I apologize for the lack of updates lately. I don't really have any specific excuses besides the general business of a missionary and the amount of frisbee that has needed playing.
I am now in Morioka. I don't think that ever made it into any weekly updates. I had to leave Iwaki which was actually pretty sad since it had been my favorite area by quite a lot. Fortunately Morioka is pretty good too and it might end up being another one of my favorite areas if I'm not careful. We have a really good branch president who is really good about working with the missionaries and a really nice church building right next to a beautiful pond known as Takamatsu no Ike. We also have a curry place with all-you-can-eat naan within a three minute walk from our apartment. My companion was also a really fast runner in high school so he drags me out of the apartment to run with him sometimes. I'm a pretty happy missionary. :)
We've also seen some crazy miracles since I've been here so far. Last week six of our friends were able to come to church! We went out to eat with a group of five friends who all happen to work at or with Aeon which is a huge chain of malls in Japan and invited them all to come to church with us. We told them a little bit about what happens there, and how attending church has helped us and our families. Going to church has always been a good excuse for me to get out of doing homework on Sundays. :) I think that they all learned at least a little bit, and a couple of them told us they'd be back next Sunday!
One scripture that I came to love recently was Alma 4:19-20. My favorite line is this one: "...seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them". There are a lot of people in Japan (and in the rest of the world) who are way confused, and the only way to reclaim them will be to follow Alma's example of "bearing down in pure testimony against them". I'm doing my best to follow Alma's example and I invite you all to do the same!!
Being a missionary is sometimes very very difficult, but I've learned so much as a missionary and my love of the gospel has grown so much!
Love,
Elder Mitchell
My comp and I took some right outside our apartment because we're not allowed to take any inside the apartment and my mom wanted more pictures of me. :)
My comp and I took some right outside our apartment because
we're not allowed to take any inside the apartment and my mom
wanted more pictures of me. :)
Our five friends that came to church this week.
The Tokyo hat was our baton in a running relay we decided to do last week.
This week was kind of crazy. I got to meet some friends of the Morioka missionaries made by my current comp and Elder Nathan who might have been the two biggest eaters in the mission last transfer. Elder Nathan has since returned to America. I think he's at BYU right now. But anyway, Elders Richardson and Nathan ran into some Aeon executives and became friends with them. Aeon is a chain of malls all across Japan. I've had an Aeon in almost every area I've been in. So we think that they're pretty well off. :) They really like taking the missionaries out to eat. And they came to church this last Sunday! The boss dude was the one that seemed to have the most interest but ended up bringing four friends with him. It was pretty crazy. We had six people at church including our one guy that comes regularly! :) It was a little bit difficult to figure out where to be and what to be doing because there were so many. The Sisters also brought another dude who got passed to us. So there were seven total. I think we all survived though.
We also had zone conference. President told us we need to have more baptisms. So we're going to work on that I guess.
I got a picture of a scooter that I would like to zoom around Provo on for Tanni. I told him last week I would get one and I did. I think it's pretty cool. :)
My companion went on a run earlier this week too. It was a little bit more of a crazy run than other ones that I've done recently. We went pretty dang fast. And we ran for 35 minutes. We probably went like 10 or 12 miles. Probably. :)
Something that I've come to appreciate about being in Japan: Elders on bikes are more often than not faster than cars on city roads. It's pretty cool.
We also made friends with a Buddhist missionary that we're planning to go out to eat with on Friday. He said "you're coming as two people?" And we said "yeah" and he was like "okay I'm going to bring a friend too". We think we might have intimidated him a little bit.
I love you all the most,
Ben
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