April 6, 2015 "I. Just. Can't. Even."

So this week was totally like a;ldhgzlidhgaoinfglaksdhfi!!!!

So first of all, it was holy week. Like whateeevverrr that is. Turns out it's a weeklong Christmas party here in Ayacucho. Seriously it was insane. The population like doubled. People come from all over the world for holy week in ayacucho and I just wanted to preach the gospel. It was pretty hard. We didn't teach very much. All of the lessons fell through and the people were all very very busy.

The biggest thing that happened was conference. On Saturday morning we left the room at like 10 AM and walked to the stake center. It's probably less than 2 miles away but that's normal. We got there and there were a TON of people. You could probably look up "Semana santa ayachucho peru plaza alameda" and find insane videos about what was going on there. The stake center is RIGHT next to this plaza. They were doing the running of the bulls when I got there. THERE WERE BULLS RUNNING AROUND!!! I was like whaaatt and there were like a ton of people on horses and there were crates and crates and crates and crates of alcohol. The people were almost building houses of beer I couldn't even believe it. There were kids walking around with beer bottles and cans in their hands trying to sell it. And it was only 10 AM!! We went into the conference and we were quarantined there until after the priesthood session. We sent members out to buy us water so we wouldn't die. We had to leave though to get back to our rooms so we left at 8:30 and missed the last hour of the preisthood session so that maybe it would be less crazy outside. The whole church building was shaking from the music outside for the whole 10 hours that we were there. Some members gave us lunch, so that was good I guess.

When we left it was tooootallll anarchy outside. I can't even explain what was going on. There were people dancing, throwing up, peeing, sleeping, kissing and EVERYONE was drinking. It smelled so bad like alcohol and poop. The ground was literally wet, probably mostly beer but I'm not going to guess what else. There were glass bottles everywhere and broken glass and the music was way way way loud and everyone was singing and dancing and I'm like a ginger gringo in a suit standing in the middle of it. The zone leaders were so stressed out that something bad was going to happen. I felt bad for them.

Anyways. We still have 10 investigators with baptismal dates, so that's exciting. 8 of them aren't going to happen until 2 couples get married. We invited 5 more people to get baptized last night and they all accepted and it was a super spiritual experience. We talked about the anoment for a while and that always brings the spirit, then I started helping them to understand that they would have to be baptized by someone with the priesthood. So I started talking about Joseph Smith to go over the restoration a little bit but my companion started talking about agency for like 15 minutes and I was like whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt are you doing. He told me after that he wanted them to have a broader perspective and that he was applying what he learned from general conference so I thought that was pretty hilarious. They're excited to watch the Joseph Smith video this week. The parents aren't married so that's another trial. Nobody is married >.>

Anyways conference was really good. My testimony is stronger even though I guess I'm a latter day hipocrite and I probably wasn't ready to go leave on a mission after I got rekt by Elder Ballard. I did get to watch it in english just fyi.

I love you team!

Elder Mitchell

March 30, 2015

This week was quite the exciting. Actually I don't really have any idea what's happening. I took a lot of pictures this week even though they're mostly just of our room and whatever. I'll be taking more that are a lot better later today.

So first off, THIS AREA IS ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING!!!! I live in the very center of Ayacucho. All of those buildings and stuff that you see with like statues and stuff is where I live!!! There are huge catholic cathedrals like every few blocks (theres 25 in ayacucho) and they're totally incredible. There are people walking around with llamas and people all dressed up and this week is holy week so there's a TOOOOOONNNN of tourists and people. They do weird things every day. Like yesterday, they put like a Jesus statue on a donkey and everyone like waved around large grass things while the donkey walked into the city. I hear that they're going to do the same thing on some outer part of the city like on the end of the week but the donkey is going to carry a cross and they're going to slaughter it .__. We'll see. But seriously, there are nights where I'm walking in the rain with my companion on a sidewalk next to large cathedrals and there's lights everywhere and there's a ton of people and it's just like WOW THIS IS AMAZING!

The thing that really stinks about my area is that NOBODY LIVES HERE! Everyone rents their houses and nobody stays for very long. Like, I live in the center where there's a bunch of stores and stuff, so everyone comes from the surrounding areas to buy things and when we contact them, we get their directions and everything and they never live in our area! We have 10 references for other missionaries to give them tomorrow from contacts that we did since like 4 days ago! Some of them were so incredible I was so excited to visit them and now we're going to GIVE THEM TO SOMONE ELSE, NOOOOOOO esta bien.

I'm not training somebody that's completely new, this is his second trasnfer. His first companion finished his mission and is now living in Utah :( The thing about missionaries that are finishing is they get kinda lazy and when I showed up in our room it was full of craaaappppp. I think I stressed out my companion because I walked into the room and was like, um, yeah, we're going to go clean for like 4 hours im sorry" and we did :D This morning we cleaned way more. My mattress on my bed was super like... concave so I have back pains which stinks. I took off the top mattress and I'm using the bottom one now. The bottom one is actually like a half mattress so it's super hard but it's better than back pain :D

On saturday we found some new investigators, invited them to get baptised on the 2nd of may and they accepted. In the morning we went to take them to church, so we disappointedly took a taxi to church and we were super sad because they weren't home when we went. Then like 5 minutes into sacrament meeting THEY SHOWED UP and we were so excited. We have a total of 10 investigators with a baptismal date now! 2 families that have to get married but have goals to do it and the other 2 that we put this last week. That was super neat.

So I have to go now.

Thanks for the emails!

I love youuuu!!!

Elder Mitchell

March 23, 2015

Hey.

The baptisms didn't happen. The family sent us a text at 3 AM saying that they didn't feel ready for the baptism and that they wouldn't be able to go to their interview in the morning. That was devastating.

I was thinking that you guys might not really know where I was, so I want you guys to do some looking at google maps to find where I was, where I am and where I'm going. I think you should be able to find everything I tell you.

I started in Pachacamac. I lived close to la comiseria de Pachacamac and el parque huascar. As you know this week was transfers so on Saturday night I got a call from the zone leaders to tell me where my program and where everyone in my district was going. I HAVE A TRANSFER!! (sory 4 inglish) I'm going to Ayacucho! That's the furthest away from Lima I could go and I'm looking forward to taking a 10 hours bus ride to get there tomorrow! Also I'm going to be training!!! They say I might be a district leader still but I won't find out til I get there, but I'll be with someone way new! That means that he won't have learned all the bad habits and apostacy that most missionaries have!

The zone leaders told me that I had to be in the mission office at 7 pm on Sunday night to take the bus all night to get to ayacucho. I showed up there at like 6 because I was nervous and I didn't know how long it would be to get there. I had to bring all my luggage and we had to take a taxi for a while to get there. It took like 45 minutes. We got there and they said "Elder Mitchell! You're not supposed to be here 'til Tuesday because you have a training session tomorrow for how to be a trainer!" I was like whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttt... so I moved the stuff I needed for 2 days to my smaller suitcase and we went ALL THE WAY BACK TO PACHACAMAC! The mission office is in a church building in Surco, you can look that up too if you want.

This morning I woke up at 5 AM to go to San Juan, which involved another taxi ride. We got there and waited for a while, then my companion Elder Lipe went with his new companion back to Pachacamac and I went with the zone leaders from a place called Chorillos back to their area. So right now I'm in Chorillos. It's on the beach. The pacific ocean is on their area map. I have NO IDEA what I'm going to be doing tonight nor when my bus is leaving or anything, all I know is I'm here with the zone leaders (one of which is named Elder Randolph from Spanish Fork) and that I have a training some time soon and tomorrow I'm going to get in a bus for a really long time.

A little bit of what I know about Ayacucho. Ayacucho is the furthest south and east area in the mission. It's its' own separate world over there. There are a lot of mountains and rain. The people chew a lot of tobacco leaves and the older people speak Quetchwa. There are a lot of llamas and it's a big tourist hotspot. I'm pretty excited.

Jairo is going to get married the first of april and is going to get baptized 2 weeks later. I won't get to go but he gave me an invitation for something to remember him. The invitation is super cute where there's a picture of the groom and the bride is like way above him, then when you pull on the bottom of the invitation the bride falls into his arms. That was pretty much the last thing I wanted to see for my whole mission ahahahahaha but that's ok. Actually I miss Nancy a lot.

ALSO I forgot to tell you guys a wonderful story from 2 weeks ago! 

So we were waiting for a bus to go get something to eat but we had to wait forever. Another bus was passing in front of us and 2 women got off. They immediately walked over to us and I didn't notice anything particularly weird about them. One walked over to me and stood right in front of me, looked me in the eyes and asked for the peice of chocolate I was eating. Of course I gave it to her because freakin' I don't care I just wanted her to go away. She broke off a piece and gave it to her friend and said (in spanish of course) "Where are you from? I'm from cuba" I told her I'm from the US because I'm an idiot and then she said something about how we were missionaries. Then she said "So you're not allowed to have relations, are you?" to which i responded with a quick "NO" Then she said ok and she walked away. It was then that I noticed that her shorts were more like half a pair of briefs and that both of the women were prostitutes. I couldn't even believe that happened but I taped the chocolate wrapper into my journal with the words "touched by a prostitute" so that's cool.

Also something really weird about Peru is the incredible amount of pornography. That's probably not something you want to hear but really, it's so bad. Everyone just puts it everywhere. On their windows, on the walls in the busses, inside their houses, in restaurants and I promise you it's even worse than you're thinking it could possibly be. There are people who have pictures of people with literally no clothes on INSIDE OF THEIR HOUSES! Like whaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttt are you doing.

Anyways, overall I'm super excited to go to ayacucho and to train and to have a new area. I'm feeling pretty good. I feel like I've learned a lot and that I'm just trying to progress every day. I'm constantly trying to develope Christlike attributes and I'm always fighting against my bffae, pride.

I miss all of you! Sorry but I'll prolly be a totally different person when I get back and my english is gradually leaving, I'm pretty much native peruvian. I'll still play a lot of videogames though :D

I love you, team!

Elder Mitchell

March 16, 2015

We have 3 baptisms this week! It's going to be a family! Their names are Giovana, Angel and their son who´s name is Andre! I was the missionary that received the reference and I've been here for every single lesson every week for the last 3 months and they've progressed so much! I'm so excited! Yesterday they were at a party or something until like 4 in the morning and when they got home they were way tired but Giovana and her son still came to church with us! I was like whaaaaaatttt are you doing but that´s good anyways.

Jairo and his pareja (couple?) are going to get married in like 2 weeks. Im going to be in a different area but if im still in lima I'll be able to come to their wedding and baptism the week after general conference.

I'm doing pretty good! Actually I've been sick for like 4 days with a cold so that´s miserable. My throat has been bothering me a ton and my nose is all jacked up, but that's ok. I´ve been taking advil cold and sinus every 6 hours to help with that.

I made spaghetti this week and it was way good. Like everything actually worked out, I bought chicken and onions and washed it and took out the bones and stuff and it ended up really good. The thing is that to buy chicken, I go to the market where they have the dead, featherless chickens hanging by their feet with their heads half way cut off. Then I tell the person that I have no idea how to cook but that I need something to fry, so they grab a chicken, cut off the breast, then chop off some pieces and charged me almost two dollars. Then I went back to the room, followed the instructions for the tomato sauce with the sauce packet, cleaned the chicken and cooked it in oil with the onions, then put it all over noodles and it was good. I was so proud.

They´re going to call me on Saturday to tell me where I'm going! probably I'm leaving because I´ve been here for a fourth of my mission. Most likely no email until Tuesday next week but maybe it'll be Monday, im not sure.

I have another request for something to send to me. I need a book to learn Quechuan. If I ever get sent to Ayacucho I´ll be talking to a lot of people who only know that language and I would like to learn a little bit. So if  you could fine a book on how to learn it (from english to Quechuan, not spanish to Quechuan WITH a dictionary (once again from english to Quechuan) that would be totally spectacular.

Thank you for all the help! Everything is going great here in peru! Just hoping I don't leave as a zone leader, that would be silly.

Thanks, I love you!

Elder Mitchell

March 9, 2015

So this week wasn't particularly exciting.

I got the package, I don't really understand why you sent me like half the things in it but thanks anyways. The hi chews are really good and we ate all of them but I think they make me depressed so I don't really want any more. Send me like skittles or starbursts or beef jerkey. Something American. I now have pillowcases so I was able to take the t shirt of my pillow, so that's exciting.

Today me and my companion are going to go out to eat because that´s fun. We're prolly going to go for like peruvian chinese fast food so we'll se how that goes. I made tacos this week and I guess I did something very wrong because we have both been pretty sick since then.

I gave a talk in church yesterday, so that was fun. It was on repentance and it was like 10 minutes so that's exciting.

ALSO I want a new pen! Not just any pen, I want a way nice pen. The pens here in peru are all horrible and I don´t like them. I want a pen that's skinny and with a fine point. like .5 if you can´t get it smaller. DONT GET A FAT PEN I don't want a fat pen it has to fit in my front pocket next to my nametag it needs to be like way small. Normal. Not fat. Skinny. Smooth. Black. High quality. Ok thanks.

Yesterday when I was at church there was a girl who had a shirt on that said " I have a heart on for you" which was pretty hilarious because she doesn't know what she's wearing and it´s totally not appropriate for church but it was in english so whatever. The shirts here are all in english but it doesn't make sense because it's always broken english. Like, they're not imported or anything because the english is bad, but they're still in english. So I don't understand why they don't just do them in spanish but that's cool. There are a lot of shirts that have swear words and stuff in english it's pretty dumb.

I talked to a drunk guy in the street the other night and he was telling me a really long story and it was super funny so I was laughing and he kept yelling "no te reas" which means like... don't laugh so I was trying to not to but I'm bad at that so it didn't really go well.

We have the family that are going to be baptized next week on the same day as the transfers. We´re going to see where I go on the 21st of March. 

I still do a lot of baptismal interviews, the zone leaders decided to have a ton of baptisms this month so that's happening.

There is an incredible amount of dust here and I'm probably going to spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning that because inspections are this week. I have to do the inspections for my district too so that kinda stinks.

I hope everything is going well in Springville!

Love you!

Elder Mitchell

March 2, 2015

Hello family!

So this week wasn´t particularly excited but there were some definite highlights of excitingness.

First off, every week as a district leader we have a district meeting, where everyone in the district meets in the church and we have a meeting thing for an hour and a half where I talk about things that the president has said recently and we do practices based on the numbers I receive from them every week and for what I feel we need to work on.

This last week we got to the chapel and had a leaders meeting first which lasted for about 30 minutes. Then I heard something about "assistants and president" so I was kinda like "oh no what about the assistants and the president." The next thing I know the zone leaders ran over do the door and ran outside to open the gate so that the president and his assistants could enter in with his minivan. Of course I was like "OH NO WHY ARE THEY HERE THEY´RE GOING TO MURDER US OH NO!!!!"

They walked in and we all separated for our district meetings. The assistants each went upstairs for the other district meetings and the president CAME INTO THE ROOM WITH MY DISTRICT. THEN HE STAYED IN THE ROOM FOR THE WHOLE HOUR AND A HALF DURING THE WHOLE DISTRICT MEETING WITH ME TEACHING THINGS. Yeah it was totally nerve-wracking.

We had a baptism this week, I don´t know if I told you that was going to happen. His name is Joshua. He´s 9 years old and his mom was reactivated this week which includes us having to fulfill a bunch of requirements but that was good.

We also went to the temple on Friday, so that was neat. I forgot to fast yesterday so now I´m fasting today aka right now which is fun. Actually I don´t feel hungry, I never do when I´m fasting. That´s neat. I´ve been doing a ton of baptismal interviews recently. It´s been pretty good. They´re always very spiritual experiences.

Thanks a ton for all the support!

I love you!!

Elder Mitchell

February 23, 2015

So this is going to be short because the space bar on the keyboard I´m on is broken and it bothers me so we´ll see how this goes.

This week was good. Actually it was extremely uneventful. We had a mildly frustrating day at church yesterday because we went brought somebody to church and we got there at 8:40 so we could get there by 9:00 but he wasn´t ready so we left at 9:15 which is totally ridiculous. When he finally came out after we had been waiting for over 30 minutes I asked him what time we had told him we would be there, to which he replied 8:40 of course. I  then asked him why it  was 9:15 and we´re still standing outside then and there was an awkward silence for a while before I told him that it was very important for us to get to church before 9. I'm still kinda mad about that, I'm gonna make him feel horrible in our next lesson  Wednesday :D  The first step to repentance is to feel bad about it. Sometimes it require s a lot of work to do that.

I don´t know why the package hasn´t gotten here yet.  It still hasn´t gotten here this week and it makes me worried because they changed the address to the mission office so I don´t know how they would get it at the new location. Maybe you should email them to see what´s going on.

We're going to the temple again on Friday which will be fun again in spanish and we dont have p day so we´re going to be working all day and that sucks because I have a bunch of stuff I need to do but whatever.

We're working with a new investigator named John. His aunt is a member and gave us the reference because he was into drugs for like 15 year s and is living in a rehab place so we can only visit him on sundays. He has a hard time understanding but we'll see how it goes on next sunday.  Another thing about sundays is that I have to give the counts to the zone leaders which takes almost an hour, it's ridiculous. My companion slept on the couch the whole time and when I finished I turned off all the lights hoping that he would wake up so I could jump out and scare him but he didn't wake up. I had done that to Elder R one time and it was hilarious ahhahaha. 

That's pretty much all that´s happened this week. I can't think of anything else, sorry!

I love you! Send me dear elder letters and tell everyone else to also!

Love,

Elder Mitchell