Elder Mitchell's mission is coming to an end.....

This is his penultimate weekly email.  It has been a fascinating journey that we have all been on.  I would like to thank every one who has visited this blog - I never expected to have so many hits from so many different countries.  This has had over 3,500 page views from China to South America, from Russia to Vietnam and all places in between.  I hope you have all enjoyed the journey.  Just 2 more emails to post - this weeks and next weeks.  I hope that any one who isn't a member has learnt something about our church, and maybe the next time you see 2 smartly dressed young men or young women with strange name tags on, you'll stop them and talk to them.  They would like nothing better.

So here is Elder Mitchell's email:

Hey everyone!

Yes I know I am now into single digits, thank you all for reminding me! haha! It is good though, reminds me I still have 9 days to work! (well maybe 7 depending when I go to the temple)

Well our week has been pretty fun! Last P-day we played football and rugby with our district the Zone Leaders and the AP's. We didn't play full-contact rugby, so don't worry Becky. It was frustrating though as me being only a little guy getting picked up and put on the floor by our big welsh AP... was not a proud moment, but I was like the little-est (as in skinniest) guy there so I did pretty well.

Anyway, back to talking about missionary work. This week sadly we weren't able to see Kingston and Betty. We aren't too sure what happened but we had an appointment with them, and we went over but they weren't in. Hopefully they just forgot but I don't know. Hopefully we will see them again this week.

We did get to see Sophie and Chris though. They are doing well, and Chris has been reading the Book of Mormon which is great! Sophie hasn't been but never mind. We will hopefully be able to see them again this week, and hopefully they will be able to come to church.

We have found a few new ivestigators this week too. There is a guy called Enoch, he is from Ghana. He is catholic, but he really wants to meet with us. We are seeing him on tuesday morning so we will see how that goes.

We also met this woman called Maria, we met her and her mum. They are from columbia. Her mum doesn't speak english, but Maria does really well. She is a Jehovah's Witness, but they apparently have family back in columbia that attend our church which is cool. We will be going by to see them sometime this week so we will see how that goes. It's a shame I don't remember any spanish from when I served with Elder Castro.

So this is my full week as a missionary. I plan to work as hard as I possibly can so that, even though I am going home, the missionary that replaces me still has something to work with when I leave. I will also be trying not to get fat as we have about 7 dinner appointments this week... (3 of them on saturday!)

Also, on sunday, the ward has given me 5 minutes to share what I have learned from my mission... squeezing two years into 5 minutes... wish me luck! Also, it turns out President and Sister Millar will be there too and they will be talking after me... no pressure right?

Well, I hope you all have a good week, we are off to an all you can eat buffet! Our goal is to get kicked out for eating too much food!

I love you all!!

Elder Zach Mitchell

As you can see he's still working hard.

a small world

Elder Mitchell met Elder Preece, whose cousin, Elder Preece is currently serving in Elder Mitchell's home ward -
the Livingston Ward

For the birds

Elder Mitchell and Willow (and Aaron Burns, the member holding the owl) 

She is some type of Eagle owl

Elder Mitchell holding a Barn Owl called Boris

Elder Mitchell was crouched down painting a part of this aviary and he looked up to see this staring at him.... 

He also helped feed this little guy a mouse!  Oh, and his name is Mowgli!

Come listen to a Prophet's voice

Hey everyone!

I hope you have had a good week, and I hope that you all had a wonderful and spiritual experience at General Conference. I know that there has been some disagreements and contention over some of the words shared over conference, but just remember "Whether by mine own voice or the voice of my servants, it is the same." It may not be pleasing to the world, but that is the teachings, commandments, and revelations given to us from God, and we must live by them.

So our week has been pretty good. Pretty busy, which is always good, and we have been working hard.

On tuesday we were able to give some service to Aaron Burns (that's where the pictures of the owls came from) which was really good. They also have a tortoise that tried to paint itself green by walking over the paint lid. It is so good being able to give service though.

Then on Wednesday we went on exchange and I went to Epsom. It was really good. We worked hard and talked to a lot of people. They also got a referral of a brazillian family (I was with a brazillian Elder) and he taught them in brazillian which was difficult for me as I didn't really understand what was going on. But it went well though and the Son (about 16 years old) at the end apparently said that us going over that day had been an answer to his prayers.

While I was away Elder Oleson and our District Leader saw Kingston and Betty and they are doing well. They committed to live the word of wisdom and we tried to get them to come to conference, but they weren't able to make it sadly. They also say Sophie and Chris who we hadn't been able to contact for a while, but apparently that went really well also.

On friday we had Zone Training at Crawley which was really good. Our leaders were really inspired and I got so much out of it, and the spirit was so strong there. Afterwards all of us were pumped and ready to go out and work. That night after we got back, we just went out an contacted, and even though not many people stopped to talk to us, we tried to talk to everyone we could and it felt amazing. Oh, and just typical. We get back from such an amazing, spiritual and motivating Zone Training, and there are my travel plans home sitting at the door... not happy about that. Heavenly Father definitely has a sense of humor.

Then we had to go back to Crawley on saturday and sunday to watch General Conference. It takes us a while to get there, and on saturday night it took even longer. We normally go from Crawley to Horsham and from Horsham we can get a train all the way to Sutton, but we got to Horsham saturday night and realised that we had missed the last train from there to Sutton, so we had to get back on the train we just got off, go all the way along the way we just came and go to Redhill, where we had to get off and get another train to Dorking (deepdene) and from there walking to Dorking station and get a train from there to Epsom, and then from Epsom we had to get on another train to Sutton. Just sharing that so you know the hassle us missionaries have to go through sometimes.

Conference was amazing though, and there were so many good talks. I liked all of them really, and felt the spirit and got something out of all of them. I hope all of you did too.

Well, I am going to wrap this up here. I hope you all have a good week.

I love you all!!

Elder Zach Mitchell

Mother Dear I love you so

Hey Everyone!!!

First of all, Happy Mother's day to all the mother's out there for yesterday (I forgot to mention that in my last email... sorry)

So this week started well. We had to take Elder Oleson to the Kingston Hospital on monday night because his tooth was killing him, and that was the only place with a dental unit open. He got an infection, but he is fine now, they gave him some anti-biotics and they have helped.

Kingston and Betty are doing well, we were able to see both of them this week. They still weren't able to come to church, but we had a really good lesson. We are hoping to get a member out to see them with us this week, so hopefully that will go well.

Thursday night we were able to go to youth. The Ward Council has asked that each week at least one group of Elders go to Young mens to support the youth and be an example to them. It was fun, this week it was joint and we played football. It got a little bit crazy, and all of the young women just ended up standing around because they were scared. Good reason though, one of the young women got hit about five times in the same place (I won't say what place, poor girl) so that scared them all away. So it was just pretty much us four Elders (there were all four of us there as the others had investigators there), the young mens leaders, the two young men we have, and bishop playing. It was fun, my team were totally kicking butt, until they said "next goal wins" and the other team scored. But we still won!

We also went out to an part of our area that we never go to. With good reason too! First, it is almost impossible to get there. We had to take a train from Sutton to Wimbledon (it was weird but cool being back there again) and then from there get another train to Oxshott (where we were going) and of course both ways, as we were pulling into Wimbledon our other train was just leaving so we had to wait another half an hour. Second, it is so posh out there!! One of the houses looked like a castle, no joke! So needless to say we won't be going back there!

We have done more then that this week, I swear, but I don't really remember. Well this will have to do.

Just gonna end with a little joke Elder Oleson told me this week... What does a tricycle and a duck have in common? They both have wheels, except the duck.

I love you all!

Elder Zach Mitchell

We are sowing....

Hey Everyone!

Wow triple digits! I can't believe that! Time is going by so fast! Don't worry, I don't normally think about how much (little) time I have left, except there is an Elder in my district who kindly, every time I see him, the first thing he asks is "Are you trunky yet?" Not happy!

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well. This past week has been pretty good.

We had three less-actives and an investigator as church yesterday which was great! We had Ashley and Amelia there which was great, and Ashley's daughter came too, who was our investigator. We just started teaching her this week which was good. She is 9, nearly 10. We thought she was a lot younger. Anyway... sad thing is she is only with Ashley every other weekend so we won't get to teach her much, and we aren't sure how the mum would react if she wanted to be baptised. She seems okay with her coming to church though.

We had a really good teach with Kingston this week too. He asked a lot of great questions which all led onto the next principle we were about to teach. The spirit was there, we could feel it, and he could too. He said he really feels good when we come over. He also said he and Betty have been talking about church and they have decided that they need to come, but this week they weren't able to make it. Hopefully next week.

Apart from that it has been difficult to find new investigators. We seem to be doing all we can, we are out talking to people but no one seems to want to talk to us, or if they do, they don't want to meet with us again. It is hard, but we are still working hard.

Well, I can't think of anything else to share from this week so I shall wrap it up here.

I love you all so much!!

Elder Zach Mitchell

Lord, Dismiss Us with Thy Blessing

This week Elder Mitchell got the letter, the letter that officially tells him his release date. I'll let him tell it.

Hey Everyone!

99 emails from me on the page, 99 emails from meeee! sorry...

So this week has been an interesting week. First of all, I got a scary letter this week.... I got my trunky letter! You know, that letter you get at the end of your mission thanking you for all the hard work you've done... Yeah, I got that! It's okay though, the letter is dated 23rd April 2014, so that means it doesn't exist yet, right?

So investigator wise, we got some sad news this week. We got a text from Tom. He and his girlfriend have broken up, and he wants to take some time to get over it, and work things out, so he doesn't want to meet with us for the time being. He did say though that hopefully we would see us soon, so hopefully we can stay in contact and see him again once things have settled.

Our other investigators, we haven't really been able to see them this week. Kingston and Betty we were going to see them on Saturday but they had something come up. And the main problem with our investigators is that we commit them to come to church, and then they don't come. It is a little frustrating but never mind. Hopefully Sophie and Chris will be coming with their family this sunday though.

We were able to see that couple Ashley and Ameila this week though which was really good. We were meant to have a BBQ with them on Saturday, but their Dad was there so they didn't want to cause any problems. We should be seeing them this week at some point though.

Also something interesting I want to share from church yesterday. In Elder's Quorum the lesson was on sacrament, but the teach spent a lot of time going around the room and asking everyone one question. He simply asked "why are you here at church today?" Of course I was the last one he came to so I had a lot of time to think about it. It was an interesting question, something I would encourage all of you to ask yourselves when you are next at church.

Also, this sunday was one of the AP's last sunday. It was scary for me, because it means now that he is going home, that I am next... but it's okay, I'm not trunky.

Well, I better wrap this up here. I love you all!

Elder Zach Mitchell

ps. Attached is a picture of me with my trunky letter