December 29, 2014

Hello family,

  So first off, I´m with my new companion! There´s a picture of us, it´s the last one of our faces only. I just barely took it because I didn´t have a picture with him. There´s another picture of me in a suit with another guy, he is not my companion, he is a member of the bishopric and we took some pictures together and he took Elder R´s tag. He´s not a missionary, yeah. His name is Elder T. He´s from Mexico. He has a kinda hard time understanding me but I think my spanish just stinks today. I woke up at 4 AM to go to a place called San Juan where all the missionaries were meeting to meet their new companions. Elder R had a change to Ica, which is like 3 hours away in bus I think. His new companion is an Elder that was in my district in the MTC.

  The family who lives below us gave us a cake of paneton and my companion didn´t want any of it so i might have eaten the whole thing. It´s really not even that good, it´s pretty gross actually... maybe it´s an acquired taste. It has like a ton of raisens and like fruit gummy chunk things that are gross too. They also gave us like a bunch of chicken and french fries which is pretty much what all of the restaurants sell. They gave it to us on Christmas Eve night, so that was nice. I had already eaten dinner with a different family but I ate the chicken anyways.

   I´ve been feeling kinda down for like this whole week. Probably just because it was Christmas and stuff. Elder R gave me a wallet for Christmas.

  Also if you haven´t sent the Christmas package yet there´s some stuff I want. 1. More spice packets. I´ve used some of them and they´re amazing. We ate tacos this week and they were bombin´, I made salsa with like tomatoes and onions and cilantro and salt and it was the best. It took forever to find tortillas tho but I did it. I also bought some cheese that´s good and I put that on it because I couldn´t find sour cream anywhere. 2. If you could put a ton of videos on the flash drive too, that would be great. Like of the restoration and like mormon messages and stuff. Also make sure everything is organized into folders that say like "music" or "videos" and make you can prolly just leave the names of everything the same as when you downloaded it. 3. Cheese itz. also, I can buy snickers and milky ways here. I have never seen a twix tho nor reeses and those are good. 5 I haven´t used very much of the pancake mix but it´s really delicious when I have time to use it. Feel free to send more of that :D

 I don´t know what else to tell you. We had Silvanas baptism this week and it actually happened this time.

Thanks for all the support, team

Love, Elder Mitchell

December 22, 2014

So here are some pictures. The first ones of me are of me and a recent convert named Daniel. He comes with us sometimes. The second set of pictures is with me and our ward mission leader, Miguel Chumpitaz. We call him either Hermano Miguel or Chumpi. I cooked a pancake and bought sausage so I was so proud of myself. The scary pikachu is a piggy bank that my companion bought for a conference thing we had with the president.

On Wednesday last week we traveled to a huge conference with the mission president. All of the missionaries that are in our mission that are in lima right now were there. There were like 130 missionaries in the cultural hall of the church building we went to so it was pretty crazy. I learned not to wear my suit nor my long sleeves when I'm on busses because it makes me sick, so i haven´t had any problems with that.

The mission president gave us a long speach about how we should try not to be too sad during the christmas time, but yeah I pretty much started crying anyways. Actually I pretty much cry instantly if I even think about it, so that kinda sucks.

I'll see you guys on Thursday. Remember, 10 AM, 40 minutes, yeah.

I love you!

Elder Mitchell

December 15, 2014

Hello family,

 So this week was actually very eventful.

On Tuesday I had an exchange with a zone leader, so he came to my area and lived with me for 24 hours. My companion went to a different area with our district leader. It was really neat, our zone leaders are super cool and very good teachers. I learned a lot.

Then on thursday I had immigrations again. I got up at 5:30 in the morning and traveled to the center of Lima. That involves taking a moto (3 wheeled motorcycle carriage thing) to the train station, then taking the train for like 40 minutes, then taking a taxi to the office. In all it costs like 6 dollars or so and takes like an hour. Then we waited around in the office for a while before we went to the immigrations office. Then we got to the immigrations office at like 9 and we were there waiting around and signing papers until like 4:30. UNTIL 4 30 IN THE AFTERNOON. We were seriously just sitting around waiting for over 7 hours. We finished and they gave us lunch which consisted of the worst subway sandwich I could ever have imagined was possible. Seriously it was horrible it makes me sick just thinking about it.

I payed a guy to clean my shoes while we were waiting outside though, so that was an adventure. I'll admit they were filthy but he totally picked me out of the crowd of missionaries as the one with really dirty shoes lolol.

That night we had a baptism with Brissa. It was super neat even though we had to drag her into the water because the water in the font is TOTALLY FREEZING OH MY GOSH. So yeah.

Then on Friday we went to the temple. Yeah, lets just say it could have gone better but it was hard because spanish. Overall it was a very spiritual experience, and no, i didn't get sick on the bus that time. I learned not to wear my suit on busses because it makes me very sick. I bought some stuff at the store in front of the temple and I ate lunch there and it was totally nasty, would not recommend.

Then that night we had 3 more baptisms with Milagros and her 2 daughters, Sylvana and Estrella. I baptized Milagros and lets just say it isnt as easy as i was hoping. Sorry you dont get details for these stories, theyre embaressing ._.

Saturday and Sunday we had stake conference and a member of the 70 came. He was super amazing, his talks were spectacular.

Also I need a sewing kit because I cant find the one you gave me anywhere.

Summer just started here. I get 2 summers this year, so that kinda stinks. The kids get their summer break from December to the beginning of February, so that's kinda weird.

The spanish is coming along. I like to think im fluent and I call people on the phone and I understand a lot of people I used to not be able to understand at all. I still have to study every day but I feel like it's pretty good.

Here's a picture of a cat I was playing with this morning because I didnt take any other picture this week and I dont have the pictures from the baptisms yet.

Thanks for all the help,

everything here is pretty chill, it's going good.

I love you guys,

Elder Mitchell

December 8, 2014 Hola from the other side of the equator

So this week was pretty whatever. I don't really know what is happening ever, so that's neat.

I dont think Ii told you guys this, but we aren't allowed to eat at any restaurants or anything anywhere. We can only eat what our pension gives us and she has to follow specific rules in preparing the food. We aren't allowed to even boil water to drink and we cant eat anything thats not from a bakery or in a package. So we dont get to eat anything that our pension doesnt know how to make. So that kinda sucks but I eat a lot of lentils and stuff, so whatever. Actually I eat a ton of rice its insane, they eat rice with everything. Imagine eating rice with a hamburger or something, its really weird.

We had 3 interviews this week with our 4 investigators that we have baptismal dates for this week. Brissa is getting baptized on Thursday at 5 and Milagros and 2 of her kids on Friday. On Friday we are going to the temple for a session as a zone, so that will be fun I guess.

Yesterday we went to the stake center to watch the Christmas devotional but there was no power in a large chunk of the city so it was canceled. It is very dangerous to be outside if there is no light. People pretty much just go around taking everything they want and you can't even see them, so that sucks. During the earthquake a while ago we just took a taxi straight to our room with another elder so he could stay the night.

Thanks for all the support!

Keep sending me letters! I get totally excited when I get anything and I get sad when I don't. Use dearelder, I'm pretty sure its free and it gives me a physical copy.

Heres some pictures of me with Hermano Pedro. Hes pretty much literally totally gay but he's my favorite. Hes super funny and he comes with us every single day so we can have a member with us. 

Something I wasnt really thinking about before I left was how many drunk people there would be. Like seriously, especially on Sundays and stuff, they are EVERYWHERE! No joke sometimes there are people just laying in the road because they're passed out and I dont know what to do with them. Sometimes theyre in markets where its incredibly busy and I don't understand. Yesterday they were like zombies on the way to church. Seriously, there were 2 guys, no shirt no shoes, only shorts, just walking around in the street like zombies dodging cars. It was totally sketchy.

Yesterday we ate lunch with a recent returned missionary. Hes a chef and we made choufa and we helped him make it and it was delicious. We were like smashing stuff together with weird tools and stuff and idk what cooking even is. He taught us that we should clean the chicken before we eat it, so I'm kinda lucky to not have died or  to be really sick, lololol. I feel stupid a lot.

You should totes send me a recipe book or something of SIMPLE recipes. And not like a big one, just like something small with stuff I can do. Also spice packets and instructions on how to use them. I have easy access to a lot of things, like tomato sauce and mayonnaise and cheese and meat and vegetables, idk.

Btw just so you know my plane will most likely get into salt lake at around 9 pm on August 9th, 2016 in case you were wondering.

I love you guys,

Love,

Elder Mitchell

Also theres the gum which is gross.

December 1, 2014

So this week was kinda crazy, but I guess that wasn't anything new at all.

We had a multi zone meeting in Villa Maria on Friday. Imagine sitting through 3.5 sessions of general conference nonstop listening to them tell you everything from the statistics in the mission to how to properly cut your toenails. Plus half of it was in spanish and half of it was translated so that all of the missionaries can understand. But I understood all of it so it was like i was listening to the same stuff 2 times in a row. OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR 7 HOURS. Then we took a bus back to Pachacamac and omgosh I was so sick again. But this time it was for more of a reason. Seriously no joke, the bus ride was faster than space mountain with 2x the turns and 13242352x the bumps. There were people FLYING around. Like, everytime it hit a bump, I would fly like 5 inches into the air. The people around me would scream. Plus I had my suit on so I felt all confined and sick. It was only like 30 minutes or so, so it was a lot shorter than the one from the temple.

The zone leader said something about how the busses have to go as fast as they can to get ahead of the other busses so they can stop to pick people up without building up a ton of traffic.

On Wednesday or something, I had an exchanges thing or something. Basically I had a different companion for 24 hours and I had to travel to Lurin and eat with him and teach with him and everything. Then we slept there and then I returned to Pachacamac in morning. It was v crazy. Lurin is totally rich compared to Pachacamac. Literally everything is broken and covered in dead animals and poop. Lurin has trees and money even though its still covered in poop.

On Thursday or something, we were walking around and a drunk guy came over and started begging us to help him to stop drinking. He was telling us how sad he is and he seriously started crying. His name is Maximo, which is like maximum in english, so that's neat. We have gone to his house 2 times to teach but each time he has been trapped in his house because his daughter locks him in while she goes to work so he cant leave, lololol. We have yet to teach him an actual lesson.

So we found 7 new investigators this week and we left 7 to accommodate. Everybody here works all the time. Like 12 hours a day 6 days a week plus they usually work sunday mornings. It is so hard to teach people because theyre never home. Like yesterday, we went to 8 houses before we could teach someone. And each house was like a mile apart. Maybe a little less, but I really doubt it. We were walking for 3 hours nonstop. Then later we went with a member of the bishoprick who recently got back from his mission to some references he had and we found some new investigators. Their names are John and Renlyn or something weird. They have a baby and theyre very nice, I'm hoping they accept our message.

We have 4 baptisms scheduled for the 12 of this month for milagros and her kids. Also for a girl named Brissa. Brissa is the cousin of our ward mission leader. She is 15 years old and extremely shy. Weve taught her all the lessons like 3 times, its just taken a really long time for her to get interested. Recently a girl who is a member but lives somewhere else has been attending the ward to bother her. At school she like hits Brissa and stuff so that kinda made me mad. Me and E Riveros went got all of the youth in the ward together. I got up in front of them and we read alma 12:8. Go read it. Then I kinda castigated them about what they say about people, it was nice. The zone leaders were there to watch, so that was kinda funny.

We are teaching Brissas parents. They are super amazing but they cant get married because the moms government papers got burned by terrorists. So that is a thing. She has to travel to Nazca to get new papers and she has something wrong with the nerves in her leg so she cant walk. Also they dont have money because the dad lost the papers he needs to drive his taxi. So all that kinda sucks. They really are super amazing though, the way the dad looks when he holds the Book of Mormon is soooo amazinggggg.

Thanks again for the package, v nice. The gum here doesnt really work. I opened a package of the 5 gum you sent and it got really soggy. I guess maybe its just really humid. Like it was seriously wet, I was like wtheck. It only happened after I had opened the package and nothing spilled on it and only the gum was soggy, so whatever.

How do I make the pancakes you sent the mix for? Do they just need water or do they need eggs or what?

Thanks for everything,

well skype on Christmas or on Christmas Eve. Yes I have to have a calling card.

I love you guys,

Elder Mitchell

November 24, 2014

So just some highlights from this week.

Some guy stopped us and lectured us for being servants of Satan for a good 15 minutes. My comp got mad and yelled at him, which was stupid. We have like six baptisms scheduled for this month, so hopefully that will start happening.

We went to the temple and I got v v v sick on the bus. Just carsick I think. I was soooooo blessed not to barf. The buses are crazy beyond imagination.

Last night we spent like 2 hours talking to an investigator. She cant walk because there's something wrong with her leg. Like with the nerves or something. She told us how to cook some stuff. I showed them the pictures you sent. My Spanish is always improving. I'll show you at Christmas.

I love the food here. Seriously its the best. Nancy would love it too because its only rice, potatoes and chicken.

Ty for the package. It was very nice. Sorry I can't write more.

I love you!

Elder Mitchell