February 29, 2016

So this week was pretty good. Actually we worked like way hard and we found a lot of new investigators so that was super awesome. Also we got super way hard rejected a few times so that was kinda upsetting but whatever. One night we were just like walking through a park and this lady was like walking past me so I was just like "buenos noches" just to be nice and she like flung her arm out almost hitting me and yelled "...asdghañlsdgih pincho!!". I didn´t understand anything she said really except that she didn´t want me to tell her to have a good night and when I asked the Elders quorum president what "pincho" means he said "it´s slang for penis" and I was like "um...... okaayyy" so Ill just stop trying to figure that out.

Also last night we like knocked on a guys door and he like freaked the heck out like "I DONT KNOW WHO YOU GUYS ARE DO YOU UNDERSTAND DO YOU UNDERSTAND DO YOU UNDERSTAND!!!???" And we were just like ... "um ya man.. that´s okay".

Also I got kinda afraid of drunk people again because one of them almost killed my companion. He kept telling us he was from the police and he like grabbed my head and was trying to tell me a secret so i put my head next to his mouth and he just whispered "I´m police" as if he hadn´t said it like 1000 times already. Basically he totally freaked out and I was just like "um... I don´t know what to do in this kind of situationnnnnnn" but like our landlord came out of the house so he went away. But I was p traumatized so that´s okay.

Other than that we had some cool experiences. We went to go look for some less actives like on a mountain and we showed up and the people there were like "no that´s our brother and he´s not here" so my companion was like "that´s okay, can we teach you guys?" and they were all like "yeah guys get in our house with us" so we like went in and taught like a 6 people and like 2 families it was super cool. One of the ladies was like "i´m definitely coming to church this week" (even though she didn´t) and everyone was telling one of the guys to get baptized and he was basically like "I guess i´m just gonna get baptized then" so that was pretty cool.

Also something I haven´t mentioned is that I have given like 12 blessings in the last like 3 weeks. There was a week like 2 weeks ago where we gave like 2 every day. I worry about when I get back and someone is just like "give me a blessing" and I´ll just be like "umm.. yeah... I can but only in spanishhh... sorry"

Also I was thinking I would tell you about all my weird body issues. First off I had a way annoying coldsore in my mouth for like 2 weeks but it´s gone now. Also considering that Lima is basically an oven right now so after wearing my watch for like a week I got a rash that´s kinda in the shape of my watch... so yeah.

Sometimes I feel like my life could basically be summarized as "a series of unforunate events" but that´s okay.

Anyways everything is going awesome.

Love you guys,

Elder Mitchell

February 23, 2016

So as I had mentioned last week there were transfers this past saturday. I guess I had been praying in my heart for like a week that I would train a new american companion for a long time so I was pretty tense when the district leader called us on Saturday night to tell us the changes. My companion left to a city like 2 hours from Lima called cañete and I stayed in my area and my new companion´s name is Elder Barrera (refer to attached image) and guess what--- he`s from Herriman Utah. Native english speaker. Gringo. Gringo. Party. Party. So that was basically the greatest thing I had ever heard in my life. Also this transfer is going to be 8 weeks long so that`s weird but we`ll probably be together for all of this transfer and the next because I`m still p new in the area so that`s pretty cool beans if you know what I mean.

Other than that this week hasn`t been super eventful. I`m going to do a fireside in the ward to excite the members to share the gospel on March 13th and I`m still teaching english classes every week in a failing attempt to find new investigators. Silly unrelated sidestory - yesterday we had a lesson with a less active who has been really sick because he has diabetes (he`s super thin and is having a really hard time walking and moving his limbs) and he`s in pretty bad shape. He is super awesome though and has a ton of fire for the gospel and he wants his wife and kids to get baptised. So we`re in the lesson having a spiritual experience in the lesson when all of a sudden he`s just like "wait... I have a question, I keep having dreams about limes and oranges...like every night... why is that?" So i was like "... um, well I assume that it`s because of your diabetes and that you have a deficience of sugar and maybe citrice so you dream about it because your body is craving it... but let`s get back to talking about Jesus, yeah?" lololol like whateven limes and orange super silly.

Other story: Yesterday we got up at 5:30 am to go to the transfer house. My companion got into the shower and I went over and ironed my shirt. I set it down and went over and got into the shower after him. Then I got out of the shower, put on some pants and started looking for my shirt and it had 100% COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED So I just started looking like ALL OVER THE APARTMENT like in any place it could POSSIBLY be (it`s like a small room) and I could not find it anywhere! So I started questioning my companion like "are you sure you didn`t accidentally put it in your suitcase in the last 5 minutes?" but he insisted that he had no idea. So I was all upset as I put on a wrinkly shirt because there wasn`t time to iron another one and we left. We got into the taxi and I told the story to the member who was taking us but I finished the story with "so now we know my companion is a robber" lololol. So anyways I never found the shirt and I keep bothering my companion about giving it back (I don´t believe he actually took it) but still.

Also slightly related story: I saw two guys kiss on the way to the transfer house and I was super traumatized ._.

Anyways so I`m practicing my english a lot now so maybe I`ll be a pro before I get home even though neither of us really know how to talk very well but I`m probably getting better.

Spiritual experience: So we`re teaching a family that`s SUPER AWESOME. Before they were just good but now they`re progressing a lot and HOLLYYY COWWW it`s going way well. The moms name is Milagros, the dad`s name is Abdias and the daughters name is Angie. So Angie is 15 years old and is basically satan himself reincarnated. She refuses to live at home and keeps running away to live in the street doing who knows what bad things- 15 years old. We took renzo to the lesson yesterday and when we left he made the comment "that girl was looking at me a lot" so I pulled out my portable furnace to get him crispy with some good old doctrine based verbal abuse because that`s not allowed for him to be looking at that girl. Or any girl for that matter. The lesson was super spiritual though and they read the chapter we left like 6 times and the dad is progressing (and experiences multiple miracles this week) and the mom declared that she "doesn`t have to pray to have a testimony because she already knows it`s true" So now all they have to go is get commited to be baptised and get married and then we`ll get dunken` in the baptismal font  #completefamilies

Anyways so everything is going really well. Mom go have a good time with sally.

thanks, loves,

Elder Mitchell

February 15, 2016

So this was a good week. It was probably more eventful than the past few weeks so that´s good.

So first off I kinda freaked out yesterday when the landlords family came to visit. I had heard that they had family who lived in the US but I didn´t know if they were the same ones as those who had come to visit. Turns out they are. I found that out last night when I was reading the book of mormon and my companion said "the neighbors are speaking english" so I got up to go see for my self and some girl was yelling "lefty loosy righty tighty" over and over to teach her sister how to use the shower. Maybe I´m just having a lot of stress recently but I kinda freaked out considering that I hadn´t heard anyone who isn´t a missionary speak english in a long time. I guess I´ll have to ask them where they´re from here soon.

So I decided last week that I really wanted a chess set. I remembered that I had seen a cool chess set in Ica where it was a battle between the spaniards and the incas so I decided that would be a cool peru suvenier but that I was no longer in Ica. I decided to just go ahead and send Renzo to the center of lima to go buy me one. So he did. And it´s super awesome. Me and my companion were pretty excited because my companion is pretty obsessed with chess and he tells me all the time about the chess clubs he was in before and all the times he´s played and stuff. I haven´t played chess since dad taught me how the pieces moved when I was like 8. Maybe one time but that was it and I think I just lost horribly.

So I got the set and me and my companion decided we were going to start playing at night after planning and before going to sleep. The first two nights I lost, it wasn´t like I got super destroyed but I didn´t really know how to play so that´s my excuse. Then the third night was friday (I think) and we started a game. We started at like 10 I think (too late to start). We started and as always things started getting pretty intense in a very silent way just us playing chess. At some moment the police who live across the hall from us decided that they wanted to start drinking with loud music and have a party. That was kinda distracting but we kept playing anyways. Before long I started getting the upper hand in the game and it started getting really intense. We were both pretty nervous because of the game and it was distracting enough with the music and noise from the neighbors. Just when I didn´t think things could get any worse the neighbors right outside my window started getting down (if you know what I mean) and that pretty much just jacked up my concentration. My companion claims he didn´t notice but that´s kinda unbelievable. We continued playing normal with all the "noises" and I actually won hahahahhaha. I was pretty proud because I don´t know how to play chess like at all but I guess I got ahold of it pretty quick.

To make things worse someone in the ward who was moving to a different part of Lima called us to go help them move on Saturday afternoon. So we got permission from our leaders, changed into street clothes and started walking to the members house. We were walking all normal when I started hearing like a super loud, weird kissing noise. So I look across the street to where the noise was coming from. Turns out they were coming from 2 teenage girls standing on top of a 2 story hotel wearing super not-modest shirts. I saw them for maybe .025 seconds before looking at the ground and speed walking away while they yelled "liars" (idk what that means). We went to the service all normal and everything went find. Then on the way back we went the same way because it was the fastest way back to the room (it was like 2 hours later I didn´t think they would still be there D:). I guess the girls had decided that they hadn´t really put enough effort into the first attempt so on the way back they took off their shirts and sang a super innapropriate song while yelling. I kept thinking the words "don´t be like david don´t be like david don´t be like david" because I think david also had a problem with women on roofs but unlike david I left feeling way proud that I hadn´t seen anything other than a slight glance from my perifrial vision so that´s good. They were still wearing bras but I still didn´t look so I left feeling like a winner either way.

Anyway I guess that´s basically everything exciting that´s happened. I´m getting a long really well with my companion so that´s good and I feel happy even though I think I need to start eating less sugar and start sleeping earlier because I´ve had a lot of stress recently.

Also I forgot my camera, I´ll send pictures next week.

I love you guys everything is awesome,

Elder Mitchell

February 8, 2016

So this week was fine. Sorry I´m doing a bad job of thinking of stories to tell you every week. There was a baptism this week so that´s exciting. Baptisms are always super stressful because it´s kinda the culmination of all the work we´ve done and we want it to be a spiritual experience for the person that gets baptised so it´s always a lot of pressure. The girl who got baptised name is lucero. She´s pretty cool. She had been going to church for a while in the Peru jungle and then she came here and said "I want to get baptised" so really it wasn´t a super long nor tedious experience. The baptism went really really well. I played the piano (uh oh) and the young women in the ward did a musical number. After the musical number lucero was basically crying her eyes out like crazy and went to the bathroom with all the 12 young women to stop crying so we could take the pictures so that was exciting. The baptism went well and everything was awesome and yesterday she got confirmed so I guess literally nothing went wrong :DDDDDD 

I guess the more exciting than the physical events this week was my mental state. I guess that what I mean is that I kinda got my thoughts figured out this week so now I´m more calm so that´s positive. I feel like I had just been living my life all normal for my whole life and then one day I just filled up some suitcases, said goodbye to everyone I knew and grabbed a quick plane to Mexico. My life just took a 180 degree turn, like a complete flip flip, there was absolutely NOTHING even remotely similiar in my life between those two moments. Then for the last 17 months I had just continued on in this life with a different name, different language, different everything everything everything. Sometimes I just cannot even imagine what it would be like to get back home and I start going insane just asking myself if my life is actually happening or is this just some psychotic dream where one day I will just wake up in a completely different world filled with english speaking white people who call me by a name I haven´t heard in literally years. Like how am I even supposed to consider what´s happening to me right now as memories when I have quite literally nothing to even connect them with my life after the mission. Sooo I guess I was getting stressed out realizing how fast the time was passing.

What helped me most is that I had an interchange with a kid this week who is suuupperrr cool. Like way cool. He´s from utah also. He got here at the same time as me (into the mission) but went home after one transfer in the field and just recently came back into the mission a few months ago. I guess talking to him and explaining my thoughts in english was quite the therapeutic experience.

I love all of you, the zone leader told me I got a letter this week but when I asked him who it was from he said "I don´t know, I don´t know english" so if you guys have sent me something then I guess I got it :D

Loves and loves,

Elder Mitchell

January 25, 2016

So this week was actually not exciting at all, so that´s a disappointment.

Just one small story from this morning. So I guess some dog in the street had eaten a peruvian sol (worth a little more than a quarter) and then pooped it out on the sidewalk outside of where we live. That leaded both me and my companion to have to stand there in front of it contemplating if it would be worth it to get it or not. We decided against it.

So there´s a kid in our ward here is super funny. His name is Renzo (lolwat), but really he´s like the funniest person I´ve ever met. He has a ton of stories where the craziest stuff happens to him. Example: A few weeks ago he had taken a bus to the northern part of Lima (like an hour away). He got off the bus and started walking around when he realized that all of his money had fallen out of his pocket. So basically he just got stranded in Lima at like midnight walking around amelessly like looking for change on the sidewalk because he had no way of contacting his family and had no money. He said that he "walked around lost for 4 hours" until 4 O CLOCK IN THE MORNING when he realized that he would have to start begging people for money. I guess the problem was that he was kinda shy and nervious even though that´s how anyone would feel if they were to start begging people for money at 4 o´clock in the morning. So he said that he spent the next hour wandering around nerviously approaching people and trying to make friends with them so that they would give him money. According to him it took him about an hour to get the equivelent of one dollar to take 2 busses to get back home. The funny thing is that when he would beg people for money they would always say things like "you´re not going to use it for your drugs, are you?" and then he would say "no I don´t do drugs because I´m mormon" (even though he was less active) and then he would start talking about joseph smith and start reciting the first vision so that they would give him money hahahahahhaa.

The other thing we do is that there´s some dumb peru movie called "asu madre" and I guess in the money there´s a dumb kid with a speech empairment. They say that in one part he tries to say "mi causa, pata clown" (pataclown is a retarded peru show with clowns) but since he has the talking problem he says it "micasakataclaus" So now every time we talk to Renzo we all just start screaming "MISCAUSAKATACLAUSKATACLAUSMICAUSA" and it is sooo funnyyyyy. Last night to mess with the district leader when he called I answered by screaming "MICAUSACATACLAUS" and he was like "yeah... elder mitchell I need...." but my companion almost passed out laughing. Then this morning we made renzo carry some lifting weights 5 blocks so we could do exercise even though some idiot lady got mad at us telling us that we couldn´t do exercise in that place but whatever.

Today for p day we´re going to go climb the mountains surrounding our area with Renzo and some other crazy YSA so that should be fun. Also there´s a member who has a restaurant that gives us free food on p days so that´s super exciting also.

Anyways, everything is going well. We have a few people who are going to get baptized on February 6th and on February 20th. sups excites.

Anyways, everything is going well. It´s not so hot in lima because the sun never comes out (plzkillmegracias) so that´s good.

We teach a lot and we have adventures pretty much every day just talking to people and just waiting for the next weird thing to happen every day.

I love you guys,

Elder Mitchell

January 12, 2016

So I got transfered this week as I mentioned would happen last week. I got moved to (insert drumroll here) LIMA AGAIN noooooooooooooooooooooo but that´s okay. I am in a zone named villa maria, the ward is called "union" It´s actually very small in terms of geological area so we never have to use transportation or anything so that´s good. Yesterday I had to get up at 5 am to take a bus at 6:30 for like 6 hours to get to Lima. There we took a taxi to the transfer house and then another taxi to our room. The room is nice and I guess I should have taken pictures but I didnt. It´s really small but that makes it easier to clean but really I dont need any more space than there is so it doesn´t really matter. We basically just walked around yesterday and I met a bunch of members so that was cool and everyone is super nice.

So yeah. I said bye to everyone in Ica so that´s sad but it´s okay. 

My companion is super cool and fun so that´s nice :D

Today I think Im going to go get my haircut so that´s probably the most exciting part of my life right now :D Aaaannnd yeah.

Anyways I love you guys,

Elder Mitchell