¡Hola Todos!
Responses to your emails:The piano in the chapel is very basic—I can’t really record anything on it, let alone the fact that the ward members probably wouldn’t be able to figure out how to use it! We did enjoy the toy cars. We didn’t experience battery trouble, but then again, we didn’t try to use them for more than a minute so yeah :P It charges pretty fast though so it’s alright. I did get Grandpa Reeder’s letter and wrote him a response today because yes, I got your letter with the stamps on Wednesday. I laughed because his translator translated Drew’s name to ‘dibujó’ which means ‘(he/she/it) drew’ and the store Sears to the verb meaning to sear/singe! I couldn’t relieve it snowed in Dallas either! Glad to hear the family is keeping busy and alive.
Every 6 weeks is transfers, so the next transfer happens the 25th of January, and then 6 Mondays after that, and then 6 Mondays after that, etc. I noticed the General Conference podcasts and if their are any good talks I want I’ll grab them. It’s just that there are soooo many, I’d have to be searching for one—I can’t just window shop on this one. I’ll keep looking, but the hymns and other music cost money so I can’t really get those either.
Dad, I hope things go well for you with Rockwood and moving over. I often find your gut instinct is usually right, even if you have to feel a little sting after the decision. I’m not sure how buying out another company works, but I feel that the admins need to realize that there are always consequences to big decisions like this. If they really wanted to keep you, they ought to have researched into your situation a little bit more before making their move. You’ve done your research and with what you’ve been given/offered, you have discovered the better choice. Heavenly Father will guide things along for your benefit because you have done all you can. I know the Rockwood admins won’t be happy, but I’m not sure if I understand if there’s a threat or not. Again, I hope all goes well.
I can’t wait to hear Jason on the cello! I laughed at what Nick said about how “Jason…placed Joy to the World. And Drew…I don’t know what he played.” :)So guess what I totally just remembered family?!?! About 10 years ago, we made a 10-year time capsule and it’s sitting in the basement storage closet. I think it’s about time to open it up and I demand pictures of what everyone wrote/put in there!
Christmas time was quite interesting down here. The night of Christmas Eve was spent as the 8 elders in our district eating dinner and enjoying some of Heavenly Father’s fireworks and a huge rainstorm to go with it. At midnight, and for the following 40 minutes, everyone in the country just let every firework possible go off, ranging from firecrackers all the way up to professional-grade globos! I hear that because of the rain, it wasn’t as spectacular as it’s been and that the New Year will be even better! We woke up the next morning and opened gifts (thank you for those that them to me). We then walked around singing carols for a few families in our area, followed by a big lunch that our district put together. I got to call home after that, which for those that don’t know, is one of the 2 opportunities every year that I get to call home, the other being Mother’s Day. Elder Young and I then made some banana bread from mom’s recipe and gave some to a member family. It turns out we discovered an interesting difference in American and Argentine taste buds: the more flavor a food has, the more likely an American will like it, but the more likely an Argentine will think it’s weird/too overpowering. This was pretty much the case with this banana bread: the mom thought it was ok but insisted her budín de pan was much better tasting (of course, it was pretty bland :P). Our whole pension loved it enough though that we made a full second batch and just feasted on it ourselves! I think if someone wants to give me some weird Argentine food, I might give them some of my banana bread in return ;)
We had an interesting experience in church on Sunday. We walked to an investigator’s house to walk her and her 2 sons to church. Her dog decided to follow us all the way to the church. I thought it was great having the guard dog, until he insisted on entering the building too. He did everything possible to get in and even tricked me and got inside through a back door to the church that was left open (for security, of course!)—he promptly headed into the chapel and bugged our investigator! After getting him back outside and getting all the doors closed, I just decided to stand guard at the door and assist the latecomers because this dog would not give in! It was pretty crazy, but we still had a spiritual time.We were walking around yesterday and I saw the coolest thing ever! Many of the houses have little signs on their doors saying “Este hogar es catolico” followed by a little message ranging from blessing those that enter to “we don’t accept other religions, please respect this” (or something close to that; we knock anyways just because we aren’t forcing our religion on them, we’re just wanting to present our message to them ;) ) Well, on this one particular door, it read “Este hogar es cristiano” followed by a nice big logo of our church and the 13th Article of Faith (email me if you don’t know what it is) and ending with “In order to learn more, knock the door”!!! I thought it was fantastic!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
Love,Elder Powell
December 30, 2009
December 28, 2009
Semana 16-Salta
A quick note from mom: Jeff says he CAN receive email from anyone, he just can't email you back. So here is his email address if you care to write-- lamaspowell84@myldsmail.net
¡Hola Todos!
So what’s up with all the hype about 2012??? I can’t tell you how many people have asked about “dos mil doce…”The fireworks are getting a little crazy around here. It’s mostly just the really small but loud firecrackers and other little explosives, but I laugh because it’s only the little kids that are lighting them off!I have more puerta excuses for you: (I ask) “Are you alone?” “Sí.” “Oh, ok well…who’s that in the window?” (yeah, I get that happening a few times); “When is she going to come back?” “Más tarde.” (well duh!); (I ask a kid to get his parents, response after coming back:) “No hay nadie. Están durmiendo.” (so…which is it?)Everyone that asks how old I am goes crazy after I tell them 19. Apparently I look 25 to them! I definitely don’t feel that old!We were walking down the street a few days ago and a random lady walked up behind us and gave us 2 pesos in coins, saying it was for us. We asked her why and she just kinda mumbled and walked off! I wonder if it was fulfilling of Doctrine & Covenants 84:88-89…
One of our new investigators, who has a brother and his family that are members, came up with the idea to read the Book of Mormon with myself, my comp, and her 11-year-old son in English to help them practice speaking it (it’s interesting how much they struggle to pronounce the words; reminds me of a couple months ago!) and get some reading out of the way too! It’s been going pretty well and I hope she progresses well. She attended church this Sunday and she had a great time it seemed! It’s also really interesting how difficult it is to get some of these people in Salta to go to church, let alone just to ours! For goodness sakes, it’s one of the 10 Commandments that they claim to believe and follow! Slowly but surely we’ll make some progress on it out here.
Mom, if you want to get me any songs/talks for the ipod, just put whatever money is necessary on my cpu3140@yahoo.com account on itunes and tell me what you want me to get. I’ll install itunes down here on a comp (I loaded the installer onto the ipod itself so I just plug it in like a usb drive and install it ;) takes like 2 minutes) and get whatever you were going to get.Drew, he estado escribiendo una carta a ti cada semana. Pienso que sabés como está Salta ;) . Si tenés una pregunta especifica, pregúntame. (Notice voseo form ;) pretty sure I did it right)That’s about all I have this week.
Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad!!!
Love,
Elder Powell
¡Hola Todos!
So what’s up with all the hype about 2012??? I can’t tell you how many people have asked about “dos mil doce…”The fireworks are getting a little crazy around here. It’s mostly just the really small but loud firecrackers and other little explosives, but I laugh because it’s only the little kids that are lighting them off!I have more puerta excuses for you: (I ask) “Are you alone?” “Sí.” “Oh, ok well…who’s that in the window?” (yeah, I get that happening a few times); “When is she going to come back?” “Más tarde.” (well duh!); (I ask a kid to get his parents, response after coming back:) “No hay nadie. Están durmiendo.” (so…which is it?)Everyone that asks how old I am goes crazy after I tell them 19. Apparently I look 25 to them! I definitely don’t feel that old!We were walking down the street a few days ago and a random lady walked up behind us and gave us 2 pesos in coins, saying it was for us. We asked her why and she just kinda mumbled and walked off! I wonder if it was fulfilling of Doctrine & Covenants 84:88-89…
One of our new investigators, who has a brother and his family that are members, came up with the idea to read the Book of Mormon with myself, my comp, and her 11-year-old son in English to help them practice speaking it (it’s interesting how much they struggle to pronounce the words; reminds me of a couple months ago!) and get some reading out of the way too! It’s been going pretty well and I hope she progresses well. She attended church this Sunday and she had a great time it seemed! It’s also really interesting how difficult it is to get some of these people in Salta to go to church, let alone just to ours! For goodness sakes, it’s one of the 10 Commandments that they claim to believe and follow! Slowly but surely we’ll make some progress on it out here.
Mom, if you want to get me any songs/talks for the ipod, just put whatever money is necessary on my cpu3140@yahoo.com account on itunes and tell me what you want me to get. I’ll install itunes down here on a comp (I loaded the installer onto the ipod itself so I just plug it in like a usb drive and install it ;) takes like 2 minutes) and get whatever you were going to get.Drew, he estado escribiendo una carta a ti cada semana. Pienso que sabés como está Salta ;) . Si tenés una pregunta especifica, pregúntame. (Notice voseo form ;) pretty sure I did it right)That’s about all I have this week.
Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad!!!
Love,
Elder Powell
Semana 15-Salta
¡Hola Todos!
Respuestas para toda de la familia:Yes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the music, thank you. Nice work with the Big Mac Jason. I remember my first one was given to me by Sis. Briggs during my 7th grade year. I was a little nervous, but I eventually ate it all. You made me laugh when you mentioned learning how to multiply with fractions because of two reasons: I love math :) but also I recently taught a lesson in the house of a math teacher here and she had a white board with all sorts of multiplication rules, including multiply with fractions! My Spanish understanding and speaking abilities are getting better and better everyday—the key is slowly but surely. I’ve been teaching entire lessons to people so I can at least get the message across ok. I’m just working on learning a lifetime of vocab in a few months plus a few phrases here and there that are unique to Spanish. The hardest part really is trying to understand the people speak the language because they speak very fast for what I can understand. But it will come!
You mentioned the Christmas tree—I’d like to mention what Christmas trees are like here. Since everest-type trees don’t exist down here, every Christmas tree is plastic and ranges from 3-5 feet here—just a wee bit different, but it still works! Congratulations Dad on your poster! Glad things turned out well with it. Congrats on having fun with swing dancing too! I’m ok at it, but if you want to see someone that’s good at it, go watch Matt Birch—he’s amazing. I remember Cameron Latimer very well. He’s a good bass singer. That’s great to hear that he’s getting involved in the programs and school. I never was a stage manager actually so he’s taking my spot as well as Jenny & Whitney. The only thing he’s missing is the piano ability ;) Congrats on losing the herbst appliance Jason! Have fun with that because the braces bring a whole new kind of pain ;) I can access your blog...I’m probably not allowed to though, so don’t expect me to go and look. Send Brandon my congratulations with PSU!!! (And a verbal smacking porque él me prometió escribir para que pueda practicar su español…y ¡no he recibido NADA!) Pity points to you, Drew: I remember getting burned out from all the college apps I did…it’s worth it. As for me calling home, every companionship down here has a cellphone, so I’ll be using a calling card (not sure if I can use yours, mom, but they’re cheap down here so I’ll buy a couple and then try yours first) and using our companionship cellphone to call you. I will actually be calling you Monday, the 21st of December around 10:00ish-10:45 my time (I’ll let you determine what time that makes it at home) so that we can set up a time on Friday, the 25th (not sure why, but everyone else does it here, so yeah!) We’ll roughly be calling mid-afternoon here on the 25th so keep the morning sorta free (not too hard, I’m sure ;) )
Alright, on to my past week! Here’s the quote I told you about last week: “At this Christmas season we ought to remember that no gift we have ever received or could ever receive will surpass the wondrous gift of the Atonement. Our joy can be exquisite and sweet, and we have a promise of being in the presence of God. What greater gift in all the world could we hope for? In return, we ought to determine to give all we can to the Savior of all mankind—our total heart and soul, even our very being.” –Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone.I walked into a lunch appointment this week and all of a sudden the father asked me to offer the prayer in English. I was a little shocked, and kinda sad too, because since day 3 in the MTC, I haven’t offered a prayer in English at all! So I broke my pattern this week. It felt a little funky praying in English, I’ll admit, but it shouldn’t be a problem in 21 months when I get back. I’ve started a list of funny excuses that I, and other missionaries, get at doors because they can’t/don’t want to talk to us: “I don’t believe in Jesus Christ” (I noticed she had a nice CHRISTmas tree behind her); “My mom says she’s sleeping” (So what is she doing now...?); (I say..) “We’re looking for [this person]” “She left and I don’t know when she’s coming back!” “Oh, well [this guy] sent us here.” “Oh, that’s my uncle!...(a little later in the discussion) yeah, she’s at work until late tonight.”; “¡No hay nadie!” (and you are....?).I found out my MTC comp is going to be companions with Elder Young’s MTC comp—go figure!More on Argentine culture: you remember how Dad can’t go anywhere without seeing one of his patients? Multiply his problem by like 20 and you have my problem with dogs here—especially the stray street-rat kind! They’re everywhere!!! Luckily it’s mostly the ones that are inside the house fences that bark at us, hopefully it stays like that. The kids all got out of school (as in like school terminated this week, not Christmas break). Another funny thing about this part of Argentina: all of the lawns/grass patches here are small enough that they just use weed whackers as their lawn mowers!I had a little Peruvian moment yesterday (and this story also relates into a fun little challenge for you if you get bored). We were carrying these two 10-kilo bags of flour (not sure what that is in pounds, it felt like 15-20 pounds) to these 2 people for the bishop’s wife (we walked a distance pretty close to our house to Ferris going down regal, and then walking to the Finn’s after that (We only touched about 1/3 to 1/2 of our area too)). My arms were getting sweating from carrying it low and my shoulders were hurting a little too, so I tried it on my head. By far it was so much easier! Of course, my head was completely soaked afterwards from sweat!I tried my first blood sausage yesterday...yeah it wasn’t too bad if I just mashed it all in with my rice :P
We had this random boy stop us in the street last night as we were walking home. He was 15 and was asking all sorts of questions about who we were, what we were doing, and about the church as well. It turns out his family is all staunch-Catholics, but he doesn’t like nor agree with the religion at all. He even brought up possibly wanting to be baptized in some other religion—we were happy to get his phone number so that we could meet with him this week in the chapel (with a member present of course ;) )!!!Well, that’s all I jotted down to write home this week! Hope all is well at home and that things are winding down for the big day!
Love,
Elder Powell
Respuestas para toda de la familia:Yes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the music, thank you. Nice work with the Big Mac Jason. I remember my first one was given to me by Sis. Briggs during my 7th grade year. I was a little nervous, but I eventually ate it all. You made me laugh when you mentioned learning how to multiply with fractions because of two reasons: I love math :) but also I recently taught a lesson in the house of a math teacher here and she had a white board with all sorts of multiplication rules, including multiply with fractions! My Spanish understanding and speaking abilities are getting better and better everyday—the key is slowly but surely. I’ve been teaching entire lessons to people so I can at least get the message across ok. I’m just working on learning a lifetime of vocab in a few months plus a few phrases here and there that are unique to Spanish. The hardest part really is trying to understand the people speak the language because they speak very fast for what I can understand. But it will come!
You mentioned the Christmas tree—I’d like to mention what Christmas trees are like here. Since everest-type trees don’t exist down here, every Christmas tree is plastic and ranges from 3-5 feet here—just a wee bit different, but it still works! Congratulations Dad on your poster! Glad things turned out well with it. Congrats on having fun with swing dancing too! I’m ok at it, but if you want to see someone that’s good at it, go watch Matt Birch—he’s amazing. I remember Cameron Latimer very well. He’s a good bass singer. That’s great to hear that he’s getting involved in the programs and school. I never was a stage manager actually so he’s taking my spot as well as Jenny & Whitney. The only thing he’s missing is the piano ability ;) Congrats on losing the herbst appliance Jason! Have fun with that because the braces bring a whole new kind of pain ;) I can access your blog...I’m probably not allowed to though, so don’t expect me to go and look. Send Brandon my congratulations with PSU!!! (And a verbal smacking porque él me prometió escribir para que pueda practicar su español…y ¡no he recibido NADA!) Pity points to you, Drew: I remember getting burned out from all the college apps I did…it’s worth it. As for me calling home, every companionship down here has a cellphone, so I’ll be using a calling card (not sure if I can use yours, mom, but they’re cheap down here so I’ll buy a couple and then try yours first) and using our companionship cellphone to call you. I will actually be calling you Monday, the 21st of December around 10:00ish-10:45 my time (I’ll let you determine what time that makes it at home) so that we can set up a time on Friday, the 25th (not sure why, but everyone else does it here, so yeah!) We’ll roughly be calling mid-afternoon here on the 25th so keep the morning sorta free (not too hard, I’m sure ;) )
Alright, on to my past week! Here’s the quote I told you about last week: “At this Christmas season we ought to remember that no gift we have ever received or could ever receive will surpass the wondrous gift of the Atonement. Our joy can be exquisite and sweet, and we have a promise of being in the presence of God. What greater gift in all the world could we hope for? In return, we ought to determine to give all we can to the Savior of all mankind—our total heart and soul, even our very being.” –Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone.I walked into a lunch appointment this week and all of a sudden the father asked me to offer the prayer in English. I was a little shocked, and kinda sad too, because since day 3 in the MTC, I haven’t offered a prayer in English at all! So I broke my pattern this week. It felt a little funky praying in English, I’ll admit, but it shouldn’t be a problem in 21 months when I get back. I’ve started a list of funny excuses that I, and other missionaries, get at doors because they can’t/don’t want to talk to us: “I don’t believe in Jesus Christ” (I noticed she had a nice CHRISTmas tree behind her); “My mom says she’s sleeping” (So what is she doing now...?); (I say..) “We’re looking for [this person]” “She left and I don’t know when she’s coming back!” “Oh, well [this guy] sent us here.” “Oh, that’s my uncle!...(a little later in the discussion) yeah, she’s at work until late tonight.”; “¡No hay nadie!” (and you are....?).I found out my MTC comp is going to be companions with Elder Young’s MTC comp—go figure!More on Argentine culture: you remember how Dad can’t go anywhere without seeing one of his patients? Multiply his problem by like 20 and you have my problem with dogs here—especially the stray street-rat kind! They’re everywhere!!! Luckily it’s mostly the ones that are inside the house fences that bark at us, hopefully it stays like that. The kids all got out of school (as in like school terminated this week, not Christmas break). Another funny thing about this part of Argentina: all of the lawns/grass patches here are small enough that they just use weed whackers as their lawn mowers!I had a little Peruvian moment yesterday (and this story also relates into a fun little challenge for you if you get bored). We were carrying these two 10-kilo bags of flour (not sure what that is in pounds, it felt like 15-20 pounds) to these 2 people for the bishop’s wife (we walked a distance pretty close to our house to Ferris going down regal, and then walking to the Finn’s after that (We only touched about 1/3 to 1/2 of our area too)). My arms were getting sweating from carrying it low and my shoulders were hurting a little too, so I tried it on my head. By far it was so much easier! Of course, my head was completely soaked afterwards from sweat!I tried my first blood sausage yesterday...yeah it wasn’t too bad if I just mashed it all in with my rice :P
We had this random boy stop us in the street last night as we were walking home. He was 15 and was asking all sorts of questions about who we were, what we were doing, and about the church as well. It turns out his family is all staunch-Catholics, but he doesn’t like nor agree with the religion at all. He even brought up possibly wanting to be baptized in some other religion—we were happy to get his phone number so that we could meet with him this week in the chapel (with a member present of course ;) )!!!Well, that’s all I jotted down to write home this week! Hope all is well at home and that things are winding down for the big day!
Love,
Elder Powell
December 11, 2009
Semana 14-Salta
¡Hola de Argentina!
Bowling was fine. They didn't care what shoes we wore and the whole thing was using a different piece of technology--the pins were attached to long, thin chains and the display screens were a little old-looking, but it worked so I'll take it.We're able to sing the hymns just fine. English and Spanish hymns don't literally translate between each other. Spanish kinda rewords and uses slightly different phrasing to give the same feeling to the text as you would feel if you sang it in English. The new missionaries are the only ones that really have the LDS bible right now. It's not the cheapest and easiest book to come around after all. It's nice, but the real meat is the Spanish Book of Mormon because the topical guide and bible dictionary in the English bible are taken out of the Spanish bible and combined into one 'Guia para Estudiar las Escrituras' in the back of the Spanish Book of Mormon.Things are going great with the trainer. He does most of the 'getting to know you' talking, and then hands me the teaching torch. I'm getting more and more involved as the days go by though. The toughest is just understanding the people--I can talk just fine. I either lack vocab or the people really don't speak well at all--one of the two causes me problems, but I'm working on it.
Mom's Email:Ouch, Drew drove to Tacoma?! At least I only have to walk 30 minutes to play my instrument!I loved the pictures! No snow though? That's too bad. Speaking of weather, you know how I said that it was blazing hot here? Yeah...the past week has taken a turn and mimicked common Seattle weather--cloudy, chilly (by Argentine standards of course ;) ), drizzly, and occasionally raining. It's kinda funky, but I'll go with it. The mini wheats pic was crazy! I think that was actually 9 on there, not 6. I took a picture of a mini-wheat chain of 4 before--it's hidden somewhere in my misc. pictures on the laptop. I liked the Creche pic too--good job with that! Good luck getting people there.That was a good idea to donate for Christmas! I was given a little quote this past week related to giving a gift to Jesus--I'll remember to bring it next week. The boxes were actually waiting for me when I got here. Nobody told me to pay anything though...so they were free for me at least.....it didn't look like anyone opened them up though.I'll definitely keep the piano going (I HATE playing the Christmas hymns...they had to be the most difficult out of all the hymns to play...) I don't think a choir would be quite feasible--95% of the members can't really sing :P
Well as for my past week, the big highlight was my first 2 baptismal dates! I hope our plans for the 2nd of January and the 16th of January follow through! We had zone conference this past week so I got to see President Northcutt and Hna. Northcutt again. I could only understand about 50% of the various talks given, but it was still nice. We had a wonderful lunch, a scripture chase competition between my zone and the other that was there with us, and we even acted out the nativity scene! Of course, I was on piano duty, playing EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Christmas songs......I think I may need to go write my own arrangements of the Christmas hymns so that I can stop trying to sight read all of them. This past Sunday, during the first few testimonies (which I had a tough time understanding anyways), I worked on writing out the chords to Angels We Have Heard on High in the hymn book so that I could somewhat-fake the closing hymn! We'll see...P-day was great today! We made peach pancakes for breakfast and then our zone went hiking with the other Salta zone and we got lots of great pictures. It was drizzling/raining the whole time, but we loved it!1 transfer down this next week, 14-or-so to go!Mucho Amor,-Elder Powell-
Bowling was fine. They didn't care what shoes we wore and the whole thing was using a different piece of technology--the pins were attached to long, thin chains and the display screens were a little old-looking, but it worked so I'll take it.We're able to sing the hymns just fine. English and Spanish hymns don't literally translate between each other. Spanish kinda rewords and uses slightly different phrasing to give the same feeling to the text as you would feel if you sang it in English. The new missionaries are the only ones that really have the LDS bible right now. It's not the cheapest and easiest book to come around after all. It's nice, but the real meat is the Spanish Book of Mormon because the topical guide and bible dictionary in the English bible are taken out of the Spanish bible and combined into one 'Guia para Estudiar las Escrituras' in the back of the Spanish Book of Mormon.Things are going great with the trainer. He does most of the 'getting to know you' talking, and then hands me the teaching torch. I'm getting more and more involved as the days go by though. The toughest is just understanding the people--I can talk just fine. I either lack vocab or the people really don't speak well at all--one of the two causes me problems, but I'm working on it.
Mom's Email:Ouch, Drew drove to Tacoma?! At least I only have to walk 30 minutes to play my instrument!I loved the pictures! No snow though? That's too bad. Speaking of weather, you know how I said that it was blazing hot here? Yeah...the past week has taken a turn and mimicked common Seattle weather--cloudy, chilly (by Argentine standards of course ;) ), drizzly, and occasionally raining. It's kinda funky, but I'll go with it. The mini wheats pic was crazy! I think that was actually 9 on there, not 6. I took a picture of a mini-wheat chain of 4 before--it's hidden somewhere in my misc. pictures on the laptop. I liked the Creche pic too--good job with that! Good luck getting people there.That was a good idea to donate for Christmas! I was given a little quote this past week related to giving a gift to Jesus--I'll remember to bring it next week. The boxes were actually waiting for me when I got here. Nobody told me to pay anything though...so they were free for me at least.....it didn't look like anyone opened them up though.I'll definitely keep the piano going (I HATE playing the Christmas hymns...they had to be the most difficult out of all the hymns to play...) I don't think a choir would be quite feasible--95% of the members can't really sing :P
Well as for my past week, the big highlight was my first 2 baptismal dates! I hope our plans for the 2nd of January and the 16th of January follow through! We had zone conference this past week so I got to see President Northcutt and Hna. Northcutt again. I could only understand about 50% of the various talks given, but it was still nice. We had a wonderful lunch, a scripture chase competition between my zone and the other that was there with us, and we even acted out the nativity scene! Of course, I was on piano duty, playing EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Christmas songs......I think I may need to go write my own arrangements of the Christmas hymns so that I can stop trying to sight read all of them. This past Sunday, during the first few testimonies (which I had a tough time understanding anyways), I worked on writing out the chords to Angels We Have Heard on High in the hymn book so that I could somewhat-fake the closing hymn! We'll see...P-day was great today! We made peach pancakes for breakfast and then our zone went hiking with the other Salta zone and we got lots of great pictures. It was drizzling/raining the whole time, but we loved it!1 transfer down this next week, 14-or-so to go!Mucho Amor,-Elder Powell-
December 1, 2009
semana 13
¡Hola Todos!
Some quick clarifiers: that washer and dryer are both electric ;) The washer is just a little slower but works and the dryer just rotates ridiculously fast so the water is squished out the sides of the barrel; yes, drunk people talk slower, but they also talk quieter and they slur their words, so it's counter-helpful at the same time; with the 3 packages you sent, only 1 said "for x-mas eve", does this mean I get to open the other 2?! :)
Alright, on to this past week! I had another funny contact. We were walking along and a man started walking beside us, so we started talking with him. He pretty quickly sat at a little empanada station and offered us some. I hesitated, but sat down, pulled out a pamphlet, and started teaching him while we ate the empanadas! He "had to leave" halfway through and "lived on the street" (so we couldn't really "come back"), but I got free empanadas off of it!
All 8 of the elders in our district actually did celebrate Thanksgiving! We bought some cooked chickens, bread, gaseosas (soda), and made mashed potatoes and jello and ate it all for lunch, which is actually the biggest meal of the day--breakfast doesn't really exist and dinner is nothing too big either...so we have lunch appointments instead of dinner appointments. Anyways, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for (in Spanish of course) and it was pretty great!I saw my first aloe vera plant the other day. Totally looked weird with the lime-green juice coming out of the leaf!
My first day of regular church was interesting but good. We spent the first hour (priesthood/relief society) greeting everyone and waiting for investigators, the second hour (sunday school) going on splits to find investigator's we had invited that weren't at church (all of them), and then I walked into sacrament meeting with 1 investigator during the opening song...no piano player and everyone was sorta half mumbling-singing Onward Christian Soldiers. The bishop quickly motioned for me to play the remaining songs of the meeting. They actually have an electric roland piano that feels and plays somewhat close to ours at home, but less sophisticated (no screen). No other pianos in the entire building! I'll get some pictures sometime.
Today was a fun p-day! We went out of the slightly poorer areas that we've been working in and headed to El Centro to do some shopping around. I got my first authentic Argentina jersey! We then headed to a big all-in-one shopping store called Libertad where we bowled, ate lunch, and did some last-minute grocery shopping. It was about as Americanized as I can get around here, except for this place called Chango Más, which apparently is like an Argentine Walmart.No baptisms yet, but we have a few that we're going to set baptismal dates for soon, so in a few weeks probably! I'm always excited to talk to these people!Well, that's about it for this week.
Love you all tons!!!
-Elder Powell-
Some quick clarifiers: that washer and dryer are both electric ;) The washer is just a little slower but works and the dryer just rotates ridiculously fast so the water is squished out the sides of the barrel; yes, drunk people talk slower, but they also talk quieter and they slur their words, so it's counter-helpful at the same time; with the 3 packages you sent, only 1 said "for x-mas eve", does this mean I get to open the other 2?! :)
Alright, on to this past week! I had another funny contact. We were walking along and a man started walking beside us, so we started talking with him. He pretty quickly sat at a little empanada station and offered us some. I hesitated, but sat down, pulled out a pamphlet, and started teaching him while we ate the empanadas! He "had to leave" halfway through and "lived on the street" (so we couldn't really "come back"), but I got free empanadas off of it!
All 8 of the elders in our district actually did celebrate Thanksgiving! We bought some cooked chickens, bread, gaseosas (soda), and made mashed potatoes and jello and ate it all for lunch, which is actually the biggest meal of the day--breakfast doesn't really exist and dinner is nothing too big either...so we have lunch appointments instead of dinner appointments. Anyways, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for (in Spanish of course) and it was pretty great!I saw my first aloe vera plant the other day. Totally looked weird with the lime-green juice coming out of the leaf!
My first day of regular church was interesting but good. We spent the first hour (priesthood/relief society) greeting everyone and waiting for investigators, the second hour (sunday school) going on splits to find investigator's we had invited that weren't at church (all of them), and then I walked into sacrament meeting with 1 investigator during the opening song...no piano player and everyone was sorta half mumbling-singing Onward Christian Soldiers. The bishop quickly motioned for me to play the remaining songs of the meeting. They actually have an electric roland piano that feels and plays somewhat close to ours at home, but less sophisticated (no screen). No other pianos in the entire building! I'll get some pictures sometime.
Today was a fun p-day! We went out of the slightly poorer areas that we've been working in and headed to El Centro to do some shopping around. I got my first authentic Argentina jersey! We then headed to a big all-in-one shopping store called Libertad where we bowled, ate lunch, and did some last-minute grocery shopping. It was about as Americanized as I can get around here, except for this place called Chango Más, which apparently is like an Argentine Walmart.No baptisms yet, but we have a few that we're going to set baptismal dates for soon, so in a few weeks probably! I'm always excited to talk to these people!Well, that's about it for this week.
Love you all tons!!!
-Elder Powell-
November 24, 2009
semana 12
¡Hola Todos!
Well, I made it!
my P-day is Tuesday so I'll answer any mail I get on Tuesdays. I can only email family, so all other responses will be answered by snail mail. I can send an email to non-family only if I email family first and then have them forward it. Don't question the rule, it's just there. Do your best NOT to send packages. It's just complicated and annoying (they'll break open the boxes down here) and it costs money for me to pick them up. If you must, send it through USPS, NO other company, and try your best to use padded envelopes. I do have a request though: please send a camelback and some stamps por favor. Now that that's out of the way, let me give you the quick story of my journey down. 5 of us came from the MTC, all headed to Salta, Argentina. There were a few others that were leaving a little later on a different flight that were headed to other areas in Argentina. We landed in Georgia and a sister missionary came into our gate waiting area, also headed to Salta, Argentina! Apparently she came from a temporary reassignment in Tennessee and got her visa in as well. We flew down and found that pretty much everyone that was waiting on a visa all converged at the international Buenos Aires airport, including the two from my MTC district that went to Nashville, TN (for 2 weeks :P Elder Anderson got a baptism in already though)! So there were about 18-20 of us (coming from the MTC, Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, and I'm sure plenty of other places) that were bussed over to a domestic airport in Buenos Aires where we split up again--9 of us were headed to Salta. Quick reminder: I left the MTC around 6:30 AM...I arrived in Salta and got to the mission home around dinner time the next day!!! All of us were rather pooped. We went through a quick orientation (and a fun trip to some government building to make me legal here.) and then we were shipped off to our respective areas and companions.My first area is in Salta, about 15ish minutes from the mission home actually, and my first companion is Elder Young. He's from Kaysville, UT and is about to hit his 18-month mark. Picture Dallin Briggs and you have a close picture. He used to work in the offices as well so he's pretty knowledgable about everything here. He's been a great trainer so far, not really talking at all whenever I'm talking (it kills me because I have a hard time communicating with and understanding the people, but it's good practice). He's there if I need help though. My 1st two street contacts made him laugh though: the 1st didn't believe in religion because he thought it was out to take over the world, the 2nd turned out to be drunk. Good people to practice Spanish with I suppose. I'm told the language is actually called Castellano and not Español here. The difference is in the pronunciation of 'y', 'll', and 'rr' (all make the 'sh' sound; the 'rr' is more of a 'rsh') and the use of the voseo form instead of the tuteo form (vos vs. tu). Everything else is the same both ways though, so I just have to get used to using the accent, learn the vocab, and I'll be good to go.I figure everyone's curious about daily life in this area. The food's been good, but I haven't had anything extravegant or over-the-top delicious yet, but I have 21 months to do so! At any given time, about 30% of the people are walking around, 20% are in cars or taxis (lanes pretty much don't exist; just drive wherever you can fit yourself; most of the streets are 1-way anyways), 10% are on bikes, 8% are at work, and then the rest are at home just sitting around not doing too much. With good reason though--IT'S HOT!!! I'm sweating buckets down here! I tried putting sunscreen on my face one day, but I sweat so much that it fell into my eyes and I couldn't keep my eyes open because of the sting. So I've given in and just accept a little burn--it'll turn into a tan, right? :P We had a rare thunderstorm last night. It poured like no other (practically 2 rivers running on the sides of the streets), lightning within every 2 seconds, no one in sight--except for the taxis and myself and my companion...knocking doors! It's a good thing that these people are a lot more giving and considerate of random people, so we were let in. But yeah, except for last night, it's just been scorching--I'm told this isn't the hottest area either! Because of the hot weather, they actually have a siesta here: 1:00-4:30 is nap time...every day. My lunch runs from 1:00-3:00, but that still leaves an annoying 1.5 hours where we can't get too much done.You asked about my first Sunday here. It actually turned out to be stake conference...I didn't understand any of the talks...but I did run into one of the sister missionaries from my MTC district so we took 2 minutes to catch up on the happenings. We also had a regional broadcast fireside later that night as well with Elder Bednar! He was broadcasting from Buenos Aires to all of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. It was a interesting fireside for 2 reasons: He had to speak phrase-by-phrase so that a translator could translate each phrase into a mike; and then he actually didn't have a prepared talk. Instead, he answered questions the entire time, either from the congregation he was at, or anyone else watching the fireside by telephone. He said that there will be many more firesides like it in the future, so heads up. I actually laughed because they did practically the same thing at the MTC: we were told to submit any question to our Branch President that we thought was important that we would ask 1 of the 12 Apostles if we could. I wonder what's up...I hope I've included everything!
Mucho amor,
-Elder Powell-
Well, I made it!
my P-day is Tuesday so I'll answer any mail I get on Tuesdays. I can only email family, so all other responses will be answered by snail mail. I can send an email to non-family only if I email family first and then have them forward it. Don't question the rule, it's just there. Do your best NOT to send packages. It's just complicated and annoying (they'll break open the boxes down here) and it costs money for me to pick them up. If you must, send it through USPS, NO other company, and try your best to use padded envelopes. I do have a request though: please send a camelback and some stamps por favor. Now that that's out of the way, let me give you the quick story of my journey down. 5 of us came from the MTC, all headed to Salta, Argentina. There were a few others that were leaving a little later on a different flight that were headed to other areas in Argentina. We landed in Georgia and a sister missionary came into our gate waiting area, also headed to Salta, Argentina! Apparently she came from a temporary reassignment in Tennessee and got her visa in as well. We flew down and found that pretty much everyone that was waiting on a visa all converged at the international Buenos Aires airport, including the two from my MTC district that went to Nashville, TN (for 2 weeks :P Elder Anderson got a baptism in already though)! So there were about 18-20 of us (coming from the MTC, Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, and I'm sure plenty of other places) that were bussed over to a domestic airport in Buenos Aires where we split up again--9 of us were headed to Salta. Quick reminder: I left the MTC around 6:30 AM...I arrived in Salta and got to the mission home around dinner time the next day!!! All of us were rather pooped. We went through a quick orientation (and a fun trip to some government building to make me legal here.) and then we were shipped off to our respective areas and companions.My first area is in Salta, about 15ish minutes from the mission home actually, and my first companion is Elder Young. He's from Kaysville, UT and is about to hit his 18-month mark. Picture Dallin Briggs and you have a close picture. He used to work in the offices as well so he's pretty knowledgable about everything here. He's been a great trainer so far, not really talking at all whenever I'm talking (it kills me because I have a hard time communicating with and understanding the people, but it's good practice). He's there if I need help though. My 1st two street contacts made him laugh though: the 1st didn't believe in religion because he thought it was out to take over the world, the 2nd turned out to be drunk. Good people to practice Spanish with I suppose. I'm told the language is actually called Castellano and not Español here. The difference is in the pronunciation of 'y', 'll', and 'rr' (all make the 'sh' sound; the 'rr' is more of a 'rsh') and the use of the voseo form instead of the tuteo form (vos vs. tu). Everything else is the same both ways though, so I just have to get used to using the accent, learn the vocab, and I'll be good to go.I figure everyone's curious about daily life in this area. The food's been good, but I haven't had anything extravegant or over-the-top delicious yet, but I have 21 months to do so! At any given time, about 30% of the people are walking around, 20% are in cars or taxis (lanes pretty much don't exist; just drive wherever you can fit yourself; most of the streets are 1-way anyways), 10% are on bikes, 8% are at work, and then the rest are at home just sitting around not doing too much. With good reason though--IT'S HOT!!! I'm sweating buckets down here! I tried putting sunscreen on my face one day, but I sweat so much that it fell into my eyes and I couldn't keep my eyes open because of the sting. So I've given in and just accept a little burn--it'll turn into a tan, right? :P We had a rare thunderstorm last night. It poured like no other (practically 2 rivers running on the sides of the streets), lightning within every 2 seconds, no one in sight--except for the taxis and myself and my companion...knocking doors! It's a good thing that these people are a lot more giving and considerate of random people, so we were let in. But yeah, except for last night, it's just been scorching--I'm told this isn't the hottest area either! Because of the hot weather, they actually have a siesta here: 1:00-4:30 is nap time...every day. My lunch runs from 1:00-3:00, but that still leaves an annoying 1.5 hours where we can't get too much done.You asked about my first Sunday here. It actually turned out to be stake conference...I didn't understand any of the talks...but I did run into one of the sister missionaries from my MTC district so we took 2 minutes to catch up on the happenings. We also had a regional broadcast fireside later that night as well with Elder Bednar! He was broadcasting from Buenos Aires to all of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. It was a interesting fireside for 2 reasons: He had to speak phrase-by-phrase so that a translator could translate each phrase into a mike; and then he actually didn't have a prepared talk. Instead, he answered questions the entire time, either from the congregation he was at, or anyone else watching the fireside by telephone. He said that there will be many more firesides like it in the future, so heads up. I actually laughed because they did practically the same thing at the MTC: we were told to submit any question to our Branch President that we thought was important that we would ask 1 of the 12 Apostles if we could. I wonder what's up...I hope I've included everything!
Mucho amor,
-Elder Powell-
November 22, 2009
To the family of Elder Powell
Dear Powell Family,
We are excited to have Elder Powell in the Mission Argentina Salta! He has just arrived and is in the process of recovering from a long trip. We wanted to let you know he arrived safe and sound and has been assigned to his new area in the mission. It was such a pleasure to spend some time with him and we look forward to working together for the rest of his mission! What a blessing this is to us!
Thank you for your love and sacrifice that has gone into getting this special missionary to our mission. He left here today excited and with one of our very best missionaries. We only assign our best as trainers for our new missionaries!
Thank you again for sending this wonderful missionary to us. We´ll try to e-mail this to you and send a copy by land mail as well.
Our best wishes,
Pres. Dan Northcutt Sister Cynda Northcutt
We are excited to have Elder Powell in the Mission Argentina Salta! He has just arrived and is in the process of recovering from a long trip. We wanted to let you know he arrived safe and sound and has been assigned to his new area in the mission. It was such a pleasure to spend some time with him and we look forward to working together for the rest of his mission! What a blessing this is to us!
Thank you for your love and sacrifice that has gone into getting this special missionary to our mission. He left here today excited and with one of our very best missionaries. We only assign our best as trainers for our new missionaries!
Thank you again for sending this wonderful missionary to us. We´ll try to e-mail this to you and send a copy by land mail as well.
Our best wishes,
Pres. Dan Northcutt Sister Cynda Northcutt
November 17, 2009
Semana 11
Hola Todos,
Congratulations to Sierra Alcazar and her call to Korea! She'll have tons of fun out there. And Happy Birthday to Dad! The amount of fun you have is often consistent with the attitude going into it ;) Just remember when things are getting rough, especially with your 9 HOURS of church, I've been going through just short of 1848 hours of living the life of a church representative, and I still have roughly 15624 more hours to go! I was quite proud of Nick and Jason's grocery shopping trip--I definitely know mom didn't trust me like that when I was 8 and 11 so good job at being the youngest children ;) Thanks for the early X-mas package mom!
Well, 2 district changes, 5 companions, and 11 weeks later, I'm finally leaving tomorrow!!! Everyone here's been really supportive and I've found plenty to keep me busy, learning, and helping out others. I got my wish the other day: it snowed!!! It mostly melted pretty quick though, but it wasn't anything too puny, so I'm happy and ready to head down to Argentina. I'll try to call home during my layover in Georgia.
My new mailing addresses are:
Elder Powell
Argentina Salta Mission
Los Eucaliptus 75
4400 Salta, Salta,
Argentina
(that's my mission home)or if you recall the pouch mail system rules, you can use
Elder Powell
Argentina Salta Mission
PO Box 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150
(or http://www.dearelder.com/ works perfectly great as well, especially because it's FREE!)
I'm not sure what the rules are about emailing yet, but if you'd like to try, my email is: jeff.r.powell.MAS@myldsmail.net
I'll definitely be able to read your emails, but I don't know if I can respond to them (only a 10%-15% chance that I will) I'll still be trying to email home often so hopefully things will still get out to everyone.Not too much more to say though. I'll be flying down with at least 2 other elders on my flights, but I've been talking with other elders that I know were delayed and it seems like we have the same travel plans, so I may be with more--we'll see!Well, I love you all. Thanks for the love, support, and prayers in my behalf. I hope all is well with everything back at home.
Con Amor-Elder Powell-
Congratulations to Sierra Alcazar and her call to Korea! She'll have tons of fun out there. And Happy Birthday to Dad! The amount of fun you have is often consistent with the attitude going into it ;) Just remember when things are getting rough, especially with your 9 HOURS of church, I've been going through just short of 1848 hours of living the life of a church representative, and I still have roughly 15624 more hours to go! I was quite proud of Nick and Jason's grocery shopping trip--I definitely know mom didn't trust me like that when I was 8 and 11 so good job at being the youngest children ;) Thanks for the early X-mas package mom!
Well, 2 district changes, 5 companions, and 11 weeks later, I'm finally leaving tomorrow!!! Everyone here's been really supportive and I've found plenty to keep me busy, learning, and helping out others. I got my wish the other day: it snowed!!! It mostly melted pretty quick though, but it wasn't anything too puny, so I'm happy and ready to head down to Argentina. I'll try to call home during my layover in Georgia.
My new mailing addresses are:
Elder Powell
Argentina Salta Mission
Los Eucaliptus 75
4400 Salta, Salta,
Argentina
(that's my mission home)or if you recall the pouch mail system rules, you can use
Elder Powell
Argentina Salta Mission
PO Box 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150
(or http://www.dearelder.com/ works perfectly great as well, especially because it's FREE!)
I'm not sure what the rules are about emailing yet, but if you'd like to try, my email is: jeff.r.powell.MAS@myldsmail.net
I'll definitely be able to read your emails, but I don't know if I can respond to them (only a 10%-15% chance that I will) I'll still be trying to email home often so hopefully things will still get out to everyone.Not too much more to say though. I'll be flying down with at least 2 other elders on my flights, but I've been talking with other elders that I know were delayed and it seems like we have the same travel plans, so I may be with more--we'll see!Well, I love you all. Thanks for the love, support, and prayers in my behalf. I hope all is well with everything back at home.
Con Amor-Elder Powell-
November 10, 2009
Semana 10
¡Hola Todos!>
Here go responses to family letters: Nick, what do you mean nobody is here?! I have tons of friends here at the MTC :P I letters everyone once in a while, I got a lot more at the beginning, but now I don't get as much, but it's ok, I'm always really busy so I'm never really bored. Jason, you asked about how I pass the time at the MTC. Well, I'm either in class, studying Spanish, reading scriptures or Preach My Gospel, eating, at the gym, sometimes at a meeting, or sleeping--that's pretty much it! I actually didn't have a Halloween party here. We definitely have enough candy to eat though. Thanks for sending the photo compression info--I knew for the most part how to do it already, but it's nice having the specifics, especially in Spanish. The only thing about what you gave me is that you need to insure that you'll be able to open a .rar file. It's similar to a .zip file, but I forget if Vista/XP is able to extract from a .rar file by itself. You might consider getting WinRAR, but just the trial version. It will still work for you even after the trial period expires (at least when I was still using it). I can't view any email-attached pictures now because of the MTC computers locking everything up, but I'm guessing I'll be able to in the field. You mentioned Pres. Lee's brothers (?) that got delayed from Brazil--there's about 130+ Brazilian missionaries overflowing this MTC because of visa issues! Not sure on the exact problem, but it's getting pretty big. I only know as much as what you found out in your email to the travel office, nothing more. If I call next week, wanna test out calling the payphone back? Dad, you're actually backwards: you've been using the pouch system the entire time because that's what dearelder uses. You'll probably want to switch to just emailing this email address because it'll probably be more reliable in the field. I laughed when I read that you're headed to Big White! Nerds......:P All these people that are asking about me, you definitely should tell them to write me: I CAN talk to people after all ;) Good luck with the Creche and the swing dance, you definitely have quite the load Mom! Thanks for the pics too! Happy Birthday Dad!!! Hope it will be a wonderful day for you! I'm glad I could help you out.>
Well, because Elder Jones, my 2nd companion, was recovering from his ankle surgery, I got to travel out of mission boundaries to go to therapy with him! It wasn't as weird as I expected it to be, but it gave us a nice atmosphere to have study time in. I couldn't really contact anyone there either because it's Provo--everyone is a member of the church! Elder Jones got his medical release though so he left yesterday morning, I moved rooms for the 3rd time, and I'm on my 3rd companion now! Elder Robison is in the district that was below my original one. He leaves on the 16th as well to Nicaragua, so I'm hoping that this times out nicely.>
Well, hopefully this will be the last email home from the MTC! I'm planning on sending one more packet home with letters and such. If there's anything you want for 40% cheaper (from school supplies to all kinds of church materials) let me know!>
Os Amo,>
Elder Powell
Here go responses to family letters: Nick, what do you mean nobody is here?! I have tons of friends here at the MTC :P I letters everyone once in a while, I got a lot more at the beginning, but now I don't get as much, but it's ok, I'm always really busy so I'm never really bored. Jason, you asked about how I pass the time at the MTC. Well, I'm either in class, studying Spanish, reading scriptures or Preach My Gospel, eating, at the gym, sometimes at a meeting, or sleeping--that's pretty much it! I actually didn't have a Halloween party here. We definitely have enough candy to eat though. Thanks for sending the photo compression info--I knew for the most part how to do it already, but it's nice having the specifics, especially in Spanish. The only thing about what you gave me is that you need to insure that you'll be able to open a .rar file. It's similar to a .zip file, but I forget if Vista/XP is able to extract from a .rar file by itself. You might consider getting WinRAR, but just the trial version. It will still work for you even after the trial period expires (at least when I was still using it). I can't view any email-attached pictures now because of the MTC computers locking everything up, but I'm guessing I'll be able to in the field. You mentioned Pres. Lee's brothers (?) that got delayed from Brazil--there's about 130+ Brazilian missionaries overflowing this MTC because of visa issues! Not sure on the exact problem, but it's getting pretty big. I only know as much as what you found out in your email to the travel office, nothing more. If I call next week, wanna test out calling the payphone back? Dad, you're actually backwards: you've been using the pouch system the entire time because that's what dearelder uses. You'll probably want to switch to just emailing this email address because it'll probably be more reliable in the field. I laughed when I read that you're headed to Big White! Nerds......:P All these people that are asking about me, you definitely should tell them to write me: I CAN talk to people after all ;) Good luck with the Creche and the swing dance, you definitely have quite the load Mom! Thanks for the pics too! Happy Birthday Dad!!! Hope it will be a wonderful day for you! I'm glad I could help you out.>
Well, because Elder Jones, my 2nd companion, was recovering from his ankle surgery, I got to travel out of mission boundaries to go to therapy with him! It wasn't as weird as I expected it to be, but it gave us a nice atmosphere to have study time in. I couldn't really contact anyone there either because it's Provo--everyone is a member of the church! Elder Jones got his medical release though so he left yesterday morning, I moved rooms for the 3rd time, and I'm on my 3rd companion now! Elder Robison is in the district that was below my original one. He leaves on the 16th as well to Nicaragua, so I'm hoping that this times out nicely.>
Well, hopefully this will be the last email home from the MTC! I'm planning on sending one more packet home with letters and such. If there's anything you want for 40% cheaper (from school supplies to all kinds of church materials) let me know!>
Os Amo,>
Elder Powell
November 3, 2009
Semana 9
Hola del MTC
Well, the biggest thing is that I watched my district all leave yesterday morning while I moved my things into a different room...I'm sad that they're gone, but I've gotta keep busy here--there's definitely plenty to do. My new companion has actually been here a week longer than me because he had surgery on his foot and is still going through recovery. This has kinda turned us into the example/ameritus companionship of our zone :P We're in the oldest district right now and I'm just working on adjusting for the next couple days. Everyone's supportive though, things are going well. I'll get to Argentina eventually.Thank you for the pumpkin bread! I devoured the whole thing this morning for breakfast ;) Nothing really happened here for Halloween, just that we enjoyed the extra hour of sleep, oh yeah, and that the outside world LOADED us with candy, so we've just been munching and passing around handfuls of candy to everyone. You asked about the teachers giving us treats--they're not even allowed to bring in copies of conference talks, let alone treats. They really are not allowed to bring anything to us.You also asked about Jace: he left like 3 weeks ago :P It was just the 30ish November 2nd missionaries having issues. I did know about the swine flu issue with their government--found that out like week 2. I knew about the consol going to Salt Lake on the 14th, but I wasn't specifically told he comes every 6 weeks, nor that I would fly on the 16th, but thanks for the info.It was so weird calling home. I froze when the phone started ringing because I started to think "Umm, how do I start this conversation." and then Mom answered the phone, but it's been awhile so I couldn't tell if it was her, so then I started to wonder "Did I dial the right number?!" so I had to check :P I'll be a little more confident next time.We were visited by Elder L. Tom Perry last Tuesday. He gave a nice talk on how to be better teachers. It kinda surprised me that he didn't really come out with anything groundbreaking, totally unique, or incredibly spiritual. It was rather a good reminder of the basic things we should be doing to better our teaching skills.I got my 2nd Hep A shot, so immunizations should be good to go.Well, I've gotta run. I'll get 1 more email in before I SHOULD be flying out. Here's to hoping I will.
Love you tons!
Elder Powell
Well, the biggest thing is that I watched my district all leave yesterday morning while I moved my things into a different room...I'm sad that they're gone, but I've gotta keep busy here--there's definitely plenty to do. My new companion has actually been here a week longer than me because he had surgery on his foot and is still going through recovery. This has kinda turned us into the example/ameritus companionship of our zone :P We're in the oldest district right now and I'm just working on adjusting for the next couple days. Everyone's supportive though, things are going well. I'll get to Argentina eventually.Thank you for the pumpkin bread! I devoured the whole thing this morning for breakfast ;) Nothing really happened here for Halloween, just that we enjoyed the extra hour of sleep, oh yeah, and that the outside world LOADED us with candy, so we've just been munching and passing around handfuls of candy to everyone. You asked about the teachers giving us treats--they're not even allowed to bring in copies of conference talks, let alone treats. They really are not allowed to bring anything to us.You also asked about Jace: he left like 3 weeks ago :P It was just the 30ish November 2nd missionaries having issues. I did know about the swine flu issue with their government--found that out like week 2. I knew about the consol going to Salt Lake on the 14th, but I wasn't specifically told he comes every 6 weeks, nor that I would fly on the 16th, but thanks for the info.It was so weird calling home. I froze when the phone started ringing because I started to think "Umm, how do I start this conversation." and then Mom answered the phone, but it's been awhile so I couldn't tell if it was her, so then I started to wonder "Did I dial the right number?!" so I had to check :P I'll be a little more confident next time.We were visited by Elder L. Tom Perry last Tuesday. He gave a nice talk on how to be better teachers. It kinda surprised me that he didn't really come out with anything groundbreaking, totally unique, or incredibly spiritual. It was rather a good reminder of the basic things we should be doing to better our teaching skills.I got my 2nd Hep A shot, so immunizations should be good to go.Well, I've gotta run. I'll get 1 more email in before I SHOULD be flying out. Here's to hoping I will.
Love you tons!
Elder Powell
October 28, 2009
Semana 8
Hola Todos,
I got my flight plans on Friday......too bad I don't have a visa yet. Our whole district went to the travel office today to see what was up. Apparently 6 out of the 9 have their visas, 2 elders are going to a temporary reassignment until their visa comes in, and I alone am stuck on hold, which I'm guessing means I'm here at the MTC for a little bit longer. To be honest though, I'm more sad that our district is being split up than the fact that I'm not headed to Argentina just yet. The Lord has his purposes for everything though and I'm definitely keeping my eyes and ears open to find it. I'll tell you my flight plans just because I feel like telling you anyways: 8:30AM SLC -> 12:10PM DF (Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX), 2:10PM DF -> 6:00PM MIA (Miami, FL), 9:00PM MIA -> 9:00AM EZE (Buenos Aires, Argentina). I'm not sure if the itinerary takes into account the time zone switches (even though that seems awkward), but yeah, all the US flights are American Airlines. I got a calling card for the US and I'll be able to call from the airports, but the international cards will be purchased in Argentina. I'm told that they have them there for cheap. I'm guessing I won't really need stamps too much either. Again, I'll keep you posted as best as I can as things happen around here.I couldn't believe what I was reading about Rockwood! Good luck with working things out--I hope that things do work out in the end. Definitely keep me posted!Speaking of hard to believe: Drew had a vocal solo?!?! I never thought I'd see the day!!! :P
Dad asked about what church is like here. We are divided into branches here, so obviously headed by a Branch President. The branch consists of my zone of 4-5 districts. The callings that we have are more like assignments that are included in our callings as missionaries--in other words, I didn't receive a sustaining nor was I set apart when I became the District Leader. Priesthood is at 9:10AM. The Relief Society meets at an MTC-wide level (10:00) and has their own little devotional-type meeting. Lunch is right before Sacrament at 12:30 and we have a little chapel room in the main building that our branch meets in. One cool thing here is that our Branch President served his mission in Chile, so he knows Spanish. This is important because we get the opportunity to bless the sacrament in Spanish ;) We'll then have our own little district meeting where we take care of announcements and have a lesson, similar to Sunday School. After that is Missionary Directed Time where you can study or head to the temple for pictures out front. Choir practices at 4:15, dinner afterwards, MTC Fireside at 8:00, and then you can watch your choice of 1 out of 4 church films. They rotate every week between "The Testaments", "Legacy", "Joseph Smith", "Mountain of the Lord", and various talks given here at the MTC by general authorities.The Line of Authority works great, Dad, thanks!I haven't heard of an N1H1 vaccine here yet, but I'll keep my ears peeled.Everyone is back and completely healthy from quarantine. We actually got 2 of them back a day or 2 early! It's been nice having everyone together again--our district is so awesome!!!Thanks again for all your love and support. I hope all is well at home. It definitely got cold really fast here, which reminded me of home and how you sent the cold to us ;) I will probably send out my package on Thursday, which I hope I will know a few more traveling/sticking around details by then so that I can inform you.
¡Os amo muchísimo!
-Elder Powell-
I got my flight plans on Friday......too bad I don't have a visa yet. Our whole district went to the travel office today to see what was up. Apparently 6 out of the 9 have their visas, 2 elders are going to a temporary reassignment until their visa comes in, and I alone am stuck on hold, which I'm guessing means I'm here at the MTC for a little bit longer. To be honest though, I'm more sad that our district is being split up than the fact that I'm not headed to Argentina just yet. The Lord has his purposes for everything though and I'm definitely keeping my eyes and ears open to find it. I'll tell you my flight plans just because I feel like telling you anyways: 8:30AM SLC -> 12:10PM DF (Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX), 2:10PM DF -> 6:00PM MIA (Miami, FL), 9:00PM MIA -> 9:00AM EZE (Buenos Aires, Argentina). I'm not sure if the itinerary takes into account the time zone switches (even though that seems awkward), but yeah, all the US flights are American Airlines. I got a calling card for the US and I'll be able to call from the airports, but the international cards will be purchased in Argentina. I'm told that they have them there for cheap. I'm guessing I won't really need stamps too much either. Again, I'll keep you posted as best as I can as things happen around here.I couldn't believe what I was reading about Rockwood! Good luck with working things out--I hope that things do work out in the end. Definitely keep me posted!Speaking of hard to believe: Drew had a vocal solo?!?! I never thought I'd see the day!!! :P
Dad asked about what church is like here. We are divided into branches here, so obviously headed by a Branch President. The branch consists of my zone of 4-5 districts. The callings that we have are more like assignments that are included in our callings as missionaries--in other words, I didn't receive a sustaining nor was I set apart when I became the District Leader. Priesthood is at 9:10AM. The Relief Society meets at an MTC-wide level (10:00) and has their own little devotional-type meeting. Lunch is right before Sacrament at 12:30 and we have a little chapel room in the main building that our branch meets in. One cool thing here is that our Branch President served his mission in Chile, so he knows Spanish. This is important because we get the opportunity to bless the sacrament in Spanish ;) We'll then have our own little district meeting where we take care of announcements and have a lesson, similar to Sunday School. After that is Missionary Directed Time where you can study or head to the temple for pictures out front. Choir practices at 4:15, dinner afterwards, MTC Fireside at 8:00, and then you can watch your choice of 1 out of 4 church films. They rotate every week between "The Testaments", "Legacy", "Joseph Smith", "Mountain of the Lord", and various talks given here at the MTC by general authorities.The Line of Authority works great, Dad, thanks!I haven't heard of an N1H1 vaccine here yet, but I'll keep my ears peeled.Everyone is back and completely healthy from quarantine. We actually got 2 of them back a day or 2 early! It's been nice having everyone together again--our district is so awesome!!!Thanks again for all your love and support. I hope all is well at home. It definitely got cold really fast here, which reminded me of home and how you sent the cold to us ;) I will probably send out my package on Thursday, which I hope I will know a few more traveling/sticking around details by then so that I can inform you.
¡Os amo muchísimo!
-Elder Powell-
October 21, 2009
Semana 6
Hola Familia!This is draft 2 of my email home, the email client bugged and lost my draft to you and now I only have 21 minutes instead!!!I laughed when mom mentioned the MTC parody of Hey There Delilah! Yeah, I filmed that one and it went viral quite a few months ago actually. It's cold here as well, but nowhere close to freezing yet! I'm not sure about sending home one of my suitcoats yet, I'll think on it. Felicitaciones con su miembro nuevo! If you're so worried about mental stability, maybe you should be talking to your friends more so that the missionaries can teach some referrals ;) Madre, comeré lo que me envia. Si quiere enviar manzanas, go for it. It doesn't matter to me. Dad, neither I nor any of my district could decipher what you were trying to say when you said ¿Cuál es hasta? Were you trying to say something like "How is it going?" Or were you asking for the meaning of hasta (it's "until" btw)? No visa yet...I'm a little surprised actually, but I'm patient...we'll see what happens. Teaching in Spanish has been going really well! Y sí, he estado ayudando otras personas con español, mas o menos. Jason and Nick, you have an assignment to come up with at least 1 question you have for me about anything you want. I know exactly how curious boys your ages are about everything ;)I finally got to play the piano a bunch this past week for various reasons. It's amazing how out-of-practice I feel after 5 short weeks!I'm not the district leader anymore. Elder Anderson reigns over the district now. It's a little funky only being in charge of my companionship now, but I'm doing fine. Since my district is on a pilot program here at the MTC, we actually lost Hermano McCoy as a teacher and gained a brand-new teacher yesterday. His name is Hermano Chojolan--a little shy and timid, but I think he has a lot to teach us. Our other teacher, Hermano Jackson, will stay with us all the way to the end.I got to thinking the other day: My last name is actually somewhat difficult to say with Spanish pronunciation! :P So I took a couple minutes today and came up with the Spanish way of spelling my last name so that a native would pronounce it as close to an American as possible: Páuel! I thought it was pretty funny looking!That's pretty much it for this week. I'll be starting up teaching lesson 2 in Spanish this week, so a fresh new batch of vocab is coming my way! ¡Tengan una semana buena!Mucho Amor,Elder Powell
Semana 7
Hola Todos,
Thanks for the apples and the pie--super delicioso!
You were curious about a missionary having swine flu............well........3 missionaries were quarantined this past weekend--one Saturday, Sunday, and Monday!!!! Not sure what they had, but it started with a chest cough and led to vomiting. Our whole district is taking 75 mg of Tamiflu a day for 10 days (this morning was pill 2). The church offers (and practically forces upon missionaries close to exposure) the dosage for free through tithing money. The 6 of us that remain are feeling healthy so I think we won't suffer any more losses. We'll start getting people back starting this Thursday, but until then it's going to be quite the unique experience. 2 of the sisters were quarantined so the one remaining sister is a "solo" sister, meaning that her companion is our district, unless she's with a sister from our zone, so her schedule has been pretty interesting. The quarantined elder was in my bedroom so his companion (the district leader) joined my companionship to make it a trio. We're doing fine, no huge struggles going on, it's just a little weird having so few in the district. Hopefully we'll all be over sicknesses by November 2nd!
I've started teaching lesson 2 in Spanish. It's been a little interesting because I have to incorporate the Word of Wisdom into the lesson, which adds even more vocab to learn, but it's been going pretty well. Only 1 more week and I'm in the oldest district!!!Last Tuesday, I attended a devotional with David F. Evans. My love for the Book of Mormon just grew like no other. He made some interesting points, including "How is an investigator going to feel the Spirit and gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon when you give them a 10-minute reading assignment (such as 3 Nephi 11) for a 4+ day waiting period?!" He stressed the importance of using the Book of Mormon in our teachings, to give bigger reading assignments out, and to use the beginning of the Book of Mormon. Your challenge this week: in Preach My Gospel, Chapter 3, Lessons 1-3, there are a bunch of red-lettering headers. Within 1 Nephi, and preferrably in the first like 10 chapters, find a verse/some verses for as many headings as you can. Brother Evans alone pointed out quite a chunk of them in just the first 3 chapters! It seems the Lord intended to place the fundamental basics of the gospel in the beginning of the Book of Mormon, which makes sense, doesn't it?
Speaking of challenges, Nick and Jason still have to meet their challenge from last week ;)My last P-day is next week, so only one more email/letter-writing day from the MTC!!! I guess I should start posting my address down in Argentina:
Argentina Salta Mission
Los Eucaliptus 75
4400 Salta
Salta
Argentina
Double check that for me please. Correct it and me if there's differences. And again, Dearelder.com is going to be a lot better for everyone while I'm in Argentina. I'm not sure what the email situation is going to be like down there (because that would be better than dearelder), but I'll keep everyone posted once I know.Alright, my time is about up.
¡Os amo!-Elder Powell-
Thanks for the apples and the pie--super delicioso!
You were curious about a missionary having swine flu............well........3 missionaries were quarantined this past weekend--one Saturday, Sunday, and Monday!!!! Not sure what they had, but it started with a chest cough and led to vomiting. Our whole district is taking 75 mg of Tamiflu a day for 10 days (this morning was pill 2). The church offers (and practically forces upon missionaries close to exposure) the dosage for free through tithing money. The 6 of us that remain are feeling healthy so I think we won't suffer any more losses. We'll start getting people back starting this Thursday, but until then it's going to be quite the unique experience. 2 of the sisters were quarantined so the one remaining sister is a "solo" sister, meaning that her companion is our district, unless she's with a sister from our zone, so her schedule has been pretty interesting. The quarantined elder was in my bedroom so his companion (the district leader) joined my companionship to make it a trio. We're doing fine, no huge struggles going on, it's just a little weird having so few in the district. Hopefully we'll all be over sicknesses by November 2nd!
I've started teaching lesson 2 in Spanish. It's been a little interesting because I have to incorporate the Word of Wisdom into the lesson, which adds even more vocab to learn, but it's been going pretty well. Only 1 more week and I'm in the oldest district!!!Last Tuesday, I attended a devotional with David F. Evans. My love for the Book of Mormon just grew like no other. He made some interesting points, including "How is an investigator going to feel the Spirit and gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon when you give them a 10-minute reading assignment (such as 3 Nephi 11) for a 4+ day waiting period?!" He stressed the importance of using the Book of Mormon in our teachings, to give bigger reading assignments out, and to use the beginning of the Book of Mormon. Your challenge this week: in Preach My Gospel, Chapter 3, Lessons 1-3, there are a bunch of red-lettering headers. Within 1 Nephi, and preferrably in the first like 10 chapters, find a verse/some verses for as many headings as you can. Brother Evans alone pointed out quite a chunk of them in just the first 3 chapters! It seems the Lord intended to place the fundamental basics of the gospel in the beginning of the Book of Mormon, which makes sense, doesn't it?
Speaking of challenges, Nick and Jason still have to meet their challenge from last week ;)My last P-day is next week, so only one more email/letter-writing day from the MTC!!! I guess I should start posting my address down in Argentina:
Argentina Salta Mission
Los Eucaliptus 75
4400 Salta
Salta
Argentina
Double check that for me please. Correct it and me if there's differences. And again, Dearelder.com is going to be a lot better for everyone while I'm in Argentina. I'm not sure what the email situation is going to be like down there (because that would be better than dearelder), but I'll keep everyone posted once I know.Alright, my time is about up.
¡Os amo!-Elder Powell-
October 6, 2009
MTC week 5
Everyone got a kick out of Nick's shiner! Don't worry, Nick, I showed up to the first day of school with a black eye so I know how it feels.
Conference......wow...I loved it this time around! There were times throughout the whole thing that I thought of you guys. Felicitaciones con el templo en Brigham City! Elder Ballard's talk made me think of Dad. I think I did pretty well in asking all sorts of questions to Dad. I didn't make him pull out the journal though! The whole priesthood session started up a discussion with some from my zone about traditions after priesthood session and I definitely missed having the opportunity to hit the BBQ! I'm sure I'll make up for it in Argentina though! Jeffrey R. Holland is quite the beast at the pulpit. That makes 2 fiery testimonies I've heard from him in the past 2 weeks! Don't forget Elder Robert D. Hales' testimony of God though--He is the one we're aiming for after all, the Book of Mormon is the rod that gets us to the tree ;) I picked out 3 main themes that swam throughout all of the talks: Many of the talks discussed our relationships--more specifically with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and families. We need to have faith and keep the commandments of Heavenly Father. They love us more than we can comprehend. We also need to have a loving bond between our family members. The family is, after all, the central unit of Heavenly Father's plan for us to gain eternal life. Another theme was that trials and challenges will come, but they are meant to be growing opportunities. President Uchtdorf said in Priesthood Session that (paraphrase) "The cold winter will turn into a beautiful spring; I'm optimistic about the future." So obviously, the trials will lighten, just keeping enduring through it with an optimistic attitude and allow Heavenly Father to mold you. A third theme I find is that we need to take care of ourselves the best that we can by forsaking anger, laziness, and temptation while being completely obedient, performing service, keeping virtue, and loving EVERYONE. I know that there were tons more themes throughout conference. What were some of your thoughts?Puedo enseñar en español bien. Sé la doctrina muy bien, pero necesito aprender cómo to address the needs del investigador. It can only get better from here!
It's official, Dad beat me at racquetball :P
Well, it turns out I'm district leader for 1 more week than normal because conference messed with the regular schedule. I'm the senior companion now and I won't be DL after this coming Sunday. It's crazy to think that I'm in the 2nd oldest district now!!!¡Sólomente 3 más semanas!It's definitely getting colder here. There's snow on the tops of the mountains!In other news, I finally played the piano for a solid half hour for the first time on Sunday! Wish I could have more time, but I'm sure I'll get that wish in Argentina.Drew, escribí una carta para contestar su Dearelder. ¡Está en el buzón ahorita!Not much else happened this past week. Just looking forward to a full helping of Spanish this week!¡
Os Amo!-Elder Powell-
Conference......wow...I loved it this time around! There were times throughout the whole thing that I thought of you guys. Felicitaciones con el templo en Brigham City! Elder Ballard's talk made me think of Dad. I think I did pretty well in asking all sorts of questions to Dad. I didn't make him pull out the journal though! The whole priesthood session started up a discussion with some from my zone about traditions after priesthood session and I definitely missed having the opportunity to hit the BBQ! I'm sure I'll make up for it in Argentina though! Jeffrey R. Holland is quite the beast at the pulpit. That makes 2 fiery testimonies I've heard from him in the past 2 weeks! Don't forget Elder Robert D. Hales' testimony of God though--He is the one we're aiming for after all, the Book of Mormon is the rod that gets us to the tree ;) I picked out 3 main themes that swam throughout all of the talks: Many of the talks discussed our relationships--more specifically with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and families. We need to have faith and keep the commandments of Heavenly Father. They love us more than we can comprehend. We also need to have a loving bond between our family members. The family is, after all, the central unit of Heavenly Father's plan for us to gain eternal life. Another theme was that trials and challenges will come, but they are meant to be growing opportunities. President Uchtdorf said in Priesthood Session that (paraphrase) "The cold winter will turn into a beautiful spring; I'm optimistic about the future." So obviously, the trials will lighten, just keeping enduring through it with an optimistic attitude and allow Heavenly Father to mold you. A third theme I find is that we need to take care of ourselves the best that we can by forsaking anger, laziness, and temptation while being completely obedient, performing service, keeping virtue, and loving EVERYONE. I know that there were tons more themes throughout conference. What were some of your thoughts?Puedo enseñar en español bien. Sé la doctrina muy bien, pero necesito aprender cómo to address the needs del investigador. It can only get better from here!
It's official, Dad beat me at racquetball :P
Well, it turns out I'm district leader for 1 more week than normal because conference messed with the regular schedule. I'm the senior companion now and I won't be DL after this coming Sunday. It's crazy to think that I'm in the 2nd oldest district now!!!¡Sólomente 3 más semanas!It's definitely getting colder here. There's snow on the tops of the mountains!In other news, I finally played the piano for a solid half hour for the first time on Sunday! Wish I could have more time, but I'm sure I'll get that wish in Argentina.Drew, escribí una carta para contestar su Dearelder. ¡Está en el buzón ahorita!Not much else happened this past week. Just looking forward to a full helping of Spanish this week!¡
Os Amo!-Elder Powell-
September 29, 2009
MTC week 4
I will be watching General Conference in a multi-purpose building here that houses all of our devotionals and such. Don't worry, I'll get a break in between all the sessions so I'll be able to walk still after it. I'm super excited though! Take good notes ;)Dad, your commentary of Nick and Jason was priceless, muchas gracias. XDDrew wrote me one email during the 2nd week and that's been it. It's ok though, I've written out 17 letters and 4 emails (including everything from today) in the past 4 weeks--I've kept busy :)Also for Dad: "Amo a vosotros" translates to "I love you guys", so it doesn't quite work when you send me letters ;) Your bank of options consist of "te amamos", "amamos a tu" (if you want "we love you"), "te amo", or "amo a tu" (if you want "I love you").The October Ensign is chock-full of missionary type articles! :D Definitely read through all of it, but I have some pages to point out. Mom MUST read pg. 22 (especially MUST read 27). You'll soon see why ;) pg 16 talks about being a member missionary. You should totally hold a FHE with the kids teaching missionary lessons and/or answering questions an investigator would have. Pg 76 talks about Preach My Gospel (Predicad Mi Evangelio if you want Spanish). Pg 28 talks about this new artbook that the church has put out. Which brings me to another topic. I bought this artbook and it's fantastic and I'd recommend it for you guys. I can buy anything here and I get a 40% off discount on anything here--literally anything. I got the Spanish primary songbook for like 5 bucks. The artbook was like 3-4 bucks. I get $6/week on my little card here that I can use in addition to my own change (haven't had to use yet). So if there's anything you want me to look for, let me know and I can send it back home.I was in a meeting with the Argentine consul yesterday and he answered a lot of questions about Argentina for us. It's actually a requirement for our visas that he meet with us. My visa hasn't come through yet, but it's looking like it's going to come very easily, so I'm getting excited!I have a few quoteables I more-or-less came up with here: "Don't serve your mission (live your life?) looking in the rear-view mirror or else you'll crash. Focus on the road ahead of you so you can end up where you want to go." Neat, huh? My other one is "Take care of the garden that the Lord has given you stewardship over and the garden will bear fruit to support and sustain you." They've definitely applied to me so far while I've been here.As far as my Spanish goes, I (theoretically) know the 2 past, present, present perfect (to have done something), present progressive (to be doing something), future (will do something), and conditional (would do something) tenses as well as command form. I'll be teaching the first missionary lesson in Spanish starting this week--Hopefully I'll get it down! Just a bunch of vocab to tackle.Keep working hard, everyone! ¡Recuerden orar siempre!Os Amo,Elder Powell
September 22, 2009
MTC week 3
Hola Todos!
This week's responses:
I could definitely hear the BYU game from where I was--especially when we got touchdowns and otherwise good plays. A bunch of the elders were moaning about missing it, but I was ok ;)The yellow fever shot was just fine--no issues. I paid it off with my debit card. I got the insurance reimbursement form sent to you. Don't know if you can use it, but just in case.The zucchini bread and cucumber made it just fine and were both quite delicious--thanks!I have a few requests: if you can find it, send my pitch pipe; I need a larger travel towel (it only overlaps by about 2 inches, I just dealt with it at first, but I'm thinking I'll want a bigger one now); and I also could use a line of authority from Dad.Not much has happened out of the usual this week. It got noticeably colder a couple days ago, which has been quite nice for me. I couldn't help it--I've started singing with the MTC choir! Our zone got a new district a week ago and they're headed to Nicaragua, Spain, and Panama.Do you guys remember a Steward family from Alabama? An Elder Steward walked up and started to talk with me randomly the other day. He randomly pulled out the fact that I used to live in Alabama. I was shocked and floored! I asked how he knew that, and he was like "Oh I used to go to cub scouts with you and stuff like that." hahaha, I was amazed that he remembered! He's lived in Alabama since and he's headed off to the Chili, Concepción South mission.Mi español es bien. I´m able to say things in the present, preterite (one of the 2 past tenses), future, conditional (ex. I would ______), and present progressive (to be ____-ing) tenses now. I still need to get comfortable using it in daily language. It's coming though! Irregulars make it fun--that's for sure! Here's a fun one I discovered the other day: In English, we have "to go ___", "I go ___", and "I am going ____". In Spanish, it's "ir ___", "yo/estoy voy ___" and "estoy yendo ____"!Thanks for all the updates from home. It's always nice to hear how things are going.Amo a vosotros!Elder Powell
This week's responses:
I could definitely hear the BYU game from where I was--especially when we got touchdowns and otherwise good plays. A bunch of the elders were moaning about missing it, but I was ok ;)The yellow fever shot was just fine--no issues. I paid it off with my debit card. I got the insurance reimbursement form sent to you. Don't know if you can use it, but just in case.The zucchini bread and cucumber made it just fine and were both quite delicious--thanks!I have a few requests: if you can find it, send my pitch pipe; I need a larger travel towel (it only overlaps by about 2 inches, I just dealt with it at first, but I'm thinking I'll want a bigger one now); and I also could use a line of authority from Dad.Not much has happened out of the usual this week. It got noticeably colder a couple days ago, which has been quite nice for me. I couldn't help it--I've started singing with the MTC choir! Our zone got a new district a week ago and they're headed to Nicaragua, Spain, and Panama.Do you guys remember a Steward family from Alabama? An Elder Steward walked up and started to talk with me randomly the other day. He randomly pulled out the fact that I used to live in Alabama. I was shocked and floored! I asked how he knew that, and he was like "Oh I used to go to cub scouts with you and stuff like that." hahaha, I was amazed that he remembered! He's lived in Alabama since and he's headed off to the Chili, Concepción South mission.Mi español es bien. I´m able to say things in the present, preterite (one of the 2 past tenses), future, conditional (ex. I would ______), and present progressive (to be ____-ing) tenses now. I still need to get comfortable using it in daily language. It's coming though! Irregulars make it fun--that's for sure! Here's a fun one I discovered the other day: In English, we have "to go ___", "I go ___", and "I am going ____". In Spanish, it's "ir ___", "yo/estoy voy ___" and "estoy yendo ____"!Thanks for all the updates from home. It's always nice to hear how things are going.Amo a vosotros!Elder Powell
September 15, 2009
MTC week 2
Sounds like you guys are having a great time though.
So my turn to talk. I had a fantastic experience at the MTC Referral Center on Friday. If you've ever seen those pass-along cards or a tv commercial from the church, there's a phone number that is on/in it. That number leads right to the referral center. It was a little scary at first, especially because I'm terrible at phone calls, but I got the hang of it really fast. I've already given out my first Book of Mormon to a real investigator of the church and I had only been here for 1 and a half weeks! It was great!The work is not slowing down, that's for sure. Every minute is still scheduled out and there's barely time to sit around. If I've learned everything up to what we've been taught, I can always review and practice more or go learn something different. But I love it here!Yo sé que el Evangelio restaurado es verdadero. Sé que José Smith fue un profeta. Testifico que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y que nos ama. Sé que Dios es nuestro Padre Celestial. Las familias puede ser juntos para siempre (and I'm out of time!!!)Amo a ustedes!!!-Elder Powell-
So my turn to talk. I had a fantastic experience at the MTC Referral Center on Friday. If you've ever seen those pass-along cards or a tv commercial from the church, there's a phone number that is on/in it. That number leads right to the referral center. It was a little scary at first, especially because I'm terrible at phone calls, but I got the hang of it really fast. I've already given out my first Book of Mormon to a real investigator of the church and I had only been here for 1 and a half weeks! It was great!The work is not slowing down, that's for sure. Every minute is still scheduled out and there's barely time to sit around. If I've learned everything up to what we've been taught, I can always review and practice more or go learn something different. But I love it here!Yo sé que el Evangelio restaurado es verdadero. Sé que José Smith fue un profeta. Testifico que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y que nos ama. Sé que Dios es nuestro Padre Celestial. Las familias puede ser juntos para siempre (and I'm out of time!!!)Amo a ustedes!!!-Elder Powell-
September 9, 2009
MTC week 1
So now this blog is the "mission diaries". I'll post Jeff's letter's here for all to be inspired.
Hola Familia!I have 30 minutes to type this so sorry for mistakes.Phew, the first week has been super intense! The MTC is just ramming my head with info like no other! It's day 6 now (P-day!!!) and they already have me singing, praying, bearing testimony, practicing street contacts, and getting to know people en español! I'm actually doing really with it though so I'm happy. After the first week things start to become routine and less stressful so I´m doing well. It only took a few days to run into a ton of my friends! I saw Elder Hawkins on the first day actually! I still don't have a picture (and I'll have to send the eventual picture as a paper copy because of complications), but we're working on it.I´m the district leader over my district of 6 élderes y 4 hermanas. We´re all headed to the Argentina, Salta mission, which is a rarity apparently to all be headed to the same place at the same time. I´m excited though! It just means that we´ll grow even closer together and the plane ride down will be fun! My companion, Elder Dibb, is from Paul, Idaho (you'll have to look it up, it's southern) and is a great guy. He's a tall guy and makes me feel rather short, but we're doing well. Our unity continues to grow every day and I'm sure we'll get teaching together down pretty well here in a couple weeks. Our whole district is great! We all have a great sense of humor and love working with each other.As for my address, letters and packages can be sent to:Elder Jeffrey PowellMTC Mailbox # 311ARG-SAL 11022005 N. 900 E.Provo, UT 84604Can I get one of you to go on my facebook and put this address in my "About Me" section as well as send it in a message to everyone in my mission group (Drew should know/be able to figure out what I mean). I would highly encourage the usage of www.dearelder.com however (Include that on facebook as well). It's fast and easy. My mailbox # is 311, my approx. departure date is November 2nd, and my mission code is ARG-SAL. Notice all of these are found in the above address.Felíz Cumpleaños Jason!!!Hope things are going well at home! If you respond to this email address, I won´t be able to read it until next Tuesday btw, so dearelder will probably work best. jeff.r.powell.MAS@MyLDSMail.net is my email address though and I'll be able to use it on P-days. Let me know what email address(es) I should be writing to!Mom, they gave me a set of Spanish scriptures for free here :P and to top it off, the church just recently authorized and began distributing their own copy of the Bible (with footnotes and the pictures and such), which is now in my possession. I may be sending some Spanish scriptures back home in a few weeks. Drew will put them to use, I'm sure. If not, give them to Brandon ;)Yo amo a ustedes! (I love you guys!) Hope to hear from you soon!LoveÉlder PowellP.S. I've seen some crazy name badges down here! I'm definitely glad mine is in the much simpler Spanish language!
Hola Familia!I have 30 minutes to type this so sorry for mistakes.Phew, the first week has been super intense! The MTC is just ramming my head with info like no other! It's day 6 now (P-day!!!) and they already have me singing, praying, bearing testimony, practicing street contacts, and getting to know people en español! I'm actually doing really with it though so I'm happy. After the first week things start to become routine and less stressful so I´m doing well. It only took a few days to run into a ton of my friends! I saw Elder Hawkins on the first day actually! I still don't have a picture (and I'll have to send the eventual picture as a paper copy because of complications), but we're working on it.I´m the district leader over my district of 6 élderes y 4 hermanas. We´re all headed to the Argentina, Salta mission, which is a rarity apparently to all be headed to the same place at the same time. I´m excited though! It just means that we´ll grow even closer together and the plane ride down will be fun! My companion, Elder Dibb, is from Paul, Idaho (you'll have to look it up, it's southern) and is a great guy. He's a tall guy and makes me feel rather short, but we're doing well. Our unity continues to grow every day and I'm sure we'll get teaching together down pretty well here in a couple weeks. Our whole district is great! We all have a great sense of humor and love working with each other.As for my address, letters and packages can be sent to:Elder Jeffrey PowellMTC Mailbox # 311ARG-SAL 11022005 N. 900 E.Provo, UT 84604Can I get one of you to go on my facebook and put this address in my "About Me" section as well as send it in a message to everyone in my mission group (Drew should know/be able to figure out what I mean). I would highly encourage the usage of www.dearelder.com however (Include that on facebook as well). It's fast and easy. My mailbox # is 311, my approx. departure date is November 2nd, and my mission code is ARG-SAL. Notice all of these are found in the above address.Felíz Cumpleaños Jason!!!Hope things are going well at home! If you respond to this email address, I won´t be able to read it until next Tuesday btw, so dearelder will probably work best. jeff.r.powell.MAS@MyLDSMail.net is my email address though and I'll be able to use it on P-days. Let me know what email address(es) I should be writing to!Mom, they gave me a set of Spanish scriptures for free here :P and to top it off, the church just recently authorized and began distributing their own copy of the Bible (with footnotes and the pictures and such), which is now in my possession. I may be sending some Spanish scriptures back home in a few weeks. Drew will put them to use, I'm sure. If not, give them to Brandon ;)Yo amo a ustedes! (I love you guys!) Hope to hear from you soon!LoveÉlder PowellP.S. I've seen some crazy name badges down here! I'm definitely glad mine is in the much simpler Spanish language!
August 5, 2009
Part V: Closing Remarks
Well, I've run out of pictures worth posting on here, and the only things left unmentioned are either inside jokes from the pageant and/or workcrew or a little too personal for this blog. So, in closing to this wonderful chapter of my life, I would like to reiterate how amazing this experience has been for me. I've learned an incredible amount going through this physically-tasking yet highly-spiritual and well put together pageant. I would highly recommend seeing the show, regardless if you believe in the Book of Mormon or not--it is truly a spectacular show. If you're a member of the church, head to the pageant's website (http://www.hillcumorah.org/Pageant/Default.aspx (warning: sorta loud background music)) and fill out an application to be a part of the experience! They are accepting applications for next summer's show starting August 15 through November 1--don't procrastinate!
If you are just interested in learning more about the pageant (history, production info, etc.), all that is located on the website as well.
With the pageant out of the way now, there are just two major events left in the near future: family vacation to Hawaii (surprise b-day present beginning Sunday, August 9th!), and then THE MISSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sooo excited to finally be heading out on this mission!
I love you all!
August 4, 2009
Part IV: Trips Away from the Hill
I apologize for the small delay in getting this post out. A combination of procrastination, gaining access to everyone else's photos, accidently deleting many of my good pageant pictures (luckily, I've recovered from this heartbreaking experience and found all the pictures through various online sources. Unfortunately some of them lost their size and/or resolution.), and getting 2 wisdom teeth pulled (I'm recovering very well from that as well) contributed to the delay. But enough excuses, on to the photos!
We took multiple trips out to the Sacred Grove and I just loved it! It's so peaceful in there and you can just lose yourself deep in the trees and just think about anything. I managed to get some good artsy photos too.
Our personal caterer worked at this little log cabin restaurant that hosted a weekly car show in their plot of land. We visited this car show on our last week and it was pretty sweet the vehicles we ran into. It was a healthy mix between motorcycles, fast cars, funny cars, and old-fashioned cars.
We took multiple trips out to the Sacred Grove and I just loved it! It's so peaceful in there and you can just lose yourself deep in the trees and just think about anything. I managed to get some good artsy photos too.
We toured all of the major church history sites, including the Joseph Smith farm, the David Whitmer farm, and the Grandin building, where the Book of Mormon was first published.
I envision this to be the room at the Whitmer Farm that Joseph was translating in:
First Edition Book of Mormon:
We also took the chance and went into the Palmyra Temple, which was absolutely beautiful! The stained glass consisted of lots of trees, creating the effect of being in the Sacred Grove, which you could see from the temple.
I do not claim these next two photos, but I thought they were gorgeous.
Our personal caterer worked at this little log cabin restaurant that hosted a weekly car show in their plot of land. We visited this car show on our last week and it was pretty sweet the vehicles we ran into. It was a healthy mix between motorcycles, fast cars, funny cars, and old-fashioned cars.
We also visited a state park called Stony Brook, which had beautiful nature hikes and a semi-natural pool made behind a dam.
July 29, 2009
Part III: Everything else at the Hill Cumorah
Now that you all have an idea of what kind of work that I was involved in, allow me to move into the many other awesome and fun things I did at the Hill Cumorah. I did forget to mention the new rock cannons we invented this year for the destruction scene. It's just a water cannon with roughly 90 foam "stones" that we cut ourselves shoved into the cannon. The foam was a very vivid green color, but since the explosion was back-lit, you only saw the silhouettes of the rocks so we left them without any paint. A couple of the boys took up sculpture-making during our slightly-boring cutting sessions.
Brother Lyman also made a whale-looking fish named Wiggles. Wiggles was launched out of a cannon every single show, leaving us the game of finding Wiggles after the show was over! I found him once :D
My fun during the show involved my camera, of course. I had to smoke stage 4 during the Nephite/Lamanite battle scene and noticed the light rays coming through the fibergrating were awesome! I took advantage of this on the last two nights and tried out some photography.
Brother Lyman also made a whale-looking fish named Wiggles. Wiggles was launched out of a cannon every single show, leaving us the game of finding Wiggles after the show was over! I found him once :D
My fun during the show involved my camera, of course. I had to smoke stage 4 during the Nephite/Lamanite battle scene and noticed the light rays coming through the fibergrating were awesome! I took advantage of this on the last two nights and tried out some photography.
I have plenty more photography shots that will be posted on here in the future (or you can sneak-peek them at my deviant page!).
While we were taking down the stage, we were visited by Moroni the cat.
Apparently this cat has stayed around the hill for a few years now and is still doing ok. I'm told the sister missionaries at the visitor's center keep him well fed :P
I also haven't mentioned the fact that the workcrew members are treated as celebrities by the cast and staff. We sat in the front of every devotional meeting. Not the front row--we were in front facing the cast and sitting next to the pageant presidency and the directors! The first time we saw the cast at the first devotional, we were applauded for as we walked in. Even the primary kids would often start chanting "Work-Crew!-Work-Crew!-Work-Crew!" Of course, we would follow up with "Pri-mary!-Pri-mary!-Pri-mary!" I absolutely loved the kids--you couldn't help but smile and just be happy around them. We drove over with our tractor and trailer, picked up the kids, and gave them a ride for a little bit in the field.
Brother Krebs told them that our tractor was a funky one, in that it only went faster if it heard louder singing. So of course, we spent the next 20 minutes just riding around with all these kids singing whatever church song they pleased. I definitely thought we could've gone longer. The kids thought so too:
We got to witness 2 mission calls during the experience as well!
Congratulations to Brother Gassoway for his call to Cebu, Philippines and Brother Nelson to his call to Sao Paulo, Brazil! For both calls we travelled to the top of the hill. We also would go to the top of the hill whenever we hit a major transition in roles, such as switching between construction and tech crew or as we were finishing up our experiences in Palmyra.
The Wind Tunnel served as our home.
I often describe it as a glorified garage. It's located behind the hill. The picture shows the front entrance, which leads to a "day room". Pretty much only us boys were allowed past this room. We also had a big bathroom and the wind tunnel itself.
If you've ever seen The Newsies, this reminded me a lot of how the opening scene feels. I took this picture standing on my companion's bed, which is above my bed. You'll notice the door on the far left: it led to a few washers and dryers--yes, we did try to keep ourselves and our clothes clean during the month.
This was our backyard, home to many cornhole games. It's quite a simple game: 2 teams of 2 alternate tossing beanbags onto a board (shown in blue). You score 1 point if you get on the board and 3 points if you get it into the hole. We also played plenty of other games too, ultimate frisbee being a frequent one.
We ate very well at the hill too. We actually had a personal caterer for the whole month. I'm quite impressed at the meals that we had. Here's a pretty average-looking dinner for us:
Can you believe I still haven't gained weight?! :D
We were involved in a few competitions at the hill as well. The workcrew holds a little mail competition for the month.
Here's our point system. A letter without a stamp usually came in the form of a note from a cast member. However, if the cast member was a girl, you got 15 points, period. I ended up with 203 points by the end (thanks for those that wrote! :) ) I was a little below-average from the rest of the boys though. Some were just absolutely spoiled. Some actually had like every young women in their home ward write them a letter, which majorly boosted their points.
Don't mind the doodles: This was taken on the last day and they went on a drawing craze that night.
The Golden Spoon award went to the winner of the annual bake off competition between the cast. The judges just so happened to be the work crew ;) We actually had over 40 entries this year. We had sooo much food!!! Pretty much all of it was amazing too. We had to create 2 food categories because there was so much food! I loved it though :) I got to draw the winners on the board too.
Oh yeah, and you can't forget the 38 pounds of smarties we received! :D
July 27, 2009
Part II: Duties of the Tech Crew
After the stage was completed and all of the lights made it up into the towers, our work crew held an important meeting where we divided ourselves into the light crew and the ground crew. I chose to be on the ground crew and I loved the experience on there! Every boy enjoyed his particular assignment as well. I'll start with the light crew.
(bottom to top, left to right: Brothers Davis, Nelson, Abutaa, Pike, Delgado, Spinder, Hirschi, Conover, Brown, Halterman, Brockbank, and Burkhart) The light crew was responsible for the covered light in this picture--the spotlight.
Before the show, each would climb up their assigned tower and run a spotlight for the show. They lit up various people and groups of people on the stage. The nice thing about running the show from 9:15 to 10:30 is that it's dark enough that we can create a blackout if needed! One of the hardest cues for the light crew was spotting (meaning hitting with their light; they could see him floating in midair just fine) the actor portraying Christ in an instant to make him "appear" after a blackout.
Two advantages come to mind with being on the light crew: not as much physical work (and low-sleep demands) and they had the best view for pictures and just looking out at the audience, stage, and sunsets! The light crew did a fabulous job this year and were much appreciated.
The ground crew (bottom to top, left to right: Brothers Powell, Cox, Jensen, Zobell, Ireland, Sumpter, Gassoway, Swasey, Lyman, Bishop, Gulbransen, Hooker, Lester, (Jones was the assistant director), and Krebs) was responsible for anything to do with the technical aspects of the stage.
This included lifting any set pieces into place, such as columns, walls, the tree of life...
The sail could fold down into the stage and was covered when not in use. It was actually pulled up by our workcrew boys during the scene so they were required to be in costume. The next picture shows Brother Cox (far left) with the rest of the cast as they pose at the end of a musical segment.
You'll also notice that the side of the ship must be put in place (I actually helped with the particular piece shown). Overall it's an awesome part of the play. Partway through, a storm hits the boat and the effect of the storm is created as well. Our ground crew actually causes the sail to be ripped completely off, leaving fragments of sail on the mast!
Another fun part about ground crew is the pyrotechnics and water effects. We cause smoke to rise. We also create small flames...
...medium flames...
...water cannon explosions...
...and slightly bigger fireballs ;)
The destruction scene (described in the passage of scripture 3 Nephi 8: 5-23) was the baby of the ground crew. It was a 76-second segment of fire, water cannons, fireballs, columns and walls falling over and flying, chaos, and plenty of cast members falling and/or dying. The person calling the cues over our headsets would literally start a stopwatch and count from 1 to 76 and we just memorized what we had to do at what second. I can still whip out that I launch 4 water cannons at 5, 21, 72, and 76, and I also had a fire that lit for a few seconds at 55! Of course, if you know music or emotional drama, the best and most moving effect comes at a huge climax followed by silence. We definitely had that. At 76, all 3 of our fireballs launch along with a few water cannons, followed by a blackout, silence, and then a couple emotional voices finishing out (paraphrasing) the rest of that chapter in 3 Nephi (verses 24 and 25). The biggest part of the explosion was caused by the 3 in the next picture.
The pit: located between stages 1 and 3 and held 4 water cannons and a fireball. I was in charge of the two on the stage-left side, Bro. Sumpter the 2 stage-right ones, and Bro. Zobell over the fireball. It was cool :D
Among my various roles on the ground crew, my main role gave me the title of fontmaster. At 3 different times during the play, a baptism occurs on the stage. The baptismal font consists of a little step-down area on stage 4, where just about all my other cues were by the way. The only difficulty is that other parts of the play require the space where the font is for scenes such as the Nephite/Lamanite battle scene. To prevent actors from falling into the font, the font is covered, and then uncovered before a baptism scene occurs. That was my job--moving the two wooden panels above me in the next picture.
Allow me to explain the pillow and my goofy smile. During a particular scene with a wicked King Noah and the prophet Abinadi, I have no cues except to uncover the font. The scene is roughly 10.5 minutes long. Funny side story as to why I know this: the director of the scene actually called for some workcrew boys to act as guards in the background of the scene. He required them to hold this position...
...for the entire scene! The whole ground crew thought it was hilarious and we all tried it during one rehearsal, with me timing the whole thing. Arms were held for 10 minutes and 15 seconds...and it burned sooo bad!!! It quickly became an inside joke amongst the crew.
Anyways, back to my font pillow picture. Since I didn't have anything to do for 10 minutes, I decided to bring and store a pillow underneath my home in stage 4. At the start of the scene, I would bring out my pillow and lay in the font! I even had a bag of honey-roasted chex for the last 2 performances!!! It was great :) I opened the font halfway and still layed there, watching the light tower in front of me and the bats that flew by eating moths in the sky.
A special crew within the ground crew was the flight crew. 3 boys (Brothers Bishop, Hooker, and Krebs) were in charge of the flight harness as the actor portraying Christ was floating in midair. There were appropriately 3 jobs: horizontal motion, vertical motion, and unhooking the harness during the scene (given the title of ninja since they dress in all black for the part). Of all the rehearsals, I think they rehearsed that particular part the most.
Overall I'd say the crew delivered a wonderful performance to accompany the beautiful performance of this year's actors.
(bottom to top, left to right: Brothers Davis, Nelson, Abutaa, Pike, Delgado, Spinder, Hirschi, Conover, Brown, Halterman, Brockbank, and Burkhart) The light crew was responsible for the covered light in this picture--the spotlight.
Before the show, each would climb up their assigned tower and run a spotlight for the show. They lit up various people and groups of people on the stage. The nice thing about running the show from 9:15 to 10:30 is that it's dark enough that we can create a blackout if needed! One of the hardest cues for the light crew was spotting (meaning hitting with their light; they could see him floating in midair just fine) the actor portraying Christ in an instant to make him "appear" after a blackout.
Two advantages come to mind with being on the light crew: not as much physical work (and low-sleep demands) and they had the best view for pictures and just looking out at the audience, stage, and sunsets! The light crew did a fabulous job this year and were much appreciated.
The ground crew (bottom to top, left to right: Brothers Powell, Cox, Jensen, Zobell, Ireland, Sumpter, Gassoway, Swasey, Lyman, Bishop, Gulbransen, Hooker, Lester, (Jones was the assistant director), and Krebs) was responsible for anything to do with the technical aspects of the stage.
This included lifting any set pieces into place, such as columns, walls, the tree of life...
...large idols, rock and cave pieces, Lehi's tent, and heaviest of all--Nephi's boat.
The sail could fold down into the stage and was covered when not in use. It was actually pulled up by our workcrew boys during the scene so they were required to be in costume. The next picture shows Brother Cox (far left) with the rest of the cast as they pose at the end of a musical segment.
You'll also notice that the side of the ship must be put in place (I actually helped with the particular piece shown). Overall it's an awesome part of the play. Partway through, a storm hits the boat and the effect of the storm is created as well. Our ground crew actually causes the sail to be ripped completely off, leaving fragments of sail on the mast!
Another fun part about ground crew is the pyrotechnics and water effects. We cause smoke to rise. We also create small flames...
...medium flames...
...water cannon explosions...
...and slightly bigger fireballs ;)
The destruction scene (described in the passage of scripture 3 Nephi 8: 5-23) was the baby of the ground crew. It was a 76-second segment of fire, water cannons, fireballs, columns and walls falling over and flying, chaos, and plenty of cast members falling and/or dying. The person calling the cues over our headsets would literally start a stopwatch and count from 1 to 76 and we just memorized what we had to do at what second. I can still whip out that I launch 4 water cannons at 5, 21, 72, and 76, and I also had a fire that lit for a few seconds at 55! Of course, if you know music or emotional drama, the best and most moving effect comes at a huge climax followed by silence. We definitely had that. At 76, all 3 of our fireballs launch along with a few water cannons, followed by a blackout, silence, and then a couple emotional voices finishing out (paraphrasing) the rest of that chapter in 3 Nephi (verses 24 and 25). The biggest part of the explosion was caused by the 3 in the next picture.
The pit: located between stages 1 and 3 and held 4 water cannons and a fireball. I was in charge of the two on the stage-left side, Bro. Sumpter the 2 stage-right ones, and Bro. Zobell over the fireball. It was cool :D
Among my various roles on the ground crew, my main role gave me the title of fontmaster. At 3 different times during the play, a baptism occurs on the stage. The baptismal font consists of a little step-down area on stage 4, where just about all my other cues were by the way. The only difficulty is that other parts of the play require the space where the font is for scenes such as the Nephite/Lamanite battle scene. To prevent actors from falling into the font, the font is covered, and then uncovered before a baptism scene occurs. That was my job--moving the two wooden panels above me in the next picture.
Allow me to explain the pillow and my goofy smile. During a particular scene with a wicked King Noah and the prophet Abinadi, I have no cues except to uncover the font. The scene is roughly 10.5 minutes long. Funny side story as to why I know this: the director of the scene actually called for some workcrew boys to act as guards in the background of the scene. He required them to hold this position...
...for the entire scene! The whole ground crew thought it was hilarious and we all tried it during one rehearsal, with me timing the whole thing. Arms were held for 10 minutes and 15 seconds...and it burned sooo bad!!! It quickly became an inside joke amongst the crew.
Anyways, back to my font pillow picture. Since I didn't have anything to do for 10 minutes, I decided to bring and store a pillow underneath my home in stage 4. At the start of the scene, I would bring out my pillow and lay in the font! I even had a bag of honey-roasted chex for the last 2 performances!!! It was great :) I opened the font halfway and still layed there, watching the light tower in front of me and the bats that flew by eating moths in the sky.
A special crew within the ground crew was the flight crew. 3 boys (Brothers Bishop, Hooker, and Krebs) were in charge of the flight harness as the actor portraying Christ was floating in midair. There were appropriately 3 jobs: horizontal motion, vertical motion, and unhooking the harness during the scene (given the title of ninja since they dress in all black for the part). Of all the rehearsals, I think they rehearsed that particular part the most.
Overall I'd say the crew delivered a wonderful performance to accompany the beautiful performance of this year's actors.
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