May 11, 2015

Well I guess I told you guys most of what was going on yesterday on skype. Thanks for the recipes, Imma try to see if I can make some stuff today. I think Im gonna try to do the hamburgers today and maybe Ill buy the shrimp for some other time.

Skype was nice yesterday. I feel like it was way better than the first time and I wasn't even stressed and I didn't about it really at all afterwards. I was laughing with the member a little bit after about how they don't speak english in Arkansas lolol.

Well yeah. We have some baptismal interviews tonight with the zone leaders and the family that should be getting baptized this week. That makes me pretty stressed out but we'll see what happens. We had a good lesson with the investigators after we skyped so that was neat. We'll see what happens. I hope I send you the pictures from their baptism next week.

Also yesterday there was like a flash flood. Actually it was just a lot of rain but the streets legit turned into rivers. Like 5 inches deep. We were walking and a truck passed us and sped up so that it could splash us and the water got up to like my shoulders. The back of the truck was full of teenagers holding umbrellas and they all laughed and flipped us off, so that was an enlightening experience. Actually it was pretty funny. I was wearing my coat thing so I only got wet from the knees down and yeah.

ALSO, if you could send more of the teeth whitening strips, that would be the maximum. I feel like they did help, you would have to check the pictures from skype yesterday to see.

ALSO ALSO I want some soup recipes! Be really specific about what I do with the meat. When I buy chicken, I walk over to a stand where they have a bunch of dead chickens and I tell them what I want. Then they grab a huge knife and just chop it off and then I have to figure out what I'm going to do with the piece of chicken flesh. Like usually it has bones and stuff and it's just hard and I don't know how to cook it or anything. So yeah.

Everything is going pretty well. There's no problems really.

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Mitchell

May 5, 2015

So there was a new transfer that started this week so that's why I'm emailing on Tuesday.

We won't know who the district leaders are until tonight or tomorrow in the morning.

Really not much happened this week. I'm with my new companion. Elder N was from Bolivia. My new companion's name is Elder A, he is from Bolivia also. He was also in the Bolivian military for a year (even though that didn't really help much I think) I haven't heard anything from Elder N yet, I guess I should try to send him an email or something. I'll give you guys a chance to meet my new companion when we skype this weekend. The whole skype thing makes me all stressed out especially because they didn't say anything about it until last night at like 10 pm but whatever.

We have a family that should be getting baptized next week. That's bringing a lot of stress into my life. They got married like 2 weeks ago, so that was exciting and now we just gotta get dunkin' in the baptismal font. There are always a lot of problems that come up right before baptisms so that makes me worried, but whatever.

Yesterday we had some neat experiences. We found a new investigator who is living with (as a couple) a less active member. We showed up and started talking and the less active lady just started crying and she cried for like the whole hour pretty much. She feels really bad that she's living with this guy and they're not married and she doesn't want to go to church because people will judge her and they say silly things and stuff. I asked them "what is preventing you from getting married?" and the lady said "well it depends on him too" so I looked at the guy and was like "will you get married with her?" and he was like "yes" and I was like "THEN WHATS THE PROBLEM?" We ended up teaching about like prophets or something and I asked the guy "what do you think you need to do to progress on your repentance?" and he said "I think I need to get baptized" and I was just like "WHOAH WOAH WOAH, slow down there man, you need to get married first" hahaha not really, but that was super exciting to find someone who started the lesson thinking that he needed to be baptized. That makes things a lot easier. They both agreed to go get started on their getting married papers before our next visit on Thursday.

We also found this girl last week who works at a restaurant that's owned by a member. Her brother died a few years ago and her mom has a surgery today and she was pretty depressed and she cried during the lesson. It was super neat though. Yeah.

I've learned a lot about the importance of families here. Really, baptizing people individually doesn't really help anything. They end up less active one way or another unless they have like a bffaeae in the ward which is really unusual.

I almost got eaten by a dog this week. It didn't bit me but it was like all over me and I was like "NO YOU'RE NOT MY MOM" because of what I learned in radkids.

I feel good. I feel like in my last area I had a pretty steady cycle of depression and being really happy but now it's pretty much just either happy or really happy. I had to study a ton about Christlike attributes to get along with my companion and it's really been helping me ton to stay positive. There's a part in preach my gospel that says that feeling of anger and hate are results of pride, so that was pretty humbling. So now whenever I think I hate something I just tell myself that I'm prideful and then I stop.

We're teaching another family that has a date for this month to get married. It's the dad, his wife and their 2 kids, all of which are going to get baptized asap. The dad is amazing, i gave him a bunch of talks from general conference and he listened to them and after said "I really like the one by Elder Ballard" and I was like "that's right you did" hahaha

So I've been trying to get into like... sewing. My socks are like full of holes (plz send new ones ;(((( ) and I've been sewing them a lot. Also I made a tie last week. It's basically the most beautiful thing you'll ever see in your life, I need to fix it today a little bit but I'll send you a picture next week. Also thanks for the teeth whitening strips, they did help. I'll send you pictures next week.

Happy Birthday to dad.

Imma hit 9 months this month so that's pretty weird. We're only going to skype 2 more times after this week so that's happening.

Go have the greatest day of your life!

I love you, team!

Elder Mitchell

April 27, 2015

So this week was mildly exciting but with a few major changes.

First off, my companion went home. We left from the bus station at 9 pm, arrived in lima at 7:30 and took a taxi to the office. Then I sat down, my new companion showed up and then I waited in the office until 8 pm. Literally 12 hours sitting in the office with the assistants and whatever. That wasn't that fun. Then we went back to the bus station and took it all the way back to Ayacucho with my new companion and got here at like 7:30 am. So I spent 2 consecutive nights sleeping in a bus which was pretty cruddy. We got back and I was totally fried but we went out and proselyted all day.

Then yeah. We went to church yesterday and everyone was like "where's elder N?" and I just wanted to cry but that's ok.

Thanks a ton for the package. I feel way obese because I just eat candy all the time but I guess I'll just finish it and then drink a ton of water and eat only rice for a week to clean out my system. Our pension is a nutritionist, I don't remember if I told you that. We eat very healthy. Like, too healthy. yeah.

Yesterday we were out proselyting and realized I was having a hard time seeing. I couldn't read the house numbers and I started noticing I couldn't see anyones faces or anything. I guess you should know what that means. I started getting a migraine but I keep some emergency asprin in my backpack and I took two of those as soon as that started happening. I told my companion was going to get really sick really soon but I guess the pills are literal miracle pills because I ended up walking all night with only slight nausea and a headache. Even the fact that I had a headache after 2 of those pills was making me worried, but whatever.

But yeah. I can't think of anything else exciting that happened this week or anything. They're going to call us this week to tell us the transfers, I doubt we'll get changed but you never know.

ALSO, another story about Elder N. Last week on monday we went to the market and he went over to a fruit stand person and said "how much for 100 bananas?" and I was just sitting there like wut r u doin? and he bought 100 FLIPPIN BANANAS. So now we just sit around the room because this kid just bought a hundred bananas and then left to go home and left me with all this crap! Like what the heck!

So yeah.

I hope you guys are having the times of your lives. Tell Chase to get those filthy hands off my sister. Tell Rebecca that if my longboard is broken when I get back... well, just tell her something unfortunate will happen.

I love you guys!

See you in skype in like a month!

Love,

Elder Mitchell