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

Thanksgiving Fatness and a Baptismal Date - received November 26

Hello my Idaho and Oregon peeps,
This week we had Thanksgiving. Yay, but I have to tell you about the rest of the crazy things that I’ve done this week.

Well, we had a lot of cancelled appointments this week with investigators and a lot of tracting for long amounts of time but no luck. On the good side, we were able to be fed every night this week by members so no complaints there. We are just working hard to help people and stuff. Elder Russell and I are helping Elder Downs get out of his shell and talk more. Elder Downs is getting more responsive.

Thanksgiving: we got to sleepover at the Staunton apartment and so we all woke up and got McDonalds food in the morning because the Staunton elders didn’t have any food. Then we played Phase 10 and other games till they got boring. We played around with this electric guitar with a cool sound changer so it sounds really awesome. Then we decided to go to the old Staunton graveyard where there were really ancient graves and also a big confederate statue with all these bodies under it. We then went to eat at the Iseman’s and they fed us a traditional meal for Thanksgiving.  We ate pie afterward and played a Christmas trivia game and also the house was decorated for Christmas already. We also played Axis and Allies. The Allies won. Then we went to the Barton’s for dessert but it turned out they hadn’t started eating yet so we ate more food and some of it more Southern, like collard greens, ham, and etc. We got to meet their RM daughter from Georgia who is newly married to a Mexican guy who is really cool. We could have had a third dinner when we stopped by a member’s house later that day but we just couldn’t eat any more.

The rest of the week was good.  We got to watch a baptism in Staunton which was really sweet. It involved a part-member family, so it was a really happy occasion. We also got a really long story out of a member who was feeding us on how she married her husband. We also heard of a miracle from the sisters in Farmville.  They told us about a guy whose son wants to be baptized and because of this, the father realized that he needs to be baptized, too. So he wants to be baptized on the 13 of December – very exciting! We couldn’t find where he lived though, at first, and we went to the house where the sisters said he lived but he didn’t live there. I went out with a flashlight at night in downtown in the cold looking for an address.

On another day, we went to see an investigator but his mom came out instead with a loose fabric see-through shirt on and a very see-able bra. She talked with us and then gave us hugs for stopping by, which was very awkward.  I wanted to poke my eyes out. Well everyone, be warm and modest this week and love ya!

Elder McClure

Elder McClure: District Leader, Mover, and Gardener - email received Nov. 19, 2012

Hey, People I Love,
This is Elder McClure speaking. Fun week!  I got another missionary with me (Elder Russell) as well as Elder Downs, which was awkward and bizarre at first, but now is cool. Elder Russell is from California and is a little bit chunky.  He is only with us until he goes home in a couple of weeks.  This situation is known as “killing him off.”  J  We had a good week and tried to get investigators and less actives to church, but no one came.

The week went like this:

Tuesday:  We had to move furniture around our little apartment to make sure we have room for Elder Russell to come and live with us. We had a lesson with Steve Lawhorne and I stumped over my words but we got the lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ over with him. We found out he is still smoking so we have to get over that with him before baptism and to help get him ready to be baptized. He has a good heart. After this visit, we went to the Footcare Center for the doctor to look at my foot. He jumped into action and took the procedures to remove the ingrown toenail.  He numbed the toe, cut the nail with a pair of clippers, pulled out the cut nail with pliers, and then burned the side of the nail to stop it from growing. And I was propped up and watching it the whole time! It was weird from no pain but I could see the whole thing done. Got the ingrown nail out and bandaged up my foot and set up an appt. for next week. I used Mission Medical – awesome!

We taught a lesson to Chelsea and Melissa Divvers after shopping in a Mennonite grocery store. We brought S. Davis and B. Floyd with us. S. Davis talked really fast and really long till we had to leave. B. Floyd has a strong Texas accent and popped jokes at random times. But the family is golden and they are going to be baptized soon, I can feel it. We got a referral off of mormon.org for a lady named Wendy Liput who is interested in talking with us.

Wednesday:  We did service in a former investigator’s yard.  Her name is Hazel Wright and she has a history of having the other missionaries do it. She will not convert but her son is an active Mormon and is actually an RM. We taught a woman named Wendy about our church service and how things are done and we invited her and she really wanted to come. We taught Isbell Lovett about prayer and asked her to pray to know if she was ready to be baptized. Then we went to a surprise party that Bro. Tickal (one of the members) was throwing for his wife. There was a lot of soda and ice cream and cake. I was super funny by taking the streamers and ribbon dancing with the other kids and they started having ribbon wars or chasing me for them. Super comical.

Thursday:  Nothing much happened except another service help out with Hazel Wright and her plants. She was overjoyed when I told her my mother taught me how to be a gardener. She gave us money for lunch. We also helped move a couch from one member’s house to another and then throwing away a sofa bed.  It was hard getting it down from the apartment hallway, but we got it done. Then we picked up Elder Russell.

Friday:  We went to Walmart and shopped for Elder Russell to get some stuff he needed. We got a bunch of random music from a Goodwill; one CD was Prince of Egypt. We also helped with the Bishop’s Storehouse which was really big that day from all the Thanksgiving stuff going on.

 
The rest of the week was pretty much a dud from lessons cancelling, but I got a cool wristband from Jeffrey Cosgrove about an organization called One with You. People in this organization preach Christ to communist nations and often get beaten for doing so.

Have a good week my people, and know I am fine. I love you all!

Elder McClure

Usuals and Changes

People of America,
This week was super hard and very difficult getting things done. We have really been trying but it takes so much effort to make progress. P-day was like any other day:  had fun and played games. We also learned from Joe how to disarm a guy with a knife. We had to put the car in the shop to get it fixed.

Tuesday: We had a fun day of cleaning our disgusting apartment and had to tell our landlord about the roof sinking in and getting the roof fixed before it falls in on us. We spent the other part of the day helping one of our member’s friends move into their old apartment.  We took so much stuff to the 3rd floor and it was all for one person. Crazy amount of shoes, believe me. They stuffed us full of pizza afterward and their little son Israel, got all up in my face and whatever he did I copied him and so after awhile we became best friends. Think about a 2 year old kid with frizzy black hair stomping the yard in front of me and me copying him. Super funny! Then we had an appointment with Sister Campbell.  We are just trying so hard to get her to church and the members we take to see her have known her for a long time so it totally helps. She called me her favorite and she knows she can trust me.  I’m a little pushy; I’ve already taken 8 packs of cigarettes from her.

Wednesday: We got the car back and found out Obama won the election. It was a very dark day that day. We bought Gatorade to give to one of our potentials and her family. They have been sick for a while so just giving a helping hand. We saw PM families and one got really mad at us from the fact she was on our records even though she had never gone to the Waynesboro Ward and that she was excommunicated about 25 years ago. One guy told us to get our facts straight before seeing people. We visited Brian Frazier just as a helping visit. It’s not easy talking to an RC after he has been kicked out of his home by his wife and he’s wondering what God's plan is for this happening.

The rest of the week was a bust since all appointments fell thru and the people we went to see weren't home. We still had fun. We helped blitz (tract the crap out of another area that is struggling) Staunton after zone meeting. It was a zone wide blitz so a lot of missionaries were helping out in one area. We did a Turkey Bowl football game on Saturday since everyone is leaving around Thanksgiving so the ward decided to have it that day. I covered Elder Downs and he is not that good at football. I caught the ball and got turned around by one guy and the next guy shoved me to the ground. And I wore jeans to play in - silly me.

Sunday we had the Primary program which was funny because some kids were shouting but others were really quiet.

Well, I have been doing good and have been practicing guitar every night and finished the four gospels just recently. My favorite book is John. We are going to learn more ti-kwon-do and I’m teaching these elders free running – it’s going to be sweet.

Love you all,

Elder McClure

Stuck Inside, Miracles, and Forgetful Companion: received November 5, 2012

Hello Family,
This week was interesting and weird. We got stuck inside the Staunton apartment on Monday, thanks to the storm.  That was a little crazy, but we just played games with the Staunton elders all day.

On Tuesday, we thought there would be another inside day but we were wrong. Plus that day it actually snowed really hard. We got everything done in Staunton (email and grocery shopping). We were going to have a lesson with Chelsea but the family was pretty busy dealing with a sick child with the flu and rescheduled with us for Friday (by then half the family was sick and vomiting so not pretty). We had dinner with Brother Bagley and he got me to eat a little bit of a habanero pepper. Burnt my tongue!  We then had a lesson with Joni Campbell and I’m glad Brother Bagley was there. He knows how to help Sister Campbell and get on a personal level. I shared Alma’s conversion story with her as an example that she should pray and believe in Christ. She asked me to give her a blessing to get over the cigarettes. She said she felt a warm feeling afterward. I was happy to do it.

Wednesday:  We reported to our landlord about the leaky ceiling which got worse from the snow and it looked pretty bad. We had a lesson with Mr. Lawhorne and brought B. Rainy to help.  We were able to teach the Plan of Salvation to him. I feel like I teach much better now that I’m the one in charge and talking more. Mr. Lawhorne shared some feedback on what the Seventh Day Adventists believe.  He was very interested in the gospel. I asked him for a baptismal date but he told us he still has to  look into it. We were really glad he was thinking it over. He’s going to be baptized soon, I swear. The rest of the day we went to less actives.  One had threatened to call the cops because he’s in a private community and he told us to go away.  We later found out that if we come by again, he has planned to bring out the shotgun and maybe go to extremes.  Elder Downs was thinking of going back the next day – we won’t be doing that, though! From 5pm to bedtime we had to stay in because of Halloween and so I made a gangster costume out of a shower clock, glasses, VA hat, and a cane. I carved the First Vision into a pumpkin and then tried to update and write a letter. All Elder Downs did was update his journal to Roman numerals for each day. Waste of a Halloween!  J

Thursday:  we had a basic district meeting where Elder Beeton trained on power and authority while Elder Downs trained on less active work.  His lesson only took 5 minutes and was just on basic things out of Preach my Gospel so we ended early and ate lunch. I went on an exchange with Elder Beeton in Staunton which was fun getting to know the area. The records for it are crap - they have next to nothing to work with. So I scheduled a blitz (a bunch of missionaries tract one area that is struggling) and turned it into a zone blitz. Pretty cool. We went to a less active member who has a lot of kids.  One of them tried to put a booger on my face, one laughed crazily at me, and the teenager was just saying weird things.  Plus the newborn kept staring me down. Fun times.  We then taught a lady named Jasmine and it was cool. She is really nice and goes to college so we taught her the gospel in the empty social room of her dorm.  Waynesboro did badly without me since Elder Downs doesn’t know the record system and basically just went back to visit everyone we had visited the day before.

On Friday we helped out with a Bishop’s Storehouse thing where we unload boxes from a truck, lay them out, get order forms and fill out the forms by collecting the items on the list out of the boxes. Very helpful. We taught a new contact:  her name is Teresa Kelly and she is a former member. Our lesson was about the Book of Mormon.  Then I got sized for my suit at the Dennings’ and they fed us.

Saturday:  We basically did our weekly planning, talked with a less active family for 1 hour about things like animals (one of their gerbils blew up from a tumor), had a 4 hour lesson with Jeffrey Cosgrove during which he talked for 3 hours about a number of things and the one hour we answered his questions on the Book of Mormon and other things. He loves to learn and is very interested. He just has a problem with Satan and Jesus being brothers. He thinks maybe Satan wouldn’t have wanted him killed if he knew he would save mankind.

Sunday: no one at church.  We saw a dead kitten when we went to pick up Teresa for church.  Unfortunately, she was sick. We had dinner at 2pm since the husband of that family served a mission in Spain and that was the thing that they do there and he believes it is healthier. We got in early after borrowing a guitar from a member so really cool.

I have to go but love you all,

Elder McClure