Monday, December 31, 2012

Trying to find those prepared souls



MOM!!!
So this week was pretty good. We put Kegan on date for baptism for Jan 26th. We had 2 lessons with him one on Wednesday and another on Saturday. He was able to come to sacrament and met the bishop. He had to go to work and wont be able to come to church anymore if he doesn't change his work schedule. That is what we really have work with him on. Because he can't be baptized if he doesn't attend church obviously. Then we were able to meet with Becky and Eleanor. They did not come to church sad to say though.
This week was tons of fun though. On Christmas eve Brother Schmidt took us to the air and space museum. That was so awesome. I took pictures with stuff like the SR-71 Blackbird (my favorite jet), the space shuttle the Discovery, and all sorts of jets and planes from different wars. I even took a picture with a Kamikaze from WW2. Then on Christmas we had breakfast at the Schmidts, lunch with the Richardsons and Kegan, dinner with this awesome couple that just went through the temple, skyped with you, and then back to the Richardsons. They are such an awesome family.  We were able to see some other people as well.
We are just not finding any new investigators. We are supposed to be finding at least 3 a week and we only have found like 5 since i have been here. So we don't have a lot of work going on and after Becky, Kegan and Eleanor are baptized were really going to be up a creek hahaha. Pres is constantly sending out emails that show our key indicators and is letting us know we suck at finding new. So yup fun times. 
Other than that not that much has happened. Were trying to find those prepared souls so i hope to have more to report for next week. 

Love ya Miss ya!

Elder Powell

Monday, December 24, 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012

This week was really great!



 
Hey MOM!!!!

This week was yet again another great week. Not too many things happened but the things that did were really awesome. The first really cool thing that happened was we had our fun mission Christmas conference. It was up in Oakton so not that bad of a drive. When we got there we watched some missionaries perform talents. So all that means is we herd piano playing and singing. That wasn't the funnest part. Afterwards we went into the chapel and Pres Riggs gave a really good devotional. He started the meeting of by saying that he was going to call on people he felt impressed to call on, for them to come up and share their testimony and thoughts about Jesus Christ. So the meeting went really well and just as Pres Riggs said he wasn't going to call on any one else he sits down and talks with Sister Riggs and then gets up and says that Sister Riggs told him to have me come up. So that was a funny surprise but I am really thankful for the experience. I honestly can't remember much of what I said but I felt really really good and calm and spiritual. So that was a really really great experience that I had. Then after the devotional I was able to see all my friends in the mission. So that was a really fun and great time.
 
Becky and Eleanor started their move on Saturday. Eleanor said that she wanted a smaller place so they found this nice little apartment that is still in the ward. We went over on Saturday night and we just caught up with Becky. She is handling the situation really well and it was a great visit. Its funny because she is so prepared to be baptized that whenever we share a scripture with her from the Book Of Mormon she knows exactly where it is and whats going on during that point in time in the Book Of Mormon. But they are doing really good. We are going to help them move a little bit of furniture on Tuesday and that will pretty much be it. When we came over on Saturday she was drinking a Red Bull energy drink and was asking us if we liked them and we were like Heck YA and she couldn't even finish it lol. Just a funny thing that happened.
 
The other thing that we went to on Saturday was a funeral for this older lady in our ward. She joined the church at the age of 73 and from that point on was able to index over 20,000 names for the church. It was a pretty cool story. Her second marriage was to a member of the church so thats how she was introduced and she was able to be sealed to him just before he past away. But she is the only member in her family so it was a really good funeral because it was at our church and when her hometeacher spoke he spoke a lot about the plan of salvation and it helped them out a lot. The hometeachers were a son and dad almost exactly like Pres B and I were with sister Larson. The son even gave the prayer at the end as well so it reminded me a lot of sister Larson's funeral which in turn made me almost cry, it was very emotional...but its all good.
 
Then we had this really good lesson with the man named Emanuel. Elder Rausch and I tracted into him last transfer and taught him the first lesson. Then we were able to finally teach him L2. Which is the plan of salvation. He really enjoyed it and is very thankful for what we do and says that all young men should serve missions at this point in their lives. But this awesome miracle happened with him. When we were leaving the apartment that day I grabbed a copy of the Family Proclamation to give to him. When we gave it to him he explained how his friend at work who is a member showed this to him on his phone and Emanuel said that he loved it and knew it was straight from god and wanted a copy and we JUST SO happened to bring a copy! It was a pretty cool little miracle. Then we went over to the Richardson one night. They are the awesome family from Cali. They have an 18 year old kid named Keagan who they pretty much adopted who is living with them now. He randomly asked us why there were so many churches off of the Bible. We then were like "a 14 year old boy had that same question" and taught him the restoration. It was a really good lesson because the whole family except a couple were in on the lesson. The rest of the family was watching their cat give birth upstairs. But the lesson went really really well. Sister Richardson is really trying to help him out and she is really excited for him to take this step. Long story short we are going with Josh (their son who is waiting on his mission call) and Keagan to the temple to see the Christmas lights on Wednesday. Then today we were invited to the stake Presidents home with all the other missionaries for a Christmas devotional and lunch. Pres Riggs was there and some other High Priest's. It was really fun and they took some pictures that they will be emailing to you soon! i know youll really like the picure. Its of Press Riggs, Pres and Sister Hilton, and our companionship in front of their Christmas tree. So this week was really great! Transfers are this week so who knows whats going to happen!
 
Love you!!!
Elder Powell

Monday, December 10, 2012

Mission conference with Elder Packer!!



Hey MOM!!

This week was such an improvement from any other week I have had in this area! We were able to meet with most of the people that we are teaching and we were FINALLY able to meet with this one investigator and her daughter are really close to Baptism. The mom is named Becky and she has been taking the lessons for about a year. She would have been Baptized months ago but she is living with a man who she is not married too. So the ward and the missionaries have spent months waiting to see what was going to happen with this situation. When i got to this area the missionaries were meeting with them a lot and doing a lot of service at there place but like as soon as i got here Becky and her daughter Eleanor became sooo busy that we practically havent seen them until this week. Something happened and now Becky and Eleanor are moving out and the best part is they are moving in the ward bounderies. They are moving either this weekend or the next so thats going to be happening with them soon!
 
We were also able to have a lesson with a man named Tim Havrilla who has been investigating the church for a long time. He wanted to read in the book of Revelations hahahha so that what we went over. We were also able to meet with a teenage girl named Jessica. Her mom and her twin Jennifer converted last yeat but Jessica did not. She says that she just doesn't know weather she wants to be baptized or not. But we were able to get her to commit to pray about it and to read from the Book of Mormon. We were able to meet other people as well so it was a good week.
 
Then yesterday we had this awesome mission conference with Elder Packer of the 70 and his wife. They are such awesome people! it was 6 hours long and we all learned a lot. At lunch Sister Riggs pulled me aside and we talked with the Packers about my health. Elder and Sister Packer have a son who has the same disease I do and they said that he had a lot of back pain as well and he was diagnosed with something called Spondolitis or something so they told me to ask the doctors to do this certain test to check for it. So that was fun conversation hahaha. It was pretty amazing that I was led to them and they were inspired about my health and their son has the same disease.  The Packers are just really awesome so it was an awesome day yesterday! Transfers are supposed to be on the 20th but they havent decided weather to make it the 27th (a 7 week transfer) or keep it the same day and have a small meeting. Regardless i hope i get transfered!!.
 
Love YA!!!
 
Elder Powell

Monday, December 3, 2012

Things look really promising!



Hey Mom!

Im Glad to hear you had such a great time on the cruise. Some really good things happened this week but not too many. We had a fun Pday playing some sports at the stake center with some other missionaries. Then on tuesday we had our meetings and I was on an exchange with elder Worthngton from Spanish Fork Utah. He is an awesome kid. That was the most succesful day this week. We were able to have a couple of lessons and then we also had a really good dinner too. On wednesday we had interviews with President, those were way awesome. He such a loving guy. He really takes a lot of time to get to know every missionary personally and you can tell he is really there for you when ever you need him. On Thursday we had one of those hard days where no matter where we went nothing was happening. But in the morning this awesome lady from our ward Sister Richardson took us to a grocery store and bought us a ton of groceries. That was way awesome so we are completely stocked up right now! Friday was a loooooooooooong day. We helped this family move from 2-9. It was fun though. The husband of the family had me packing everything in the truck and i was able to use what i learned from JC penny. Never thought i would but i did hahahaha. We were able to fit everything in nice and tight. It took a long time but it went really well. When it was all over it felt soooo good to go home and sit down. We didnt want to move hahaha. Saturday was a decent day. We had a lesson but were able to contact some people and set up appointments for next week.

Sister Riggs has asked us to go through our area books and contact former investigators and thats what we have been doing. And its been working! We are teaching this 17 year old kid and he is and awesome kid. Were really hopeful his Mom wont be a big factor if he decides to be baptized. Also on Saturday we met with this African American family that is super religious. We talked with the Husband and his 3 sons. They belong to a non denominational church and the husband thinks that the "Mormon" church has a really bad rep and doesn't understand why people don't think were Christians. It was a great lesson. He wants us to come back when his wife is home because he really wants to have a lesson with her there. We are really excited for that! So not too much is going on BUT the things that are look really promising!  

Love YA!

Elder Powell