Elder Mitchell's Mission to Tennessee: TKM! TKM!!

Oh man!!!

Words cannot even describe how crazy this week was. Ever since they formed the Cookeville stake at the start of May, there have been rumors about our stake getting moved into the Knoxville mission. THE RUMORS ARE TRUE!!! On June 15th, the Cookeville Stake, and all missionaries serving in it (that means me), will become a part of the TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE MISSION!!!!! What?! Yeah, it's nuts. So crazy! We still can't believe it. The Nashville mission had 8 stakes and the Knoxville mission had 5, so it kind of made sense to move us over. The most exciting part is that now because the Knoxville mission will have 6 stakes, they can begin to be considered for a temple! Man, it's just crazy. TKM!(Tennessee Knoxville Mission). We are going to the Knoxville mission!

The rest of this week was pretty good. On Tuesday night we had two really good member-present lessons. One was with S, who was a referral from the Cookeville sisters. We had a great restoration lesson with him. He believes most everything, except he can’t believe that Joseph Smith saw two people, because he believes that God and Jesus are the same person. But, he really wants to read the Book of Mormon and find out for himself if it's true. The other lesson was with Y and J, a couple we met tracting. We were finally able to have a full lesson with them, and it went really well. Turns out Y had a couple of Lds friends growing up, and they used to invite her to activities and stuff. Pretty cool.

Then on Wednesday we found this awesome new investigator. She is a black lady named V, and we are really excited about her. She was expecting company, so she only had a few minutes. We started going through the Restoration, talking about how God has a plan for us (His Gospel), and then she stopped us and asked, "So what was that plan all about?" So we talked about the premortal life, and that blew her mind. She said she'd never heard that before, but that it made sense to her. So then we started talking about how God wants us to become like Him and return to His presence. Then she asked us, "So how does Christ fit into all that?" So we explain Christ's role as Savior, and then we talked about how we are saved by grace after all we can do, including things like repentance and baptism. So, it kind of started out Restoration, moved to Plan of Salvation, and then went to Gospel of Jesus Christ, kind of all over the map. Her company showed up, but then she asked us one more question. She asked us what we thought of divine wisdom, and we were like, "what do you mean?" Then she straight-up quoted James 1:5 to us and asked us what we thought it meant....(what?!). We explained how we can pray to God to receive answers to questions in our lives. Then, she asked us if we used a special Mormon-Bible, so we had to explain that we read both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Then she asked us is we had a Book of Mormon we could give her, and we were like, "Absolutely!!" We got an appointment set up for this Wednesday, and we are really excited about that.

So, for the last couple weeks we've been playing basketball in the morning with these older guys at the Church of Christ every Tuesday/Thursday. But, this Thursday, Elder C injured his knee :( It's happened before where something in his knee will get out of place, but usually he just has someone pull on his leg and it pops back into place. But, this time it didn't. (Oh, and by the way we were supposed to be at zone meeting in an hour and a half). So we went to this clinic, and they were idiots, they said that there was nothing wrong, and gave him a brace. So, we came home, got ready for Zone meeting, and got there 40 minutes late. We get to the church, and Sister Andersen saw Elder C limping in and told him he needed to go to the ER right away. So, we missed the rest of Zone meeting while we were at the hospital. The people at the ER took more x-rays, and told him that it was probably a knee sprain, and that his knee was super swollen. So, he can't really walk on it much, and he can't fully extend his leg out straight. So, he's been doing a lot of recovery this week, elevating his leg, icing the knee, taking ibuprofen. We are going to see an orthopedic doctor tomorrow, so hopefully that goes well. We are really hoping he won't need surgery, because it means he'd probably have to go home. Please pray for him!

The next few days were pretty low key, mostly just recovery for Elder C. But, we got a special treat on Sunday! Sunday night we had a concert in Sparta for the Nashville Tribute Band! If you don't know, Nashville Tribute Band makes a bunch of Mormon-ish songs paying tribute to different things like Joseph Smith, or the pioneers, or missionary work etc. But, we got to hear them perform their album,"Redeemer: A Nashville Tribute to Jesus Christ." It was pretty cool to hear them live. Plus, all the missionaries got to take pics with the band before the concert. This week, one of our ZL's, Elder T, has been getting everyone to throw up the "ball is life" sign, and he even got the band to do it, haha. Anyways, it was a pretty fun night!

My ponderizing scripture this week is Jacob 5:67-68 "And the branches of the natural tree will I graft in again into the natural tree. And the branches of the natural tree will I graft into the natural branches of the tree; and thus will I bring them together again, that they shall bring forth the natural fruit, and they shall be one." This is a great opportunity to serve in the Knoxville mission. As the Cookeville stake is taken and grafted into the Knoxville mission, we will bring to pass much fruit in this harvest. I will always be a Nashville missionary, and I have loved my time here, but I am excited for the chance to serve in Knoxville! Sorry this email was so long, but a lot happened this week! Hope y’all have a good one!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

His new mission covers parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.

The stakes are in Cookeville, Knoxville, Cumberland, Chattanooga, Kingsport, and Asheville.