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

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!