Baptism photos

Elder Mitchell, Chanai and Elder Castro

Chanai's family

Another baptism

Hey Everybody!!

Happy Bank Holiday!!! As our district leader told his greenie it is a day we get to go into the banks and have balloons and cake (I wish that were true...).

Well there isn't too much to tell from this last week, not many big events to be honest. It has been a mixed week really, some good and some bad points.

Of course, the main event of this week was a baptism!! Chanai got baptised yesterday which was great!! It was such a great day and a great service. Unfortunately Ishamil still didn't feel ready to perform the baptism, but his family had talked about it and so the person they asked to perform it was... me. I was so overwhelmed that they would want me to perform the baptism, it truly was a great blessing.

So that was the good thing from this week. The rest has not been so great frankly. The saddest news is that the Portuguese family dropped us, big time. The dad gave us back the Book of Mormons we gave them and everything. I think it was mainly the dads decision as the mum wasn't there, and the kids were and they seemed really sad, but we can't take away peoples agency. Sometimes that's the most annoying thing about missionary work, but we have to respect peoples choice.

We haven't been able to see many of our other investigators either, and a few we have dropped as we can't get in contact with us or they keep flogging us. So in total I think we are down to about 6 or 7 investigators, which is hard. 

We have been doing a lot of finding though, and we have lots of potentials, we will just have to wait and see if any of them are willing to progress, as that is our main problem at the moment. We will just keep working hard and pray that the Lord will bless our efforts.

Well that is about it for last week to be honest, I will try and send a photo of the baptism, I have to get it from Elder Castro's camera though as mine died (not happy about that). Will hopefully have some more news from this week.

Love you all

Elder Mitchell

All down hill from here - surely not!

Hey everyone!

I am now a year old missionary! I'm over the hill! but anyway...

This week has been good. I guess the biggest news is... Chanai passed her interview and is getting baptised after church next sunday!!! I am so excited for her, it is really great. Hopefully Ishamil will get to perform the baptism but we will see. I'll let you know how it goes next week.

Our portugese family were supposed to come to church, but late saturday night, we got a text from the mum saying the dad doesn't want them to go to church, so we aren't 100% sure what is going on there, but hopefully we can figure out in the next few days as the mum and kid are so excited to come to church, it is just the dad holding them back.

Cindy made it to church yesterday too which was good. The other day when we saw her though her boyfriend was there as well, which was a little awkward... but never mind. She still doesn't seem to be willing to commit just yet though, which is disappointing but what can you do?

Only other thing to say really is that we are teaching a really cool guy called Harprett. His family raised his as a sikh (I dunno how you spell it) but when he was about 20 he decided that wasn't for him anymore and cut off all his hair and throw out his turban and everything, which is incredible. Since then he started working for microsoft and met a member who he started dating and going to church with in the whitechapel ward in London. So he got referred on to us as he lives in Reading, and he is so cool. He is reading and praying which is amazing. I think he looks quite promising.

So that's how the work is going, I am doing fine. I got sunburnt this week! I haven't got sunburn for years!!! It was weird... oh, and also on friday we cut down a 66 foot tree. That was fun! Got to use a chainsaw and everything! Don't worry Becky, I was safe. Honest. So yeah, that was fun.

Well I don't know what else to say, so I will end this here.

Love you all

Elder Mitchell

It's been a year already! How time flies

Hey everybody!

Yes that's right, this week as of friday I will have been out a whole year! A whole year!! Can you believe it? Hump day coming up, its all downhill from here... I'm kidding. Anyway, enough about that, I don't want to think about that just yet haha!

So yeah, this week has been pretty good. Chanai is still progressing towards her baptism which should be good. It may actually be on the 5th as they want a lot of the family to be there, but we shall see.

Also, our portuguese family are doing great. They should have been at church today, and the reason I say should is because they were all up dressed ready and at the bus stop ready to get the bus, then they found out the first bus from their house comes at 9.56am (church starts at 10) and that bus would only take them into town centre, they would have to get a bus from there out to the chapel which means they would have been really late, so they didn't come. We will get a member to pick them up next week though.

Here's a name I have talked about lately, Cindy. We got back in contact with her this week and got to see her. The last four weeks or so we haven't been able to contact her, and she hasn't been at church either, but we saw her on saturday which was good. Unfortunately the day before someone tried to break into her house so she was pretty freaked out. Luckily her and her daughter went home when it happened but as you can imagine she was still scared. She said she has missed church though and has missed us going over which is good.

Only other really cool thing to tell you from this week, we received a mormon.org referral of someone who had seen the book of mormon musical, and he had seen the adverts in the program and decided it was interesting and wanted to find out more. He is a 13 year old boy that went with his family to see it, and we only talked to him. He had some good questions and hopefully we answered them all well. We gave him a Book of Mormon anyway and invited him to read and pray about it, I don't know if he will, or if it will go anywhere but we at least invited him. And as he lived so far out (45 minutes drive, we had to get a member to drive us out there and back as there were no buses he lived so far out) there would have been no chance for us to find them without that, so it is a Book of Mormon in the hands of a family that would have otherwise never found it. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Well sorry this email is kinda short, we have a busy day today.

I love you all

Elder Mitchell

Another baptism ahead

Hey Everyone!

This is going to be a quite email as it is moves weeks, so technically P-day is wednesday, but I thought I could quickly email and let you all know how I am doing.

This week has been pretty good. We are beginning to see some progress with some of our investigators which is good. Chanai has a baptismal date for the 4th of May now. We are hoping that she will keep this one, as she is reading the scripture calendar that we gave her, and we don't see any immediate problems that would prevent her from doing so. We just have to make sure that she is getting baptised for her and not for her dad, which we will hopefully be able to determine this week.

We saw Christiana at the start of the week and she has actually started reading the Book of Mormon!!! This is like a big victory for me, even though she has only just started with 1 Nephi 1. we haven't been able to see her since though so I am not sure if she is still reading, and she wasn't at church yesterday. We will hopefully see her tomorrow though. Arthur is doing great though, he was at church yesterday which is good.

Our family from Equador dropped us this week sadly, but when one door closes another door opens as this week we found a nice family from Portugal, a mum and dad and two boys both over 8. When we found them they told us that, a few days before we knocked on their door they were just talking about bringing Jesus into their life. The mum Julianna and the boys, Gabriel and Rodrigo are all so excited and they are golden, and they would have come to church on sunday, but the dad doesn't seem too keen, and they didn't come because he didn't want to go. So that is a bit of a problem, but hopefully we will overcome that and be able to gain his trust and extend a date to them for the 18th of May.

Also, at church yesterday, the Woodley missionaries had two referrals for us that came to church. They are a mum and daughter from Poland who are in need of welfare, but they seem interested in the gospel as well, so we will be teaching them later this week. luckily we have a polish family in the ward that can help us with teaching as the mum's english isn't very good.

Well that is about it for this week I guess. Not much more to share.

So yeah, it is moves weeks. We will find out tomorrow if any of us are moving. If anything changes I will move but I hope not. I love Reading, it is an amazing ward and the work is going so well here! But we shall find out tomorrow. I will let you all know as soon as I can.

I hope you all have a good week.

I love you all!!!

Elder Mitchell