I got a call from the AP's and Im training again!

Hey Mom,

 

This week was really good. But first some exciting news. Were emailing today because everything was closed yesterday and last night I got a call from the AP's and Im training again! Im way excited. We get transfer calls tonight that will tell us if Im staying or going. We for sure thought I was leaving because of what Pres said when I first got here about moving back into a car area but they told me last night im keeping the car so who knows what will happen but Im excited to train again. Those 2 transfers when I trained Elder Cannon were my favorite so far on the mission so thats why I am so excited.

 

The first major thing that happened this week was on Monday. We were tracting and went to visit a Potential Investigator. His name is Mark and he is Hindu and said he wouldnt mind if we talked with him about our message. It was a great lesson and went well until the end. When we asked him to commit to things like reading and praying about the Book of Mormon he completly rejected it. Then when we asked him about Baptism he said no way and when we asked him to pray at the end it was a silent prayer that he gave so we sat there awkwardly for like 2 mins while the rest of his family was eating dinner and starring at us hahaha. Then we stopped by last night and he said he was not interested in learning more, So it was fun while it lasted hahaha.

 

On Tuesday we were on splits with the stake pres. His name is Pres Bush. So we did some home teaching with him and then we went to see another potential. His name is Alfredo and he is from Honduras. He is visiting till Thursday and will go back to Honduras until after fathers day and come back. He is a doctor and is trying to do the schooling in America so he can come here and be a doctor here. He said that when he comes back to America in a couple of weeks he doesn't know if it will be back here in Virginia or Alabama. But when we got there he walked outside and asked if we could go talk down at the park instead of his house because his family was busy. We were fine with it (but apparently Pres Bush wasn't so sure as so he stated in his email hahaha). Oha and I was on an Excahnge with one of the Chinese Elders who can't really speak good english. When we sat down at the park it was loud and hard to consetrate. But the lesson went great. Pres Bush asked really good questions, Elder Tang testified a lot and it was going really well. When we shared the first vision it for really quite (as it should be) We sat there and let the silence sink in and allow Alfredo to listen to his thoughts and how he felt. After that we asked him if he thought this could be possible or not and he literally said "If I believed the Catholic religion was true because my parents told me, could I not also believe that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ?" WHOA!!!!!! it was so legit!!!! He prayed at the end and gave such a sincere prayer. He even prayed for us as missionaries. It was sucha a great lesson. He also accpeted all commitments. then a couple days later Pres Bush had his son bring Alfredo to a Institute kick off fire side where Sister Baker Played the Violin and there were some other speakers. Alfredo really enjoyed it. Pres Bush did this without informing us and called to tell us after what had happened and said "sorry for fellowshipping without you guys knowing" (as a joke) and I laughed and tole him it was perfeclty fine hahaha.

 

On Friday we had another interesting lesson witht he Jewish man named Scott. He is really knowledgeable and was sayiong some pretty... interesting things. He basically feels he is so smart and that reading the Book of Mormon makes him feel like he is being talked down to. He doesnt understand the beauty of the plainess of the Book of Mormon. He also said some stuff that was rather rude and our Ward mission leader was with us and called him arrogant right to his face. that was pretty funny. The thing with Scott is he is actually reading the Book of Mormon so that is why we keep wanting to teach him. he is progressing slowly but he is progressing.

 

Other than that it was a normal week. Transfer calls are tonight so it will be really exciting to see what happens!!

 

Love ya!

 

Elder Powell

Awesome Half Mission Conference with Elder Larry Echo Hawk

Hey Mom,

 

This week was, well slow, but still good. Basically after Veronique was Baptized we were back down to no one to work with. We have a a couple of people that have been investigating for a while and really are not making to much progress. Needless to day we are doing a lot of finding. We had a really awesome Half Mission Conference with Elder Larry Echo Hawk from the first quorm of the 70. That was a really cool conference. He was talking about how when he was first called as a 70 and how he was going to do his first mission tour and he was nervous because he is a convert and did not serve a mission. He didn't think that he could give advice to current missionaries. I forgot which Apostle it was that he was talking to but he told Elder Echo Hawk that he was a convert and therefore had an advantage. Totally true. Then he went on to talk a lot about how he came to know that the Book of Mormon was true and he talked about his experience with Prayer. That was really cool to hear. The conference was great.

 

We also had a really good lesson with the Jewish man Scott. Once again he asked a lot of sincere questions but were all hard to answer. He is doing his reading and in one week is in the 18th chapter of 1st Nephi. It will be a long process with him but if we continue to take members and he continues to read and pray and then start coming to church it will all work out. Nothing else really happened. Really slow week.  It was so fun to talk to you last week and to hear Trixie barking. 

 

Love you

 

Elder Powell

 

Veronique got baptized!!!

 

Hey Mom,

 

This week was awesome!!! So We had a lot of meetings that went really really well. We had a really long but good Zone conference about how for the next 52 days we are going to "Rise up and Rebuild the mission" its going to be awesome. We started out with a 24 hour fast. We broke the fast at the Lopez house and he made Spanish Spaghetti. All that is different is you use bacon not sausage and there is no sauce. It sounds dumb but it was so good. Then we had another Launching Leaders meeting. That was way good. We were able to learn a ton. We had a funny experience on monday. We got let in tracting (miracle) and after we were walking back to the car and we took a shortcut that Elder Christensen said he knew of and long story short it wasn't a shortcut and we ended up walking in this huge square for an hour till we got back to the car it was about 9:30. We had this cool lesson with this former investigator. His name is Scott. He is really religous (Jewish) and we brought our Ward Mission Leader with us. The teaching record said that he was a "tough cookie" and really old testemant rooted. So we were expecting it to be a really hard lesson. But it actually was pretty good. He was shocked to hear a lot of what we believe. He said none of it contradicts what he believes (expect Jesus being the Messiah). He was just shocked that we believe God to be embodied. He said he had never herd that before. But it was a really good lesson and he is willing to listen more.

 

Then we had Veroniques Baptism. It was awesome. We got there early to fill the font and it was taking a lot longer than expected and we thought that it wasn't going to be filled intime but it was. Everything went great. Then yesterday she was confirmed. The whole ward already knows her and loves her. One thing she said that she was so impressed with was how the ward was so loving and understanding with her son Phillipe (he is autistic and is 24 but is mentally about 4 she said). It was really cool to hear that come from her and she said that she know knew why we are refered to as saints. That was pretty humbling. It works out great when you are serving in a ward where they do so much to help fellowship and investiagator and it all works out perfectly. She siad the Baptism interview was really easy hahaha. It was funny though because our distrct leader who was giving the interview is from Taiwan and has a hard time with English and Veronique is french and sometimes cant understand what we say so that was a little joke we were talking about. On Tuesday I went on exchanges with the Elder Chan. He is from Hong Kong. It was awesome because we had a potential chinese investigator and it was in my last area and we stopped by him. Then we stopped by and saw Kegan and the Richardsons, and then Becky and Eleanor. that was awesome. They are all doing great. This week was great! Know we are back to trying to get some more investigators!!

 

Love

 

Elder Powell

"I want to be Baptized!"

Hey Mom,

 

What a week! So pretty much Veronique had this awesome miracle and she is getting Baptized on Friday. We were over there on Tuesday. She ended up going to the Stake Pres' house for family home evening and loved it. Thir daughter who is like 20 was a huge help with Veroniques son Phillip (autistic) and they all had a wonderful time. So what ended up happening is this. For the past several weeks and Jewish convert from our ward (Veronique is Jewish) has been coming over and explaining a lot during the lessons because Veronique has read a ton of stuff (Preach My Gospel, almost all of the Book of Mormon, The Work and Glory books and she really knows the Old Testemant). She has know in her mind for a while that this church is true but she wanted to feel it in her heart. When we first got to the lesson we gave Phillip a blessing and then after the lesson Brother Cohn (the member) asked if she wanted one. She was a little resentful but then said yes. After the blessing she turned to us and said "I want to be Baptized! I know it is true, I cant describe how I am feeling" She decsribed how she has been feeling before the blessing like this. She could see the tree and knew what the fruit would taste like but she could not reach the fruit. She was so close to grabbing it, it hurt. She wanted to taste it so badly! During the blessing she said the she was lifted and grabbed the fruit and partook. What a miracle!!!!! Because of that she is getting baptized and we went to the Temple Visitors Center on Saturday and it was awesome. She called so many people to tell them that she was know ready. It was way cool. On the drive home from the lesson we were all like "wow we did not see that coming but that is awesome!" So she is doing great!

 

We had interviews this week with Pres and they went great. I love him so much!!!! We also saw a lady who has been takling the lessons for a while. I took a pic of her dogs because she rescued one and it is best friends with the other one she already has and they were laying down all funny. Then we threw a suprise celebration for Elder Christensen because it was his birthday this week. I got the chinese elders and the fairfax elders to come and surprise him. So we shot him with his own airsoft gun 20 times to celebrate hahaha. great times. I dont have much more time because we are going to DC and leaving in a couple of minutes.

 

Love ya,

Elder Powell