Elder Mitchell's Mission to Tennessee: 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