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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