October 20, 2015

Hey,

So I guess I´m not sure if my life just isn´t very exciting or if I´m just not an exciting writer or if I´m just used to the exciting life but I feel like this letter won´t be super interesting.

I guess the first major thing was the turn out at church this week. We found 4 new investigators last week and 2 new families and both of the families came to church so that was awesome.

Also as you´ve noticed transfers were this last week and GUESS WHAT!!!

NOTHING HAPPENED AGAIN! Like holy cow I´m with my companion AGAIN!!! 3 transfers together that´s like over 4 months we might as well get married like flip  This like doesn´t happen very often, actually like never but that´s all okay. Plus my companion is the new district leader so  every time he does anything I say "no, you can´t do that, you´re a district leader now" or "what, you think because you´re a district leader you can touch all my things?" I think it bothers him but that´s okay because we´re in kind of a bother-each-other kinda relationship. There´s an awful lot of screaming in our room even though we just like yelling at each other to get some more spice in our relationship because things are getting old  but really we get along really well and we´re seeing more success in our area and yeah so EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!!!

Stake conference was this last week and my favorite quote from the meetings was "What you are looking for is in the scriptures". I believe that everyone in the world is looking for something, to be happier, to make an important decision, to  have a happy family, to understand why we´re even here on the Earth and just a whole ton of things, that´s why I like that phrase, because EVERYTHING you could EVER LOOK FOR can be  either solved or found in the scriptures. I testify of the scriptures and their ability to change lives. To make bad people good and good people better and to help us to be guided in a world of increasing wickedness. I wish that EVERYONE would put the goal to have a DAILY SCRIPTURE STUDY IN THE BOOK OF MORMON consisting of at least 15 minutes, and that when we do that accompanied with prayers of faith, sincere intent and the desire to apply the scriptures to our lives we will FIND WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR!!! We will be guided to find it. I KNOW that when God inspired both ancient and modern prophets to write scripture they were thinking of Peter, April, Sarah, Rebecca, John and Will each INDIVIDUALLY to help them on the path, if we would only be willing to look for it.

 8 For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh,findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

 9 Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask bread,will give him a stone?

 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts untoyour children, how much more shall your Father who is inheaven give good things to them that ask him?

 12 Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that menshould do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the lawand the prophets.

 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, andbroad is the way, which leadeth to destruction, and manythere be who go in thereat;

 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, whichleadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Another funny thing is that I talked to a mom this week whose son is on a mission and she told us that she doesn´t want him to come back because in the mission he is safer from temptation and things :DDD Don´t worry about me!

I love you!!!

Elder Mitchell

October 12, 2015

okay,so this week was mostly uneventful again.

Had an AWESOME experience ponderizing 1 Nephi 15:11

Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hathsaid?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me infaith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence inkeeping my commandments, surely these things shall bemade known unto you.

Okay, so remember, that if you want to receive answers for your prayers you have to NOT HARDEN YOUR HEART, ASK IN FAITH, BE DILIGENT IN KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS!!!!! And when you do that then SURELY these things shall be known unto you!!!!!!

Cannot even put enough exclamations on that one

We had a baptism this week but no pictures for now but we´re super excited. Basically the greatest ever. Been talking to Tanner White and there were some SUPER insane coinsedences and he´s gonna help me out with getting some papers for some investigators, will talk about it next week.

I LOVE YOU TEAM

Elder Mitchell

October 5, 2015

Ok, so this week wasn´t super eventful but yeah.

Soooo, the big news is something called "el niño" which is some huge storm that´s supposedly coming here to peru. According to everyone who lives here, it´s a storm that comes ever 10 to 20 years and what happens is that it gets REALLY hot REALLY early in the year. Like right now it should still be chilly from winter but it´s been pretty toasty for like a month and that´s unusual. What happens is that it gets hot for a long time and i guess the water from the ocean and everything evaporates more than normal. So that happens and that evaporation makes clouds, and then the clouds come over to places like where I am right now and it rains. The problem is that it doesn´t rain here and it never does, so when it does rain, then this desert sand dunes place turns into a muddy mudslide place and the whooooole city fills with mud. Now, originally i didn´t believe any of this peruvian conspiracy nonsense, but i guess it´s pretty serious because the stake keeps having emergency preparedness meetings and the schools have changed their schedules to acomodate for school to get out almost a month before summer vacation starts. So now ALL the kids are either studying on Saturdays in addition to the rest of the week, or they are studying 2 days a week from 7 am until 6 pm in addition to the rest of their schedule being normal! Like poooorrr children are in school for almost all day that´s the worst.

The other horrible thing is that the puppy that my pension had died. The grandpa guy was backing out with his car and crushed it´s legs or something and then it like jacked up it´s stomache or something so it´s gone. At least I got that incredible picture before that happened that I sent you guys last week.

Also, so I guess I was thinking it was funny reading about hanks frustration getting people to read the book of mormon, but it´s super true. Just throwing this out there, but if you WANT TO KNOW, then first you have to READ THE BOOK OF MORMON, I have seen SO many people who just START to READ THE BOOK and they have INCREDIBLE, LIFECHANGING transformations in their life!!!!! Like, seriously, just READ IT. I spent so much time whining to myself before the mission because i felt like I didn´t receive answers to my prayers but guess what? I DIDNT READ THE BOOK OF MORMON, at least not as much as i should have.

I love you guys!

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME WHEN YOU´RE PART OF A TEAM

Elder Mitchell

September 28, 2015

So this week was good. We went to the Huacachina and it was super awesome.

um, yeah. We did exercise like crazy this week so that was good. We have some awesome investigators that are progressing really well so we´re really excited and everything is going super good.

Fasting was awesome, 10 out of 10 would recommend.

sorry today was even shorter than last week, THANKS FOR THE EMAILS

I love you!

Elder Mitchell

September 21, 2015

So sorry I just like to spend all my time in internet like on lds.org and stuff so now I have like no time.

Everything is going AWESOME! The work went REALLY REALLY well this week and after 8 weeks and I´m still basically in love with my companion. So glad I got 2 transfers with him. 3 will be unlikely but maybe maybe.

Um, yeah. We still do excersize just like crazy all out every day and today we just killed ourselves again with chest and arms so that was super cool. We taught a new investigator last night whose name is carlos that´s just the coolest kid on the block.

Probably the greatest thing about the mission is just LEARNING HOW TO LOVE PEOPLE. 10 out of 10 would recommend.

We´re going to the Huacachina today, go look it up on internet because it´s gonna be awesome.

I LOVE YOU GUYS

Elder Mitchell

September 14, 2015

So this week was not super eventful. Actually I don´t remember really anything so it´s probably just going to be a disappointment.

Sometimes I haven´t told you is that we´ve been doing a lot of exercise. Like, we get up at 6 every day, then we run like a mile, then we lift weights with a member in like his back yard for 30 minutes, then we run the mile back to the room. So that´s pretty exciting. The other day we helped him grab one of the chickens the member had so my companion could hold it by it´s feet while the member chopped into its neck like some kind of barbarian to kill it for lunch while the poor white kid just stood there absolutely horrified but whatever.

Actually that´s everything that´s happened. Except the pension bought a new puppy and it´s my best friend and we had that baptism but that´s it :D

Sorry I used all my time already lo sientooo

Love you, team!

Elder Mitchell

September 8, 2015

So first off, transfers were this week again because 6 weeks just went by real quick. Gonna have explain some things before telling you what happened so you´ll understand.

So where I am in Ica is a place called Tinguiña. Tuinguiña is the very furthest our part of Ica, so it´s the poorest area and most of it is just dirt and sand, but that´s ok its still awesome. We share  a ward with another area of missionaries. The other area is called Parcona. The ward is called Achirana. So like, our two areas make up the ward Achirana. Our areas are connected. So us and the missionaries in Parcona have been really good friends and we´ve been spending time together basically whenever we can find time and  we call each other all the time to go do stuff for p day and for coordinating the missionary work in the ward and stuff so we´ve been really close. Also, both of our areas are pretty huge. At least a good 30 or 40 minutes to walk across each one. I don´t know distances I´m sorry.

Anyways, so what happened in the transfer is they closed Parcona. So they took out both of those missionaries and sent them to other areas and left us with all of their investigators and everything. So now our area is just absolutely incredibly massive and we don´t even know how to navigate half of it. Yesterday we spent all day moving the other room´s furniture and everything to our room to store it so that was super exciting sitting inside of a 3 wheeled motorcyle with a mattress on top holding on to it so it doesn´t fly away with another guy from colorado (who´s super awesome). Actually the whole thing was improvised but that´s okay. There´s probably going to be a baptism on Saturday for someone that we don´t even know because the poor guys missionaries just got taken out so sad.

Everall everything is going really well. I get along better with my companion than any of my other ones I think. I don´t even know why maybe we just connect or maybe he´s just humble enough to put up with me or something but either way we´re basically breast buddies and everything is awesome.

Last week I had agreed to play the piano for a relief society activity so on sunday I had to do that. It actually went really well even though I forgot to play the second page on one of the songs one time but that was mostly it :D Then afterwards they set apart a missionary who´s leaving on a mission this week. The bishop like leaned over to me during the program and asked me if I could play called to serve and I was like "well I haven´t for a long time but I´ll do it anyways" Then they did like a whole program thing and it was super depressing because the missionary is the only member of his family and his mom and sister were there and they were just crying like crazy and they didn´t understand who all these people were supporting their son or why he´s leaving them or anything and it was the worst but he´s pretty excited and has a ton of support from the ward and he´s just incredible so everything was cool.Then they invited all returned (and current) missionaries to come up to sing call to serve and I played and everything went really well and everyone was all excited and it was super strong and awesome and fun and yeah.

Had one of those moments where I looked into the mirror this morning and realized I´m going to be 20 in like 2 months and how it´s weird because I actually feel like I´m almost 20, I guess the mission just kicks your butt until you get mature enough to not die emotionally so that´s always exciting :D

Good to know I´m coming home to texas instead of Switzerland just because that would be a ton of stress so thanks so much :D

Everything is going great! Super excited to start this new transfer and everything!

Thanks for all the support,

I love you guys!

Elder Mitchell