2nd Snow Day, No Driving, and Snowball Fights: January 28, 2013

Hello my peeps,

Elder McClure had a very bizarre week as usual. We had a very warm spell at the beginning of the week but then it got really cold. It started snowing on Friday and there was a lot of it - about 2 inches.  It was fun!  We can't drive in such weather so we got to walk.

At the beginning of the week, we got to see Tiffany – a past investigator - and she still wants to be baptized, but has an issue with smoking.  I whipped into action to decide what to do and what she needs to give us and it just needs to happen. She is an awesome lady and we got to meet her little baby. Adorable!  We also helped get an investigator’s son, Rayquan, to mutual on Tuesday so he could play basketball with the other teenage members. While we were at mutual, a member really chewed out Elder Mathias in front of everyone for borrowing their sewing machine and not leaving it in the church. Elder Mathias didn’t get mad about the chewing out, but that it took place in front of everyone.

Wednesday, the snow came so the Zone Leaders told us to stay inside.  We hung out at the Lewis's house during the snow storm and just joked around and talked. Brother Lewis is really funny and quotes the same movies I do, just not as much as I do. 

The next day we were able to have dinner with a less active family and they had a snake which they let me hold as well as feed it a mouse before we left. The end of that night was sledding on the ice to get home. We also got to see a 6' 7" less active named Sam Escate. And we got him to church the next day! It was cool since he hasn’t been to church in more than a year.

Well love you all and know I love you. Enjoy this update!

Elder McClure

Cold Weather, a Snow Day, and a Very Big Bear Dog: January 22, 2013

Hi Everyone,

I had a pretty good week this week. It seems that mostly everything fell through on us with our appointments, but it snowed so we had a fun day because of it. Mainly the week was composed of teaching a few people, which was nice. We taught this man named Jamal on Thursday night.  He is a contact we got through these members, the Tettos. It was good, but Jamal had the perspective of the gospel being an intellectual thing instead of a spiritual thing. We had to tell him to pray to know the gospel is true, pray to know the Book of Mormon is true. We just struggled a lot to get him to know for himself. It was frustrating, but he will come around soon. We got pizza out of the deal and since Elder Mathias is gluten intolerant the crust for his pizza looked really weird.

Later, started snowing really hard in big, puffy flakes and it was snowing the whole day and it stuck. That night we also played around with glow sticks and light saber stuff. We had a lesson the next day and we couldn’t drive so we walked and had a snow ball fight on the way. It was hilarious and fun. The lady we taught named Jen said she was comfortable in her false church. Jen, the church is true!!!! We also taught Doris, who is an investigator with a lot of faith; she’s a really great lady.

Sunday was fun because the 2nd counselor, B. Lewis, got up to speak on honesty.  When we would ask rhetorical questions,  Marcus, a recent convert, would go "Yeah," and “Oh, I’m not the only one.”  It was funny. We spent all of Martin Luther King day playing Magic at the King’s.  They had gotten even more cards than they already had so Elder Mathias wanted to trade for some cards and stuff. It was crazy. When they were trading, I wrestled with their dog and played with this lovable/vicious cat named Chompers that bites your hand randomly. I found out that Elder Mathias has .68 cents on his MSF card which sucks, so I had to pay for his milk and cereal. I’m doing good even after paying 2 weeks ago for $48 worth of Elder Mathias’ stuff and mine.

On Saturday  we cut wood for a less active family.

That’s actually about it! 

Love you all,

Elder McClure

Exchange to an Old Area and a Really Fitted Shirt: received January 14, 2013

Hey, people I care about,

This week hasn’t been very full and we have had a lot of free time which we tried to use see people. One of them is this lady named Dorris.  We keep trying to make appointments her with so she can be baptized, but she keeps having conflicts with doctor appointments at the same time. It’s crazy!  She has lung cancer, so she really wants to get baptized before March because that’s when she goes in for surgery.

We had a exchange with the Wakefield Elders, so I went back to the first area in which I became a missionary. It was really interesting.  The Wakefield branch has gotten smaller since the last time I was there. We got to teach a few people and see a few things. The really cool thing is my first baptism - Nan Seeley - is going to the temple soon and Elder Carter (my trainer) is going to be the proxy to seal her to her husband. Really cool! The exchange was a little annoying due to Elder Nelson constantly doubting me when I would tell him who I had seen and stuff, but I didn’t let it phase me. We came back to Lawrenceville and on the way we saw a huge pile of wood even Brother Harter would be astonished at.

Well, during the rest of the week I got to finally wear this really tight shirt Elder Mathias made for me.  It is pretty nice because it doesn’t become untucked when I raise my arms. We also got to talk to this former investigator, Candace Daniel, and she still wants to be baptized. It’s really awesome.

We had a really funny conversation with our recent convert, Marcus, and he’s a little scared of getting a Patriarchal Blessing but he'll do good. I love his black accent to death. It’s been fun overall, but still a struggle here. Still proclaiming the gospel to the Gentiles so it’s entertaining.

Love y’all,

Elder McClure

After the Holidays - Too Much Time to Fill: January 7, 2013

Hey people of Idaho, Oregon, and South Carolina!

This has been a very slow week for us. We have been trying to see people and they have cancelled on us – it has happened over and over! It’s been crazy. However, we were able to talk to a lady named Jen. She’s so funny and has the craziest children. We talked mostly about the movies she’s seen and that kind of stuff just to pick up on how she has been. We met her for the first time last Sunday.  She told us she is now going on this Baptist diet of 21 days of no meat except for fish. She can only have one meal a day but she can snack on fruits and vegetables. She said it was religious, but I don’t see those kind of restrictions anywhere in the Bible so she is most likely just fighting against obesity.

We also got have dinner with a couple of member families.  One was the Lewis family; they are so funny because Bro. Lewis jokes around.  He teaches middle school and he’s not afraid to tell his classes about anything and is really blunt.  Some of the things he’s told his students are:  getting answers you don’t work for isn’t good, and women that put out don’t get treated the way they should. Pretty blunt, but good advice!  We also got to go to the Kings’ house. We played a card game called Magic out there. It’s pretty popular among the nerds. I started this teasing thing about their daughter, Abbey, saying, "Abbey, teach me how to magic" and it’s been funny. We also got to talk with Marcus, a recent convert, and he is so funny.  We talked to him about why children are the way they are and how they eat a lot.  An RM friend of mine here, Jeff Irwin, got married over the holidays and we got to crash the reception - which was cool.  He and his new wife, Lelia, make the perfect couple!

The thing I love about being back in this area is being around the black people again.  They are so nice and so hilarious. I love them!  We have just been having a good time.  Elder Mathias is getting into little projects all the time. Examples would be fixing a broken Nerf gun and tailoring his suit to fit better.

Well, I love you all and the time is getting short out here for me.

Elder McClure

Christmas Holiday, Double Double P-Days, Nerf War, and a Sugar Glider down my Shirt: January 2, 2013

Hey people,  this is Elder McClure.

My new area, Lawrenceville, is kinda fun. It’s got a few small cities but is mostly classified as country, so that’s really fun. The branch is super small so if one or two of the main families are not at Sacrament meeting then it looks close to empty. The members are mostly teachers or they work in schools, which takes them away from helping us out as much as we would like. The apartment is really small but it works. The main reason I’m here is because I’m helping President Perry figure out if this district should be split into two, since it’s the largest area in the Chesterfield Stake. I think it should be split, because I can see a lot of potential for growth.

This week has been at times very fun and at other times very boring. We had a fun Christmas season; we spent Christmas Eve with the Evans family from the branch. They are a fun family and most of their kids were there for the holiday. President Evans has 11 kids so there was a lot of family!  We played a few games with them and had a few laughs. I wasn’t too excited for Christmas this year because of being away from the family and missing them a lot. Elder Mathias’ parents sent him three packages with small packages for both of us. My favorite things are the small UFO flyers that we mess around with and use as target practice. I got a bunch of candy (a chocolate orange which is my favorite and some Asian looking candy); shirts, garments, and a tie from my mom, and ties from Grammy and my dad. The panda tie is really funny and the yellow tie from Grammy completes my color collection. On Christmas day, we went to the Evans again and just played around. I was able to call Tessa and my dad. They loved it!

I really missed everyone in the family when I skyped my mom and got to see and talk to most of the family during that call.  I hope they are doing great!

The rest of the week was a bust from Elder Mathias being sick, so we had to stay inside most of the week.  We did meet a really cool guy named Nick Russo that is still interested in the gospel, but hadn’t been visited in a while.

For New Years Eve we played board games with a member and then had magic duels to the end of the night. We also had sparkling cider. The next day we had an extra P-day given to us by President Perry, so we ended up with four full P-days, one of which one was for Christmas and another for New Year’s Eve. New Year’s day was spent at the Evans again and we launched rockets off this air pressured PVC pipe. One rocket almost hit a bird.  We then got to play with a pet sugar glider (like a flying squirrel) which bit my finger and crawled down the back of my shirt. After this, we had a Nerf war at thr church and three big families came to play. They went all out and the church was full of barricades and strung up sheets. It was fun!  I got a few head shots in it.

Well, that’s all for today but enjoy the pictures and I love y’all!

Elder McClure

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