"Kathy-No! They Know What That Means. It Means IM IN THE SWAMP!"

  Well hello again everyone! Coming live from just south of the major ice storm swinging through, it's Elder McMullin! As always, if you would like to send me any road salt or snowplow components, I would happily accept them. But, without further ado, here we go!

This week was pretty bad in all honesty. That 200% increase I mentioned in my last email was in fact the only increase of the week. And to top it off, we had several all-day "finding days", where every moment you spend doing missionary work is spent in parking lots inviting people. Elder Griffiths ran the numbers, and it came out to something like 30 hours this week, with 2 new people found in the first 30 min. But! Sometimes the Lord has to try his people just a lil bit in order to prove if they are ready for greater things. I feel like we are, so I'm cautiously optimistic about how this next week is going, or if we can break last weeks finding record. On the bright side, we did get 2 to church, which was both exciting and much needed at the end of the week.

   In other news, transfers are coming up this week! We get preliminary information on Thursday if we DL, train, ZL, or AP, then full news comes out Saturday. Sadly, Elder Griffiths has been here for an official 4th of his mission, so it's high time he left me and saw the quasi-beautiful state to the north of us. It'll be exciting to finely get some changes down here though, as those with long memories or small inboxes might remember that absolutely nothing changed in my district 6 weeks ago. Hopefully the new year brings on new fun and a whole lot of new people!

    Speaking of new years, that happened this week. We weren't allowed to pros that night (only adding to to the impressiveness the 30 hour week), but instead celebrated in our own special way. We played the longest game of Magic I have ever sat through as my terrible Raccoon-themed deck took on a professionally assembled deck based on nuclear warfare, and I somehow almost won. Then, to stick with tradition, we slung a tinfoil ball over the ceiling fan and celebrated our own little ball drop. We didn't have any string, so we did have to use Elder Kartchners old charging cable, but the magic was still there. Then at 10 we popped a martinelli and drank the whole dang bottle (partially thanks to training from marching band-thanks tones!) And went to bed. However, drinking a whole dang bottle does... things to a digestive system I learned, and I was up to see the new year whilst my innards raged in firey indigestion. 

    To explain the title line, the lesson we had last Monday was especially strange. David and Kathy, the two friends we were meeting with, are notorious yappers about anything and everything. The topic of choice this week was funerals. Apparently, they virtually attended a funeral in Ahoskie where the Eulogist was A) a member, and B) not very fond of the person he was eulogizing- made evident by his constant insults WHILE TALKING OVER THE DANG COFFIN. This spooked our friends, so we got a long talk about how church funerals are not in fact a mudslinging fest but should be an appreciation of life. This topic of death continued though, as we learned that someone has died in our church building, Kathy has uncovered multiple dead people, and that the Great Dismal Swamp is probably hiding a few more secrets than it let's on. By the end, I was thoroughly enjoying the macabre conversation, as years of British murder mysteries had prepared my vocabulary for words like "Rigor Mortis" and "blunt-force trauma". Elder Griffiths was not doing so well however, and publicly admitted he might throw up if we went any longer. All in all, we sent them the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead to read, and now joke that "extended camping trips" denote a shoot-shovel-shut-up event has just occurred in the Swamp.

Anyways, I hope yall are having a phenomenal new year, and I'm excited to hear from you all next week!

From your favorite forensic fan,

Elder McMullin

Photos!

1: getting ready to absolutely desecrate this referral with an onslaught of information. Yes, I am open to the pronunciation guide.

2: small clerical error stating that Albermarle got 9 baptisms last week.

3: Monteros!

4: I found this far funnier than I should have.

5: should auld acquaintance be forgot...

6: Thanks Mom for a little bit of color to my desk!