Hey hey hey :)

Hello Family! Thanks for the Birthday package! It was Awesome! 

This week has been crazy! Legitimately crazy. Now I say this because there was a ton of travelling and stuff, but we also met three crazy people haha! :)

So the week started with the castle. Awesome stuff. Then we did splits in alicante until tuesday.

Tuesday we had a multi zone conference in Murcia with the Mission President and that was amazing. We talked a lot about finding and working with the members like always but he also talked about dedication and sanctifying ourselves. He shared the story of the rich man and how the rich man asked christ what more he could do, and christ told him to give up everything and follow him. 

President then asked a really simple question to us, "What would we sacrifice to follow christ?" Would I really sacrifice everything? Would I sacrifice my belongings? Would I sacrifice my pride? My life?....... Would I sacrifice my sins?

That last question I love! It is our choice to give up our sins so that we can become perfected in Christ. That is my Question to you.

WHAT WOULD YOU SACRIFICE FOR CHRIST? He sacrificed everything.

   The stake president also talked to us about goals and doing everything with a purpose. That's all I´m going to say haha. Goals are important :)

We then came back and had another splits in Alicante.

Thursday we met A crazy person! Woo :D He pretty much was super drunk, and called us devils and that we earned ten percent of the money that all the members payed in spain. And he tried casting spirits out of us which wasn´t good. I felt a little weird when he started doing that. So we just testified that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and left.

Oh that was my Birthday!! I had an awesome eating cita with cake and candles and good food.  Also lots of missionaries were just calling me all day to wish me happy birthday.

Friday I went to Crevillente to do splits again! Its about an hour away. But While I was there we then travelled to a smaller town that was part of the area which was another hour away. I just felt super tired haha. 

And then when I finally got back to alicante, we were on the way back to the piso when another drunk crazy guy told us we needed to do more with our life, and that we were dedicating our lives to blasphemy and should go back to our country. That was like the last straw of exhaustion. But then a scripture came into my mind. I don´t remember where it is or even the exact words, but it talks about the feelings of peace when are persecuted because that is how the prophets of old were treated. i think it is in doctrine and covenants.

But that one scripture helped me with my question that started the week. What would I sacrifice for Christ? 

EVERYTHING :)

The mission is the greatest! I love you guys! I am going to go sleep now haha :)

Love Elder Powell

Humility

Hi Family! Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes and cards and packages. This week has been awesome! We did a lot and saw a lot of success. I am still learning a ton and I love it! I was able to do intercambios this week with a great missionary. I really love intercambios because you can see how they work, you can help them improve and I always learn a lot from them. We just did it here in Alicante but we had a good time. 

Together we found, taught and did the great work, known as missionary work :) 

Today we got to go to the castle and it was Amazing! The malaga castle was a lot prettier but that´s ok. It was still fun :) 

Sorry I don´t have a lot of time because the castle took a long time to do but there was a great topic I studied this week. I read in Alma 32 about humility. It talks about those that had built the sinagogues and then were kicked out and had know place to worship. They then went to the prophet to ask what they should do. The prophet opened their understanding on other ways they could worship and how this trial had helped them to humble themselves before god. Really, there is a ton you can learn from these first 20 verses but it just reminded me of the necessity to humble ourselves before god. Humility makes it so that we are moldeable in gods hands. I am learning how to be humble before god so that I can do his will.

Last week I talked about being worthy of the spirit and humility is one of the best ways to do it. We can be humble by repenting, obeying the commandments, serving others, sacrificing time and belongings, praying, and much more. 

Got to love the scriptures right! there are so many attributes to work on. :) Ah I love it. 

The mission is the greatest! We found a great part member Family that I already love like my own family! Their two sons 12 and 14 want to get baptized. It is just awesome!

Love Elder Powell

Zone Week

um hi :) 

This week has been great! it has been a little harder than normal because we lost a lot of investigators. Ok not alot but it has just been alot of change in our investigators. It wasn´t what we were expecting, pero vamos a ver. I don´t understand how there is so much to do and we can get it all done! 

Miracle of the week! Sunday we had like record numbers in the church. Normally we have about 90 to 105. On sunday we had 133 people in church!! We had 6 investigators in church and it was amazing! the ward has been supporting us so much and we have been working with the ward so much. The members have such good intentions and the leaders are super strong! we have seen a ton of growth and I have to admit it is a lot easier to work with a ward when they are accepting. :P

Spiritual thought. Being worthy of the Spirit. I have probably said this alot in my letters but it is something that I had hardly any experience with before the mission and now it is literally my guide. This spiritual gift that has been given to us is one of the most special gifts we have. It plays so many roles in all aspects of our life. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally. the more we keep ourselves worthy andopen to the spirit, the more we complete our purpose on this earth. To prepare ourselves to stand before and dwell with god (Alma 34:32) Any growth that I have seen in myself or with others have been through the spirit. It should be our companion at all times. I´d recommend on strengthening that relationship. As you do you will be strengthened, comforted, enlightened and will recieve the answers to your prayers. God is our loving heavenly Father and has given us something Precious. How will we show god our love in return? :)

I love the mission. It is the greatest! i miss you guys a ton.

Love Elder Powell

Oh yeah. I also went to Elche! Ton of palm trees. Look it up :P

Wow! What A Week!

Hey family!

This week was quite the busy one! 

First we spent a good portion of the week preparing for all the new missionaries. Our zone is super young and it is awesome! So much Spirit! :) We made sure everyone got to their areas with the new materials and the whole bit. We had to open new areas and get all their apartments ready. The mission is exploding right now! :D

One of the missionaries is 6 foot 10 inches!! just thought I´d throw that in there :)

Then we had a zone conference and that was fun! I kind of realized at the end of the training how much spanish they didn´t understand and i spoke in english for the last 2 minutes. They all perked up after that. Ooops. :P

Right after, I went back to alcoy to do another interview and it was amazing. Love those interviews! She was 13 and a spiritual giant.

Lastly we had an amazing lesson. It was with Victoria. She dropped us but I had a very special experience that I'd like to share.  We were teaching her the plan of salvation and I started to testify of living with our father in Celestial Glory. She began to doubt a little and the thought of not having her there made me cry. I have never felt so much love for someone. I truly felt the love of our heavenly father. It was an experience I won´t ever forget! 

We have two investigators getting married this week though :) then they can be baptized at the end of this month!

Love you all :) The mission is the best!

Elder Powell

Letter :)

Hey, I did send you a email! It was just kind of short. :P Did you get it ?

Ok that is crazy what happened in draper! Defcon 3 haha :) but I love our family though! 

This week has been pretty awesome! We found two families this week! Families are very rare and we found two in one week. One is a part member family that moved from france! The dad served a mission in tahiti and the wife is super anti mormon.... It´s great. They also have two kids and we get along super well. I love ém :) All of them are getting baptized. I know it!! 

A little story about our last lesson with the mom. She is intelligent. Like super intelligent!! She has read every volume of practically every book that has to do with the church. She was quoting things from volume 8 de la historia de la iglesia, page blah blah. She gave it to us! But she is still getting baptized. She is ready :)

Also we found this recent convert that was some how lost with transfers and she has three kids! School is starting and there is no way for them to escape bwah haha. But they are super good. We also have a couple getting married this or next week. They have a fecha for the 21st :) 

Also there is this other girl we met and she was a miracle! She agreed to be baptized on the first lesson. The spirit was so powerful! My testimony of the restauracion and joseph smith are so powerful and unshakeable! She has been having exams for her summer school though so we don´t have a lot of time to teach her :/

Update on victoria.... we are teaching her tomorrow.

So that was what happened for the three days i was in my area!

The other four days I spent in malaga for the missionary counsel and on splits in alcoy!

Malaga was super awesome! On the way there we drove through this hail storm where the ice was the size of marbles. It was the loudest thing ever. It was like driving through a shooting range. Luckily we were in a huge bus so it didn´t do alot of damage but the other cars were all stopped under overpasses for protection haha, :)

At the mission counsel we planned for this month so we can get 100 baptisms in september! I think I told you about the 555 news in one week so now we are going to baptize 100 of them :) I am super excited. 

I then worked the night in malaga with my hijo elder Buckway! that was fun! But he is having a rough time there :/ It was strange because he hasn´t really progressed much. He and his companion don´t get along very well :(

Afterwards We travelled 8 hours back to alicante and then I traveled another hour and a half to alcoy to do intercambios. And oh my gosh! Let me tell you about alcoy! It is like a miniature park city! This awesome mountain town with huge green mountains and it was cold and it was just great! It was like heaven :) Unfortunately my camera was dead. While I was there i did a baptismal interview and it was amazing! This guy had turned his life around and was so motivated! It was funny because we taught his family after the interview and I invited all of them to be baptized and they said they didn´t know if it was right yet. Then Ivan (the guy getting baptized) said to me, "Don´t worry, after they see my baptism they will want this." It was so hilarious. 

He had his baptism yesterday and 1 cousin accepted baptism for next week and his mom is going back to ecuador to get married so she can get baptized. :P Super awesome.

This week I have learned the power of goals. I have set goals with the lord through prayer and it is so much easier to follow through and work on my goals. I feel so motivated and I have purpose. I know that this time is so crucial and I plan on taking advantage of it. Set goals and then tell the Lord about them. Its the best :)

Um... yep. I´m doing awesome! The mission is great! Oh we also got transfer calls.... 8 of the companionships in our zone are now training!! There are 33 news coming and i´m hoping one of the 8 will be Elder HIll :) That would be awesome!

I love you all. I love my mission! Talk to ya next week. 

Elder Powell