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