Birthday! 4/7

Thank you everybody for the birthday wishes, reading emails from all the people I love and miss so much had been the best part of my day. We woke up and my companion had made me flan for breakfast, then we had a district meeting, played soccer and frisbee for a while and then ate some ice cream. It doesn´t really feel like my birthday that much, but that´s really ok seeming how the mission isn´t really about me. 

Conference was sooo awesome though, luckily I got to watch 4 of the 5 sessions in English. It was easily the most I have ever enjoyed conference, which I think is probably most missionarys´ experience. I loved every single talk and can´t pick a favorite but here are a few things I picked up...

M. Russel Ballard said that every member of the church should make at least 4 invitations each year for others to come to church/listen to missionaries.

Jeffery R. Holland basically said that if we are disobedient it is because we love Satan more than Jesus

Donald L. Hallstrom said that we benefit nothing from conference if it doesn´t change us

and Henry B. Eyring said that of all the service you can give, none is greater helping others come to choose to qualify for eternal life.

So if you put those together it should be pretty motivating to do a little bit of missionary work! for real...

I learned so much though from conference and it was an amazing experience for me! I think the two most quoted scriptures were Moses 1¨39 and Matthew 22´37-38. Basicially talking all about love. Which is really where everything begins and ends, with God´s love for us. 

I am just realizing I don´t have much time to finish this...

But we had a miracle this week, I´ll tell you more about it next Monday..sorry.

I can´t believe I already have 5 months done but then again I still have 19 left haha the mission is pretty hard, but it is also pretty awesome. Hope you are all keeping me in your prayers. Thanks again for all the bday I love and miss you all tons. 

El viejito,

Elder Mitchell

Alejandrina's baptism! (3/31)

I will admit that I am not very excited to be turning 20 *Next Monday* *cough cough* I am feeling super old right now. Being honest though, I am planning to live to be about 130 years old, which would make 20 the new...16? If that doesn´t make sense to you, don´t worry about it. 

This week was pretty great though. Alejandrina was baptized and confirmed last Friday *woop woop* and tons of her friends came and it was awesome. Some American Elders and I, by her request, sang a hymn in English, and we bought her a huge cake and a brand new set of scriptures. This week we plan on teaching and going to contact a lot of her friends and family who were there. We already have put a baptismal date with three of them for the end of April. This might have been the most excited I have seen anybody for their baptism, she really is an amazing woman. Saturday we had a lot of our appointments fall through so we went to visit her and she chewed us out and told us we should be teaching her family and not spend so much time with her at her house. Wow haha. Another thing she told me, that I don´t know if I will ever forget, was that ever since the other missionary left and I came (transfers 2 weeks ago) she has been able to understand everything in our lessons much better. Which makes almost no sense because the other missionary was from Mexico and I am still learning Spanish, so that´s basically proof that we learn and understand eternal truths only by the spirit. She calls me her guerito angelito. 

Also this week we found some other cool people to teach and everything keeps going great! Learning tons, and more thankful everyday for this chance I have to be a missionary.

Oh also this week I had to explain to somebody I met that his grandma´s soul was not living inside his dog, or that his dog was not a reincarnation of his Grandma. 

Mucho amor,

Elder Mitchell

Hermosillo Homies (3/24)

As sad as it was to leave Guaymas, after just one week, I already love Hermosillo! We met almost everyday this past week with a single mother of four, that has already had some time with the missionaries named Alejandrina. She comes from pretty humble circumstances and quit her job a while back so she could start going to church on Sundays. She has overcome every kind of obstacle to prepare herself for baptism and says that she knows the church is true and will bring her many blessings and she wants to be an example for all of her kids, none of which have wanted to listen to the missionaries. On Thursday she asked me if I would I would baptize her this week. I said yes.

This same week we started meeting with two of her kids, Dania who is 18 and she accepted a baptismal date after we taught her about the Plan of Salvation. Alexis is 16 and dropped out of school and lives on and off with his mom, but we helped him build a hen house. Also Soche, a friend of Dania, started coming to our lessons and Alejandrina Dania and Soche all came to church this Sunday. This family has tons of adversity facing them but they are all ready starting to see a bit of the blessings that God has prepared for us when we keep His commandments. 

Also another investigator, Maria Isabelle, came to church this Sunday and agreed to quit coffee after we taught her about the word of wisdom and wants to be baptized! 

Besides this family we didn´t have many pèople to visit so we started visiting ward members to share lessons with them and see if they know anybody that we could visit, which lead to quite some interesting... treasure hunts? Wild goose chase? Not sure what to call it but we had some interesting and awesome experiences with this haha. Some of the interesting would include going to visit this one house which had about 9 people in the front yard (using the term front yard pretty loosely). We shared a little message about the restoration. However, we realized about half of them were stoned out of their mind when two started fighting eachother because one of them interrupted me and the other got mad, another pulled out a plastic bag and started taking hits, and the other started talking about his rap career. (he did do some rapping and was actually pretty good) The four women who were there did listen to us though! 

Some of the awesome would include Guadalupe, who we found after we had an awesome lesson with some less active members who referred us to ther inactive neighbor. Guadalupe starting battling breast cancer years back and hasn´t been to church since, so we taught her about God, how much He loves us and the importance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At the end of the lesson we invited her to pray and she told us she couldn´t and it has been too long. But we pressured her a little and she agreed. During her prayer the Spirit was suuuper strong and afterwards she was crying and kept thanking us and thanking us over and over for visiting her as we were leaving, and it felt wrong that SHE was thanking US. But it just made me so much more thankful to be a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ and do His work. 

Love you all,

Elder Mitchell

3/17/14 Bienvenidos a Hermosillo!

So this was the last week of transfers so all week we were saying goodbyes to our investigators beause Elder Cornejo knew it was his last week in the mission, and eveybody was a little sad but somewhat reassured because Elder Mitchell would still be here... ya nope. Sunday I found out I was getting changed to the capital Hermosillo (good thing I didnt buy that crocodile) so I didn´t even get to saygoodbye to everyone. I just left some notes and pictures that the new Elders that come can take to them. 

It was still a great week though! Area President of Mexico, President Johnson, visited each zone in the mission and did some training which was awsome! Also this Saturday we baptized Adalberto after visiting him for 3 months, and it was easily the best day of the mission so far! 

It was sad to leave Guaymas and especially the two familias we had been visiting with for so long, but I am confident that they will continue progressing in the Gospel. We had already put goals with them to legalize their marriages and be baptized and so I´m sure things will go great! I got here to Hermosillo today and met my new companion, Elder Pineada, who his from somewhere near Mexico City and also doesn´t speak any English.  He told me that we don´t have a single appointment set for this week but I am super excited to start working here! 

Aldaberto is getting baptized!

This week La Familia Acosta that we have been teaching for 3 months now told us that they are hoping to get all their divorce and marriage issues taken care of really soon so they can be baptized. The mom and dad told us that their kids are starting to bug them because they want to get baptized! Also Alan and his... almost wife? told us that they set the goal to be married before April is over so he can be baptized. (Teeré the wife is already a member) Their grandpa who had been sick for a little while passed away Sunday morningso today they asked that we help out at his wake. It was pretty sad, but comforting to have a knowledge of the plan of salvation.  

And then this week we met with Adalberto and he is all set for his baptism this Saturday! Also another family we teach that works on Sunday told us that they would try their best to make it to church this coming Sunday and that would be awesome! They are older and super nice people but we have a hard time getting them to follow through on any commitments but it looks like there is some hope!

Nos Vemos

Elder Mitchell

CARNAVAL! (3/3)

So last Thursday Carnaval started, and it actually hasn´t ended yet but it is pretty crazy. I thought Carnaval was really just a Brazil thing but I guess a lot of port cities do it, Guaymas, Veracruz ect. Now I don't really know exactly how crazy it is because we aren´t allowed to go to the part of the city where they celebrate but after 3pm there is TONS and TONS of people walking towards downtown and then it is pretty loud all night. From what I have heard though, it seems a lot like Mardi Gras with a big beauty pagent, bands coming to play every night, and tons of drinking. We did walk past where they have been keeping the floats for the parades one morning though and they were all pretty sick.

 

Anyways this week was great, we had NINE investigators come to church, one of them even bore their testimony, and found some more people who seem really excited to learn more about the Gospel. We finally got Adalberto to set a date for his baptism  March 15th) after over a month of him saying he wants to be baptized but a little more down the road. I can´t believe I am going to complete 4 months in the misión this week! Time flies by faster and faster each week, it is crazy.

Sacrament meeting talk (2/24)

Well this week was a lot of the same. Really hot, lots of walking, teaching, trying to get our investigators married, ect. But everything is going good.

 

We got two more missionaries in our Ward, Elder Mejia from Honduras, and Elder Bernal from Mercer Island, WA. I actually had met Elder Bernal once or twice before the mission because he plays lacrosse and transferred to play at BYU the semester after I left. Crazy that out of all the wards in the mission we´re both in the same one! So this week we helped buy all the stuff for their house, beds, kitchen supplies and stuff which actually took forever and was pretty boring, but oh well, you got to have a bed. And also we spent a lot of time showing them around the area.

 

On Sunday I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting and was pretty nervous but it went well! It was about prayer and trusting in God´s blessing and time table. I did however use the wrong word for time table a few times, I said horario, which I thought was just like saying schedule or time, but it´s actually more like a work schedule, so it sounded like I was saying God only answers our prayers according to his work schedule, as if there were hours when he wasn´t working or hours when he doesn´t bless us. Öh well haha luckly yet unfortuneatley none of our investigators came to church to hear that.

I actually feel like my Spanish got a lot better this week! I can be pretty impatient with myself sometimes and I asked my family to pray for me last Monday and I could DEFINETLEY feel the extra help of those prayers and my Heavely Father this week. A lot of people asked me how long I have been serving in México and told me my spanish was very good or noticed I have improved a lot.

 

Also I was not sick at all this week so that has been awesome!

 

I hope you keep me and all missionaries in your prayers, we really do have a Heavenly Father who knows, hears and loves us!

We bought a cake for one of our Investigators birthdays (Alan)

Riding in the back of a member´s truck, super super super hot back there

 

Ustedes son los mejores,

Elder Mitchell