Intercambios!

Hi Everyone! I´m staying in Alicante for one more transfer! I am super excited about that:) That means I will get to spend Christmas here! 

Anyway, this week has been great. On Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving a little early but it was really fun! We cooked turkey legs, Mashed potatoes, Stuffing, Corn, gravy and to finish it off we had homemade pumpkin pie. One of the hermanas literally cooked a pumpkin in the oven and then used it to make a pie. Delicious!!

Then hursday started our intercambios for the transfers. Oh man. It was great. Thursday night i went to San Vicente (a little pueblo here in Alicante) and we were able to set a baptismal date with one of their investigators. We taught a few good lessons but we had quite the experience at one of our eating appointments.

STORY: So we were finishing the day and I din´t realize we were ging to go to an eating cita! This is after a thanksgiving feast at around two and then we ate a small meal at a members at 4 and now we were headed to eat a huge meal with a member. Now my companion said that if we didn´t eat the food we wouldn´t be invited back. It happened to the other Elders and they haven´t been invited back in months! 

So we get there and there is no man there so we ended up eating in the hallway/entry way of her apartment. That is what makes the story even funnier :D

My companion is feeling awful and we start with a soup. In the soup there are these weird rubbery yellow balls. They were some type of egg yolk but not so tasty. Elder Ellsworth is gagging and I am just laughung at the whole situation when he says, "I cant take it anymore!" He stands up, walks to the window and throws the egg yolks out of the apartment building!! I couldn´t hold in my laughs haha. Don´t worry though,the sister who was feeding us was in the kitchen when he did that. But it hit some metal thing and made a loud noise. "what was that!" She Yelled. "I.... I don´t know..... how strange" He says haha:P

He finally tells her he is sick but I keep eating. She then pulls out this huge plate of noodles and rice and octopus. Oh boy. Yum.

 So I Am sitting there and she leaves again. I look at my companion and just pout, "Please Help me" ..... He whips out his napkin and we both just grab handfuls and stick it in to our coat jackets!! We we were laughing and feeling so horrible but it was just such a funny situation.

So that is my story. I kind of just ran out of time telling that but thats allright. 

I then headed up to Alcoi in the mountains for the second Intercambio. It was a miracle up there. We found three new people to teach. Had a bunch of references given to us and we were teaching at practically every moment! Good times :)

We then headed straight to the church for a church activity that the missionaries planned. We did an "Open doors"activity where we had food and games so people could bring their friends and then we gave a tour to explain what we actually do in our church meetings. Super good activity!

We set a baptismal date with the son of Enriquetta this week so they both will be baptized on the 14th of december. Also the sisters started teaching her brother so that is awesome to see the whole family progress as we are working together as 4 missionaries! We are being blessed so much and we know that it is all coming from Heavenly Father!  “Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I 

will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I 

can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in 

this land, for which we will praise his name forever.” (Alma 26:12) 

Spiritual thought of the day: I was reading about knowledge in the attributes of christ section in Preach my Gospel and i learned about the Importance of continuing to build upon your knowledge. Yes, I knew that but it just gave me a new drive to continue to keep learning and"build precept upon precept, Line upon Line." I know that as we deepen our understanding of the gospel with the help of revelation and the spirit we will strengthen our foundation of truths to be able to testify powerfully to our friends and family! Gain and strengthen your testionies :)

Oh we also went to a soccer game ;)

The Mission is the greatest!

Love Elder Powell

Un Gran Semana

Hellooooo family!

Well this week was quite interesting. We started the week really slowly with very few lessons but by the end we were teaching people every second! It was amazing. I learned a little lesson about faith and hope haha.

As missionaries there are standards that the mission president sets so that we are working hard. And honestly I didn´t have alot of faith that we were going to hit them. But we hit all of them and more! It was amazing! the only thing we faulted was in finding new people to teach :( But our area is doing great! We have 2 baptismal interviews this week and Nancy and Juan Carlos are getting baptized on Sunday! Super Exciting!!!

And don´t worry, I am still working super hard and have a ton of faith ;)

We did have one powerful lesson that I want to tell you about though. Her name is Enriquetta and it was our third visit with her. We were with two members and we were teaching about prophets. 

While we were teaching her she started to bare testimony that she knew what we were teaching was true and the spirit amplified like 300X. We related prophets to the Gospel; The gospel to Jesus Christ; And then Jesus Christ to Baptism. She accepted to be baptized on the 14 of December! It was such a simple lesson but so powerful! The members were baring testimony, we were baring testimony and the room was like a furnace of heavenly power, (also known as the spirit ;). 

Good stuff!

People are progressing. The mission is the best and Jesus Christ lives. He is our savior and our brother. We lived with him before this life, and we will live with him again as we follow the Gospel. There is no other way. I know that this is The Church of Jesus Christ. He guides it and leads us. Repent and follow Him.

Love Elder Powell  

My companion (Elder Rojas) and me on the castle.

Happy November

Hey Family!

Wow i loved the video! How did you do that?

And Rachel I´m praying for snow here too :P There is an area close by that sometimes snows, and if it snows I am will get to go and see it :D And I am super excited for some packages :)

I kind of have some sad news. That family of six that our campions found from ecuador who were going to be baptized..... well it was all a joke :( They pulled a prank on us. It was very rude! So we won´t be having that baptism. But there was a baptism last weekend so it´s alright!

More awesome Miracles too. That girl Monica who was the sister of Beatrice (Bea) came to church! (She is the one who´s sister shared the experience of praying with her and it touched her soul.) So We called her. She was super close by and came! We showed her around and was telling us how she didn´t really believe in god that much and she thought it would just be fun to come. At the end of the tour though we prayed with her and she started crying and was super touched. Great experience! We plan on teaching her tomorrow :D

We also had this lesson with Janeth and she is having a test for cancer today and at the end of the lesson we offered to give her a blessing and she really wanted one. She wants to be baptized on december 6th :)

Alicante is on a spiritual high right now.

We were kind of disappointed that the couple we taught last saturday and then came the very next day, decided they aren´t very interested. But we are still trying to go by them.

Something that has stood out to me this past week was the power of giving thanks to the lord. Our area has been booming as far as finding and having investigators who are prepared and then continue on to be baptized. I was thinking as to why this has been happening and we have been doing everything the same except for one thing. After every lesson or after finding someone or when someone accepts baptism, we have given thanks to the lord after in prayer. It is very humbling to thank him and tell him that we know it was only through his help that we had done what we did. As we have done this he just keeps giving us more and more people. it is very joyous. Prayer is powerful in all aspects. But remember to give thanks for the things that perhaps you have prayed for, and then gotten. Don´t be the nine lepers!

This week has been a blast! The work is amazing. The growth is fantastic. I love the mission!

Love Elder Powell :)

Here is the video he is referring to.  You might notice his ear wiggling.  Hahahahaha