June 20, 2016

So this wasn´t that great of a week. Basically nothing out of the ordinary has happened, just working all normal. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday so that was exciting. I was the last speaker and I started the talk like 30 minutes before the meeting was supposed to end so I got to talk for a long time hahaha. Also I teach gospel principles every week.

We went to Paracas again this week so that was exciting.

Say happy fathers day yesterday to dad for me :D

That is all.

Loves,

Elder Mitchell

June 13, 2016

Hey,

So this was a good week... more or less.

On Thursday Elder Rasband came so that was super cool. I thought it was going to be the same as when Elder Bednar came where all of the 5 missions in Lima were going to be there but there were only Lima East and South and the MTC. We got to shake his hand so I have officially touched Elder Rasband so that´s pretty exciting.  He said some cool stuff so that´s... cool. Definitely left feeling inspired, I learned a lot.

While we were there I was just casuallly sitting around when the sister missionary in front of me turns around and says "You´re Elder Mitchell?" and then I was like "um yes" and then she says "Were you in Ica?" and I was like "um yes" and then she was like "Do you remember teaching someone named Carlos G?" and I was like "negativo" and then she says "Well he got baptized and he was telling us that he felt bad because he said that an Elder Mitchell and another missionary from Argentina had taught him his first few lessons and that they had had some of the biggest impact on him but that he didn´t have any way to get into contact with you or anything and he doesn´t want you to think that he never got baptized"

After she told me that I definitely still didn´t remember who he was BUT after a full 33 hours of extreme meditation I finally realized who it was and I only had to look through all of my agendas like crazy. But that was super nice and it made me feel good knowing that  that had happened. Imma write him a letter today. But anyways that was super cool.

Also just throwing this out there but I printed off some pictures this week and I realized that dad has gotten really skinny. I feel like he´s neer been fat but he´s significantly smaller than before. If it weren´t for the wrinkles he would look a lot younger :D

ALSO, another story. So my companion from the MTC, Elder Krantz, was a zone leader in Lima one time. Apparently he had acquired an extremely large avocado from south of Lima (I guess they just have huge avocados there) and for one reason or another he decided to plant it. Then he begins looking for a place to plant it, which after only a moment of searching he finds a glass nutella jar. So he throws some dirt into the nutella jar and begins trying to insert the large avocado pit into the jar of dirt. He quickly realizes that the pit is "almost" too big to fit into the jar. So to get it in he begins shoving with both hands to get the avocado pit into the glass nutella jar when (noises of glass shattering followed by screaming) he cuts his hand and fingers wide open.

So at first he doesn´t feel it because of the shock, but he definitely gets scared at what appears to be his hand giving birth to a pile of dirt with blood beginning to spill all over the floor. To make a long story short he ended up having to clean out a bunch of the dirt, and then go to the hospital so that they could give him many many shots into the palm of his hand and into his fingertips. You´ll have to ask me to tell you about the shots story because it´s super funny but it can´t be told in writing. You have to listen to the reanacted screaming to get the full effect.

Anyways he got a nice phone call from president shortly after hahahhahaha.

So the missionary work wasn´t that great this week. We found a new investigator who is this invalid (can´t walk) lady with daibetes. The lesson was basically what happens when someone who´s really prideful tries to be humble so it was actually just a disaster and she wouldn´t let us talk and what we did say she didn´t remember because she was busy distracting herself. We´re working with the members better now that my companion is trying to work with them instead of just trying to be their friend. Not that being friends with the members is bad but my last companion would take like 3 showers a day and was so worried about what people thought of him that he never actually got around to doing anything important (developing christlike attributes, studying, or not being the most superficial person in all of peru) We got along but it was more of a patience and tolerance kinda thing, you know?

We´re teaching a few people still and we´re trying to get back into contact with a few people that we had lost contact with to help them to progress. Also we contacted a lot of really good people so we´re hoping to find more new investigators this week.

Anyways, thanks a ton for my byu schedule. We´re going back to Paracas today so that´s pretty exciting. I love you guys a ton,

Elder Mitchell

June 6, 2016

So this was a good week. Kinda uneventful.

First off I´m a district leader again, so that´s happening. It´s a lot less work than it was last time I was given the assignment.

Elder Rasband is coming on Thursday to Lima, we´re going to travel up there to see it. I guess almost all the missionaries in Lima are going to be there so that´s exciting.

That´s basically all the news. We found some new investigators this week so that´s good. One was the A family. The dad´s name is Jesus and the mom is Kari. They´re old investigators, they live in front of a family in the ward so the missionaries have been there multiple times. Borjas (the old dude who comes with us a lot) says that they´re "fanfarrones" which means that they say a lot but don´t do anything but we´ll see. We had a lesson yesterday that was good and they accepted to be baptized but we didn´t put a specific date. We´ll see if they read and come to church. There was no church this week again for the elections.

The other new was a reference from another program in the zone. It was of a lady named Katy. I don´t think she actually wanted us to come initially considering that she lied to the missionaries that contacted her about her phone number but the lessons have been good. She also has some family members that are members (not active) which gives her kinda a way to be introduced to the church. We taught her less active cousin in the lesson yesterday.

I get along really well with my companion. He´s super funny and we´re laughing basically all the time. He is kinda newer but he´s really good. He´s been super diligent about learning english because he wants to move to the US when he gets back so that´s neat.

Anyway... I guess that´s it. Our area is kinda dead, we´re putting out a ton of effort and we're not wasting any time.

I love you guys!

Elder Mitchell

p.s. Here´s some cool quotes and a picture I drew really fast of machu pichu

May 31, 2016

So this was a good week, at least more or less. That´s a huge bummer and kinda shocking about dad and the car. At least it sounds like everything is alright.

First off this week was transfers. My companion left to Lima to Villa María (where I came from, not the same area but the same zone) and my new companion is Elder Morales, who also is coming from Villa María. I knew him from before coming here so that was cool. He´s definitely one of the most down to earth companion that I´ve had. We´ve been getting along really really well ever since he got here. It´s almost kinda worrying at how fast we got into a casual relationship, things could get dangerous with me getting all trunky  Elder M is from Peru, from Chiclayo, he´s got like 6 months in the mission so he´s kinda newer. This is his second area.

Actually I´ve been doing really good I feel like. I have been pretty focused. I´ve been talking to some other missionaries from my group and they sound like they´re basically already mentally at home hahhaha - it´s gonna be a 2 transfers for them. Whatevs.

So as far as the work goes, I think I told you about J last week, the one who got out of rehab not that long ago. We had a good lesson at the beginning of the week but the next day his family gave him 20 soles to go buy something (like 6 dollars) and he never came back  So i guess that leaving everything behind was worth $6 so that happened. We´re going to go see if we can find him at his moms house today to see if he´s there. If not then well... that sucks but okay.

We found a new family of investigators this week. The husband´s name is S and the wife is L. L is really excited and super awesome, S not so much but we´ll se if he gets more excited with the time. We talked about the plan of salvation a lot with them because they had questions about that. S´s mom died when he was a baby and his sister took care of him and his siblings for their whole lives until she died in the earthquake. We´re hoping that knowing that helps us to help him to become more interested in our message.

We went to paracas last week. It´s like a national reserve here in pisco, we went to the beach and to see some rock formations by a cliff. We saw some dolphins. Nobody fell off so that´s good. Today we´re going to go play some volleyball so that´s exciting. Basically can´t even stay still with all this excitement in me. :D

Anyways, I guess that´s everything. Just remember that everything will always work out. When we put God first then everything will always work out.

Loves,

Elder Mitchell

May 16, 2016

So I was casually walking through a paper store (?) when I found something like a grease pencil? I figured it would be pretty cool so I bought it and drew some pictures before going to bed. The colors I did with highlighters.

Anyways, this was a good week. Actually as far as the work goes it probably couldn´t have gone any worse. I mentioned to you guys last week about how there was some conflict going on between H (recent convert) and Juan (the investigators). Anyways, I was right, definitely conflict. So what happened I guess is that H has his ex-girlfriend that he´s still in love with. I always understood that she lives in Lima. She apparently doesn´t want anything to do with him. She just so happens to work in a fish packing place over on the beach. Juan fixes refrigeration systems in a fish packing place... over on the beach. J and H's ex-girfriend just so happen to work together.

So I guess that there wasn´t really anything going on but J and the girl were talking at work and H found out. So he´s super obsesive, thus he came up with a scheme to fix the situation. His plan was to create multiple fake facebook profiles and then seduce J so that he would stop thinking about Herberts ex-girlfriend. The problem is that it worked.

So J like starts falling in love with this girl he´s never met on facebook but that he likes a lot and you know when guys are into girls they say all kinds of weird flirty things and then she starts doing it too, but then when the girl is actually a guys and your friend then things just get super weird. So J found out that H was doing it and confronted him about it but H just completely denies it, which just makes J more upset. Now J feels all embarressed that he was flirting with a dude so he doesn´t want to come to church any more. Plus his wife is living with another dude now and filed a court case against Juan so everything just sucks for him. He´s been really busy so we haven´t been able to visit him this week and he didn´t come to church on Sunday, probably because he still doesn´t want to see H. At least H came to church :D

Anyways, on Saturday we did like a zone community service project thing where we basically just went out and swept the streets for like 3 hours so that was super exciting. We got to wear the helping hands shirt things so that´s a plus I guess.

Also on Thursday we went to Chincha for a multizone training with president. It was really cool, they talked a lot about the sacrament and the sabbath. I learned a lot. I translated for sister mcginn again which is always exciting. Not sure why she picks me. President and his wife are definitely getting on fire and are getting a lot more used to the mission now. The training was really awesome, the mission is on a huge down and like 80 missionaries are leaving between now and October so they´re losing all of the experienced missionaries. In my group there were 19 gringos and like 5 latinos. The group leaving next transfer had like 10 at least, and then the 2 after me have like 20 a piece also. Which is really weird. Pretty much all of the missionaries got here around the same time so they´re all leaving around the same time.

Anyways, everything is going pretty well. We´re excited to work, transfers are next week and then I am officially starting my second to last transfers. And my last transfer with only be like 4 weeks so that´s happening

I love you guys,

Elder Mitchell

May 9, 2016

So I guess since we talked on skype yesterday I don´t have a ton to talk about.

The area basically just crashed and died this week, so that´s the negative side of things. I´m not actually sure on what happened but we had almost no lessons and nobody came to church and all of the baptismal dates fell through. We´ve been teaching some really good people that I still see a lot of hope in.

The firsts name is Juan. He is married but separated. We found him through working with the elders quorum president and a recent convert named Herbert. He´s been having a lot of problems in his life recently after separating from his wife. Basically the story is that he was drinking a lot, he cheated on her, she cheated on him, they got separated, now she is living with some other guys and Juan is all upset because they´re not legally divorced yet (as if they were when he cheated) but that´s what´s happening. He told us that he recognized that he had a decision between just become an alcoholic or looking for something better, he picked something better. We´re helping him to fill the hole he has in his life with the loss of his family with the gospel and to help him to find peace in the atonement of Jesus Christ. I want to help him get his family back but I think he already kinda lost that one, but maybe :D He hasn´t been answering his phone to us, the elders quorum president says he got in a fight with Herbert and neither of them came to church yesterday (what the heck). Imma have to get my "nut kickin´ boots" out because I´m not losing this guy because of some stupid misunderstanding.

The seconds name is Anthony. He is also married and separated. He is 20 years old and teaches in two different elementary schools. Him and his wife have one daughter and are planning on getting back together again so that´s awesome. Anthony has a bunch of members of his family that are members of the church and he used to go to church with his grandma when he was little. He´s super awesome but he needs to gosh dang read the scriptures and come to church. Super cool kid, not enough faith. We have an appointment with him for tonight.

Third is a lady named Virginia. She was being visited by the missionaries a few years ago (?) where she basically became converted. She was going to church but something happened and she had to leave Pisco for a few weeks or something for work and she lost contact with the church. We found her and she is interested in getting baptised. She still reads the book of mormon every day and carries it around with her all the time. We´re having problems staying in touch with her. She´s kinda older, maybe like 60 years old or something.

I´m getting along really well with my companion. No problems.

I guess that´s basically everything. How old is Rebecca? isn´t she like 16 now? When my companion asked me last night how old my siblings were I said "my oldest sister is 16... wait.. I don´t think she´s 16 any more" I guess Sarah is turning 18 this month, right? Is rebecca 15 and turning 16 in November?? How old is Will. I feel like he´s turning 4 in July but I´m not sure on that one either. I guess it´s just weird for me to look at all of you and realize that you´re not all the same as when I left. There´s a huge difference between a 13 year old and a 15 year old. Also a 10 year old and a 12 year old. I guess I´ll just have to get used to it :D

Anyways, everything is going great, love you guys.

Read the book of mormon every day. I mean every every day. If you read it with the question in mind of "how is this important?" you will find why it is important.

Elder Mitchell

May 2, 2016

So this was a really good week. I wrote down a few major occurences to tell you guys about.

First of all, I don`t know if you guys looked up about Pisco online, but if you haven`t then go do it. It`s basically a beach town/city. It`s pretty cool. The people are definitely very wicked but surprisingly receptive. I`ve seen more transgender  (men to women) in the last week then I`ve seen in my whole life. It`s super weird. Especially the one with a hair salon right next to where we lives. He is black, has his hair very long and bleached and always wears mini shorts, like, the jeans kind.

Sacrament meetings are pretty crazy always. Yesterday a guy got up to give his testimony but when he was getting up he wacked up knee on the bench. it was very loud. He limped up to the pulpet and said "Don`t worry about my knee... it hurts a lot, but I`m trying to be... masculine" super funny

We put 3 baptismal dates this week so that`s super awesome. They`re all with adults and 2 of them are men and they`re all normal people who are progressing so that`s super exciting.

Sorry I`m out of time,

I love you guys

Elder Mitchell

April 25, 2016

So this was a good week. I´m mostly just trying to get my thoughts all organized enough so that I figure out what the heck is going on in this area and what do we need to do to change and to have success. This week has defitely started off on fire with me getting to know all of the ward leaders, leaving waste of time less actives, giving motivational speeches in Elders quorum and finding new investigators. I had formal meetings with both bishops, the ward mission leader, the elders quorum president and then other meetings with the bishop from Pisco Pueblo.

We have a really good pension that is really nice and gives us food a lot for dinner so that´s great. Also she put patches in 2 of my pants because after a few years my bag has worn holes in the back-right-buttcheek part of the pants, The pocket made it so you couldn´t see anything but it´s nice for it to be fixed anyways. I have no idea at what time we´ll be skyping at for Mothers day. Just leave that whole sunday open for now, I´ll talk to my companion about it this week.

There´s still a lot of cockroaches in the room. I have officially found out that they all live in the microwave, if you could look up online "how to get rid of cockroaches in microwave" and send me a way to do that without damaging the microwave that would be great.

Anyways, Im outta time, disculpe

I love you,

Elder Mitchell

April 19, 2016

So to make a long story short, I got transferred. After only two transfers in Villa María I am now in Pisco. I got to pack up everything, say goodbye to the investigators I loved so much, told them to send me pictures of their baptisms and got on a bus for 5 hours to the south to a town called Pisco. The weird thing is that we are working in 2 wards. So we work in a huge area and we have like 2 bishops and 2 of everything and 2 sacrament meetings. The room was really gross when I got here. I replaced that one companion that I hated and I remembered that one reason why I didn´t like him was because he was disgusting. So once I threw away like 15 pounds of garbage, cleaned everything, sprayed out the desk with cockroach spray (and everything else), got the gross molding food out of the fridge then everything was pretty alright. This is my last area so we´re gonna have to work super hard.

Anyways, my companion´s name is elder Veloz. He´s pretty cool but still has some afteraffects from his last companion but we´ll get that cleaned up real quick.

Everything is awesome. Everything is cool when you´re part of a team. Everything is awesoooommmeeee, when you´re living the dream!

See you guys in like 2 weeks for mothers day,

Loves,

Elder Mitc

Somewhere in March...

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Kinda funny stories, so last week I was telling you about R, the kid in my ward who is super funny. Another weird thing about him is that he gets robbed like every single week. He basically just has the worst luck ever but he has some super funny stories. A few weeks ago he was going out with a girl and they were walking around at night or something and they got robbed and the robbers robbed almost everything, they even robbed his shoes and his shirt so he had to walk back home barefooted in just shorts with the girl hahahahhaa. He says that before he went less active he only blessed the sacrament one time and that he messed up in the middle of it and when he messed up he swore into the microphone so that EVERYONE in the sacrament meeting could hear him like whaaaaaatttt are you doinnnggggg hahahahhaa. Also the other night we were at his house trying to finish his lessons so he can be considered "active". There was another kid in the room with us named M. The phone started ringing and R answered it but nobody was there so he hung up. Then the phone rang again so he answered it but there was still nobody there. He then proceeded to answer the phone like 4 more times and NOBODY was ever there. He was basically yelling into the phone after the fifth time when M just busts out laughing. Turned out that he was calling from his cell phone in his pocket the whole time. Haaaaaaaaaa. Another funny thing. A lot of the time when we´re talking with members we get into the conversation of what we were studying before coming into the mission. My companion always says "yeah, I was in college studying electrical engineering" and then they all look at me and ask me what I was studying and I always just keep a straight face and look them directly into the eyes and say "I was studying gynocology" but then I just start laughing so they know that I wasn´t being serious lololol. I think that´s everything. We have a baptism this week, will send pictures next week. I´ll attach a picture of me and my companion so you can see that. Thanks for everything, Loves, Elder Mitchell

April 11, 2016

This week was pretty good. We didn´t have very many lesons and we didn´t find any new investigators but the ones we have a progressing at least. Also there was no church this week because of the peruvian elections which are mandatory on Sunday mornings and is illegal to have any kinda of meeting that would prevent or impede someone from going, thus no sacrament meeting and we got to proselyte all morning even though nobody was home because there were all voting. Also they made us go home like 2 hours early last night so OBVIOUSLY me and my companion put some candles together and made SMORES for like 2 hours. 10/10 would recommend.

Anyways we have this family that is progressing really with with the parents, Milagros and Abdias. They´re making plans to get married here at the beginning of May. Milagros is absolutely amazing and we are so excited for her and her faith that has grown so much. Both her and Abdias have had incredible miracles in their lives and are really recognizing God´s part in their lives.

Sorry I´m basically out of time but I hope everything is going well with you guys!

Loves,

Elder Mitchell