Email Received March 26, 2012

Hey ya’ll,

This has been a big week for me and Elder Pickup. We first went to Leadership Training on Tuesday for the second time. During the 4 days, we were up in Richmond relearning the 8 principles of the gospel to help us improve teaching the people. There were a lot of things to be learned. The things that we touched on that really helped were Church attendance and Commitment. We really need more people to come to church. The commitment lesson was fun because we role played, giving hilarious commitments that we had to back up. Like:  “Will you dye your hair?” 

During that time, we stayed in an area really close to the building called Meadowbrook. It was a biking area so I borrowed Elder Buckley’s bike to use there. I had to bike twice to a place 30 minutes away to people who weren’t there, but the exercise was great. We talked to a lady named Janica and she was so close but then she just told us that it was not a good time in her life to accept the gospel. On one of the 30 minute trips, we did it in the rain and it rained hard. It also hailed and thundered above us. Every time we would go down a hill, we would have to go up it the same night.

The missionaries there lived in an apartment complex with most of their members,  which were a lot. At the end of our time there, we bore our testimonies, I gave the most powerful testimony where everyone could tell it was different and the power of the Holy Ghost was all through me. It felt so powerful, like how I imagine Nephi might have felt. One of the assistants told me I spoke like the Spirit was speaking directly through me.

Not much happened in our week after Training, but we got to see Dorothy again.  She is going through cancer treatment and she’s interested in the gospel.  We found this lady at the end of the block and we gave her and her friend Books of Mormon and the first discussion. Most importantly, we baptized David Warren which was done by our branch president, President Irwin. That was really cool!  I did his confirmation. He said that he felt overwhelmed (in a good way) and wanted to feel that way all the time.

Well, that was our week and today we had to give up going to Ultimate Frisbee for a tri-zone activity in Lawerenceville that used up all our miles. Later, we went to the Harter’s and Buster the parrot got on Elder Pickup’s head. Funny. We have been doing better and are still trying to use our time effectively.

Love you all and please keep writing!

Elder McClure

Email Received on March 12, 2012

Hi Family,

I remember that it was this month in 2008 when we bought the beautiful house that we live in today!

Last Monday, Elder Carter came back for a sleepover and we played charades at the Harter’s. Brother Harter did a funny impression of a crossdresser. The next day we had to say goodbye to Elder Carter forever. Elder Coon got transferred to Oak grove so I got yet another companion who is a district leader for the first time on his mission:  Elder Pickup. So Elder Coon and I wasted time by him packing and the failed amount of appointments that we have had.

On Thursday we went to transfers and there was an okay amount of people there and a few new people to train. Our vehicle and automotives guy is Elder Tolman and he’s in a wheelchair and he’s a pretty nice guy. Our new Assistant to the President is Elder Rogers who I have heard is a little prideful over his football career which is very weak, but he did become an assistant coach to the team he played on. So I get put with Elder Pickup(from Declo, Idaho which is in the country part). He has some manners about him but he is a bigger guy (basically fat) and in the car he has that fat guy smell about him so it’s getting a little unbearable. We didn’t do a lot over the past days because of failed appointments and other things.

A couple of big things that happened were that we taught Loretta on her porch and she lives next to a well-used road so lots of people saw the lesson.  We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited her to be baptized. She said she would think about it. Then we tried to teach a black guy named Carton and he is interested but doesn’t know how to read hardly at all. Hard to go off what we taught last time. Half way through, Elder Pickup asked to use the bathroom so I had to stand in the guy’s living room looking at his stuff while he stood there quietly.  Then we went to the Fly’s to have dinner and they have 6 boys and all are very loud. One of them is in Malowi, Africa but they shut down that part of the mission because there was only a 1% retention of people baptized.

Then we visited a guy named Eldridge and I have not seen him in over a month so I was worried. I would always look at his house to see if he was there. So we stopped by and he had had 4 surgeries and is on dialysis which takes up 3 of his days. He was crying when we came by and said he missed us and he would always feel better when we would come by. I know that I was meant to be in Wakefield for one more transfer so he wouldn’t be overlooked. We went to the Joines, which is the big black lady and the small white man. Their kid Caleb likes me a lot and S. Joines always makes it known. She invited us to Easter Dinner and an Easter egg hunt where she has like 130 eggs hidden.

This Sunday was a little chaotic from Daylight Savings and the flu that’s going around again. There weren’t any investigators at church and only 3/4 of members were in attendance. I had to teach Gospel Principals on Adam and Eve. I did okay but B. Fly really helped out.

Today (Monday) we just went shopping and then to the Harter’s. I got the package and loved it.

I have been having a bad couple of days from adjusting to a new comp. I have been yearning for every word from you all and I feel helpless when I miss your emails or don’t get a letter. I have trying to keep my spirits up but there is a lot of weight bearing down on me from being in Wakefield one more transfer when I have met all the people Elder Carter would just visit and potientials and formers me and Elder Coon have been seeing. My birthday is coming up - oh I mean OUR birthday is coming up (Tessa). Now you won’t have to share it with this goober. Have a fun week!

Love,

Elder McClure

Email Received February 27, 2012

Hi Family,

This week was a weird one. On Monday, we had a Nerf war with other Elders and the Fly boys; everything was fun!  So Tuesday, we spent it going to see some people in Wakefield who weren’t there, then we went this lady whose house was up this eerie road and the rocks tore up the car like crazy. Then we had a lesson with a former named Ray and we committed him to read the Book of Mormon and I bore my testimony about the Book of Mormon and he said that he would take any time he could to read it.

On Wednesday, we went to see this lady at a thrift store named the Frik and Frak but we had to reschedule because she was working. (I found the perfect gift for Tessa on her B-day.) Then we went to see a bunch of other people that fluffed out on us which is basically saying they have better things to do than hang around for a lesson. Then we went to see my favorite less active family, the Millers.  Their son and his wife moved out because their dogs drove everyone to the edge.

Thursday, we went to a District meeting and I taught on Diligence and used the lifeguard CPR I know as part of it and also used the Preach My Gospel manual and scriptures to tie into it. It was pretty good. Then we did an exchange with Lawerenceville and it was the greenie named Elder Baldwin that came with me. So we went to teach a Restoration lesson with a lady named Loretta and she loved it and wanted really bad to know the truth about our religion. She has a busy schedule so we don’t have regular appointments with her. Elder Baldwin did a good job and I did good letting him talk. So after that we did a lot of tracting where we found a former, Gracie, and a lady named Angela who works at Golden Corral.  We also visited a guy named Emmanuel who had our phone number and had called. So then we went to la Hacienda and Elder Baldwin ate really fast!  He said he eats fast because he was a firefighter before coming on a mission and they have to eat fast. We didn’t have any other standing appointments. 

Friday, there was a tornado scare and it was really windy! I took Elder Baldwin to the church tower to see the weather. Then we got to tract Wakefield and we stumbled on this guy who rejected our message and tried to get us to forget it and be saved by believing in Jesus Christ but no real doctrine. Then his wife rambled on about that men are liars and about Obama and being saved.  It was really scary because I was the older missionary and Elder Baldwin didn’t talk a lot. Then we tried to waste time till 3 pm so we went to see a lady in Dendron. Not there. Then we did more stuff in Waverly and talked to a guy with a retarded dog (honestly, it was retarded; they told us it had been dropped on its head as a puppy) and his other dog threw up in front of us. Then we exchanged back in Petersburg. Elder Coon and I went to see David, our Baptismal Date, who wasn’t there or didn’t answer. Before that we saw a snapping turtle in the middle of the road and Elder Coon picked it up to get it out of the road and it bit him and cut his finger really bad.

Saturday, all of our appointments fell thru and one of them was on house arrest so we knew he was home!  He even locked out his wife so as not to see us!  We ate at an Italian restaurant and then drove to David’s.  He was home but just didn’t answer. Waste of miles. Then we tried to see Larry Brown and he wasn’t even home and he could have called us. Bad day.

Sunday we went with the Grubers to a Conference from Salt Lake for the whole South Eastern Shore. Elder Richard Scott talked about giving women appreciation and to treasure them. It was crazy to hear cuz after that we met again with this lady, Teri, who gave us a 20 minute version of her life where her father, husband, and boyfriend all beat her up and were really mean to her.  She has had the worst life in the world because of those men. We invited her to read the BoM and pamphlets and she was really interested. Then we went to the Dayton’s for dinner and their son Zack was screaming most of the time and was so bad.

Monday got a package from Mom and loved it. Had to open it immediately! E. Coon got a whole set of Encyclopedia.  We went to the Harter’s to email and here we are.

Love you all,

Elder McClure

Email Received on February 20, 2012

Hi Family!

Friday: we did weekly planning and went around just finding places to tract and no hope there. We had a lesson with a less active and his son, Jawan, who had little to no knowledge of religion period so we had to massively simplify the plan of salvation. Then on Saturday we had the best of luck. We went to go tract the rest of a road in Dendron called Railroad Rd.  We had little to no success except a guy interested in the Book of Mormon to read and when we finally ended that meeting a big black family comes out on the dusty road.  I talked to them first instead of Elder Coon and the mother was really interested.  She read a little from her Book of Mormon when the elders taught them in a group on the exchange.

Saturday:  We visited this guy named Ray Williams, a former, and he was still interested.  A year ago some other elders turned him off after he had a bad deal with his girlfriend.  He had moved to a trailer and he left and the elders came by and smelled kerosene (which leaked from heating the house) and they called the cops.  Ray was later sent to a psych ward for a few days because of this.  So that left a bad taste in his mouth. We met a couple of other people who were interested and saw a couple of referrals from one guy. We met 6 new investigators. Then went to La Hacienda and saw a couple of kids on a dinner date for a dance and the girls wore trampy dresses and one was covered in body glitter. Weird.

 

Sunday: nothing much happened.  Most of the people we invited to church didn’t come. There were some non-members who attended S. Smith’s funeral (she was the Harter’s grandma) and they loved the compassion of the people for her.  S. Smith said before she died that she was excited for the glorious work to be done in Heaven and she was glad that before she died she had finished her visiting teaching.  That was a lesson to everyone to do visiting teaching better if a 85 year old lady can do it. We had another lesson with Jawan and Larry Brown, his father, and we showed them an New Testament based movie of Jesus Christ and him growing up and they loved it and wanted to see more. It also snowed for a while and then stopped while in other areas it was like a blizzard.

Monday:  today we went with the Flys to a zone P-day nerf gun war. The Flys had all the official nerf guns and we had a blast.  The game was 2 bases against each other style and I got a lot of exercise from it. E. Roberts had gone all out and spent 100 bucks on nerf stuff like a sword, dagger, shield, pistol, 2 clips, a vest to hold it all and a sniper nerf gun. He is super weird. Then we went home and went to a thrift shop for a VCR machine and the clerk talked a bunch and showed us all these things she said she got out of the trash. Then we had dinner at the Flys and emailed from there.

Love,

Elder McClure

Email Received February 13, 2012

Hi Family,

Here’s of the scoop of my fun week so far. We are trying to get lessons with people but they don’t answer or they are too busy to have one OR we set up an appointment and they skip out another time. One cool thing was that this lady, Josephine (someone we tracted out but she wouldn't accept a lesson) came to church last Sunday!  She looked over the Hymns a lot during church. 

We went into this one place with a bunch of apartments and one had a lady who talked to us out of the second story window and that was interesting. At another door was a guy in a wheelchair with no legs.  He talked about his own religion and then he asked if I had a girlfriend.  I said “No.”  He said, “Have you ever made love to a woman?” When I said no again he told me I was in the wrong world then. Then he gave an awkward story on the occasions he goes to clubs and “gets it.” Another guy named Wallace talked to us about his community church and then said he had been dead and had had two heart attacks in the same week. He has been talking to the missionaries before. At another apartment, this older guy named Lewis (who looks like a frog) opened the door and every word we said made him smile and light up more and more, I think because he hasn’t gotten a lot of visitors.

On the same day we met a Jehovah’s Witness named Usef (Hebrew for Joseph). E. Coon had a fun time learning more about him and the JWs. A funny question E. Coon asked Usef was, “Do people ask if you are Mormon?”  Usef sort of shrunk and said in a high pitched voice, “Yes,” and we all started laughing and he said, “We get the same treatment from people if we are JWs.” He would say “Where in the ham sandwich is it?” He replaces the “H” word with “ham sandwich.”

We have had more of a tracting week.  We talked to a guy named Al who was taught 10 years ago so he is very interested in our message and we think he may want to get baptized. Another fun thing this week was that we went to a scout meeting and only one family there (the Flys) were Mormons and when we walked in the room we could feel everyone stare at us. Every day is very fun and I always try to stay positive.

I have been reading the Bible and the BOM and trying to learn more as I go along. Elder Coon is really good at pulling out scriptures and good questions for the people. That is the description of my week.  Oh, the branch's kids are really liking me like Caleb Jones and Hunter who always says “Opa!” when I see him.

Thanks for the package and all the diabetic treats therein. One thing I really desire is piano sheet music to that song you sometimes play to yourself, Mom, “Moonlight Sonata,” and Coldplay sheet music. Right now I have been practicing on hymns and "What is a Youth" and the really easy stuff you sent me. Thank you. I really miss all of you!

Love,

Elder McClure

Email Received on February 6, 2012

Hi Family,

This week has been fun but not too exciting. We tracted a lot of houses and went to the houses of both former members and potential investigators. Interesting things this week:   we got to go to zone meeting and it was fun and we had some pretty good lessons which helped a lot.

Funny story, we went on splits with Jeff, an RM, and he told us to be careful in his car because he just cleaned it up. So we went to the investigator’s house, but they weren’t there so the lesson was cancelled.  We went to a random area and got out of the car to tract and I saw some stuff on the floormat of the car.  I was wondering what it was so I looked at one shoe. Clean!  Then the other - it had a big amount of dog poop on it.  I just busted up laughing and Jeff got really angry and I had to clean the floor later but it was funny.

We committed this one lady named Mable to come to church.  The Elders have been teaching her a lot. We went to her house to ask her about the gospel and she said she will pray about it. She will come to church this Sunday. We also set Chuck Milligan for baptism on March 3^rd; he will wait to see if the spirit tells him it’s right. We met this lady and her daughter. Her name is Kitty and her daughter’s name is CJ. We got there and she was the last house to see and we asked her a couple of questions.  Then she said that she met the elders before and she needed a refresher.  By the end of our lesson, she wanted to get ready for baptism!  She’s planning to come to church this Sunday. We also talked to this lady, Bobbie, and she stopped at the pamphlet and said she needed to ask her preacher to see if she could continue.

Funny story: we started talking to this family in their backyard then it became an argument among them because one was Muslim and the others were Baptist. Then this lady was like, “Are y’all having church in my backyard? I’ll pass around the collection plate!”  

So that’s the fullness of my week and I’ll write a full letter on this week.  I love and miss you all!

-Elder McClure

Email Received January 24, 2012

Hi Family,

Thanks, Mom, for the Idaho Spud candy bars.  I brought them to the Harters and gave them out. Everyone had the funniest expression on their face and the bars were a weird type of chocolate and gross. But I really enjoyed the Mentos and I am really sorry that I haven’t emailed in a while. I’m going to send lots and lots of pictures today just for you to enjoy. You should check on Garry if he has leprosy or something. [Garry recently had a light case of Chicken Pox]. You should put him in a bath of Oatmeal and then have him eat it. Fear Factor style.

Here’s a simplified version of what my 9 days of fun were. I love the scarf Its really vibrant.

Monday-Thursday: We went to see S. Seeley’s son, Mark. We taught him the Restoration on Monday and on Thursday we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then we set him for baptism on Feb. 18 which is pretty cool. Other than that, me and E. McDermott from an exchange drove all over the area trying to get in touch with some people. They weren’t there and things fell thru, but it was fun being with another companion. We tracked near our branch president's house and this big black dog followed us and started barking at us when we went to a door and E. McDermott was freaking out. 

I took him to see one of my favorite less actives, the Millers. The dad is very active; it’s just the rest of the family that has trouble. He is the nicest guy on earth and he drills wells for a living. We also helped people in the old folks home to get to their church (not ours) to listen to the preacher.  He had confidence but no authority. I hated going back into that room wheeling a person who deserves the gospel, but is getting something less.

Friday-Saturday: We met with Oscar Parker who has founded some stuff here. He lives in the oldest house in Wakefied. It’s like a plantation house. We went to Lawerenceville for E. Carter to do a baptism interview. Also got my license finally and it will come in the mail soon. We went to an investigator’s house and he gave us ties to pick from and I got this really eccentric one.  Then we interviewed a guy named Woody. Me and the other elders played Horse and we would bounce it off the walls and do a spin or something off the floor or a podium. It was fun. Then we went to a Brunswick game where it was Brunswick vs. Greensville. It was full of black people and they would get up and start dancing when someone dunked it. It got awkward for us being squeezed into these tiny spots and one of the elders got sort of grinded on because he’s a bigger guy and had to spread his legs for the lady in front and she started dancing and it got weird. The Brunswicks won and they were really good. Erik should go to a game sometime. The cheerleaders there are like stomp the yard and the band is like Drumline by dancing a bunch. Greensville had one white cheerleader -  it was funny. When we went to bed we couldn’t sleep so around 12 at night we got up and had a DiGiornos pizza and it helped us fall asleep.

The next day, we went to Woody’s baptism.  He’s like a pro-fighter from all the martial arts he has learned and he was in the Army. Weird thing, when he got out of the Army, he and his buddy checked out a church called the Water Moccasin church. The halls had pictures of everyone that had died in the church and they were pretty young. Woody said that in the chapel, the preacher would grab out of two buckets two handfuls of Water Moccasins and spread them out in the crowd and if you live from the bite, then God has chosen you. And if you don’t then, that just happens.

Woody taught us some fighting moves and the baptism was awesome from the dunking to the testimony given by one of the members. Then we went to a place called Pinos and I stuffed myself with food. Then we went back to Wakefield and had dinner with Trey and Sheena. Turns out they both have opinions about their different religions, so that’s why they aren’t married. They want to be married by the pastor in their church but they can’t agree which one.  It is hard for them to change their faith away from the false teachings of other churches.

Sunday: We had lunch at the Fly’s and it was fun because they are all joke tellers. And we went to the Harter’s and got our transfer calls there. Elder Carter is going to Goochland area which is a new area for the last transfer. It’s west of Richmond. And I’m staying in Wakefield with my new companion, E. Kun. Don’t know if hes Asian or what, but it will be fun. Everyone is upset over E. Carter leaving since he has been here forever.

Monday- Wedsnesday (this week)- Monday, we played basketball and spent time with the elders in our zone up in Colonial Heights. E. Hopkins, one of the zone leaders, can really dunk. His two companions, E. Carpenter and E. Huskinson, are the best and they love my Office quotes. I think E. Huskinson wrote Tessa a letter. Then we went to the Harter’s with the Idaho Spuds and they had fun with that. Then we went to the Terry’s who are less active and tried to commit  S. Terry’s husband to baptism. We’ll see how it goes. Then we had banana splits at the Harter’s.

Tuesday, Elder Carter went on a packing spree and got it mostly all together. We helped the retirement home with Bingo by calling out the people’s numbers and helping them. Then B. Gruber took us on the ferry across the James River to a place called Berlissimo which is a pizza place and is like the old style pizzas and we had canolis and they were really good. I will send some pics of it.

Wedsnesday (today), we finished the packing and got on the tower to our church and it was really cool and we had to duck so people wouldn’t see us. The rest of the day will be E. Carter saying goodbye to the members and tomorrow will be transfers.

I love you all so much and thanks for the letters – I love them!

Elder McClure