Greetings From Dalton!

He is now serving in the Rocky Face Ward in Dalton

Buenos!

Greetings from the blessed land of Dalton, GA! Yup, transfers were this week, and I got to cross the border down into Georgia. Dalton is in the very most southern part of the mission, just a little ways southeast of Chattanooga. This first week here in Georgia has been great. The weather has been brutal though. I thought it was hot in Tennessee, but holy cow, it is sooooo hot out here. So. Hot. Also, Dalton seriously feels like little Mexico. There are so many Hispanics here!! The population here is probably about 50 percent Hispanic, it's crazy. Another cool thing about Dalton is that it's the carpet capital of the world. There are a ton of carpet factories here. I guess another thing about the area is that we only cover the Dalton area, which is weird because I'm used to covering whole stakes, so this is definitely the smallest Spanish area that I've had.

My new companion is Elder J! He from Spokane, WA, came right out of high school, and has been out for about 10 months. He enjoys snowboarding, hunting, and other outdoor activities. He is also a real hard worker. This week we have hit the ground running, with full, busy days every day. We have been doing a lot of tracting, and finding lots of potential investigators. We are also working with a few progressing investigators. One of those is F, who has a baptism date for the 20th of August. He said he would get baptized if his wife is ok with it. We are also working with a woman named D and her daughter O. They love talking to the missionaries and coming to church, so hopefully we can set a baptism date with them soon. Also this week, we got a referral from some elders in Florida. One of their progressing investigators, A, just moved here this week. It's pretty awesome, because he's already been taught everything, so we just gotta dunk him.

Other things from this week: we have had a lot of run-ins with dogs this week. Everyone here has dogs...and none of them are on leashes, so it's fun. We also had a pretty awesome tender mercy this week! We were out tracting, and I had run out of water. After a while I thought, "Man, it would be so great if somebody gave us some water right now." Literally 10 seconds later, this Mexican dude riding a moped pulls up, grabs two water bottles out of a little cooler he had, gave them to us, and then just rode off. He wasn't a member; we had no clue who he was, just a super nice dude. Sunday was pretty good too. The ward here is so great! Bishop T is super funny, and the members here are getting excited about the missionary work here. There are a lot of good things happening here in the Rocky Face ward.

My ponderizer this week is John 12:26, "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour." If we are going to serve Jesus Christ, we have to follow him. The invitation to follow Christ is an invitation to develop his attributes and become as he is. As we follow and serve him, we have the promise that He will go before us, and His spirit will be with us. Hope y’all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

Dalton produces 90% of the world's carpet!!

One last picture with the Cookeville zone

Saying goodbye to Elder C

Saying hello to Elder J

Taking tree houses to a whole new level

Georgia On My Mind...

Chick-Fil-A Cow Appreciation Day!

Buenos!

Well, it's transfer week!! Cookeville Spanish is going to be shut down for a few transfers, so Elder C and I will both be leaving. Elder C is off to Knoxville! He will be in a trio with the ZL's there while he waits for his upcoming surgery, and then after surgery he will spend some time in the mission home. As for me, I will be going to the Rocky Face Ward in Dalton, Georgia! The Rocky Face ward is the one full Spanish ward in the mission, so I am absolutely stoked! That's about all I know about the area right now. My new companion will be Elder J! I don't know anything about him, so it'll all just be new come Wednesday.

We had a pretty good week here for our last week in Cookeville. President Griffin kind of hinted to us early that we would be shut down, so this week we tried to do some things in preparation for that. We spent most of the week just trying to contact everyone in the area book. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see many people. So, we ended up dropping/deleting a lot of people, and everyone else we will end up referring to other missionaries.

Between the contacting, we had some fun experiences this week. Tuesday was cow appreciation day at Chik-fil-a, so if you dressed up like a cow you got a free entrée. That was fun haha. On Friday, Elder C had another doctor's appointment, so we got to cross over to the other side and go to Farragut. We actually met up with Sister Griffin at the mission office, and then she drove us around town. We met with another orthopedic surgeon, and got Elder C's surgery scheduled for August 9th. Then we got lunch, and then Sis. Griffin showed us the mission home and the Knoxville stake center where we go for transfers.

On Saturday night we went and played basketball at the church. It was great, we had some missionaries, some investigators from the Cookeville ward, and some less-actives from Burgess Falls ward. We had a fun time. I ended up spraining my ankle, but it's all good, it's feeling better now. Then, we had our last Sunday, and said goodbye to a lot of members. Pretty good week.

My ponderizer this week is one of my brother Nathan's favorites, Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." This week our bishop shared something in his talk that I loved, and it reminded me of this scripture. The Lord once appeared to a man and charged the man with the task of pushing a large boulder. The man began the task with zeal, pushing with all of his might. He pushed and pushed but the boulder wouldn't budge. He pushed all day, and the boulder wouldn't yield. The man came again the next day and pushed again, with no success. As he pushed and pushed, days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Eventually he became discouraged, and Satan began to put thoughts of doubt in his mind. The man became lazy. He would go out each day, putting in a minimum effort. Then, he took his problems to the Lord. He asked why he was charged with this impossible task, and in his darkest moment of despair, he wanted to give up. It was then that the Lord consoled him: "Be of good cheer, you are doing a good work. Your job was never to move the rock, but to be obedient and push. Look at you now, you have become strong. Your arms and legs have grown, and the pushing has made you tough. And now, I will move the boulder." Whatever trial we face, whether it be in missionary work, or in the challenges of everyday life, our job is simply to push. It is through Christ that we are able to do all things, and our challenges will make us stronger. If we are obedient and push, the Lord will make up the difference and move the boulders out of our path. Sorry that was long, but I felt like I would share that. Hope y’all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

Dalton is in the NW corner of Georgia, 

not far from Chattanooga Tennessee.

More Cows!

Saturday night basketball

With part of his district.

They figured she would be the only one

left in Cookeville after transfers.

Thunderstorms!

Bowling on P-day in Lebanon

Buenos!

We had a pretty low-key week here, other than the weather. We got hit with a lot of big rainstorms this week, with a lot of lightning. Actually, on Friday night we lost power in our apartment for about an hour. It was fun. But yeah, the lightning storms this week were crazy. Other than the weather, not much was exciting this week. On Monday, Elder C re-aggravated his knee, so for the rest of the week it was back to lots of rest, icing, and ibuprofen. We weren't really able to get out and do our regular thing. But, this week the knee is feeling a little better, so hopefully we will be able to get out back to work this week. As for our investigators, we weren't able to have a lesson with V this week, but we did set up a return appointment with her for tomorrow. We tried to contact some of our other investigators throughout the week, but we didn't have much luck with that. Hopefully this week will be a little better!

On Friday we had a Zone meeting, which was pretty good. We had trainings by the STL's, ZL's, and an awesome training by President Griffin. President also dropped a little early transfer info: besides the two companionships that are training, every companionship in the zone is going to be split up. Mostly, it's just to get more Knoxville missionaries integrated into the zone. Also, we found out that for sure Elder C will be transferred to somewhere in Knoxville due to his upcoming surgery. So, I might end up staying another transfer, but President also said that there's a good chance that we will get white-washed or even shut down. We get transfer calls next Monday, we'll see what happens!

My ponderizer this week is 3rd Nephi 7:18, "And it came to pass that they were angry with him, even because he had greater power than they, for it were not possible that they could disbelieve his words, for so great was his faith on the Lord Jesus Christ that angels did minister unto him daily." This is a great missionary scripture. How incredible would it be if we had enough spiritual power so that people had to believe us? We need to strive to have the spirit with us so that the power of the spirit can touch the hearts of our investigators. Anyways, hope y’all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

More from the bowling adventure

Let Freedom Ring

Slip-n-Slide!!!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

I hope you all have an awesome day celebrating our nation's independence! I don’t have a lot of time to write today, so this might be a little shorter. We had another good week in Cookeville. This week was filled with tons of tracting, with more tracting, with a side of extra tracting. It was fun haha. We haven't seen a bunch of success, but we were able to see some other investigators throughout the week. This week we saw V again, and it was awesome! She was asking so many questions about our church services and she told us that she would come since she had work off for the 4th! Plus, she told us she would bring her 11-year old son, and that she would invite her whole neighborhood to church. She's already doing missionary work haha. Unfortunately, we didn't see her at church on Sunday, so that was kind of a bummer, but we are going to try real hard to get her to church this next week. This week we also had another lesson with Y and J, who really want to go to the branch in Lebanon, but J works Sundays. But, when J gets a Sunday off, we'll head down.

This Friday Elder C met with the orthopedic surgeon. Apparently, he has a torn meniscus. So, he will need surgery to take out the meniscus. But, fortunately there is a doctor in Knoxville who can do it (plus he's a member!). And, the recovery for the surgery is only 10 days, so Elder C won't have to go home! So, that's good. The surgery should get scheduled soon, but it will probably be after transfers.

Other than that, it was a pretty low key week. We are enjoying our 4th of July though! This morning, the Lebanon Elders came over and we had a breakfast/softball game with the Burgess Falls ward. Then in the afternoon we went down a 1000 ft slip-n-slide that they had set up in the center of town. It was really fun, plus, President Griffin told us it would be great publicity if we went in our proselyting clothes, and it was! We got to talk to a lot of people about the church, it was great. And, tonight we have a cook-out with the Cookeville ward, and then fireworks! It's supposed to be a giant show, they said the Cookeville fireworks is the second-biggest show in Tennessee, so it should be fun!

My ponderizer this week is 2 Nephi 10:11, 14 which says, "And this land shall be a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land, who shall raise up unto the Gentiles...For he that raiseth up a king against me shall perish, for I, the Lord, the king of heaven, will be their king, and I will be a light unto them forever, that hear my words." We truly are blessed to live in a land of liberty, a land of religious freedom. This country truly was prepared by the hand of the Lord for the Restoration of the Gospel. We don't have kings in our country, but we are part of the Lord's kingdom. He is our captain, our king, our savior. And as we follow Him, He will be a light to us forever. Hope you all have a great week and a great 4th of July!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

After the slip-n-slide

Some funny statues they found while tracting

Teaching a lesson on the doorstep