Monday, August 19, 2013

It's A New Day :)

Ok! What a flippin sweet week! Miracles and service and more blessings and miracles and training and just awesomeness!! 

Last week I think I was telling you about the promise of President Deere and how after a cita fails us we will find a new person to teach right around that area If we have our eyes open spiritually. Yeah so that pretty much happened a ton and we had some amazing lessons. 

One lesson that has still been on my mind up to now was with Victoria. She doesn´t believe in religion and she doesn´t, well didn´t believe in god. It started off like this. "You can´t convince me of whatever you are going to tell me and just to let you know  this is the last time you can come back."

It just like kicked us into spiritual teaching mode because we knew that we had been led to her for a reason, and me and elder Merchan felt and knew she was prepared. And it was amazing to see from that point how guided we were through out the whole lesson. It was like a furnace in that room that was undeniably real. Yep, she couldn´t deny it ;) 

We brought up the purpose of this life and she said she just felt scared at the thought of death. We testified about the plan of salvation and specifically about after this life and we could start to see the spirit work within her. She began asking questions like: if her whole family would be there after this life too? And how she could do it?
She then told us she didn´t believe us but she liked the feelings she was feeling. But that was it and then WABAM The recent convert who was with us whipped out his testimony about missionaries. He told her that we were called of god and the message we have is undeniably true. (So sweet :) ) And there was this long pause and then I asked her.... " Can you feel this?" She just smiled and said yes and I do believe in God. :)
We then shared with her the first vision and how that was how we knew about this plan for her and her family. 
She invited us back for this week :D It was one of the most powerful lessons i have had on my mission!
This week we also did service for the stake presidents counselor and it was so chaotic. He called us like right when he needed us and we were in our pros clothes but it turned out ok. We had to run through traffic with all this furniture that was huge and heavy haha :) It was so funny now that I think about it.We got all dirty and cut up. the worst part was that we were fasting so we had like no energy the next day. Not a good combination.
Por fin, we had a zone training with President and we taught about the importance of commitments. Commitment is the most important part to help someone repent. Without asking them to change or do something we can´t help them towards repentance. 
That means you all should make the commitment do what my companioon has said. Do the THREE basics. Read, Pray, and go to church! -Elder Kilbourne
I can testify that what he said is true. I promise that the blessings that come with these three things will specifically help you with your physical and spiritual needs. we´ll follow up in a week to see your progress. :)

this is kind of a long letter but thats ok. I have also been reading the new testament. the life of christ is so amazing. Especially when you read about it straight from the scriptures. there is a different spirit rather than just reading about him in other books or magazines.
Fun Fact: I never knew there was two miracles of the loaves of the fishes. First he fed five thousand and then later he fed four thousand. :)
Love you all. The mission is the best! :)
Elder Pówell 

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Being A Missionary

Hi everyone :)
Ok! this week has been great! We have seen miracles every day and I have seen the power of faith. 
That has been the focus this week in our zone. Our zone works so hard and they want to have success. :) it is so cool to be able to work with all of them. Anyway this week we were able to teach in my first zone conference. It was amazing!! I loved it and everyone else loved it too!
 I taught about the experiences people had when they were with christ. I used the story about the apostles after christ was resurrected, The story when christ invited the apostles to come be fishers of men and another one in the americas when christ tells the people he is going to leave for a day because he could see the exhaustion in the people. In all of these situations the reaction is always similar. They have a burning sensation of love that they feel while they are with them and they can´t stand the thought of not being with him.
I then related that to us as missionaries. If we can focus and work to become more like christ, people will feel impelled to follow our teachings and will feel sad at the thought of the absence of this wonderful gospel. It was great!
The next day we had a missionary activity with the youth and we about 16 missionaries and we all went on splits with the youth. Super fun and super cool to see the reaction of some of the youth as to what we do :P
Then on sunday I gave a talk in church. It was great, because that morning was when I remembered I had to speak. Ooops :P And then when I was called up the counselor asked me to speak longer because the other speaker didn´t show up!! It turned out really well though :) I spoke about miracles. Mom I actually used the story about your operation and how you could miraculously hear afterward :)
It has been a very uplifting week. It is amazing how much more stuff we do but still fulfill all of our responsibilities! 

Joke of the week: We are living with two other elders and we had the great idea to pull a prank on them. We were coming home a little late one night and Elder Merchán called them and said that I was in jail because I had problems with my papers! He told them that they were going to take us to another part of spain if the didn´t come and bail us out RIGHT NOW. 
We were watching the door of the apartment and the next thing we know elder medina and Brewer come bursting out of the door. They run next door to this south american bar. ( We´re good friends with them ;) Anyway it gets really quiet while they are explaining what happened and then there is a ton of comotion! One starts calling a taxi for them. The cook starts making food to take to us, and everyone else in the bar starts asking them a ton of questions. ¨mormon missionaries always have there papers in order, right ?¨  ¨How did the police find them?¨ ¨What can we do?¨ 
In the meantime, we sneak up to the apartment and wait for them.... Someone had seen us so we knew they would eventually come. 
You can see what happened when they came in the door when i send home my SD card :) Complete chaos

Love you all.
The missiona is the greatest!
Love Elder Powell