Familia

Merry christmas family :)

We are going to talk in two days so I jsut have a few things to talk about.

My skype account changed so it is joshpowell555. Can you invite me to chat! :) We are going to call at 830 spanish time which i think is 1230 your time... but I am super excited! Everyone should think of their favorite experiences since the last time we talked. Also I want to hear about your trips and I want to have a tour of the house! I don´t know how the tour will work but definitely think of experiences and questions if you have any.

I just got the other package so that is good. Lots of cereal and mac and cheese and reeses!! I was so happy :)

This past week we had so many things to do and so many miracles were seen! We Set a goal to find 800 new investigators as a mission in one week and we hit 847!! It was amazing :) Normally we hit 250 ish every week and once we hit 558 but this was just crazy. Lots of prayer and lots of faith led to alot of miracles :)

We had an activity on saturday as a ward and that was also really good. This girl came who told us that she needed to be baptized. She had been taught a few times by the hermanas but now we will be teaching her. We told her that we would need to meet with her every day and that she had to come to church every week before she could be baptized on the 4th of january. She just said, "Ok, anything else?" Haha it is great. She came to church on sunday and she loved it. She is twenty years old, Emi se llama ans we are going to teach her tomorrow!! :)

Also we got to dress up as kings this past friday to go to a school. They are like santa clause but they represent the three wisemen that bring gifts on january 6th. So every kid in the school came to us and we asked if they had behaved and done their homework and all that good stuff. It was really fun :) then we asked what they wanted from the three kings. It was pretty interesting what they asked for. Only one out of the 500 said, "I don´t need anything this year but thank you for asking :)" It was a little girl. Super cute.

Talk to you soon. the mission is the greatest! 

Love Elder Powell

A Wedding!!! (Agency)

Hi family! How are you all doing? :) I am missing the snow! But a lot of good things are happening here in alicante. 

First of all, We have been preparing alot because we want to find 800 new investigators this coming week as a mission. We have been passing by a ton of members, investigators and less active people to set up family home evenings or ways that they can invite their friends to meet us. That has been going good and we have a lot planned! Also we are going to have a christmas party for the 2 wards here, so we are also preparing for that! Super Exciting!! i love Christmas time :)

We finally had the wedding for Nancy and Juan Carlos!! Oh it was so great! They seemed so happy and they are doing so good. :) i attached a photo of them. 

Other than that it was a pretty normal week. 

Lately I have been thinking about Agency. I wish everyone could realize how much happier they would be if they just chose to follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ! So annoying!

But really. We offer peace happiness and Exaltation. I have talked to people that have realized they are happier when they go to church or read the scriptures but they choose not to. They are literally choosing to not be the happiest they can be. The gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth for this purpose, "To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." What does eternal life mean? Answer: Living with God forever. That seems pretty good when you think about it.

"Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." How do we have joy? Answer: Living the gospel!

How can that be!? 

I was then also reading a talk about hunger, And what a gift it is that we feel hunger. We know when to eat when we feel sensations of hunger. He then talks about spiritual hunger and the need to satisy our spiritual hunger.

Have you ever thought about the signs or sensations that show we are spiritually hungry? Unhappiness, impatience, depresion or anger. When we act in ways that are not in accordance with the Lord our spirit is hungry. We do not have strength to overcome the natural man if we are not strong spiritually.

When we are hungry we eat. We know to pray daily and do the simple things but just in the same way we are more hungry when we physically work, there are also days when we need more sustanance spiritually than normal.

I am so scatter brained right now but all in all, we can recognize when we are weak spiritually so that we can choose to follow the gospel. When we choose the gospel we will also be happier and confident.

That´s my two cents of the day :)

I love the mission! It is the best!

Love Elder Powell

"Fetchin Bananas!!!"

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

Hello :)

Well hi family :) 

Rachel is driving!!!??? Oh. My. Gosh! I saw the picture and it is crazy to think that she is driving! 

This week was a little hard actually, ha. I just felt super unorganized and I wasn´t focused on my purpose that well! With the transfers it was hard to get into a good rythm with my new companion. We both have different ethics in working so we had to compromise a ton! We both just weren´t on the same page. We are both great missionaries and love the work but we learned alot about being exactly unified in purpose. 

Also we had two day intercambios with the assistants and traveling was killer! But that was super fun. The AP who came to work with me used to serve here so we worked super well!

Everything is good now and I feel so excited to work this transfer. My faith is fortifed, our purpose is one and we are ready to see miracles! I love alicante so much! 

We found this african family and they have two kids of age 5 years and the other, 8 months and they are the cutest kids ever. I´m being serious! But they are awesome to teach :)

We are also coming up on three baptisms! The 9th of november! One couple is getting their marriage papers tomorrow, getting married this weekend and then being baptized the next week!! :D SOOO COOL

The ward is growing a ton too!! We have been working with a lot of young single adults and we are in the process of rescuing three. 1 of them wants to serve a mission and it is so awesome to see the power of the spirit. 

Ok cool miracle time:)

We had our reunion de correlacion with our leaders and we decided we were going to fast together for a couple of families and the obra misional. In total we were about 25! Started Saturday and finished Sunday. So on Sunday right at the end of our fast who walked into the Church.. the father and son (aren´t members) of a part member family who we were fasting for! They haven´t been to church in.... well, Never. He came to see his other son be ordained as the teachers quorum presdent and the spirit was super strong!! They invited us to come by this coming thursday!! :D Blessings are coming! :)

The Mission is awesome! Things are good :) I love the mission!

Elder Powell

My Companions are the Best!

Hi Family! 3 National Parks!? Are there going to be any cool things left to do by the time I get back? ;D

This week has been great! Lots of learning, lots of change, and a few let downs.

At the beginning of the week we pretty much passed by a lot of people that Elder Merchan wanted to say goodbye to before he left for sevilla. So we had a ton of eating citas! 3 in one day! It was hard to say goodbye to Elder Merchan, but I also feel super good about the change:) My new companion, like I said, is from Mexico!  3 of my 5 companions have been Natives and I love it. He has already taught me so much. He really knows how to LOVE everyone. I don´t know how he does it but he is patient and loving. I think the lord has given me something to work on for now :P

This past friday and saturday we worked with president in our area! That was freaking crazy! I felt a little stressed out but we had a ton of great lessons! He taught everyone so boldly and wasn´t afraid to ask people to repent of their sins. He literally cried repentance to everyone we met. He knew the happiness it would bring and knew how to show people that. He has set a new standard for me. I love the progression that keeps coming every week for me to work on! Oh we also set a fecha with someone... well he set a fecha with someone.

Story: So we were teaching this guy named Antonio and the spririt was super strong and I invited him to be baptized and he started laughing and wiggling his finger at me "no no no" :) Then president said, " I have a better question. Will you pray to know if you should be baptized? And when you receive your answer that you need to be, will you be baptized?" And of course antonio said yes. then my companion told him that we knew he could prepared by the 23rd of noviembre. Once again he laughed and wiggled his finger, "no no no, I wont set a date" ha. What did president say? "I have a better question, will you pray about being baptized on the 23rd? And when you receive your answer that you need to be, will you be baptized on the 23rd?" And he said yes. Pretty sweet stuff.

This weekend we also had stake conference and this setenta named Elder  Herbertson from scotland to speak to us. It was amazing! Super spiritual and super motivating. He taught us a lot about Hope and Faith! He described the literal power of Faith and how hope is tied to faith. I can´t remember everything he said and I don´t have my notes with me but I can bear testimony of the feelings I felt and that faith can work miracles.

How do we gain faith? Yep, all the little things :) Start small, work dilligently, and see the change in your life for the better. If you ever feel like things are bad or there is no hope or you wish you could feel a little happier; Have faith, Have hope! Say your prayers, read the words of christ and watch you life be blessed :)

I know Christ Lives. He is our saviour. There is no other way to happiness.

I love the mission! I love the people! I love the work! 

Elder Powell

1 Nefi 21:15-16

P.S The photos are from this farm cabin place of a member :) 

Hola mis Amigos :D

Hey! This Elder Powell again! :) How is the world doin these days.

 It has been quite the week this week! Lots of people are going to be transferred this wednesday and they are also going to open THREE new areas in our Zone :D Busy Busy! Our zone has 15 companionships now!! It is the biggest Zone in our mission! I´m also going to receive a new companion who is from Mexico. Elder Rojas. We served in the same zone when I first started the mission. He has 9 months in the mission. So young we are :) But I am super Excited. 

We also had a zone conference on saturday that was combined with the Mission president and the Stake president and sus consejeros. They are super inspired and talked to us about the growth we are going to see in these next few months. We are opening areas, building more capillas and sending more missionaries. They had a great vision and we were all filled with such purpose. I love the urgency of it all.

We also set three fechas this week! It was a miracle week. Really! I am super excited for them. One is this boy who had discussions with jehova´s witnesses and decided they weren´t true and we found him right after he dropped them. The other two are a couple! So sweet :)

One huge blessing we saw this week was someone we found yesterday after church. David is his name. We had talked to him about 2 weeks ago and had kind of forgotten about him but we finally set up a time to stop by him. He is 28, believes in god, lives alone, doesn´t smoke, a clean cut guy, lived in Florida for 8 years, and has never belonged to or even been taught by anyone of any religion in his house. 

He accepted everything we taught and he was so open to the ideas. He was very prepared. :) I am super excited to go back.

We have started the Book of mormon as a mission again and this past week I was readng about lehis dream ín the book of mormon. It is when Nephi was having the vision actually of the tree. Anyway this was my experience:

I was reading and trying to apply all the sybolism and everything to our investigators. But I got super frustrated because it was about to explain a part of the dream and its sybolism. like the fruit, or the building, or the iron Rod, but then it started talking about christ! And i was like, What the heck! So I was wondering why it was talking about christ. When you read it, Nephi asks a question and then the spirit says "look" and Nephi sees a part of christ´s life and then the spirit tells nephi what theparts of the dream represent. I learned that every single part of jesus christ´s life can be related to the dream of Lehi! Christ being born and living as a GIFT, like the fruit. Christ heals the people and then it talks about the healing fountain. Christ speaks and teaches the people and then it talks about the iron rod. The people persecute jesus and then it talks about the people in the great and spacious building persecuting those that have partaken of the fruit. Christ is crucified and there are tumultuous quaking and then it talks about the great fall of the building. It was dark for three days and then it talks of the mists of darkness in the dream. Maybe everyone knows that but it was really cool to read through the whole dream and then read of the life of Christ. :) 

So.... Keep reading the scriptures and every part of the book relates to Christ :) 

The Mission is the greatest! I love you guys.

Love Elder Powell

Revelation

Hey family :) 

Imagaine dragons.... Wow. That is just so great for you.... together.... with out me.... wahh

Hahaha just kidding :) That is awesome you guys saw them though.

This week, lets see. 

General conference! I haven´t seen the last session yet but I think the first session was my favorite by far. Soo good!!! i was taught alot by the spirit in the first discourse by Elder Hales. I leaned so much about revelation and I loved it!! Ahh it was the best. :) 

Elder Dube! What an awesome Man! 

And Uchtdorf... That was some pretty powerful stuff.

As far as the work goes we have 4 fechas right now! It is awesome to see them progressing and working towards baptism.

We had mission counsel this week and President Deere also shared with us about revelation and how he receives it. That was really cool.

I think I am going to focus on that in this letter. REVELATION.

There were four things that stuck out to me.

The first is that when we receive revelation and when the spirit speaks it is a voice unica. It is something specific that you WILL be able to recognize as you focus yourself.

Prayer is crucial.Always start with prayer to let your heavenly father what you are focusing on or wanting to receive.

Revelation isn´t Passive.  this point includes alot of stuff. We need to study out our questions, meditate it, write it out, ask the lord, wait, receive (Yes, we will receive), thank the lord, write down the revelation and then act on it.

And lastly, being spiritually autosufficient . I haven´t figured out fully this point yet, but we need to rely on our own knowledge of things that we have learned and received.

I know our Heavenly Father is waiting to teach you. He will teach you so much if you are willing to learn. :)

I love the spirit. I love the Lord. I love the mission. :)

Elder Powell

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

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 

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

Alicante

Oh my gosh it is soooo HOT!!! 

Hi everyone :)

So I am now in alicante and it only took 8 hours to get here in bus! My companion is Elder Merchán and he only knows how to speak spanish. My dream come true! :D Alicante is one of the best areas I´ve been to so far haha. But really, there ward is so strong and the members are helping us a ton. We are always finding new people to teach and this ward is on fire. We set two fechas on the first day I got here and we found two more who we are setting fechas with next week. It is the best to finally be rolling in the work!!

Fun fact. So I have been with the same missionary since I got to the MTC. His name is Elder Medina. We were both in the MTC together, then we both got reassigned to Texas, then we both went to Malaga to be in the same zone, then we took the same bus and now we live in the same apartment in Alicante :P .

Anyway. There isn´t really alot to tell. It was kind of a weird week haha. Monday and Tuesday we went by all the members, recent converts and investigators that we were teaching. (Mom and dad you are going to love the people in Malaga. :))

It was hard to say goodbye to them :(

Wednesday. Said goodbye to my first born son in the mission and then travelled all day to get to alicante. We got a warm welcome with police dogs who sniffed out the bus for a guy who was carrying marijuana! That was crazy! The rest of the week was back to good ´ol work :)

Oh just kidding!

STORY!:   So it was the end of the night and we were planning when we heard this huge crash. Yep. Car accident right infront of our piso. Elder Medina and I ran out and started helping this guy who was laying on the ground. He was riding a moto and slammed into the car and then flew over the car and was now on the ground. Sooo... he was pretty much in a lot of pain. We held his head and direct everyone around us to call the police, get water, you know, the normal stuff. So about three police cars come speeding up and they took control and started helping the guy. Yay :)

Then they started talking and said that this wasn´t their call. they all got back into their cars and raced off! What!

So while we were waiting, this crazy guy stretches out his hand and says he has been called of god and does all this whispering stuff to heal him. In the mean time there were these two ladies freaking out.

Anyway, in the end the abulance came and we went back to our piso :)

Other than the police dogs and ambulances it was pretty good.

 

Christ is one of my favorite topics to study. Obviously he should be everyones focus all the time but I have been focusing and working on the Attributes of christ for quite some time and I´m noticing a difference in myself as a missionary.

Christ asks us to follow Him and a way to do that is to learn and take upon ourselves his attributes.

As I´ve studied them and applied them I have more.... everything; energy to work, animo to serve, love for the people, patience with our investigators, faith in god, Power to teach, Spirit to guide, and knowledge in all aspects.

The blessings are infinite. I love this work. I love the mercy of the lord. And..... I love being a missionary. :)

 

Follow christ in all aspects! I promise you that you will receive exactly the things you need as you do so.

 

Love ya,

Elder Powell

 

Ope, and New Address:

Plaza Del Altozano 3, Primero D

03010 Alicante, España