We are just to build and teach more

Hey Mom!!

 

This week has been freaking crazy! Since we combined the 2 wards we are so busy. It is awesome! Our companions took off to Australia last monday in the afternoon so we have been combined since then and will be until the middle of July. Its not that long of time but it is so much fun. We had some really good experiences and we had one of the funniest lessons I have ever been a part of. On Wedensday we went hometeaching in the morning with a man from the Wakefield ward. We went to see a 23 year old named Douglas who has been recently reactivated and is working towards serving a mission. He is the only member in his family. At the end of the home teaching we knew his sister was home so we asked for him to go and get her. He was hesitant but we insisted and so he did. Her name is Melissa and we went on to have a really spiritual lesson. With her being completly honest and open and her brother and the member bearing testimony, it was a really good lesson. She is Catholic and said that the religion has done a lot for her and that she is just hesitant to think that anything could be better than what she is a part of. Thats always something that we have to remind people of. We are not there to ruin what they already believe or know. Just to build and teach more. She said that she is willing to read and pray and Douglas is going to be bringing her to church. That should be a great sistuation.

 

Then we had Splits and I worked in the Wakefield ward and Elder Cannon covered the Fairfax ward that night. I was able to go and see Scott. Scott is still reading and he is in the book of Mosiah. It was another pretty interesting lesson because he always asks these deep intellectual questions and we always do our best but luckily we always have awesome members that are able to fill in more than we can. But Scott asked for my first name and I explained to him about the calling I had and that my name is Elder Powell. He then went on to say that he would ask me to call him Rabbi hahaha. He is at least a 12 or 13 on a scale of humility from 1-10. The lessons with him are always really interesting so we always look forward to them. On Wednesday Elder Cannon had a Baptism in his ward so it was awesome. It was this 12 year old that I was able to interview for his Baptism and he is great! He is being the example for his family right now. he lives with his mom and sister and they have not chosen to be Baptized but they are taking the lessons. Then we had the funny lesson. So it was with the lady Gwyn who we met last week. Here is the stuff she said in the lesson 1)She told us she was mentally ill (she said it was schizo something but I know its not Schizofrennia) 2) She mentioned the Pope resigning and Elder Cannon asked what that ment to her and she just said it was "thats some big crap" but didnt say crap 3) then went to pray and in the prayer says "Lord, my pastor says that mormons are doctortine this doctorine that. They are doctorine up the butt" then she said sorry and continued to pray. I thought it was hysterical hahahah Elder Cannon and I were laughing so hard about it.Oh ya so my new comp is Elder Greg Cannon from Ventura Cali! Finally not another utah elder hahaha. We get along really well and are enjoying all the work going on. yesterday was that "work of Sallvation" broadcast and it was awesome! There are a lot of changes that are going to be happening!!! Other than that this week was awesome. oh in the Fairfax ward is a guy that went to College with one of the remmingtons and he was asking me about them hahaha, so it funny how small the world is.

 

Love

 

Elder Powell

 

"What do you have to say about that?"

 

Hi Mom!

This week was a hard week. We had every appointment cancel from Monday through Saturday. But on Saturday night we saw this lady sitting on her porch and we had a great first lesson with her. Her name is Gwyn. She had previously met with Sister missionaries before. The lesson was pretty good but there were a few interuptions. Her neighbor came out and was all mad that someone had cut her plants without asking her and when we were talking about the first vision, she says "So if the Persians would of won the war we would all be worshipping dogs! What do you have to say about that?"
 We all just sat there and stared at her, and then I simply said "Well its pretty divine that they didn't win" and we looked away from her and continued the lesson. Then at the end of the lesson Gywn really did not want to come to church or be rebaptized. So ya that was our Saturday. Then on Sunday we were able to stop by a part member family and we talked about the Great Apostacy with them and afterwards stopped by anohter members home who told us the Husband was a practicing Catholic hahaha... oops. Its funny how things work out. We were also able to meet with a Man who we met a couple of weeks ago at Dunkin Doghnuts. His name is Fernandez. He basically wants to know why bad things happen to good people. We didnt get to talk for that long but he has had a baby girl that has passed away and another family member. We were explaining the plan of Salvation and just hope that we can continue to meet with him. Really other than that this week, nothing really happend, but things are good!

 

Love

 

Elder Powell

" Hey you guys want to go to the NRA museum?"

Hey Mom!

The humidity is coming!!!!!!! This week was pretty good. It has been raining on and off so we will have hot days and not so hot days. But when its hot boy is it humid. My comp sweats a ton and its funny because it isnt even that humid yet compared to what it actually will get to. So hears the news on that. He is a Visa Waiter for Australia and his Visa came. So he will be leaving on the 17th with 4 others to Melbourne Australie. So what we are thinking is going to happen is the other Elder in my district (also named Elder Cannon. He came out alsmost a year ago and is from Southern California) is also training one of the Visa waiters going to Melbourne leaving the same day. So we think we are going to be comps and work both wards  for the last 3 weeks of the transfer. Pres Riggs hinted at me and said that he will have me train next transfer again (not a Visa Waiter) and he just needs to confirm it with the Lord hahaha.

 

But we found 5 new investigators this week! 2 of them are the most promising. They are a brother and sister ages 15 and 23. Will is the Brother and Nataile is the Sister. Will has been doing some soul searching and has gone to a couple different churches and is really interested in learing more. Natalie is interested as well but when we taught them their parents were not home and we are waiting to get permission from the parents to continue teaching Natalie. We also started teaching this really old Hindu from India. He has the heaviest accent ever I kid you not. His neighbors have been bringing him to church and he has told people in the ward and past missionaries that none of them are smart enough to teach  him. But he let us teach one lesson and agreed for us to come back this week so hopefully he has a change of hear. The other 2 are 2 brothers named Darius and Quitin. We tracting into them and what happend was the light switch of my bowels flipped on and I need to hit the restroom righ then and there so we knocked the door in faith that they would answer and I could use the restroom and they did. While I was using the restroom Elder Brooks talked with them and they agreed to have us come back. So we came back on saturday night and had a great lesson. The are 13 and 15. There mom said something funny when we were there the first time. She came out of her bedroom to see who was there and (i was in the bathroom at the time) when she saw Elder Brooks she says "no way I got to church, talk to my kids" and slams the door hahahah. So ya we are teaching the kids now. Saturday was a pretty fund day. We had all these plans for the morning and night. Well all the morning ones fell through so when we were dropping off the kid that came out with us to teach (Brother Niemans son) and  his dad needed help going to get a washer machine and then putting it in his house so we waited for him to go get a truck and Sister Niemann came down stairs with a project for us to do while we waited. We made trains out of cardboard and spray painted them for a piano recital she had that night and also played some hockey in there garage until Brother Niemann came back. She was taking some pics of it all so I have some to forward to you. Then we helped with the washer machine and we were on our way. After that we went to stop by this awesome family in our ward named the Mortensons (brother mortenson grew up in Blythe!!!! He has some stories about that) to do the member revelation question. When Elder Brooks explained that he is leaving in a week and mentioned that he loved guns Brother Mortenson got his guns out and showed them to us and was like " Hey you guys want to go to the NRA museum?" So we were like "umm duh" so we went to the Museum and had a fun time (its only 4 miles away) and he took us out to dinner. His whole family was out of town in Georgia so he was looking for something to do. We thought if it as Elder Brooks only oppurtunity to see any musuem before he left so ya that was a fun day. Other than that the same old same old is happening!

 

Love

 

Elder Powell 

The humidity is here though!!!!!

 

 

Hey Mom,

 

This week was awesome. We had some really good experiences. One was the lesson we had with Scott (the learned Jew). He is still reading the Book of Mormon and has a ton of really deep and difficult questions so we always go over there with members hahaha. Thats always a fun situation when your teaching someone who is really really smart and comes up with some questions and your like "how on earth would we know that" hahaha. Also we went on exchanges with a member and did some home teaching and we went to this Cambodean family. The grandpa converted many years ago and he can speak a little bit of english but he does not really understand it. Well his grandsons were home so we took the oppurtunity to teach them. It went pretty well and we set up a return appoinment for Saturday but on Saturday they totally dropped us. Then we had transfer meetings.  That was insanse. 25 missionaries were coming to our mission and then they added 13 more visa waiters so 38 missionaries came in!!!! It was insane. The training meeting was so dang long. Then the making transfer calls took for ever as well. But my new companion is Elder Brooks from, drum roll, Pleasent Grove, Utah (who would have guessed?), We get along really well. He is actually a visa waiter as well. His call is for Melbourne Australia. So we have no idea how long he will be here for. Im staying in the same area with the car. Friday night was an interesting experience. First we were checking up on former investigators and we had this really hard lesson with this extremly hard hearted Athiest. It was elder Brooks first lesson so it was actually really funny to me. He just sat there and didnt say anything because the guy was saying some pretty strong things. But after I had this feeling that we needed to go see this one member in our ward and right as we were about to get to his house he called and asked if we could come over. He was pretty shocked when we were like "We are actually right around the corner". When we got there we he went on to tell us that he had been let go from his job and his wife was out of town and he was showing us some missionary book thing for his son who is also serving (we could tell he needed company and to be comforted) so we offered to give him a blessing. It was just a nice experience and is really cool as missionaries when people are able to count on you for comfort. We also had breakfast with him this morning and it was pretty fun. Everything else is going good. The humidity is here though!!!!! It was 95 on Saturday and Elder Brooks was dying hahaha.

 

Love

 

Elder Powell