He has hit the 1/2 way point!!!

It is hard to believe that Mitchell has been gone for one year.  Here is a post he put on Facebook:

One year ago today; I set out on a journey that has changed my life forever. My mission has been such a blessing to me and I hope it has been a blessing in the lives of others. I have made the goal to finish the last year of my mission with diligence and with great effort on my part to help others‪#‎ComeUntoChrist‬ and help them make the covenants and promises with Heavenly Father.

This is my mission. This is the mission of the Lord.

When he left a year ago. . .

On the job in California now!

We are so proud of him and his choice to take two years of his life and dedicate it to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ!!  Love this man!

Roman 10:15

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

These are Mitchell's shoes after serving for one year on his mission.  I'd say he has been pounding the pavement pretty hard.  What a hard worker!!!

February 16, 2015 Email

Hey Fam! It's great to hear you're all doing well and are keeping busy in all that you do. I actually got an email for Aunt CoDele telling me about Matthews mission call. I'm totally stoked for him and am excited he is willing to serve. 

    This week was pretty tiring for us. We were out doing service for most of the week and we had some good opportunities to help those in need. Most of the service we did consisted of mowing people's lawns and spraying for weeds. We got an opportunity to work on some fence that had some boards in need of realigning in the frame. It was good to do service when I didn't do too much of it in Redding. We had most of our people cancel on us throughout the week so that was why we did service a lot in the area. 

    It was actually kinda fun this week. Yesterday, a set of sisters and my companionship wanted to play a prank on these other Elders that live in the same apartment complex as us. We decided that we would Saran Wrap their car like they did to our car before I got here. We started to wrap their car and put all these different valentine items on it and then they came out just before we finished it up. They weren't the happiest about the prank, but they were cool about it. 

Well, that's all I've got for ya this week. Keep up on the school work and have fun in doing good!

February 9, 2015 Email

Hey Fam! It's great to hear you're all staying busy and having some good times. It's awesome that Stockton keeps going to the mission prep classes and is determined to serve. I still think it's uncool that they are having musicals and I'm not there to be a part of them. Hopefully Parker will keep up on the sports since b-ball is getting done and over with. It's cool to hear Brigs is getting into music and is having fun in it. It's good to hear your back is getting better mom. I started lifting again out here and my back was hurting for a while. Hopefully dad doesn't go crazy with all the work he's got to do. It would be tough to work like that and deal with having new stores up while dealing with other things at work. 

This week has been awesome. I got into Oroville on Tuesday and met my new companion, Elder Laulu. He's been out for 3 months now so that means that I'm "Greenie Breaking" him. He was trained by a missionary that just went home and he is doing well. He is a Samoan and is loads of fun to work with. I've been put into a car area, finally. I was a little questionable on getting back into driving since I've been on a bike for a year, but within a few days I got back into it and have enjoyed it since we've been having some rain a few days of the week.

(not actually Mitch and his companion, but it could be a close estimate of their happiness at being in a car)

The area has lots of good work here and is full of awesome members and a few non-members in part member families. One non-member was able to look at Elder Laulu's bike that broke and he fixed it up for him. We also have a super cool bishop who lets us use his gym/weight room that he made and it is a great way to stay in shape. The ward does a great job with feeding us here and has a few members that would feed us or get dinner for us if we needed it. One time we got out of a lesson and we didn't have a dinner appointment that night. We went over to a members home to let them now about some plans made in the week and the subject of dinner came up and they took us out to dinner at this pretty good restaurant close by our house. The members are awesome and the work is good. What more can you ask for?

Well, that's all I've got for ya this week. I wish you the best of luck and hope you know that I love you. 

February 2, 2015 Email

Hey Family! It's great to hear you're all staying busy. Lots of stuff seems to be going on there with all the different schedules. 

This week, we got our transfer call. We got information that I would be leaving Redding and I had the opportunity to bear my testimony with the ward for the last time. We got the call that I will be heading into Gridley serving in Table Mount Ward. I've been told that Table Mount is a pretty cool and interesting Ward that should be interesting. Most of the week was working and meeting people and saying goodbye to most of the members. There are a few other members that I would like to visit and with the schedule we have currently, it will be interesting to try and see them all. We didn't have too much luck with many of the names and we didn't even get the address written down for a great potential investigator. Other than that, there wasn't anything much that happened this week. 

I love you all and hope you continue to do all your activities and tasks well. 

January 26, 2015 Email

Hey Fam! It's good to hear you're staying busy. It's too bad you've been having issues with your back Mom. Hopefully it doesn't turn into anything serious. Dad seems to be pretty busy with all the traveling and work all over the place. The guys seem to be enjoying all that they're in. I'm sure it's a little bit more to handle and work with all the different schedules going all over the place. 

This week was kinda fast and slow for us. Not too much happened this week other than prepare for the blitz. We spent a good majority of the beginning of the week planning for it. We had the blitz Thursday and had everything set up for the missionaries. They all worked hard throughout the day and we have some good results from it. There are about 8 names that we got back from the blitz that seem promising to visit. We hope to pick up a few of them if not all of them this next week. Last p-day we were over at oasis fun center again and all had a blast. There I did laser tag and go carts. There was some mini golf, but I'm not big into that. 

So this week was kinda empty but I'll have a lot more to report on next week. I love you all and hope to hear from you next week.

January 19, 2015 Email

Hey Family! It's good to hear you're all staying busy! It's a little frustrating that there's more work for Dad to do on top of all the other work already there. 

This week was kinda fast for us. There were several changes to our schedule due to meetings and stake conference here. We had our usual district meeting on Wednesday that took up the first part of the day then worked on the zone blitz for a while till dinner. Thursday was an exchange day where we had a lesson with a less-active member in the ward. The Elder that was with me is in a car area and I put him through the tougher parts of my area. He didn't quite enjoy that. Ha ha! Through that exchange, we pick up a potential family to teach and we got a return appointment with them. Friday was our planning day then we planned for the blitz again. Saturday, we got to have interviews with our mission president. He gave some hints of the transfers regarding what's going to happen to me. We also talked on the work in the ward and how we can continue to serve in it. We continued to work on the blitz until we went to the adult session at the church. It was a great session and we had a general area of seventy attend the meeting. He gave a great talk on faith and humility that struck many people. We had stake conference yesterday where our mission president and his wife talked on missionary work and member missionary work. It is all connected to work together and to hasten the work so long as we do our part. The rest of the day was a bit of a struggle to see people since it was a Sunday and people want to just relax and spend time with family. When we went to dinner yesterday, the member offered to look at Elder Kretschmer's bike to see what can be fixed on it since he's been having issues with it. He got it repaired to the best of his ability and the bike works good. 

Well, that's all I've got for ya this week. Also, the blitz will be this week not last week. I love you all and pray for you always. 

January 12, 2015 Email

Hey Fam! It's great to hear you're all doing well! It's a bummer that Dad had to work those few days to get the business running there. It's not fun to be stuck working when you don't want to. Hope you do well in honor band Stockton. I would keep the studying up so you don't get shot down by the grades at the end of the year. Let me know how the games go Parker. I don't know how the teams are doing this year, so keep giving me updates. Be warned Parker, having a license puts ya in the position of being the chauffer to your friends if they don't drive. Ha ha! It's disappointing that the xBox isn't working yet. Guess you'll just have to play outside and snow board on the hill. Or have someone pull you behind the truck or 4 wheeler. 

The week was fast for us here. We had a few meetings and we had our Ward Conference yesterday. We've also had a few exchanges throughout the week that seemed to go by quick. The rest of the time we were either trying to contact people or organizing this zone blitz for our area. We're going to have all the missionaries in the area come together and they're going to work in my area for the day. This is just a way to get the area back up and running again since we haven't had much luck with lessons and new investigators. It's a pain cause we are having to plan with a small area for 20 missionaries. It will take some work to make sure everything goes well, but after the blitz is done we should have more work in the area. 

Well, that's all I got for ya this week. Hope you all have a great week and I love you all.

January 5, 2015 Email

Hey Fam! It's great that your all doing well. I think you should do more of the personal writing in the emails, it's good to know how everyone's doing from their own writing. 

This week was fairly good for us here. We did quite a bit of less-active finding all through our area with some responses. Some not quite as we hope they are. The New Year's Eve was pretty good though we didn't get to see too many people that day. We got in early and it was kind of boring sense we didn't have much to do for the night. We got to have a few exchanges that helped get a little change in the area. We were able to get in contact with a potential investigator that we tracked into and we taught the restoration to her. She is very open minded and is willing to listen to our discussions. We also had someone show up at church who would be interested in hearing our message. They live in another area, so we are going to have to find out where they are and let the missionaries in the area know. 

Well that's all I've got for ya this week. Till next week. 

Christmas Stocking

We wanted to send Mitch some fun things for Christmas, but since he is a missionary, we are kind of limited in what we can send.  He requested more music, so that was what he got.  We sent 4 new CDs for him to listen to.  But, mom could not resist sending a stocking stuffed with goodies.  I didn't get a photo of it before it was sent, but the picture below will give you an idea of what it looked like.

I added a belt to the one we sent and stuffed it with candy. new ties, gift cards and other little things he would need.

December 29, 2014 Email

Hey family! Hope things are still going well for ya still. This week was interesting for us since it's Christmas week. We went and visited a few families after the call, as we were advised by our mission president, and we went and had dinner with a really cool family. The family was about half the size of ours so it felt like home. We had tri tip with mashed potatoes and it was great. The rest of the week, we didn't have the best of luck visiting people since they were out of town. Some people we usually see weren't home or aren't feeling well enough to talk with us. Nothing else really happened this week so there's not a lot to say his week. 

Anyway, wish you all a happy new year and a great week.

Christmas Chat

The gift everyone couldn't wait to open this year was. . .we were able to Skype with Mitch for an hour on Christmas day.  We almost missed it because my power cord on my computer decided to quit working and there was no way to charge my laptop.  But, luckily, we had some friends who let us borrow a laptop Christmas morning so we could still chat with Mitch.  It was awesome to see him well and happy!!  He sang and played a song that he wrote.
He posted the song to his facebook page.  Check out his video performance here:

Mitchell's Song "Searching" 

Searching

Verse 1:

Don't know where I come from

or how I got here all alone?

A haze hangs over me

where I don't know of my own. 

Time passes on by

unaware of my presence known. 

(Chorus:)

I'm searching for escapes

out of my own ways that I've gone.  

I'm looking on my knees

not knowing where to go from here. 

And I hear your gentle voice

calling me to rise and see. 

That all I ever need 

to move on happily is you. 

Verse 2:

This life's been full of pain,

sorrow and regret of my own.

Where do I belong 

in this big old world so unknown?

I'm struggling to know

how can I go on so alone?

(Chorus:)

Bridge:

And since that answer came 

I can not deny who I am. 

I've come to see in you

I am that great man, meant to be. 

I see the light above

and it guides me back to my home. 

Home!

Verse 3:

I found though him my way

out of my own steps of wrong. 

This mortal body's weak 

but it's through Him, I am strong. 

I see his glorious smile

found with open arms, never gone. 

I'm coming home to you

where my heart still lies in your arms. 

I'm coming home. 

December 22, 2014 Email

Hey Fam! Is great to hear you all had a great program for Christmas. The program here was fairly good and we had a linger longer thing after church where we got to have refreshments and get to know the members better. 

This week was transfer week for us and I now have Elder Kretschmer as my companion. He's an older missionary and will be heading home soon. He seems ok so far, but I've only been with him for a week so we'll see how the next 6 weeks go. The week itself was fairly slow time wise and work wise. We had a few meetings throughout the week that lasted a while, one such meeting was our Christmas Devotional with the missionaries in surrounding areas. The meeting was planned to happen at 9, so all of our zone gets there at about 8:45 as we were asked to be. We all waited for the mission president to show, yet he didn't show up and it was five minutes till the meeting was suppose to start. The zone leaders called and found out that the meeting was rescheduled for one, and we didn't get the message. So we were there four hours early and we had planning to do, so we planned and studied for a while. Then we had a call telling us it was pushed back another hour. We waited and met with missionaries as they arrived and we had the meeting. It was full of song and full of spirit. The rest of the week we worked and found many people were heading elsewhere for Christmas or are getting sick. This week will be hard because of all the things going on with the season that it is. It's weird to think it's close to being Christmas since it doesn't snow here at all. That's just something I have to get use to out here I guess.