Making progress (2/17/14)

This week was awesome and busy! Tuesday we had a special mission conference with Elder Craig C. Christensen (he speaks way good spanish) so we traveled to Hermosillo for that and it was great. We got to ask a lot of questions and he talked a lot about receiving revelation and how we have to ¨luchar¨ like Enos for our investigators. Learned a ton! 

Also the mission office called us on Wednesday and told us that 2 more missionaries are coming to our ward on MOnday (today) so we had to find them a place to live. It was sort of fun to go house hunting (I thought it was something you would have really enjoyed Mama) and we ended up finding a member of the church with a house for rent so we closed in on that but it needed a ton of work so we spent most of Valentines Day painting and cleaning.

I did end up getting pretty sick though, it started of as just a cold but one morning I woke up and the right side of my face hurt super bad. It didn´t get any better that day or the next so we went to the doctor... I´ll admit I was a little aprehensive to visit the doctor in Mexico... and when we got there the doctors office, lobby and pharmacy combined was about the size of our living room back home. We waited in the lobby for about two minutes and then the doc checked me out like a normal doctor and told me I had a sinus and ear infection in about 5 minutes and charged me 30 pesos. All my medication costed 120 pesos and a few days later I am almost feeling completely better. And this was just some public docotrs office. So... the medical system here is acually awesome.

 

Also this week one family we have been teaching suprised us and went to go get their paperwork to get married which was awesome! Also the father changed his work schedule so he could go to church with his family. (Alan, Teeré and little Eker)

 

Also the other family that we teach that needs marriage suprised us by getting all of their divorcement papers and hired a lawyer. The father told us that he decided he wants to be baptized on his birthday, because we talked about how Jesus taught that baptism symbolizes a rebirth and lead a new life taking His name upon ourselves and trying to be like Him... but his birthday isn´t until October! But then at the end of the lesson he told us that he changed his mind and wants to get baptized as soon as possible, the same day him and his wife get married! So that was awesome. It could still take a month or two but him and his family are so awesome, and are going to be such faithful members. It has been amazing to see the changes, happiness and blessings that living the Gospel of Jesus Christ has brought this family.

 

Other than all that... things are pretty much the same. TONS of walking, tons of sweating, tacos de cabeza,  teenage girls ogling at my blue eyes.

Viva México.

 

Love and miss you all,

Elder Mitchell

 

P.s Huge S/o to the fam and the Remy´s for the Vday packages. It´s super fun to share all my dulces with the niños. Thank you so much!

A VERY SPECIAL PENNY (2/10/14)

So this week some weird stuff happened but other than that everything is coming along the same. Trying to get our investigators who have already accepted the invitation to be baptised to come to church or get married (lots of people live together and call eachother husband and wife without actually getting married) so they can actually be baptised. Also this week we did find some really cool people to teach and I was hardly sick at all! My companion on the other hand has had a really bad cold...and everyday he is a little more ready to go home (he has 1 month left) so that is rough sometimes.

 

Also a man approached us in the Street one day and asked us a few questions and then asked if we would be willing to meet with him and talk more... duh... so then the next day we went to his house and started talking with him but really he just rambled on for like an hour about this special coin he had (which was a carbon or silver or iron, US penny from 1945). He told us it was over 15 million years old and was one of a kind, the entire US gov is searching for it, and when in the right hands it can predict the future. He told us he predicted the Tsunami in New York and showed us tons of drawings he´s done and weird stuff... and then proceeded to tell us that since he´s found the coin his family life has been terrible. We tried to tell him to ditch the penny and follow Jesúscriso... but he is pretty set on his beliefs in this penny. He was pretty crazy but also very respectful and nice.

 

Also a woman got hit by a car right in front of our apartment. We heard a crash and looked out the window and there was a woman laying on the sidewalk/Street bleeding a little bit. We rushed to undo all of our locks (there are a few) but by the time we got the door opened there was already a crowd of people there. An ambulence came like 3 minutes later and took her away, she had a pretty beat up leg but she was thankfully okay.

 

It´s also already hitting the 90´s so we´ll see what the weather is like in a month or two. yikes.

 

But that´s about it!

 

Les extraño y quiero mucho

Elder Mitchell

Trouble in paradise (2/3/14)

So this week all three of our baptismal dates fell through, our hot wáter got shut off and i´ve been sick like every other day... but it´s all good! It´s all in the Lord´s hands and under control. 

Tons of faith that things are going to work out with Alan, Clara and Adalberto! This week we did have an awesome experience with the spirit helping us find another awesome family to teach so I´m looking forward to getting to know them better and teaching them this week. 

My spanish keeps getting better, I taught the Gospel Principles class this Sunday at Church, and every now and then I´ll get a compliment on my Spanish which always makes my day and then  Every now and then people just give me this look while I´m talking to them and I know that im confusing them. 

We also got to do some service this week, chopping down tree´s with machetes (fun) and moving dirt piles around with buckets (not as fun). 

Right now there is a 16 year old girl blasting Lil Wayne next to me...very distracting ,I seriously just want to show her some actual good music. But let´s see...This morning we climbed the tallest mountain in Guaymas, Microonda, it was way fun!

 

Super grateful for the opportunity I have to dedícate all my time to serving the Lord. I am way happier out here in the misión than I ever thought I would be!

 

Love and Miss you all!

 

Oh and I forgot to mention last week I had my first baptism! 

mawwiage

This past week started off great with a trip to Hermosillo for a conference with all the missionaries and their trainers so it was really fun to see the Elders from the MTC. Also we took care of visa stuff so I should be good to stay here for a little longer. haha.

This week we ran into a few problems with our 2 investigators with baptismal dates. One who has been coming to church and reading his scriptures told us that he still feels like he might not be ready by the 8th, and he isnt sure why. The other we have been visiting 2 or 3 times a week, and just found out that him and his´"wife" arent actually married. (very common here) We went and visited them with their bishop and talked about the importance of marriage and everything and asked them to talk about it and set a goal or date for marriage. Then the next visit she told us that they talked about it and want to get married "mas adelante"... or maybe later. So we´ll keep praying/fasting for and teaching them this week but I have a lot of faith that they´ll keep progressing!

Also last week we had really great lessons with four of our other investigators.

La familia Acosta finally came to church for the first time after like 6 months of meeting with missionaries, and are working on getting some divorce papers with ex spouses handled so they can get married and then baptized.

My spanish keeps getting better, learning a new language is way harder than I expected so everynow and then I have to remind myself that I´ve only been in Mexico 6 weeks (because it feels like 6 months).

Whenever I am struggling with the language or anything I try not to think negatively and instead think about what the Lord is trying to teach me. It´s a humbling experience and I am learning and growing lots!

I am also getting good at eating/drinking whatever people put in front me. The misión isnt for the weak of stomach haha but the Lord is blessing mine.

Vayan bien,

Elder Mitchell

PEANUT BUTTER HOT DOGS

Don´t have much time to write this week!

Quick story though...

Me and my comp were getting some hot dogs from a street vendor and he asked what I wanted on mine and I said tomato, cebolla and crema de caucahuate. She looked at me funny and said we dont hvae that... and I said oh ok that´s fine. Well crema de caucauhuate actually means peanut butter what I meant was, crema de aguacaucate which is avocado sauce. (which they did have) So later my companion asked me why I wanted caucauhuate on my hot dog and I reliazed my mistake...told him about it and he thought it was super super funny. And I was like okay yeah I guesss thats kinda funny. Well he told this exact story to almost everybody we visited and our investigators and people we visited were literally ROLLING on the ground laughing uncontrollably. And then my face turns a little red and then they point that out (because they don´t really turn red) and laugh even more and yeah. I was just like what even is going on? México has a slightly different sense of humor.

Conrado moved to another city :( 

We set a baptismal date for Adelberto Feb. 8th!

Everything is going great!

Love ya

Elder Mitchell

Gecko friendz

So I am struggling to remember everything that has happened this past week, probably because time is flying by now! It is pretty crazy, I´ve been in México for a whole month now. But let´s see...

We walked up and down this mountain forever trying to find an old investigator from our Area Book. Eventually my companion gave up and we started walking away, but I felt like we could find this family if we just kept looking, so I asked if we could try one more time. We walked back up the mountain, through a car detailing shop and across four backyards and went through an abandoned old house and ended up and their back door.... which they thought was a little strange but the ppoint is we found em! And their whole family was there Aunts and Uncles in town, Grandma and they are all super nice and receptive to the Gospel. We are going over there tonight to have a noche de hogar (family home evening) with them. Also this week we had 7 investigatrs attend a session of stake conference which is awesome! We are starting to set dates for baptisms wit a lot of our investigators and I am starting to love the mission more and more! 

On the downside me and my companion were both sick almost all of last week but that´s starting to look up also. 

I´ve been reading a ton of the Bible the past few days, studying how it came to be put together and the process of it being translated and a ton of historical stuff as well as just reading it, I am almost finished with Exodus. It is very interesting and I am learning TONS.

I caught a gecko today and really wanted to keep it but couldn´t.

Ate some Little Ceaser´s Pizza.

Life is great. 

The Lord Lives and Loves us

Hope you are all remembering me in your prayers :)

Hugs and Besitos

Elder Mitchell

Ps. The last 6 verses of Luke or so are pretty cool. All about missionary work!

Happy New Year!

So this week was a little difficult because what Mexico lacks in their Christmas celebrations they make up for on New Years Eve. A good majority of Guaymas (not excluding all of our investigators) was already slammed by noon on the 31st. We had a couple drunks come up to us and start confessing all sorts of things (I guess because were recognized as religious figures?) So that was interesting. That night we spent with a family though and they made us some great food and we made some smallish bombs and lit of fireworks and went to bed early but it was hard to sleep with all they party noise (music, amblences, police sirens, machine guns, bombs,fireworks) that lasted all night. Then the next day everybody was recovering from the night before so we cuoldnt do much. 

Other than that this week was good! We went to visit an older Hermana who hadnt been to church in a few years and ended up teaching her 25 year old son, Salvador, who is great. We met with him 3 times this week and the 3rd time his sister (inactive) and her husband (not a member) joined us. In our lessons with Salvador I felt the spirit very strongly tell me what I needed to say, and Salvador accepted baptism in our second visit! It was a good reminder to me that there is strength in my personal testimony and that I need to contribute as much as I can in our lessons even though Elder Cornejo has a ton more experience in the mission and with the language. As I´ve started doing this my Spanish has gotten tons better... God helps me learn a lot more Spanish when I am using it to teach people about Jesus and the Gospel.

Also this week we were fed Menudo (cow stomach soup) at one of our lunch visits. The flavor wasn´t that bad but the texture was pretty disgusting and it just felt pretty wrong in my mouth. But I ate it all, and didnt get sick afterwards so it´s all good!

Some pictures from Christmas, New Years

Les extraño y amo mucho

Elder Mitchell

Pictures from last week's stories: