Semana 81 - Villa Muñecas

¡Hola Todos!

Well, my first week here has gone well. I'm actually extremely busy trying to organize a lot of people to visit. The last elder left a bunch of investigators and members to visit, and in the course of last week, I also discovered a bunch of recent converts, less-active members, and references that need to be visited as well! It's going to be an interesting next week!

Random thing that identifies me as Argentine--I'm using the bottom of our iron as a mirror so that I can shave :P

I've had a couple opportunties to improve my cooking skills this week, and the food is coming out good ;) I can't wait to host Argentine food week at home!

I'm having to get used to being around a lot of missionaries again, the Tucumán Oeste zone meets together often to have meetings and to see each other on p-days. It's a nice feeling though. It's kinda nice being in the big city again, but it also kills on the door knocking. Oh well, just gotta go get it done!

Sorry, I'm a little short on time today. I love you all though!

-Elder Powell-

P.S. Make sure you make it to GENERAL CONFERENCE this weekend!!!!!! It's going to be awesome!

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Semana 80 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

This last week was pretty nice, especially because we never saw the sun last week (yay cooler temps!), and because we baptized a mom of 2 recent converts to the branch as well as another son of her's! She's been investigating the church for about a year now, but hasn't really been too involved in the process until recently. They're doing great now :)

The only bad news is that I'm now writing this email from a different city now: I've been transferred!!! President Northcutt actually sent both Elder Macias and I out of our area and is putting a former-zone leader in with a kid to white-wash the area! So I've been stressing out the last 2 days over making sure that all of our teaching records are up to date, and organizing all of the necessary information (map, schedule of week one, and other random stuff) so that he can work from square 1! I hope everything turns out alright for everyone there. Elder Macias got sent to Santiago del Estero (from Tartagal, about 12 hours in the bus!), and I'm in Tucumán again in an area called Villa Muñecas (Doll-Ville). My new comp is Elder Brown from Rockhill, South Carolina. He's a cool kid that just came to Argentina a transfer ago (so I'm his step-dad). He's actually looking to get into the animation program at BYU-Provo, so we're able to find stuff in common easily ;). We're looking forward to having a great time in the area, especially because everything is bigger and nicer in Tucumán, compared to the north! I'm also hoping to actually be able to stay here for a time, unlike my last spree in Tucumán, when I got yanked out of Villa Alem a month into the transfer......I still grumble a little about it because they've had an incredible amount of success in that ward--it's huge and functioning! No worries though, Villa Muñecas will get up there too ;)

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 79 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

This was a great week, as far as mission progress goes. We had our zone conference this last week. It's always a wonderful opportunity to see other missionary friends and learn a ton from the leaders of the mission. It was kinda sad though because I realized that the sister missionaries from my MTC district are going home next week--way too fast! Elder Anderson, who was in my MTC district, is another district leader in the zone, so both he and I said goodbye to Hermana Hanson, who was there as well and was in our district. Crazy to think we're on the home stretch now! But we'll keep focused for sure ;)

The district members were a little sick this last week, but we're managing alright. The weather isn't really cooperating: all last week, it was scorching hot, until Sunday morning when it just dumped and incredible load of water along with a cold wind blowing! It's still a little 'fresco' (chilly) outside, and I love it!

I too heard about the disaster in Japan. What a crazy thing! Everyone keeps asking us what we think about the events that have been going on there: everyone here is scared about the end of the world. Just like when "2012" came out and everyone checked with us to see if the world really would end that year, everyone's checking our opinion on Japan, Haiti, Chili, and every other major disaster that happens. Just listen to the latter-day prophets, they know exactly what you need to do to be ready physically and spiritually for the upcoming events.

I got a chance to weigh myself again......I'm still stuck at the same weight that I've been at for the past few years now...man, not even Argentine weight-gain diet does the trick!

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 78 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

The big pension-move happened this last week! We got everything in one of these special moving-truck taxis and moved in in about 2 hours! Now it's just my comp and I in a little apartment. I like how peaceful it is though. I just so happened to move right on my year and a half mark......man I feel old!

We also carried out what we call a white storm in a little area nearby called Aguaray because the elders there are getting a little discouraged about the low success they're having. All 10 of us from the district got together there, and under the organization of the 2 elders there, we split up in 5 regions of the area and just worked craziness--looking for less-actives, asking for references, knocking on doors, and visiting investigators--and we worked for about 3 hours doing all of that. It worked out pretty well for them.

I got through the Pearl of Great Price this week for the first time in my life. Lots of cool little pieces of doctrine in there!

Not much else happened this week, just lots of attempts that didn't quite work like we had hoped......oh well, here another try!

We're getting excited because we have zone conference tomorrow! Can't wait to just get blown away again by President Northcutt!

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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