Week 20

Hello world,

I got to talk to my family this morning over Google hangouts which was definitely the highlight of the week. We had a pretty good talk. I'm not exactly sure what to say about it except that it definitely wasn't long enough. It's nice to know that the other half of the world still exists. I suppose I had a reasonable amount of evidence that they did from all of the emails that I've gotten in the last while, but there was still a little bit of faith required. But the seeing of their faces and hearing of their voices left no room for doubt. :)

One other thing probably worth mentioning is the fact that I got a new bike and I am again able to cruise around Hirosaki as I please. The office couple brought us new bikes and took away mine with the broken axle and the other one that had just been sitting under our bike cover broken for as long as I've been in Japan. So we now have three bikes that are all in good working order. I guess we'll see how long this one lasts now that it's an established fact that I'm fat. :)

Also, our district leader went home early this week because he's been pretty sick the last few weeks. So I am now the only Elder Mitchell in the district. It's a little lonely.

Perhaps the second most exciting thing of the week is the man named Saito that we housed into this week. Not quite sure if this is insensitive or not, but a decent sized portion of the population of Hirosaki is named Saito. Anyway, this guy is probably about 60 years old and he seems to be pretty interested in religion. He's currently a part of the happy science religion (I really have no idea what that is, but according to this guy it's a worldwide thing), but he readily accepted a Book of Mormon and told us he'd be happy to read from it and then talk about it this next Tuesday. So I guess we'll see how that goes.

I love you all,
Elder Mitchell

 This picture is at my Branch President's house when we had dinner with him 

last night. He has a bird that just flies around in his house which is 

pretty cool. The picture is a little blurry, but that's the best one that I got.

 This is with my first companion.  I saw him at a new 

missionary meeting that was in his area. He's a funny guy. I hope I 

can grow up to be as good of a missionary as he is. :)

The Google Hangout with the family on Mother's Day.