Training again and opening up a new area!!

Hey Mom!!!
 This week was way interesting.Here is the big news........I'm training again and opening up a new area!!! It caught me way off guard. I was just training Elder Timmons and we totally thought I was staying to finish train him and then we got the call and we were both really shocked. So this is #4 . His name is Elder Westover and he is from Glendale Arizona so naturally we get along great because he isn't from Utah. The funny thing is, he turned 18 last month! It is so weird. He seems so young. But he is really energetic and we are getting along great. There were 42 missionaries that came into the mission on Wednesday!!!!!!! They opened up 13 new areas, and its cool because my Trainer Elder Holfeltz is training again and is our District Leader, and the first kid I trained Elder Cannon is training as well.

We are opening up the Centreville 2nd ward. They had a set of Sisters and now they us as well. So
I am know in the same Zone as Haymarket but that was on the West side and I am now on the East Side. But I am still on the West side of the mission. That's where I have served my whole mission was on the west side. My last area was the closest to DC and it was in the Center of the mission. But if you remember the email you got during Christmas where It had the Picture of the Stake President and his wife, Pres Riggs and then Elder McAbee and I. We are know in the Stake Presidents ward. He is a great man. But he was released like 3 months ago, so he isn't the stake Pres. But anyways, ya I'm so excited to be back in the Centreville stake! We go to church where we have transfer meetings and other meetings so it's cool to attend church at that building.

The ward is awesome. All the leadership and the whole ward is excited to have Elders and are really into missionary work. We have been going around and introducing ourselves and thanking the different members for all the things they donated to our apartment. The ward was sent a letter from the mission and was in charge of getting our whole apartment furnished. They did a great job and its an awesome apartment.

We are starting from Scratch on the work, but the sisters had a referral for us and we went and taught
him. He is a man from Vietnam. His name is Tommy Phan. He grew up Buddhist. He really wants to learn a lot more about Christianity and about Jesus Christ. He seemed really golden until the end when he was like "Ill call you when I finish reading the Book of Mormon" and we were like ".....uh we were actually wanting me more often then that",it was pretty funny. But we are doing a lot of finding right now and trying to get to know the members.  We are really excited to work!!
 
Love Elder Powell

What is he saying??? STOP!!

Holla Moohair,
This week was pretty dang good. All the lessons we had were only with members and we were able to teach that Family of 5. Turns out the Wife, Miriam, is the one really interested. The Husband, Les, is a
Comparative Religion teacher at the University in our area and isn't as interested but he isn't against in so
that's good. They have 2 daughters ages 12 and 10 and then a 6 year old son. But we were so crammed on time that we weren't able to have that long of a lesson with them so that will have to happen this weekend. Miriam is from Tanzania. She grew up Muslim but her family wasn't practicing. Les is Methodist and his dad is a Methodist Preacher. The member we brought with us was Brother Nieman and he stayed afterwards to talk with Les and he said that Les ended up sounding a lot more open than he thought. So we are really excited to work with them!

We had a lesson with the old Hindu man, Mr. Soni and then also took him to the New Member Fireside
that our mission does. He really enjoys church and wants to become Mormon he says. So we talked with him about Baptism and about the Baptismal interview questions and he said that he agrees with almost all of it except he does not want to pay tithing and he doesn't know if Jesus in the Christ. Now we know where to work with him!

We had a pretty good lesson with Scott. His mom just passed away so it was a perfect time for us to
talk about the Plan of Salvation. The lesson was going great but the member we had with us started teaching
some non doctrinal stuff that made even Elder Timmons and I look at each other and be like "WHAT IS HE
SAYING...STOP!!!!!" hahaha. Scotts face was priceless during those points. So ya that was....interesting.

We did some more service for Ray. We went crazy with his Weed Eater and so we worked around the areas that he had cut down. All the bees were dead this week though so there was no trouble there.

We had to pass of Silvia and Nicole to the Hermanas because when we came back over for the lesson, she
just wanted to talk in Spanish the whole time and not really in English. We had the Stake President with us and he spoke some Spanish so every time she had some questions or when she talked really at all it was to him in Spanish so at the end we asked which she would prefer to continue in English or Spanish and she said Spanish hahaha.

Alfredo called and said that he his going back to Honduras for a month or 2. He said he did good on
his test he felt but won't know until September 25th. But he had a lot of nice things to say and was thankful for all that we had done. He has friends in Honduras that want him to talk to the Missionaries so he might even come back from Honduras Baptized hahaha.   It was a pretty good week. Unfortunately we think Im being transferred. Basically because the thousand of Sisters that are coming in they are always the ones that get priority over the cars so they have to take ours away so I'm going to get put into a car area. So we get the call on Tuesday and we will see what happens.

Love You!!!!!

Man, I have made a change!!!

Hi Mom,
This week was decent. We were able to teach Scott with a Jewish Convert named Brother Cohn. It was a good lesson because Brother Cohn practically has the Old Testament memorized hahaha. Scott tried to say
some stuff that was out there but Brother Cohn kept it under control.

We had received a referral from Salt Lake saying that a lady went to the DC Temple Visitor Center and
wanted a visit. Usually all the referrals we get are bogus but this one was legit! We only had time to stop by and introduce ourselves and set up a return appointment. They were really excited to meet us and we prayed with them before we left. They unfortunately went out of town the next and are going to be gone until this Sunday. But we have an appointment with them for Sunday night so it should be awesome. They are a family of 5!

One of the funniest things ever happened this week. We were doing service for Ray. He had bought a
new weed eater and Elder Timmons put it together and we went into his backyard to cut some grass so we could get to the spot where Ray wanted us to work. Well apparently there was a Bee Hive there and we disrupted them. They are the big black bumble bees that nest in the ground. Last year I did the same thing at Mrs. Kelsey's out in Culpeper and got stung by one hahaha. But basically after we pissed the hive off we then spent the whole time killing bees. Ray kept giving us fly swatters and spray and it was just so dang
funny. Then Ray went in to kill some and one flew onto his lip and I kid you not he took off so fast. I have never seen a 71 year old man move so quick. After that whole fiasco he took us to lunch and we went to get more bee killer spray and he was like "Hey I have a new Credit card get what ever you want" so he bought us our groceries hahaha. He was loving it. So that was a really fun day.

We found a new little family!! They were a referral from a recent convert. It is a man named Frank and
his Daughter Stephanie. They just moved here from Chicago (go Bears!!). The mom is still in Chicago until they sell their house. But they were really open and we had a great lesson with them.

We had a 7 hour move that was brutal. After the wife of the family gave me all sorts of trash for being from California and wanting to stay there after my mission. This was the same lady that pulled out some book
that some Mormon wrote and said he had a near death experience and saw all these prophecies and showed me how he said that California was going to break off into little pieces due to all these Earthquakes. Well she took that as doctrine and it was so annoying. Learn from this lady. That indeed was a trial of patience. I held my tongue and did not say anything mean hahaha I have made a change!!!!!

That was our week nice and slow hahaha. But we are hopefully going to see that family on Sunday and
have some other good news!!!

Love you!
Elder Powell

We are going to a Washington Nationals Game!!!

Hey
Mom, This week was really up and down. But first things first. Pres Riggs got the approval
and we are going as a Mission to a Washington Nationals game on September 13th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now to the serious stuff, this week started off really slow. We had a lot of cancelations and
were constantly trying to figure out what to do and things like that. Then we had a great exchange with the High Priest Group leader in our ward. We had a great lesson with a referral from someone in our ward. Her name is Silvia and her Daughter is Nicole. They are from Bolivia. Nicole and a younger girl from our ward play soccer together. Well the member is freaking awesome little missionary. They are both 9. This is how Mia, the member did her part as a ward missionary! She started off by talking to her about church and if she went to a church. Then she started bringing a "Friend" magazine to school to read and showed it to Nicole and got her interested in it. Well Nicole really liked it and took one home and was showing it to her mom and
they started reading it together. Then Mia and her family had Silvia and Nicole over for dinner and they also had us there. We talked a lot about religion and Silvia really opened up. She said that she doesn't really open up like that with people she doesn't know but she felt there was something different about us. She accepted a return appointment and we stopped by on Wednesday to teach her with the HP group leader, Brother Staton. He served his mission in Rosario Argentina so he knew Spanish. He had to translate some parts of the lesson but it went great. On Sunday he went up to bear his testimony and was just talking about how
being able to be apart of a lesson again meant so much to him. His son, Cori, also comes out with us to teach with us. He is a priest. Then we had a lesson with Melissa that went pretty well but after her and her family who are not members ganged up on Douglas who is a member and was giving him all this crap about the church so we are on hold with Melissa. Scott was not available this week but we are hoping to have a lesson with him and with Brother Cohn who is a Jewish Convert. Brother Cohn is a really smart man and
especially in the Old Testament so we are hoping that he will be able to help. We did our service for Ray and he took us out to lunch and we had a great time with him. He is so funny and always has some great jokes. We also were able to find a new investigator this week when we were checking up on a Less Active member. A man who is not the member answers the door so of course we just asked if we would give us time to teach him about Jesus Christ. So he did. His name is Albarr Ali. He is from LA. He has had a really hard life with addictions to different things, but is doing a lot better now. We met with him twice and it was really good. He is really open and is really humble. We are continuing to try and find!!!!!!!!!! Elder Timmons and I are doing really well together. Other than that it was an average week. The weather was really nice this week but is getting hotter (yay).

Love Elder Powell