So I guess starting where I left off on last monday when I was with the zone leaders. I ended up staying with them for another day until Wednesday morning. We recrouted a member to be my companion for a few days, which is pretty weird. He´s only like 22 and he was baptized last year. A few days ago we went over to his house to open his mission call and he´s going to la paz, bolivia, so that´s super exciting. On Monday night we went to the ward mission leaders house to visit him and his family and we watched this video that didn´t even make me cry that much: https://www.lds.org/
On Tuesday we had an interchange so one of the zone leaders left and another missionary that was amazing came with us. Turns out the dogs in the zone leader´s area are absolutely totally insane. Like seriously every single dog on the street just freaks the heck out and starts barking and growling and running at us like they´re going to eat us. I felt kinda like I was in a zombie apocalypse except for they were dogs and zombies don´t really get scared away when you throw bricks at them.
I had some pretty neat spiritual experiences this week.
The first one is just with fasting in general because yesterday was fast sunday. One of the first Utah-apostasy-killing experiences I had was to fast for the first time. Just throwing this out there but a fast is 24 hours, 2 meals. Not eat as much as you can at 3 AM and then fast until you get back from church at 1 PM the next day. I can't even believe that I/everyone did that. I invite you to not do that any more :D
I testify of the spiritual growth that can come from fasting. I know that we can find greater spiritual knowledge to be able to fast every month.
There are 2 scriptures I like about fasting: Alma 5:45-46
45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?
46 Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.
Also
The other spiritual experience was with blessings. I just wanted to say that I've never seen any incredible miracles giving blessings BUT I also have never given a blessing where the person who received it was not better the next time I saw them. That's pretty neat.
Yesterday after eating lunch we shared a few gospel videos, he's been having a hard time with his family and stuff so I felt like it would be good for him to have a spiritual experience. It was pretty neat and afterwards he gave me a few videos that he had that I'm pretty excited to use in lessons. I can't go to the website to send you a link but the website is called mormonsmadesimple.com and has some great videos about the book of mormon and the plan of salvation (that would be great to put links to that on the blog)
I guess yesterday some weird stuff happened. Before church we went to go look for alex to bring him to church but he was drunk again. I lectured him saying "Alex, How are you supposed to go to church if you're always drunk?" but he just kinda stood there smiling and he looked at the ground in a kinda shameful way. I guess the biggest thing I have to say about alex is I LOVE HIM AND I WANT HIM TO COME TO CHURCH! So I told him that we would come back in the afternoon and that he needed to take a few showers and drink a bunch of water so that he would be sober when we came back. So we went to church and after lunch we went to his house to go find him again. he was there, maybe a little bit more sober than before and he said that he was "sleeping" but I didn't believe that at all.
We went into his house and we sat down and I said "Alex, were you drinking after we left?" he shook his head no, then I said "don't lie to me" then he shook his head yes. Then I said "Do you have more alcohol?" And he shook his head no, then I said "Don't lie to me" Then he shook his head yes. Then as if he knew what I was going to say he walked into the other room and came out with his favorite apple rum still half full. I set it on the table because I'm not as couragous as elder averanga and I didn't want to just poor it out. After a while I convinced him to go take a shower after drinking like 4 cups of water. He came out and we went to go to where his wife was working because we had coordinated with the ward mission leader to watch meet the mormons that night with the sisters and whatever investigators we could get to come and I didn't know anyone else that I could get to leave their house so alex and his wife were his only option.
So we showed up at his wifes work and alex didn't want to go in because he was embaressed. When I asked him why he was embaressed he said "because of the things I've done here before" So I figured I would just leave that at that and we went in. Alex asked one of the employees if his wife was there and the employee gave him a super long awkward stare before running into the other room. Keep in mind that Alex was still kinda drunk at this point but it was REALLY important that we get them to the ward mission leaders house because I knew he would literally murder me if we didn't bring anyone.
So turned out that his wife was working but her boss let her leave so we went back to the house separately from his wife. We were waiting for her to get there and we started running late to get to the video with them. Alex was really hungry because all he had eaten all day was rum so he started cooking some ramen on the stove. Then his wife showed up so Alex freaked out and started eating the boiling hot ramen as fast as he could because he was so hungry even though it was burning his mouth. His wife took it away and I gave him a manderine I had in my backpack and we went to the video.
Now at this point remember that alex had drunk a bunch of water and taken a shower to get rid of as much drunk as we could but it was still only a few hours after he had stopped drinking so he was still kinda drunk but his wife was excited to see the video so we went. We got there and there were some members and investigators of the sisters and we were about to start when alex said "Wait, everyone... I have some things to say... this is my wife... I have an 11 year old son that doesn't live with us.. he isn't the son of my wife... my old girlfriend died in an accident... and I'm an alcoholic..." and he started crying and I put my hand on his shoulder and told him that it's okay and that we need to watch the movie. So I guess he forgot about that really quick but it was super awkward because I was sitting there next to this crying drunk guy (crying because drunk) and i don't know. He wasn't THAT drunk, but he was still kinda emotional. Then we went back to his house, he grabbed the bottle of rum that was still on the table, said " I don't need this any more" and then dumped it all down the drain so that was pretty neat.
Then after we ran over to a lesson we had at 8 with a reference. The guy was SUPER weird, like he gave me a hug when we walked in and he started telling us about how he feels really committed to a group he goes to every week for people who have had "encounters with extraterrestrials" We taught about the restoration and his accepted a baptismal date for August and he agreed to come to church.
Now today is monday and I'm still with this poor member kid and my companion is still in the hospital in Lima and the health secretary says he has no idea what is going to happen but maybe he'll come back today but we still don't know anything. We're going to Quinua again today so that stinks for to go for the third time but whatever. I just hope I don't throw up, Imma take a dremmemine here soon. I think I'm going to an area called Bethlehem tonight to stay with those missionaries until we get more news on my companion or what's happening.
Also one more silly thing. The translations from spanish to english are pretty hilarious sometimes when I'm talking with other gringos. We don't know a lot of translations for things so sometimes there's silly sentences like " Hola Elder Grover habla con Elder Mitchell, I'm ready to do rendimiento de cuentas" Or this morning when one of the missionaries in my district called me and said " The mom doesn't live with her husband, she says he lives in the jungle" Which just sounds funny because we don't usually say that people live in the jungle but all the time I hear things like "I can't help you elders, I'm in the jungle" or "no, I can't that day, I'm going to the jungle."
That's everything from this week I think,
Also please give me recipes for buttermilk pancakes, donuts I can fry in a pan and for ranch dressing. That is all.
I love you, team!
Elder Mitchell
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