First Area: Armidale

Elder Mitchell's first area was a small community several hours from Sydney.  It is the small town of Armidale.  He loved this area and met some of the most wonderful people.  His trainer was Elder Moulten.  They did a lot of service here, especially out in the farming areas.  He loved feeding Narelle's and Frank's baby lambs, building roads, and working out on the farm lands.

Email October 17th:   I would like everyone to reflect on a talk by Elder Holland entitled, "The First Great Commandment." Jesus asks Peter 3 times if he loves Him. To which Peter replies "Yea Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." Then Jesus tells him to "Feed my sheep" It is a great talk I recommend everyone to read it (or watch it, this is the 21st century)

     This week we had our Elders Quorum President pass out and he was in hospital for 4 days. He is a farmer and has 20 lambs to take care of. He bottle feeds every one of them. So we had the opportunity to help him out with this task. We fed his sheep!!!!! Frank is a really good 

     Ok all joking aside, I would like to share one Miracle we saw this week. The mission did a fast to ask for the Lord's help in accomplishing a goal we have set of 35 baptisms in the month of December as a Christmas gift to the Savior. After we broke the fast, Elder Moulton and I were visiting less actives and no one was home. After we had gone through our list we had to decide to go home or to find some other work to do (it was around 7:30). Then Elder Moulton had a prompting to visit one of the inactives that no missionary has been able to see for at least a year, probably more. We have even stopped by, with the result of "sorry I'm busy right now, maybe try later." That is her response every time. Anyways we decided to go try to make an appointment with her. I am convinced that because we decided to stay out as we've been told, and with the help of the Lord, especially from our fast, the Lord blessed us with the opportunity we (and she) needed. We got there at about 7:30 and she was outside, she invited us to sit down, and she had her husband and daughter come sit and talk with us. We were there till 9, and we now know when she'd would like us to come back, and she even wants to make dinner for us! Her husband is baptist and her daughter took the first lesson a while ago, and asked us right there if she could start taking them again (a 15 year old). Anyways that was our Miracle from this week! 

   I love all of you! Thank you for all of your support and Prayers! I hope all is well back in the states! Some members have told us about Clowns or something? Just be safe everyone. 

Love,

Elder Mitchell

Email October 17th:  I don't have much to say today. Australia is really pretty, the people are really nice, and I'm in the middle of nowhere. My companion, Elder Moulton, and I are the only Missionaries for about 4 hours in any direction. there are 14 people in the branch here, but the town is 25,000 people. That's a lot of potential right!? well we have to fix the area book and find all of those people, so it looks like we will have to put our shoulders to the wheel. I'm excited, and I have faith that the Lord will show us miracles! I love you all heaps! I hope everything is sweet as with everyone!

Love,

Elder Mitchell

Elder Mitchell's flat and new ukelele:

  October 23:  So this week I want to share two miracles that we had. So the news channel here played a segment called "A day in the life of a Mormon Missionary" (its on sbs, the elders are the assistants, you might be able to look it up on youtube) Anyways we were tracting and a lady opens the door. "Hi boys, I saw your program on the TV" so we talked about that for a minute, and then she told us that she wasn't interested in our religion. she then said "I'd invite you in for some tea or coffee but you don't drink that do you?" we told her we dont but we do drink water and cordial (kool-aide, but better) so she invited us in and got us some water. we talked to her for about half an hour just casual conversation. then she said she love to make dinner for us! It was a miracle!! We found out shes catholic, but she doesnt like them right now and is looking for something better. she is super nice.

We also went to Coffs Harbor this weekend for District Conference. It was really good and Coffs Harbor is Beautiful. I only got a few pictures tho because i forgot my camera in the flat. anyways while we were there we had 8 elders in the same flat. it was pretty bad, I didn't get to sleep until 2 am because they were so loud. but we did trade offs on Saturday, I went with an Elder from Kaysville, Ut. We went tracting (neither of us had ever been in the area before) and we found a retired lady that had taken the lessons when she was 10. she is now 70. she told us she thinks what we do is amazing, and she has family in Toronto that are Mormons. Anyways we found out she had never read the book of Mormon, so we gave her one and she said she was excited to read it. we also set up an appointment for next week with the Coffs Harbor Elders. Its just to bad we had to hand her over, shes golden haha. 

Australia is awesome! I love you all and I hope all is well, You are in my prayers. Thank you for all of your prayers! I can feel your love and Heavenly Fathers love together here down under! Sweet as Mate!

Love,

Elder Mitchell

Elder Mitchell at Coffs Harbor!  Beautiful!

This Elder is Elder Mitchell's cousin's boyfriend!  Small world!

One of Frank's and Narelle's sheeps.  Elder Mitchell loves feeding those sheep!  ;)

October 30th:  We did heaps of service this week. We are working hard on the less actives in the area. We had to travel for 3 hours to get to a lady named Sister Jackman. She has 1000 acres of land near the Queens land border. She lives by herself! She built her own house in what used to be an airplane hangar! it was a really cool house! we did service for her all day and then on the way home we hit a kangaroo! it didn't do any bad damage to the car tho so its all good. Elder Moulton and I almost caught a kangaroo while we were up there. it was behind a building and we snuck up on it, but it ran away just as i was reaching to touch it! Thats how close we were!! Its raining right now or we'd be doing more service! Ill tell the sheep here that you all say hi haha! The sheep are nice tho, they like to hear about the gospel. well they don't shut the door in our face at least! We have met some really cool people tho. Its really amazing that there are good people wherever you go. I would recommend to everyone to read the book of mormon more than you are currently. if you read it all day everyday, then just read one chapter more. it can only help!! I have increased my study of the book of mormon, I read it in the car when we are driving as well as during personal study, and I am growing to love it! I feel like I know the prophets and that they are my friends! They tell me things that help me personally that they know will help me be a better missionary! They are really good guys, I promise they won't turn you away. They love to talk to anyone who will listen! Hey and so do missionaries! I love you all heaps, I say it every email so it must be true! have a good week! 

Ofatu,

Elder Mitchell

November 12th:  This week has been a little slow, but we did have dinner at a member's house with some old true-blue dinky-die Aussie farmers. They love that we are willing to do service for anyone and have kindly offered to have us over for some chores. We also were invited for Christmas, and they are going to make plum pudding for us! It's weird not to have Thanksgiving, but everyone has started getting ready for Christmas already. Christmas trees are up and the stores have Christmas ads out already.

December 4th:  We did a lot of service this week, adding up to about 7 hours of mowing lawns. It was crazy, but a lot of good come from it. My comp and I didn't know about the 25 days thing, well not the specifics, but we ended up doing the things it says on accident. It was a really fin week I love doing service (and not just because I don't have to wear a tie) speaking of ties, we have been given heaps of ties. I came into the mission with 10 ties and I now have 34. People just give us ties. Some of them are really nice, a guy we met that used to be a department store owner gave us a couple of his Handmade-in-Italy ties. I guess its just a blessing the Lord thought we needed.

We received a referral, so we decided to tract the entire street that this referral was on, and we found 3 people that said we could come back! One of the people, a young couple and the first door we knocked, had met missionaries about a year ago while they were tracting, but never saw them again. She said she has had questions for a year now, and was so happy she could finally ask them! they were so nice to us! 

Love you all heaps! Ill make sure to tell you all when we have a baptism, I dont want to speak too soon, but we have a progressing investigator that really likes the church! pray for him! His name is Lawrence! Have an awesome week!

Look at all those ties!

The view outside Elder Mitchell's flat.

December 18th:  You all think you are far away from Sydney, wait till you travel there from Armidale. We had a mission wide conference in Sydney for Christmas this week. We left Armidale, Drove for an hour to Tamworth, then we got in the Tamworth Elders' car and rode with them for 3.5 hours to Singleton, where we stayed the night. We woke up the next morning at 3am, got ready and went to the train station (an hour and a half drive) to catch the 5:45 train to Strathfield, a 3 hour train ride, then switched trains to Mt. Druitt. Which was 30 mins. Then we took a 15 min bus ride to the Stake center. It was a long trip. But the Conference was awesome. The best part was I got to see Elder Sibbett! That was actually the best part of the whole week! Transfers are soon, and I am hoping and Praying that we get to serve together again, If not this transfer then sometime! He is such a good Missionary and ha has some amazing stories already from the mission! Sister Hartley was also there, and the three of us basically spent the whole time together, a part of our MTC district Reunited! It was so awesome to see them again! 

I just have one story, We were offered leftovers to take home yesterday for lunch so we went to pick them up. When we got there the 2 year old boy answered the door... Completely naked. His sister dragged him screaming(because he wanted to say hi to the missionaries)  out of the doorway. But that wasn't going to stop him! He came out like 5 times to say hi, never with any clothes on, to say hi and his siblings had to keep dragging him back to the tub. I thought it was so funny!

Because of our 3 day trip to Sydney we didn't have very many chances to teach. This week is going to be awesome though, especially because people are more willing to talk about their Savior during this time of year. I think we all can try to share our testimony of Him with those we come in contact with, and I hope that we will all take the courage to do so! I love you all heaps! Thank you for everything you do for me and my family! Remember to let your light shine! Have an awesome week and a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Elder Mitchell

Elder Mitchell absolutely loves Frank!

 The Lawrence Family