6/27/16
Aloha ohana!!
Thank you so much for
that awesome update on everything going on back home! As more and more people
ask me about my life plans after the mission (I don't know why everyone seems
to be so interested in that side of my life all of a sudden, I still have plenty
of time left on my mission) I have thought about and entertained in my mind all
sorts of different career options. And while there are many different options
that may be more profitable and realistic in the future, I must say that Bob
Ross alone has kept the door open in my mind of pursuing an art degree and
being an early morning painter on PBS! :) haha! So anyway, on a more serious
note, I really am glad to hear that things are going so well for all of you
back home in Arizona and surrounding areas (I suppose Ireland and the east
coast will just have to count as "surrounding area's" to Arizona this
week. haha!).
That is also SUPER
exciting to hear about Ben and Adam and Drew!! Way to go guys on keeping the
train on missionaries in the Powell/Groberg family alive a going!! With so many
grand kid's missions overlapping plus all of the extended family it makes me
honestly wonder if there has ever been, even for just a few weeks, a gap or
break where we did NOT have any full-time missionaries out serving the Lord
from our extended family! Truly it is such a blessing to be a part of such an
incredible group of people and it brings me extra joy to think that if I am
faithful I can be with this same group of people for eternity!!! :)
Anyway, so real quick update
of things over here in Hawaii for this past week!
Man, the weeks are going
by fast! It's funny because every week at the start I feel like "man,
there's still so much time in the week and so much we are going to be able to
get accomplished!" and then before I know it, and with still countless
things on our "to-do list" as well as scores of people we didn't get
a chance to see, we are at the start of yet another week! Truly, like you said
yourself dad, "time marches". But that didn't stop us from at least
trying to keep pace with it this past week!
We did have a lot of
exciting things happen with our work this past week! So Wednesday we went on
exchanges with the Kahalu'u missionaries and I worked in our area with Elder
Rantayo (this awesome elder in our district from the Philippines!) :) We had
some pretty interesting encounters while tracting (as always) but most exciting
was we accidentally met this SUPER awesome family later in the day! So after
dinner, we were on our way to go try a potential investigator when I had
another name sort of just pop into my head of a less-active/part-member family
in the area and so we turned our bikes around and went to go knock on their
door... but it was late, and we were in a sort of town house complex so
literally EVERYTHING looks exactly the same because... well they are all built
the same.
So I go to knock on what
I THINK was the door of this family we were looking for, only to find out we
were at the wrong complex! But instead of just doing what most people do when
we have the wrong house, and saying "oh, no sorry, wrong house.
goodbye!" this family was SUPER nice and asked what the name was again and
then, asked if we wanted to eat something or needed something to drink or
anything, and of course we said yes... because we're missionaries :P haha! AND
THEY INVITED US INSIDE!!! Nobody just invites us inside unless they're already
members or they want to try and "Bible-bash" with us!!! We were so
excited! They then proceeded to give us some food, water, popsicles, and even
some snacks for the road! But what was more incredible, is he called their
resident manager and asked him for us about where the other family we were
trying to contact lived so we could go see them! I was floored by their
kindness and their sincerity and generosity, and then after a little more
casual conversation I found out why!
So one of the families in
our ward that we have dinner with a lot, kept on telling us about these awesome
neighbors that live next door to them and how they are so kind, but even more
than that, how they are actually kind of looking for a church right now to
raise their family up in and to settle this sort of nagging feeling they have
in them as they search for more in their lives. They kept telling us however,
not to go knock yet because they wanted to set something up with them first but
didn't want to jump the gun... so we waited and waited and waited but we never
got to meet these "amazing neighbors that our members had talked so much
about! (at this point in the story I should probably mention that while we have
eaten dinner with this member family multiple times, we have always eaten with
them at their grandma's house so we never knew where they actually lived) And
that brings me back to Wednesday night, while talking to this new family who
had invited us in and fed us and talked with us, they finally brought up,
"actually our next door neighbors are Latter-day Saints!" and I said
"oh really, who's that?" (Because I didn't know anyone who lived in
the area) and they said and then it all pieced together!!! THIS was the amazing
neighbors that our members had talked about so many times at dinner and told us
not to go see yet!! We honored their request.... but then accidentally knocked
on their door anyway! haha!
So yeah, long story short, we sparked enough
interest and things are now lined up well enough to where, hopefully VERY soon,
we will be able to start teaching them the discussions and hopefully be able to
finally help them fill that desire they have deep down to follow the Savior and
his teachings!! Truly nothing is an accident to the Lord and He definitely has
his ways of sort of micro-managing our lives! :) haha!
So other exciting news
from this week. We spent literally ALL DAY Friday tracting!! That was kind of
exciting! So as a mission we just had our second ever "fasting finding
Friday" where, mission wide, we all fast together to find
new-investigators, and then go out tracting from 10am-6pm!! It was pretty cool!
Honestly, nothing too crazy or exciting or overwhelming, but it was fun and we
did find a few people through it who might be at least slightly interested! So
that's good! :) Sunday was also great as always and we had a great evening
joining in with the youth in our ward for an SED (Sunday evening discussion)
which is basically the parallel of BYD (Bishop Youth Discussion) when I was
going through the youth program. We had a recently returned missionary in our
ward sort of report on his mission to the youth and answer any questions they
may have and so Bishop wanted us there too since the whole evening was sort of
missionary themed.
Anyway, yeah, so, that
was my week in a nutshell... or more like a seashell I guess since we're in
Hawaii. But I've gotta get going now, so I'll wrap up. I just want to let you
all know how much I love you all and that I am and always will be praying for
you! Thank you for all your love and support as well as your encouragement and
help with the transitions I know are fast approaching in my own life! You have
all played an absolutely indispensable part in the success of my mission and
really in my whole life! Thank you for that! :) Sorry, I know I've said
"thank you" like four times already in this one paragraph (five now I
suppose) but I really do mean it and I really do love you all!!! I wish you the
best of luck with everything you have waiting for you in the coming week, whether
it be work, scorpion hunting, painting, or international-political-lobbying!
Have a great week! Mahalo nui loa and ALOHA AU IA OE!!! :)
A hui hou aku!
-Elder Powell
p.s. It's Lychee Season
again!! Yeah!!! :D :D
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