Tuesday, October 8, 2013
7 October 2013 -- More Conferences and Justin's bulletin talk/letter in Spanish
Hello
Everybody,
How are you all doing?
I am doing pretty well. Today is crazy because we have to plan transfers and a
missionary is going home today so we have a planning day today and not a
preparation day. So yeah it’s a bummer and I don’t know if my letter will be
very long, but I will try to write a good letter to tell you everything that
went on this week.
Well on Tuesday we
were in the offices all day doing a training meeting for the monthly leadership
council meeting. It was focused on how we can study better and be more diligent
in the morning with the studies. I learned quite a bit from it and it was
pretty cool to look up how to study better. Something interesting that I have
learned from studying is the very importance to having a study journal when you
read your scriptures, because pretty much you are writing your personal
scriptures. It’s one thing to just read scriptures, but it’s another thing to
scrutinize the scriptures and to study it out. So, it's best to write down
personal revelations and feelings close to the scriptures. And of course to be
focused :). But on Wednesday we gave the training and it was pretty good.
President Morales gave a good training about a real growth in the church and
how we should convert the new members and not just baptize the investigators.
Something that is much needed in these days. Something shocking about the
church growth in Mexico is that there were 40,000 baptisms last year, and only
100 are completely active!!! :/ But we learned about how to have a complete
retention of those new members, and we have definitely slowed up on the whole
conversion process, but the people that are getting baptized, are people
looking to serve and stay in the church. It will be a real growth in the
church. But on Saturday in conference I heard that the church is the fastest
growing in the world now with 15,000,000!! Let’s keep it going right so that
all can be blessed in the world.
The Sister Morales
shared this very neat experience with us. It’s a long story, but she has a firm
testimony that the Holy Ghost is what guides us and brings us the closest with
God. She talked a lot of having the spiritual guide always by your side that
you can always be happy and pumped to do the work. The spirit really does help
us to be in the right path and it’s definitely a helper so that we can feel
comfort at all times. I really loved her talk.
Everything else was
good at the training meeting. It was a blast. We ate tamales for lunch, good
food.
 |
| Leadership Council Conference |
Well conference was
awesome!!!!! It was the best I have ever seen in my life because the messages
were so inspiring and I really did receive a lot of answers!!! :) I hope you
all feel the same with the conference! I really loved Pres. Uchtdorf's talks!!
They were amazing and the two of them were both huge answers to me. I invite
you all to read the talk his talks from the regular session and priesthood
session to learn more and receive great answers because they are both very,
very inspired. I love conference and you should love it too when you watch it,
hugely inspiring.
 |
| General Conference in Reynosa |
Well I will send my
talk that I had to write to the entire mission in the monthly mission bulletin.
It’s in Spanish, sorry but there ya go. I love you all; I will try to write
more next week. God bless
Elder Justin Powell
Sea usted mismo
Queridos Elderes y Hermanas,
Es un gusto poder compartir algo con ustedes y
estar sirviendo a su lado. Espero que mis palabras puedan ser de ayuda en su
servicio misional.
La obra misional es algo magnifico y nosotros
como misioneros hemos sido llamados a servir a nuestro Padre Celestial,
“Creemos que el hombre debe ser llamado por Dios...” (A.F. 5). En esta época,
el evangelio realmente está siendo predicado “…a toda nación, tribu, lengua y
pueblo” (DyC 133:37), con la visión de cómo predicar el evangelio elevándonos
más cada día. Hemos sido muy bendecidos al estar sirviendo en este tiempo de
cumplimiento.
Estamos aquí con el mismo propósito y llamados a
la misma obra, pero Dios nos llamó específicamente a estar en donde estamos en
este momento para poner en práctica los dones y talentos que tenemos.
Somos diferentes en persona, cultura y
habilidad. Somos de diferentes partes de este continente (o del mundo), y hemos
venido de familias distintas. Tenemos el mismo propósito, y la razón porque
estamos aquí es para servir Dios con los dones y talentos que él nos dio.
Porque Él tiene un propósito para cada uno de nosotros en esta misión. Él tiene
un camino preparado para nosotros en esta misión para conocer personas que
necesitemos conocer.
A veces sentimos presión a ser como otro
misionero, como un misionero robótico, o como otra persona admirable a
nosotros. Pero realmente debemos ser nosotros mismos para poder cumplir con
nuestro propósito que Dios nos ha puesto. Realmente es posible ser obedientes
con exactitud, mientras que magnifiquemos nuestros dones y talentos.
A mí me gusta la parábola que Jesucristo contó
de los talentos, que se encuentra Mateo 25:14-30. Cuando el señor dio a sus
siervos talentos, Él estaba esperando que no solo se quedaran con la cantidad
de talentos que recibieron al principio, pero que los talentos de los siervos
podrían ser multiplicados. El señor quería que los siervos hicieran algo más
con sus talentos.
Nosotros somos los siervos de Dios. Hemos sido dado
talentos y Dios espera que magnifiquemos nuestros talentos en una manera
extraordinaria. Cuando realmente estamos magnificando nuestros talentos en la
obra misional, estamos cumpliendo con el plan de Dios y utilizando los dones y
talentos que Él nos dio. Al cumplir con el plan que Dios nos dio, realmente
podremos recibir muchas bendiciones, lograr mucho éxito y ser un
instrumento más eficaz en esta
gran obra del Señor.
Yo sé que tenemos un amoroso Padre
Celestial, que está dispuesto a ayudarnos desarrollar nuestros dones y
talentos para que seamos grandes misioneros y misioneras en esta obra. Yo
sé que no requiere muchas cosas diferentes e incomodas para lograr éxito
en la misión. Solo sea usted mismo en la obra misional, guardando los
mandamientos, para que cumpla con su propósito en la viña del Señor. Y ustedes
tendrán mucho éxito y un desarrollo de ser un gran instrumento en las manos de
Dios. Que Dios les bendiga, les amo mucho. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.
30 September 2013 -- More travel and funny Sister Conference
Hello
Hello Everybody,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KATY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!!
How are you all doing? How was your week? What is new? I would love to hear
from you all; you can all send me emails when you get the chance.
Well everything is
going good, working with our ward and all. Really cool things happened this
week. Everyday something very interesting happens and I love that about the
mission, there is always something to learn from everything, even the
bad.
Well on Monday, I
played basketball for the first time in a long while and I am bad now... It’s
sad but I will get the skills back hopefully. Haha. But it was fun just
shooting hoops. Today we are going to play soccer and some catch with the mitts
that I have still from you, Dad. I love the mitts still and it’s fun to play
catch still. :)
On Wednesday we went
to Valle Hermoso to have interchanges with the ZLs and it was a good
interchange. I saw a lot of familiar faces over there and people that I dearly
admire. I love Valle Hermoso and the people there are very nice and Friendly.
This time it wasn’t the best because there were a bunch of mosquitoes!! We were
in a lesson outside with this investigator and his wife who is a member. I was
with my dear friend Elder Muñoz and the lesson was during the sunset and at
night is when there are billions of mosquitoes in Valle Hermoso. Well every
hand movement I made, I hit like 100 mosquitoes... Oh it was crazy. The thing
is that we were teaching the investigator how to fast to receive an answer, and
this guy was wearing shorts during this lesson with a gazillion mosquitoes! I
told him that that for God being outside with shorts on was enough of a
sacrifice to receive an answer. I felt for the guy, but somehow he managed. He
said that he will still fast, so he should be receiving a super answer from God
for his determination and sacrifice. Haha Also we had to clean the baptismal
font there and in there were a ton of mosquitoes as well... Well I jumped to
hold the tube that pumps the water out and yeah what a blast! Haha Getting in
the water and doing that job was for sure my ``dirty jobs'' application.
Hopefully they call me so that I can be on TV. I`ll include that photo too.
 |
| Dirty Jobs...cleaning the font! |
I saw the Sister Maria
Ezequiel and she is a member! I don’t know if you remember her but I was
teaching her almost a year ago and after separating herself from her boyfriend
and baptizing herself, she got baptized a little bit ago and when I saw her we
were both sooo happy to see each other. I will include the picture, but she is
very active and I am glad that everything worked out for her and that she got
everything arranged to be able to take that step in her life and be very active
in the church. She went to the temple last weekend and said that she loved it
soo much and wow, she has changed a lot. She is this new woman ready for anything
to happen, and she is a strong missionary as well, she is inviting every moving
object to church. Haha. I felt a lot of competition with her to preach the
gospel haha.
But I saw other familiar faces as well. I didn’t get to see Max
but I heard that they are going to get sealed on December 14th! I might
have to return to Mexico, or extend. Who knows, but I would love to go to see
the sealing in Monterrey. I am going to pray a ton to see if I can go. Also
some dear friends of mine in Valle Hermoso are getting married in December. Ugh
they are the same age as me and already in that process, haha. I am not a kid
anymore it seems. Haha.
 |
| Justin and Sister Maria Ezequiel |
On Thursday we went
back to Reynosa and had a good day. Nothing much happened that day—just work
and good work. It was hot that day but it was good.
On Friday we had this
conference to train. We trained all the sisters in the mission with their English.
Super interesting--nothing like training 12 sisters that don’t know how to
speak English. Haha No but it was very fun. Sister Morales was directing the
conference and she wanted to do this special day with the sisters to try and
pump them up. And so we trained them for about an hour and ate pizza.
It was
kind of awkward because Elder Ropp and I were the only men there, and it was
like this girly conference. At the beginning we started with the hymn and
prayer and wanna guess what hymn we sang? Yep As Sisters in Zion... haha and
yeah Elder Ropp and I felt kind of weird and nothing like sisters giggle at us
singing this very sisterly hymn. Anyway we were teaching basic English
communication to the sisters because most of them are going to train American
sisters in the very near future, like the first American sister in like 5 years
is coming in November. And she has red hair! Haha just like my family. Haha But
we were focused on how the Latina sisters can survive with their companion for
the first week with the American sisters.
 |
| Elders Barlow, Powell and Vargas with the pizzas |
Then on Saturday was a
pretty good day, well remember Gerardo? He got baptized finally and I got to go
to Rio Bravo to see his baptism. It was really good and he was ready. He is a
good friend of mine and now he is pumped to be in the church and to serve
diligently. He is definitely responding to God`s call to serve him in his
church. I'll include the pic as well.
 |
| Baptism of Gerardo |
Well everything is
going well, wanna know something funny? I weighed myself the other day, and I
weigh 153 pounds when I started the mission 177. Haha but I feel great, but
nothing like having huge shirts and parachute pants right? (Haha the clothes aren’t
that big... haha) Don’t worry though I am eating, Mom! Haha. But just working
and walking all around kind of makes it hard to gain weight. But I promise that
I will try to eat more! Haha
I love you all and
take care! Be cool and serve your fellow man.
Elder Justin
Powell
Leia Mais…
23 September 2013 -- Justin travels the mission and enjoys Mexican culture
Hello
Everybody! How is everyone doing? I am doing great! Just working a ton now with
everything and it’s been a blast with the work. My ward is super cool and fun
and always willing to work with us and I feel very grateful to be with them to
work. I am in an area that is fairly small and there is quite a bit of work to
do still. We had to leave behind a bunch of investigators this past week
because we didn’t see a bunch of progress with them, but we were able to find
more people that really do want to progress and teach. But hopefully we can
dedicate a good amount of time to them, it’s just we have so many things to do
here in the offices and less time to the area, but it’s all good. I found out
that 2 people that I was teaching in Rio Bravo were baptized this past weekend
and I was super happy to hear that! It was soo sweet and they were both happy
so I am happy for that.
My companion and I
went all the way to Nuevo Laredo to have an interchange and it went well. We
woke up at 5 in the morning to go on the bus. We went to the bus station to
leave at 6pm to Monterrey and the buses were filled until the bus at 7:45...
Well that was a good start. But Elder Ropp and I slept a bit at the station and
hopped on the bus. Oh I was sooo happy to see mountains again in Monterrey.
Here in Reynosa its desert and flat. The only closest mountains are in
Monterrey (3 hours away) and oh it was cool being in Monterrey again. I really
miss that city and the vibe. I would love to tour the city on day. It’s a fun
city. And we left on a bus to Nuevo Laredo and we traveled a total of 7 hours
to Nuevo Laredo from Reynosa. Pretty fun trip. I tried to sleep but I don’t do
very well in moving vehicles so it was a little difficult, but Elder Ropp was
out like a baby pretty much the whole trip. Well we were late to start the
interchange but we got there and had a good day. I got to work in a half of my
old area and it was great to see a lot of the people that I knew and the
progress that there has been. My friends that got baptized while I was there
went to the temple this past weekend and it is super cool to see that effort
they are giving to live the gospel and they both have planned to go on the
mission and bless other people. I was very happy to go and see a couple of my
dear friends again and maybe in the future I will see them again.
This week we are going
to Valle Hermoso to do interchanges with the missionaries there and President
wants us to do interchanges with my old area as well :) haha. Interchanges are
fun! I can visit more dear friends and help the missionaries to learn something
new. Interchanges are cool to get to know many missionaries and people. I have
gotten to know so many people and their backgrounds. I always learn a lot from
the interchanges and I hope that the missionaries learn from me in the
interchanges and they are always a blessing for me.
This past Friday was
the Noche Mexicana (Mexican Night) and like last year, just filled with rich Mexican
culture and it was a blast.
 |
| Playing Mexican Sombrero and dancing |
Well I think that is
all the abnormal for this week because the normal is preach and teach the
gospel and everyday is filled with those things. I love the work, it’s awesome
and it’s for everyone. Help and serve everyone and be kind to all. We all need
to be a light to this dark and ever darkening world. And so shine that light
bright! I love you all and God bless
Elder Justino Powell
Leia Mais…
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