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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