July 15, 2013

Hello Family and Friends,

Well this week was super crazy and with a lot of stress. There was sooo much to do and I am glad that we have the chance to have a P-day where it’s like a weekly mini vacation for everything that goes on in the mission. But it was a good week!

On Tuesday I went to work in this other area with another missionary, Elder Camas. He and I went and walked a ton!!!! It was kind of funny how that day went because literally nobody was home... But in the evening we went to this Part Member Family that is less actives. They all speak English, but like with a Texas accent and everything! Haha. Well one of the daughters is not a member. And she doesn’t understand Spanish, so it was my official first time teaching in English. Oh my English was horrendous but I felt super good about speaking in English. It was pretty entertaining and fun.

Last Monday night we received a phone call about a zone conference on Friday; that the President is going to come and meet us and have a meeting with us. Well we had to prepare pretty much all of it, so all week we were running around doing things, and the zone conference turned out pretty good. They are very nice people, President Morales and Sister Morales. Very powerful people that are very intelligent. They gave us a message about how we are the pioneers of this mission and to us that we are the first missionaries in Nuevo Laredo in the new mission and it’s up to us to set the tone of this zone. Well I love that pressure and we are working a ton to keep up the work. 

He also talked about how we should always be willing to change up the things. That we should be progressive and not always doing the same things over and over again.

Well we put that into practice and we got some really cool results. Right after the zone conference we were thrown a curveball because we had an appointment with this investigator, that is female, with her sister, in the church. They arrived without a male... We cannot be alone with just a lady; it's a pretty serious rule in the mission. So we didn’t know what to do... But then I saw some kids playing soccer close by and we went to talk them. We invited one of them to come over and he hesitated a bit but he said that he would be at the church in the minute. Well we went back and he didn’t come, but then we went to get the kid that was sitting out resting from the game, and then he said ok, called one of his friends and then all of the kids playing were like ``lets take a break´´ and they all came to listen. We had this huge lesson in the chapel section of the church and it was pretty cool how all these teens just came over, and we were able to have this lesson with the investigator. It was pretty cool and I saw the blessing in always thinking extra ordinary. It’s the best and it brings results. I was blown away on how that worked. And this investigator, Laura, accepted to be baptized on the 18th, hahaha. She didn’t want to be baptized on the weekend and chose Thursday, and I said it’s my birthday and she was like well that would be cool. Hahaha So second year birthday should be a grand day again, I hope. Ugh 21 years.... I’m an adult pretty much... haha Well its fine.

Tomorrow I will have 20 months on the mission... I am amazed on how fast the time flies by. But here’s to 4 more months!!! :)

I love you all and have a great summer!

Elder Justin Powell