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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Semana 64 - Villa Saavedra

Hola Todos,

Another solid week. We didn't have those baptisms like we were hoping, but we have lots that are still super-close to getting wet! The big highlight of the week was Thanksgiving. We initially planned on finding a turkey to kill, cook, and eat, but that didn't happen, so we tried to settle on a duck...cancelled on us at the last minute, so we just went with the oven-cooked chicken and ham, but it turned out delicious. We also bought stuff to make deviled eggs, corn on the cob, rolls, mashed potatoes, salad, jello, pudding, and cinnamon rolls! WAAAAY delicious, and all homemade ;) What really made the night though was that we invited and had in total 11 elders in the pension at night, and all slept over and left the following morning! So it turned out way great for us! With the passing of Thanksgiving, we've started listening to Christmas music officially. It really helps to block out all the heat we've been getting here. Just the other day, it was 125 degrees outside! But luckily, we finally got this air conditioning unit hooked up that we got as an extra from another area! It's raining today as well, so things are starting to cool down for a little bit. Too bad it'll get hot again really fast.

The only bad thing that really happened this last week was that a bee stung me right underneath my left eye! We were sitting outside and a member invited us to drink some Sprite with him. Sure enough, as he poured us glasses, a ton of bees showed up--we're talking like 30ish! Yeah, definitely was killer, but I'm doing fine.

Not too much more to write for this week though, low on time. I love you all though! Hope all goes well as we enter into December this week! (gollee, time is just flying by!)

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 63 - Villa Saavedra

¡Hola Todos!

This has been a whole lot better of a week. Even though the weather has been crazy-hot, we had success in the week. It was so hot though that I went out and bought a big hat just like the rest of the elders here. I'll have a picture up in the next couple weeks.

Villa Saavedra is full of sand: I feel like I'm walking on the beach, especially with the sun just beaming down on us! It kills me to here about the snowy weather some of you are having up there--super jealous!

There are 6 elders in our pension! It's pretty packed, but we make do. It's a party every day, that's for sure ;) Speaking of, we're really planning on partying it up Thursday night for Thanksgiving! One of the elders in the pension is from Ecuador and Peru, but he also studied at BYU-Provo for a little bit, so he knows English as well. It turns out though that he's never celebrated Thanksgiving, so we're planning on going as big as possible! We're talking chickens, potatoes, corn, bread with honey butter, salad, drinks, and desserts! I'm really wondering if I want to make cinnamon rolls, apple crisp, or banana bread!!! :P

We had a zone meeting in Orán this week. It was really lame because we had to leave on a bus at 6:00 AM and we travelled for about 3.5 hours to get there! We missed the bus coming back, so we didn't get back home until 8:00 PM!!! It was nice seeing other missionary friends, but it was a little bit of a waste of time. We made up for it in the bus ride though ;) Let's just say we had a little bit of fun!

There's actually an indian tribe that lives on the outer edge of Tartagal called the Wichi tribe. I really want to learn their language because there aren't too many that speak Spanish, but unfortunately it's out of my area :/ oh well.

We had a good day in church. Our branch hit 56 people in church. I was attacked with the assignment of a talk for my first Sunday! It was because the missionaries and the ward mission leader give talks every 3rd Sunday of the month...I made a good one though on how to be more useful to God and to Zion. I basically just took ideas from 3 of the talks I already wrote in Yuto ;)

All in all, this week was rather successful. We're looking to have a couple baptisms this weekend if all goes well. It's going to be a rocky ride all the way to Saturday, but we're really hoping for a good result!

I love you all!!! Have a good Thanksgiving holiday!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 62 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!

Well, I've received a transfer and I'm writing this letter in a different area. I'm now in Villa Saavedra, which is nearby a slightly bigger area called Tartagal. I'm in the province of Salta again, but way way up north this time. We're talking very close to the Bolivian border! This part of the mission is known for it's hot weather and mosquitos, and I've just transferred into it right in the thick of summer! We'll see how I can handle 40-50 degree celsius weather (100-120 degree fahrenheit)!

My last week in Mariano Moreno went well. We had our interviews with President Northcutt on Thursday. He expressed his concern for my recent run of low numbers, but we talked it through and figured out a little plan to get things going again. We did hit a record attendance in church yesterday--60! We were super-excited for that. But other than that, it was a fairly normal week, except for right at the end when I had to say goodbye to the good families I got to know there. Check out the photos!

I'm now a step-dad as we call it here in the mission. In other words, I'm the second companion in the field of Elder Speakman, my comp, of course. He's from California and ready to rock and roll! I'm not district leader, so that'll be nice to be able to just focus on the work for a little bit. We're out in the middle of nowhere here in northern Salta, but I've already got experience in small pueblitos, so I think I'll be able to get into the groove of it again. I'll definitely have to enjoy it to the best because I'll be hitting Thanksgiving and Christmas in this transfer!

Don't really have too much else to mention for this week. Just that I love you all!!!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 61 - Mariano Moreno

¡Hola Todos!
Well, this week was still a tough one, but we were blessed
nonetheless. We had a baptism this weekend!!!!!!! Susana Ochoa is
about 50-60 years old and has had quite the crazy life. She never knew
her real family while growing up: she lived alone. Her friends weren't
the best in school: she had a baby at 13. The doctors were about to
put the baby up for adoption because there weren't any parents to take
charge of raising the kid, until one night she escaped from the
hospital. She spent all her time raising the kid instead of going out
with friends. In her 20s, she took whatever little job she could take
to survive. She even picked up sewing and started making little bags
and other stuff to sell. Since then (I'm talking in the past few years
now) she sews for a living, her son now lives in Switzerland (no idea
what he's doing there), she's the Catholic godmother of this other
family that sortof took her in for awhile, and in the past year, she
got to know her birthmother and her whole family that lives in Salta,
all of which happen to be members of the Mormon church! She's been
talking to the missionaries for some time now; just didn't really
receive the push to get baptized. But, she's a very spiritually
intelligent woman and has a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book
of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the church itself. With the help of other
Relief Society sisters and Heavenly Father, we were able to help her
make the decision to have her baptism this past weekend. The service
was rather small, seeing as a member of the seventy decided to come
during the baptismal service to give a training to the ward and stake
leaders, but it was still very spiritual and very touching.
We were also blessed with a new pension! We were talking with one of
our richer less-active sisters that we have a good relationship with
about how we were without a place to live. She couldn't believe it and
was interested in helping us out, so she asked what kind of place we
were looking for. We described what we wanted, and then she showed us
in back of her house this separate apartment that she doesn't use
that's absolutely perfect for us! We moved in on Friday and we're
loving it so far!
Even with these blessings, Satan is still working on me, from big
things like discouragement to little things like a bird pooping on me
and a dog peeing on my leg during the week!!!! (I couldn't believe my
luck!!!!!!)
Nevertheless, the work moves on, especially in this last week of transfers!
Also, quick news: I received my Argentine 'National Identification
Document', so I'm official now ;)
Love you all!!!
-Elder Powell

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Semana 60 - Mariano Moreno

Hola todos,

The battle surges on: we still haven't found a new place to live, the success still is a little low (I'm driving the zone leaders crazy because the 3 of us can't figure out what's missing), seasonal allergies are coming on a little, and the heat bakes your head a little! We have this one lady though that's terribly close to her baptism though. She basically just has to make the decision that she wants to do it and she's already ready for this weekend! I'll give her full story once she hits the water!

We had a unique experience this week. The 10-year census rolled around! So we couldn't leave the pension until the census person came and interviewed us. We played Monopoly until she got there :P It was a rather odd interview for the lady because we're 8 20-year-olds that all come from places other than locally here in Jujuy. We did "work" last week, but we don't really receive an income :P We couldn't really tell her where we habitually live either because we randomly switch between all areas of Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, and Santiago! Our names were a little funky too. It came and went though, and luckily she came by at 12:00, so it wasn't too late. We were walking around that same day and actually spotted our bishop giving the census interviews as well!

This week was our stake conference. The talks were really nice. It was also nice to see the mission president and his wife there! We'll be seeing them again in a week and a half for our interviews.

As for Halloween weekend, it didn't affect too many people here. We actually spotted a few trick-or-treaters though, but just in the richer neighborhoods. If you want to say "trick-or-treat" in Spanish, it's "truco-o-dulce" (you can get away with combining the two 'o's together). Lot's of people kindof ignore the holiday though because they don't want North American comercialism to impact their northern Argentine traditionalism. It's slowly creeping in though, it can't really be helped seeing that more people are watching tv and watching all the US shows with Spanish translations. Oh well!

That's about all I've got though, love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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