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

December 28, 2015 The theives are getting ready for New Years

So I guess I´ll just start this story with saying that I know that there are after-the-fact stories (after-the-mission stories) but this was super intense soooo I´m going to tell it anyways.

So on Saturday night we were proselyting all normal. Actually it was the 2nd worst day of my life where we had been walking in the killer sun since 10 AM and I was super fried and tired but still excited to go to our 8 PM appointment. So it was like 7:40 pm and we were walking to the appointment and a well lit, busy, trafficky area with a group of people walking behind us. We were walking at a pretty decent speed when 2 guys who were sitting on the curb stood up and ran over to us and were saying a lot of bad words and started telling my companion that he was going to shoot him and for us to give them all of our things. So of course the first thing that comes to mind is "I´m not going to lose my new scripture case" which ocurred at the same moment that I decided that I would rather die than lose my scriptures and everything. (uh oh) So my companion hands over his bag with all his things and I took my whopping 6 soles ($1.50) out of my pocket and put it out and said "here, here, here" in a desperate attempt to get them to take the money and leave me with bag and scriptures and everything. So the guys keep screaming like crazy and I couldn´t really understand what they were saying. They were both really dark skinned and they were kinda short, like up to my shoulder so when the guy took my money and told me to give me my bag I was kinda like "um, i think imma have to give you a negativo on that one, midget"

So the guys just starts freaking heck out screaming "DO YOU WANT TO DIE DO YOU WANT TO DIE DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!?!" And I was getting mad that these freakin´ idiots were even doing all this crap when all they´re doing is robbing two bags full of completely worthless books and a bag that says "Peru Lima South, Disciples of Jesus Christ" on the front. So I started yelling at the freakin´ idiot kid telling him that the bag just has scriptures and that I wouldn´t give it to him. So he kept asking me if I wanted to die while he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out something and started swinging it up and down like a crazy person. I guess  I had a revelation in that moment that maybe it was a knife and I imagined myself getting stabbed in the stomach which was more motivating than I expected. I still didn´t lose my things though and I have an extremely lucid memory of me looking down at this kids face with his mouth wide open yelling at me and thinking "he probably doesn't have a knife, I´m over a foot taller than him" and "I wonder if his teeth would get stuck in my knuckles if I punched him right in the face" but I guess my inner coward took over and gave him my bag. So he grabs the two bags (which are both really heavy) and runs away.

So me and my companion started walking down the street and I was all mad because I had lost my flippen scripture case. So I was basically raging pretty hardcore when I decided that we should follow where he ran to see if he would leave the bags in the street when he finds that they are worth literally nothing. So we walk around the corner and we get a good 30 feet before two guys on a motorcycle pull up in front of us and were just  like "HEY, here are your bags :D" while they handed us our bags. They then explained that they had seen us getting robbed but that they didn´t know if the thieves had guns or weapons so they didn´t want to get off the motorcycle to help us. So I guess they had turned around and followed the guys and got our bags back and then they found us while we had gone back to look for the backpacks. :DDDDDD So that was an awesome miracle and all I lost was my six soles. My companion then asked me "why did you give them your money?" because the guys who robbed us wouldn´t have taken the money if I hadn´t given it to them. So my companion kept his money and I lost mine but we both got our bags back so that was super cool. Also I´m not going to proselyte with my good triple until after new years because this time of year can be kinda sketchy I guess.

So that was the biggest event since our skype call on friday :D. Yesterday we found some new investigators and it was good but they totally just started killing us for Joseph Smith and they were telling us that we don´t need the book of mormon and that we only need the bible and then they totally FREAKED THE HECK OUT when I said, "well, first we have to consider that the bible isn´t perfect" which has tons of evidence considering all the contradictions and the fact that there are DIFFERENT VERSIONS of the bible so which one is correct? None of them because it was changed in the apostacy (read more in 1 Nephi 13) :D So that was exciting and both of the lessons actually ended up really good.

Sorry for making you all stressed out telling you my getting robbed story but I guess it wasn't the first time ahhahhahahahhaha

I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Loves,

Elder Mitchell

December 21, 2015

So this week wasn´t even that exciting.

Also we went to the huacachina again but I only took like two pictures so here they are. That´s one of those peru dogs that we were all excite about before I came to Peru which are actually very common and there´s me touching one.

Imma hit 16 months in the mission this week so woooo I´m offically an old missionary. I can't believe I'm actually 20. Also that I´m coming home next year. So that´s all happening.

My companion was pretty into english internet stuff before the mission so he knows all the words like yolo, swag and stuff so that´s silly. He also talks about hashtags and things so this week we were joking around with "hashtag this" and "hashtag that" because the WEIRDEST things happen like every day. Like a week ago I remember we were having a super spiritual experience in a lesson and then some kid just comes over to the house, stick his wang through the hole in the door and starts peeing INTO THE HOUSE and I was just like WHAT ARE YOU DOING CHILD. Also drunk people talk to us a lot so that´s super awkward always.

Change of subject, I decided that my biggest weakness as a person and as a missionary is that I get SO OFFENDED. Like seriously it just takes one person to be a jerk and I feel SO BAD ALL DAY. Elder Krantz was telling me that it´s my fault because I choose to feel bad but it´s noooottt because I try to choose to not to but I caaaannn´´ttt. Example: Yesterday I was talking to some lady in the street because I knew her son who is a recent convert. So I´m talking to her all normal, we made an appointment and then I realized that I had forgotten to ask for her phone number. So I totally normal just was like "oh, sorry, do you think you could give us your phone number so we can confirm the appointment?" and she just stared at me like satan incarnated and said "I already told you" and I was just standing there like in shock, like.. "um.. ok" So I started going through my agenda to find when I would have written down the number of this lady that I had never seen in my life and then she started yelling at me like "We already made the appointment, I told you Ill be here, you don´t need my number!" and I was just like "um, ok -- I guess thanks, we´ll see you on saturday" and then she closed the door. Like 100% everything was normal until that point and I was so confused at why she had gotten so mad. So then I basically just moped around all night full of self pity.  Sooo if you could give me psychological tips on how to not do that it would be great. :D

I think that´s everything, we´re going to skype on friday and Imma go call you in like 30 minutes to go set that up.

Thankssss

Loves,

Elder Mitchell

December 14, 2015

Hey!

So this week was pretty good even though I guess not very many exciting things happened. First off thanks to mom for the advice on controlling anxiety, I actually apply a lot of those things that you said like every single day. I actually have the thought come into my head every day of "Wow, I really hate ____" and then I think "wait, is that really rational. No. Better think of something else." "I like how ____ happens but maybe I could help to fix _____" I laugh at myself sometimes but it works so that´s good. Also I have put out the effort to never try to guess what my companion is thinking but that´s still hard because I guess I do it naturally but the effort i´ve put is still helping.

Big highlight of the week was that I got a kid in my ward to make me a new cover for my triple. And LOOK!!! It has a FREAKIN´ DRAGON ON THE SPINE!!!!!!! Like whaaaaaaattttt awesooooooommmmmeeeee 

so yeah.

The other big highlight of the week is that my companion from the mtc is in our district! Also that we had an interchange with him this week and we were together all dayyyyy whooooooooooo!!! It was Elder Krantz and he´s so awesome like seriously he´s changed so much and now he´s just all spiritual and amazing seriously 10 out of 10 best person ever! I put a picture on here so you see him and me.

Also mom don´t freak out about how we don´t get to talk for very long on skype I´m coming home here soon so don´t worry about it, yeah. Like, there´s only a few months until mothers day when we talk again and then I´m coming home like right after so no stress no stress.

Yesterday we gave talks in sacrament meeting and I talked about service and I totally taught with power and authority and called the whole sacrament meeting to repentance for not doing service, especially through callings and doing visiting teaching because protip: You have to do service to retain the remission of your sins Mosiah 4:27 best scripture ever. Also, in Mosiah 2: something we learn that when we´re in  the service of our fellow beings we´re only in the service of your God. Is it important to serve God? Yes. Then what should you do? Service. There you go, easy win.

We´re going to  the Huacachina again today so that´s exciting. I´m doing really good and everything is awesome.

With tons and TONS of love,

Elder Mitchell

Dec 1, 2015

So this week there were transfers again! And I lost my soulmate number 2 Elder P he left to go to another zone that´s a whopping 30 minutes away from Ica called Pisco.

Aaaaaaaannnddd I have a new companion! Here´s a picture, his name is Elder L so that´s pretty cool. And he´s from Veracruz, Mexico so that´s pretty neat. To give you just a basic rundown of what I´ve noticed since he got here yesterday is that he´s pretty chill, laid back, he likes movies and stuff and he had a girlfriend before the mission that was almost as mexican as mine :DD Also he knows english literally perfect that he claims he learned while watching movies in english for his whole life but idk about that but maybe. He´s pretty awesome and has like half my time in the mission even though he has like 8 months but I´m officially an old missionary in missionary life time.

I think my biggest struggle in the mission as of right now is that I teach people in a very direct way. The problems originates with the fact that questions are very hard to make in spanish. So I would get frustrated making questions sound good and not-offensive and I guess I kinda danced around asking what I really wanted to know so now I just kinda ask. Example from last night when I said "so if I understand you correctly, homosexual relationships are okay because they let homeless children have a place to stay?" which was 100% literally what she was telling me so that was an interesting point of view  Also I´ve just gotten into the habit of just abusing people with my amazing power of reason. Example: a few days ago we had agreed with a 20 year old boy that doesn´t work if he could come with us to an appointment. We agreed to find ourselves in a park at. We called him in the morning to remind him and he said that everything would be good. So it gets to and I called him to verify that he was coming to which he replied "um... can I come at, it´s just that my mom just got back from the market and I haven´t eaten lunch" So of course I replied "ummm... here, I´m going to teach you. We have appointments at 4, 5, 6 and 7. So if you show up at, we would get late to the lesson and then we would be late to every single lesson all afternoon and we would probably end up losing a few because of our delay. do you understand?" I guess I said some more stuff after because like FLIP I just want to teach lessons and why are the members preventing me from doing it?!?! We did everything we could to make everything perfect and it still all just failed. Anyways yeah.

Also a few nights ago I ended up teaching a ward mission night based on eternal families so I ended up putting on the love story from "up" and then explaining that those kinds of relationships don´t have to end with death and it was super bonito.

That´s everything from this week I think, I ate up a lot of time writing to hannah :((( :DDD but that´s okay.

I LOVE ALL OF YOU

Elder Mitchell