really touching. He spoke on the difference between “be” and “do”. It’s not enough to just do good things or have Christlike acts, we need to be good and have a Christlike nature.

Elder Robbins giving instruction.

       He taught a lot about parenting - that as soon as we try to control a child’s agency, we plant seeds of rebellion in their heart. He said that we should be parents like Heavenly Father is a parent - teaching us true doctrine, how to live, and then letting us choose to act based on our knowledge and guided by his Spirit. Fascinating - so many good things!! I love learning, that’s the big thing that I came away with from this week - power of learning, especially about the gospel and how it connects into every little part of our lives.

There is a family in our ward, the Hansens, who had us over for dinner and to share a message. Sister Hansen loves us, for some reason, and the way that we teach their kids. She said “Here, pose for a picture and I’ll post it on the church’s Facebook page so everybody can see that y’all can even teach crazy, wild kids!” I can attest that their kids are both crazy and wild, but there’s still always a Spirit of love in their home.

I had a tradeoff with Elder Kesler this week - he is from Idaho and is a 100% born and raised farm boy. He grew up on a cattle farm and he knows how to work hard. 

Elder Jenkins and I, then the sisters in our ward - Sister Prue (left) and Sister Spangler (right). Sister Prue is from Idaho and is a great artist, and loves working hard and being out all day every day. Sister Spangler is from Missouri (three cheers for the one other missionary I know who’s not from Utah, Idaho, or California!) and she loves family history. 

I love you all, and hope that you have a great week. Spring is here in Florida, but it’s actually colder than all winter has been... 60 degrees and windy. Freezing!    -Elder McMullin

Lake City, Florida

Hello everybody!

WOW I’m sorry for the radio silence over the past few weeks - I don’t have any good excuses. I’m serving in Lake City right now with Elder Jenkins and it is an amazing place to be!

Who is Elder Jenkins? Hmmn. Try to imagine brownies with vanilla ice cream, with a cup of hot chocolate to the side. With whip cream on top. And chocolate drizzled over the whip cream. That’s Elder Jenkins. He is from Utah, has 15 siblings (no, that’s not a typo), he loves reading, and is a man of few words. He serves more diligently than a server at a 5 star restaurant - he’s always doing something to serve, whether it’s washing dishes, asking me if he can help with anything, asking members if he can help, etc. 

Elder Jenkins and I! 

Right outside our house. That’s a Hispanic evangelical church, in case you’re wondering. They sing loud gospel Spanish songs every Friday night and I love it. 

Florida greenery outside our house!

Lake City is smaller than Stoughton and probably half the total population.  Lots of southern white people. Everybody has an accent. This is the real south - Gainesville was the fake south :) 

       Most of the people here are cattle farmers or work at correctional facilities of prisons outside of town. Hard workers with hands so calloused that it feels like I’m shaking hands with a rock. I love it! Having hands so calloused that they feel like rocks is now one of my life goals, but I’m not going to get there playing viola. Sudden career change coming in the near future...?  Maybe yes. 

     The members in the church ward are great. They’re all super solid, southern families who love the gospel and have pretty deep roots in it. It’s cool to hear their stories about how their families have been here since the 1800’s. 

    (The following section is an excerpt from a letter to me, Asher's mom, about a major festival the town held two weeks ago, the "Olustee Festival".  The small town is invaded by thousands of visitors for one weekend each February. They host a parade, an art and crafts fair, and open stages with live music and food booths.  The town runs shuttles out to the nearby historic civil war battlefield, where hundreds of Civil War re-enactors,including horses for cavalry, come together to relive the only major battle fought in Florida during the Civil War.  I asked him how the weekend went.)

Parade during the Festival

     "The festival was honestly really neat!  It was very very very busy!  

      Lots of booths and shops set up in the streets. Lots of good smelling and good tasting food. If it had been lunch time, we definitely would have gotten some, but it was just as good being able to smell all of it. They had a lot of really neat things that I hadn’t seen other places - super finely crafted fancy leather belts and shoes, lots of huge meat smokers out, it felt very southern. Haha! Some people were super intense and dressed up in their southern civil war garb.

         Unfortunately, not many people were super prone to talking about their family history with us. Most of them were just going from place to place and didn’t want to talk. We were able to talk with a few older folks who were sitting down and shared neat experiences of how their ancestors had fought in the war - some of them accepted family history cards with the family search website on it,  (https://www.familysearch.org/)   but nobody wanted to come to the family history center or let us come and help them with family history.   Alas.     It was a really good experience though!

         I wanted to play viola on the street and see if anybody would let us, so we went to the festival management booth and asked a lady. She looked behind her and yelled for her dad - he came up, and it turns out he’s the mayor of Lake City. I ask if I can play on the street just for fun, not for money or anything, and with his cowboy boots and hat and thick white mustache says “Well dadgum I reckon there ain’t a problem with that. Y’all go right ahead, fellas!”

So we did! I got my viola and played some hymns and “You are my Sunshine” and some folk songs I could remember. I wish that I knew more!!!    Agh!!!!    You were so right mom, I should have learned folk songs was at home. Yes, mom always knows best. Point it, when I get home, I’ll learn some old school folk music so that I can bring a smile to old people's faces."

   We were spending some of our allotted 2 hours/week to do family history, and I was trying to learn more about how our ancestors converted and such. I was looking at James H Walker, and reading about his mission stories.

Above:  My great great grandpa James Walker with a majestic middle part while he was serving as a missionary in Holland in the early 1900’s. I’ve been learning more about him the last few weeks and look up to him a lot! I’m afraid that I will never be able to look as regal as he does. 

 I’ll leave with a short, barely below average haiku and then let y’all get on with your lives :)

Lake City Haiku

Lake City my home,

Few words, many lakes, stray cats,

I love Florida.

If I could describe the hardest part of my life in one word? Trains.
 If standstill traffic is frustrating at 4:57 when you have a 5:00 appointment, what about watching a train cut through the entire town for 15 minutes? It gives us great time to read scriptures and make phone calls though, so it’s fine by me!

When a member says that they’ll bring you something for dinner. 

  I spend 7 days every month and a half with other missionaries from the other small towns in the area to learn from them and teach things that our mission president wants everybody to know.  This is Elder Jenson, from California, whom I worked with this week.  He is brilliant and knows the scriptures like the back of his hand!

    Last month, there  was a mission leadership council this last week and accountability was discussed a lot. Since, then, I’ve been really excited about the principle of accountability and the blessings that it brings.  At the end of the day, my companion and I will talk about how we did with our goals for a few minutes, then one of us will pray and tell God about the day. It really opens the windows for constant revelation and shows God that we care about the people he’s entrusted us with and that we want to improve. I have started doing it individually and I love it! I think I will continue doing it when I get home - if I have a personal goal to be kinder to others in college, or to compliment people more, or whatever, then I will pray and tell God about specific times I feel I did well and when I could improve. I love love love it - accountability is powerful, and I feel can help us be better disciples of Christ.

President Lee teaching about accountability

President Lee, Elder McMullin, and Elder Masino

Good food afterwards!

Love you all!

Elder McMullin