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.