Back to Where It All Began - received December 16, 2012

Well people, Elder McClure got his transfer from the mission president and he is going to Lawrenceville, Virginia.  This is south of Wakefield (where I started a year ago), out in the country.  My new companion will be Elder Mathia.  Basically, I will be leaving my favorite area to go to my old district where I first became a Richmond, Virginia missionary. It’s like you have the opportunity to go back in the past and say to yourself in a struggling area, “You’re going to do great things in the future and experience a lot of trials, but don't give up.”  I feel a part of me will always stay in Waynesboro and I will miss it dearly.  In fact, I'm kind of anxious about it because I have made the best of friends with some of the members here.  I know the Divvers family, who I have been teaching, will be heartbroken.  The mission president is sending me to Lawrenceville so I can scope out the area (because I'm so familiar with it) in order to figure out how we can split it.  We need to be able to fit more missionaries in here, because we're getting a lot more since the age for missionary service dropped.  The great thing is that President Perry first asked me to accept the transfer by saying, "Do you trust me, Elder McClure?"  I do - he is an inspired man of God.     

This week was crazy because we had a Christmas mission conference on Tuesday and they gave us stockings full of goodies like toothbrushes and giant meat sticks. In the process, I did an exchange with our zone leader and we tracted in the night which was really bizarre. We found a few people and met a couple of crazy ones, too. When I came back the next day, the zone leaders announced they will be taking Elder Downs with them, so it was just me and Elder Russell for the remainder of his mission life until Tuesday. In that time we were able to teach Isabel the Word of Wisdom and help her understand why addictions to some things (like drugs) are bad because the addicted person has to take more and more in order to have the same feeling.

We also put together stockings for a less active family and did other things to help make sure they have a good Christmas. We just mainly put a bunch of candy in stockings. We helped out with the Bishop’s Storehouse.  We also got to talk with Isabel again while her sister was there – she’s really funny. We also got to teach the Divvers this week.  They are awesome!  Patrick is reading the Book of Mormon now and I got to teach the family a lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ. They want to be baptized - they are just waiting for Patrick to be ready.

I got to go to a Christmas party the ward threw and Elder Russell sat on Santa’s lap. Last night we went to a member’s house and we were just acting like super goobers, being funny and all. I’m going to miss Elder Russell.

Well, if you are sending a letter or anything now just send it to the mission headquarters (the address on Midlothian Turnpike). Love you all!

Elder McClure

Breaking Boards and a Chik-fil-A Lesson: received December 10, 2012

Another email from yours truly, Elder McClure:

 
This week was cool, but I’ll make it short. On Monday we did Tae-Kwon-Do lessons and we actually broke boards with our fists and the knife edge side of our hands. Super cool! We felt really awesome. E. Downs didn’t quite get it; he broke the board but chewed up his hand.

We have been fed by members almost the whole week again so it’s been pretty fattening for me. We are still meeting with a couple of less-actives like Sister Campbell. She is not coming to church. Arughghailala! It’s infuriating but we still love her. We met with this other family named the Fulks and they are really fun to talk to. We saw their daughters in Target while getting aspirin for Elder Russell and they screamed, "MORMONS!" when they saw us. Super funny!

 
Our lessons are pretty good. We had a lesson with a girl named Isabel on the 7th Chapter of 1^st Nephi, which is about the vision of the Tree of Life. I was like, “Isabel, your mom has taken of the fruit and she’s calling you to get some.  She’s saying, ‘Look Isabel, I got this fruit. It’s white and tastes really good.’” Elder Russell was on the floor again with the dog. We got to teach Chelsea and Melissa at Chick-fil-A (I got a free ice cream cup when I bought the first one so I gave it to one of their kids) and we took a picture with a cow so it was really funny. We talked about the importance of prophets, the Word of Wisdom, and our acceptance of homosexuals. I tried to stress how much we love them; it’s just the practice that is not good. They got the picture.

We got to talk to Jeffrey Cosgrove.  He finally got through trucker’s school, which is a lot more effort than you would ever think anyone would have to put in. But now he has time to read and enjoy. We had dinner with the Pincocks and found out that Bro. Pincock served a mission in France with Uncle Greg (Callis) so he’s going to find a picture from his mission and show us what Greg looked like as a missionary. Weird, huh?

Church was really good this last week - it was fast and testimony meeting and Isabel, Chelsea, and Melissa Divver were there. After the meeting, we looked back and Chelsea and Melissa were crying and were like, “Why didn’t you tell us to bring tissues?” They loved the meeting and it was the first time they had come to Sacrament meeting. They said that Testimony meeting was a really unique thing that our church does compared to others. Brother Sweeney hogged Gospel Principles and talked a bunch. We brought Brother Tickal to see a less active and he also talked a lot. He shares his conversion story when we bring him a long, which is great. He also apologizes when we don’t call ahead of time. We ended the night by having the Divvers signing up for dinner and then we played around with the kids. We even played SceneIt at the end. They are a really awesome family. One of the kids even had a Captain Underpants book, which used to be my favorites. Super awesome!  Well, I love you all and enjoy my comments,

Elder McClure

Leadership Training and a Healing from a False Church - sent December 3, 2012

Hello Family and Friends!

This message isn’t going to be really long since it was a hard week from a lot of people cancelling on us. But the up side is that Elder Downs went to leadership training where he can learn about being a better missionary. He wasn’t with us Tuesday through Friday, but he was still doing good work. During that time we had a lesson with Sister Campbell, just trying to get her to come to church so people can see her and so she can get over whatever she is having a hard time with. We also had a lesson with Steve Lawhorne and his member wife on the Word of Wisdom so we can make sure he knows all the things he has to abstain from. The funny thing is that Elder Russell keeps calling them the “Longhorns” so they give him an evil stare and stuff like that. We have just been trying to see these people and trying to get them to church. But other than that, a lot of hard times with low miles for the month, no one answering or if they do, they are mean to us, as well as some people who dropped us right on the phone (Wendy!).  Very sad! But we will get better days.

Some funny and weird things also happened this week.  First, while we were getting out of the car, Elder Russell popped his knee kind of bad so he has been limping all around and using Elder Downs as a staff.  That’s what he calls him now - Staff. We were also able to go to a nondenominational house church (this is where 2 or 3 small families come together in one house) last night.  These people don’t like big, organized church stuff. We got to see a giant bunny and talked with a guy for a while on spiritual experiences.  We also discussed how the Bible was compiled and how that correlates with the Book of Mormon. When we were about to leave, they started singing a song called “Thank you Lord.” The song is just that phrase repeated in song form. Then they had Elder Russell sit down in a small chair and put their hands on his knee and his body and said words of healing. They were really sincere, but no authority. Plus a little girl got involved in it. Pretty interesting. We also got to see the baptism of Joe Webber, the man who has been teaching us Tae-Kwon-Do. So really cool. Elder Wiggins, the senior couple husband, did it and Joe went forward in a crouching position because the font was so small. It was a good experience!

Well, I love you all and will update you next week on what I will be doing.

Love,

Elder McClure