This week was really great!

Hey Mom!

This week was great! The biggest news is that Brian (a man that we just started teaching who is living a member) announced that they are getting married on 1-1-14 and he is being baptized that same day! Also Nicole is on date for 1-25-14. But we might try and move that one up. 

We had a great time at church. President and Sister Riggs were there. They spoke in Sunday school and in the different classes and 3rd hour. They did a great job at getting the ward even more excited to do missionary work. 

We spent some time on Saturday morning helping a family put up chandeliers. That was long but fun at the same time.

We started working with a man named Grady. He works with a member of the ward and is his neighbor. We had a great first lesson and Grady even said that the first vision was "Profound". He wants to believe it. We are really excited to be working with him. 

We also started working with this 19 year old named Omar. He is a kid that we tracted into. His family is Muslim but they aren't practicing. He said that he was interested in learning more especially about Jesus Christ and what we believe about him. 

On Wednesday we had a Zone conference with Elder Teh from the first quorm of the 70. Is is awesome. He is pretty funny and it was a great conference. He talked a lot about staying as far away from "The Line" that separates good and evil. He also talked a lot about developing the Faith to Find and Preparing to Teach by the Spirit. It was a really long conference but it was really good. 

This week was really great! Our Bishop set a goal for our ward to get 6 more convert Baptisms by the end of the year and we have had 2. Its getting close so we are working really hard to achieve that goal!

Love Elder Powell  

KEGAN IS AN ELDER!!!

Hey Mom!!,

First things first. KEGAN IS AN ELDER!!! HE IS ALSO GOING THROUGH THE TEMPLE AND INVITED ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im so happy for him and the Richardsons!!!!!!! They just informed me!!!

This week was awesome. My companion finished his mission this transfer and so I got a new one. His name is Elder Fink. He is from Bakersfield, CA. NOT UTAH!!!!!! hahahaha. We get along really well. Miracles are happening left and right out here! Part member families are being prepared. We had a great lesson with a man named Brian. He was been coming to church for a couple of months. He already has a calling. He works with the scouts. His girlfriend is a member. They are so ready for the Gospel. Brian is really prepared. He does a lot of reading out of the Gospel Library on his Ipad! The lesson was really spiritual and awesome! We are seeing him every Tuesday night so we are excited for that. 

Nicole is doing great. She wanted to wait until January to be Baptized because she didn't feel she was ready. She is going out of town a lot for the Holidays so they decided that at the end of January would be best. We are still teaching her every week and she still has the desire and wants to be Baptized.

We are teaching one of Victoria's friends named Hanna. She has a lot going on in her life right now. Her dad passed away so the Gospel is going to help her so much. We had a great lesson last night and had her kneel and pray. While she was praying we had her pause in the middle and just listen. After we talked with her about it and she totally could notice a difference in how she was feeling. 

They made the announcement and we are getting Ipads on December 11th. That will be interesting. Facebook is going decently. But things are going really well!!!

Love Elder Powell

Victoria was Baptized!!

Hey Mom,

This week was pretty good. Victoria was Baptized!!! The Baptism went really well. There were a ton of people there. The whole ward has been waiting for her to be Baptized. Victoria has been pushing for a while to get her mom to let her. In fact at the Baptism her Brother who originally converted 5 years ago was bearing his testimony about the whole situation and said that Victoria was trying to get her mom to allow it by nagging her everyday and her mom says "It was so annoying!!". It was so funny everyone was laughing. A ton of missionaries were there. One of them was my trainer. He has changed so much since we were companions. He actually goes home this week. But it was really fun to see all the missionaries there that have been praying for this moment for a long time.

We finally had another lesson with Nicole. They took a 3 week break from us hahaha. But she has decided that she is going to wait until the end of January or end of February to be baptized. It was a pretty good lesson for the fact that the only reason why she is being baptized is because our Bishop talked to President Riggs and they were cleared. She is living with her Boyfriend and we had a lesson where we taught the law of Chastity and we had to be the bad guys a little bit. Nicole didn't handle it too well. But she is still wanting to have lessons and is reading and praying. So it is what is. 

We had meeting this week where we talked more about online proselyting. It was pretty good. We presented it to other missionaries today and they were all excited. But its funny because President doesn't have too many answers about all of the online Proselyting and stuff so a lot of the questions were answered with "If it helps you fulfill your purpose as a missionary then yes you can" hahaha. 

We have been doing what we call "Family Fun Nights" where we have a family home evening with families and play games with them. Its a really nice time for them to have a lot of fun with us and we ask them "who do you know of that would enjoy a night like this?". It is great time for people to realize that the contact they have with us does not have to be uncomfortable and so serious all the time. This will really help members realize how easy and fun missionary work can be. 

We had an awesome dinner with a family that we are working with. Its an older couple that we do service for. The husband is not a member. He is a business man and is very vocal about his point of view. Its funny because the closest thing I can think of to compare him to is a 70 year old version of Jim on According to Jim. Funny thing is his name is James and he goes by Jim hahaha. 

We helped someone pull up their carpet this week. Believe it or not carpet is extremely easy to pull out. The hard and annoying part is getting all the staples and tacs in the ground. 

Not too much else happened. But the ward here is awesome. The Bishop, Ward Mission Leader, and the Seminary teacher are all brothers. They use to live in Newport Beach and so I get along really well with all of them. But our bishop is really inspired and receives a ton of inspiration and is really such a great Bishop. I would be blessed to finish my mission here!

Love Elder Powell

Happy Halloween!

Hey Mom,

This week was really good. We are working with a couple of people that are ready to be Baptized. Victoria is being Baptized this weekend. The whole ward is so excited for her. She has persevered so much and she past her Baptismal interview and everything is set for Saturday.

We had a great time on Halloween. I got the package thank you so much. The other Elders loved their candy. We had some meetings in the morning and after the whole day was done we met as a Zone and had a potluck from 5-6 and watched movies from 6-9. 

We  also had a really fun family home evening with a member of our Bishopric. We carved pumpkins and that is what the other picture is. 

Not too much else happened this week. But this next week should be great!

Love you

Elder Powell