New Jewsey Week 2

Bonjour!
Thank you all for your emails and love! I am overwhelmed at the love I have for all of you. That means…lots to respond to and not so much time to do it in! First off, OGDEN!!!! That’s AMAZING!! Josh you are going to love it! I can’t put enough exclamation points to express how ecstatic I am for you!!!!!! I so wish I could have been there to see the joy in your eyes but I guess I will have to settle for my imagination, it’s not difficult at all to see your excitement! Teaching people in the States has been such an incredible blessing. The people here need the gospel just as much as they need it anywhere else in the world. Actually we probably need it more, we are so stubborn here. The gospel has serious power to bless people’s lives and you will get to be a part of that miracle and witness those changes. You will also be blessed to have incredible member support. We set weekly goals for the number of lessons taught with members and I have no doubt the members will more than willing to help. Sister Child recently shared a statistic with me. Apparently only 7% of people who are found by the missionaries stay active for over 3 years while 75% of people found by members stay active. Isn’t that mind-blowing? We NEED the members every step of the way and you will be blessed to have them there. (just for the record, those numbers might be a tad bit off BUT you get the idea.

I was reading in Jacob 4:7 this morning and he says, “The Lord God shows us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.” We have weaknesses because we NEED to rely on Jesus Christ. We need his grace and we need his love. There is absolutely no way around that fact. If we were strong from the beginning we wouldn’t need to look to Christ and consequently wouldn’t know HOW we become like him. It is humbling to not be strong, to not always know what to do or what to say but those are the times when we find strength in our Savior. I’m not sure if I already shared this with you but I love 2 Cor 12:9-10. Paul glories in his weaknesses because he knows that those are the times when he is the closest to Christ. God knows our weaknesses and has power to help us turn those into strengths as long as we go to him. In Exodus, Moses questions his call and the Lord responds, “ Who hath made man’s mouth? Or maketh the dumb, or deaf or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what to say.” He has created us and will not leave us without the strength we need to be supported. Anyway, that was LONG and I still haven’t said much! I am excited for your call! God is preparing people right now for you and can’t wait for you to bless the lives of his other children.

Mom also mentioned that there are a ton of gangs in Odgen? Crazy… Same here! The missionaries stay in the apartments the day before, the day of and the day after Halloween because it is initiation day! We ran into this guy named KEVIN (shout out #1 bro-in-law) and he used to run with the creator of the Crypts, Tootsie Williams. Apparently Kevin’s street name was cool cat but, “Tootsie call me Tiger.” It is so amazing talking to so many different people! So far we haven’t had trouble but we are always on the lookout for red and white shirts. You will probably also get a lot of Polynesians up there… Just like you predicted!Switching gears…

Boundary changes excitement! It sounds like you got a pretty good deal minus the Beehive situation and the Franklin Farm people. Remember the same thing just 8 short years ago? It seemed devastating at the time (most things seemed devastating to me then:)) but I think that we all learned that there was a purpose to the change. Growth is such a blessing and it just means that we get to meet more people and develop more life-long relationships. I may have mentioned this when I got back from Taiwan but I believe that one of our greatest blessings in life is to interact and learn from people. We all have such different lives and experiences and can always strengthen and help each other. This just means there are more friends to be made! It also means that Hadley has the chance to be a missionary and get all of her friends to come!

Ellis Island was really fun! We got to walk around the back halls and see some behind the scenes stuff…ie storage for the café. We got to go on a tour and our guide had the driest humor I think I have ever encountered. He has made me seriously consider a future as a Park Ranger. It was fun to help people find their ancestors. People were so excited to find relatives! Ellis Island charges $5 for every 30 mins so it was fun to say, “Hey there is a family history center near you that is completely free!”

We got to talk about the important of General conference yesterday. Made me think of how much I love Mom for making us go to all of the sessions and, of course, frog eye salad. I love CONFERENCE. There was such an extensive period where we didn’t have a prophet, didn’t have apostles to speak to us and now we get to here from them this weekend! I used the scripture D&C 21:6 in my talk…when we listen and follow the prophet, “For by doing these things the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good and his name’s glory.” Can you even believe those blessings? It is a privilege to have a prophet today and to hear what God wants for us. I hope you are as excited as I am. PLUS I might get to hear it all in English! We talked to this teenage girl last night and asked her what she thought about the idea of having a prophet today like they had during old testament times. She goes, “Well God SHOULD call a prophet! Dang we need it!” 100% agree.

Ok so we are out of time, I love you and pray for you every day. God is watching out for each one of us and wants us to stay close to him. Keep praying and reading your scriptures!
With all the love in my heart, Sister Powers