TWO PROGRESSING INVESTIGATORS, PICS FROM MY HIKE LAST WEEK & I LOVE IT HERE!

From my hike to the top of the volcano last week.

When I flew to Barbados to meet President Herrington, I spent two days there before heading to St. Vincent. St. Vincent is far more beautiful than Barbados. It is more hilly and lush with vegetation. It's one of the less developed islands. I love it here, though. (: We cover the Caliqua building, so that's Diamond, Brighton, Caulder Ridge, Stubbs and another village. It's a big area and kind of hard to explain... aha.

We teach a lot of people. It's just a matter of who's progressing. We have two progressing investigators right now. Malinda, who just needs to come to church, but she has no car and lives far away. And, Kennald, who is a young 23 year old guy we found on my second day here. he's super cool, but also very busy. He has a car, but it's hard to find a time to teach him and eventually we will have to help him to quit smoking week. That's a tough thing to do here because everyoneee here his age does it. How do we deal with it? With the Spirit! Aha, unfortunately and fortunately, both of these people have their agency, so we can testify all day long about what's right and extend invitations, but they really have to want to live the gospel cause it takes a lot more to live it here than in Vegas, so we are asking a lot of them. But ya know... we're trying. Aha.

Me and Elder Merrell

MEETING PRESIDENT, HIKING A VOLCANO & ENJOYING ST. VINCENT

La Soufriere, an active volcano having
last erupted in 1979.

Yesterday I hiked a volcano with my district, and it took all day, so by the time I got back all the little email shops were closed... but alas, I am here with this weeks email! La Soufriere was the volcano we hiked! It was actually a little tough, aha. But it's an amaaaazing hike. You end up in the clouds. Plus some of the other elders and I actually climbed down into the crater at the peak. It's like rappelling without a harness, on loose dirt, without vision of much due to the clouds, aha.

When I flew to the Caribbean, I went to Barbados first and met with my mission President and his wife. He was only called a few months ago, so I'll have him my whole mission, which I think is a good thing because he's pretty great. Not a huge "rules" guy or constantly on you about little things but focuses more on what really matters, ya know? I mean, he obviously enforces rules, but mostly in the "do you think that would be acceptable?" kind of way. Like sock ties aren't a problem or any of the other stuff we were worried about. But he is quite a spiritual man. Kind of reminds me of dad in some ways. However, he's over like 9 different countries, so I have very little interaction with him personally.

As for customs... customs sucks. Because we are going from one country to another every time we fly, we have to fill out a bunch of stuff but it's whatevs. They don't weight your personal items, so I just put all the small but heavy stuff in there, and I've been alright.

My companion, Elder Merrell, is pretty cool. This will probably be one of my best transfers, so I'm trying to enjoy it, aha. My companion and I get along, we have a car, AC in the house, a washer and dryer, it's just Elder Merrell and I in the guest home, it's beautiful here, the people are humble and all that jazz. So, it could really only go downhill for the next two years, aha.

There are three branches in St. Vincent. No wards or Bishops or anything, just Branch Presidents and Branches. There's not a whole lot of people here, most don't have cars in my area and are generally pretty poor. Not everyone... just like 70 percent of them. The members are great, aha, pretty funny. Church is different here, but the Sacrament remains the same, and that's what really matters. Some of these members walk for 30-40 minutes up and down hills in the humid heat to get to church, and it reminds me of the times when I was just too lazy to get out of bed because showering was so much work, aha! I've had a few dinner appointments. Most people will just feed you fruit when you come over. Their diet is mostly rice, chicken and fruit, so I'm doing just fine (: There are 14 missionaries on the island right now, but the mission is getting 25 new missionaries next transfer, so I'll probably be training next month... which is funny because I just got here! My MTC companion, Elder Nixon, is on St. Martin (that's where I want to go next).

Elder Mysell (That's what the natives call me, aha)

St. Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean, and is the largest island of the country Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It's located in the Caribbean Sea between Saint Lucia and Grenada.

FIRST AREA ST. VINCENT, COMPANION ELDER MERREL & EVERYTHING IS AMAZING HERE!

Elder Mikesell Barbados Bridgetown Mission

I'm on the island of St. Vincent here in the Caribbean. My area is mostly the south side of the island. Everything's amazing here. Best mission in the world, aha, well, other than the mid-day heat and humidity... and some other stuff. But, yeah. It's been an interesting week. My companion's name is Elder Merrell, and he's from some town in Utah. He's the zone leader, so we are one of the very few elders with a car. An amazingly air conditioned blessing, aha. Also, the AC broke in the guest house that we are staying in, so that sucks, but it will be fixed soon, apparently.

Elder Mikesell with his companion, Elder Merrell

Elder Merrell is a lot like Alec, in some ways... We get all of each other's movie quotes and references from Good Mythical Morning to Sponge-Bob to other random videos we've both seen. We quote stuff 24/7. It's quite a swell time. He plays piano pretty well by ear and played tennis in school. He also tells really funny stories. They mostly involve him getting rejected by girls, aha, but yeah.

I don't have a lot of time, but the people here are most of the time super nice and willing to listen to missionaries. The biggest problems are that young men usually smoke weed and drink, people just live together because marriage is expensive and not really a thing here, and most people don't have a car to get to church. So, we get a lot of new investigators all the time and run into one of those problems. It sucks, but I'll just keep looking and serving and all that.

Sunday was cool. There were about 35-ish people at church. I had never taken the sacrament in such a... poorly constructed ghetto building. I sat next to the window, and let me tell you, I had also never taken the sacrament with such a beautiful view. The hills and the ocean all right there. And the peoples faith and love for God is amazing.

I'm almost out of time! I love you! Talk to you next week. (:

SO FAR... I'VE HAD TWO PRACTICE INVESTIGATORS, EATEN SHRIMP FOR THE FIRST TIME, WRITTEN A SONG CALLED "TRAPPED IN THE MTC" AND CRIED... DON'T WORRY, IT WAS MANLY

Elder Mikesell in the MTC... Yep

My MTC District

Yeah! I've had two investigators here in the MTC for practice. One was My teacher, Brother Perry, who was an amazing dude! I'll send you a group picture of my district with him. He's a great teacher and really helped me understand the importance of getting to know and love your investigators, so you can teach them what they need to be taught at that point in their lives. He was also quite inspirational because he had a speech impediment where he would stutter all the time. He shared his story about how nervous he was about serving his mission because he wanted to be able to teach with the spirit, but he was worried that his stutter would distract from that spirit and affect his lessons with his investigators. But after being taught by him, his stutter only added personality to the class, aha, he really did teach with the spirit, and he was just a chill dude. So, that's my morning class teacher, Brother Perry.

Elder Nixon and I being super hot

My other investigator is what they call a TRC investigator. TRC investigators could be real people interested in the church who sign up to be taught in the MTC, or they can just be MTC teachers pretending to be that... and that's what Elder Nixon and I got. His name's Brandon, and he's definitely already a member, aha, we can just tell through things he's said and done throughout our lessons... and that he hangs out in the teacher's office place after we teach him with his obvious friends. But, it's still been nice. Unfortunately, we were paired up with another companionship to teach him... It's so hard to teach a lesson to one guy when there's four missionaries who all have a little different idea of where they want to go with the lesson and stuff. But, it's been swell... we are teaching him about baptism tonight because we invited him to be baptized, and he wants to know more first and all that. But Nixon and I got our teacher to agree to baptism! :D But, he was probably just being nice cause we're his kids, aha.

Other spiritual experiences! So, we watched this talk that Elder Bednar gave to the missionaries called "Characters of Christ", and oh my goodness was it good. It really gives you a new perspective on who Christ was just as a person while he was here on earth. Unfortunately, it's only available in the MTC which stinks. But, oh well. Another suuuuper cool thing that happened is Elder Dube just sat next to me and my district during lunch a couple days ago. It was so stellar. He's in the quorum of the 70 and he talked in the 2013 October General Conference. I actually remember him speaking, too. He was the guy from Zimbabwe. He had the cool African accent and everything.

Click here to read Elder Bednar's talk "The Character of Christ"

Saying goodbye to Brandon for 2 years

Last spiritual experience is that we had a devotional given by the General Primary Presidency leader. I can't remember her name, but she did a lot better than I thought she would. I was hoping for Holland or Bednar, but she was fine, too, aha. Anyways, she showed this clip of the Savior performing miracles, and he was perfecting the body deformities of these people, and I couldn't help but think of Brandon and his desire for a perfect body. When we had a district meeting afterwards, I was called on to share my favorite part and why and all that, so I told my district about Brandon and how much he means to me but how much more he means to the Savior, and of course, I had to cry in front of everyone. Aha, but don't worry, it was a manly cry.

Me in class everyday...

I wrote this song that my district sings called "Trapped in the MTC", lol! It goes:

"There's a world out thereee! but I'm trapped in the MTC... Yes, There's a world out thereee!" (the rest of the group) "Where?!" "Outside of the MTC!"

The MTC food is slightly above mediocre, aha. I had shrimp for the first time... it was good, but I think that might have just been because it was fried... and I had fish (also fried) and that was good too...

All my flippin snacks. #thanksfam

WHERE WE ARE GOING!

DAY 3 AT MTC PRETTY CHILL AND MTC COMPANION ELDER NIXON

It's day 3 at the MTC... it's pretty chill, I guess. My companion's name is Elder Nixon, and he's pretty chill. Well, he's "normal" which is all I really wanted, haha. He is from West Jordan, Utah. He's into football and lake stuff like boating and fishing. But now he's into the gospel, aha.

As far as what I've learned, more teaching skills than anything. We've been learning what to do in the field every day. We've been practicing lessons and how to plan according to your investigators needs. Which is coolio.

My MTC companion, Elder Nixon

MTC roommate, Elder Sandbakken

MTC roommate, Elder Stephens

TAKING CHASE TO THE MTC

Last night, Sean and Chase drove to Beaver, Utah to spend the night at Grandpa and Grandma Mikesell's and say goodbye. This morning they woke up, got ready, had breakfast at Arshel's in Beaver with Grandpa and Grandma and drove up to Provo. After picking Jay up, they stopped for lunch at a Thai restaurant, Justin's choice, not Chase's. Chase had chicken nuggets off the kid's menu! Afterwards, they took a few pictures in front of the Provo Temple and then dropped Chase off at the MTC! GOOD LUCK ELDER MIKESELL! WE LOVE YOU!

IT'S OFFICIAL! I'M NOW ELDER MIKESELL :D

It's official! I'm now a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was set apart as a missionary tonight by President Stolworthy, my Stake President. I'm grateful my dad and grandpa could stand in as well. I'm just missing my name tag, though, then I'll be really official. :D The mission life has begun...

Me with my family just after being set apart as a missionary.

Me and President Stolworthy

They're going to have to make some room for my pic.