Climbing trees - WE NEED YOUR HELP - Be Prepared!

10/6/14

Dear family!

IT'S CONFERENCE WEEKEND!! WHOOHOO!!!! well... I guess it WAS at least... so maybe I should be cheering in reverse. !!!OOHOOHW Anyway, sorry I’m being so weird but well... I'm pretty sure I can blame most of that on the family I was raised in! :) haha! Love you all! ANYWAY, back on topic! Conference was AMAZING! :) I especially appreciated all the talks in Priesthood session as always as well as Elder Bednar's talk Sunday afternoon! Anyway, speaking of this week, it's the last week of the transfer!! which means two things! I've almost been out for three months already!! (not including my mini-mission!!) And I will probably be getting a new companion if not a new area very soon!! Crazy how time flies by! One femto-second at a time. :) So yeah, that's pretty crazy.

We also had a crazy awesome experience with ever more service this week! First going back to Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri to wipe down all the hand rails on the entire ship! And then also doing this huge service project for a member in our Zone Leaders ward. It was crazy how much they trusted us because the project was cutting down GIANT tree's! which I've done before but... on flat land, in the middle of a forest! This was on a steep hill right next to two houses!! IT was CRAZY! Although I really did appreciate the chance to climb the trees and use my knot tying skills (thank you Brother Bang!) to get the rope and everything so it fell the way we wanted it too! :) Anyway, it was SUPER physically demanding but also super fun! 

So yeah, that's most of our missionary news, aside from that we're still just doing everything we can to find people to teach (which not too much success as of now) and also working with a lot of the members trying to get them a little more excited about names as well! I hope you all back home are doing everything you can to help find the missionaries people to teach! WE NEED YOUR HELP! It's SO hard without the members! I've heard from some of my missionary friends back home that the Awatukee Zone (the zone we're in in the Tempe Mission) is actually the hardest and slowest zone in the mission!! And mostly for the same reason it's slow here in our area, we simply cannot find people to teach!! SO I'd hope all the members back home are doing everything they can to help in that finding effort!! because us missionaries need all the help we can get! As one of our members in Yuma once wisely told me after giving us a referral, "I found them now you teach them!" haha! and it works! We are MORE than happy to teach anyone but we need your help finding!

Well I would be remiss if I didn't include a quick message regarding conference in this e-mail as well. While there were MANY highlights (people giving talks in their native language, Elder Bednar addressing his entire talk exclusively to non-members, the missionary choir, etc.) I think one of my favorite parts in any conference is listening to how different themes sort of unintentionally form and one that definitely formed in this last conference was that of being PREPARED!!  Scout motto! BE PREPARED!! and not just temporally (food storage, reserve funds, fast offerings, etc.) but also spiritually! I really liked how probably the most quoted scripture at this conference was Hel. 5:12. It's always been a good one but ESPECIALLY with the way things are going in the world we NEED to be built on the foundation of Christ! If you don't have a testimony of him and his Atonement, GET ONE!!! For some reason as I reflected on all of this a song came to mind that we've sung multiple times in ward choir and one that's always been my favorite, I testify of Jesus Christ. Specifically one line that REALLY stuck out, "When with all flesh mine eyes shall see, my God my unseen comforter, my witness than shall not exceed the truth I know this day." Or something along those lines. But I just LOVE how firm a statement that is! I know that is definitely the kind of testimony I am striving for that I can be prepared to one day see him again and when I do I can say that "my witness then shall not exceed the truth I know this day!" :) 

Well yeah, anyway, I've gotta get going, but I love you all! Keep on doing what you do! Send my love to the ward and to all the family! Have a great week and don't forget to be awesome! :)

-Elder Powell

SotW: HEL. 5:12! duhh! haha

Missed some of General Conference or wondering what it's all about? 

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