Tuesday, August 30, 2011
8/29/11 She has been out 8 months!
Hey everybody!
This week was Urša's baptism and it was amazing!!! I have so much love and respect for that young woman. her humility amazes me. We had 44 people come to her baptism and according to the elders count 25 of them were non members. That is unheard of!...I don't know how accurate that count is but we're trusting the elders on that:) Urša had to be baptized twice because she was sitting in a chair and when the chair got tipped back her legs came up. I thought she didn't go under the second time but the witnesses oked it. That was a little stressful but it all worked out! When sister Oakley went back to help her change she said Urša was just beaming. She invited 5 of her family members and we had a bunch of investigators come as well! I can guarantee that we will be seeing the affects of this baptism years down the road. Urša is already a great missionary and the spirit she brings touches the hearts of all those she comes in contact with. I am so excited for her and grateful for the opportunity I had to teach her. She has and will bless many peoples lives!
Second big piece of news for the week. Transfers.....are you ready for this?.....I am still in Ljubljana......with Sister Staheli!!! I am so excited! I was really strange for me to say goodbye to sister Oakley though. We have been together for 6 months and I have learned so much from her. I have known nothing but ljubljana with her and now I am here without her...it is a little disorienting and I am sure it will be the cause of much growth. I haven't had to do a lot leading and so it will really make me stretch. So many of the members love her so much and we have developed some amazing relationships with the members and our investigators so it will be interesting for me to learn how to work with someone different. I am really excited to experience something new though!
I'd better go. I love you all and thank you for your love, prayers and support!
Love,
Sestra Powell
8/22/11
Hello Everyone!
So this week was a little rough...but went by very fast!! We had a ton of our lessons cancel and most of our investigators are on vacations...but guess what!!! Urša is back! It was so good to see her. She is so sweet and dedicated to being obedient and doing what is right. She did all of the "Homework" We gave her and shared insights with her mom for FHE. She has her interview this week and she is so nervous about it! I feel so bad because that is not what the interview should be like. We've tried explaining that it is ok if we have to push her baptism back but it didn't help that they announced it in sacrament meeting and everyone was congratulating her. I'm not worried though:) We went through the baptismal interview questions and she was pulling out scriptures to back up her testimony or to expain how she knew that God is real and that the book of mormon is the word of God. She is truly an incredible example to me and I have learned so much about humility and love from her. At the same time she has such a fun personality even though she has been placed in difficult circumstances. I love her!
We also had a good lesson with Zdenka and her daughter Sara. I think i wrote about them last week. Zdenka is a faithful woman and her daughter is struggling right now. We haven't ever gotten with Sara before but we asked Zdenka if we could meet at her house. We didn't think we would be able to meet sara because she was at work but we were really late to the lesson and about halfway through sara came home. It was really neat because Sara would ask a question and Zdenka would answer perfectly! Sara asked about if the book of Mormon was another bible. Zdenka answered and basically taught Sara about Joseph Smith and what the book of Mormon is. It was sooo cool!
Guess what!! I gave a ten minute talk in church on Sunday! JOJ. It was a little nerve racking because Pres. Majc asked me the day before so I had to pull ten minutes of material together in about 2 hours...in Slovene! Let's just say I took advantage of quoting a lot of scriptures and talks:) I talked about love and how important it is to realize our relationship with heavenly Father, and when we do our perspective of life changes. Wordly things don't matter anymore:)
So it's kinda crazy because one more transfer is almost over! We find out probably this week where we will be...and we are pretty sure it won't stay the same like it has the past 2 transfers. I am excited but sad at the same time. I love sister Oakley and have learned a lot from her. I guess we'll see! There is a small chance that nothing will change and I would love to work with her in Ljubljana one more transfer!
Well I'd better get going. I love you all!
Love,
Sestra Powell
So this week was a little rough...but went by very fast!! We had a ton of our lessons cancel and most of our investigators are on vacations...but guess what!!! Urša is back! It was so good to see her. She is so sweet and dedicated to being obedient and doing what is right. She did all of the "Homework" We gave her and shared insights with her mom for FHE. She has her interview this week and she is so nervous about it! I feel so bad because that is not what the interview should be like. We've tried explaining that it is ok if we have to push her baptism back but it didn't help that they announced it in sacrament meeting and everyone was congratulating her. I'm not worried though:) We went through the baptismal interview questions and she was pulling out scriptures to back up her testimony or to expain how she knew that God is real and that the book of mormon is the word of God. She is truly an incredible example to me and I have learned so much about humility and love from her. At the same time she has such a fun personality even though she has been placed in difficult circumstances. I love her!
We also had a good lesson with Zdenka and her daughter Sara. I think i wrote about them last week. Zdenka is a faithful woman and her daughter is struggling right now. We haven't ever gotten with Sara before but we asked Zdenka if we could meet at her house. We didn't think we would be able to meet sara because she was at work but we were really late to the lesson and about halfway through sara came home. It was really neat because Sara would ask a question and Zdenka would answer perfectly! Sara asked about if the book of Mormon was another bible. Zdenka answered and basically taught Sara about Joseph Smith and what the book of Mormon is. It was sooo cool!
Guess what!! I gave a ten minute talk in church on Sunday! JOJ. It was a little nerve racking because Pres. Majc asked me the day before so I had to pull ten minutes of material together in about 2 hours...in Slovene! Let's just say I took advantage of quoting a lot of scriptures and talks:) I talked about love and how important it is to realize our relationship with heavenly Father, and when we do our perspective of life changes. Wordly things don't matter anymore:)
So it's kinda crazy because one more transfer is almost over! We find out probably this week where we will be...and we are pretty sure it won't stay the same like it has the past 2 transfers. I am excited but sad at the same time. I love sister Oakley and have learned a lot from her. I guess we'll see! There is a small chance that nothing will change and I would love to work with her in Ljubljana one more transfer!
Well I'd better get going. I love you all!
Love,
Sestra Powell
8/8/11
Hello Everyone!
Thank you for all of the letters and good wishes! This week had been a very good one... and kind of bizarre as well. We have had some strange things happen, but not necessarily bad:) To start off a cross dresser listened in on one of our lessons with a member! (blue eyeshadow pink lipstick and all:)) he was very respectful and we were able to have a good religious discussion. Afterwards sister Oakley and I had a good conversation about trials, how we all have different trials...(and that I am grateful that is not one of mine) and how all of God's children need to understand their relationship with him to overcome their trials.
Anyway, our investigators are doing well. We have heard from Urša several times this week and she is doing great on vacation! She fasted even though she couldn't go to church and is doing everything we have asked her to. She asked us again to let her know what we learned in church this week. She is just too good!
We have a couple of new investigators. Magdalena is one of them. She is a 37 yo women and she is very receptive to basically everything we teach her. She is sweet and read all of first nephi in 5 days and then gave us a chapter by chapter summary at our next lesson! Marjetka is another one and she is so great! She is a very bubbly woman who is always giving and thinking of others. She is a friend of the Vidras and we met her when we were both visiting Ram (the Vidras son who has cerebral palsy). We are excited about both of them!
So I have truly come to better understand the power of the word of God this week. As we have taught some of our less active/inactive members it has been really neat to see them change and start to understand the myseries of God. One in specific is a member named Lucija. She has been going to several different churches at the same time and she is a little confused. As we have been getting with her and teaching her out of PMG we have seen her turn to pure doctrine more and more. Just the other week a catholic priest confronted her about coming to the "Mormon Church" and told her she should stop. She stood up for our religion and said that she would keep on coming. The priest didn't have much else to say and walked away. She connected that with what it says in the Book of Mormon about how people will reject the true church in the last days. We were so proud of her for her courage to stand up for truth and for the connection she made with her experience and the Book of Mormon! I have also made it a goal to more effectively study out of Preach My Gospel and it is amazing how it has affected my desire to share the gospel. The pure basic principles of the Gospel are so important and i am so grateful for the knowledge I have if them and the opportunity to share them with others!
I'd better get going. I love you all!
Love,
Sestra Powell
Thank you for all of the letters and good wishes! This week had been a very good one... and kind of bizarre as well. We have had some strange things happen, but not necessarily bad:) To start off a cross dresser listened in on one of our lessons with a member! (blue eyeshadow pink lipstick and all:)) he was very respectful and we were able to have a good religious discussion. Afterwards sister Oakley and I had a good conversation about trials, how we all have different trials...(and that I am grateful that is not one of mine) and how all of God's children need to understand their relationship with him to overcome their trials.
Anyway, our investigators are doing well. We have heard from Urša several times this week and she is doing great on vacation! She fasted even though she couldn't go to church and is doing everything we have asked her to. She asked us again to let her know what we learned in church this week. She is just too good!
We have a couple of new investigators. Magdalena is one of them. She is a 37 yo women and she is very receptive to basically everything we teach her. She is sweet and read all of first nephi in 5 days and then gave us a chapter by chapter summary at our next lesson! Marjetka is another one and she is so great! She is a very bubbly woman who is always giving and thinking of others. She is a friend of the Vidras and we met her when we were both visiting Ram (the Vidras son who has cerebral palsy). We are excited about both of them!
So I have truly come to better understand the power of the word of God this week. As we have taught some of our less active/inactive members it has been really neat to see them change and start to understand the myseries of God. One in specific is a member named Lucija. She has been going to several different churches at the same time and she is a little confused. As we have been getting with her and teaching her out of PMG we have seen her turn to pure doctrine more and more. Just the other week a catholic priest confronted her about coming to the "Mormon Church" and told her she should stop. She stood up for our religion and said that she would keep on coming. The priest didn't have much else to say and walked away. She connected that with what it says in the Book of Mormon about how people will reject the true church in the last days. We were so proud of her for her courage to stand up for truth and for the connection she made with her experience and the Book of Mormon! I have also made it a goal to more effectively study out of Preach My Gospel and it is amazing how it has affected my desire to share the gospel. The pure basic principles of the Gospel are so important and i am so grateful for the knowledge I have if them and the opportunity to share them with others!
I'd better get going. I love you all!
Love,
Sestra Powell
8/1/11
Hello Everyone!
So there are so many things that I want to write about but once again we had a packed p-day! I'll try to make it fast and give you all the information that i know you are just dying to know.
So as far as investigators go. Ksenija told us this past week that she no longer wanted to get with us and that baptism was no longer a priority because she has everything that she was looking for already (good company etc). It made us really sad and so we gave her number to the elders to see if they could make some progress with her that we couldn't. They called her and she was very excited to start having lessons with them. Another stab to the heart for us. But at least she is keeping in contact with missionaries and hopefully really does still want to be baptized...we'll see where it goes. Elena also said that she wanted to take a break for a little while. Tadeja contacted us finally and said she isn't going to be back in Slovenia until September...so once again her baptismal date is being moved back. Urša is on vacation for 3 weeks! We miss her sooo much already but we gave her some good talks and activities to do each week to keep her spiritually strong. it was so cute she sent us a text message on Sunday asking us to tell everybody hi for her at church and also asked us to text her what we learned! She is just too good! Also this week we got 3 new investigators! one from what was supposed to be English class, one as a member referral, and another from a friend of one of our English class students! It is pretty amazing! I'm sure I'll have more about them this next week.
We also had a companion exchange this week. I was with Sister Hagemeister in Ljubljana. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from her. She really knows the language well even though she has only been here for 1 transfer more than me and it helped me a lot to be with her!
Sister Oakley and I visited 2 inactive members and they both came to church on Sunday! it was so great and we really hope they will keep coming. They are both from Serbia and live in a little community about an hour bus ride from our house. It was such a cute little area and they are both very welcoming. We had a little miracle happen too. We were trying to find Aiša's house and were really struggling. We had never met Aiša before but we had met Dragica and had been trying to call her for a long time with no success. AS we were trying to find Aiša's house Dragica came out and saw us. She helped us find the right place and we found out that we had had the wrong number the whole time! It was so good and we were able to get together with her the next day as well. The Lord is so good to us!
Anyway, today we went to škocjanske jame, these really cool caves with one of our English class students/investigators and her daughter and it was really fun! But i don't have a ton of time...I think I got everything that I wanted to in though!
I love you all and hope life is going well for you!
Love,
Sestra Powell
So there are so many things that I want to write about but once again we had a packed p-day! I'll try to make it fast and give you all the information that i know you are just dying to know.
So as far as investigators go. Ksenija told us this past week that she no longer wanted to get with us and that baptism was no longer a priority because she has everything that she was looking for already (good company etc). It made us really sad and so we gave her number to the elders to see if they could make some progress with her that we couldn't. They called her and she was very excited to start having lessons with them. Another stab to the heart for us. But at least she is keeping in contact with missionaries and hopefully really does still want to be baptized...we'll see where it goes. Elena also said that she wanted to take a break for a little while. Tadeja contacted us finally and said she isn't going to be back in Slovenia until September...so once again her baptismal date is being moved back. Urša is on vacation for 3 weeks! We miss her sooo much already but we gave her some good talks and activities to do each week to keep her spiritually strong. it was so cute she sent us a text message on Sunday asking us to tell everybody hi for her at church and also asked us to text her what we learned! She is just too good! Also this week we got 3 new investigators! one from what was supposed to be English class, one as a member referral, and another from a friend of one of our English class students! It is pretty amazing! I'm sure I'll have more about them this next week.
We also had a companion exchange this week. I was with Sister Hagemeister in Ljubljana. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from her. She really knows the language well even though she has only been here for 1 transfer more than me and it helped me a lot to be with her!
Sister Oakley and I visited 2 inactive members and they both came to church on Sunday! it was so great and we really hope they will keep coming. They are both from Serbia and live in a little community about an hour bus ride from our house. It was such a cute little area and they are both very welcoming. We had a little miracle happen too. We were trying to find Aiša's house and were really struggling. We had never met Aiša before but we had met Dragica and had been trying to call her for a long time with no success. AS we were trying to find Aiša's house Dragica came out and saw us. She helped us find the right place and we found out that we had had the wrong number the whole time! It was so good and we were able to get together with her the next day as well. The Lord is so good to us!
Anyway, today we went to škocjanske jame, these really cool caves with one of our English class students/investigators and her daughter and it was really fun! But i don't have a ton of time...I think I got everything that I wanted to in though!
I love you all and hope life is going well for you!
Love,
Sestra Powell
7/25/11
Pozdravljeni Prijatelji moji!
This week has been a little bit of a weird week. We have had so many ups and downs and it has been crazy. We have had some of the weirdest lessons and some of the best lessons. We have some great investigators who are progressing and some who are giving us a really hard time.
Urša is amazing. She is strengthening her testimony one step at a time and is also willing to make sacrifices and test her faith. Because of it she is receiving answers to her prayers and we are seeing miracles with her. She paid tithing and fast offerings for the first time. We had Pres. and Stanka Majc on one of our lessons with her and she handed Pres. Majc her envelope all filled out! She has stopped drinking coffee and does it without complaint or question. She trusts everything we tell her and does it with faith! We read through the baptismal interview questions after church on Sunday and it was amazing because she said that everything during church was amazing. Pres. Majc gave an amazing talk about the atonement and that Christ suffered for all of our sins and it hit her pretty hard. Afterwards we went through all of the baptismal interview questions. She felt guilty for some things that she had done in the past and it was an amazing opportunity for sister Oakley and I to explain that that is why the atonement is so incredible and that is why baptism is so important as well. We all make mistakes and especially if we didn't know something was wrong in the first place. The Atonement covers it all and when we are baptized we become completely clean! She is truly amazing and i love her!
Elena is kind of struggling right now. We invited a member on her lesson and It went really badly and she was very rude to the member and wouldn't really respond to anything we said in slovene and completely shut us out. It was completely opposite of how she normally reacts to anything we teach so we don't really know what to do. We have another lesson with her this week on exchanges so we'll see if she responds differently to another sister missionary.
Things are also a little weird with Ksenija. She came to church and stayed for all 3 hours! but after when we asked her if we could get together this week she said no. We are afraid that she is upset with us for moving her baptismal date back. She loves the company at church and still takes notes but she ignores our phone calls. We are hoping that she still wants to be baptized even if it means her getting together with other missionaries.
we heard from Tadeja in Switzerland She is doing well but won't be back in time to be baptized in August. She is going to wait until September.
This week has been a little rough for me, I have been kind of sick but I'm getting better and it is amazing how the Lord has sustained me through this week. I have truly felt His love and power helping me so that I was still able to do everything that was necessary!
Thank you for all of your love and prayers!
Love,
Sestra Powell
This week has been a little bit of a weird week. We have had so many ups and downs and it has been crazy. We have had some of the weirdest lessons and some of the best lessons. We have some great investigators who are progressing and some who are giving us a really hard time.
Urša is amazing. She is strengthening her testimony one step at a time and is also willing to make sacrifices and test her faith. Because of it she is receiving answers to her prayers and we are seeing miracles with her. She paid tithing and fast offerings for the first time. We had Pres. and Stanka Majc on one of our lessons with her and she handed Pres. Majc her envelope all filled out! She has stopped drinking coffee and does it without complaint or question. She trusts everything we tell her and does it with faith! We read through the baptismal interview questions after church on Sunday and it was amazing because she said that everything during church was amazing. Pres. Majc gave an amazing talk about the atonement and that Christ suffered for all of our sins and it hit her pretty hard. Afterwards we went through all of the baptismal interview questions. She felt guilty for some things that she had done in the past and it was an amazing opportunity for sister Oakley and I to explain that that is why the atonement is so incredible and that is why baptism is so important as well. We all make mistakes and especially if we didn't know something was wrong in the first place. The Atonement covers it all and when we are baptized we become completely clean! She is truly amazing and i love her!
Elena is kind of struggling right now. We invited a member on her lesson and It went really badly and she was very rude to the member and wouldn't really respond to anything we said in slovene and completely shut us out. It was completely opposite of how she normally reacts to anything we teach so we don't really know what to do. We have another lesson with her this week on exchanges so we'll see if she responds differently to another sister missionary.
Things are also a little weird with Ksenija. She came to church and stayed for all 3 hours! but after when we asked her if we could get together this week she said no. We are afraid that she is upset with us for moving her baptismal date back. She loves the company at church and still takes notes but she ignores our phone calls. We are hoping that she still wants to be baptized even if it means her getting together with other missionaries.
we heard from Tadeja in Switzerland She is doing well but won't be back in time to be baptized in August. She is going to wait until September.
This week has been a little rough for me, I have been kind of sick but I'm getting better and it is amazing how the Lord has sustained me through this week. I have truly felt His love and power helping me so that I was still able to do everything that was necessary!
Thank you for all of your love and prayers!
Love,
Sestra Powell
7/18/11
Hey Everybody!
Ali veš kaj? Urša se bo krstila!!!!!! in a veš kaj to pomeni? Urša is going to be baptized!!! THAT's what that means!...well I hope... my Slovene is still on the slow upward slope. Anyway Urša chose a baptismal date for Aug. 27! She truly is an amazing young woman and I am so excited for her. She is so eager to learn and to obey. She has a good beginning to a testimony and has good questions that will help her learn quickly. To show you how obedient she really is I'll tell you about our lesson with her this week. It was a neat lesson and we talked about the commandments. Last Monday we had Family night at the Taylor's and we taught about prophets. Elder Taylor brought up how Pres. Hinckley said only to wear one pair of earrings. During our lesson with Urša she brought it up and we were afraid it was going to be a little problem that she would have to overcome (she has 4 piercings i think) but she basically said of course she wouldn't wear more than one pair anymore she just wondered if it was a sin that she had done it without knowing it was wrong! She truly is golden and we are really looking forward to her baptism!
Elena is doing well. We have spent several hours now (over several lessons) teaching the Plan of Salvation. She just has so many questions! some that we have to divert and others that just keep going and going. She also believes hard core in reincarnation...it's been a little bit of a bump in the road...and we are not sure if she is going to be able to completely let go of it for awhile...but we are making progress! It is so good because she has these light bulbs that go off in her head that just make sense. After we finally got to the end of one lesson she saw some pictures of the temple that were hanging in the room and said " I don't know why...but I just have this feeling that this (meaning the plan of salvation) and those buildings are connected somehow". Pretty amazing huh! She is a tough cookie to crumble but she is another one who is eager to learn!
Ksenija just back from vacation so I'll let you know more next week about her progress. Tadeja is still is Switzerland but we are sending her lessons through the mail. We hope she is getting them... we haven't heard anything from her for awhile but we'll see!
Even though we don't have English class we are still keeping pretty busy with lessons and stuff. Pres. Rowe really wants us to focus on reactivation, part member families, and getting in investigators homes so we can teach their families. It is going well!
We have some great things going on here and we are excited to see more success! overall it has been a great week!
More next week!
Love,
Sestra Powell
Ali veš kaj? Urša se bo krstila!!!!!! in a veš kaj to pomeni? Urša is going to be baptized!!! THAT's what that means!...well I hope... my Slovene is still on the slow upward slope. Anyway Urša chose a baptismal date for Aug. 27! She truly is an amazing young woman and I am so excited for her. She is so eager to learn and to obey. She has a good beginning to a testimony and has good questions that will help her learn quickly. To show you how obedient she really is I'll tell you about our lesson with her this week. It was a neat lesson and we talked about the commandments. Last Monday we had Family night at the Taylor's and we taught about prophets. Elder Taylor brought up how Pres. Hinckley said only to wear one pair of earrings. During our lesson with Urša she brought it up and we were afraid it was going to be a little problem that she would have to overcome (she has 4 piercings i think) but she basically said of course she wouldn't wear more than one pair anymore she just wondered if it was a sin that she had done it without knowing it was wrong! She truly is golden and we are really looking forward to her baptism!
Elena is doing well. We have spent several hours now (over several lessons) teaching the Plan of Salvation. She just has so many questions! some that we have to divert and others that just keep going and going. She also believes hard core in reincarnation...it's been a little bit of a bump in the road...and we are not sure if she is going to be able to completely let go of it for awhile...but we are making progress! It is so good because she has these light bulbs that go off in her head that just make sense. After we finally got to the end of one lesson she saw some pictures of the temple that were hanging in the room and said " I don't know why...but I just have this feeling that this (meaning the plan of salvation) and those buildings are connected somehow". Pretty amazing huh! She is a tough cookie to crumble but she is another one who is eager to learn!
Ksenija just back from vacation so I'll let you know more next week about her progress. Tadeja is still is Switzerland but we are sending her lessons through the mail. We hope she is getting them... we haven't heard anything from her for awhile but we'll see!
Even though we don't have English class we are still keeping pretty busy with lessons and stuff. Pres. Rowe really wants us to focus on reactivation, part member families, and getting in investigators homes so we can teach their families. It is going well!
We have some great things going on here and we are excited to see more success! overall it has been a great week!
More next week!
Love,
Sestra Powell
7/11/11
Greetings from Slovenia!
It is so interesting to think that I am actually in Slovenia.... yeah you are probably all thinking "Really sister powell? You've been there for how long and are just now having that realization?" and the answer is no. I haven't just realized it...but I have been thinking about it a lot lately. and how weird it is that I am meeting people everyday who have always existed but I had no clue about...and still how many people are out there who I don't know, and never will, who are all God's children, and how many of them don't have the gospel? It puts things into perspective a little bit... and helps me realize just how miniscule my existence really is. But God still knows and loves me and helps me everyday, and also all of those other billions of people...whew.
Alright enough of the philosophical stuff...sorry my spelling and grammar is going down the drain so bear with me. This week has been a kind of long one. We had an amazing meeting with Pres. Rowe on tuesday with our whole mission! Pres. Rowe asked me to sing I Need Thee Every Hour for the meeting and I was so happy that I just happened to have a great arrangement of it that I sang in the MTC! Elder Lee from Cedar City played it for me. We only had 15 minutes to put it all together but it went pretty well:) it was also really fun to see my MTC elders and also get to meet other missionaries I haven't ever seen before but have heard good things about:) Pres. and Sister Rowe are absolutely amazing. They are very different from Pres. and Sister Hill, but i am excited to get to know them and learn from them!
Some interesting news this week. We can't do English class anymore...or at least for a little while. there was a newspaper article saying that we were teaching english class illegally and so there has been some stuff going on with that...somebody got upset about our Free english classes because it was taking away money from people who get paid to do it... Or something like that...don't quote me on the details because I'm not sure...It makes sense...but it gets rid of a good successful finding technique for us. But we still have our investigators from last English Class!
Urša and Elena are both doing well and we are getting together with a couple other English class students for lessons. But this week has been a hard one. We had 7 lessons cancel on us and when our standard of excellence is 12 that is saying a lot! We had a lot of contacting time and the weather is hot and humid! And plus the streets are barren on the weekend during the summer because EVERYONE goes to the seaside! ...really it's crazy. we had some good conversations with tourists in center though! We met a woman from Salt lake City! it's fun to pick out the American accents every now and then and talk to them. it has happened a couple of times and it's always great!
Ok. Well I'd better get going.
I love you all!
love,
Sestra Powell
It is so interesting to think that I am actually in Slovenia.... yeah you are probably all thinking "Really sister powell? You've been there for how long and are just now having that realization?" and the answer is no. I haven't just realized it...but I have been thinking about it a lot lately. and how weird it is that I am meeting people everyday who have always existed but I had no clue about...and still how many people are out there who I don't know, and never will, who are all God's children, and how many of them don't have the gospel? It puts things into perspective a little bit... and helps me realize just how miniscule my existence really is. But God still knows and loves me and helps me everyday, and also all of those other billions of people...whew.
Alright enough of the philosophical stuff...sorry my spelling and grammar is going down the drain so bear with me. This week has been a kind of long one. We had an amazing meeting with Pres. Rowe on tuesday with our whole mission! Pres. Rowe asked me to sing I Need Thee Every Hour for the meeting and I was so happy that I just happened to have a great arrangement of it that I sang in the MTC! Elder Lee from Cedar City played it for me. We only had 15 minutes to put it all together but it went pretty well:) it was also really fun to see my MTC elders and also get to meet other missionaries I haven't ever seen before but have heard good things about:) Pres. and Sister Rowe are absolutely amazing. They are very different from Pres. and Sister Hill, but i am excited to get to know them and learn from them!
Some interesting news this week. We can't do English class anymore...or at least for a little while. there was a newspaper article saying that we were teaching english class illegally and so there has been some stuff going on with that...somebody got upset about our Free english classes because it was taking away money from people who get paid to do it... Or something like that...don't quote me on the details because I'm not sure...It makes sense...but it gets rid of a good successful finding technique for us. But we still have our investigators from last English Class!
Urša and Elena are both doing well and we are getting together with a couple other English class students for lessons. But this week has been a hard one. We had 7 lessons cancel on us and when our standard of excellence is 12 that is saying a lot! We had a lot of contacting time and the weather is hot and humid! And plus the streets are barren on the weekend during the summer because EVERYONE goes to the seaside! ...really it's crazy. we had some good conversations with tourists in center though! We met a woman from Salt lake City! it's fun to pick out the American accents every now and then and talk to them. it has happened a couple of times and it's always great!
Ok. Well I'd better get going.
I love you all!
love,
Sestra Powell
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