Agua Prieta 4/29

¡Hola de Agua Prieta! Sunday morning I was suprisingly transferred out of Hermosillo after only 1.5 months. It was a pretty eventful week this past week in Hermosillo so it was a little sad to get moved out of there but oh well. I got here late last night after a 6 hour bus ride so I didn{t get to write any (hence me emailing today) But about this last week....

We fasted for our investigator Maria Isabel and had a great lesson with her and invited her to see a baptism on Saturday, she accepted, came to the basptism and right after told us that she would like to be baptized this Saturday!!! We also learned how to make the famous giant tortiallas that they have in Hermosillo. Alejandrina{s son finally accepted to listen to us and even accepted a baptismal datein May. La familia Acosta that we taught in Guaymas called me on Sunday to tell me that their daughters were baptized tat day. Xochitl cut it off with her BF and came back home. The weird part was when we helped this very very VERY (overly) friendly family carry a ton of heavy stuff to their house, and started to talk with them but we quickly left after feeling like some really weird was going in that house. Long story short they are basically a family of witches. If you think witches don{t exist, come to MExico. And we talked to one of our investigators (Bianca, the nice lady who invited us to eat hot dogs and then apparently uploaded a billion fotos to face) and her friend about this and then her friend confessed to also prcticing witchcraft and explained what this creepy family was intending to do to us. So I guess the good news is I am out of Hermosillo away from the witches and in Agua Prieta with all the narcos (drug lords). Agua Prieta is on the border of Arizona and Mexico. I can see practically see the motherland from our house. But all the drug trafficing here I think will beworth the access we have to American Milk and a bearable amount of heat. 

My new Companion is Elder Guillen from Peru, and also speaks no English, but thats just my normal life now.

That{sabout all the time I have for now. Love and miss you all!!!!!!! I will send pics next week!

Elder Mitchell

Semana Santa 4/21

Although they call it Semana Santa here there is really nothing holy about it. All week everybody went to the beach and nobody really even mentioned Easter... so it was a little dfficult to find people to teach because EVERYBODY went to Kino which is a beach like an hour away. School is out again this week too, for really no good reason and they call it Semana Diabla, which is just another week of vacations and party. 

Also this week Xochitl our awesome investigator who told us she wanted to be a missionary and marry in the temple and had a baptism planned for this Saturday... ditched town. We passed by her house last Sat night to remind her about church and she was sleeping, Sunday morning he ex boyfriend came by her house and carried her off to another part of town out of our area. It happened SOO fast and was pretty confusing and sad. We finally set out to find her one day and talked with her and she and her boyfriend said they would listen to us together but then didn´t show up for our lesson so yeah that is a bummer. 

Other than that, not much went down in Hermosillo this week. We celebrated my Companion´s, Elder Pineda, birthday with some investigators with a bonfire and I taught everybody how to make smores. Except there were no graham crackers so we used Pan dulce and I thought t was kinda gross but they claim to have liked it! 

Let´s see also this week... I got a million bug bites on me feet somehow,

I had piroline for the first time which is like a mexican popsicle that is actually really good (a lot of the sweets and candies here are super gross), we hiked cerro de la compana which is a mountain in the middle of the city and toured around downtown and also learned how to whistle like a Mexican. 

Con mucho amor,

Elder Mitchell

Good news and bad news 4/14

Get that corn outta my face!

I would honestly be suprised if there is another country wth more holidays than México so we´re looking at another potentially difficult week to find people but oh well! This past week was filled with some good news and bad news so I guess I will start by finishing my email from last week, get to the bad news and then finish with the good.

So for almost a month now I have been praying pretty specifically to be able to find any people that are praying for some help or to know the truth or anything like that. Last week we were running late to our lunch appointment to which we were bringing a few investigators. We were in a hurry and as we walked past people I would greet them with a buenas tardes but we passed a bus stop and as I said buenas tardes to a lady she looked at me and greeted me back something about her caught my attention. But because we were already late and had Dania y Xochtl with us, I put it in the back of my mind. As we kept going at our brisk pace I thought of this woman again, but then put this thought away when Xochtl asked me a question. About five minutes later we arrived at the comida and as we knocked on the door, I realized the woman from the bus stop had followed us all the way here. I asked her if she was the woman from the bus stop and she said yes and then asked if we were Jehovas Witnesses, I told her no and said we are misioneros de la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los ultimos días. She asked if we had books or pamphlets and if she could buy one... I laughed and told her that we give them away. I reached into my backpack and was going to give her a pamphlet about The Plan of Salvation, but felt I should give her one about The Restoration. As soon as I handed it to her and started to explain a little about it she started crying and told me she had to go and left. I, a little shocked and confused, looked at my comp and we threw our backpacks in the house explained to the family who was feeding us what happened and ran after her. We caught her a minute before she got on the bus and put a date and time to visit her and her family. When we went a day later she told us that she had found a pamphlet of the restoraton, read it and wanted to know more. Prayed that she could know it was true, and the next day she found us, when I gave her that pamphlet, she knew her prayers had been answered. What an incredible experience that was!!!! We returned to teach her another time and everything went well. 

Bad News: We showed up to visit her again and she seemed really different, reluctantly invited us inside and then told us she didn´t really have time to think about all of this basically telling us not to come back. So that was pretty weird and bien bien chafa and I felt like I definitley misunderstood what she said, but nope. Also we´re not sure if any of our 3 baptisms we had planned for April will be ready in time but they are still progressing just a need a little more time which is ok!

Good News: We started teaching the family of Alejandrina´s sister and they are all are comprehending everything well. The father declined to listen to us but after a few visits Conchita, the mother/wife invited him to to church and all 4 of them went! They are a super cool family and accepted the invitation to be baptized in May! 

Oh also this week I went to the hospital to get an infection (random sores than randomly bleed) taken care of but things are already looking better. Also this week was constantly between 40C(104F) and 42(107) degrees. ¡Viva México!

You don´t need to worry about me (Mom y Caitlin) but plz keep me in ya prayers!!

Love and Miss you all tons!!!

Elder Mitchell

Attached are some pics from the dope suprise HBD party Alejandrina and Conchita threw for me and smashed my cake in my face.

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!