Milagrasos! Miracles!

Hello Family!

This week was just weird. My comp went home to Barcelona.... It was sad :( But only for a day to renew his residency papers :D It was super weird because he came back like on cloud 9 because he was with his family for a day and he was treated like a king! So I was on exchanges for monday and tuesday. Then we had a few days to work and then I headed to Malaga again to pick up my DNI Card for Spain. I can live here until 2016!! So I´m thinkin about staying for a while. Maybe find work, study for a year, who knows. ;)

But I went on this awesome bullet train that goes 300 kilometers an hour. It was a dream!

We are doing good as comps. Elder Peroni ALWAYS has energy. It is great. We are still working hard and seeing miracles. Our number 1 right now is this girl from Ecuador named Estefania. she is 21 and really nice. she is a friend of one of the recent converts here.

 Anyway we taught her this past week about the Law of Chastity and she asked if she was sinning and we said "Yes!" It was kind of bold but exactly what she needed. Right after she asked, "how do I correct it then? Is it hopeless?" There was this pause......

The recent convert then looked at us, "Are you going to tell her or what!?" We said, "You tell her."

 So she looked at her friend and said, "You can be baptized to become completely clean. :)" It was super special. Someone who had recently been baptized, invited her friend to also be baptized! We then kept teaching and finished. A few days later Thalía, the recent convert told us that Esefanía is going to be baptized.

Estefanía invited us over on Sunday again and we taught her boyfriend the gospel. we shared about Joseph Smith and we asked him if he wanted to learn more and he said, "NO." Super nice but didn´t want anything to do with us. But Estefanía looked at us and said, "I still do. I feel something good and I know this is true!" She is super prepared. We now just have to work with them to see if they are going to get married or move out for a while.....

The Spirit is powerful. As we share the gospel with pride and with out temor the spirit can testify powerfully. I am proud to be a missionary of Christ. It is great :) The message we share is so amazing. There is so much mercy and love on the part of our heavenly father and so much courage and sacrifice from the people we teach so that they can change. It is such a privilege to see.

I love the mission and I love being a missionary.

Love, Elder Powell

May 19 GOOD, HARD, WORK :)

Family! Como estan?!

I got your package the day before I left so that is good. I got to make brownies for two families here in the new branch and they loved them so thanks :) I also love the Shirt ;)

Hahahha I am finally with a missionary that works harder than me!! (can you believe that) It is the greatest :D We are in a branch where about 35 people come to church. My companion and I have a year and a half and we are working like machines! We found 6 new investigators, set 3 baptismal dates and taught 18 lessons....... in three days. I have never worked how I am working now but it is the greatest feeling! I feel like I am in star wars where they blast into hyperdrive and there is nothing holding back. It is going to be a good transfer :)

My companion is from Argentina and we both started in Malaga together. We told eachother that one day we would be comps and now we are! He is super spiritual, focused, hard working and just an excellent missionary! He might be a little crazy but it adds a little bit of fun to the work. ;P

This week I have been focusing on repentance..... again. There are so many imperfections and things to get better at. Repentance is one of the most rewarding things in the world. We set goals, pray, work, and then feel as the lord works with us. It is the best! At least for me anyway. The only way I can progrees is through Jesus Christ.

In church we were reading, and a quote popped out to me that I think is really important. It is talking about worldly knowledge and spiritual knowledge. " It is 1000 times more important to have a knowledge of God and his Laws, to be able to do that which will bring salvation..." Everything I am learning in the mission and the goals I have been setting and accomplishing are priceless. I know how to follow the spirit. I know how to repent. I know how to share the gospel. As I have learned the Laws and Ways of God I can apply it and progress even more. "Now is the time to prepare to meet god.." I am 100% confident in my Heavenly Father. I know what I need to do and I have faith in the things I am promised by him. Do we think about that? Do you think about the covenants you have made? Do you think about the promises? :) Do you think about how to come unto Christ? Do you think about the Blessings? :) The Gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect and I love it! 

Anyway. I love the mission. I finally get to see stars at night. I finally get to see the sunset. It is the best! :)

 

Love elder Powell.

 

P.S I hope everything is working out with my drivers license. It´s a little important so we can do exchanges with the missionaries. How is it going? How much longer do you think it will take? :)

May 12 - hi

Hello family!! :) 

So it was great talking to you all yesterday. I finally got see my nephew/niece in live time! So that was cool. Tori I hope you feel good every day until it is born :) 

What to say, what to say. The main thing in my head is that I am being transferred. I really got to love this ward so it is going to be really hard to leave :( But I feel good about the change! Alcázar de san Juan is my new area in La Mancha. I am going to be zone leader again so that is pretty crazy. There really is no time to rest on the mission and it is the best. It is making me who the Lord needs me to be :)

One thing that i hold really close to me on the mission is how much I have learned to confide in my Heavenly father. I am so confident in all of my decisions because I know they are the decisions my heavenly Father would make. 

I will talk to all yall next week to let you know about the new area :)

I love you all and I love the Mission!

Elder Powell

May 5 - Mothers Day

Hi Family! Que pasa!? :)

Yesterday was Mothers day here in Spain so happy mothers day mom! But I will give you all a call next sunday so we can Skype! :) When is your church now? I can skype pretty much when ever but the best time would be 6 spain time on sunday. Send me an e-mail :)

Alright this week was awesome! It was called the week of consecration and it was pretty consecrated! We saw so many miracles! One of the biggest miracles was how fast our investigators are progressing! That guy Jose Antonio we found last week, is doing great! We had the family home evening and he accepted baptism for the 11th of May. which is this Sunday! :) So he came to the BBQ we had as a ward, which I will explain in just a sec, and we were talking how we needed to teach him about 4 times. And he said, " ok... well can you just teach me everything in one day?" This guy is super prepared! So we sat down with him on Saturday morning and we taught him lesson 2, lesson 3, the word of wisdom and the Law of Chastity. Yep he was ok with all of it. The Lord is good :) We just have a few things left and he will be set.

Also this other family who wasn´t really progressing decided to come to the activity! they came, they met another family who they are now good friends with and will be coming to church this week. This is the family that we contacted like two months ago and she was a less active from over 20 years ago. Yeah, they are now progressing really well. Vicente, Marianella and Carlos. SO AWESOME

So this barbacoa we had was up in the mountains. Yeah, I still miss the mountains of utah :) But it was so great. There was a ton of food and we played soccer, card games, rope games, arm wrestles and a ton of other stuff. There was about 120 people so it was a huge turnout :) It helped everyone I think. This ward is awesome! We also started some karate classes and those are sweet too. Our ward has so many things going on every week that it is easy to get our investigators involved in the ward.

So a miracle/message of the week is about prayer and faith. Late saturday night we got a call from the sisters and they found out that one of their investigators couldn´t come to church the next day. They were a little upset because they needed her to come to be able to be baptized the next week for the "Dia Blanco" or the day when every companionship is going to baptize. So I told them to call the investigator back and then hung up. In the mean time me and my comp knealt down and started to pray....
 Have any of you seen the best two years where all the missionaries are praying so that the main Investigator can call, and then in the middle of the prayer the phone rings and they hurry to end the prayer....

Yeah so thats what happened. The phone starts buzzing, we look at the phone, hurry and end the prayer and answer,

"Hello..."

"Woooooo She is coming! She is coming" :,D

"Woooo Yeah thats what I´m talkin about!" :D

It was a joyous moment.

I am always amazed at how fast the Lord works. Also I have never had such greater faith. Before we even started praying I knew she was going to be able to come. I just wanted to share how powerful Faith can be. It really can move mountains and work miracles.

This is the Lords work and I love it! :)

Love Elder Powell

Awesome Weekend!!

Hello Family! This week has been super awesome and we had some hilarious experiences :)

We started off the week kind of normal and nothing really happened. Pretty slow. But Starting on Thursday everything was sweet! Francheska finally got back from Holland (she travels alot) and we were able to teach her about the temple and she is going at the end of may with the ward to do baptisms!! She is super excited and on Sunday she set everything up so she could be interviewed by the bishop. Super Awesome. Also Thaynara another brazilian recent convert is going too! 

After we taught them both I headed to Malaga to finally get my residency card renewed. Yep, Ive only been living here illegally for like 3 months now haha. It was great though because I saw a ton of people from my group who are leaving at the same time as I am. I love the MIssion!! I hit my year and a half mark a few days ago. That is weird. But there is still a ton to do. 

Right When I got back from Malaga We headed to a Law University to give a presentation about the Church. It was super cool. A member here is a professor and we got invited to present the relationship between the church and state. It was incredible. We gave away like 40 book of mormons and we were able to answer a ton of questions. I felt like Alma as he was talking to Korihor because a ton of these law students were basically atheists and we were just testifying it up. I have never been in a debate class but I felt like everyone was trying to debate about what we were saying and then we just testified with the power of God and they couldnt do anything about it hahaha. Super good experience.

That night we had our correlation meeting and our goal is to have 12 baptisms as a ward with 4 companionships on the 10th of may. (two weeks) The only problem was that we only had three baptismal dates and we needed more investigators to be at church. So we set some goals to fast and go through the are book to see who has been to church at least once so they can come one more time to be baptized.

So you know what happened... A miracle is what happened! We were starting our fast, went by an old Investigator and he wasnt home. Knocked the whole building and :)...... nothin. As were were walking out the door though we contacted this guy, he invited us into his apartment, he came to church, and we are having a family night with him tonight. It is like another Francheska story!! Super awesome. United prayer and fasting is super powerful. His name is Jose.

We thought we were going to find this other miracle because we called an old investigator and he was super excited to have us over and we went to his street but we couldnt find his door. We called him up and he came down onto the street and he couldnt see us! We were super frustrated because we were both on the street named seneca by a chinese restaurant and we couldnt find him! He then asked us, "wait a second, are you in Granada?" 

"Yes!"

"Hahahaha I am in Malaga" 

Yeah so we passed over this investigator to Malaga who is super prepared and has already been to church but he just lost contact when he went to Malaga.

Wow sorry this is a long letter. But this week I am continuing to see the power of Faith and Patience. Everything is going decently well but it is still hard. We are becoming more dedicated and united as a companionship. So that is definitely good ;) It was kind of rough before. But this week we are having a week of consecration as a mission to be exactly and perfectly Obedient. It feels good to have everyone being obedient. There is a great spirit in our mission right now.

You know that spiritual thought that Kameron shared a few weeks ago about "Breaking a covenant with the Lord is never justified." I want to testify of that too. Obedience is so powerful and that is how the lord can fulfill his promises :)

I love you all, I love the mission. I wouldnt trade it for anything!!

Elder Powell

P.S My apostrophe button on my keyboard doesnt work so that is why there arent any :)

April 21, 2014 - Hey, Hey, Hey

Hi Family! I loved the pictures of everything! I am super jealous :) 

Hahaha tanner your hair is so long! I´m thinkin about doing the same when I get back from the mish to just grow out my hair.

Today has been really fun! We headed to the center of the city and toured around while it was just pouring down rain haha. It was really cold and wet but it was super fun :) We found this tour group lady on a segway and she let all of us ride one! It was my first time on a segway and it was awesome haha! It was kind of funny because I fell off of it and the segway just went crazy and the lady had to run over and help me :P

Anyway, it has finally happened. I have finally received a really hard companion.... My comp has finally opened up and it has been pretty challenging. But hey, everything happens for a reason right. I said I´d probably learn a ton this transfer, and boy am I learning :P It is helping me to rely more on the lord and make me a stronger missionary.

This week we saw some awesome miracles! I have been focusing a lot on following the spirit this week and it is the coolest hehehe :). This is going to sound really weird but We were walking down this street when I saw the number 1 on this door. I then saw in my mind the number 5 and and we just stopped to toke the 1. Then we knocked door three and then we walked a little further down to door 5 and it was the exact same looking number that popped into my head earlier! So we knocked it and this man came out and he was perfectly prepared! A friend of his died recently and we taught about the plan of salvation! Sweet miracle!
Then we were walking in the centro a few days later and this man came up to us and was like "hello, My mom is mormon in Barcelona. I have been to your church. I really liked it. Can you come teach me?" It was crazy cool :)

Other than that we have just been workin our butts off and doing all that we can to find prepared people :) We don´t have like anyone progressing which is a bummer. We just set a baptismal date with this man but we then figured out that he isn´t married!! It was so disappointing. So we are in that process now.

The mission is the best!! I love it.

Love Elder Powell

P.S Mom I know this is a huge favor but can you send me a ghiradelli browni mix bag! :) That would be awesome. And can you send me the chocolate chip cookie recipe! Love You!

April 14, 2014 - The Lord's Work

Hello Family!!!

 

I love learning :) It is the best to learn something, apply it and then have it confirmed that it is true. How did you like conference?! I loved it. I finally got to see all of it haha so I know it is kind of late but one of my favorite talks was in the final session by L Tom Perry. He spoke about Obedience. I LOVE obedience. I feel so good when I am obedient and there are so many blessings that are received. At one point he talked about how we need to teach our spirit and our body to obey the Lord. I had never thought about training both my body and spirit to obey the lord.  I still don´t fully understand how to train them both, other than by being obedient and praying so that I can be taught. This week I have been working on that and praying so that I can recognize the spirit. What I have seen is that obedience strengthens my spirit. As I am obedient i am more succeptible to the spirit. With that spiritual help it is easy to conquer any physical weakness or spiritual temptation. The Constant companionship of the spirit is definitely necesary to b strengthened and to be taught.

Just how Jesus Christ grew in his physical life spiritually, he learned precept by precept. We can not rush our spiritual progression. It takes obedience, prayer, faith, action, desire, and patience. It is So hard hahah! But it has been so rewarding to progress. I have seen the difference over my whole mission. I become more dedicated and consecrated to the lord. No I´m not perfect, and Yes I ¨fall¨ alot, but there is no excuse to not choose to follow Christ. President Holland was being driven to a conference when the driver saw that his head was bobbing in exhaustion when he asked president Holland, "how is it that you keep going? Can´t you rest?" A change occured in Presidents posture as he sat up straight, looked at the driver and said, "I will serve the lord until my final breath."

As our Leaders are physically working with little rest, We can not rest spiritually! As we do so we become spiritually weak. Don´t Rest! :) There is not time or reason to rest. The Lord will strengthen us and will be there for us. It will be difficult just like anything else in life but I testify of the happiness and peace that comes. There is no greater reward :D

 

This week was awesome. We found alot of new investigators and there is little progression but that is ok! I continue to work in faith and I continue to work hard. It is the best! :)

 

The mission is the greatest! I will always love it!

Until next week,

Love, Elder Powell