I am like a star shining brightly

Me and Elder Jeppsen about to FEAST on Thanksgiving

Elder Larsen, Elder Bake, Elder Jeppsen and I.
These are the Elders I live with. Love them to death.

The district saying goodbye to Elder McDougal when he left for the Colombia MTC.
My companion is Elder Bake in the green shirt.

So this morning I found out I actually won't be leaving the MTC on the 9th anymore, but instead on the 16th which bummed me out for a while. But I haven't got my Visa yet anyways so they probably would have just temporarily reassigned me anyways so it's okay. Also today was unbelievably gorgeous in Provo so us and another district had a 2 hour game of kickball with Elder Jeppsen's huge exercise ball which made it pretty hard but it was still the funnest thing ever. Despite my 3 HR's my team lost 16-17 but we demanded a rematch for next week. So that basically got me over the tiny slump I got in after finding out I was being delayed. (again)

So much happened this week again with Thanksgiving and also Mission Conference so i'll try to fit as much as I can.

Tuesday-  Brother Michael John Teh came in and gave us a devotional about consecrating our minds (sort of a theme for me this week) which I loved. He talked about how the more we understand the Atonement the more we will want to spread the Gospel, which I've found to be very true for myself, and also related Ammon's mission to ours. After Ammon became healed through the atonement and converted to the Gospel he had a strong desire to take his testimony to the Lamanites. He gave up his the throne to his father's kingdom to serve a mission because he wanted so badly to share the happiness he found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He left it all behind, just like we have to leave a lot behind to serve missions. However almost right away on his mission, the things Ammon left behind had followed him. King Lamoni offers him to marry one of his daughters and be an heir to his kingdom. Now it probably would have been pretty easy to rationalize that he deserved it, or that it would help him preach the Gospel. But because Ammon's mind was consecrated to his mission and to  the Lord, he instead told the King that he wanted to be servant and went on to be everybody's favorite missionary in the Book of Mormon.  I liked this so much because it's true, many of the things we leave behind follow us on our missions and can be a distraction or an obstacle in keeping the promise we made to devote all our time talents and thoughts to our missions while we're here. The change to becoming a missionary doesn't come all at once. Some of it needs to take place before you leave but a lot of it takes tons of effort and relying on the Atonement everyday on the mission to get to the point where your mind is soley consecrated to your calling. So this week as I've thought about that, I've felt the weight of what seems impossible expectations to get to that point where I'm always only thinking about my investigators and my mission. But I've slowly come to realize that I  just have to improve a little bit each day and have enough faith in Christ that He can help me change! That's another thing we've focused on this week is the Atonement. It's more than just the chance to be cleansed of our sins, but the Atonement is what allows us to change and become more like Christ. It also has made me realize how much more I can use and rely on the Atonement to become a better missionary and a more Christlike person.

Thursday- Russel M Nelson spoke to us on Thanksgiving morning which was great but I don't have much time to get into it. It was a lot about who should be working with in the wards we'll serve in. Also we did a HUGE service project which was AWESOME. It was through a non LDS group called Feed Children Everywhere, basically we made over 350,000 bags of instant soup mix for starving kids which is easily and literally over 1,000,000 meals. I'm sure you can google it and read more about it if you want but it was so awesome to see what a force us missionaries are. There were only just over 1,000 or so missionaries here on that day and we turned the cafeteria from a Thanksgiving feast into a soup factory and back into a cafeteria in a few hours. I've never seen a work get done so fast or seen a group of people so eager to help. And then if you take that workforce and multiply it by 80  you can start to understand the force that is hastening the work (80,000 current missionaries). I also ate tonnnnns of turkey but truly and deeply missed showing up my Dad at the Turkeybowl. :(

Sunday- At mission conference the MTC Presidency talked a lot about Christ and Christmas and it really made me wish I could go back and be in the Woodridge Nativity again. That was such an amazing experience that I'm super thankful for but I'm realizing I took it for granted and probably most enjoyed feeding the goats carrots and cheese. It also made me more excited for Christmas than I've ever been! One thing that really stuck with me was Sister Trost talked about the Christmas Star that the Wise men and shepherds and everybody else saw. She talked about how God had to have very carefully placed that star into orbit in the beginning of time so that on the exact day Christ was born it could testify of the Messiah's birth to the whole world. What an important job that little (idk why I like to think of it as a little star but oh well) star had to do! But as I thought about it I thought about how I (and each of us) are like that little star. God has carefully placed us here on Earth at a specific time to do a specific job. And I'm just super excited to think that everything I've ever done has prepared me to go to Mexico and share my testimony and carry out the job my Heavenly Father has for me. And now that I'm writing this all out I just realized it's a primary song "I am like a star shining brightly." Whatever! I'm excited to be that star and shine and testify of Christ to Hermosillo!

Big S/O to my new baby cousin Kai! Congrats Natalie and Shane!

S/o to Chloe and Quinn (and everyone else who did) for writing me

Anti-Shout out to Carter!!!

Sadly I don't really have anymore time! There was actually tons of funny stuff that happened this week but I decided to finally figure out how to upload pictures and that took some time so if you want to hear about them then just write me...i'll be here for a whole two more weeks -____-

Love and miss you all

Elder Mitchell

Meeting baby Zach!

Hola hola hola.

This past week at the MTC has been great! My Spanish has improved a ton and time here is just flying by. Less than two weeks and i'll be on a plane to Mexico! I still have tons to learn but i'm super excited. A few highlights from this week include running into Travis and Laree this morning at Brigham Square so I got to see baby Zach (adorable) and Mason and Hallie. 

Also Elder Jeppsen's girlfriend wrote me a letter and not him so I got to rub that in his face all week (I did feel pretty bad for him though). Me and Elder Jeppsen also like to make cat/wolf/animal noises during volleyball gym time (its hilarious) which used to sort of freak out the people who don't know us, but everybody is slowly starting to accept us.

Also me and some Elders from the district had another little adventure up to main campus where we got to welcome and help some really cool missionaries from Australia! They told us all about Koalas and Crocodiles and life down under and they even knew these 3 kids I went to EFY with 6 years ago from Australia. They also told us lots of lies about Kangaroos Races and Drop Bears but I didn't fall for those. Obviously welcoming in the new district was great and it was awesome to catch up with Elder Hamilton. It is always sad to have a district leave and I'm especially going to miss some of the missionaries from the one that just left this morning! I thought the goodbyes ended once you left on a mission but I was totally wrong! A ton of people were sick in our zone this week also but I was lucky enough to stay healthy through it all and it was a great opportunity to serve others!

Tuesday Marcos A. Aidukaitis gave a great devotional about "Making the big decision" or choosing TODAY which Kingdom of Heaven you want to inherit. And once you've chosen that you want to inherit the Celestial Kingdom every other decision becomes easier. Like when we're having a terrible day on the mission and we want to punch our companion (sort of experienced that this week :) you don't, because you've already decided you want the CK. This made me think of how in Lacrosse I always had the goal of winning state or nationals and when things were hard at practice or whatever you let your goal motivate you to work harder and get better. However the nice thing is life isn't a competition, there isn't only one team that can win or a designated number of spots in Heaven.The more I thought about this the happier it made me! Because losing sucks! I thought about how hard I had worked to win, and how hard everybody works to win and about how devastated I was after losing at State in HS and at Nationals last year and it is so wonderful to think that you don't have to compete with anybody for your spot in Heaven. This also took me back to the quote I really liked about Jesus not being competitive. 

Thursday me and my companion and a few issues (which are all resolved now) but that made that day pretty tough. I love Elder Bake though and I was able to learn quite a bit from that experience and I'm sure the mission will get a million times harder and i'll have companions much harder to get a long with! Anyways I found some scriptures that really helped me out that day. (The scriptures are good at that.) So Alma 26:12-16 reads... 

12 Yea, I know that I am ^anothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will ^bnot boast of myself, but I will ^cboast of my God, for in his ^dstrength I can do all ^ethings; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

 13 Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of ahell; and they are brought to bsing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice?

14 Yea, we have reason to praise him forever, for he is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the achains of hell.

 15 Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting adarkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting blight, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work.

16 Therefore, let us aglory, yea, we will bglory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his cmercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.

Which is essentially Alma giving a powerful testimony of the greatness of God and of how awesome missionary work is. However only a couple verses later we read that things always weren't so great for Alma on the mission... (This happened before the success of his mission that he was boasting in the Lord about)

 27 Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to^aturn back, behold, the Lord ^bcomforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with ^cpatience thine^dafflictions, and I will give unto you success.

Things were tough for Alma. He wasn't always having tons of success and at one point he even wanted to go home and what was the Lord's response? Go amongst thy brethern and bear with patience thine afflictions and I will give unto you success. Things aren't always easy, they aren't ever going to be always easy and they aren't supposed to be always easy. But the Lord knows exactly what we're going through and is waiting just on the other side of our trial waiting to bless us! 

A few thoughts from this week I really liked:

"Hope is the anchor of our souls, hope is trust in God's promises, faith that if we act now, the desired blessings will be fulfilled in the future."

"The milk of your mission will tickle your tongue" Elder Jeppsen

"Don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to the best person you could be"

"If you're having a problem it's not about the problem at all, it's about the attitude you're having about the problem." Jack Sparrow

"If you're having a bad day it's because you're making your mission about you!"- David A. Bednar

S/o to Derrick Rose ;(

S/o to Mama and Caitlin for sending me packages

If anybody writes me I have really cool stickers to decorate my letters with :)

John 16:33- We can always be optimistic

John 15:15- Jesus calls us his friends (maybe already shared this)

Galatians 5:13- just read it 

3 Nephi 12:6- Stay thirsty my friends

There's so much more I wish I could say but i'm out of time!

I miss and love you all so much!

I'm really going to miss being home for Thanksgiving but this is where the Lord wants me!

Con amor,

Elder Mitchell