First real week of work in spain

Hi Mom :) How are you? Ìm a very slow typer so I never really ask you how you are doing. But I love your updates every week so I feel like I know everything. Sounds like everyone is having a good time and doing awesome. Disneyland looked like it was so fun! It´s weird because everyone is starting to look a little different in the pictures :P Me and my companion are in this little internet cafe thing in front of the train station. The culture here is very.... different. But I love it :D My spanish is improving which I thought never would. I can also understand a ton too! So that´s nice, especially when your in a place where there is very little english. Oh I also learned this week that you can´t run the dishwasher and the washing machine at the same time or else the power will go out! Also, there is no such thing as personal space in spain. It is so funny. Ok story time. So we had this family that came to church last week and they are excited to learn more, which I love to see in investigators. But we had a lesson where we watched the video of the restoration and the spirit was fuerte. It was tangible. Then we testified and committed them to baptism on the 8th of march. Super excited for them! The son still isn´t sure. He is 14, but the parents are solid! They are Cuban. Cubans are golden because they all believe in god but don´t really know much more. Thats kind of a stereotype.... but its true. Whenever we find a cuban we are super excited. We had a baptism two days ago and the daughter who was also going to get baptized bailed the day before! The mom still got baptized but It is interesting to see how strong and hard Satan works to fill peoples heads with doubt. I don´t really like it and I wish Satan was just a nice person. I guess that prayer won´t really be answered will it :P But thats why we put on armor everyday right? This week we ate a ton! Ok so the schedule works so that we study until 11, have media dia from 2 to 5 and then work until 10ish while i´m on the training program. But we eat at 2 and then don´t eat until the next day. Thats a pretty typical day. But get this. So friday we ate with a member at 2 and it was a huge meal to last us the next day right. And its pretty rare to eat with members. Maybe 1 or two times a week sometimes three. Then we went to a cita at 5 and we sit down and then they start bringing out all this russian food because they eat at five normally. So we were polite and ate everything. By this time we are feelin pretty sick haha. Then we are out trying to find Antiguos which are people who have been taught a few times in the past that we follow up with. So we are out and we ring the intercom to talk to the people inside the complex and this family answersfrom romania and they don´t know who we are but they invite us in. Which was super awesome! But they gave us more food :P It was hillarious because me and my companion just looked at eachother and wanted to bust out laughing because of how much food we had eaten. Anyway, I have been studying a few things and I´m kind of addicted to it haha. We are reading the Book of Mormon as a mission in two months and marking all the doctrines of christ. I also decided to mark all names of christ in another color and then every time christ speaks in another color. It is sweet. But I am also studying this 80 page packet on the atonement from my last mission in Texas and they correspond quite nice. I want to testify of the power that comes frm reading the book of Mormon. There is a special strength that only comes from reading the Book of Mormon. As I have been studying, christ is mentioned on every page. As I´ve thought about that, and how Christ is the focus of the book, I´ve also thought how Christ´s purpose was to complete the Atonement so we could overcome the fall both spiritually and physically. So basically the Book of Mormon directs us to the Atonement on every single page. It´s super awesome. As we read, we think of Christ as he is mentioned, and then use the atonement, which allows me as a missionary to be a better instrument. I hope that all made sense. Um other news. Semana santa comes up in April where they parade around with huge statues of christ and mary like a huge idol worship party. It´s kind of disgusting to think about at least from the things my companion has told me about it. Ill let you know when it happens, but we hear bands practicing and people are starting to talk about it.

 Oh here is my address for the piso.
 Elder Powell
c/ La Victoria N.64, blk A, 1.G
29010 Malaga (malaga)
España

This is the mission home which will never change. You can send them here if you want and I´ll get them every six weeks.
Elder Joshua Trevor Powell
Spain Malaga Mission
Av. Jesus Santos Rein No 2, 3 D-E Edif. Ofisol, Fuengirola
29640 Malaga
SPAIN

 Love you all. It´s still weird to be in spain but awesome to be teaching and learning. You can only convert someone as far you have been converted. Vaya Con Dios ¡¡Hurrah for Israel!! Love Elder Powell

Malaga

Hola. I am in Spain. ¿¡What!?

I will upload some pictures later today but it is a wonderful place. My new companion is elder Jones and he has 3 months left in the mission and I`ve only been out three. Kind of crazy. But we are in the malaga area called malaga 3. We are both coming to this area newly so we can switch with hermanas who have been covering the area in the past. So we have been lost as we both try to get to know the area. About 800,000 people live here. It reminds me alot of singapore except alot dirtier :P But I love it. The mission home was beautiful and our apartment is super nice too. I could probably talk for a few paragraphs on how awesome spain is but.... I don´t think that´s necessary. You all already know :P Hahah kidding. What I love the most is that the people are great!

 My first day we met with a recent convert and invited his nonmember wife to come to church. The missionaries had been working with her for months and we just simply asked her why she didn´t want to come to church and she said she did. So she came :D Also we had a referencia from this cuban man, so we visited his son and family and they all came to church too! So we had four people at church on my first sunday. There are about 140 members, the second largest ward in the mission. It is pretty cool. I can tell this is going to be a good area. Oh and so that was the most investigators i have had at church then all of the sundays in texas combined. Yeah.

Anyway, I thought my first day in Texas was hard well....... I was wrong. We got to our piso that first night and I threw up all night. It was the best welcome I could have asked for ;P I think it was a combination of weird food, jet lag, and being in Spain. It was not fun. But I´m still recovering. Trying to drink alot of water and catch up on sleep.

We´re taking a tour of malaga today and I´ll get to see my first castle :D It was sweet lookin from the city. We´ll see how that goes.

Um spiritually. Miracles do happen. Especially when you are doing all that you can do to stay righteous and obedient.

Love you all.

Vaya con Dios

 

Elder Powell

This was our arriving group. We were all super tired.

The mission home

 This is from the back porch of the mission home

 This is how we dry our clothes here. It is probably the biggest difference I´ve found so far. Except for the spanish :P But it´s like a huge tube down the middle of the complex!

So we walked up this huge walkway today and it wasn´t really a castle... It was like a whole bunch of forts connected with walls. and we were walking on top of the walls. Really wide walls haha

 Spain. Oh and Bull rinks are huge here!

 Panoram de malaga

Me and my companion Elder Jones. We are going to try and get permission to go to a bull fight before he leaves :D Oh and something I just remembered. Elder Jones uncle is President Maughn of our stake! How sweet is that! President Maughn interviewed me and told me about his nephew but I forgot. He was the last elder in morocco. Those colonies are closed after that video was put on the web by americans of muslims so things were getting violent and they got pulled out. Hopefully that area will open up before I leave. He said there were only 11 members there.

Spain

Sent on Feb. 7th

Alright! I am in Spain! It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen :) Well Hawaii is pretty close but I haven't even been here for more than 2 hours so there is still alot to see. It is very mountainous here and the temperature is about 69 and perfect :) France was also really pretty to see from the air. It had so much countryside. Tonight we stay at the mission home and we get assigned companions tonight too! It is crazy. I was kind of nervous but now it has just turned into excitement. We head out to our areas tomorrow afternoon. Oh right now it is 6:18 pm. I don't feel jet lagged...... yet. We'll see. My p-day is monday so I'll write again then.

Love you,

Elder Powell

Pictures from San Antonio, TX, Mission

 These first 2 pictures were sent to Mom and Dad from the mission president just after Josh arrived in San Antonio.  They took good care of him for the short time he was there.

These pictures are from Boerne, Texas

so this pic is what i saw when i walked in on the first day in texas.

My backyard :) Dead trees everywhere but there were always deer

Best disguise ever

Most interesting man alive.

Sunrises in texas :)

(Notice he said SUNRISE in Texas... I guess that means he gets up pretty early)

His Aunt Julie and her family got to go to the airport in Texas to say "goodbye" when he left to come back to Utah to get his visa.  He was so happy to see them.

P Day

Ok so today is my pday in the mtc. Not going to lie but this is really weird. I feel chained down. I went from finding people and changing peoples lives to here in the MTC where I am stuck in a classroom six hours a day! I am trying to be positive and see the good but it is reall hard. But hey, I'll get to go to two devotionals and learn a little more spanish because im in the advanced spanish class now! :)

We met with the spanish consolate. we signed a paper. And now we have our visas and passport :P All set to go!

 

Well nothing really left to say.

 

Love you all and I'm going to start sending pictures now. I can only send like two at a time though haha.