6 Months!!

Well hello family :) I just hit my 6 month mark! It´s like I´m a sister missionary just starting the mish. Except I have a missionary to train! I'm takin' a train to the mission home to pick him up tonight! Can´t wait!

So this week has been super good..... besides the fact that the two people that were supposed to get baptized didn´t get baptized. :P But really it was an awesome week. We picked up 5 new investigators, taught a lot of people, and found a lot of "futures" that we will be passing by to teach. It´s almost like god was preparing us to have a lot of people to teach when my hijo gets here! :) Before we had like two people to teach and now we have 8! It´s rockin! Also we had an awesome ward activity and the ward is being strengthened. It is perfect. It´s like in Alma 4:4 where we have to strengthen the ward before the lord will trust us with people to bring into his fold. Tha'ts exactly what happened! Ward activity=stronger ward=more people entrusted to us by the lord=Baptisms. Which also means the scriptures are true. :)

The bad News is that Michael didn´t get baptized because his mom didn´t let him. Now he feels ashamed to come to church because he wasn´t baptized :( And the mom doesn´t want to talk to us. If we could just talk to her she would feel that this is a good step for her son. So we´ll be workin on that.

Maria is getting baptized! We just don´t know when haha. She is already living the gospel and has had many spiritual experiences! She just doesn´t recognize it. It´s wonderful how the lord can give you so much love for someone. It´s just hard when they can´t receive all the blessings that are waiting for them. Please pray for michael´s mom to have a soft heart, and that Maria will also realize the blessings of being baptized :)

Well that´s last week for ya!

 

I was also able to study a talk by Elder Bednar this past week. I learned about the redeeming power of the Atonement as well as the Enabling power of the Atonement. The redeeming power is what helps us overcome sins. But I learned alot about the enabling power. It isn´t the power to take away trials but the power we receive to OVERCOME trials. Think about Nephi. He prayed for strength to break the bands that held him captive. The people of Alma prayed that their burdens would be lightened, and guess what the lord did. He gave them strength so that their burdens felt lighter. Alma and Amulek, the pioneers and much more.

We didn´t come to earth to pass through trials. We came to be strengthened and to grow. But the Savior, our Lord and Redeemer, performed the atonement so that we can not only overcome all sin but also be given strength to overcome all trials. The atonement is something I cannot understand or comprehend fully, but I know that it is real. I know that we can become clean of sin, we can be comforted when we stand in need of comfort, and we can be given all the strength of the lord to overcome our weaknesses and trials.

 

I love you! I love the mission! And I love my Saviour.

 

Elder Powell  

 

WHAT....I'M TRAINING!?!

Hello family!! How are all of you? Good I hope :)

Yep so i got a call last night from president and he told me I will be training, starting the 2nd of May! I was shocked!

This is going to be one of the greatest experiences ever though. i just feel excited and that this is the right thing for me now. Even though I´m a little nervous and I can´t speak perfect spanish yet I trust my president and I know he receives revelation from the lord on what to do. So pretty much the lord asked me to train someone. When I look at it in that perspective it makes things a whole lot easier! :)

Also we had a baptism Friday night for Lucia! I was able to baptize her and it was one of the best experiences ever! It was my first time baptizing and I could feel the spirit confirming everything that night. She is a great lady and is going to be very strong in the church. The next day her nephew told us that he wants to get baptized this Saturday! It is going to be awesome! :)

When you are working hard constantly and then see the Blessings, it is great!

Also we set a baptismal date with Gladys from the dominican Republic for the 10th of May!! I´m really excited for her! She said she wanted to be baptized but she needed a few weeks.  I think she will be baptized sooner though ;) The spirit is working really well with her :)

My companion is going home in 9 days. Now that is a weird thought! He is talking of home and it is pretty fun to see his excitement when he talks about seeing his family. But he is still working so hard. He is a really good missionary. I´m gonna miss that kid!

 

Ok so a little update on our perfect day of planning. I don´t know if I mentioned it last week but our whole mission fasted and then we planned exactly perfect for one day. :) President sent out a bulletin all about it. But basically we accomplished all the standards of excellency for a day, plus more! It was pretty amazing.

As far as our day went (me and elder Jones). Everything went really bad haha :P We planned really well, but....... we were on the street for about 5 hours because all of our plans fell through! By the time our third plan fell through i was laughing and talking how we probably had some important lesson to learn. :) And there is something I learned. Even though that day was just an average day, even after planning dilligently and working hard and only having a few lessons, the Lord blessed me greatly in other aspects. Sometimes we don´t understand the lord´s will, or what the outcome will be. But because we were obedient and had faith I saw the hand of the lord in the next days.

Trust in the Lord. Do the hard, right things in life.

I love you all. I love the mission. Hurrah for Israel.

 

Elder Powell 

 

 

Hello :)

Hello Family and friends :)

 

This week we have done a ton! The main thing though is all the work we have done to strengthen the ward :) With 6 missionaries now for one ward we can visit a lot of people. Whether to invite them to activities, or less actives to church or who knows what. It is just the best to have an extra set of missionaries! Our areas are newly divided and smaller so we can focus a lot more on members, as well as teach more investigators! This place is going to explode in about two weeks once we settle in and work hard. It is great! We had a a lot of new people at church and all of our investigators were able to show up! That is the best feeling ever! To see all those you have been working with to make the choice to come to church.

Ok so Monday we had a noche de hogar with a member family (The moyanos, who are sending two of their sons, 18 and 19, on a mission in a few months) and our recent convert family of luis. :) It was amazing! We ate this seafood paella with everything you can think of in it. Paella is this huge dish of rice with tons of meat and vegetables mixed in. There was shrimp, octopus, squid, clams, muscles, corn, lobster arms and some kind of fish. I was in heaven :P But it really strengthened the family of luis to be in the house of another active family. Having members fellowship new converts is the BEST thing a member can do!

Wednesday we had a ward noche de hogar, where we give a lesson and then play games and eat. We do it every week and this week we had more investigators there than members! Granted, there were only 3 members there :P But we had 9 investigators there!!! 

Later that week lucia, who is being baptized this Friday, invited us to eat at her house. How nice is that! She is progressing so well and i am so excited for her. :) Also her nephew is getting baptized too!

OH! So we had a super spiritual experience that I forgot about. We watched the Restauracion DVD with Maria who is 18 and had a "goal" to be baptized the 27th of April. Lets just say that that goal turned into a solid date! She felt the spirit so strong and we can see that she wants it! It was amazing. When she talked about how she was feeling after seeing the first vision, the spirit just intensified.The spirit was definitely tangible in that room. :)This message is awesome. You can´t deny feelings that you know are from the spirit.

Gladys, is doing great as well :)

Welp, I don´t have my agenda with me because we came straight from a biking activity with our zone. So that's about it for this week :)

I love being a missionary and I love the gospel. It IS true. Truth can´t be changed. Joseph did see God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. The Gospel WAS restored through a prophet of God. I know  these things are true because I have studied,  prayed and received an answer. And this Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, will remain perfectly in Truth until the second coming of Christ.

Don´t doubt and continue in faith.

Love,Elder Powell

Wow what an amazing week! :)

We had some pretty spiritual experiences.

Elder Olsen, Jones and I did a 24 hour fast for our investigators this past week. We wanted these people to keep progressing because they seemed to always be busy and we couldn´t strengthen them and lead them towards baptism and ultimately returning to live with our Heaveny Father.We had 5 names on our list and we started monday after lunch. Tuesday we finished our fast at 2. We then taught EVERY SINGLE person on the list! Also one of the investigators we were fasting for told us that she had a dream where she heard a voice saying the church wasn´t true. She woke up and the words "you can´t tempt me satan" Came out of her mouth. She and her Nephew are set for the 19th to be baptized (Lucia and Mitchel). Also Palma, the mother of ismael who is living with a man with out the bonds of marriage, received a miraculous call from someone who found her name on a random list in a random hospital, and had a job interview on Saturday! She will be getting baptized soon as soon as she has an income and can move out. And Finally we were teaching a lady (Gladys) who said that during the lesson, when we were doing an example, we asked her to close her eyes. We explained to her that we can´t see god but we have a prophet to guide us. When she opened her eyes she was very happy and said that she saw god wearing vestidos de blanco! Apparently she is one of those people who can see God. ;) Also all of these people came to conference for at least one of the sessions! All of this came from the faith of 3 missionaries who trusted in the lord. What a blessing.

Um... was conference like the most amazing thing ever!!! There were some very powerful talks. Elder Holland!  "WOW" was like the only thing i put in my notes. :P I was so focused I didn´t write anything else haha.Elder Packer was one of my favorites. He has gained so much knowledge and when he was speaking I received the most revelation. Elder Hales I also liked when he gave us warning on how sin and temptation come looking for us in these last days. But, my favorite was definitely President Monson when he talked about his story with Fire :D It sounded just like me when I was 8. Mom I loved his facial expressions too! So great. We watched the saturday morning session on saturday at 6 pm live. And then we watched the other 4 sessions on sunday. The last one was from 10 to midnight! I may have missed some of the talks after Holland. But I can´t wait to go back and read them.

Learn and apply all these things from conference. We can receive the blessings of our Heavenly Father as we do so. The work of the lord is still rolling forward with power and will continue to do so. I love it. I love this Gospel and it is so True!

Love Elder Powell :)

 

New Companion

Hi Family! I love you guys :)

So I have a new companion!! Elder Olsen. He is the best missionary ever! He is the definition of Utah Mormon haha :P He is going to be with Elder Jones and I while we wait for his companion who is coming next week. There is just an odd number of missionaries in the field so we are in a trio. But it is so cool because he is 18 AND he has only been on a mission for 24 days! Yeah. He was in the provo MTC for only 10 days (because he knew spanish) and then he served in the provo mission for 10 days and then they flew him here. When they said they were speeding things up they weren´t kidding. He is a great addition though. I thought I was a pretty positive person when it came to any situation but he blows me out of the water. It is great :D Every hour he just turns to me and says "Isn´t this just the greatest day ever!? Gosh I love you elders :)" Ahh its super fun. He has been studying spanish for 5 years so he speaks super well and is so spiritually in tune it is great! When we get his new companion there will be 6 missionaries in our ward and 16 in Malaga! We are going to see so much increase in the work here. It is awesome!

This week we found 5 new investigators and three of them came to church! It was great except three of our other investigators, who we have been teaching for a while didn´t show up. :/ Sunday was daylight savings so we had a really low turn out in church. But yeah we found all these new people and they are so prepared! April is going to be a good month. Oh my gosh, and while we were in church this African walked in to church and said I NEED to be baptized, like today! We explained to him about how we had to teach him a few things but he loved church even though he doesn´t understand any spanish. After gospel doctrines class he said he was going to take the gospel principles book. Also he like demanded that he could have a bible, a book of mormon and the teachings of president Snow! He said he needed to study since he was going to holland for three weeks or something. We have a lesson with him tonight to figure out how he found us and what he wants because he was saying some things like he wants to become a pastor. I hope he knows  we don´t get paid :P

Anyway this week was so weird because on Friday was when all the celebration happened. They like worshiped the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. None of them know they are wrapped around satan´s finger. That day was probably one of satan´s most favorite day in the history of the world along with the Fall.  They had a ton of processions and parties, and then sunday came and hardly anyone talked about the resurrection when we met people in the streets. It was kind of interesting. People are so confused!

I finished The Book of Mormon this past week and it is so true! Gosh I love it. All people need to do is read this book,  pray with real intent and every time they would be baptized! Ok that's not totally true but the Book of Mormon is so powerful. It is such a great tool. This sunday is General Conference and I can´t wait to hear all the words of th prophet and apostles. It´s going to be a little weird to not hear their real voice though because it is a translation. Oh well :)

I love you all. This church is true. And Christ LIVES. Que Guay!

Love Elder Powell 

 

Oh and we went to a huge cathedral. Compare the size of the people to a pillar. LOCO! All these pictures are things we have been doing our past P days.

 Alright here are the thrones and parades and nazarines (pointy hat people) that I was talking about.

So I also went on this hike with our zone and we went to a waterfall :)

(For those of you who may not know, this is Joshua's famous pose that he does at the top of mountains and in front of waterfalls)

Missionary Work

March 25, 2013

(This letter is a little late getting on the blog.  Mom was out of town and couldn't post it.)

Hi family :)

This week we have been doing alot of finding as we try to have new investigators. It has been hard with the festivities because everyone is super flojo and won´t call if they aren´t going to be home when we come by. But we had an awesome tender mercy/miracle. All week we were praying to find a family. We would find these awesome potentials and then nothing. Each day we would get home super tired and satisfied with the day but we felt like we weren´t having succes. We kept praying and kept working hard. Our goal in this Barrio (ward) is to have 40 baptisms by the end of the year. It´s about 2 per month for both companionships.  So we have gone all week probably working the hardest I have so far on the mssion and still no baptismal dates for april and still no families.  Sunday night is when we turn in our numbers. Sunday night comes and we only have one lesson left. Yep, we go in, teach a receptive lady and her son named Michael y Lucia accepted to be baptized. We set baptismal dates for April 19th! It was super awesome. This past week god was really testing us for how much we wanted are goal and how faithful we would be. It´s so cool how when God sees our goals, and our faith, and how we work towards them, he will bless us! It was great!

We also met a mexican family of 8. And all the children know perfect english because they lived in washington for 8 years. Also another promising mexican girl and a family of 6. But with Semana Santa we haven´t been able to go to their house.

Other than that, it has been straight up apostacy here in Spain!!! Like really. They carry around idols and worship them. It´s as simple as that. It´s really entertaining though and hard not to get side tracked when we see one in the street. :P

We dropped an investigator family last week for this very reason. They knew the book of mormon was true but they just liked the catholic church. So it was our last visit and we knew they didn´t want anything so we asked them what they thought about the commandment of not worshipping idols. They just gotsuper confused and couldn´t get around it and asked us to leave. So we left :)  I just don´t get what they are thinking!

 

I love this Gospel! It is so great to think about the resurrection and how Christ LIVES! He lives and he has suffered all. He is pefect and restored His gospel on the earth through a prophet holding the authority of God. The church is true and all will live again because of Jesus Christ. This week read 3rd nephi chapter 11 and think of how christ came to the people of the americas and how the first think he did was beckoned them so they could feel the prints in his palms. That was the FIRST thing. We have so many testimonies that he lives and I can add to that list. Christ is our Savior. Remember especially during this easter week :)

 

Love Elder Powell

 

PS. Oh and you know Antonio Banderas. (Zorro) Yeah he´s from Malaga, He is in Malaga. And we were so close to seeing him! Except when he was going to carry one of the floats...... we were in church hahahaha. :P Oh well.