Hi!

Well, thank you all for making up for the lack of love last week. (Just kidding mom, I know you emailed me.)

So, I'm officially the last left in Alabama. haha. (Other than Elder Rapelye, but he doesn't count because he didn't put in his visa stuff until he was in the MTC). My entire MTC district's visas came in...I was a tad bit frustrated. I'm not going to lie. I have been trying really hard to keep my mind of it and focused on Alabama...as a result I now have the "Living Christ" memorized in Portuguese. Seems that I actually am a whole lot better at memorizing things when I'm under stress. Haha. Reciting it out loud or in my head has a calming affect on me. First off, it is a beautiful testimony of the life our Savior. Second, reciting it means that I can't think about anything else. So now whenever I lose focus, I say that. Works out well.

But don't get me wrong, I love being in Alabama. The people are awesome. Speaking of awesome people, I have a funny story for all ya'll. So we have a family we are teaching in Shondanay's neighborhood. So every time we go to their house, we of course stop and see Shondanay and her family. Well this time when we left, I noticed two police cars barricading the road. The presence of police cars, is not an uncommon thing in North Huntsville, so I give it little thought. I just hike up my skirt and get on my bike and hope they won't mind us riding pass...Little did I know, that their barricading of the street was to keep Sister Bee and I from doing just that. The police get out their cars, hike up their pants, give each other exasperated looks, and say, "Ma'am what is it that ya'll are doing." This hasn't been the first time I have been asked this by a cop, so I tell them we are missionaries and are just going around talking to people. His response, "We were called in saying that ya'll were selling drugs." I laughed, but stopped quickly when I saw that his face was the picture perfect replica of mom's when she finds out that I "borrowed" her favorite Rock&Republic Jeans. I look at Sister Bee for some help, but she is silent (which is a rare thing for sister Bee to be). I then somehow rambled off an explanation, thinking the whole time how much I was going to enjoy sharing this experience to ya'll in my blog and half hoping that they would take us in so to make the story even better, but they were satisfied with a piece of literature to show the lady that the two girls with matching bikes and helmets and wearing ridicoulsly long skirts were in fact who they said they were. It was one of the best moments of my life. How many of you have been pulled over and asked if you were selling drugs?

So on that spiritual and uplifting note, this week really has been awesome. I had a really good time at the sisters meeting. Realized that there was a lot about myself that I should improve if I was really going to give my investigators my best. President and his wife really are the coolest people I think I have ever met. Both them have written enough books to fill my bedroom bookcase, but despite being smarter than everyone in the room combined, they are humble. I could sit and listen to them talk for hours (and we do...I could not feel my butt when we left).

We are tracting a new area. I love it. It is the historical district of Huntsville. It is beautiful! We are tracting a very different kind of people than we are used to, but I love it. It is amazing to see how the Lord has prepared people wherever we go. I love going out every day and finding.

We are also teaching some people that are really pushing me to become a better teacher. They ask such amazing questions and not all of them are those that I can answer. I made a promise to myself at the beginning of my mission that I would never force an answer. That if I didn't know it, I would tell them so and go and find the answer. Cool thing is, that in every question that is asked, there is always an answer. It makes studying all the more fun, because there are a lot of things I don't know! The investigators seem to like that though. We are teaching couple right now who is proving to be the most challenging (in a good way). James always says that he keeps trying to prove us wrong, and it is driving him nuts that he can't. I pray a lot when we go into those lessons.

His wife has had a lot of contact with Anti-Mormon literature, so she has also been fun to teach. It is so sad how much money people pay to fight what we are doing, but little do they know that it actually can be used to our advantage. The other day she was reading some of it out loud and it was so interesting to see how it completely chased away the spirit. I noticed that and read her a scripture from Galations that explains the fruit of the Spirit, and immediately I felt better. I asked her to explain how she feels when she reads that literature compared to when we read from the Book of Mormon and the Bible and she said the exact same thing I was thinking. Pretty cool, huh? The Spirit really is the number one teacher.

Well I love ya'll. I sure do appreciate every one of you. I couldn't be doing this without ya'll. I hope you have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Powell