Semana 68 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

Well, we had a pretty crazy week, but it was crazy-awesome! The first crazy thing was zone conference on Wednesday. We had to wake up at 5:00 to catch a 6:00 bus down to Orán, which is about 3 hours away! As we were travelling down there, we were bombarded by a huge rainstorm, making a bunch of streetside rivers! We got off the bus and had to walk about 3 blocks to get to the church and we were drenched. I even had to jump through a couple street-rivers to get there! We walked in about 3 minutes before the conference started too! It was a good conference though and really helped us get in the Christmas mood. President and Sister Northcutt have done this tradition every Christmas where a bunch of people dress up and act out the nativity scene and we sing pretty much all of the Christmas hymns (at least in the Spanish hymnal)--super spiritual! We had a nice lunch, and then another hour to kill waiting for our bus to come and take us back to Tartagal.

We had a small branch activity the next day that was nice to participate in (just some refreshments and a spiritual thought basically).

And then Christmas Eve: With the dangerous situation that we run into during Christmas, our normal schedule is changed. After 4:00, we can't knock on doors or do street contacting at all--we have to use all set appointments, especially with those that don't have family to celebrate Christmas with. We went around sharing a quick Christmas message with a ton of families and it was great! The weather took a crazy turn this weekend too. In the middle of Christmas Eve, it got extremely windy (which is perfect for all the sandy roads we have here!), and brought in lots of clouds for Christmas.

Christmas went really well. We had 12 elders sleeping in our pension the night before after watching all these huge fireworks go off at midnight, and hearing lots of drunk people outside, of course. We organized a huge steak and sausage lunch, played ping-pong in the church, and we carolled in this park downtown. And then we had our big phone call home! I'm definitely glad for the privilege to call home, I'm sure the majority of you reading this letter don't quite know what it's like talking to your family for the first time in 7 months! But yeah, that was a definite highlight for all the missionaries here.

We found out transfers on Thursday and my comp, Elder Speakman, is off to Salta capital. My new companion is Elder Macias from Buenos Aires. He's a fairly quiet and timid elder from what little I've seen so far of him here, but I have a feeling we'll do well this transfer.

It's been a great week overall! We're getting ready for another fun one with the New Year!

Love

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 67 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

Kind of a tougher week, especially because of more blazing heat, but we were blessed with another baptism this weekend! Carolina is in her mid-twenties and is married with 2 kids. Super-nice and really loves to learn in the church!

We decided to host a movie night at the church. We showed "The Testaments" (my favorite)--they were all in tears afterward!

We did lots of visiting this week......nothing too new. We've just been doing lots of planning for this upcoming week: zone conference, Christmas stuff (I have a whole luncheon planned for 16 missionaries!), last week of transfers: it's going to be a crazy week!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas week!!! Just like Helaman reminded his sons, Nephi and Lehi, to remember Christ in Helaman 5, so to we should always remember our Savior and Redeemer in this wonderful Christmas season!

Love,

Elder Powell

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Semana 66 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

Crazy awesome week this week! Everything kindof led up to our 2 baptisms that we had this weekend! One was a 9-year-old whose name is Abril Garatti, the other was Mario Chave. Mario is this huge guy that weighs about 250 pounds. We had to go out and buy some white clothing for him for the baptism and we actually found these cool white dentist's scrubs that totally worked! Mario has been through a lot of crazy stuff in his life, but he started to listen to the missionaries and realized that he needed to change up things in his life. It's crazy to see how much he actually trusts in us, but both he and we know that what we're sharing with him is true. If he keeps going to church, he'll definitely be an awesome help to everyone! Abril is this really nice girl that lives with her mom, who is also a member of the church. Her mom hasn't really been going to church too much, but when we had the confirmation, her mom actually showed up! So Abril will definitely be a good influence on the family.

Our district leader is serving in this area called Salvador Massa, which is inside the city of Pocitos. I had to go work there for a day so that he could come here and do the baptismal interviews. It just so happens that part of the limit of that area is the Bolivian border! So I got to go and get a picture on the bridge connecting the two!

The weather has been extremely hot, as usual. But just yesterday, the weather took a sudden turn and cooled way down! Like we're talking windy, cloudy, drizzly, cold! I was in heaven!!! The people say that this is the first time ever that the weather has been so crazy.

I got to see the rebroadcast of the First Presidency Christmas devotional. I have to admit, I really wanted to be there as I was watching it! When the congregation joined in the 3rd verse of Silent Night, the people in our chapel didn't sing because the music and words came on the screen in English, but the English missionaries and I just sang really quiet--it made me just tear up singing in English again!

Hope the Christmas spirit is thriving back at home!

Love,

Elder Powell

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Semana 65 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

We've officially dived into December! Man, time never does stop flying by! I hit my official 15-month mark in the mission--I'm feeling old down here!

We've been dealing with crazy weather down here. Just the other day, it was 133 degrees fahrenheit outside, and then in these last couple of days, it's been super-rainy, making it hard to walk in the sandy and muddy pathways! People keep thinking we're crazy, but we keep going! We got our AC unit working now, so that helps a little when we get back home on a hot day. The cool air doesn't quite push back to the bedrooms though, so we still have to sleep with fans on our faces all night.

We're totally kicking butt on the work down here, but the result is still falling short. Out of all the visits we made, and the success we had in those visits, general assistance in church was cut in half (from 60 last week to 38 this week), no investigators made it to church (we were expecting around 6), and the investigators close to baptism still haven't made it to the font yet...all because it was raining on Sunday...We'll get'em though!

Other than that I really don't have much else that happened in the week...It just went by super-fast and that's it! Hope all is well as you're all preparing for the Christmas season!

Love,

-Elder Powell-

P.S. *cough*Letters to missionaries make great Christmas gifts*cough* ;)

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Semana 64 - Villa Saavedra

Hola Todos,

Another solid week. We didn't have those baptisms like we were hoping, but we have lots that are still super-close to getting wet! The big highlight of the week was Thanksgiving. We initially planned on finding a turkey to kill, cook, and eat, but that didn't happen, so we tried to settle on a duck...cancelled on us at the last minute, so we just went with the oven-cooked chicken and ham, but it turned out delicious. We also bought stuff to make deviled eggs, corn on the cob, rolls, mashed potatoes, salad, jello, pudding, and cinnamon rolls! WAAAAY delicious, and all homemade ;) What really made the night though was that we invited and had in total 11 elders in the pension at night, and all slept over and left the following morning! So it turned out way great for us! With the passing of Thanksgiving, we've started listening to Christmas music officially. It really helps to block out all the heat we've been getting here. Just the other day, it was 125 degrees outside! But luckily, we finally got this air conditioning unit hooked up that we got as an extra from another area! It's raining today as well, so things are starting to cool down for a little bit. Too bad it'll get hot again really fast.

The only bad thing that really happened this last week was that a bee stung me right underneath my left eye! We were sitting outside and a member invited us to drink some Sprite with him. Sure enough, as he poured us glasses, a ton of bees showed up--we're talking like 30ish! Yeah, definitely was killer, but I'm doing fine.

Not too much more to write for this week though, low on time. I love you all though! Hope all goes well as we enter into December this week! (gollee, time is just flying by!)

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 63 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

This has been a whole lot better of a week. Even though the weather has been crazy-hot, we had success in the week. It was so hot though that I went out and bought a big hat just like the rest of the elders here. I'll have a picture up in the next couple weeks.

Villa Saavedra is full of sand: I feel like I'm walking on the beach, especially with the sun just beaming down on us! It kills me to here about the snowy weather some of you are having up there--super jealous!

There are 6 elders in our pension! It's pretty packed, but we make do. It's a party every day, that's for sure ;) Speaking of, we're really planning on partying it up Thursday night for Thanksgiving! One of the elders in the pension is from Ecuador and Peru, but he also studied at BYU-Provo for a little bit, so he knows English as well. It turns out though that he's never celebrated Thanksgiving, so we're planning on going as big as possible! We're talking chickens, potatoes, corn, bread with honey butter, salad, drinks, and desserts! I'm really wondering if I want to make cinnamon rolls, apple crisp, or banana bread!!! :P

We had a zone meeting in Orán this week. It was really lame because we had to leave on a bus at 6:00 AM and we travelled for about 3.5 hours to get there! We missed the bus coming back, so we didn't get back home until 8:00 PM!!! It was nice seeing other missionary friends, but it was a little bit of a waste of time. We made up for it in the bus ride though ;) Let's just say we had a little bit of fun!

There's actually an indian tribe that lives on the outer edge of Tartagal called the Wichi tribe. I really want to learn their language because there aren't too many that speak Spanish, but unfortunately it's out of my area :/ oh well.

We had a good day in church. Our branch hit 56 people in church. I was attacked with the assignment of a talk for my first Sunday! It was because the missionaries and the ward mission leader give talks every 3rd Sunday of the month...I made a good one though on how to be more useful to God and to Zion. I basically just took ideas from 3 of the talks I already wrote in Yuto ;)

All in all, this week was rather successful. We're looking to have a couple baptisms this weekend if all goes well. It's going to be a rocky ride all the way to Saturday, but we're really hoping for a good result!

I love you all!!! Have a good Thanksgiving holiday!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 62 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

Well, I've received a transfer and I'm writing this letter in a different area. I'm now in Villa Saavedra, which is nearby a slightly bigger area called Tartagal. I'm in the province of Salta again, but way way up north this time. We're talking very close to the Bolivian border! This part of the mission is known for it's hot weather and mosquitos, and I've just transferred into it right in the thick of summer! We'll see how I can handle 40-50 degree celsius weather (100-120 degree fahrenheit)!

My last week in Mariano Moreno went well. We had our interviews with President Northcutt on Thursday. He expressed his concern for my recent run of low numbers, but we talked it through and figured out a little plan to get things going again. We did hit a record attendance in church yesterday--60! We were super-excited for that. But other than that, it was a fairly normal week, except for right at the end when I had to say goodbye to the good families I got to know there. Check out the photos!

I'm now a step-dad as we call it here in the mission. In other words, I'm the second companion in the field of Elder Speakman, my comp, of course. He's from California and ready to rock and roll! I'm not district leader, so that'll be nice to be able to just focus on the work for a little bit. We're out in the middle of nowhere here in northern Salta, but I've already got experience in small pueblitos, so I think I'll be able to get into the groove of it again. I'll definitely have to enjoy it to the best because I'll be hitting Thanksgiving and Christmas in this transfer!

Don't really have too much else to mention for this week. Just that I love you all!!!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 61 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!
Well, this week was still a tough one, but we were blessed
nonetheless. We had a baptism this weekend!!!!!!! Susana Ochoa is
about 50-60 years old and has had quite the crazy life. She never knew
her real family while growing up: she lived alone. Her friends weren't
the best in school: she had a baby at 13. The doctors were about to
put the baby up for adoption because there weren't any parents to take
charge of raising the kid, until one night she escaped from the
hospital. She spent all her time raising the kid instead of going out
with friends. In her 20s, she took whatever little job she could take
to survive. She even picked up sewing and started making little bags
and other stuff to sell. Since then (I'm talking in the past few years
now) she sews for a living, her son now lives in Switzerland (no idea
what he's doing there), she's the Catholic godmother of this other
family that sortof took her in for awhile, and in the past year, she
got to know her birthmother and her whole family that lives in Salta,
all of which happen to be members of the Mormon church! She's been
talking to the missionaries for some time now; just didn't really
receive the push to get baptized. But, she's a very spiritually
intelligent woman and has a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book
of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the church itself. With the help of other
Relief Society sisters and Heavenly Father, we were able to help her
make the decision to have her baptism this past weekend. The service
was rather small, seeing as a member of the seventy decided to come
during the baptismal service to give a training to the ward and stake
leaders, but it was still very spiritual and very touching.
We were also blessed with a new pension! We were talking with one of
our richer less-active sisters that we have a good relationship with
about how we were without a place to live. She couldn't believe it and
was interested in helping us out, so she asked what kind of place we
were looking for. We described what we wanted, and then she showed us
in back of her house this separate apartment that she doesn't use
that's absolutely perfect for us! We moved in on Friday and we're
loving it so far!
Even with these blessings, Satan is still working on me, from big
things like discouragement to little things like a bird pooping on me
and a dog peeing on my leg during the week!!!! (I couldn't believe my
luck!!!!!!)
Nevertheless, the work moves on, especially in this last week of transfers!
Also, quick news: I received my Argentine 'National Identification
Document', so I'm official now ;)
Love you all!!!
-Elder Powell

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Semana 60 - Mariano Moreno

Hola todos,

The battle surges on: we still haven't found a new place to live, the success still is a little low (I'm driving the zone leaders crazy because the 3 of us can't figure out what's missing), seasonal allergies are coming on a little, and the heat bakes your head a little! We have this one lady though that's terribly close to her baptism though. She basically just has to make the decision that she wants to do it and she's already ready for this weekend! I'll give her full story once she hits the water!

We had a unique experience this week. The 10-year census rolled around! So we couldn't leave the pension until the census person came and interviewed us. We played Monopoly until she got there :P It was a rather odd interview for the lady because we're 8 20-year-olds that all come from places other than locally here in Jujuy. We did "work" last week, but we don't really receive an income :P We couldn't really tell her where we habitually live either because we randomly switch between all areas of Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, and Santiago! Our names were a little funky too. It came and went though, and luckily she came by at 12:00, so it wasn't too late. We were walking around that same day and actually spotted our bishop giving the census interviews as well!

This week was our stake conference. The talks were really nice. It was also nice to see the mission president and his wife there! We'll be seeing them again in a week and a half for our interviews.

As for Halloween weekend, it didn't affect too many people here. We actually spotted a few trick-or-treaters though, but just in the richer neighborhoods. If you want to say "trick-or-treat" in Spanish, it's "truco-o-dulce" (you can get away with combining the two 'o's together). Lot's of people kindof ignore the holiday though because they don't want North American comercialism to impact their northern Argentine traditionalism. It's slowly creeping in though, it can't really be helped seeing that more people are watching tv and watching all the US shows with Spanish translations. Oh well!

That's about all I've got though, love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 59 - Mariano Moreno

Hola Todos,

For those that have been following along, this week has gone a little bit better than the weeks before, but we can still improve.

We were walking back to the pension one day for lunch and I was trying to decide what to make. I remembered I had some hot dogs that needed to be used soon, so I thought about ideas that I could use, when all of a sudden, I remembered about pigs-in-a-blanket! It was actually really easy to make and it turned out delicious! For those who don't know what it is, you cut a line in the hot dog, stuff it with cheese, you make a bread dough and wrap the hot dog in dough, and then oven-bake it! I also made a great salad with vinegar and oil: I was so full--it was great!

This week was the big moving week. Unfortunately, we still don't have a pension set in concrete yet, so we had to move all our stuff to the zone leader's pension, making that 8 missionaries in a single apartment! We're looking hard for somewhere to move out quick!

We also had divisions with the zone leaders this past week. We had so much success when they came over! I learned a few things from them, as well as my comp, so we were hoping to be able to put it all into practice the rest of the week. We tried and didn't really have too much success with it......not sure what they had that we are missing, but there's hope!

I've gotta run, but I love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 58 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!
Well, this week turned out to be just as bad, if not worse, than the
first week: nothing is working for us as we desperately try to find
new investigators. We're in a huge drought it seems--which is an
ironic statement because we actually got rain in the past few days,
which, coupled with it being Mother's Day in Argentina yesterday,
really killed church attendance! We're now trying to focus our efforts
a little more on the active and less-active members to try and talk
with their friends, family, and coworkers that aren't members. We're
especially paying attention to this approach because we've also
checked and confirmed that every investigator that we have right now
already had a family member or friend that is a member before we
started teaching them. 'Preach my Gospel' also promises that if the
members do their job in finding new investigators, giving references,
and then help out with the conversion process, more baptisms happen
and post-baptism retention rate goes way up. In my opinion, it's the
second-best method to raise retention rate, just below doing
family-history and temple work. I've had lots of meditating time on
the topic of low-success and I know that my challenges are growing my
character and that I'm going through a very important self-conversion
process, but I'm done growing up for awhile--I wanna teach someone
that wants to learn!
As for other news, due to Mother's Day being yesterday here in
Argentina, my comp got to call his family yesterday! Sorry fam, but
you'll have to wait a few more months ;)
That's about all I've got for this past week though. Here's to hoping
for happier news next week!
-Elder Powell-

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Semana 57 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!
Wow, this has been one of the toughest weeks yet. We've had to resort to knocking a bunch of doors this week, but it gave us 0% success. All our numbers were low. There was a lesson we taught with an extremely hard-to-teach man that fulfilled what 2 Nephi 9:27-29 says. Lots of appointments cancelled or just weren't there, even though we had members walking around with us a ton to help us out. Not a lot of people in general went to church this weekend (38). We tried having a ward council, but the bishopric postponed it because the required leadership callings still don't exist in the ward, so we have to wait--which means we won't be able to get as many references from the members as we could......yeah, I felt rather beaten emotionally, mentally, and spiritually by the end. It doesn't help that the neighboring sister missionaries that I'm the leader over had numbers literally 4 times as big this last week......from doing the same things as I'm doing too: knocking a ton of doors whenever you can...still trying to discover where the difference is.
I'm not giving in, that's for sure. I know I need to keep doing the things I have to do if I'm ever to leave this rut in the progress of this area, but I've found myself doing a lot of praying for these people so that we can actually get in their homes to help them out in their hectic lives. A quick question to return-missionaries: what're some ideas for finding new investigators when doors don't work? Ideas involving the church building don't really work here either because it's out of the area, out of the way, and there aren't many people that normally pass by the church.
But yeah, that's about all I've got for this week...we're all hoping for a better week coming up.
With love,
-Elder Powell-

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Semana 56 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

Today's the first day of a new transfer so I was at the bus terminal for a large portion of the day saying goodbye to a ton of missionaries and hello to a bunch of incoming missionaries! My district just had 2 leaving out of the 8 of us: 1 sister goes home tomorrow and one of the other elders is headed to Tucumán--Elder Grzelak and I are together for another transfer. The funniest part is that my old comp from Tucumán--Elder Bjorklund--is coming up to be the zone leader now! Go figure :P

Zone conference was nice this past week. Being Elder Grzelak's first, he loved it. There are lots of changes in the day-to-day things that we have to do now. I'm pretty sure these changes are worldwide: officially, we are in charge of teaching new converts the new-convert lessons that they must receive (because the members aren't really teaching them), we must invite the head-of-household before teaching a 2nd time or we don't teach, and we can only take an investigator to church one time during their progress. These are hard, but good changes in protocol and will help out in the long-run.

General Conference went well this weekend. For those that don't know, we watch conference live down here, but for the missionaries from the US, and any others that understand English, there was a tv set up in English for us. It was interesting to see lots of talks on prophets, family strength, raising youth, personal spiritual development, and lots of other wonderful topics. The biggest talk that stands out to me was President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk on bringing down your stress and busy-ness levels. There were plenty of other good ones though, so definitely check them out if you didn't see any of it.

On the flip-side, we're actually getting a little stressed out because the contract for our apartment is ending soon and we need to find another to rent! It's getting tough though because no one is renting anything in the two areas that we are in! Hopefully we'll find something soon!

Well, I love you all! Hope things are going well as you are passing your first month in school/another month more in work :P

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 55 - Mariano Moreno

Hola Todos,

The weeks never cease to be interesting! First off, I'd like to mention a few funny quotes of the week. First, from a less-active sister that is really fun to talk to: I was showing her the church's book of paintings and pictures, and as she hit the prophet's photos in the back, she said "Alright, where's that Thompson!" X) Sister Cruz, it's President Monson :P The other quote was from a random door contact: we asked him what place does God take in his life, his answer was "Monday to Friday--first place...Saturday and Sunday--second place, because there's soccer games!" He isn't the only one that thinks that way too around here!

We had a big combined-ward talent show on Friday that went really well. I made a singing group out of us 4 missionaries and 2 sisters from the other ward and we sang the EFY medley, but in Spanish of course! It turned out really great! And then I couldn't help but also perform my version of 'If you could hie to Kolob' ;)

We then had our ward conference on Sunday. We had 47 in church, which is the 2nd highest it's been since I've been here, and it can definitely be a lot higher. Everything went well though. Unfortunately the day ended terribly with every single one of our appointments failing us......the mission can't be all easy and fun I guess.

We're getting super excited for zone and general conference this upcoming week! Definitely look forward to me just geeking out in next week's letter :P

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 54 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

Wow, what a week! I spent about a total of 24 hours spread across 3 days in training meetings from our mission president this week! And now I've gotta teach what I learned in those meetings to those in my district for the next few weeks in our weekly meeting! It's kinda changing the way that we go about teaching the doctrine to our investigators because we're quickly losing the sense of when the investigators have no idea what we're talking about. So what we do now is we ask a TON of questions during the lesson in order to find their comprehension as well as their doubts. I spent a few days experimenting on the idea, as well as a ton of other things we learned in the training, and I've seen amazing results and success! So I've learned that if you want to be a good teacher, you at least have to follow these two rules: teach people, not lessons, and always be asking good questions.

I finally found a scale the other day: I've gained 10 pounds, yay! :D

We also had a beautiful trip today for p-day. We visited these places called Purmamarca, Tilcara, and Humahuaca (check out the photos!). It took about the whole day, but it was definitely fun!

Not too much else this week (basically because the training took up so much time), just general success throughout the week (and the normal not-so-much-success, but the successful parts definitely make up for it!)!

Love,

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 53 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

We had a big conference with Elder Bradley D. Foster this past week. He taught lots of great things, but having been called just a month ago, he and his wife really struggled to understand and speak Spanish! We had a little meeting with the mission leaders first to talk about a few things, and then we had the big meeting together. The biggest thing that they introduced was this new plan for the ward council meeting that came from the 1st presidency. It was rather helpful because we could see what was missing in our ward and how to use the various people and resources in the ward to help the ward grow. This is really going to change the church here in Argentina! Now if only we had ward council meeting in the first place......

I had my first, second, and third baptismal interviews this week! The sister missionaries in my district are on fire! It's a little embarrassing though, seeing that I'm not having quite as much success here in Mariano Moreno. But, the work goes on! This week will be a little tougher because I actually won't be working at all for a total of 27 hours this week due to a 3-day training for the mission leaders and trainers that our zone, the neighboring zone, and another zone is doing this week. It's gonna be fun though: there's only 13 of us that fall in the category of those that have to go, which makes me feel like President Northcutt is going to just drop cane and make us work harder......I can't wait!!! :P

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 52 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

Well, it's true: according to my counting method, there are 52 weeks in a year......because I just hit my one year mark this past week!!!!!! Unfortunately, we had a fun 2-zone activity that went a little overtime today, so I don't have much time to write more details about the week than what I have written below!

We recently received a new video series from the church called "The District 2", which basically follows this district of 8 missionaries around in their mission in California, showing us the various teaching situations that they're in. The cool part is that it's all real: there aren't any actors at all! I learned a ton from what was shown, and we still have to see a little bit more this Thursday! It killed me though because it seemed there were a lot of nice luxuries in the California missions compared to here!

We also received word that the newly called 2nd counselor in the South America South area, Elder Bradley D. Foster, is coming to the mission to give us a big conference!

We also had a baptism yesterday! His name is Zair Segovia(sounds like sah-eer) and is a 9-year-old son of a less-active family. The baptism actually turned out really great with lots of people there! We'll be confirming him next week! You'll have to ask me for the detailed story sometime later because I really don't have too much time.

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 51 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

Well, this week has been rather rough. About 95% of our appointments didn't happen, and about 90% of our backup plans didn't work either......but we're still going strong! My new companion is from Sárate, Buenos Aires, Argentina! He's doing great and I'm sure we'll have a good couple transfers together. We did have a crazy situation when he came in: I was walking around in a trio on Tuesday, waiting for the phone call to come in letting me know information about him and when he was coming in. Around 7:15, I got a call from my zone leader, asking me if I had picked up my kid yet...I was like "Uhhh...no....no one's called me yet...", to which he replied "uhh......I'll call you right back."!!!!!!! So we started walking right to the terminal anyways--really quick! Moments later, one of the office elders called, telling me that he actually left around 5:30 for Jujuy and should be at the terminal already!!! And then the zone leader called again, telling me that the assistants to the president actually failed in calling anyone from our particular zone about arrival times! So we rushed down to the terminal where we found Elder Grzelak (my companion, that's not a typo either), and another Elder that had to wait for his papi to make the 40-minute trip to Jujuy to pick him up! My area brushes up against the terminal, so we were elected to wait until the other missionaries got there before we could head out, so we had a good conversation! Things are going well though as far as the companionship is going. Being District Leader isn't so hard either, I just have to make a little hour lesson for Thursdays, and that's it basically ;)

I have to say, I'm super-super excited for the new Duty to God program for the young men that just got here this past week!!! I almost want to go back and do it again :P

Well, that's about all that happened this past week. Hope school is starting up well for everyone!

-Love

Elder Powell-

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Semana 50 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

Well, lots of changes are happening to the mission program in general, as well as what's happening in my particular mission experience as well. We now have an interview with our president every 3 months, starting this past week. The interviews will be completely separate from the zone conferences that used to be every transfer but now occur every 3 months, a little offset of the interviews. After my interview (which always seems to be extremely short in comparison to the interviews of other missionaries), I went on divisions with the zone leaders, which was a little bit of a surprise. It turned out alright though, nothing too special. They also recently came out with a new training video series for the missionaries (for those that are familiar, it's The District 2). We've actually received word that the Area Presidency really wants us to focus our study for the next couple weeks on these video clips and to give feedback to the mission president, because the president will be meeting with the area presidency and one of the 12 Apostles to review the effectiveness of the videos!!! It's crazy the kind of contacts you have when you start to be a leader in the church.

Speaking of leadership, big news: I'm finally moving up to be senior comp starting today!!! But it's even crazier: President Northcutt is making me district leader and giving me a brand-new missionary as well to train here in Mariano Moreno!!!!!! Things never get terribly comfortable in the church, but it's a good uncomfortableness :P I'm not sure who my son is, they haven't told me anything yet. I'm thinking he'll be getting in around Tuesday or Wednesday though. So I'll have lots to share next week!

Other than that, things are pretty normal here. The Book of Mormon is still my favorite book ever!!! You have to read it if you never have before!

Love you all,

-Elder Powell-

P.S. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

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Semana 49 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

This week has been fairly normal. The most interesting lessons that we taught this week were between the following:

 

-The less-active parts of the Segovia family. Bro. Segovia is a great-grandpa and had 15 kids between 3 wives!!! That's not the norm down here btw

-Leila. She's 9, incredibly smart, yet very innocent. Elder Contreras and I have decided that her ability to reason is at a gift-from-God status! It's pretty crazy the questions that she asks us sometimes. She has a baptismal goal for Sept. 4th. The only thing is that her dad is not in favor of the decision, saying that she's way too young to make that type of decision. In my personal opinion, she's almost more mature than her once-separated-recently-returned dad. Mom is completely in favor of us teaching her though, so we'll see what happens there.

-the gay man that fell for me fast!!! ¡¡¡¡¡Que asco!!!!! He tried taking a picture of me to put on Facebook......I didn't let him. We left fairly quick...

 

The only other things this week were a couple small guys: we found these amazing mugs that are black to start with, but as you pour in a hot drink, it magically transitions the outside to show the photo of your choice!!! I'm so so tempted to buy it: the only thing stopping me is that I still can't decide what photo I would put on there!!! It's also been quite some time since I've last used an elevator before! All you in the U.S., and other richer regions, be grateful for that amazing invention!

Other than that, not much else went on this week. Love you all!!! Read your scriptures and don't be ignorant of the teachings in there--follow them!!!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 48 - Mariano Moreno

Hola Todos,

Well, right as I was getting settled in and just rocking the house in Villa Alem, I got an emergency transfer call which brought me all the way back up to the capital of Jujuy on Saturday!!! I was a little sad because I had to leave 9 really good investigators that seem like they'll be baptized at the start of September! It was also a big change from a fairly-functional ward with 90 in sacrament meeting to a fairly low 30 in church this last Sunday. What happened was that the 3 missionaries that were waiting for their visas in the U.S. finally got them and arrived in the mission Friday night. Elder Bjorklund was already going to be one of the trainers this transfer, so he gets to train his kid in Villa Alem, booting me up to Mariano Moreno. It was also perfectly fit because the missionary that I'm replacing went to the offices to be trained as the new materials office elder ('materialista' is sooo much easier to say :P ). Elder Contreras, different than the Elder Contreras that was with me in February, is my new comp. He's from Bogotá, Colombia, which is known for the dancing gene that runs through everyone from there. The people are a little more hard-hearted here towards us, but the work goes on anyways!

I got here right in time though: Sunday afternoon, we had a steak 20th-birthday lunch with one of our investigators, that is the daughter of a member-family, and then I had more 'asado' today in a zone activity that was held! So I guess I can't complain too much about the early transfer.

The only other thing I have to report on is how weird an airplane stream looks like in the sky when I haven't seen one for months! That's about it though for this week: Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 47 - Villa Alem

¡Hola Todos!
This week was one of the more memorable weeks of the mission up to this point. Out of the 50ish appointments we had set this week, even more doors being knocked on, and the 20ish houses we actually entered into, none of the people we invited to church actually came yesterday. I even had someone that tried to rob me (I'll let you know the details in a sec)! And even with all these things going on, we were still blessed with 8 investigators that we've never seen before in church: a boyfriend, a complete family of 3, a returning-inactive brother with his whole family, and another lady!!!
About the robbery attempt, it happened at around 6:15 while there was still sun out. We were approaching a corner when the robber passed in front of us walking and kindof looking at us funny. As we passed him, he turned and grabbed my scripture case that I was holding and started running towards his friend that was starting to run a moto in the other direction. I was able to catch up to him before he got to the moto, at which point he threw my scriptures back at me and hopped on the moto and they drove off. We headed straight to the pension and left everything there except for one Bible, 2 missionary copies of the Book of Mormon, and a small amount of pamphlets. We feel a little less like targets now because we really aren't carrying anything of personal value now, but man that was a little tense for a second! We even had the guts to go back the next day around the same time to drop off a thank-you note to the family that came out, gave us water, and talked with us a little until the coast was clear.

We also had to buy a bunk bed this week--what I least expected I would have to do while I sang "I Hope they call me on a Mission" :P President Northcutt has been planning to have 4 elders in this area, but with the shortage of elders (visa problems in the US), it's still just the two of us.

After district meeting this week, we decided to experiment the bus system here to get back to the pension. It's rather difficult to navigate on the busses here because there aren't any route maps. Well, we got on one that seemed to be heading close to where we wanted to go, but quickly realized that we were being taken to the clear other side of the city instead! I'm still a fan of taking the taxi instead!

The Gospel Principles teacher didn't show up on Sunday, so I had to teach a Word of Wisdom lesson on the spot. I was a little worried at first, but the manual is well-written and I was able to make it good and edifying for the new members of the church here. As we were walking around on Sunday, we found a brother that was constructing a little house of wood planks because his contract was ending in the other house that he was living in. Unfortunately, he doesn't have very much money so he just has a couple days to put something together for his family to sleep in from scratch. We jumped on the opportunity and started helping him put up the walls of the little house: he was pretty grateful for the help. He still insisted though that we eat the traditional 'merienda' meal of milk and cookies before we could keep on working on the house! He's a really great man for all the sacrifice he's having to put forth for the family.

That's about all I've got for you this week. Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 46 - Villa Alem

¡Hola Todos!

Well, base jumping went well this week, that is until I got my comp this week! His name is Elder Bjorklund from Holiday, Utah. He was the old financial office elder, but he was in a trio with the new financiero and his other comp in the offices waiting for his kid to come from the states (kid = new elder in the mission). Turns out President Northcutt decided to just send him down here with me so that we wouldn't have multiple trios in the mission. We're not sure if he'll be heading out of here as soon as the new missionaries come down here, or if we'll just stay as comps anyways, but either way, we got right to work in the area. From Wednesday afternoon to Sunday night, the main thing we did was just knock doors all day. We wanted to do it especially because all the kids gets off of their 2-week winter break today, so yeah. We were blessed with a little bit of success, which I'm grateful for because it's been awhile since I've had to do straight-up door knocking--definitely need to practice again. We also recently got to doing a hard-core cleaning of the pension-hace falta (it needs it).

I actually don't really have anything else to write--can't really remember anything special that happened this week. If someone starts showing big progress, I'll have to mention something about them.

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 45 - Villa Alem

¡Hola Todos!

Phew, it seems I've got a lot that happened this week that I need to inform you of! It turns out Elder Perkins has OCD, anxiety, occasional panic attacks, and a recent run of depression, making his mission a rather interesting and difficult one! I spent a few hours Tuesday morning studying the scriptures a bit extra because he couldn't get to sleep until 5:00 and stayed in bed until 9:00 (we're supposed to leave at 8:30 and do studies starting at 3:00). He then had to go to the cyber to write his psychiatrist, which took more than an hour too. Well, Tuesday midday, he got a call from President Northcutt, telling him that he was going home on medical release! I know he mentioned that he was taking the maximum amount of anti-depressants that you can on the mission and apparently it wasn't helping too much, but I'm not sure of the other factors that went into the decision. Either way, he then had to talk to his psychiatrist again, as well as phone his mom to inform her of the emergency transfer home, which ate up our day. He was carted off to the offices Wednesday afternoon, which put me in a trio with the district leader, Elder Mayhoffer, and his comp, Elder Smith. We thought I'd have a comp in a couple days, so we just worked in their area for the next couple of days. They work in an area called Diza, which is the ward that shares the church building with my ward. When we hit our weekly planning session, we figured it would actually be much more time before I got a new companion, so we've now planned to jump between the two areas every once in a while to spread out the work between the two areas. We're even utilizing our two apartments as little home bases for us--it's kinda fun actually! We'll see how everything goes this upcoming week.

 

It got WAY cold this past week--0 to 1 degrees celsius with 93% humidity and occasional rain!!!!!! I couldn't believe that I actually had to put on my underarmor, a long-sleeve button-up shirt, a vest, and my gigantic winter coat with gloves, and I was still cold! I'm used to the dry cold of Spokane, but that humidity is just penetrating!!! This week seems like it'll warm up a little because the sun finally came out, but man that was intense! It even snowed in lots of areas in the mission! My area just had a wet slushing going on, but still!

 

As far as the church building and the ward goes, it's all huge--at least from what I'm used too! My ward had about 70 in church, which was so great! It's nice seeing the organization of everything actually working as well. I went to ask a few things from the bishop (who was called 2 weeks ago!) and he basically directed all my questions and concerns to other people in the ward who could answer them for me! I also ended up playing piano for the Diza ward in their sacrament meeting. We spent Sunday afternoon starting up work in Villa Alem, basically getting to know the members a little better and trying to find the leftover investigators from the last companionship. Again, we'll see what progress we can make this upcoming week. I love my new area though!

 

That's about all for this past week--more details next week!

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 44 - Villa Alem

¡Hola Todos!

That's right, I got transferred! I'm now in the capital city of the province Tucumán. My area of the city is called Villa Alem, and it's definitely colder here! I'll start with this past friday. We were getting a little antsy because we hadn't received the call yet which would tell me if I was leaving or not. We spent all friday preparing a big activity for the branch where we celebrated all the birthdays of the branch. We prepped a slideshow of a bunch of random photos that we took of the members, we had a ton of food, and a few games to play, but unfortunately we had about half the people we were expecting there...perhaps planning the activity on Argentine's independence might have been a bad idea. Oh well, it was a fun night anyways. We finally got the call on Saturday, telling me that I was going and Elder Sangroni was staying in Yuto, making his stay there 9 months--he ends his mission there as well! It was a wonderful and unforgettable experience in Yuto and I'm definitely glad that I was there--for now, my favorite area! It was a little rough trying to pack everything and make my final visits with all the members, but I managed to get it all done. All the families were extremely generous in their farewell gifts, letters, and wishes--I was almost overwhelmed by the love. I even finished off the night with a little surprise party--complete with lomito (a type of meat, like a thin steak) sandwich and a cake! and yes, they popped a balloon full of flour over my head too :P I was very happy with the farewell though.

Just so you guys know, I left my used pair of shoes, a suit coat, the matching pants, the old belt, and one of my 3 underarmor-type shirts there as a donation to the branch, especially Nahuel that is preparing for a mission in about a year. I won't need replacements either--I'm doing fine for now.

The trip down to Tucumán lasted about 9 hours in total. I did fine and landed safely and found the other missionaries, including my new companion, Elder Perkins, waiting. Elder Perkins is a big and tall lad, weighing in at 260 pounds (yes, he told me). He has OCD, so I'll be sure to be nice and cautious in the stressful moments. He's a big teddy bear though--big heart, lots of good desire, and he hugs a lot! We'll have to work together on loosening his Spanish tongue a little as well as finding our way around here because he only has 1 transfer in Villa Alem, but I'm getting excited. It was wonderful to land in the terminal and go to the equivalent of a good-sized grocery store instead of dealing with the smallness of Yuto! Supposedly, Tucumán capital is the largest city in the mission! So we'll see how everything goes.

I've gotta run, but I love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 43 - Yuto

¡Hola Todos!

Well, a couple of relatively big things happened this week. I'll start with the little stuff though to give a good emphasis to the bigger things.

We found a dog randomly sleeping in our bathroom yesterday! We named him Amulek, taking the name from the Book of Mormon, for lack of a better name.

 

I hit my 10-month mark this past week...time still flies by fast--double-digits!!!

 

I had a quiet celebration yesterday, the 4th of July. I had a little flag drawn in my planner that I saw all day, and then I sang all the patriotic hymns in the English hymn book at night. Just getting warmed up for Argentina's independence day, the 9th of July. May 25th apparently was a different thing, sortof related to the independance of the country, but July 9th is their independance day.

We also had a less-active sister actually come to church towards the end of the meeting yesterday! We were talking with her a little bit and she actually offered us lunch yesterday--we happily took advantage of the offer and the opportunity to talk with her more! It seems that she's doing alright. I was particularly interested how she was applying gospel principles to her somewhat-political career! She just needs to come to church now and she'll be perfectly well off--the secret to just about any stress problems these people might have!

 

The first day of this transfer, May 31st, I made a somewhat accurate guess that I would be going to the mission offices next transfer to take the place of the secretary. There are lots of reasons and random coincidences that made me make the guess: it's time for a new secretary, my trainer was the secretary before, the two 1st counselors that came to Yuto before me are in the offices now, one of them went straight from Yuto over there, both of them were companions of my current companion, (quick definition: a group of missionaries is the group that all came to the mission at the same time) the 2 groups ahead of my group and the group behind my group each have an elder in the offices--mine doesn't--many of the missionaries from my group recently changed and became senior companions and a couple are district leaders--I'm still in Yuto and I could leave soon--and, to top it all off, I'm pretty well destined to an office-job in the future! Don't worry, it gets better :P Elder Sangroni called his buddy in the offices this week to see if they knew anything about the new secretary. This is the conversation that followed:

 

(office elder) "We were actually just discussing that. It turns out President Northcutt forgot that we needed to change the secretary. So he asked us to prepare a list of potentials."

(Elder Sangroni) "Wow, well, you should put my companion's name in that list" (I thought, "oh great...")

"Oh, don't worry, that name is already in the list."

"hehe, well, you should vote for his name then."

"Oh, don't worry, I think it's gonna be him."

 

The current secretary was saying it was definitely me, and then a couple days later, the same office elder dreamed that I was the new secretary!!! It was all driving me crazy to be honest! We found out in the end though that it's gonna be another elder from my group, whose name happens to be the name that comes right before mine alphabetically :P So now that that dust has settled, I'm now starting to get anxious to hear transfers this week, especially because we all believe that I'm leaving this transfer. I'll definitely let you all know!

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 42 - Yuto

¡Hola Todos!

Last p-day, we decided to climb this huge water tower in the center of Yuto and got some great night-shots of Yuto! We'll be doing it again sometime to get the daytime shots too!

This week was a little rough. We got hit again with the curse that no one was home! We had divisions on Wednesday, which meant we had 4 missionaries in Yuto. Normally that will give you twice as much work done for the week, but instead, my planner was chock full of suggested names and houses to visit, making up plans A, B, C, D, E, and I think F as well for the day!!!!! It was pretty killer because it happened to Elder Sangroni too, even though he was in a completely different area of Yuto! We found a lot of new investigators this week, but none of them are showing real progress and interest just yet, so we'll just have to be actively patient for the next little bit.

 

We did have a couple exceptions though. The big highlight was the baptism we had yesterday: Jairo Marcelo Palacio. He's the 16-year-old brother of the Gabriel Herrera that we baptized a month ago (wow, time flies). As you can see in the photo on my Picasa account, I got to perform the baptism!!! It was a little scary at first because we had everything ready to go for the baptismal service, the members were there, but he hadn't shown up yet, even though it was 45 minutes late! We headed to his house at that moment and found him there. Luckily, we had the support of the rest of the family, so they kept insuring him that he should get baptized--he finally decided that he was ready and we left for the church. The water was a little chilly, but it was a wonderful experience for everyone.

 

Argentina is kicking butt in World Cup! We just beat Mexico 3-1 to put us into the quarter-finals. I was a little sad to see the defeat of the US team, especially because we actually passed to the top 8 round! But, I get to enjoy the thrill of Argentine victory for now ;)

 

That's about all I've got for now. Take care and have a good week!

Love,

Elder Powell

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Semana 41 - Yuto

¡Hola Todos!

We travelled to the capital of Jujuy as a district last P-day (the capital always has the same name as the province) to visit the sites and visit a few member some of the missionaries knew from past areas. Wow...it's quite spectacular walking around a 3-floored shopping mall when you've been in Yuto for a few months now, where essentially every building is 1-story! Except for the 6 hours spent in travelling there and back, it was a very pleasant visit.

 

We made our final trip to the little town of Caimancito because no one came to church, which caused our president to ask us to focus our efforts in Yuto for now. I'm a little sad that we didn't find anyone that fully progressed there, but I'm also glad to have more time to do things in Yuto again. As we were waiting at the bus stop in Caimán, a man came up to me and started talking to me in English! I had to make a quick switch to English-mode, but we had a nice conversation. It turns out he's one of the English teachers here and I think he was looking for a good practice moment. I tried to talk to him about the church, but I still am finding it extremely difficult not to switch back to Spanish as I start teaching things. Just the other day, an investigator randomly asked me to say a prayer in English. It's been a few months since I've said a prayer in English, and it shows--I struggled through the whole thing!!!

 

As for the world cup, things are going well for Argentina. We smoked South Korea 4-1!!! We had to travel during the game, but we listened to the bulk of it in the colectivo. As we got off, we found 2 other missionaries in the terminal watching the game, so we caught the last 20 minutes, which included Argentina making goals 3 and 4 within 5 minutes of each other! The terminal was packed with tons of people, eyes fixed on the various television screens spread throughout the terminal. As the players got super-close to the goal, lots of desperate moans sound out as a few others started to stand up because of pent up emotion inside of them. As the goals went in, the entire terminal errupted in cheers! Even a few people started dancing and running around in celebration! As the game ended and we started walking towards the chapel, a few fireworks went off and cars and motos were screaming through the streets, blasting their horns as loud as possible--it was pretty sweet witnessing it all! I'm told if we make it to finals, it's going to be just crazy!

 

The other day, I had 'empanadas de yakaré'--that apparently means crocodile! More than anything, it tasted like a really thin steak, but all the same, I get to add that to my list of funky things I've eaten!

 

On a more spiritual note, we were fortunate enough to find a family of 7 this past week that were just great! We decided a few days ago that if any kids said 'hi' to us in the street or called out our names, we would go to their house and share our message with the family. This was one of those cases, and boy did we have a wonderful lesson with them. I'll definitely let you know if the family progresses more!

 

Hope Father's Day went well for everyone! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Powell

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Semana 40 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

So, it turns out I need to write the continuation of last week's letter: we left the cyber last week and headed to the chapel to grab a few things that we had left there. Elder Sangroni asked me to head to the back of the church to check and see if the water drained from the baptismal font alright (from the baptisms the night before). As I headed into the darkened chapel, I got tons of paper shreds thrown in my face! The lights went on and I saw about 40 people waiting for me: the surprise birthday party had begun!!! I was super, super surprised and definitely had a nice finish to my birthday: Yuto rocks!!

 

As some of you may know, the World Cup games in South Africa started up on the 11th. We definitely knew about it! Nothing much happened on Friday, but on Saturday we knew that we wouldn't be able to do much in the morning because Argentina was playing against Nigeria. It just so happens that the game was going on during our lunch, so we got to watch it ;) Argentina took the win 1-0, but they definitely could've played a better game. They made the goal at minute 5, which means nothing much happened for the rest of the 85 minutes of the match! We also caught the last ten minutes of the U.S. vs. England match--a 1-1 tie (which is alright cuz England's pretty good in comparison). We'll defintely be looking forward to more success on the Argentine front in the upcoming weeks!

 

I had a funny little incident a few days ago. We have an inactive member of the church working on repairing the tiling in the chapel's kitchen, so we've had to leave the alarm turned off in the church for the past few days. However, we didn't inform the sisters that clean the chapel that we wanted to keep the alarm turned off for now. We passed by the church on Saturday and at the last second, we wanted to check just to see. We didn't walk into the front door though because we were curious about the other door that's a little bit off to the side that leads directly into the chapel. Normally, when we walk into the front door, the alarm gives off a few little beeps to give us time to type in the code. I couldn't remember if there was a sensor in the chapel or not, but either way, I was expecting the little beeps if there was one to give me time to run over to the codebox. We opened the door, took about 2 steps in, and then an enormously loud alarm siren started sounding off!!! I could feel my blood draining out, from my head all the way down to my legs, because I was startled so bad!!! I ran over and typed in the code super fast to turn it off and avoid more embarrassment! It turns out that although we have a super-loud alarm, no one really does anything about it. The last few times that it's gone off, the police didn't come, we didn't know, and the neighbors likely don't care too much or aren't there anyways. So we're hoping if for some odd reason there's a troublemaker that enters into the church without permission, his heart will be softened to the point that he runs away scared or just faints on the spot!

 

Other than that, not much else happened this week. We did a lot more than usual this week to try to find new investigators, and walked away with less than usual...we've got a good list to visit for this week though, so we're hoping for the best!

 

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 39 - Yuto

¡Hola Todos!

I woke up this morning and thought to myself "I can't believe it...I'm not a teenager anymore......I'm 20.....gah, I'm getting old!!!" ok ok, now I know all of you that are older than 20 just let out a little laugh of "puh-leeze, you've got a long ways to go before you're old", but give me a break, I'm breaking groung here! My birthday went by well today. It was a fairly normal day, but enjoyable nonetheless. As for gifts from here, President Northcutt and his wife send a package of candy to the missionaries on their birthday, so I got that, as well as a family here in Yuto gave me some slippers! They're just a hair small, but they'll still work for just walking and lounging around the apartment.

 

The branch has been making a lot of progress recently. Elder Sangroni and I have put the home and visiting teaching programs into place here and have started seeing success already! We've got all the members making their weekly visits now and I think it will turn out well in the end. We also recently called a new primary and young womens presidency and we're looking to see improvements in their organizations as well. Things are looking bright for the church in Yuto, even though the future in Yuto is fairly dark! I was able to confirm one of the boys that got baptized last week yesterday in church. It's always an interesting experience performing ordinances like that in another language! We were going to have 2 more baptisms yesterday, but due to some rather confusing difficulties, they didn't show up to the baptism. We did all we could, including spending the hour and a half to heat the water for them, but they didn't come, so I just had to settle for a good choir practice instead. It's alright though, the next baptism will happen in our new baptismal font! 2 of the branches in the district joined together a few weeks ago, so the extra supplies in the now unused church are being distributed out. We scored 20 new chairs as well as the new baptismal font that is exactly the same, except for the fact that it's blue and it supposedly has 0 holes in it! We're super-happy that we can knock about 30 minutes off of our prep time for baptisms because we don't have to clean up all the water that spills out of our current font!

 

I have to mention this one girl that we've been teaching in Caimancito. About 2 weeks ago, we left her a Book of Mormon to read, giving her the first chapter to read before our next lesson. When we returned this past week, she had read the first 2 chapters and told us exactly what happened in those 2 chapters from memory with tons of details and everything! It was a very amazing moment because she was right on with her summary and even started to pull out the lessons that you learn from reading those two chapters! I hope she continues because she'll definitely get a lot out of the book. Speaking of which, I also started reading the book again, but this time in Spanish. I'm amazed at the little mini-revelations that I've been receiving in my study of the book, and I can't wait to find out more!

 

Well I've got to run, as usual. Best wishes to the recent graduates of 2010!!! Don't get to excited about the summer ;)

 

Love,

Elder Powell

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Semana 38 - Yuto

Hola todos!
The transfer has already ended--way way too fast! It didn't quite end as we'd like, but it still ended well. We had another person in the hospital, so we got to make a few more trips there. I already described the lack of security there, but it actually gets better: this time, there were a couple of stray dogs wandering the hallways as well as a guy smoking in the middle of the hospital as well! Be grateful if you're near a good hospital where all the doctors don't leave and come back every day as well ;)

We had the big May 25th celebration this past week--Argentine's 200th birthday. The celebration was nice, but absolutely killed the missionary work for the week--nobody was home!

As I said, we've switched to next transfer now--I'm still here in Yuto for at least another 6 weeks with Elder Sangroni, so we'll have a good 4.5 months together. We can already read each other's minds on occasion! I also heard of a lot of the other transfers in the mission: my dad and stepdad (1st and 2nd companions, respectively) died today (flying home because they completed the 2 years), so I'm a little sad about that, but I've got 2 brothers (missionaries trained by the same "dad") to have fun with!

I made a huge plate of french toast for the seminary kids this week to let them try out the maple syrup I made. I received good remarks for the french toast, and about half-good remarks for the syrup--they still prefer dulce de leche.

Sunday was the big day for this week. I had to improvise a full-length primary lesson, but it turned out to be a great lesson on how to have a happy family. I then headed to the chapel where Elder Sangroni informed me that I would be conducting the meeting...as the meeting was about to start! So I rushed to get everything organized and ready, but we had a good meeting as well. I'm sorry to surprise everyone again, but we then had 2 more baptisms after church!!! I'll describe the situation of both baptisms real quick:
About a year ago, the missionaries in Yuto found the Herrera family and started to teach them. They found that the daughter had a lot of interest in the church and just about baptized her, but the parents weren't super-supportive--they eventually stopped passing by the house. Fast-forward to my time in Yuto--we were teaching in another member's house, close-by, when this same daughter came to the house, unexpected and uninvited (but certainly welcome), to listen to the lesson we were going to share. We found her teaching record in our area book, found the house, and started up teaching the family again. The whole family is actually pretty great, but unlike what you're thinking, we actually baptized one of her younger brothers, Gabriel, who has been coming to church on his own for the past few weeks now, even though he's 9 years old! We're looking to baptize more members of the family this transfer. The other boy is Gabriel Vidal. The Vidal family was a reference from our new young woman's president. We started teaching the 3 kids and set their baptismal date for yesterday. Because of a few last-minute complications, we didn't baptize the 2 older daughters, but the son was ready! So yeah, we ended our Sunday nicely!

Hope all is ending well in school! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Powell

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Semana 37 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

Lots of stuff to mention in this week's letter! The circus came to town on Tuesday! Pictures of that and more at picasaweb.google.com/cpu3140

We had divisions on Wednesday to help us get some missionary work as well as branch presidency work done for this week. It was super helpful and we finished off the week with fantastic numbers! We hope to have a few baptisms this upcoming Sunday!

 

Tomorrow is a very important day for Argentina. May 25, 2010 marks 200 years since the first governor of Argentina--the whole town put on a big celebration on Friday because all the school kids had presentations, costumes, and such for the festival. It was really cool to see all the decorations and to share this special holiday with everyone here. I will admit, it was a little awkward when they sang the enormously-long Argentine national anthem...I just kinda stood there, lips shut, listening to their rather quiet voices singing the song--the people of northern Argentina don't really like to sing at any moment it seems. Lots of photos of everything at that website too.

 

We had district conference (equivalent to stake conference) on Sunday, which means we had to organize a whole 'nother 2-hour trip just like General Conference to head out there. The only difference was that we left at 8:00 am...super early for these late-risers! We brought 53 to the conference, which was still a good number, especially because 8 weren't members either! When we walked in, I caught President Northcutt and his wife on the stand, but Elder Diaz of the 70 definitely wasn't there. Turns out his daughter-in-law had an epileptic attack and passed away the day before, so he couldn't make it out here! The conference was still nice though and we heard some nice talks. Our choir was assigned the closing hymn slot. As we walked up there, I noticed that every single person in the choir got stage fright...quick! I didn't realize I had made a mistake in having them memorize the song so that they could follow the director (wasn't me, I was playing the piano). We sang 'Joseph Smith's First Prayer', but I wrote a quick arrangement where it sings normally the first two verses, but then I take a moment in the middle to transition to the music of 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing'. We then finish off the last 2 verses there. The switch was a little rough because I was switching from a 4/4 to a 3/4, from the key of A to the key of C--for musicians, that's a little rough because the switch sounds a little minorish--but I got it to work in the end. The singers all did well even with their stage fright, but as we picked up to sing the 3rd verse, they all skipped the 3rd verse on accident and sang the 4th verse! Luckily they all made the same mistake and just went with it, so I cued the director to just cut off the song there, and no one caught the mistake! We got lots of great comments from everyone, which was definitely relieving. Now I just hope I haven't scarred the choir members for life :P I think they'll be alright.

 

Things are starting to pick up for World Cup season--it starts in a few more weeks! Elder Sangroni has asked a few people this week if they watch World Cup. We were discussing the question though and we realized that the question here actually implies something totally different than expected: he's not asking whether or not they watch World Cup, his implied question is whether they watch every match possible, or just the ones where Argentina is playing! It's super interesting to see how these humble residents of Yuto still have this concept of World Cup embedded in their heads that is distinct from how we view sports in the US. It's kinda close to how lots go crazy about the NCAA tournament in the US, predicting the charts and everything. We've got the charts for World Cup all over down here too. Speaking of different concepts of soccer, another weird question is this one: just like 'What's your name?', 'How old are you?', and "Where are you from?' are basic get-to-know-you questions, another valid and normal question is "¿De qué equipo sos?" (more or less 'What team are you from')! It's as if you're born into a team because you can ask the kids too and they'll name off their team!!! Here in northern Argentina, you normally get one of 2 teams: Boca or River. It's a country-wide rivalry. It's hard to comprehend the rivalry if you're not here, but trust me, it's big.

 

Well that's about all I have to ramble about for now. Have a good week!

-Elder Powell- 

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Semana 36 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

Sounds like you've all had a great week! Hope things turn out alright for the elder in Spokane...I guess I get to count my blessings for being in a super-laid-back pueblito! I have a few more English songs to add to my running list (I have to find something fun to do here ;) ) : "Wake me up when September ends" - Green Day; "Mambo #5"; and "Walkin' on Sunshine".

 

The big event of the week was zone conference--time is just flying!!! We got up early to catch the only bus that headed to our destination at 6:05......wanna guess when the bus finally got to Yuto? Try 8:50, almost 3 hours late!!! So we walked into conference late and had to miss about the first hour--we got there just in time for the first hourly break :P The day before conference, the zone leaders called one of my buddies in the district to organize a musical number for the conference--you really should avoid assigning a musical number the day before! Well, he called me right afterward and we decided to just sing a hymn a capella real quick. We were going to practice before conference to get it down, but...yeah I couldn't get there. So what we had to do was find another room during our 40ish-minute lunch break, practice the hymn and figure out what we were going to sing, and then we sang after one more talk! It turned out great though and we got plenty of thank-yous from President Northcutt. We then had our personal interviews with President Northcutt. He spoiled Elder Sangroni and I with tons of compliments about the work that's being done in Yuto. Apparently the progress we're seeing now in Yuto is the most that has ever been seen there! It turns out President was also considering something totally wild for my comp. He's headed to his house after 2 more transfers (in August), but he already has 4 transfers in Yuto (6 months). As branch president in a small-town place, that's plenty of time to wipe out a missionary. President Northcutt wants him to stay a little bit more, but he considers it suicide to transfer a missionary for his last transfer (it's true). He's been praying a lot to know what should be done, but nothing has come. So instead, he gave the choice to my comp--to go now, or stay till the end!!! For those that are unfamiliar, that just doesn't happen--you don't really ever get the chance to choose where you go. My comp decided to stay in Yuto--he loves it here and was already talking about how great things would be if he could stay. So it's been decided--he'll be here for 3 more months. That means a lot of things for me: I could leave now to open up time for another counselor to be trained by my comp, I could stay longer than my comp still and inevitably become the branch president, or a couple other combination of things! It's pretty crazy! We left zone conference super-excited about things. We took a bus to the exit to Yuto and had to wait an hour until someone drove us in. I finished off the night making maple syrup--thanks fam!!! :D

 

Caimancito is still seeing a lot of progress. We have had 100% entrance in every door we've approached so far! Granted they're all friends of a member that has been coming with us there, but still, they're all curious and want to hear more! We have a few showing genuine interest in coming to church too, but it still hasn't happened yet. We've seen super-interest from this 20-year-old girl, Daiana, and her 19-year-old sister, Graciela. It's a little rough for them because they're living alone essentially and they each have a kid--one of them was born 3 months early, but seems to be doing alright right now at 2 years old. They keep telling us they'll for sure be coming to church, but they still haven't made it yet. We'll keep working with them for sure.

 

I had a rather interesting discovery the other day: 3 Nephi 17:11-12 (Book of Mormon), the people are situated in a circle around their children, with Christ in the middle of them all. It's a symbol: As we find ourselves situated in the outer circle, we need to focus our attention on our children and how they act (I think of Mosiah 3:19 (again, Book of Mormon)), but also on the ultimate and perfect example--Jesus Christ himself.

 

I had a talk in church yesterday on sacrifice and it turned out super-great :) I'm starting to gather a good collection of research for various topics--I'm loving it!

Well, that's all I have for this week. Hope everyone is finishing up school well!

Love,

Elder Powell

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Semana 35 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

We discovered a possible reasoning why 'sister-in-law' (all of this also works for brother-in-law too) means 'cuñada' in Spanish: the word 'cuña' means 'wedge' in English, so 'cuñada' is saying that the sister-in-law is trying to wedge her way into the family! I thought it was pretty funny.

 

Just like I had San Lorenzo as a little extra part of my area in La Loma, there's also a place called Caimancito that is also a part of my area, even though it's a 30-minute bus ride in between. We headed to Caimancito this past week with a member who used to live there and we actually had a ton of success. We had 6 new investigators turn up there! So it seems like we'll be received well there, the trick is finding those prepared to travel to Yuto every Sunday to go to church...there's usually always something tricky about the situation. We also found a less-active family there too, so it seems we'll be working through them as well.

Speaking of traveling far, our investigator, Alicia, who needed to get married or separate has already made the decision to separate...and she's already left to a city called Palpalá! We were surprised by her quick departure, but it will be good for the kids to experience the city.

 

This weeks service project was digging a 2-meter deep and 2-yard wide hole for a bathroom! I'm telling you, there's no place like Yuto!!! I'll be getting a photo of it this week. In the meantime, I have plenty of other photos at picasaweb.google.com/cpu3140.

 

We recently received our church's computer back from Buenos Aires from a month of repair time. We found out even more recently that the modem is now disfunctional so we can't send or receive anything to Buenos Aires now! We're supposed to buy a new modem using our branch's budget, but the credit card has been blocked because we didn't send any financial info to the church during the month that we didn't have our computer--talk about complicated!!! We've sent a backup of our financial info to Buenos Aires and we should be getting the problem fixed somewhat soon, but holy cow this is frustrating a lot of work that we need to do!

 

We had an awesome mutual activity this past weekend. For the past week and a half, Elder Sangroni and I have been planning and taking pictures of Yuto for a photo scavenger hunt. We had 7 locations picked out, all close by a member's house because the two teams had to find where the photo was taken first, and then they'd go to the member's house, tell them where it was, (in one of the houses, they had to share a scripture too), and then they would receive their next photo clue. We were pretty brutal though--they were walking in circles all around Yuto instead of in a nice straight line! They took about 2 hours to find them all, so while they were out searching, Elder Sangroni and I actually left the church as well and did some teaching to pass the time--talk about working both our callings at the same time!!! The kids cheated a little, and a few got lazy and left in the middle of everything, but I'd still say the activity turned out to be a success!

 

Well, that's about all for this past week. Hope things are going well in everyone's lives! I'll have zone conference (and a new cellphone!) for this next week!

Love,

Elder Powell 

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