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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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