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

three lessons learned from General Conference: be obedient, be faithful and don't play with matches!

Hey everyone!

I am beginning to get scared at how big the number of emails I have sent is... yikes!

Well this week work wise, has not been too good. We have had a lot of appointments flog, or fall through, or investigators be busy or just not been able to get in contact with them, so we haven't had many teaches this week. So we have spent a lot of time finding, but we don't have too much potentials from our efforts, so its been hard, but We've kept working.

Chanai we didn't get to see this week as she was with her mum in Newbury, and she didn't come to general conference either which is quite sad. Hopefully we will see her again tonight though and make sure she is reading still.

We did at least get to see Fernando and his family (our Equadorian friends). It wasn't such a good teach though, it was more of damage control if anything. They had found some anti-mormon stuff on the internet about polygamy so we were talking to them about that. We resolved that, but they don't accept Joseph Smith as a Prophet. Hopefully we will be able to see them later this week though and help them.

We did get to see Arthur again last week though. His mum Christiana wasn't home though as she was working nights but hopefully we will see them both tonight too.

So this week has been hard and frustrating at times but I am sure next week will be better.

There were some positives from this week though. We had Zone Training on thursday and there we got to have interviews with President Millar which was good. It was a good Zone Training as well. Lots of inspiring thoughts.

Also of course at the weekend was general conference. It was great being able to attend the sessions that I did. Arthur and Ishmael got to attend the priesthood session which was good. They both really enjoyed it. It was great to hear the Prophet Thomas S Monson and the First Presidency and Apostles speak to us. Every day we meet people who deny the possibility that there is a Prophet of God on the earth today, so I am grateful for the knowledge that I am and the opportunity that we have every 6 months to hear God's Prophet speak to us. I know Thomas S Monson is God's Prophet on the earth today, and is the rightful successor to the first Prophet of this dispensation and the restorer of all things Joseph Smith. 

I will quote what I think were the most powerful words ever spoken in any of the sessions of general conference. They are about our Savior Jesus Christ, and are very few and simple words, only two in fact. They are these: "He Lives!" Hearing that from Apostles and Prophets, who are special witnesses of Christ is the most powerful testimony I think anyone can ever hear, and I know it is true. Jesus Christ Lives!

I hope you all have a good week.

I love you all

Elder Mitchell

three lessons learned from General Conference: be obedient, be faithful and don't play with matches!

Happy Easter

Hey everybody!!!

This is going to be a short email unfortunately as we have a lot to do today... sorry but I will make up for it next week.

So just to run through everything that has happened this week. Well, Chanai did not get baptised unfortunately, She would like a bit more time to make sure she is completely ready. She is at least reading more as we gave her a reading calendar to help her know what to read and give her something to think about.

Our friends from equator we haven't been able to see this week, they have their oldest daughter over from spain and so they have been busy all last week. We will hopefully see them this week though.

Christiana we haven't been able to teach properly either, but we did see her briefly the other day when we went to see arthur. She was just heading out to work as she was working a night shift on saturday night so she wasn't at church either. Arthur though, is doing great, he has been well fellowshipped by the youth and he loves it.

Apart from that I don't really know who to tell you about, except we have found a family from the Phillipines on saturday, who we will hopefully be teaching this week.

Oh, and randomly a guy showed up at church on sunday and said he wanted to become a member. SO we will be seeing him sometime this week. Who says miracles don't happen?

Well, as it is Easter Monday, this email wouldn't be complete without me bearing my testimony of Easter, or the Atonement. I have been studying this for the last few days at least, and I just want all of you to know how gratefuly I am for all that Jesus Christ has done for us. It is said that He suffered and died for everybody's sins but let me change that slightly... forget about everyone else for a moment. He died, for you. Yes, YOU. I feel strongly, that for a small moment in the garden of gethsemane, that in all of his sufferings, for at least the smallest of moments, he suffered there for you. Not only for everything you have done wrong, all of your mistakes, but also, he suffered for all of our pains, all of our sicknesses, he suffered everything that we will go through in this life. EVERYTHING. And he suffered it all, alone. As Jeffery R Holland taught in general conference a few years ago now, (I'm paraphrasing this quote here) "Because He walked such a long lonely path, alone, we don't have to" Because of everything He did, in our times of need, when we feel totally and hopelessly alone, we don't have to be. He knows everything you are going through and He can comfort you, if you allow Him. I also know, that, because of Easter, or the most important part of Easter is this simple phrase: He Lives! Because of what happened on Easter Sunday all those years ago. Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer broke the bands of death, and returned victorious over sin, death and hell to His Father in Heaven, and our Father in Heaven. To His God, and to our God. 

I love you all

Elder Mitchell