Summarizing - No down time

12/9/14

FAMILY!!!!!

So, sorry but this is going to be CRAZY!!!! Apparently the library closes MUCH earlier than expected and as such I am left with practically NO time to write much, but as a quick response...

It has remained very hot and very wet out here as tropical islands tend to do no matter what month of the year. (although it has cooled down SIGNIFICANTLY at night! and by significantly I mean it gets to maybe 75 but that's pretty cold for out here!) As for my week well, here's the very short, un-descriptive paragraph I sent to Elder Evans a couple minutes ago! :P haha!.

"Anyway, yeah it's been a CRAZY week! Basically summarizing it in a few sentences. We lost our investigators with baptismal dates, hooked up two of our single members for their first "date", found a homeless member and checked him into detox and rehab where he only stayed for a total of 1/2 a day (so that's still a fun work in progress) got THREE reactivation! (hopefully I didn't just jinx it and they all stop coming again!), got a member referral that turned into a new investigator with VERY GOOD outlooks, watched a Christmas parade (and drew more attention to ourselves than the people marching in the parade! haha!) We went fishing, went to the temple (AMAZING of course) are going to Pearl Harbor tomorrow had two amazing sessions of stake conference followed by a special missionary fireside given by a visiting GA (Elder Johnson from the Seventy) and now I'm trying to e-mail everyone with the library closing in 15 minutes!! WHOO!!! Life never slows down! :) haha! Anyway, much love and Mahalos!! DFTBA!!"

Anyway, I love you all and promise I will send MANY pictures and much more details next week of the crazy week we've been having and are continuing to have this week! I guess no down time is a good thing in the mission though! haha!

Aloha Nui Loa!

-Elder Powell

STAYING - Football - Charlie Brown

12/1/14

Aloha Family and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope everyone had an Ono thanksgiving week filled with many grindz and relaxation! It is exciting to hear about all the family gathering together and brings back many great memories. Oh and tell Brian if he wants something to do he could respond to the e-mail I sent him two weeks ago! :P haha! We also had the great pleasure out here of making new memories and enjoying some thanksgiving traditions Hawaiian style with the beautiful people of Kane'ohe! :)  Speaking of which I found out that I AM staying here in Kane'ohe at least one more transfer so I'll be here for Christmas, New Years and Dad's birthday! haha!

with Sis. Tani

 Honestly, I kind of have mixed feelings about all that stuff with transfers just because I LOVE Kane'ohe and the members and am VERY excited to be able to spend Christmas with them, but at the same time … I'm honestly starting to forget that there's more to the Hawaii Mission than just Kane'ohe. I'm starting to feel almost more just like a ward member than a missionary sometimes! If that makes any sense :P haha! BUT We did have some VERY exciting progress in this area in the last week!!  So I don't know if I mentioned last week that we were having a dinner/lesson at a member’s house and they had over one of our investigator families as well? Well it did happen and long story short the Mom and her two kids over 8 all agreed to be baptized and we put them on date for Dec 27th!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOHOO!!!!!!!

Also we have another family (our dinner tonight actually) who has a friend that expressed desires to get baptized without ANYONE pushing him or anything!! So that's super exciting!! haha! We've only met him once at the Thanksgiving activities at the church but the member we were talking to about him said that she thinks he could be baptized by the end of the year!! So that's also super exciting!! :D

Anyway, I just realized I never even talked about Thanksgiving! :P hahaha! So yeah, thanksgiving day was GREAT! As you might image we weren't really able to do much so we really just cruised with members all day. We actually got up "SUPER EARLY" (according to our members) or just a half hour earlier than normal for us :P haha! to go play turkey bowl with the ward! :) We were hoping for a lot bigger turn out especially with non-members and LA's but we still had a blast (and don't worry mom it was flag and in fact pretty much any contact made was a minimum five yard penalty! haha!) But it was fun no matter what! I actually made a pretty cool 20ish yard run which was awesome! (although we still ended up turning over the ball and getting destroyed by the other team! haha!) But anyway, after a little morning exercise we cleaned up and went over to the stake center to start the days grinding! We had a ward lunch-in with CHOKE food!! (choke- pidgin for "a lot") and yet we had pretty much our average turn out for activities which is about 30. Consisting primarily of the bishopric, single sisters, and young couples with no family (or missionaries with no family! haha) but it was still very enjoyable and VERY good food!!

apparently this coconut tree got pretty kanak attacked as well

 So then after that I got MAJOR kanak attack and we went home, took a short nap, and then wrote thank you cards to a bunch of the members and ran all around town delivering them and wishing everyone a happy thanksgiving! :) But the best part had to be our dinner! We went to the Kapele's, this old traditional sort of Hawaiian family! While the food (for the most part) was of a more traditional mainland style it was still prepared INCREDIBLY!! I'm telling you Hawaiian's know how to cook!! (oh speaking of which, fun fact... two pairs of pants don't fit me anymore and the other two are getting tight... so hopefully I can get those let out soon. :P haha!) Anyway, they had an entire party so there was plenty of food and good people to talk to and overall just a great thanksgiving! :) 

It has been hard though with the holidays not only to stay focused as missionaries but for the members and investigators and everyone to focus at all on missionary work or learning or anything so that's been kind of hard but of course the church being as INCREDIBLE as it is has the PERFECT solution for that! :) He is the Gift!! I'm sure you are familiar with the video and cards by this point but if not GET FAMILIAR AND GET SHARING IT!!! It's hard to miss. Just go on lds.org and it's kind of dead center on the home page! haha! anyway, I'm VERY exciting for that and hopefully it will have some good effects on the mission work as well but if not at least it can help us all to keep our selves a little more focused on the true meaning of Christmas! (that and Charlie Brown Christmas, that always helps me to focus on the true meaning of Christmas as well! :) haha) Anyway, we've gotta get going but I love you all and know that I am VERY thankful for each and every one of you and for your prayers on our behalf! Time is still creeping by slowly as ever and yet it goes by! haha! I wish you all the best! Don't forget to be awesome! Mahalo and Aloha Nui Loa! :)

-Elder Powell

Click here He is the gift to watch the video Luke mentions  

SotW: John 3:16 (see He is the Gift card)

"A successful missionary" - Grinding - Hangin' with a hippie

11/24/14

As for everything here out in the middle of the pacific, all is well! We're coming up on the end of yet another transfer (they go by SO FAST!! ...okay, well maybe not that fast but they still go by... haha!) So by Saturday I should know if I will be fortunate enough to spend Christmas here in beautiful Kane'ohe or if I will be getting transferred somewhere else in the Island chain. But that's still a ways away for so while I'm still here in Kane'ohe we have still been making the most of every day!

Honestly this last week was kind of interesting. It's been a pretty slow one to say the least and yet it's been just as successful (if you want a good definition of what a successful week really is for missionaries I'd suggest turning to PMG ch.1 "a successful missionary”) Anyway, so that's been something we've been having to really focus on is that even if there's no real "progress" being made in the area with investigators or less-actives that we are doing our part and performing the labor to which we have been called (see Moroni 9:6 or my mission plaque) and so that's good enough for me I guess.

Anyway, while I honestly don't have much else to report on from the past week we do have some great things to look forward to in the coming week! Tonight we have a dinner/FHE with one of the members of our bishopric and his daughter who is really good friends with one of our investigator families so they're all going to be there and it's going to be great grinds and a great spirit and I'm just super excited for that! :D Also we might be going fishing with our other investigator, S. so that will be fun! Although I probably won't be fishing too much he did say he'd bring his Ukes as well so we can jam together! :) (he's REALLY good!) and then of course we have Thanksgiving!!! and as you might imagine here in Hawaii, we're gonna be spending almost the entire day just grinding!!!!

(grind- (n) pidgin for a large amount of different foods, (v) the act of eating said food. i.e. "Bra! They get all kine grind here!" other forms: grinds, grind-ing)

So yeah I'm super excited for that! I'm actually kind of getting a taste and appreciation for the local food here (Kalua pig, chicken long rice, squid luau, poi) although I'm still not quite use to the texture of Poke (raw fish). But anyway, yeah so that's kind of been my life here in the islands for the week! love you all and hope you have a great Thanksgiving!!!

Stay strong, carry on, and Don't forget to be awesome!! :D

-Elder Powell

SotW: 3 Nephi 18:10-12 (or 1-14) good to study with Moroni ch. 4&5

p.s. the pictures are me and Elder Manning having a blast at a 1yr old birthday party for some members in our ward! They go ALL out for those things! I've been to two so far and both were AMAZING!! Anyway, the other one we're just chilling with the live entertainment at said party who happened to be the most stereotypical hippie I've ever met! Also a very nice guy! haha! He kind of reminded me or the episode of Psych with the Polar Bear, a great one to watch by the way if you ever get bored! haha! 

The Nature of Light

11/18/14

Aloha Ohana!

So this week has been super crazy cause Elder Manning had to go into town a few times so that took a lot of time and yet we still managed to have one of the most successful weeks in a long time!! We taught 12 lessons to less-active members and 4 lessons to investigators with a member present! which is GREAT for this area! anyway, yeah, I also had a great experience last night as I took the time to follow grandpa's invitation and ponder and meditate a bit in honor of his anniversary of first landing in Tonga. Anyway, of course I ended up just star gazing and actually had some pretty cool insights about the nature of light and yeah, I don't have time to elaborate too much on it but I'm going to write a letter to GrGr and maybe he can share that with you somehow.

 

Anyway, I love you all and I hope you know that I am praying for you always! I'm so happy to hear that Az has been so greatly blessed with yet another beautiful temple! Be sure you all go there as much as possible!!!! Have a great week! Stay strong, carry on, and don't forget to be awesome! :D

-Elder Powell

Homeless - Oscars - Google Translate

11/10/14

Family!!!

Man it's so weird every time you guys say "Maddy is doing this, or Maddy is doing that." it seems like not that long ago she had just left and then to get the whole e-mail addressed to just me and well yeah it's all still taking a little adjusting to, and I'm not even the one that went home! haha! anyway, It really does fly by! I can't believe I've almost been out 4 months already and that's not including my mini-mission! I think I've said this before but the days here are SO long and yet some how each week disappears before you know it's gone and you find yourself back at the library next to your companion, e-mailing home and realizing you have nothing to write about and so you begin to ramble about situations leading up to you coming to the library and then realize you've caught up to yourself in real time already and are forced to end your extremely long sentence. (yeah... I think that made sense? I don't know, I'm just not going to re-read it and leave the interpreting part in your hands. Hope you've all got your Urim and Thummims!)

So anyway, onto real news! this week has been just another average week in Kane'ohe. Still just visiting less-actives, part-members, and active members and trying to find solid investigators from any source possible! It has gotten to the point where I kind of want to just get a soup box and stand on the street corner and preach... but well... all that would attract are the crazy homeless people that we already attract so well and talk to and pray with all the time anyway. They're great! (well most of the time anyway.) It's funny because with how much walking around town we do I wouldn't be surprised if people around here just assume we are homeless as well! haha! But anyway, back to the not quite so homeless people!

We had an AMAZING lesson this last week with S! He's still really been struggling with the idea of only ONE true church and that he can't get baptized and be a part of ALL of them because well, that's just the kind of loving and accepting guy that he is! His door is always open to everybody! Even us crazy homeless Mormon missionaries! haha! But anyway, so we watched the movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration with him (keep an eye out for this one at the Oscars during the millennium! It's a great one!) and afterwards the spirit was SOO incredibly strong!! and we were just baring our testimonies and it was just amazing! anyway, so we'll see if he keeps the commitment this time to actually read and pray about the Book of Mormon, but he was very sincere in taking it so we are hopeful! :) We also helped him download the Gospel Library app and he just LOVES that! Even if he mostly only uses it for the Bible and not the BoM, the Bible is still a great book and the app is still a great app!! haha! I'm SUPER excited and anxious to get iPads mostly just for that app and all the resources there in! haha

Anyway, I've probably taken too long already, we've gotta get going, but I love you all and miss you every day. As well I love the Lord and so I must bid you all adieu! Until we e-mail again!

Don't Forget to be AWESOME!!!

Aloha Nui Loa!

-Elder Powell

p.s. I've come to the decision that the Book of Mormon would have been much more interesting and entertaining to read had Joseph Smith translated it using Google Translate! 

p.p.s. Pictures: Kane'ohe zone at our combined zone conference with Mililani, and also just running into a familiar face at that same meeting! :) haha

On the winward side - little plant cells - wild chickens

11/3/14 

WELCOME HOME MADDY!!!!!! And as well Aloha to the rest of the family!!

I'm not going to lie it's been SUPER weird this last week thinking that Maddy is now home and well... back to normal life! (or about as close to normal as I guess you can get in the Powell home! haha) But yeah, so anyway, it's great to hear about all your updates and adventures back home!! It is also fun to hear about the updates and adventures on the Perkins family!! Thank you Dad for all you do!! :)

As for out here in bright and sunny Kane'ohe it's been.. well not too bright and sunny.. as you might guess it's actually been rather dark and rainy! haha! But that's what it's like on the windward side! A TON of rain! :) anyway, this week has just been overloaded with all sorts of amazing stuff that I just can't even begin to know where to start. As far as progress in the work it is definitely still edging along slowly but again every week as we take time to just keep on pushing forward and "Carry on" we find that well, it does progress!

 I actually had a long and very nice conversation last night with Elder Manning (by the way dad I did ask him and he did not recognize any of those Manning names although, to be fair not everyone is quite as up to date on their 5th great grandparents as you are! haha!) but anyway, so we were talking about faith and testimonies and everything and well I kind of made a comparison that I just realized works pretty well for missionary work too! I still can't explain it too well but ... see if this makes any sense.

Faith grows like a little seen right? Well how is it that plants grow? One tiny little plant cell at a time! Sometimes we expect to see big changes or giant growths in a single moment but that's simply not how it works! It more often grows again one, immeasurably small, cell at a time. And just as a botanist would find it extremely frustrating and difficult to observe, measure and record every single cell division that occurs in the growth of a seed into a giant tree so it can also often be difficult, frustrating and discouraging if we are trying to measure and record every single bit of spiritual growth (or growth in the mission area in this case) and in fact it can sometimes be detrimental to the growth of that plant (or spirit). Instead we must have faith that if we continue to water and take care of the plant making sure that it is always in direct contact with the light (reading scriptures, praying, attending church, and doing all things to continue a direct line of revelation between us and our Heavenly Father) than without having to measure each step we can know that IT WILL GROW!! and so... well that's kind of how I've been having to take this area of my mission. While we are not seeing much growth and we definitely have no sign of fruits in sight we're simple moving forward with faith that somewhere some tiny little cell of faith is growing and we are helping to provide the water and light that it needs to continue its slow and yet steady growth back to our Father in Heaven!

Anyway, I hope that all made sense! so yeah, I guess that kind of sums up everything for week 2 of transfer 3 in Kane'ohe Hawaii, in the HAWAII HONOLULU MISSION! THE GREATEST MISSION IN THE WORLD!! :D

Hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep on doing what you are doing, press forward with faith in good things to come, welcome home again Maddy, and to everyone, don’t forget to be awesome!! :D

Aloha Nui Loa!

-Elder Powell

I haven't done a SotW in a while!! So.. yeah, 2 Nephi 28:32 (a great one for those eternal investigators! :) haha)

my makeshift scripture case

This random Chicken we found that some how got SUPER high up in this tree and it was just kind of funny! :) haha Joe you would LOVE Hawaii, there are TONS of just wild chickens running all over and it's totally legal and normal to just chase one down and kill it and eat it! In fact my companion has been talking about getting one soon so we might be having a chicken dinner soon! hahaha!

Walking, talking and other stuff

10/27/14

random scenic shot from a small hike we did

Man!! that's crazy!! Maddy is going to be home so soon!!! for me the end of my mission still seems forever away!!! haha! And yet I've already gone through 1/8th of it!! I know that's not a lot but still it is pretty crazy how time moves! (but I already gave my whole spiel on femto-seconds so I'll spare you the quantum physics this time. :) haha) Anyway, Aloha Maddy and welcome home! I anxiously await the day we will all be together again when I return home (although not TOO anxiously... I'm just getting started! :) haha!) 

So as for everything here in beautiful briny Kaneohe (not the bottom of the sea) everything is going great! Elder Manning is a GREAT missionary and while we still are struggling to get as much done as we would like to cause of walking and.. well.. other peoples agency :P We have had more lessons this week than the past few and have been continuing to try and help the members in doing their own missionary work (since they're not confined to a specific area or zone. haha) and so that's been great!

Elder Powell and Elder Manning

One of the biggest highlights of the week though has to have been the ward Trunk or Treat this last Saturday!! It was a BLAST!! and not only that but it was SUPER successful on the missionary effort side of it as well!! We had multiple less active, part member and even fully non-member families come out and they all had a blast and some of them came to church the next day as well so that was GREAT! We're definitely going to continue to follow-up with those that came and hopefully they can keep coming out and get baptized and then tell their friends and they will get baptized and eventually by the end of the transfer they'll have to split our one ward into two stakes because everyone will be super active and they'll build a new Kaneohe Temple and the church head-quarters will move out here and..... well something like that will happen.. maybe? haha!

Anyway, yeah so that's basically the main highlight of the week not including all of the usual walking, talking and other stuff that we do every week! haha! anyway, so yeah, hope you all have a great week! Sorry this week is kind of short but well, I don't really know what else to write about! haha! But yeah hope you all have an amazing week to follow! again, welcome home Maddy, congratulations Ben, and as always, don't forget to be awesome!! :)

Aloha Nui Loa!

-Elder Powell