11/24/14 HOOOOLAAAA

So today my comp Elder Maldonado finished his mission and I received my new comp... Elder Madariaga! He is actually one of the first missionaries that I met when I got to my first area in Guaymas and was my LZ in Agua Prieta so I already know him and we are pretty good friends. He is my second Mexican companion and is from El estado de Mexico. Pretty excited to work with him!

But this last week was pretty sweet. First because they way mexicans say goodbye is by showering you with carne asada... so we ate TONS of food all week and carne asada for lunch and dinner on saturday and sunday. 

Secondly because Los Serrano are plugging along like champs. On Sunday Eduardo (10) and Carolina (12) participated in the primary program and Eduardo was the only niño who memorized their part. He also gave the closing prayer and their was an audible wow that whispered througout the chapel after because it was so awesome. Then José (el Pápa) recieved the Aaronic priesthood and was ordained to the office of Priest. After church they invited us to a family carne asada and we met abunch of cousins and what not and Marta (La Máma) told everybody that when he is 18 Eduardo is also going to serve a mission... So it is pretty sweet to see all this progress that they have made just a week after their baptism. Not the end by any means but an awesome start!

Thirdly we had an awesome lesson with the sisters that we visit (the grandma sisters whose mom was really sick) on Tuesday. We were trying to decided what to teach them because they weren´t really progressing for not being able to come to church (because of their mom). So we watched ¨How to Find Faith in Christ¨. Ramona after the movie told us that one thing she noticed is how Jesus could help everybody who was willing to seek Him... (the apostles when they woke him up on the boat, the lady who touched is robes, the dad he brought him his sick son ect.) So we invited them to do their own search for Jesus, trusting that if they did it with faith (reading or praying) but really did it with sincerity, that He would be able to help them also. We specifically invited them to kneel and say a prayer that night asking for what they most needed.

The next day we got a call saying that their sick mother had died and changed our appointment to Friday from Thursday. Friday we weren´t really sure what to expect when we got there but all of them were pretty calm. We said a prayer and then they each one of the 5 of them told us a special experience that they had with the invitation they left them. Basically that night they all individually prayed that their mom could stop suffering and that God would call her up to heaven. That same night their prayers were answered and she died and each one was able to feel extra peace and love. Pretty awesome experience. Then on Sunday they all came to church.

That´s really everything that happened this week, except that it has finally cooled down here. In the morning it is like 70 degrees and then midday up to like 80´s but it is pretty crazy that now like 68 degrees to me now feels FREEZING and I have to put on a sweater... I remember mocking the mexicans who had to layer up in this weather a year ago and now... I am one of them. 

ENJOY YOUR THANKSGIVING. Pretty jealous pero ni modo.

Paz y Pavo,

Elder Mitchell

11/17/14 Be Part of The Night Dress In White

There are billboards all round Hermosillo advertising for some party or something that is happening soon but they are everywhere and has the caption about dressing in white... who knows why it is in English. The highlight of the week was the baptism of the Familia Serrano so we ended up adopting the theme. It was super sweet to see how much this family has progressed and watch them finally be baptized. Tons of members came and supported which was also great. The family couldnt´t decide on who to baptize them so they flipped a coin and it turned out that my comp (super super skinny little guy) got to baptize the parents (who are not small people) and I baptized los niños... it took him about 9 trys between the two so that was kinda hard but the kids were super easy and in the end everything turned out great. They actually invited the dad (jose) to bear his testimony at the end (without asking us) and that scared me a little bit because sometimes he says crazy things but even that went pretty well. 

Also today we got our Zone Futbol jerseys made and delivered so we played a sweet game of soccer in these *insert foto* bad boys. 

Other than that I am hoping they don´t change me in transfers this week so I can keep with la familia Serrano and our family of grandma´s who are suuuuuper cool but super tired and busy taking care of their mom and havent been able to come to church for a while. 

Sorry for being so short!

Love you all!

Elder Mitchell

And right now I am having problems with the camera so until next week :((((

11/10/14 HOLIS

Sooo this week was a little bit crazy and pretty awesome, but long story short, on Saturday La Familia Serrano is going to be baptized!!! We had 3 lessons with them this week and we saw soo many changes in their family. It´s hard to explain how all the things that have happened with this family. We have spent so much time with them and tons more time, praying, studying and asking to know what the Lord wants us to share with them. But it is even harder to explain how great is the joy that comes from being able to participate in His work and seeing the Gospel of Jesus Christ work miracles and changes in the lives of my Mexican brothers and sisters. Sometimes people talk about how hard of a worker Satan is, or how bad he is, or how he is good he is at what he does, but with this family I have seen so clearly that our Heavenly Father is infinitley more diligent and hard working that the enemy, that He knows His children, He answers prayers, fullfills His promises, is ever present in our lives and loves us more than we can hope to understand. As Paul promises us in the Bible if we seek and feel after Him, we will find and come to know that HE BE NOT FAR FROM EACH OF US, THAT HE TRULY IS OUR FATHER- a loving, worrying, and hard working father. Being a missionary has really helped me understand better everything God does for us in our lives and feel for others, a little bit of the love that He has for us. It is pretty cool. 

Have an awesome week,

Elder Mitchell

Elder Bernal (Mercer Island) Elder Evans (Chicago)

Contaco Escogidísimo 

Zaragoza Plaza 

11/3/14 Que Onda Fam

So sorry about not writing last week, we had a super busy P-Day and on our way to write in the cyber a family from Agua Prieta who was in town called us and invited us to eat pizza at Costco so we tried to squeeze that in and just ran out of time because we had an FHE with Hermano Alex and his family pretty early. The friends they invited ended up bailing but I helped my comp carve his first pumpkin ever so that was fun. It only lasted about 3 days in the heat before it was complete mush but oh well. But here we go with a quick 2 week update!

Familia Serrano- Two weeks ago they couldn´t go to church because they went out of town so we went extra hard with them and had some super sweet lessons with them (in one of which the hermana had a vision while her husband prayed that we are God´s messengers and has legions of angels protecting us), and had a special lesson with just the dad in the chapel where he told us was ready to get baptized, and gave an awesome lesson about the sacrament saturday night so they would go to church on Sunday... and they told us they would go... Sunday morning rolls around and right as the meeting starts we got a message saying that they couldn´t come and "see ya tuesday night for a lesson" so that threw us off quite a bit. Tuesday night we went and turns out that the dad went off to some mountain with his buddy to visit some shrine to a saint or something... ... but we went on with the lesson we had planned anyways and told them that we can´t visit them anymore because they have to learn how to exercise their own faith, and can´t rely on us for all their spiritual help. We told them they already know everything they need to be baptized but just haven´t shown enough faith to recieve a better answer and feel more ready. It was pretty hard to drop such this family but me and my comp both new that we had done our part and were starting to try and do their part too... and what they really need is to just really think about this, realize that God has blessed and answered them in 100 ways and accept His will. SO then Saturday we fasted for them, and Sunday they all came to church! So this week we are going to see how things went and talk about when are they finally going to get baptized.

 It was pretty tough dropping this family because our area is known to be really tough and we don´t have lots of people to teach. We spent almost the whole time we would have been teaching them looking for new people, contacting references and talking to people and EVERYONE was just shutting us down left and right. I was like freak now who are we going to teach! But we had received a confiration by the spirit that we had to drop them so we just kept at it. It was a good trial and in the end the Lord put in His part. Thursday we found one new person, Dora, and Saturday we found another family, la familia Gutierrez. We have only taught both of them one time, so we´ll see if they end up progressing. 

Ramona, Consuelo, Margarita, Genoveva y Martha...

Two weeks ago Ramona and Martha came to church and really liked it and then that following week we taught them the restoration and they gave us the second most delicious Horchata I have had in my whole mission. But before we went back tho visit them again they had a health emergency with their mom and we couldn´t visit them again until this week when we taught them about the Book of Mormon, or really Ramona taught us about the Book of Mormon. She had basically memorized the whole introdction and story of how we got to have this set of scriptures. I was actually really impressed, and at the end of the lesson they accepted a baptismal date for the end of November... but Sunday they didn´t go to church... probably for Dia de Los Muertos... but we´ll find out tomorrow.

Halloween- This day the assistants made us do splits, which made me upset because we had a super sweet halloween lunch planned with an hermana and I had to go up into the mountains where halloween doesnt really exist. (Here a lot of people snag a lot of US traditions because we are close to the border but usually its the people with $$$ who do) So it was basically a normal day except I got to kick it with Elder Montenegro, my first ZL when I got to Mexico a year ago. At night though we did see a small little band of niño hoodrats egg a small little band of tricker treaters so that was a good laugh. 

Dia De Los Muertos- This day is actually two days. Nov 1 is where they honor children who have died and then Nov 2 where they honor everyone else who has died. What they typically do is visit their grave sites or make alters at home and put pictures of them, the things they liked... toys, cigars, soccer, a certain food, or whatever and leave it their for the day. And then blast music out front and drink a ton... but they do that every weekend so maybe that was just a normal thing idk. But really the only thing that I participated in was eating a special bread they make on this day which is just a sweet type of mexican bread that kind of looks like a dead spider. I wanted to go to a cemetary but they arent any in our area. We did talk about Family History/Temple work at church though so that was cool, to talk about what we can actually do to help our dead loved ones, and la famila Serrano really liked that too.

But yeah that is about all the time I have!!!

I will send some pics next week!

TE QUIERO MACHIN,

Elder Mitchell

10/20/14 Buenas

Soo there isn´t that much to report from this week. We only got to visit with la familia Serrano once before they left on vacation and they admitted that they hadn´t been keeìng the word of wisdom (coffee) so we have postponed their baptismal date. Everytime we meet with them they throw new doubts at us so we realized that they need a more firm testimony of the Book of Mormon and Jospeh Smith, so this week we are going to work on that and try and re set baptismal dates with all of them. 

Also this week we were able to find a another family to teach! A mother, 4 daughters and one grand daughter... but I almost feel like we found them 40 years too late! The mom actually is sick and really old (85) and her daughters are between 55 and 70 and the grand daughter is like 50 but there never really is too late to accept the gospel so it´s okay! They don´t live together but they are almost always at their moms house to take care of her. We taught them the plan of salvation and they didn´t really understand that we were teaching them new doctrine. That actually happens quite a bit, we teach about the pre earth life, the spirit world, three kingdoms of glory and people just accept it all as the truth like they have known it their whole life... even though they are Catholic or Christian and don´t understand that this is actually something different from what they "believe", that this is all restored doctrine that isn´t complete with just the Bible. But we also taught them a little about the restoration and that woke em up a little. We found them through their cousin who is a less active member in our ward and told us of some of the trials they have been having, especially Ramona, one of the sisters. Her and the grand daughter, Martha even came to church on Sunday! So this week we hope to put a baptismal date with them!

Other than that... this week we got flu vaccines which was a new experience. I have been to the hospital a few times in the mission, but it is a private hospital for people with tons of dinero and missionaries, so when we went to a real public mexican hopsital it was a little different. SUPER PACKED. Super long lines and tons of people who sneak in front of ya. But at the end of the day we found a nurse who asked our names, injected us, and sent us on our way in about 3 minutes... without having to pay, so it was pretty successful. 

The same member who made fun of my english last sunday invited us over for dinner (he is a US Diplomat and works at the consolate here, Hermano Alex) and it was super weird/nice. Their house is like a tiny piece of the good ole USA here in Hermosillo. We ate lasagna with American sweet corn and salad, and sat down at a big nice table and ate all together. (that same day we actually ate mexican none sweet corn covered with butter lemon and chile...interesting contrast.) It was pretty sweet. And I felt super thankful that that is the kind of life I grew up with, eating nice family dinners all together. Here dinner is kind of like a free for all snack type meal, and lunch is the main meal, but usually people are working or at school and dont eat together so that kinda sucks. 

Other than that... everything is going along pretty normal. 

CUIDENSE MUCHO,

ELDER MITCHELL

La familia Serrano in front of the temple

10/6/14 LOS CIELOS NOS HABLAN

SOoo conference was sick. I watched the first 4 sessions in English on the secretary´s computer with Elder Ensey (cool kid from Oregon). We threw on red white and blue ties, popped popcorn and tried our best to reduplicate watching conference at home... but it was pretty rough due to a terrible feed and it took us 3 hours to watch 2 hours of conference so I might have set a record for most hours of conf watched in a weekend... 14. I was soooo excited for conference that the whole lagging in and out didnt even phase me the first 3 sessions but after the 4th I was like yeah I´ll just listen in Spanish. But something interesting I realized is that the thing I like isnt listening in English but listening to the voice of the speaker. So that was pretty cool to be able to understand those two talks given in Spanish.

It is pretty tough to pick a favorite talk but I reallllly really liked the ones by Elder Jorg Gleginbat and Elder Lynn G Robbins. PLANCH. Also I really liked the story Elder Eyring shared about his mom and trying to sneak in the door late at night hehehe Mom. And my favorite phrase was probably "The hit bird flutters." PLANCH. They were all so good though I could seriously talk about all of them! I feel like listening to conference willl never be better than when you´re in the misison. 

Also the whole time we were expecting investigators to show up and then a sweet talk about Joseph Smith or revelation would pass and I was like NOOO their missing the talk!!! And then la familia Serrano showed up toward the end of the last session and they were talking about temples and family history and I was like cmon change the topic guys! And then got up Elder Bednar and said "I would like to direct myself at those who are not members of the church" and I started singing alabanzas in my mind. Afterwards the family was pretty impressed and even commented that they would like to be able to see it in person one day. We didn´t talk much with them after conference right now only the dad and oldest daughter are on for their baptismal date of October 18th. BUT we´ll see how things improve this week with them! They are having some pretty intense maritial problems that we didn´t know about before. I know they´ll make it but it might just not be as fast as an impatient missionary would like. 

Also this past week I started working on being more DILIGENT... something I struggle with but a Christlike attribute that is super important in our progression. But so far I´ve got two weeks of diligent flossing and journal writing along with better companionship communication and following up on goals. 

And then today we had a sweet zone activity where we played soccer and some other games and also had a carne asada which is the equivolent of a mexican bbq. 

That´s just about all the time I have! But the most important thing about Conference isnt what we like or what we learned BUT what we actually do to put these things in practice in our lives! 

PAZ AMOR CARNE ASADA,

Elder Mitchell

Elder Ensey and I teaching the American tradition of going to DQ after priesthood to our latino comps (they were mind boggled)

Got to see my good ole comp. Elder Ranger!

9/29/14 TE DAMOS SEÑOR NUESTRAS GRACIAS

So this week was quite a bit more chill than last week. We are strugglin to find more people who progress, because so far everybody we´ve found but la familia Serrano is flaking out hard on us. However there were some highlights...

A few weeks ago we went to teach some members to try and help them, help us, help their non member friends come unto Christ. (Because that´s what the mission is like now a days) And the Holy Ghost indicated to them 4 people who should listen to the missionaries... but the tricky part is WE can´t contact them, so we have been working pretty dang hard trying to get the members to get off their... ... couches, and talk to their friends about the Gospel. But yeah so after weeks of playing little game finally we just told them to invite them over for FHE whatever day of the week and we´ll talk to them. And they did it. And it worked. And the Gospel is true. And they were super suprised to see how their friends responded to our message and we are going to teach them again this week!

Also we some huge progress with la familia Serrano! The oldest daughter Alondra (14), youngest son Eduardo (10) and the dad Jose all say they want to be baptized. The mom and middle child Carolina (12) still aren´t exactly sure but think they will be for 18th of Octubre. We really got down to roots of their problems and realized we needed to teach a more in depth lesson about repentance, forgiveness and the atonement and it really helped them tons. Sometimes I think we get a little caught up in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and forget that really the most important thing is Christ and the atonement, and the restoration of the gospel is really just the means by which we understand what we have to do to fully come unto Christ. I mean it is all neccesary and super important but when we took the time to really explain and teach about repentance and forgiveness it kinda made everything click and the spirit was super strong. BUUUUUUUUT for some strange reason the mom didnt go to church with everyone else, so we´ll have to see what´s up with that. Also the dad does have lots of doubts but we are going to prepare em good for general conference to clear all that up. And they invite us to eat dinner with them like 2 nights a week now and it is waaay good food. Like super simple but so good it is almost confusing. 

Other than that there is an Iguana that lives across the street from us and leaves his hole everyday right at 11 in the morning, very very strangly punctual. So I made a trap out of a box and some string and am going to catch him. 

Also... we ate lunch with some members and treked over to this golf course gated community and totally forgot I was in Mexico. It was suuuuper nice. And with us was an elder from Honduras that has like 3 weeks in the mission and he was like crying and singing and laughing in an attempt to comprehend how some people can have so much money. 

And an hermana made us some kick butt mexican pizza. And we fixed another hermanas roof!

Anyways, everything here is all good. Septemeber flewwww by and this next month, one year later.... Ya tu sabes ;)

PAZ,

Elder Mitchell