Last P-Day in the MTC

Wooh! These are my last few days in the MTC:) I have loved it so much but I have seen almost my whole district leave.... that has been hard. We started with 5 companionships and right now it is just me and my companion, so we had to join another district. Our first day in the new district we taught one of the teachers who played an investigator. we had to do a door approach and then teach her. It was a little difficult to get in the door, but then we talked to beatrice about her family and the importance of the Gospel and Christ in her life and we commmitted her to baptism on the first lesson! It almost seemed too easy, but it was cool to see her change so fast.We shared scriptures and testimony and taught her with the spirit. It was awesomely fantastic. :)

So I woke up this morning, walked outside and it was still snowing :D  There is about two feet of snow here in provo and it is the perfect Christmas gift. Christmas was fantastic, like I wrote in my last email. Later that day we had a fantastic talent show! The best act were these two  elders who were twins and they played  the piano like two mad scientists. They were hillarious too because they were climbing over eachother, pushing eachother off the bench, waving to the crowd and all these other things while they were playing this crazy piano piece. It was hillarious :)

Then after the talent show we had Greg Olsen come and speak to us about all of his paintings. He is the guy who painted christ on the hill and jerusalem is down in the background... Yeah. Anyway he gave us the greatest perspective on christ. He has spent the last 20 years painting all sorts of pictures of christ. He was explaining that he has come to this extremely personal level with christ since he spends hours on all the details and he has to constantly be thinking how to make his paintings emulate the character of Christ. It was pretty interesting. I didn't write all of what he said but he did ask us to do this: Think about yourself right now on this earth. How you act,how you think, what your personality is like.... and then imagine meeting yourself before this life. Your spirit.  Your "real self". How would you act. What would the differences be. The way he led up to it, really got me to think. 

 His overall message was that we shouldn't distance ourself from Christ. Yes he was the son of god, but he also walked this earth like we are doing now. He learned, he worked, he had friends, he loved and he said that sometimes we need to remember that he is our literal spirit brother. Heavenly father is our literal spiritual father. And we are his literal sons and daughters. We should turn to them whenever we can, want and need them. Which is always :) It was a great discourso.

Oh and then that night we got to watch a wonderful life which was good... but it just reminded me of home so that was dumb haha :) But they treated us well on christmas and I loved it. I'm still freaking out about the snow though! Last night we started making a snow cave so I think i'm going to do that for a little while today on my P-day after I finish all my prep stuff and studying. Have fun skiing. :)

 By this time next week I will be in San Antonio Texas! I can not wait.

Love you all.

Vaya con Dios

Love Elder Powell  

December 25, 2012

Woo so our present from the MTC was getting to write an email home!

Merry Christmas and I hope that everyone is having a fabulous time :)

Today we were able to hear from Elder Nelson and I love how whenever an apostle or other general authority comes the messages are so personal. Instead of talking to the whole world like on general conference they get to open up to 2,000 missionaries (Strippling Warriors) and talk to us. Today we learned about gifts. Sister Nelson compared gifts of the spirit to gift cards

I love how every year we would read the story of Jesus. It was always so special and now as i read it i still have those same feelings of peace and love. Now I realize that those feelings were of the spirit. Before my mission I never really recognized the spirit and now he is my friend :) I am now realizing how he has influenced my whole life. Something awesome though about the spirit is that he can testify of only truth. So those feelings I had as we read the scriptures and especially as we read every christmas the story of Christ from the scriptures, it was the spirit telling me that what I was reading and hearing was, and is still true! I know that Christ is our Savior. I know that on the night Christ was born, angels did minister to shepherds in the field. A new star did appear. Jesus was born into the world by a virgin named Mary. And Christ is God's son!

As soon as he was born he already had someone trying to kill him. For me that adds one thing to the list of how Christ is our saviour. Well besides the fact of the heavens changing, angels ministering and of course prophecies of christ's birth 600 years in advance. I mean other than that ;)

I love this Gospel and I can't believe how much it has influenced my life up to this point and much more it will change me.

Think for a second what Christ has done for you and how he has affected your life. I can testify that he has in at least a few ways. He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane for YOU. He has Suffered on the cross for YOU. And he was Ressurected for YOU!

This has given me purpose.

Merry Christmas and I love you Family. Hope you had a great Christmas because I know I did :) I loved the gifts and the love.

Love, Elder Powell

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas :)

It is so crazy that Christmas is in 5 days! Thank you everyone for the packages, cards, presents and food! It has been fantastic :) I don't know if I'll have time to write letters to you because we cleaned the Temple today for about 4 hours :) Which I will tell you about in just a second. But Merry Christmas! I love you and wish I could be there to celebrate Christmas with all of you. Christmas is great! I love how it reminds us of Jesus' birth. I know Jesus is our savior and that he suffered and died for us. Without the Atonement we wouldn't be able to be forgiven of anything and would never be allowed to return with our Heavenly Father. It is so important to use the atonement every day, even for the little things. I know that is true and I know that as we are obedient and strive to be perfect, we are becoming more like Christ. That is the purpose of this life. Sometimes it is hard to remember but this life is so short and all we are are asked to do is show our Faith in Jesus Christ by acting and becoming like him. Creencia is when you don't act on what you know and have learned but faith is when you act.
Hope that made sense.

This week I have been trying to be 100% obedient. It has been such a blessing. Also I read Kameron's letter about how when he is working his hardest that is when he has the most peace. It is so true. As we are working and being diligent to follow the savior we are more at peace and really feel our Father's Love. 

  Oh and yeah! I saw president Morgan and got to give him a big hug and then I hosted his grand son on his first day at the MTC. That was fun! 
I still haven't gotten a letter that I've been reassigned yet So I'm still waiting on that. It's super hard to NOT know yet. I think I will get it tonight though. We will see.

Um Congratulations Jared and Victoria (I like that name ;)) You are probably married RIGHT NOW! Yep that is definitely weird. i am so excited for you guys. If I have a nephew when I get home I would be so excited. Haha I'm kind of joking.... but not really :P You should name him Fawx. It's probably the most best name on the planet. 

I love you guys. Rebecca, I have read your letter so many times because it always makes me laugh and smile. I love it :) Adam I loved your letter and all the stickers and drawings you made! It was fantastic! Rachel you are great. Please keep writing :) i loved the santa you drew me and I'm workin on that line you sent me haha. I will write you soon but there is so much to study and focus on here! 
 
Ahh I forgot to tell you about the temple! So we were there for four hours and it was amazing. We were able to serve the lord, by LITERALLY cleaning His house with about 40 other LITERAL Servants of the lord. The Spirit was strong and it always is in the temple. Try and go there as often as you can. Tanner and Rachel you should try and go a few times a months! It will strengthen your relationship with eachother as well as your relationship with the Lord. Oh and at the end we were able to go into the Brides room.... Why are girls so lucky!! It was almost as cool as the celestial room. Not quite but almost. 

Anyway. Hasta proximo semana
Vaya Con Dios
Love Elder Powell

P.S I have everything I need for my mission but I would love some ties for Christmas. :) It will last the longest and its the only thing I can change every day :)

Hello Again

Hi mom. :) I love the jazz games! Glad you finally got to go to the lexus club too :) I wonder if I'll be able to go to any soccer games in spain?

 

Ahh i would have totally put up all the christmas lights all over our house. And this year probably would have been better than last year because we seem to buy more and more lights each year! I'm glad you got them up and I am really going to miss that. I just got your letter and I loved it! Thanks for the christmas tree too! I will write you back soon. In our last devotional we got to watch the first presidency christmas message and that made me miss home and also miss the christmas spirit of lights, sitting by the fire, being with family, playin in the snow and everything else. But It's ok! We will have an amazing devotional on Christmas and we get two Apostles this time :D I am super stoked!

Wo! Tanner, you are amaaazing (with fluxuation in my voice) How many people are in the tournament? What to win if you win the tournament? Are you nervous? :)

 

Everything in the MTC has been pretty normal here. I finally got the answers to my prayers though! I have been praying for my companion, elder Jensen, you know to be the best he can and try to get focused and work hard.... Well this week we were put into a tripanionship and boom! Elder lundberg was blunt yet loving. He has been here for three months because of injury so we all know him and we have alot of respect for him and he just told elder Jensen to leave everything behind at home and stop thinking about girls and FOCUS. It's been three days and his attitude is definitely better. I'll keep you updated. I love how one of the one things I've been struggling with is something I can't just choose to change. I've already learned so much.

 

Our investigators are doing well! We have been teaching four people. Have I even talked about these people with you?! Ok so first is Vicente. He is awesome! He is from chile, he's 21 and is going to college and we have committed him to baptism on the 22'nd! He is our strongest investigator and it's so cool to see his change. :)

Also we have been teaching a single father by the name of Mario. He is from Guatemala! He wants comfort and direction in life and we have told him how important prayer and scripture reading are for him. We really got through to him in our last lesson and he has also committed to baptism by the 22'nd!

These last two guys are really stubborn. we have taught them three times and they have made very little progress... We have been teaching them about the plan of salvation but they don't understand why they need the gospel if they have the whole millenium to decide. Yeahhhhh..... we should have never brought up the milleniuim. Kidding :) But we have found alot of scriptures about it so we will see how it goes with them tomorrow.

By the way these are investigators that our companions and teachers are acting in place of people they know. It is so cool! Because we never break character and it really is like we are teaching someone else! It is fantastic!

 

Well not much has changed.  I have gotten to go with Elder lundberg though to his physical therapy at the provo Hospital twice and that has been fun to talk to normal people and just be in the outside world ;) I am in a tripanionship until tuesday when Elder Lundberg finally heads to Mexico because of recovery time for his knee. I'm excited for him. Then I only have two more weeks until I get to go serve and talk to people. Oh I can't wait to go serve! Like you have no idea! I am scared that it has to be in spanish but I know the lord will bless me as I am striving, and becoming christ like.

This week I read this amazing talk called "Jesus: The Perfect Leader." I think this has been an eye opener for me on how to lead. It's cool how when you are called to do something the lord will back you up and help you become what you need to be. I was made district leader and I can really feel the lord working with me. It is the coolest feeling ever! It's like I have gained years and years of wisdom and knowledge to help those in our district and to lead. It is really humbling. And our District is so unified and working hard.

Alright I gotta go. I went over a little on my time so next week my letter will be a little shorter. I'm such a slow typer!

Well I love you all. I love you Mom and Dad. I love you Jared, Tori, Tanner, Rachel, Rebecca, and you Adam. Hi Adam :) I will write you an awesome letter today. Tori do you even work at the MTC! I haven't seen you once. I have lunch at 12 and dinner at 5 every day!
Vaya Con Dios.

Bye :) 

Faith and Light - Nov. 29

Hi there!

 

Things are going super great! I´m learning so much and I can´t believe it´s been five weeks :) Thanks fam for the packages! I love how all the food is gone in about 2 minutes after opening the package. Everyone enjoys it haha. I wish I could be home to put up the christmas lights and listen to christmas music and sit by the fire as it snows outside, but I guess we'll probably have to wait two years for that huh ;) Here in the MTC they turned on all their christmas lights on thanksgiving night! Who was excited... I was! Oh and thank you mom for my little decoration. I put it up right when I got! Also the Orthodics are good so far. I still need my bottom retainer. It's just a plastic one :)
Mom and dad that vacation sounds pretty amazing. Dad you are awesome. I love doing surprises like that. Isn't lake Powell amazing! Ahh i think I could live there in the summer. But I'm glad you had fun and got time to be together.

Everything else has kind of been the same old same old here in the MTC. Although we did get to watch 17 miracles on thanksgiving night. That was actually really awesome. I just never get tired of that movie and it was good to remember what those people did for me, and for all of us. They sacrificed literally everything they had to come to the salt lake valley and follow the will of the Lord. I wonder how many people in the church would actually be willing to leave their homes if that same thing happened today. I know I would leave in a heartbeat :)

 

Que en el mundo! So I totally forgot McNamera was coming to the MTC. We had been waiting for our new district in our zone and we knew they were finally coming last night! So I 'm sitting in class and the new district walks by and they start talkin to some of our district. And we're all talkin spanish, which is still hillarious and I can't get over how confused they look, but I go over and I just stand there stunned! Dmac is just chillin leaning against the wall. And then he sees me and it was like the happiest reunion ever! It was as if we hadn't seen eachother in twenty years or something. Oh it was great. So now He is in our zone, learning spanish and we go to the same ward :) What are the chances! Well the chances are like 1 in  70 somethin but still it was great. Also we have 2 Samoans who just joined our zone and they speak hardly any english and they have to be taught spanish. Yep, they have to learn english and spanish. It's kind of crazy but with the lord all things are possible!

 

This week I've been working on faith and the difference between hope and faith and how doubt affects all of the that. And where is that point where faith turns into knowledge. It's cool when you have hours to study things like that because you gain such an understanding.  There comes a point when you have to rely solely on faith. You won't have any sight on how or what to do in certain situations.But because you have a knowledge that Christ lives and this gospel is true you can rely on that knowledge to help you through doubt. I wish I could explain all about it! I can share my light, but you can't take my light. It's so important for us to take the time and gain testimonies by working for them. :)  We have also learned alot about light and there is this cool 3 episode series on lds.org under mormon messages taught by elder Bednar. I would definitely recommend it! They are about 2 minutes each and so good. Bednar has becaome one of my favorite apostles.

Congratulations Jared and Tori! You are getting married so soon! I wish I could be there and see all of it. You better take a million pictures and remember me haha :) I've got to admit that is going to be weird to have a married brother. You are so old :P Hahaha. But really i'm so excited for you and I can't wait to hear all about it.

 

Welp I gotta go. I love all of you!

Vaya Con Dios!

Love Elder Powell

p.s You should somehow tell people about dearelder because i don't know how it works haha :)