Feliz Pascua de Resurrección!

Service Day in Jamestown--

Picture is from Danica (Gibson) Flake

Buenos!

Well, we had a good week, but man it went by fast! The work is going well here, well, kind of. Between our member presents, less actives, and other lessons, we ended up teaching a total of 18 lessons, which was kind of crazy. It's just so weird though because I'm teaching more lessons per week than I ever have on my mission, but we just seem to have no luck getting back in with people. So we teach a lot of first lessons, but nobody has really progressed further than that. We were hoping to have one guy at church, but he didn't come, which was a bummer. Also, J has dropped off the map. He isn't responding to any of our calls or texts, so we don't know what's up with him. So, that's kind of where the work is at right now.

On Tuesday, we had exchanges. I went to Jamestown with our district leader, Elder W. Elder W is this total country hick, so he gets along great with the people in Jamestown, haha. It's mostly farmland out there. We did service for pretty much the whole day. During the morning we worked at a local food bank which was fun. Then, this member Bro. M drove us around to different service things for the rest of the day. We helped an 80 year old lady fix her gutters. Elder W was just climbing all over the roof. He did most of the work, I was just watching him go. Then we visited this family, the Flake's. Turns out, Sister Flake is from Canby!! Back then, her name was Danica Gibson, and she was totally friends with Alyssa back in high school! She started naming off all these families we both knew, Langford's, Porter's, Loveland's, Doman's, Price's, Perez's. It was so cool. So, we messaged Alyssa on Facebook that day, I don't know if she told you. We helped rotor-till a spot for the Flake's to put in a garden. After a day of service, we wrapped up with dinner at the Miller's. Sis. Miller made these awesome Sloppy Joes. It was a fun day.

With Elder W in Jamestown

On Thursday, we went up and spent the whole day in Tompkinsville, KY. Yeah, it's technically in our area, so we've been saving up some miles to go out there (By the end of the day we had actually gone just over 160 miles...). Despite the dumping rain, we still had a pretty successful day. We were able to contact a few of the Hermana's old investigators, and find a couple new ones. We also contacted a referral from the Tompkinsville English Elders. We talked to this teenager, L. He invited us in and we had a bomb restoration lesson with him, the spirit was super strong. It was sweet. On the way back, we decided to go to a town called Flippin. Yeah, I saw it on the map and I couldn't resist. So we drove out to Flippin, KY, kind of got lost on the way, but we got pics with the sign for the Flippin Church of Christ haha. On the way back from Flippin, we kind of got lost again, so we ended up going in a giant loop back to Tompkinsville haha. But, eventually we made it back to Cookeville after a long day.

On Saturday, we went on a legit split! Bro T and Bishop H both wanted to come with us, so I spent the afternoon with Bro. T and Elder C went with Bishop. We went a saw a bunch of less actives out in Gainesboro and Baxter, and two of them actually came to church the next day! These people live out in the sticks in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty good though. Then on Easter Sunday we got to have church for 8 hours then we had dinner with a member. Then we went tracting to go share the Easter video one more time, and we actually had quite a bit of success.

My post-Easter Ponderizer is Mark 16:2-4, "And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great." During one of the Sacrament meetings yesterday, a Brother talked about how Mary and the other women went to embalm Christ, and that when they left, they didn't even think about the giant stone in their way. But when they realized that the stone was there and that they wouldn't be able to move it, they didn't stop and turn around and go back, they pressed forward. This is like our challenges in life. If we press forward and act in faith, the Lord will provide a way for us to overcome the boulders in our way. Hope y’all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

He found this funny sign in Jamestown

Jamestown

Another sign in Flippin

They also found a place called Nameless :)

Another sleeping pic

Elder Bednar's Visit

Happy Easter!

Buenos!!

We had quite the week here! First off the weather has been nuts. The first part of the week it was up to 80 degrees, and by the time we got to Sunday (the first day of spring) it snowed. Hopefully it will warm up again a little bit this week. The work is going pretty well here, we just haven't seen a whole lot of success yet, but we are working hard. We weren't able to meet with J this week, and he won't return any of our texts/calls. Other than that, we don't really have anyone else progressing right now, but we continue to find new and potential investigators every day. We found some interesting people this week. We've had two people tell us this week that America didn't exist during the times of the Bible, so obviously the Book of Mormon couldn't be true. Hmmmm...Sure...This week we met a lady named S who was reluctant at first to watch a two minute video about Easter, but twenty minutes later we left her with a Book of Mormon and committed her to read it. That's one of the things I love about Elder C, is that he has a burning testimony of the Book of Mormon. Even when people tell us that they're not really interested, he just starts telling them about the Book of Mormon anyway haha.

The members here are excited about doing missionary work, and we have two awesome ward mission leaders, Bro. B and Bro. J. We are having a lot more members come out with us, which has been good. On Tuesday, we went with the Cookeville bishop to visit a less-active family. The parents work on Sunday, but we are trying to arrange rides so that their daughters could come. On Saturday we went with Bro. T (one of Cookeville ward's bishopric members) out to Gainesboro way out in the country. We went and saw some less actives out there and one of them actually came to church this Sunday!

Let's see...On St. Patrick's day we didn't do much. We did bust out our green ties though. We had to get an oil change done on the car, so that took up a good chunk of the day. We got ourselves some mint milkshakes though, so that was fun.

The highlight of the week was definitely Saturday, because David A. Bednar came to our mission!!! We had to get up pretty early to be in Nashville at 7:00, but it was sooo worth it! It was such a privilege to be instructed by an Apostle of the Lord. We also had Elder Craig C. Christensen from the 70, and the area 70 Elder Meredith, but Elder Bednar pretty much ran most of the show. It was awesome, because he didn't really give a talk, but he just engaged us in a great discussion. Some things that I learned: Elder Bednar talked a lot about Agency. As Sons and Daughters of God, we are agents to act and not to be acted upon. He talked a lot about how sometimes we just wait to receive answers or help without doing anything. We need to just go and act, and the confirmations will come later. Also, when we make covenants, we are giving up our agency and we replace it with representative agency. People say, "Well, I'm free to choose," but we aren't. We are expected to do everything that would represent Christ. In addition to the idea of not being acted upon, Elder Bednar talked about how faith is a principle of action and power. A lot of times we pray for the power to act, but these prayers will never be answered. We need to act, and then we will receive the power. Overall, it was a great meeting, and the spirit was incredible. Afterwards, we all got to go up and shake hands with him, which was awesome. Elder Bednar truly is an Apostle, man it was awesome. Just awesome. Also, after the meeting I got to talk to a lot of old mission buddies, so that was fun.

Elder David A Bednar

Ok, whew, here we go, ponderizer. I figured I should do one for Easter, so Alma 22:14, "And since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins, through faith and repentance, and so forth; and that he breaketh the bands of death, that the grave shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory; and Aaron did expound all these things unto the king." Christ died, and was resurrected. And, because of that, we will all live again. It's as simple as that. Hope y’all have a great Easter!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

Free cone day at Dairy Queen

Having fun with someone's Easter decoration

He caught his companion sleeping!

Helping Buy a Home

Practicing his dunking!

Buenos!

Well, it was interesting week. Not too many exciting things. The work here is still going well, and we are still teaching plenty of lessons. The only problem is all of them have been on-the-doorstep tracting lessons. We are having a real issue with being able to set appointments with people, and all the appointments that we set fall through. So we are finding plenty of new and potential investigators, but we are really struggling to get back in with people. As for our most progressing investigator, J, we weren't able to meet with him this week, and he didn't come to church, so we are really hoping to hear back from him this week.

Probably the most exciting thing from this week came on Tuesday morning. We got a text from one of the Hermana's old investigators, R. She told us that she and her husband were trying to buy a new house, and they needed us to translate for them at the bank. Needless to say, neither Elder C nor I had done this kind of thing before, so I was frantically looking up bank vocab in Spanish. We met them at the bank, and we figured out who they needed to make their check out to. Then we drove down to this Mobile Home Liquidators place to work out their new housing contract. We got all the terms and conditions of the contract set up, got the contract signed, and we totally helped these guys buy a new house! Whoo! Then, we went back to the bank to get the check and stuff. It was pretty cool. R tried to pay us, but we didn't accept. We asked if we could set an appointment though, and she accepted. We are pretty excited for that this week.

Helping translate

On Thursday we took a trip to Monterey and worked there the whole day. It's a little town that's part of our area, it's about 15 miles or so east of Cookeville, so we don't go there too often, but there's a good number of Hispanics there. We went through and tried to contact a lot of old people (we actually ended up dropping a lot of people). But, we also found a lot of new investigators, and a couple of them seemed really interested. We also tried a couple of less actives, but nobody answered. It was still a fun day though.

On Saturday nights we hold an English class at the church. We only have one student right now, a man named C who is desperately trying to learn English. But we are hoping to get some more students soon. C is pretty good about coming, so mostly we just go over any questions he has. We taught him how to call the school office to tell them he's going to pick up his son, and stuff like that. We had another good Sunday, it was just long. The Burgess Falls ward decided to do their correlation before church at 8:00, so we were at the church from 8-4:30. It's a blast...haha, yeah, it's long but good.

English Class

My ponderizing scripture this week is Alma 18:35, "And a portion of that Spirit dwelleth in me, which giveth me knowledge, and also power according to my faith and desires which are in God." The spirit is so critical in missionary work. When we have the spirit with us, we will increase in knowledge and power. The spirit can illuminate our minds and increase our faith. And when the investigators experience the spirit, their faith will begin to grow as well. Yup. Hope y’all have a good week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

More dunking on p-day

Visit to Monterey

Watch your grammar!

Playing a Small Part

His companion doesn't like the camera :)

Buenos!

This week has been pretty good, but it was a little slow at first. We are working hard in this area, and we actually ended up teaching double-digit lessons again! Yeah, we are seeing a lot of success in our tracting efforts right now. Most of our lessons this week were doorstep lessons during tracting, so we are finding plenty of new investigators. The only problem is getting back in with people. We are having a hard time with people being home for their return appointments, and getting that second lesson in with people. This week we also had some fun experiences by accidentally tracting into members, haha. One of them, Sister D, is this sixty-year-old black lady who has only been a member of the church for a couple years. She was super funny though. She gave us Graham crackers and Koolaid, and we sang some baptist songs about Jesus, haha. Super nice lady. Also this week, we were able to meet with one of the most progressing investigators that the Hermanas were teaching. His name is J, and he's a total stud. He knows the Book of Mormon is true and stuff, so we're not sure what's holding him back from baptism at this point. We are going to try to set a baptismal date with him this week though.

Other interesting thing with Cookeville: There's a ton of Hispanics here that don't actually speak Spanish. We've been running into a lot of people that speak this Mexican-Indian dialect called Misteco. These people are about as Lamanite as it gets. Last week we taught this lady the whole Restoration lesson before we realized she couldn't understand us. We asked her to be baptized and all she said was, "Sí, Jesus Cristo." Yup, it's fun.

On Thursday we had a Zone meeting in McMinnville. It was pretty fun, but the heater in the church was broken, so it was freezing cold! We had trainings by the ZL's and STL's. Good stuff. Church on Sunday was good. They call it fast Sunday, but it was anything but fast. We were at the church from 8:30 to 4:30, so it was just tons of fun. It was really funny though, in one of the Sacrament meetings, this little kid got up (couldn't have been older than 10) and said, "I like to bear my testimony...my family loves me...Joseph Smith was a prophet..." etc. Then, he says, "And if your heart and your mind are in accordance, it's probably the Holy Ghost. Amen." I thought it was super funny.

I have some exciting news about March 19th: one, D is getting baptized! She was a lady that Elder W and I met on the bus back in Clarksville. She had met with missionaries before, so we were able to refer her to the English elders. And now she's getting baptized! I'm glad that I got to play a small part in that, and I'm super excited for her. The other exciting thing about the 19th? We found out today that David A. Bednar is going to visit our mission!!! What?! Yeah, it's going to be sweet. Also, Craig C. Christensen of the 70 will be coming too. It should be awesome.

Ok, my ponderizer this week is Ether 12:41, "And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever. Amen." I love the phrase, "seek this Jesus." We need to continually search for ways that we can come closer to the savior, and as we do so, his grace will attend us. Hope y’all have a good one this week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

Again, he doesn't like his picture being taken

Pictures from around Cookeville

Happy Leap Day From Cookeville!

Outside his new apartment in Cookeville

Buenos!

Well, this has been quite the week! I apologize, because this email will probably be really long. New area, new comp, white washing, it's been great. But before all that, let me tell you about my last day in Clarksville. So, a few days earlier we had tracted into this guy named R. He'd investigated the church before, done lots of research, but just had a couple of disagreements with some of our doctrine. But, he loves having missionaries over, so he invited us over for dinner. Fast forward to Monday, we're having dinner with R, and I notice a bunch of instrument cases lying around, so I asked if he did music and stuff. Turns out, this dude was a pro trumpet player. It was sick! R used to live in New York, and he played with every big name trumpet player out there. He kept naming em off, Alan Vizutti, even Maynard Ferguson! He had us listen to a CD of him playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra accompanying him. (Side note, he was also nominated for a Grammy, no biggie). It was sooooo cool. The music nerd inside me squealed a little. Here is this former pro, just living out in some crummy trailer park in the middle of Tennessee. Man. You meet the most interesting people here in the South.

Tuesday was transfers. I said goodbye to Clarksville, and met up with my new comp in Nashville. Elder C is pretty great. He's from Vernal, Utah, came right out of High School, he's been out one transfer more than me (so he's at 8 and a half months now). He loves basketball, big surprise; he's like 6'5. It definitely is weird being the shorter companion. Going to be something I have to get used to. So far, it's been pretty great. We get along pretty well. Elder C is a diligent worker with a desire to be obedient, and overall is just a real solid missionary. Unfortunately, he hasn't had much opportunity to practice his Spanish. He was trained in Paducah, and then was in a zebra (one Spanish, one English) companionship in Winchester, and there just wasn't much Spanish work in either of those areas. He's a pretty easy going guy though, pretty funny. I like him so far.

So, we got to our new apartment, which is pretty nice, a little creaky though. The Hermanas left a lot of stuff behind, including makeup, nail polish, an old bra, so...fun stuff. But, they did leave some food behind too, which was nice. The Hermanas left us some notes, but not a whole lot, so we just got right to work. Elder C and I have been working real hard this week, trying to contact a bunch of people in the area book, calling everyone we can to set up appointments, and lots of tracting as well. We actually saw quite a bit of success this week. We ended up teaching double-digit lessons this week, which I've only ever done once before. We found a lot of new investigators this week, and two of them seem really promising. We'll see what happens with them. But, the work seems like it's ready to flourish here in Cookeville. Hopefully we'll be able to get members involved soon as well. There's a little university here, Tennessee Tech, so there's a lot of apartment complexes in town. We've actually been able to find lots of Hispanics near campus, so we do lots of tracting in apartments. It's fun stuff.

Sunday was good but looooooooong. We were at the church from about 8:30 to 5:30. Since there's no Spanish branch here, we attend the two English wards, Burgess Falls and Cookeville. Also, the Burgess Falls ward does their order backwards for some silly reason. So we had the BF priesthood and then Sunday school. Then, we leave the middle of the BF sacrament meeting to attend Cookville's Ward Council at 11:30, then we have the BF Ward Council at 12:30, and then Cookeville's Sacrament meeting starts at 1:00. It's a little crazy. We didn't have any Spanish members show up this week, but if any do, then we get to translate (whoo...). Then this week after church, Cookeville had a Ward potluck, which was pretty fun. Real good food too, which was great because Elder Cushing and I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. The ward had a good time though. Quick story, so in the BF ward, the Bishopric member that was conducting said, "Brothers and Sisters, Easter is coming up soon. We celebrate Christ's resurrection. Christ Won the Day." That made me think of the Oregon Ducks #wintheday and I thought it was funny.

Cookeville Ward Potluck

Whew. So my ponderizing scripture this week is Alma 37:33, "Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart; teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil, with their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ." Pretty simple missionary application. We teach people to repent, to be humble, to come unto Christ. We have to teach our investigators about opposition, and help them to build their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yup. Hope y’all have a good one this week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

A pic for their ward bulletin

Pictures of Tennessee Tech