Tuesday, November 18, 2014

November 18, 2014

So this week was v crazy. Also I don´t have time to attach photos but there weren´t really any so... sorry.

There was an earthquake this week! We were walking up the stairs in the church and all of a sudden the whole building started shaking. It was prolly for like 20 seconds so it was kinda neat.

Also I gave my first blessing yesterday! AND IT WAS IN SPANISH! I was totally freaking out and it was the worst blessing ever that didn´t make sense but that´s ok. I gave it to a girl who was sick. Her name is maricielo. Then I accidentally broke one of their cups from which we were drinking inca cola. So that was awkward but they laughed it off. We taught them about patriarchal blessings because they have some recent converts in their family and we want them to get there´s soon.

We got a pensionist for dinner. He lives in the house below us and he´s a chef. He made us dinner last night for our pension and it was so so good. He gave us some like pancake omelette things with spinich. Also he gave us rice and potatoes and some meat mixed with tomatoe and stuff. It was v good.

Everything is going really well here, hopefully we´ll have some baptisms soon. We have one scheduled for the end of this month and like 6 others in December. So hopefully that will start happening soon.

I feel like my spanish is good but it kinda depends on the day. I study spanish a ton because I want to know ALL the words so I can talk to Nancy´s parents about things other than the gospel. I consider myself fluent in the gospel now. I understand everything in the lessons spoken by both investigators and my companion. I´ve always been teaching but it´s been getting easier I feel.

This week we went to teach a family in the home of a member. The family consists of a mom and her 4 kids. There is no father that lives with them. They are very poor and live in like the edge of town in a place we call the Portales. We knocked on the door and a girl who lives there answered and talked to my companion for a minute. Then my companion asked me if I understood and I said no. Then he told me not to be surprised if I see something weird. I was like oh crap, what happened. We went inside and the mom´s face was totally scratched up and swollen and she was crying with her baby on her lap. The baby was fine, but the mom's face was really messed up. Apparently she had seen her neighbor robbing someone, and when the someone asked her if she had seen anything she told them that she saw her neighbor robbing them. Her neighbor ended up finding out and went over and attacked her. We spent some time this week finding somewhere new for her to live with her kids because it´s too dangerous to live by her neighbor any more. We gave her a blessing before we left. We´ve given like 6 blessing, which is a ton. We teach families that literally don´t have food and they have babies and stuff so I don´t understand how they live, but I guess they figure it out.

Anyways I gotta go,

I love you!

Elder Mitchell

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

November 11, 2014


For grandpa: Thanks for taking me out to go fishing all the time in Bishop. I feel like I can remember really specifically everything that would happen when we were on those trips. Plus I know how to fish! I am so grateful that I have the knowledge to do that hobby even though I`m not very good.

Sorry I don´t really have time to put a ton of thought into really anything. We are so so so so busy all the time! and I feel bad if I´m thinking about something irrelevant to the work when I need to be focusing on one of our 18 investigators.

We have 18 investigators which is a freakin´ ton! There are missionaries in the mission who have 0 or 1 investigators. The goals of excellence from the mission are almost impossible to get and the goal for sunday attendance is 10 investigators at church and we had 9! That´s 9 more than most companionships! Plus we have 7 with baptismal dates! Also please note that I don´t take credit for any of this success, really we have made a ton of progress but we can´t teach without the spirit and we can have people to teach without references from members.

The weather here is literally always cloudy or just like... grey. It doesn´t rain, it like mists from the sky. It´s very weird. It´s good though because most people don´t have roofs, and the roof on our house like slants inward so it would poor inside if it ever rained. But it doesn´t. It actually kinda sprinkled in the first few weeks and my companion said that was the first time he has ever seen that in his year here in peru.

This area is a desert! We are so close to the beach and wherever there isn´t roads it´s just sand! Imagine just walking on the beach but there´s like houses and stuff. When we travel to inner Lima we can see the beach and there´s like islands and sand dunes, it´s v neat. I don´t really understand why anyone would build a city in the sand dunes but whatever.

Sorry I didn´t write yesterday. I was in immigrations all of yesterday and today, it sucked pretty hardcore. Would not recommend. Im actually lucky because they weren´t going to let us write to our families at all and I was upset... but it´s ok. yeah.

Church here is the same 3 hour block with the same classes. The ward is a decent size, maybe 100 people, i dont know.

It´s really weird that everyone here thinks it´s weird that I´m white because all of the advertisements and tv and everything is just white people. That´s kind of the ideal look. Sometimes kids will run around me and yell ¨gigantor!!¨ or grab at my pants and the ward mission leader screams at them to get off me bc it´s not allowed, lol.

Some dogs here are totally evil. They bark and attack you even though you are literally the 10000000000000th person to have walked right past them that day. They´re so stupid. I really don´t hesitate to pick up the biggest rock and chuck it at them if they´re being stupid because it makes me mad. Usually they run away too fast though and it makes me happy to know they´re afraid. 

I woke up at 4:15 this morning to go to immigrations again, I didn´t even eat anything until like 2 pm. I have kinda a killer headache right now. ALSO, Ive had this really horrible sore on the tip of my tongue for like 4 days and it is so painful to talk and to eat or anything, it´s soo annoying. I asked the missionary over the health stuff about it today and he said it´s from eating too much candy. Yeah, i eat way too much candy and I´m getting fat. I need to change that. It´s just because all we eat it white bread and I´ve been eating it with peanut butter and jelly and ham and mayonaise. Last night I made an omelette with tomato, potato, chicken ham, bell pepper and onion. I also bought some cream cheese and used it on some toasted bread and it was pretty bombin´.

When we were in the mission today I asked if they had my package and they said yes! BUT I CANT HAVE IT UNTIL THEY SEND IT TO ME! I was so mad, actually not really but I was kinda disappointed. I´ll have to wait until next week, but das ok.

Sorry I don´t have more time to tell you about stuff, I´ll try to include stuff about specific investigators next week, but I don´t have time right now. I need to do other things with the internet and my flash drive and stuff, yeah.

Loves,
Elder Mitchell

Thursday, November 6, 2014

November 3, 2014


Hello family,

     I believe I told you in the first email that I'm in Pachacamac. It's In Villa Salvador if that helps. I don't really understand how the areas around here work. My companion tells me "you are in lima peru" a lot whenever I say things like "Man there is so much trash here" or "why is everybody pregnant?"
    I don't really have time left, so sorry team. I went to the temple this week, that was neat. I bought some ties and some stuff to bring back. I eat junk a lot because there is nothing to even buy and I don't know how to cook anything. So that sucks. I ate mac and cheese last night and it was the worst, would not recommend. I haven't gotten sick or anything so that's good. We have a lot of investigators and we have to walk everywhere so I'm tired every night. Our area is really big and the church is kinda far away. It's probably at least a mile away or something. I probably walk like 5 miles or so every day at least. I don't know. I bought some peanut butter for expensive the other day because I found some. That's good.
    Things are good here. Also, the picture was from the ward mission leader here. I had him send it. He's my fav. The spanish is coming along. My birthday was pretty much uneventful, but we had 9 investigators at church which is remarkable.

  I love you guys,

Elder Mitchell