Saturday, December 29, 2018

Week 105

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Today was pretty busy with a video call to my family and district pday. We played ping-pong in the morning and went to the senior couples' apartment for a Christmas lunch in the afternoon. Then we played games (some of which will be very good for dating in a couple weeks :)) and went grocery shopping. I love my family so much. I haven't seen them in so long and I can't wait to see them in real life in a week and a half.

I love the Christmas season. I love that we still celebrate the birth of our Savior 2000 years after he lived on the earth. He and our Heavenly Father love us so much that Jesus came to the earth to give us the opportunity to follow him and receive eternal life. Some people get a little side-tracked on presents and stuff like that, but please remember the reason for Christmas and serve someone.

Merry Christmas!!!!!
Elder Mitchell


Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Week 104

Hello everyone,

I'm basically dead. I have two more weeks as a missionary. The time has really gone fast and I'm working hard to make the rest of my time count. If any of you have forgotten what the life of a missionary entails, it goes something like this: wake up at 6:30 and try to exercise for a little bit. After that it's time to eat breakfast and get ready for the day. We study and plan until 10:00am and then go fulfill any appointments we had for the morning and introduce ourselves to as many people as we can. The hope with the introductions is that we'll find people willing to listen to our church's unique message and have interest in learning more. Then we have lunch and study for another couple hours. Then we go back out into the world to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone. If we don't have any appointments then we're searching for new people to teach. And then we come back for dinner. Lately dinner has been at eight because people don't really like it too much when we knock on their doors after that. Curfew is at nine. And lights out is at ten thirty. There's sometimes a little bit of other drama. We have district meetings once a week and zone conference every six weeks. Sometimes we decide that it's a good idea to go to another area and work with other missionaries so that we can learn from each other. We also have interviews with our mission president every other transfer, and sometimes we have mission conferences like we did for Christmas a couple weeks ago. I think that's about it. I guess we have church every Sunday. We're supposed to go to that... :)

Some thoughts that I have: A mission is exactly two years. Sometimes people have reasons to go home early, and in rare cases missionaries can stay for an extra transfer or two, but it's a very well defined period of time. And time waits for no one. Some similar activities are school, careers, going on a run, and eating a pizza. It doesn't matter how much effort you spend on making them last, how much you try to enjoy it, or how much you try to do other things at the same time, they will come to an end. And at that point all you can do is move forward. We have to make the most of the time we have now. I'm not sure if that's sad but it's definitely true.

Here's a short miracle that my companion and I saw this week! We had a goal of finding three new people who we could visit again and teach about the church and we were stuck at one all the way until Sunday night with a few hours left. We knew that we needed to find two more people so we found a huge line of apartments inhabited mostly by graduate students at a nearby college and started knocking on their doors. For some reason we had several contacts that were very high quality, but none of them would let us come back and talk again. We got down to the last hour and had a 40 minute walk back to the apartment in the snow. We thought about leaving and just trying to talk to people on the street, but we decided to stay and do one last building. One of the first doors was a super nice college kid that we taught about the restoration and got a preferred return visit time! About five doors later we talked to a college girl that also had interest in hearing more! We ended up being late because of how long we spent talking to people in that apartment building and made our goal for the week!! We said a prayer of thanks to Heavenly Father and then walked home.

Lots of love!
Elder Mitchell

P.S. I got bullied into dressing up like Santa Claus.







Week 103

Hello,

The most exciting thing this week was the mission Christmas conference that we had near the American Air Force Base in Misawa. It was really fun and the food they fed us was fantastic. I've always been really grateful for how much support I've gotten as a missionary. One of my favorite ways to be supported as a missionary is to be fed really good food. I'm probably the only missionary like that in the whole world... or maybe not.

I've been reading the Book of Mormon lately and been really impressed by all of the great examples of faith in it. They often found themselves in really dangerous circumstances, and faced brutal opposition, but were always blessed by their commitment to follow the prophet and keep the commandments. It's so easy to see the pride cycle happen in the Book of Mormon because of how quickly it passes through years and decades. The pride cycle generally starts with righteousness, and leads to prosperity and happiness. But then the people get prideful and start to believe that they don't need God or the prophets. Sometimes it takes a long time for them to humble themselves and give thanks to God, but they are always grateful that they did. Righteousness does not protect people from trials and challenges in their lives (because we need those to learn), but it does bring the promise that God will be with us. I hope that I will always have the faith and the strength to do what I need to to keep God with me at all times.

Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell


I don't remember if the food was actually mine. It might have been. 


And the other one is all the stuff that the missionaries 
got from the members for what they call 'fruit basket'. 
I don't remember if I've explained it before. It happens 
every fast Sunday. They just bring us a bunch of food. 
It's pretty fun. Or at least I think so. :)

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Week 102

Hey Family,

I feel like not too much happened this week. We did make a baptismal date with one of my favorite people in the entire world. That was pretty fun. He was a little bit difficult but we were difficulter. :) He ultimately agreed to the 15th by saying that IF he felt like the church was true before then he would join it but he didn't think that would happen. We made sure that he was willing to do the work necessary to find out that it is true, and he is!

The biggest obstacle we had with him is that he didn't want to pray because he felt like his heart wouldn't be in it and it would just be mimicking us. Yesterday he still wouldn't pray with us, but he said that he tried praying by himself and that it went well! He also now feels like he could actually decide that he needs to be baptized before the 15th!

I had my last fast Sunday as a missionary this last Sunday. That was weird. I bore my testimony even though I didn't really want to. Are you all proud? :) I don't think that anyone in the branch actually knows that I'm leaving soon. I've tried not to tell anyone except a choice few. And I swore them to secrecy.

I have a picture this week. That's pretty cool

I love you all the most!
bEn

Friday, November 30, 2018

Week 101

Hello world,

This is the first P-day of my last transfer. Last week was technically the first one, but I didn't have my new companion yet. So I only have... 5(?!?!?) more of these emails. I hope that some people have enjoyed reading them. I sometimes feel bad that I'm not a terribly talented writer and that sometimes things I say don't come across the way that I wish they would. I think that some ancient prophets have said similar things: "And I said unto him: Lord, the Gentiles will mock at these things, because of our weakness in writing; for Lord thou hast made us mighty in word by faith, but thou hast not made us mighty in writing" (Ether 12). I think that Ether might have been better off than me. He at least seems to think that he could speak pretty well. I'm not sure that I can claim to be good at speaking either. Lol

This week we got dropped by a friend who had met with us a few times to talk about the Book of Mormon. We weren't too sad. Just a little bit. His reasons for stopping weren't really the ones that I like to hear. They were along the lines of "I've thought about my future and I'm going to be moving pretty soon. I don't consider myself to be a very religious person, but Christianity kind of contradicts Japanese culture. I'm also pretty busy with school and final projects so learning about this stuff is kind of hard". If I had to pick one that I could most identify with it would probably be the busyness with school. But none of his reasons had anything to do with the truth of this message and whether or not the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the Earth in it's fulness. We told him that there will always be trials and reasons why it would be "hard" to follow Christ, but those are simply less important than the truth of the gospel. If we truly believe that we can live eternally with God, our Heavenly Father, and our families through believing in Jesus Christ and keeping his commandments then we will be willing to make sacrifices.

I got to have Thanksgiving dinner with the senior couple in our branch. They're super great! They couldn't do a turkey because Japanese people generally don't have ovens and Thanksgiving isn't widely celebrated in Japan, but they made mashed potatoes and some really good chicken. They also fed us a couple different kinds of salad. In the pictures you can't see any of the food so we decided that we'd have to have another one for Christmas so we could get a picture with the food. They're great. :)

I love you all (at least a little bit)! Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell


Monday, November 19, 2018

week 99

Hello friends,

I've been pretty bad about sending emails lately.

A few weeks ago my companion and I lowered a couple of desks off a second story balcony with sheets and towels because we couldn't take them apart or get them through the hallway. It was pretty fun. I would highly recommend it. No pictures because at the time we were worried it might go badly and we didn't want any more evidence than was necessary.

Last week I decided to do as many push-ups as I could in a minute. It was fun.

This week we talked to a guy named Takahashi!! He is the first person who has ever asked me when he could learn more about the church. He's excited to come on Sunday!

I'm really grateful for the restoration of the gospel. All churches can talk about how happy they are and how much church has helped them, but this is the only one I know of that claims to have visitations from heaven, to have ancient records translated by the power of God, and to be led by a living prophet today. I know that there is a prophet today just like there was in Bible and Book of Mormon times. God loves us and prophets are the way that he has always used to communicate with his children here on the earth. I'm so grateful to know about the restoration of the gospel.

I have a few pictures from a recent district meeting. Some of them are better than others.

Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell

Hello family,
I'm not sure that anything super interesting happened this week. We had interviews with President Sekiguchi. He told me that I can baptize two or three more people before I leave because I'm great. He flatters me. I would be pretty pleased if that were to happen. We've got a college dude that we've met a few times that thinks pretty deeply about Plan of Salvation sort of stuff and knows bits of lots of different religions. He needs to get baptized. We also found a super cool older dude that asked us when he could hear more about the church! I think that's maybe the first time that's ever happened to me. We told him a little bit about Joseph Smith and the restoration and he told us he was excited to come to church on Sunday! That was probably the highlight of my week. I hope that he really does come to church.

I realized that I have way more toiletries than I need to make it through the rest of my mission. I'm thinking I might sell some of my American toothpaste to some poor, unfortunate souls serving missions in Japan who might be in need of that sort of thing. I also bought a huge shaving foam can a few weeks ago that I'll have to open this week. There's no way I can use all of it either before I leave.

There is a pretty good hill that we have to ride up sometimes. I enjoy riding down it. I like to think that I can hit 40 or 45. I suppose I won't ever know for sure but it entertains me even without knowing the specific number of mph(mice playing hangman)'s.

College is right around the corner. So is go-kart racing. I don't know if you all remember that I've been having some minor withdrawal symptoms from lack of automobile racing, but I do. I thought you could all use a bit of reminding. :)

There's a pretty good restaurant nearby called Dodgers. It's pretty cheap. They also have unlimited rice and miso soup. I appreciate it.

I love you all the most!
beN

These are all of the pictures we ended up with after District Council Meeting. Some of them are better than others.










Week 98

Hello family,

Have I not said anything about my area/zone? I've been here for like a month. Shoot. It's the same zone as I was in last transfer. It's called the Morioka zone. It used to be one of the biggest but this transfer became the smallest. We only have like 20 people in it and three zones. But we've also been getting some of the highest numbers in the mission which is pretty cool. I like to think it's mostly because I'm one of the zone leaders. :) Akita is pretty good. The members are very supportive of the missionaries and it's a pretty big branch. Last week we had 51 people at sacrament meeting.

A week or two ago we got a baptismal date with a dude named Toma. I don't remember if he made it into an email. It got dropped pretty fast. He hadn't been keeping commitments quite like we wanted him to, but we felt like we could go for a baptismal date anyway. It was kind of a sink or swim thing I guess. We had tried other ways to get him to read and pray, but we thought that he might have a bit more motivation to do it if he had a baptismal date goal to work towards. He had clearly thought about it a lot but ultimately decided that he wasn't quite ready. He thought that he'd have to reject lots of Asian culture. And he would have to a little bit.

We are meeting with a dude named Yuki. He's super smart and seems to enjoy meeting with us and talking about stuff like prophets and the plan of salvation. :) Those are the two things we talked about last week. He's one of my favorite people. He has been to church three times and reads the things that we ask him to. We're supposed to meet him tomorrow too.

I've seen a few different people changing to winter tires in the last week or so. I'm a little bit worried about that. I've made it this far without buying snow boots and I'm not planning on buying any for just a few weeks either. I'll probably survive.

I forgot to say that I did a fitness test for myself this morning. I only did one thing and it was 60 seconds of push-ups. I got 47.5. I rounded it up to 48 though since I had to start my timer and then go. It probably cost me at least 3/4 of a push-up. Probably. :) I also weigh 167 right now. I was about 162 for a little while but then I had three companions in a row that all eat a lot. Elder Warner, Elder Bunderson, and Elder Richardson. It wasn't good for my slim figure. I've been dropping a little bit though lately with Elders Dickerson and Davis. They don't eat a whole lot. Maybe by the time I go home I'll be 150 again. Or maybe 135 like my drivers license thinks I am. :) Speaking of which I think that thing expires the April after I get back.

I love you all the most,
BeN


Week 97

Some Sadness. . .

I got a letter from the post office the other day saying that I needed to call them because I had a package from America. It was a very short letter and there was part of it that I couldn't understand even with my handy dandy Japanese app. So I called them and tried to figure out what was up because they would normally just bring the package to me. And if I wasn't home they would leave a delivery notice, not send me a letter (they actually knocked on the door for during dinner time and gave the letter to me in person which was kind of weird too). I called and talked to a lady that wasn't too happy to talk to me and she told me that the letter was referring to itself and I should enjoy its contents. I had told her a few times that it was from her and I even read it to her. After that we decided that we had to just go in to the post office and show it to them. We did so.

We ended up going to a smaller post office that apparently isn't actually connected to the distribution center that's a bit further away in the other direction, but the nice lady there looked at the letter and called the other post office for us. She was on the phone for a few minutes too. Probably six or seven. She came back saying that there was indeed a package, but it had been damaged in transit and they wanted me to go check on it. She said that some stuff had fallen out of it. We were leaving town that night for companion exchanges. We ultimately set up for them to bring it anyway because we couldn't make it to the other post office. I was pretty surprised when my companion told them we couldn't make it because if anyone can get to the post office it's the missionaries. I didn't know exactly where it was, but it would have been hard to fix because the lady helping us out was on the phone trying to negotiate for us with her fancy post office powers. We gave them two time slots we would be home for. One for two days out, last Saturday. And another one for the next Monday which would be yesterday.

After it didn't come on Saturday I was not really interested in waiting until Monday to find out what had become of the package that I hadn't been expecting and apparently had been damaged so I was like "hey we're going to the post office to check on it like they said we were supposed to do in the first place". So we did. It was relatively close to closing time for the post office so we kind of hurried to have time for whatever was going to go down. The lady didn't know about my package. She at first told me there wasn't one. I told her to try harder (nicely) and gave her some more information that might help. I hadn't brought the letter because I thought it would be pretty easy to look up with my name and phone number. And the letter didn't say anything on it anyway. I think she ended up calling her own customer service counter with the number that I gave her. I was a little bit frustrated because no one knew where my package was and kept telling me it didn't exist. I'm not quite sure whose fault that was. Probably twenty minutes later she came back with a dude that was clearly in the mail-handling side of things. He gave me his card and told me to follow him to the other section of the building. I liked him. He was really nice.

Breakfast break. This email is quite a lot longer than I thought it might be.

We followed him outside and around to the other section, took an elevator and went through a security door. He sat us down at a table and asked for my ID so that he could bring me the package. The table was in a very large room and there were several other people working there. He came back with a brown box and a camera. He said that a lot of stuff had fallen out. He wanted to take pictures as we opened it together. Inside the brown box there was a white and red one that looked more like the kind that I've gotten packages in in the past. Except it was ripped from top to the bottom. It had a lot of post office tape that had been put there in order to close the box again. I wondered if they might have replaced some things that had fallen out. It looked like the box might have a decent amount of stuff still in it. He opened it up and showed it to me. It was 90% gone. There was a picante sauce and a few candies and granola bars. At this point it was probably a little after five when we were supposed to be setting up for a Halloween party. We sent the other missionaries a message saying that we'd be late.

He wasn't too confident in his English ability so he had me tell him everything that was supposed to be in there and we looked and counted the things that there were. There was no peanut butter. He circled that in red. There were no triscuits or hand warmers. That got circled too. We made it through the whole thing and ended with a 1 next to Picante Sauce and a 7 next to the granola bars and candies. He said that Tokyo had repackaged it and that it had been broken when it got to Japan. He would send his report and all the pictures to Tokyo who would talk to America and see what they could do. I was supposed to contact the sender of the package and let them know what had happened but he guessed that you would probably also get a call from U.S. Postal service. We barely got to the Halloween party by six when it was supposed to start. Fortunately the Sisters and our Senior couple had set everything up already.

That's most of the story. I took a couple pictures too after we finished. Just one of the box and one of what was left. I'll send them if you would like them. What do you think? Have you heard from the post office already? I was a little bit sad about all of the food that disappeared but there wasn't anything in there that I should have been more sad about was there? I was worried that there might have been something at the bottom that said "cards". I wasn't quite sure though. I wasn't sure exactly how I should feel when I saw the package either. I know you still love me a lot to send me a package of all of my favorite things over the Pacific ocean even the post office didn't love me enough to deliver it to me.

I love you the most,
Ben



Week 96

This week was pretty good. We started it off by attempting to get some extra desks out of the Sister's apartment. Their apartment is way nicer than ours, by the way. Their fridge probably cost a good three times what ours did and is probably twice the size. I'm not sure why. We eat probably double what they do. Anyway, we couldn't get the desks out the doorway because the fridge was in the way and we weren't sure that even if we moved the fridge that we could get it around the corner in the hallway. Which meant that we had two options. We could disassemble them and take them out piece by piece, or we could toss them out the window/off the second story balcony. Sister Lee looked at them a little bit before we came back (after the first attempt we had to leave and teach English class so we went back the next morning) and discovered that it would be very difficult to take them apart. That left us with only one option. Raise your hand if you remember what it was! :)

So we couldn't actually toss them because they're big and would probably break one of the classy automobiles parked in front of their apartment. So we had to tie them with a sheet and lower them using some weird bath towel/blanket things that we found in our apartment. We got them out without breaking a single thing including ourselves. It was very fun. I would definitely do it again. 10/10. Unfortunately no pictures because I was worried that if our desks fell then we would have too much evidence. Since they didn't I feel fine about sharing the whole story with you. :)

We also went to Yokote twice this week. Yokote is a pretty small place. I got there and walked out of the train station and said "this is a small place". Or something like that. Before the mission I never thought about how big places were or how I would tell. But I think I'm okay at judging the size of places. The first time we went was for companion exchanges. I went with Elder Anderson who is half Japanese but went to some elementary school in Japan so his Japanese is very good. It was fun. I got katsudon there. The next time was for a couple of baptismal interviews that they had. He's the district leader and couldn't interview his own candidates so I got to go do them. That time we went to a fancy udon place.

I love you the most!
bEn

We also got ramen with our friend, Tsukasa. He's pretty cool. :)





We got ramen with our friend, Tsukasa. He's pretty cool. :)

Monday, October 29, 2018

Week 95

We had a District Conference in Morioka so I got to see Brother Shibata and Brother Kurosawa who both got baptized while I was there! That was pretty fun. I didn't get pictures with either of them which was a mistake, but I've always been bad about taking pictures. Those reading this are probably very familiar with the quality and consistency of my picture taking. On our way to District Conference in our Branch President's car we got a flat tire. But our Branch President is hilarious and he was like "We're going to drive on it until we can find a car shop". So we drove on a totally flat tire for probably ten or twelve minutes. By the time we found a new tire the old one was not just flat but totally shredded. Funny stuff. But we made it to the conference on time and our Branch President made us some way good soup for lunch afterwards.

While Elder Davis and I were crossing a bridge the other day we realized that there were some really big fish in a river a few meters below us. We weren't there too long before they had all spotted us and come to beg us for food. Silly fish. They reminded me of three goldfish that live in Kent, WA.

I still haven't been to a normal church meeting in Akita yet. Two days ago was District Conference and the week before that was General Conference. So I still haven't met several of the members. I didn't write an email last week so I don't think I mentioned that General Conference was FANTASTIC! One of the themes that I liked was the importance of families. Families are ordained of God and are important in helping us to learn and prepare to again meet God. The happiest people I know are the ones who love and prioritize their families and make continuous efforts to strengthen family relationships. Speaking of families, I recently got a really cool keyboard app (since my standard Samsung one stopped cooperating) and I can put pictures behind it!

I read Ether 6 this week. I don't remember if I said anything about it the last time I read it but I made a lot of parallels between the barges, the storm, the stones that shine in the darkness, and other stuff in that chapter to missionary work. I recommend that you all read Ether 6 while thinking about the stones touched by Jesus as missionaries/members of the church. I think it will be pretty fun. :) I'm also including a link for those people on this list who happen to not be in possession of a Book of Mormon because this part is one of my favorites:
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/6?lang=eng

Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell

Excerpt from the family letter: This week I got to go to Sendai for MLC which stands for Mission Leadership Conference. I think that President Sekiguchi maybe felt bad for me because I'm so old and had not been a zone leader yet. So he made me a zone leader. What a guy. MLC was pretty fun. I think that I ended up talking more than the average person because I had some ideas about how to improve the mission that were maybe a little different than other peoples' ideas. I think that President Sekiguchi appreciated some of them though. He thanked me for coming afterwards. :)


While Elder Davis and I were crossing a bridge the other day we realized that there were some really big fish in a river a few meters below us. We weren't there too long before they had all spotted us and come to beg us for food. Silly fish. They reminded me of Orange Juice, Fireface, and Lacy. :)

I only have about two and a half months left of mission. Hmm.

I read Ether 6 this week. I don't remember if I said anything about it the last time I read it but I made a lot of lines between the barges, the storm, the stones that shine in the darkness, and other stuff in that chapter to missionary work. I recommend that you all read Ether 6 while thinking about the stones touched by Jesus as missionaries/members of the church. I think it will be pretty fun. :)

I love you the most,
Ben


 Elder Davis




Week 94

Hello Mommy,

My week number just keeps getting bigger and bigger. 94 is a lot of weeks. I did love General Conference. I forgot to write in my last weekly how much I was dying to watch it. I don't remember exactly how many minutes I spent on that weekly but it wasn't very many. One thing that stood out to me from conference was the blessings that President Nelson and Elder Rasband gave at the end of their talks. I especially liked Elder Rasband's.

Elder Rasband
Take heart, brothers and sisters. Yes, we live in perilous times, but as we stay on the covenant path, we need not fear. I bless you that as you do so, you will not be troubled by the times in which we live or the troubles that come your way. I bless you to choose to stand in holy places and be not moved. I bless you to believe in the promises of Jesus Christ, that He lives and that He is watching over us, caring for us and standing by us. In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

President Nelson
Brothers and sisters, I thank you for your faith and sustaining efforts. I leave my love and blessing upon you, that you may feast upon the word of the Lord and apply His teachings in your personal lives. I assure you that revelation continues in the Church and will continue until “the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”
I bless you with increased faith in Him and in His holy work, with faith and patience to endure your personal challenges in life. I bless you to become exemplary Latter-day Saints. I so bless you and bear my testimony that God lives! Jesus is the Christ! This is His Church. We are His people, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Another couple that I remember are the throwing the food out of the plane one, Elder Bednar's rope one, and President Oaks' family one. I don't actually remember what President Nelson's last one was about but Elder Rasband's daughter's question about whether or not to have kids was a good one.

My new area is very good. The members are way more supportive than Morioka and we have some good places to get groceries. We have a 業務スーパー, we have a fruit and vegetable stand, and we have a Don Quijote. There is also a pretty good restaurant right by the apartment that happens to also be pretty cheap. My companion is Elder Davis. He's from Arizona and has been out about 9 months I think. We have a few people that we're trying to work with but none with overwhelming desire to get baptized and join the church. We're working on changing their minds. :) The weather is okay. The last few nights have been pretty chilly. This side of the island is okay. A little bit less likely to get covered by water than the other side I think.

I love you the most!
BeN



Week 93

Hello,

い'ヴぇてょうghたぼうtどいんgてぃsふぉらうぃぇのwぶtねヴぇrはヴぇ.いじゅstぇftmyけyぼあrどんじゃぱねせもであんdtyぺdとmyへあrt'sこんてんt.うぁtどようてぃんk?

If anyone can read what I just wrote it would be Amy. I just left my keyboard on Japanese mode and typed in English. It was pretty fun.

(Amy's response: Okay, so that thing that Ben wrote in English using the Japanese keyboard says, "I've thought about doing this for a while but never have. I just left my keyboard on Japanese mode and typed to my heart's content. What do you think?")

Brother Kurosawa got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! His life situation is pretty poor but he has committed to improving it and believes that being baptized and following the commandments will help him do that. He's right as long as he actually tries hard to fix it. 

I'm transferring to Akita. That's where I picked up my current companion from last transfer. He really loved that area and the members are apparently way more supportive than they are here. I'm pretty excited for that. I plan to see lots more miracles in Akita! I need to pack because I did personal study this morning, then I went to lunch with Brother Shibata because it was our last chance. And then I had to talk to Brother Kurosawa on the phone for a little bit. So I haven't started yet. Hopefully everything fits in my suitcases...

Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell



 After the baptism.

Two of the district members couldn't make it to our last District 
Meeting so they were amateurly photo shopped in. :)

Friday, October 5, 2018

Week 92

This week we had a big mission sports conference. It was pretty fun except that I was last for pictures so I didn't get as much sports time as I would have liked. The night before the conference I got peer-pressured into getting a "king" size at Sukiya which is a popular chain restaurant in Japan. It wasn't very good and I ended up being the only one of the six there to finish it. They all went for take-out boxes.

I got a couple of pictures this week. One is the Sukiya. The other is with an Elder that I served in Iwaki with. He wasn't my companion but he's way funny. His name is Elder Nishino and he's from Sapporo.

We're planning on having a baptism this Saturday for Brother Kurosawa. Please pray for him to be ready by then. We still have a couple of things to work out with him before then.

Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell



Week 91

This week we went to Yakiniku King. It was really fun. One of the Elders decided at the end that we needed to eat lots of chocolate cake and started ordering them by sixes. He ended up eating 12 pieces of cake. I think I only had five. I haven't ever been too interested in chocolate cake. I prefer other kinds of cake. And ice cream. And fruit pies.

I also saw a Lamborghini this week. It was white. My best guess is that it was a Veneno. I've been separated from the internet for a while so I couldn't say for sure.

We've met with our friend Brother Kurosawa almost every day for the past week. He has already cut his smoking in half! We're doing our best to help him prepare for baptism and active membership in the church. His date is currently for the 6th of October.

I've decided that I like asking people if they know why Jesus is so famous. Basically everyone knows that he resurrected after three days, so if they ultimately reject me, they have to by implication, ignore the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. Unless they happen to be Christian already. Then it turns into a discussion about Joseph Smith and the restoration. A lot of people think that anyone who sees God is crazy. And it's probably true that most people who claim to see God are crazy, but to rule out the possibility of God being seen would have to rule out either God's existence or his ability to make miracles. I believe in both God's existence and his ability to perform miracles. And I'm grateful for this time that I have to share my testimony as a missionary.

Have a great week!
Elder Mitchell


Week 90

Hello everyone,

This week I had 35 plates of sushi in one sitting. It was pretty fun. The picture is a little bit before we actually finished, and the Elder I'm sitting next to is not actually my companion, because he sat at another table and didn't do the all-you-can-eat.

The work here in Morioka has been speeding up a lot lately! We unfortunately had to drop a baptismal date because Sasaki Kyodai's daughter doesn't like the idea of him joining a church. He is 87 years old, but we really wanted to baptize him. :( We have a couple new people that seem really promising though. One of our new people showed up to church on Sunday with a church address card and restoration pamphlet. He remembered meeting us but we didn't remember meeting him at all. We don't think that our failure to remember him showed... (Missionaries are not perfect :)) We had a great lesson with him and our recent convert, Brother Shibata, during the second hour of church and then another good one last night. We don't have a baptismal date with him yet but based on our conversation with him he believes that following the commandments and getting baptized will help him with some struggles that he currently has in his life. And it will! He's planning on coming to English class too. I think that part of the reason for our increased success is that we're praying not just to find prepared people, but for prepared people to find us. Our mission president asked us to do that at a recent zone conference.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Mitchell



 Sushi
My companion and I with Brother Shibata

Week 89

Sorry I'm not going to write a weekly today. I had a grand plan last week to plan out a series of emails to convert all who read them. I didn't make that plan. I don't know when I would. Maybe during a personal study one morning or a night when the APs are gone. It's kind of hard to do productive stuff with four Elders all in the same apartment. I don't know if you all can imagine that at all but it's a thing. :) I think I might call that email series "The End is Near" or something like that. That sounds plenty dramatic to me. I bet it will grab the attention of all of the readers. :)

I bought some shoes today. They're Nike. Unfortunately there weren't too many other options. I got the second cheapest ones there. I might take a picture in just a second.

I've been thinking about perspective a little bit lately. This isn't just a this-week thing, I'm not quite sure how long it's been since I first had this thought but I thought I might share it. I guess we'll see if I can write it down and if it makes sense at all. Here we go: I read a comment on the internet one time. It was for a scientific article. The comment was something to the effect of "Here is science making progress while religion makes excuses". I didn't really like it for a few different reasons. One is because science people are way stuck-up and self-satisfied in how "conclusive" their results are. They're probably all BMW X5 drivers. I've decided I don't like those people. Anyway, the fact that they can keep making discoveries like they do means that there are still plenty of things to be learned about nature, space, and the world; which all happen to be God's creations. But somehow they think that each discovery they make is convincing evidence that God is not there. Hmm. That's like me opening the fridge and "discovering" milk, orange juice, pears, spinach, and however many other things I was interested in. And each time saying that the existence of those things means that there is no expired kimchi in the fridge. There are actually two expired containers of kimchi in our fridge right now. I've wanted to throw them away but haven't ever because they're on the other Elder's shelf. These kind of people ask things like "where does God live?" and take the fact that I don't have a post address as a reason to smile smugly and continue on with their silly version of "real life". Surface checkers.

Anyway, there are a couple of mistakes these kind of people make. The first one I would like to call the "refrigerator fallacy". I made it up just now. Just kidding there's probably a better name for it, but the fact that one thing exists does not cancel out the possibility of something else existing. They would have to know the existence of literally every single particle in the universe to use that logic and they're not too close to doing that yet. The other is to say that the evidence that God exists is too small to believe. This is what I planned on typing about when I said I was thinking about perspective. I got a little distracted. :) Anyway, I thought a little bit about how little evidence of God's existence we could have and still believe in him. Does God have a little evidence control that he sets for each of the worlds? Is the amount of evidence we have a lot? Is our setting only at 5%? Is it at .000001%? We have records of God and Jesus Christ coming to the Earth. The Bible is one of the most read books in the world. Is it too old? If it were 5000 years older would it be too old? If it were 100000000000000000000000 years older would that be too much? Would those accounts become untrustworthy? We don't have any idea how hard it is too believe in God because we don't know anything about any other existences. We forgot everything when we came to Earth. I don't know if we have "all" of the evidence that God exists, but all the things we do have are evidence of God. We have the testimonies of Book of Mormon prophets as well as Bible prophets. We have current living prophets today and modern-revelation guiding our church. We have commandments and covenants which when faithfully kept help us out immensely (that's becoming obvious even to those not of our faith). We have bodies made in the image of God received through the divine appointment of families. BYU has a surplus of beautiful women that make me want to have a family of my own. We have super-fancy technology that's getting better all the time. We have Subaru Impreza's and Mazda Roadster's (which I happen to appreciate. I might get one someday). We even have Pacific Raceways less than ten minutes from our house. What more could we ask for?? I'm not sure. But some people disregard all of that saying that it's somehow "not enough". I don't think they know what would be "enough". I didn't even mention the fact that we can study this stuff for ourselves and recieve a personal witness from the Holy Ghost that it's true. That was actually on purpose. I think that kind of destroys any chance the scales had of balancing.

Those are my thoughts on perspective. We don't know anything else so it's hard to say things like "too much" or "too little". Or even "too hard". Making judgements like that exalts ourselves to a level higher than He who sent us here. No level of experience we can have on this earth is more experience than God has.

I hope you all weren't bored by my thoughts on perspective. I thought it was a pretty cool idea even if I didn't write it out very well. Maybe you could all study and ponder about that this week and tell me how it goes next week. :)

I love you the most!!
BEN


 Some happiness I found at a fruit stand while we were knocking on doors. 
They were only 100 yen (93ish cents)
My new shoes

Week 88

Brothers and Sisters,

This is start of an email I just got:

Dear Elder Mitchell,

Can you believe it?  We are already preparing for your release on January 4  2019.  Would you please answer the questions below and send them back as soon as possible.

 Thank you so much!

I wasn't expecting this quite so soon. But something cool is that I will have been a missionary for parts of four different calendar years. I entered the MTC on December 28, 2016. That means I was a missionary for all of 2017 and will be for all of 2018 too. Maybe my missionary plaque will say 2016-2019. That would be pretty cool. :)

It being week 88 right now means that the number of opportunities I have to email y'all are becoming fewer and fewer with each week that passes. I don't have a good plan right now, but I hope to have my last several emails be even better than they've been up to this point. That may or may not be very difficult...

Recently our mission president has been telling us to keep talking to people all the way up until our curfew which is 9 pm if we don't have a lesson (rather than studying at the end of the day to spare people coming to their doors late at night) and this week we found the reason for it. Lots of people politely tell us that it's late and we should think about heading home (which wasn't a huge surprise) but this week was a little different. We were knocking on our last door at about 8:40 last Sunday before the 15 minute bike ride home and talked to a really nice guy that has studied Christianity a little bit but doesn't currently practice a religion of his own. He told us that he's not usually home, but if we came back at about the same time the chances would be higher! I don't know if anyone else in the mission has ended up finding anyone like that, but our talk with him turned into a 20 minute lesson about the Book of Mormon and he gladly accepted a copy! It was evidence to me that mission leaders are led by God and receive revelation to help prepared people hear the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Have a great week!

Elder Mitchell

Friday, August 31, 2018

Week 87

A scripture that I really liked this week was from Helaman 3. It goes like this:
"29 Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked—
30 And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out."

I like the idea that anyone can choose to follow the example of our Savior and receive the associated blessings that go along with that; no matter what our current life circumstances are. I'm trying my best to be a "man of Christ" like it says in this scripture and I have faith that I can return to live with God again. I invite you all to lay hold upon the word of God this week and let it make you men and women of Christ. Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

excerpts from an email to the family:

This week I got to interview two people for baptism (that being one of the responsibilities of the district leader - to interview baptismal candidates of those taught by people in his district). One was a 14 year old girl whose grandma is a member. The other was a 30ish year old man whose wife is a member. They both passed. The girl was baptized in the ocean in Miyako. The brother is supposed to get baptized tonight in the Morioka church. He was taught by the APs.

This week I went to Akita to get my new companion. His name is Elder Dickerson and he's from Heber Utah. He's the third of five children. He has two old sisters, one younger brother and the youngest is his little sister. He ran cross country in high school. His Japanese is pretty good. He's taller than I am. I'm kind of short. Umm.

I also went to Miyako for their baptismal interview and splits. It was kind of fun. We didn't have too much time in Morioka this week. And I'm supposed to go to Sendai this week too so that will mean some kind of short time in Morioka this week too.

I love you the most,
BEn

 Me and Elder Dickerson


Week 86

I'm in Akita because the other three Elders drove to Sendai. I'm hanging out with them for today and then bringing my new companion back to Morioka. We're at a Mexican restaurant right now. It's kind of an interesting place. I hope they bring me lots of food because I am very very hungry right now. I had to wake up a little hit before four this morning to catch the train here. So I had breakfast at about four thirty. And that was a long long time ago.

We got transfer calls last week. I'm staying in Morioka. My apartment has two Elders leaving. And then one more is leaving halfway through next transfer to get back in time for school. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen then but I'll be the only one left from last transfer in the apartment in a few weeks assuming that Elder Davies' leaving early doesn't affect me.

Elders Davies and Haskins have been very interested in arm wrestling lately. I beat them both.

My enchiladas are taking a long time.

The fourteen Elders in the apartment a while ago wasn't too bad. We had floor space for all of them. 16 would have been quite a bit harder.

I just got tacos!

I love you all the most,
Ben

Week 85


Sorry I don't really have any time to write at all. I did take some pictures from a hike we did this week though. We got an extra p-day yesterday so we decided to go hike Mount Iwate. It was pretty fun. The extra p-day was for getting close to our mission baptismal goal last transfer. We had the highest baptismal numbers for a single month that our mission has had in quite a long time (10).

The typhoon didn't really show up. I don't think we even had a light breeze.

This week at zone conference we talked about introducing the Book of Mormon. When we introduce the Book of Mormon we're supposed to make it sound really myterious. We make sure to mention things like the fact that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ and that he was shown the place of an ancient record by an angel. He then translated that record by the power of God, which gives us the opportunity to learn first-hand what happens when people follow Jesus Christ.

I love you all!
Elder Mitchell

The view from Mount Iwate.