Monday, May 22, 2017

Week 21

Hello everyone,

I'm a little pressed for time today because we had transfer calls yesterday and I'm supposed to head to Miyako tomorrow. So it's a rather short email today. The most important thing that I can tell you all is that Miyako is right on the Pacific coast so if there's a tsunami... then I'll be the first to get wet I suppose. But I'll be in good company because Miyako is a four-man area (meaning that four Elders share the same apartment. Interestingly Miyako doesn't have an apartment for Elders, they actually have a house. So that will be interesting). My new companion will be Elder Reber who is basically an old man. He only has two transfers left which means I could very easily kill him off.

Have a great week,
Elder Mitchell

Advice to family and friends with regards to preparing for a mission from an email sent to Bro. Rob Welch the Mission prep teacher for our Stake: In regards to your favor, I can think of two things. One would be to study The Book of Mormon every day and become as familiar with it as you can. I suppose that's not the most original idea, but The Book of Mormon really is what sets us apart from other churches. The truthfulness of The Book of Mormon supports our claim to modern revelation and the reality of the Restoration. Make sure that you have a strong testimony of The Book of Mormon. The other thing is to think about all of the ways that The Gospel has blessed your life and practice sharing those ways with your friends. If you can share the Gospel out of love for people and with a desire to help them, then people on your mission will be about a million times more likely to listen to you.



 Me when I found out I was transferring.

 The cute little boys are the ones that we teach every week. The 
youngest one doesn't actually participate. He just sort of runs around 
and makes noise. But his brother and the other kid do pretty well.

 The family is the Takaya family and Brother Takaya is the Young Men's 
President. Shinnosuke is his son home from a mission for a year or two. 

Me with Shinnosuke the 2nd counselor.

 Otani Kyoudai and I.

Hello Family,

I am still alive and mostly well.  I really enjoyed talking to you all last week. I suppose I hadn't quite realized how much I love you all before I left and went halfway around the world. I realized a little better when I went to BYU, but for some reason that just wasn't quite the same. So there.

Yesterday we got transfer calls and... I'm transferring. . . So tomorrow I have a four and a half hour bus ride to Sendai (the same one that I've taken all the other times) and then two different bus rides (2.75 hours and 2.5 hours) back up to Miyako. It's pretty close to where I am now (but in a different zone), but for some reason somebody thought that my current comp and I both needed to take buses clear across the mission and back. So that will be fun.

Yesterday there was a Japan devotional thing with Elder Oaks speaking at it which was pretty good. They just went back and forth between English and Japanese after every line and it was interesting to see how much of the Japanese I could catch. It still wasn't a whole lot, but I guess I'm slowly and steadily improving... or something like that. 

I'm really going to miss some of the people here. Like Takaya Kyoudai and Nakabayashi Shimai and Otani Kyoudai. And Mikami Kaicho. And Yamaguchi Kyoudai. And Fujita San, our prize Eikaiwa student. And most everyone else. And I really did have a really good district here too. I don't know. I'm still a little confused about exactly what is going on and I haven't had too much time to think about it because I'm in the middle of packing.


I love you all,
Elder Mitchell

1 comment:

  1. Elder "Benny Boy" Mitchell is looking good! I don't believe his bike broke because he is fat... I am glad he got a new one though. Love to hear how he is doing!

    ReplyDelete