Semana 73 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!
This week was better than what I've had for the past little bit. We
got lots of work done, including getting the over-grown weeds and
grass cut in front of our pension :P
We were blessed this week with a great baptism! Osvaldo Naranjo is the
dad of a part-member family, so it's a big step for them. I didn't
realize how big of a baptism this would be for the people here, until
this week I started hearing things like "Osvaldo's getting baptized?!
No way! He's been investigating for about 4-5 years! He was my old
professor/my son's professor. He's my mechanic. I never would've
thought this day would come!", and a bunch of stuff like that! He's a
really great guy that has found a love of reading the scriptures. He
was especially surprised and excited when we presented to the family a
Bible and a Book of Mormon in an extra-large size because they have
trouble seeing things! He's been excited too to get right to work in
the church, so we're planning on using him well ;) The baptismal
service was actually one of the smoothest services I've ever had on
the mission--normally there's something crazy that happens! But no,
everything was just nice and pleasant :)
We were also blessed with various new investigators, so we have people
to teach and prepare in Osvaldo's place, as well as the other
investigator we're planning on baptizing this next weekend!
Can't wait for interviews tomorrow, and receiving transfer calls this
week (I'm always curious to see the changes in the mission)! Gollee
time is flying by!
Love you all!
-Elder Powell-

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Semana 72 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

Well, this was a rather miraculous week! To start, we were protected during crazy weather conditions. On Tuesday, it was super-rainy in the morning, but as the afternoon hit, the sun came out and blasted the clouds out of the way, making it extremely humid. And then all that evaporated rain hit us again, but even harder this time, on Thursday morning, right at the point where we needed to get back to the pension. I didn't have any raingear on, so I just gave in and let myself get completely drenched in the middle of the street. I felt rather special as I just sang in the rain and as the rest of the Argentines just stared at us, probably thinking we were going crazy! I was just loving the fact that it wasn't hot! The next day, I kid you not, I saw in total about a few hundred thousand of butterflies heading in a southern direction! We're guessing that they were migrating, or something, but for a few hours, butterflies just kept appearing out of nowhere from the north! And then Sunday, all the rain hit hard again early in the morning. If there's anything that spooks Tartagal citizens, it's lots of rain and water. Last year, a huge landslide ('alud' in Spanish, I tell you because there are youtube videos of the news footage) came through and just destroyed Tartagal. The people almost never leave now if there are heavy rains. The rain alone killed assistance at church, bringing a total of 40 people between our two branches and the entire city of Tartagal! We just held a combined sacrament meeting and called it good because there really weren't enough people to hold the other classes! As we were waiting about an hour for the decision to be made to combine the two branches, I decided that the silence in the chapel was a little awkward, so I just decided to start playing prelude music until something happened. Well, it turns out I never left the bench for that hour, right up until we started the meeting. It was a little hard finding enough hymns to play for an hour, but I managed! The miracle came halfway through that meeting: 4 investigators showed up!!!!!!! 2 of which are getting baptized within the next 2 weeks--talk about faithful ;) 3 of them are actually the dad and nephews of a member-family and were brought by them, so I was glad they were able to get to church.

We're having some success with our investigators. We're hoping to have a baptism this week. It's this older guy that has been investigating the church for a really long time, but he was finally able to get over his chewing-coca-leaves addiction! We're hoping for the best.

We're looking forward to another good week. Good luck during your last week of January (time flies, doesn't it? :P )

-Elder Powell

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Semana 71 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

We had a fun little p-day last Monday. We went to the church and made Chilean hot dogs (regular hot dog with tomato, lettuce, lemon, mayonaise, ketchup) and sugar cookies (thanks Mom!), and we watched church movies for a couple hours! Super great on the projector screen!

We did our zone meeting in Orán on Thursday, where we make the 3-hour trip down to chat with other missionaries, listen to a quick lesson from the zone leaders (one of them is actually from my MTC group), wait a couple hours for our bus to get there, and make the 3-hour trip back home! It's nice seeing everyone, but the trip almost isn't worth the time it takes...

As for the missionary work, we're getting a lot of support from the members here, it really helps a lot. We're working on a new method of knocking on doors, basically leaving a pamphlet with the people that tell us to come back another time so that we have something to talk about the next time we come back. It's rather simple, but I think it's making a difference. We'll see!

It got hot again this week...Everyone should be grateful that they don't live--let alone work--in such hot conditons! I'm surviving though--enjoying my nice farmer's tan ;)

Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 70 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

This has been a pretty nice week. We had lots of people to visit. Sorry if it seems a little boring, but you just have to have served a mission to know how a regular week feels.

Our whole district of 10 was invited by the district president on Thursday for a big lunch--way fun! I was surprised that he did it, but it turned out great!

We had a nice surprise training from President Northcutt and his wife on Saturday. He's trying to get us on the new teaching patterns that the church has come out with, so he came straight to Tartagal to work with our district! I'm working on making the changes that I need to, but it's a little tough being a good enough teacher to help these people change their way of life to something better! President Northcutt also made an appearance at church as well! It just so happened that our Gospel Principles teacher didn't come to church, so I had to improvise a lesson with President Northcutt sitting in on the lesson! I was a little nervous, but it turned out good. He also spoke in sacrament meeting and gave a powerful talk about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon often. He gave us a ride home afterward--I felt privileged ;) I also forgot to note that our pension got a bad cleanliness rating from our district leader, so President and Sister Northcutt came and checked out the pension after the training on Saturday. It's a good thing we had already suspected that they would do it, so we were able to get a deep-cleaning of the pension done before they came! It was really weird seeing President Northcutt walk into my bedroom--just seemed a little frightening! :P They were content though, so we're relieved!

That's about all I have though, hope this week goes well for everyone!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 69 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

This week was super-funky. Every single day was cloudy and/or rainy!!! I didn't need to take my hat out at all!!! Too bad today heated up again, I would've loved a couple weeks of "fresco" as they say here, basically meaning just a little cool!

It was rough doing missionary work this week because everyone had plans for the New Year. We found lots of old investigators though that we could teach and help out, so that was good.

We celebrated the New Year at our pension again. It was almost a perfect repeat of Christmas, except that the zone leaders didn't come, and we made tacos at the church! It was nice though. Really weird thinking that I'm entering into the same year that I'll be going home in! It just makes me feel really old, especially because yesterday I hit my 16-month birthday, leaving only 8 to go!

Once again, we had low attendance in church. I don't know what the people are thinking, but I'd picture the first Sunday of the year to be a good opportunity to make good habits. Oh well, I enjoyed it at least.

My new comp is really nice. Elder Macias is from La Plata, Buenos Aires, and has a really quiet personality, which is completely opposite from your stereotypical "porteño" (resident of Buenos Aires). He just has three months in the mission, but I'm already his 3rd comp in the field!

Don't really have anything else for this week. Hope the New Year's celebration went well for everyone!

Love,

Elder Powell

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