Week 56

Good morning,

I got what I would call a pretty solid affirmation of the fact that I will be spending more than just another week here in Iwaki (That's when transfer calls are scheduled to happen). I believe that President's exact words were 'You have transferred too much'. I had a small desire to remind him 'You are in charge of transfer calls and I've transferred every six weeks since you became the mission president'. But I didn't do that. :) This was all during interviews yesterday. I guess only time will tell how that all unfolds.

Elder Warner is still kind of sick and neither of us are sure why. We're also both pretty sure that he'll transfer based on the way that we read our interviews yesterday. He's already been here for three transfers and there are a couple of reasons for him to transfer. One being the fact that a transfer is necessary for him to become a zone leader.

We got snow yesterday. Quite a lot actually. This morning we had a pretty cool area of ice and slush on the road and I took the unique opportunity to skid with both of my bike tires simultaneously. I enjoyed it. :) I don't think I broke any rules (besides having too much fun). All the white handbook says is something like 'In extreme weather you may have to adjust your travel plans'.

I also forgot to send a picture of our board from English class last week. Elder Warner and I actually didn't realize that our names were included until the Sister in charge of the activity turned the board around for everyone to see. I think it's pretty funny to read, especially when I consider the fact that our student demographic is largely made up of older women. The only exceptions that week were a middle-aged man, probably about as old as my father, and another man a bit younger than my grandparents. I'm glad that they all seem to have one nice thing to say about me. :)

Have a great week and talk with someone about the restored gospel!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

P.S. The first picture was our reaction to snowfall in the "Hawaii" of our mission. I'm sure you can tell that we were very concerned. :)

I took some pictures with me and my 6'3" 225 lbs comp 

wearing my coat. It's a little big for him too, although 

quite a lot better on him than on me. I think that to fit 

in it properly I'd have to gain closer to 30 kilos than 30 pounds. :) 

 Mom: How did you end up with such a big coat?

 Ben: I'm not quite sure. I think they just said "You're 

medium sized", and like I did to everything else 

they (and you) said that day I replied "Yep" and then we 

took it off the rack and brought it home. It says that 

it's a medium. But it's waaaay big. 

Week 55

Good morning,

I have unfortunately lost track of which week it is. If I had to guess I would say that it's 54.

This week was not the most eventful week of my mission. My companion was sick for most of the week, so our full-time missionary work sort of dwindled into just part-time. But that did mean that I had some extra opportunities to study. It was kind of nice to have a few lower-key days and relax a little bit. Elder Warner seems to be doing fine now so we should be good for this week.

We have a zone blitz this Sunday. That just means that our mission recently opened a new area and the missionaries there don't have anyone to work with right now. So the whole zone is going to spend a day there, talk to every single person we see, and hopefully multiply the area's teaching pool by about 1,000,000. It should be fun. :)

We also have another transfer call in two weeks. I like to think that I should be able to safely stay in this area for another couple transfers, but President Sekiguchi seems to really like asking me to pack my bags and bounce around the mission.

This week we received some counsel from President Sekiguchi on how we can do better at getting people to listen to us (this was directed to the whole mission, not just Elder Warner and I :)). Anyway, we're really excited to try out President's new finding tactics and teach more people about the gospel!

I was also challenged by another missionary to try posing next to signs with faces on them. So I tried this week next to a nice political poster. I realized that I'm not very good at it. First and foremost, my cheeks are simply not chubby enough. My head is also way too round. These and other factors (including skill and experience) made it very very difficult to mirror his facial expression. There were some points that matched fairly well. Like the fact that we were both clean shaven. And that we were both wearing a white shirt. The attached picture is somewhere around attempt number seven. I guess I'll have to work on posing for pictures. :P

Love,
Elder Mitchell

P.S. Just after I wrote the first part of this email, we were taken by a couple of branch members to a sushi restaurant. I think that I ate a decent amount of sushi. For sure not the most sushi ever eaten at one time, but I was kind of proud of myself. :)

Excerpts from the letter to the family:

Hello Family,

Today is district Pday. That means that we get to go somewhere and see something with the Sisters that also live here in Iwaki. But it has to not be a double date so we were obligated to enlist the help of a branch member to be our mom and supervise. And drive us because we don't have cars. I think the plan is to go to some aquarium somewhere. It's stinking expensive though. I don't know what they were thinking when they came up with that idea. I just had a bit of a scary moment. I was thinking 'Oh it's transfer week next week' and then I was thinking 'Oh shoot I don't actually have that many more transfer weeks to tell my family about since I'm more than halfway done with my mission'. Shoot. It's actually in two weeks. But still.

Elder Warner just made it sound like we'll actually have two mothers from the branch coming with us. Wow. So many moms. Actually, speaking of moms, the branch president's wife brought us dinner two nights in a row because Elder Warner was sick. We were just about to start making something and she just showed up at our apartment and handed us food. I love moms. :)

I probably will not have very much, if any, time after our date to the aquarium to write emails to all y'all so I am sorry. I will see what I can do.

I did have a couple of dreams this week. I normally don't have very many dreams. One of them was about a McDonalds factory and the other had a Lamborghini that picked up the signal from my friend's Ford key and unlocked itself. Unfortunately there were people in it so I couldn't hop in.

This week will be pretty eventful. We have English class tonight, interviews with President on Wednesday, FHE on Thursday (not sure why. That's just the way they have it set up here), and a zone blitz of a new area on Sunday. That just means that everyone in the zone travels to the aforementioned new area and talks to everyone and finds all of the investigators. It could be fun. We have to leave church early for it.

I'm trying to decide if I should start packing my bags one of these next couple days. I'm thinking that maybe if I started packing early then I might stay in an area. Maybe.

I'm going to turn 20 in just less than three months. Wow.

I love you the most,
BeN

 Elder Warner and the two ward "Mothers" 

who accompanied us on our outing.

 The Elders and Sisters currently serving in Iwaki.

Week 54

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We got to go to a neighboring area twice this week: once for zone conference and once to teach English because that area doesn't have young missionaries right now; they just have a senior couple. And they were the only ones that showed up for the English class. :) They're pretty good at English and really funny so it wasn't too difficult to teach them.

I've recently made an extra effort to write in my journal everyday and I'm still at 100% for 2018. Hopefully I can keep that up for a while.

We talked to this super cool dude yesterday that seemed to have some interest but is actually from Kyoto which I think is in the Kobe mission. He was actually walking to the train station on his way back when we talked to him. So we gave him a mormon.org card and asked him to look us up. I hope he does. He was a bro.

I ran a little bit yesterday. Elder Warner rode a bike with me. For some reason he doesn't like running. :)

We had a party yesterday. It was an open-house for a sister in the branch who just finished building a house for her and her son. There was a lot of food and branch members there. We had helped a little bit with stuff in her sheds a week or two ago so she was like 'Hey come eat my food and talk to my non-member friends if they come'. So we came and ate lots of food and took home some left-overs. I love it when stuff like that happens. :)

Lots of love,
Elder Mitchell

Week 53

Good Evening,

We got two pdays this week so that was pretty cool. Yesterday Elder Warner and I played ping-pong at the church for about four hours. It was really fun. Today is just a regular pday but for some reason there are still a lot of stores that are closed. So I wasn't able to get a haircut this morning. Sad stuff.

We stayed up until midnight on New Years Eve. Our mission president told us that we could since the rest of Japan would be partying too. We watched some videos released by the church and ate popcorn. It was pretty fun.
I think it's really weird that we're already in 2018. And that I was a missionary for all of 2017. Wow.

Elder Warner and I did something a little crazy at McDonalds last night. It's a thing among missionaries to get 10 burgers from the McDonalds 100 yen menu. So we did. It's probably not something that I'll ever do again. Those burgers aren't very good.

I put up my new calendar this morning. That probably doesn't mean a whole lot to most of you, as I would guess that I'm not the only only putting up calendars for 2018, but I would like to suggest that my calendar is a little better than all of yours. :) My mom's family recently started making a calendar with all of the birthdays, anniversaries, and any other dates relevant to the family. I attached a picture of the one from last year, as well as a picture of the new one that I got for Christmas. I also did some interpretive drawing on them to make them easier to understand. :) I love my family and I know that families are gifts from God.

Do great things in 2018,
Elder Mitchell

 Before and after I ate ten 100 yen burgers.

 My old family calendar.

My new family calendar  - there are some family members not 

represented in this picture. I, for example, was not present as I am 

currently on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. But a good 

number of people were able to show up for the wedding of 

my mom's youngest sister.