¡Hola todos!
Well, I’ve got a few responses to dad’s letter first. First off, if anything big happens in the world, you have to tell me because there’s only a 10% chance that me or another missionary will hear it from another person or see it on a tv somewhere. I just learned yesterday that something bad happened in Haiti and I just learned from the missionary next to me right now that there was an earthquake there. I loved Matt’s emails though—I’d like to keep reading them if you’re willing to keep sending them. It sounds like he’s finding and doing similar things I’m finding and doing here: kindof going around randomly, finding random people and their strange situations, lots of lines everywhere, dog issues all over, lessened sense of hygiene, drug problems every couple blocks, random service every once in awhile (although I guess there’s a difference between carrying a lady’s grocery bags and jumping out of the car to stitch up a forehead and reduce a dislocated shoulder!), and above all, spiritually-guided improvisation! Hope all turns out ok over there. Speaking of seeing things on the tv though, I did see a quick news flash that Osama bin Laden is still making threats towards the US. Is that becoming news up there?Good luck to Drew with all his auditions—crunch time baby! For the record, he hasn’t been emailing me ;) No se preocupen.Not sure why p-day changed, but it was by suggestion of the missionary department of the church, so…yeah. He actually had a lot of suggestions from them recently relating to the organization of the mission too. As for doing the Book of Mormon project in our native language, it’s so that we can easily discern the references to Christ and the doctrine as well. I’m totally fine with doing it in English if you ask me!Y el discurso que di durante la reunión sacramental : yo puedo dar discursos en castellano sin mucho problema. No es una sorpresa que tuve que dar un discurso. Tengo la habilidad para explicar basicamente mis sentimientos y pensamientos. Solo es que no puedo hablar con frases muy complicadas. Pero, bueno, un testimonio no necesita ser muy complicado para ser fuerte, ¿verdad?To answer Nick’s question: yes, I can speak Spanish fast now…as long as I know what I want to say ;) We made Mexican tacos using soft shells at this one lady’s house. Elder Young absolutely loves Mexican food and the spiciness that comes with it. However we discovered the reason why I was called to this part of Argentina: most of the people here really find it difficult to eat spicy food! It was good though. One of the 8-year-old members was baptized on Saturday. The service was really nice. I was asked about 15 minutes before it started to give a quick talk on the Holy Ghost though! I got my thoughts prepared and everything, and then the bishop got up to announce the program and said I was speaking on baptism! Talk about on-the-spot!!! It turned out fine though. The dad of the kid organized the speakers, but as he told the bishop, there was a miscommunication and the two speakers got switched. Both turned out fine though. Today is the first day of my 3rd transfer. Elder Young has left to tackle Santiago del Estero. My new companion will come in later today. His name is Elder Contreras and he’s from Chile. I’ll have more details on him next week. I’m still here in La Loma though. Looking forward to 2 baptisms here pretty quick though. I’ll let you know as soon as more details come in.
I love you all!
-Elder Powell
January 25, 2010
Semana 20-Salta
Hola Todos,
Congrats to Parker Geren heading to Phoenix, AZ!!! He definitely needs to write Elder Case so he can get a headstart on the people and the places there! And Matt Rawlins got sent to Haiti as the…mission president…? What a fantastic surprise for everyone! I have lunch from 1:00 – 3:00 everyday so I chunk out a lot of the siesta time, but there’s no way I could give up that time!
Well as for me, I’ve got a few things for this week. One of the members gave me the name ‘Powell Ranger’ because the way that these people struggle to say my last name, it comes out sorta like ‘Power’, so yeah, I’m Powell Ranger now! Thanks for the x-mas cards everyone—they finally got in this week :P Most of the people here have never seen a camelback either. I walked into a door this week and they lady asked (pointing to the tube) ‘what do you have, oxygen?’ X) Ran into my first Buddhist the other day! He didn’t give me a chance to talk. As we were walking by the church the same day, we started talking with the guy hired to cut the grass. Turns out he’s from the Orthodox church in Ukraine! I guess the government is just messed up over there so he headed out here…kinda random though!
We had zone conference on Thursday and I loved it. I’m surprised that it’s already come and gone though! We started a new project as a mission: every missionary was given a Book of Mormon in their own language and we’re going through it marking all the names/references to Jesus Christ in red and marking all the doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in blue. We plan to have the project done by 4 transfers (24ish weeks). I’m already in 2 Nephi 2 and I’m just loving it! I’ll letcha know how it goes!I gave a talk in church on Sunday. It was pretty good, but I definitely hit language barrier issues as I was trying to talk. Good thing Elder Young was there to clean up my mess ;)We cut this lady’s grass yesterday…it was incredibly tall…and we were cutting with a weed whacker and macheties! Appreciate your lawn mowers in the U.S.!A couple other things happened this past week, but I’ve gotta run!
Love you all!
-Elder Powell
-P.S. Just found out P-Day is changing to Monday!!!!!! Make notice of it.
Congrats to Parker Geren heading to Phoenix, AZ!!! He definitely needs to write Elder Case so he can get a headstart on the people and the places there! And Matt Rawlins got sent to Haiti as the…mission president…? What a fantastic surprise for everyone! I have lunch from 1:00 – 3:00 everyday so I chunk out a lot of the siesta time, but there’s no way I could give up that time!
Well as for me, I’ve got a few things for this week. One of the members gave me the name ‘Powell Ranger’ because the way that these people struggle to say my last name, it comes out sorta like ‘Power’, so yeah, I’m Powell Ranger now! Thanks for the x-mas cards everyone—they finally got in this week :P Most of the people here have never seen a camelback either. I walked into a door this week and they lady asked (pointing to the tube) ‘what do you have, oxygen?’ X) Ran into my first Buddhist the other day! He didn’t give me a chance to talk. As we were walking by the church the same day, we started talking with the guy hired to cut the grass. Turns out he’s from the Orthodox church in Ukraine! I guess the government is just messed up over there so he headed out here…kinda random though!
We had zone conference on Thursday and I loved it. I’m surprised that it’s already come and gone though! We started a new project as a mission: every missionary was given a Book of Mormon in their own language and we’re going through it marking all the names/references to Jesus Christ in red and marking all the doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in blue. We plan to have the project done by 4 transfers (24ish weeks). I’m already in 2 Nephi 2 and I’m just loving it! I’ll letcha know how it goes!I gave a talk in church on Sunday. It was pretty good, but I definitely hit language barrier issues as I was trying to talk. Good thing Elder Young was there to clean up my mess ;)We cut this lady’s grass yesterday…it was incredibly tall…and we were cutting with a weed whacker and macheties! Appreciate your lawn mowers in the U.S.!A couple other things happened this past week, but I’ve gotta run!
Love you all!
-Elder Powell
-P.S. Just found out P-Day is changing to Monday!!!!!! Make notice of it.
January 12, 2010
Semana 19- Salta
¡Hola Todos!
The clothes are holding up pretty well. One of my shoes is already showing signs of wear, but not really that bad though. I’ve pretty much just resorted to wearing my washable pants all the time because of all the rain that comes down. I’m only bringing out the suit for zone conference so far. Yes, other’s are writing me...occasionally, but it’s ok. The letter from the family suffices. No, I haven’t been sick yet—even though I’ve been completely drenched a few times now. If anything, I’m just U.S. sick because the siesta here is ridiculously annoying. For example, today we did so much running around to do shopping and such—followed by a big CTF/water balloon fight—that we just wanted to order some food for lunch and call it good. We tried everywhere and their wasn’t a single place open to get food......if I haven’t explained this before, the siesta in this area starts around 1:00 and ends about 5:30. During this time, all shops close down, even in el centro (downtown essentially), everyone goes home and sleeps all afternoon. Everyone we talk to always complains about how they are working all the time...if only the siesta didn’t exist they wouldn’t have so much of a problem...especially with a bunch of American missionaries wanting to buy things from them!
About the Gospel Principles manual, you asked if I used it in priesthood—are you talking about using it before I left or right now down here? We’re using it right now down here as well and I love it as well, especially because a lot of the members of the church could benefit from learning more about the basic principles of the gospel.
Have fun travelling around for Drew’s auditions! It’d be cool to see all the different sites, I’m sure!Mom, if you send me a recipe, give it to me in grams, not mL—there’s almost no mL markings at all down here—just liters, grams, and kilograms. Thanks for forwarding my emails too!
About my week—nothing too big has happened this past week. Walking, teaching, trudging through rain, committing 12ish people to come to church—and just 1 comes, chuckling at the incredibly plastered and drunk people we occasionally run into, and doing it all in Spanish :) Found out I’m speaking in sacrament next week! We were teaching this one lady and noticed something interesting in her pantry. We asked her where she got it and she said a friend of hers that often visits from the U.S. always brings it with him. She then gave a bottle to us and insisted we take it because he would be giving her another one anyways. We happily accepted the gift and walked out with a full bottle of maple syrup!!!!! We’ll be making some pancakes here fairly soon ;)
Sorry I don’t have anything else...zone conference is this week and the transfer ends in 12 more days!
Have a great week everyone!!!
Love,Elder Powell
P.S. ¡Feliz Cumpleaños Nick!
The clothes are holding up pretty well. One of my shoes is already showing signs of wear, but not really that bad though. I’ve pretty much just resorted to wearing my washable pants all the time because of all the rain that comes down. I’m only bringing out the suit for zone conference so far. Yes, other’s are writing me...occasionally, but it’s ok. The letter from the family suffices. No, I haven’t been sick yet—even though I’ve been completely drenched a few times now. If anything, I’m just U.S. sick because the siesta here is ridiculously annoying. For example, today we did so much running around to do shopping and such—followed by a big CTF/water balloon fight—that we just wanted to order some food for lunch and call it good. We tried everywhere and their wasn’t a single place open to get food......if I haven’t explained this before, the siesta in this area starts around 1:00 and ends about 5:30. During this time, all shops close down, even in el centro (downtown essentially), everyone goes home and sleeps all afternoon. Everyone we talk to always complains about how they are working all the time...if only the siesta didn’t exist they wouldn’t have so much of a problem...especially with a bunch of American missionaries wanting to buy things from them!
About the Gospel Principles manual, you asked if I used it in priesthood—are you talking about using it before I left or right now down here? We’re using it right now down here as well and I love it as well, especially because a lot of the members of the church could benefit from learning more about the basic principles of the gospel.
Have fun travelling around for Drew’s auditions! It’d be cool to see all the different sites, I’m sure!Mom, if you send me a recipe, give it to me in grams, not mL—there’s almost no mL markings at all down here—just liters, grams, and kilograms. Thanks for forwarding my emails too!
About my week—nothing too big has happened this past week. Walking, teaching, trudging through rain, committing 12ish people to come to church—and just 1 comes, chuckling at the incredibly plastered and drunk people we occasionally run into, and doing it all in Spanish :) Found out I’m speaking in sacrament next week! We were teaching this one lady and noticed something interesting in her pantry. We asked her where she got it and she said a friend of hers that often visits from the U.S. always brings it with him. She then gave a bottle to us and insisted we take it because he would be giving her another one anyways. We happily accepted the gift and walked out with a full bottle of maple syrup!!!!! We’ll be making some pancakes here fairly soon ;)
Sorry I don’t have anything else...zone conference is this week and the transfer ends in 12 more days!
Have a great week everyone!!!
Love,Elder Powell
P.S. ¡Feliz Cumpleaños Nick!
January 5, 2010
Semana 18- Salta
¡Hola Todos!
I loved your 2 left-feet skiing story! I can’t believe it worked out for you! To answer Nick’s question—no I don’t really watch tv or movies on the mission. Occasionally someone is watching tv in a house I’m about to teach or eat in and I catch a glimpse, but not really much. To answer Jason’s—I don’t know exactly when I’m going to change companions. We’re guessing it’ll be January 25th, but there’s still a chance that it won’t happen. I don’t know about staying in Salta either. The way things work is that every 6 weeks, we have what’s called ‘traslados’ or transfers, where the mission president decides where everyone’s going to work for the next 6 weeks—whether we’ll stay where we’ve been or whether we’ll head somewhere else. We don’t find out until a few days before the 6th week is over. The next transfer starts January 25th, so yeah! Have fun with the stake primary choir—that’ll be way fun!That’s cool that Jon Schmidt is in town though!I thought the car break-in was crazy! Was it just a crack in the window that they used to unlock from the inside? Reminds me of when I lost my CD case—only I had 75% of the music backed up...cuidado
Well, I finally got around to buying that camelback...for $170 pesos which is about $44!!! I love how things are cheaper here! I read that Peacegiver book you gave me...in 2 sittings of a few hours each :P Amazingly good, definitely recommend you read it!
New Year’s was nice. It turns out we had another dog-following-us story, only with two other elders in the district. A member has this dog that really is not that big, but apparently it follows the elders all around and acts as their guard just dominating all the other dogs! Well, it followed them back to the pension and we couldn’t take it back because mission rules kept us from leaving the pension due to security. Así que, we had a dog sleep over with us! The fireworks scared him to death though, so he slept underneath one of the elder’s bed! I filmed the fireworks for a little bit and I’ll work on getting that out. We woke up and cleaned a plaza up as 2 zones as a service project. Afterward we had about 40 poorer kids playing with us and we handed them out a bunch of candy—it was a fun morning.
January 2nd marked my 4-months in the mission—1/6 of the way through already!!! Super super fast!!! A bunch of kids are asking me for these little music-reading cheat-sheets I’ve written up. Apparently they’re learning from it too!
Scratch what I said about Argentines not liking the banana bread, I think the member lady we fed at first just didn’t like to eat super-sweet stuff :P We had another family think it was great and asked for the recipe! It’s a little tough to make it at their house though when the recipe is in American cooking units and they’re all about using grams! ¡Espero que todo tenga un lindo año nuevo!
-Elder Powell-
I loved your 2 left-feet skiing story! I can’t believe it worked out for you! To answer Nick’s question—no I don’t really watch tv or movies on the mission. Occasionally someone is watching tv in a house I’m about to teach or eat in and I catch a glimpse, but not really much. To answer Jason’s—I don’t know exactly when I’m going to change companions. We’re guessing it’ll be January 25th, but there’s still a chance that it won’t happen. I don’t know about staying in Salta either. The way things work is that every 6 weeks, we have what’s called ‘traslados’ or transfers, where the mission president decides where everyone’s going to work for the next 6 weeks—whether we’ll stay where we’ve been or whether we’ll head somewhere else. We don’t find out until a few days before the 6th week is over. The next transfer starts January 25th, so yeah! Have fun with the stake primary choir—that’ll be way fun!That’s cool that Jon Schmidt is in town though!I thought the car break-in was crazy! Was it just a crack in the window that they used to unlock from the inside? Reminds me of when I lost my CD case—only I had 75% of the music backed up...cuidado
Well, I finally got around to buying that camelback...for $170 pesos which is about $44!!! I love how things are cheaper here! I read that Peacegiver book you gave me...in 2 sittings of a few hours each :P Amazingly good, definitely recommend you read it!
New Year’s was nice. It turns out we had another dog-following-us story, only with two other elders in the district. A member has this dog that really is not that big, but apparently it follows the elders all around and acts as their guard just dominating all the other dogs! Well, it followed them back to the pension and we couldn’t take it back because mission rules kept us from leaving the pension due to security. Así que, we had a dog sleep over with us! The fireworks scared him to death though, so he slept underneath one of the elder’s bed! I filmed the fireworks for a little bit and I’ll work on getting that out. We woke up and cleaned a plaza up as 2 zones as a service project. Afterward we had about 40 poorer kids playing with us and we handed them out a bunch of candy—it was a fun morning.
January 2nd marked my 4-months in the mission—1/6 of the way through already!!! Super super fast!!! A bunch of kids are asking me for these little music-reading cheat-sheets I’ve written up. Apparently they’re learning from it too!
Scratch what I said about Argentines not liking the banana bread, I think the member lady we fed at first just didn’t like to eat super-sweet stuff :P We had another family think it was great and asked for the recipe! It’s a little tough to make it at their house though when the recipe is in American cooking units and they’re all about using grams! ¡Espero que todo tenga un lindo año nuevo!
-Elder Powell-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)