CAN YOU FIND MY HOUSE? :D

January 23, 2012
Mommaaaaaaaaa! Oo-oo-oo-oooooo!!! (Let go)...... Haha, sorry, got the Bohemian Rhapsody stuck in my head :o)
Hiya! :) So things are going pretty good in Meycuayan :) It's kind of hard because both Elder Mika and I are new in the area and it is HUGE!!! So we're still meeting ward members, less-actives, and investigators from the missionaries before us.
Yesterday I did the SCARIEST... well.... one of the scariest things I've had to do on my mission so far. We went on splits. But this time.... it was with members... AHHHH! haha :o) For all you non-missionaries(well ALL members need to be missionaries) but for those of you who don't have a nametag that says ELDER or SISTER on it, splits is when you and your companion split up and work with someone else. A lot of the time you do it with District Leaders or other missionaries that have been in the field for a long time. This time I did it with an 18 year-old member that's preparing for a mission. It was SOOO scary because I don't speak very well in Tagalog yet and I have a hard time teaching sometimes. On top of that we're new in the area and I don't know who the investigators or less-actives we're supposed to teach are yet. YIKES! haha, I was scared to death but it turned out ok-ish haha :) No one seemed to be home no matter where we went, I was having a HARD time with my Tagalog, and was scared to death the whole time. But I'm still alive so it was very ok-ish haha :)
My Tagalog's going great! All of the members say I'm doing very well for only being here for 3 months. Sometimes I think they just say that to be nice haha ;o) but I am doing pretty well. I understand A LOT of what everyone says, almost everything I hear I can understand but I have to concentrate REALLY hard to do it. Speaking isn't going quite as well, but I'm studying hard and getting help from missionaries in our Zone so I know that'll start to come too.
Mom don't you dare say you have to repent for not sending me enough letters!! YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!!!! NO OTHER MISSIONARY FEELS THIS LOVED BY HIS FAMILY! :) THANKS FOR BEING SO GREAT AND CONTINUING TO SPOIL ME EVEN WHEN I'M ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD! :) I LOVE Y'ALL! :) Sorry I'm terrible at writing letters to anyone, there's just no time here and when there is I'm too exhausted. I'll try and get better at it haha.
I've gotten all of the packages and snacked on that chocolate for a whole week and a half haha(got it on transfer day) Thank you! :)Wow you guys are awesome Christlike people! The only reason I'm a good example to others is because I had great examples that raised me! :) Way to go, taking care of people you don't even know and teaching Hunter and Adam a GREAT lesson at the same time. (We helped a man who had crashed on his bike. In helping him, we found out that he was homeless, we felt so bad for him, and helped him as best we could.) WOOT! You ROCK! :)
Soooo..... You NEED to sign Hunter up for that Bantam League!!! haha, sounds like he's still doing awesome! Pick and Roll at age 9???? WOOT! :D Tell him I love him and miss him and to keep up the good work!(P.S. How is Jimmer doing in the NBA? How was the "Jimmer's All-Stars" game back in September? I heard about it in the MTC but haven't heard how it went.)
Haha, we've eaten lunch at SaveMore and we pass by it all the time on the way to investigator's homes haha :) (You can see it on Google Earth) Elder Mika doesn't know how to cook either so we're gonna ask members for recipes. We have dinner appointments with members almost every night haha. The ward here is really solid and great :) I'm actually starting to put on a little weight! haha(P.S. How does Dad make his 7-UP chicken? Just marinate it in straight 7-UP? haha, I wanna try it with rice :) )
O.K. hope this works. It's in the City of Meycauayan. Coming from Malhacan Rd. Our house is in the 2nd cluster of houses on Dona Consolacion Rd. It's on the right side of the road. There are 2 houses with white/beige roofs. One is long the other is short. Ours is the short one. Big field behind us. Pretty cool eh? haha :)

LOVE YOU TONS!!!!Sorry no pictures or if there's not enough detail, don't have my camera with me right now. Pasensya!!! I'll bring it next time.

P.S. I took video of my first time eating balot. haha, pretty funny stuff but don't know if I can send it through email. I'll try next time when I bring my camera.

P.P.S.Yes I did try Chicken Feet this week :) YES it WAS disgusting! haha :o) Too many bones, the texture was just weird! haha. We had it at a member's house. I also had my new favorite Filipino food at their house for the first time! Pork Caldereta. Mmmmmmmm :)

MAHAL KITA! :)

Elder Beej Powell :)

Happy Days!! I Moved!! :D

Nalipat na ako!!!!!!
So... Gpa Slater, Gma Slater, Chelsey and Kylee....... were..... WRONG :)
Bud Ashlyn and Dad...... were...... WRONG!
Mom! You were wrong :o)

HUNTER GOT IT RIGHT! As if his head needs to get any bigger hahaha :o)I've been assigned to work in the (get ready for this it's a mouthful:) MEYCAUAYAN ward in the VALENZUELA zone! :) Pretty stoked this place is AWESOME :) Before all you English speakers get your tongues in a knot this is how you say it... English style :o) My-Co-Why-An haha :) It's a WHOLE 3 miles away from Panghulo and there's a family here that's related to the bishop in Panghulo. Pretty close to my Filipino home haha. But SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much nicer and prettier haha. Compared to Panghulo it's provincial. I can breathe and it doesn't smell too bad, there are trees everywhere and even big fields sometimes.

Our house is HUGE! We've got a REAL shower! Well.... no hot water (why would I want that in the Pines anyways?) but it actually sprays water instead of a bucket and ladle! :D The area's HUGE!!!! The members here are a lot more excited about the missionary work it seems like. A lot of people have been telling me that my Tagalog is VERY good for only being here for 3 months. And I'm kinda just puking my thoughts into this email cuz I'm short on time and have a LOT I wanna tell ya haha :)

My new companion is Elder Mika from Western Samoa. SOBRANG astig siya :) He's only got 3 months left in his mission so I'll probably be his last companion. He's SOOO good at teaching and Tagalog and basically everything haha. His name's V.J. haha BJ and VJ serving in Meycauayan ward. WOOT :) We're opening an area again which means that we're both new to the area. The Zone Leaders were here before us but got moved to a different ward so we're taking over where they left off. Pretty good place to start haha :)

I tried balot! It wasn't NEARLY as bad as we all thought it would be. It wasn't disgusting, just not tasty haha. Elder Mika likes them a lot, he said he ate 18 in one day once haha.

So SUPER short on time... I'm sorry I wasn't able to tell you more about my new area or send pictures(forgot the camera:P) but you'll hear plenty about it in later emails :)

Love y'all TONS!!!!

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUNTER AND KYLEEEEEEEE!!!!!! :D

Mahal Kita!Da Beej

P.S.S. So for all you technologically skilled mothers out there.... :)Google Earth my new apartment! :) It's in the City of Meycauayan. Find Malhacan Rd. and follow it until you find DONA CONSOLACION RD. That's the street my apartment's on :) It's got a great big field behind it.

Enjoy! :)

MALIPAT!!! TRANSFER TIME!!



Sometimes when you are alone, in the Pines, you make poses by cars of epic proportions.
It's for fun.



Elder Powell..................... MALIPAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WooHoo! For all you non-Tagalog-ers that means that I am transferring(nalilipat)!! Haha, pretty crazy stuff. I thought for sure that I would be staying in Panghulo for another transfer(6 weeks) but at our meeting this morning they wrote the list of Malipat(transfer) and Iwan (left behind:) on the whiteboard and I was under Malipat. Pretty exciting :)
I don't mean to sound like I was dying to leave Panghulo because I do like it here a lot and will miss our investigators and members. But I am SUPER excited to go to a new place and begin a whole brand new adventure :)
Me transferring means that Elder Sidillo and I hihiwalay(will split). It's been a BLAST with him and I'll miss my tatay(father). He's going to stay in Panghulo and train another new missionary which means that I'll have a brother in the mission haha. I will always be the Panganay(Firstborn/oldest) though :) It also means that he gets to stay behind and baptize our investigators.... Lucky!!!!!! haha. We have one Sister (Kenneth Mindoza) that will be baptized next Saturday Jan. 21. We also have a family hoping to get baptized on Jan. 28. I'll miss out on that but I'm glad I was able to meet them and play a part in their conversion, pretty amazing feeling :)
Me leaving also means that tonight I will be trying............. BALOT for the first time!!! :) I promised Kenneth and some members that if I was transferring I would try it for them so we'll see how it goes tonight haha. Sorry mom and Grandma, can't become ang Tunay na Pinoy(Real Filipino) if I don't do it hahaha :o)
So I'll find out where I'm going tomorrow morning at Transfer Meeting and you won't find out until next Monday haha. SUPER excited to see where this takes me. The Zones in the City are Fairview, Novaliches, Valenzuela, and Caloocan. In the provincial areas there's Baliwag, Malolos, SJDM, and Montalban. I'm hoping for SJDM or Montalban because they're in the "mountains" :) That would kinda sorta be epic :) But I know that wherever I go will be the right place for me and the Lord will help me do and learn great things there. Like I said, kinda sorta excited :)
Haha, that's an EPIC dream you had mom! Can't wait till I can give you a big bear hug and me, Marcelo and all my friends can tell you about our awesome mission experiences. It might seem far away right now but as we work hard and do our best to think of and help others where we are the time will FLY by. I know you're already doing that but I've gotta remind myself every once in a while haha :)
Thanks for the info on Bud! I found out that an RM in our ward served with Mitch Wade! haha :) His name's Sherwin Lucas and he is an absolute STUD and BIG strength to the ward even though he's still young. Kumusta ang paghahanap ni Bud para sa asawa niya? Kailangan ko ang impormasyon!! haha :o)
Glad you and Chels had some bonding time, Hunter and Kylee are tearin it up on the court, and Ashlyn's becoming a teenager with the Stake Dances haha. Love y'all tons!!
The couple from the Johnson's ward probably is coming here that'd be awesome! There's also a new Elder coming tomorrow from...... good ol' PG! WOOT! I don't know him yet though, I think it was Elder Farnaby.
That is one CUTE baby Uncle Todd and Aunt Angie!!! :)
Love you TONS!!!!!Send me your guesses for my transfer before Monday :)MAHAL KITA!!
Elder POWELL

 

BJ and Elder Sidillo

Go Missionaries.

Happy New Year From The Pines!!!

Maginong Bagong Taon sa inyo din! :) YIKES I'm low on time! We went bowling as a Zone in the nicer area about an hour and a half away so the P-day's almost over. It was a blast and I loved it but it has officially killed my Email time :( I'm SORRY! This is worse than you waking up and forgetting to email me for sure! haha You might wanna send a different Email to the ward for me haha, let them know I love em, miss em, and tell the Primary thanks a TON for their letters! :)The NBA started back up? :D woohoo! haha I mean..... I wasn't even thinking about that, I'm a missionary :o)GO COUGS!!!!!! :D How's the basketball team? Brandon Davies and Matt Carlino playing yet? I mean.... haha :o)LOVE the pictures hahahaha! :) EPIC! :) Sure do love and miss my Moose Momma and Poppa Bear :)Here's my New Years Eve Experience:Dec. 31Holy.... FREAKING..... Crap!!! If they don't stop with the LOUD (as in ear-blasting) fireworks soon I might go out there and pour the rest of their beer on the rest of their fireworks! haha :P They've been going for 3 or 4 hours now and it's only 10:30! Where do they get them all?! Pretty crazy ANNOYING stuff! hahaJan. 1So surprisingly I only woke up once last night and fell back to sleep pretty quick. It was 1am and they were still partying pretty hard with the fireworks and music. Elder Sidillo's sick so he woke up to more fireworks at 2am and ended up not falling back to sleep. BAGSAK!! (failure!!:o) No fun at all!
So.. yeah. New Year's in the Philippines isn't too fun haha. Maybe if we had more than one companionship in our apartment we might have done something fun. Oh well, there's always next year and I was too tired to do anything anyways hahaI love you SOOOOOOOOOO much!!! Thanks a ton for the ANACONDA(AIR) SQUEEEEZE! :) Don't you worry about or miss me too much, know that these past 5 (5already??) months have FLOWN by and the next 19 will be even faster :)
M
A
H
A
L

K
I
T
A!!!!!!!
Love, BJ

P.S.Next week is Transfer Week and I'll be done with my training! :D Which means that I'll definitely be getting a new companion and might be leaving Panghulo Ward and Caloocan Zone :( Elder Sidillo's been awesome. Also means that P-day is next Wednesday instead of Monday. I'll know on Wednesday whether I'm leaving Panghulo or not but won't know where I'm going or who I'll be with. I'll find that out on Thursday (Jan. 12) Pretty excited for it :)

P.P.S.We have someone planning on getting baptized January 14th :D Which means if I leave Panghulo I'll miss it by 2 days :/ haha. I'll let you know more next email :) Sorry! :) LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Christmas Pictures!!!

THE Christmas Package!!!





We love them swedish fish!!

Christmas decor put up the day before christmas.
 naturally.

Happy Christmas Harry!!

Santa was very good to us:)



Ties!!:{ )

Happy Holidays everyone!!
-Elder Powell

MALIGAYANG PASKO!!!!!

WOW it was GREAT talking to y'all!!!  I miss ya tons and it was good to hear all your voices and talk with ya for a bit.  I'm sorry it was so short and we didn't get a chance to say goodbye, I think the minutes ran out on my calling card.  Looking forward to talking to ya on Mother's Day haha :)
Thanks a bunch for all those pictures!!  It's fun to see y'all and all the fam and home.  I really miss it but love it here too.  The phone call wasn't hard on me at all, it was a BLAST talking to ya.  We only had one hour  church on Christmas too and I'm pretty sure we only have one hour on New Years as well.
Wow!  The missionary work in our home ward's starting to EXPLODE huh?  There's only gonna be more from here, there are a TON of young men there, pretty exciting stuff :)
I'll try and send ya some good pictures because I have taken them, it's just tough to send them.
I LOVED the Christmas packages and so did Elder Sidillo!  Thanks SO much! :)  I think my favorite part was the music and George Durrant CD.  It just wasn't Christmas without Christmas music ya know? :)  Plus it made me feel way closer to home :)  and the George Durrant CD was great and really brought the Spirit.  Especially the story of his first Christmas on the mission.  He's a pretty great speaker eh?  I listened to his Number One Christian talk on my iPod last week and loved it too.  Who woulda thought anything good other than dad coulda come out of AF?? ;o)
Tell everyone that gave me Christmas money thanks a BUNCH!  We went to the mall today and got a few things with it.  I'll try and send a picture :)  They had some EPIC ties for only $5 but they were EPICALLY skinny as in half the size of the EPIC pink skinny you guys sent me.  We loved the ties you sent and wore them for Christmas haha Thanks! :)  Also LOVED the Snoopy wrapping paper hahaha, the whole package was great :)
We ran out of money once or twice and I'm planning on getting my Quad re-bound in Leather Art.  Don't know how to describe it but I'll send a picture when I get it back in February some time.  Part of Gma and Gpas Christmas money will go to that too :)
Wow!  Kim gets to tract in the jungle???  Lucky!  I guess I'm in the "Concrete Jungle" if you can call it that here haha :P  I'm glad she's feeling better about things.  Has Bud written her yet?  and KUMUSTA ang PAGHAHANAP niya para ang ASAWA??  BAKIT HINDA PA TANGGAPIN KO ANG INVITATION SA PAKASAL NIYA?? hahaha :o)
Not too much art with painting or music here (They are OBSESSED with "Teach Me How to Duggie":/ ) But they are SO good at making things.  When I get my scriptures bound and send you a picture you'll see what I mean!
LOVE YOU TONS!!!!!!!  Don't even worry about "hogging the phone" you're the Mom!  You gave birth to me so you should get more time right? :o)
Love you TONS!!  Did I say that yet? haha :)
MAHAL KITA! 
BJ Powell

Maligayang Pasko!!!

Elder Calinog, Elder Tauleilei, Elder Powell.
Christmas lights at the Manila Temple.

Merry Christmas y'all! :) I kinda sorta FREAKING miss you guys! haha, but no worries, I'm loving it here and there's no snow to shovel so we're good here :)No worries with Elder Sidillo's fam, we've been hearing about the big baguio (storm) down there but he said he knows his family's safe. He said thanks for thinking about him.I might still get the package before Christmas, we have a "Christmas Conference" with half of the mission and President and Sister Sperry on Wednesday so we might get mail then. Not sure what we're doing there but there will be a tie exchange so that's a good sign :) If I don't get it then we have a mail run on December 27th (26th for you) so it'll still be Christmas no worries haha :)I'm SUPER excited to talk to y'all! :D I bought a calling card for 40 minutes to the US today so I can give you guys a call anytime you'd like between 9pm December 23 to December 25 9pm. The best for me would probably be the 25th between 5 and 9pm cuz that's 8am-noon for me on P-day. PLEASE EMAIL ME back DURING the week to let me know when you wanna do it. No skype, just an AWESOME call :) Not sure what we'll be doing on Christmas Day but I don't know if we'll be able to get much work done cuz everyone else will be partying(getting drunk and gambling:/)Wow you're amazing! You guys made those missionaries Christmas! :) I still need to write all my missionary friends, it's really hard to find time on Pday... or any day haha :PHere's a couple journal entries LOVE YOU TO DEATH! :)Dec. 14Wow, what an AWESOME day! :D We had a Pday/Temple day today. I woke up at 3:30 AM and was ok with it?!!? I guess that's 12:30pm at home so technically I slept in haha :o) I got a picture of the temple right as the sun was rising behind it and lighting of the clouds. It was perfect! I'm actually starting to enjoy taking pictures.... but don't tell Mom.... haha ;)So another thing not to tell Mom... :o) I got into a cleaning frenzy today?? Haha, I think I'm learning to work hard and always be doing something here or something. Maybe that or it's just something in the water :P I started cleaning the kitchen and then I wanted everything to look perfect. Then I wanted to clean my desk off. Then I even wanted to organize the inside?? Weird huh? :)

Dec. 15Heavenly Father answers prayers!!! :D Wow! :) I already knew that, but I am really starting to see it in our investigators as we invite them to ask God if the things we teach are true.Yesterday we asked one investigator, Donna, if she has received an answer. She said she believes it all and that she feels "safe" when we come and teach. We told her that was the Holy Ghost and asked if she felt she had received an answer. She said yep :) We invited her to church Sunday and hope she will continue to progress.Tonight we taught another Sister, Kenneth. She's been to church 3 times because she's living with the Bishop's family but we had only taught her 2 times before tonight. We taught her about faith and works and it went well. Then we asked her if she had asked Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. She said she had twice. We asked if she felt like she had received an answer and.... she started crying. That's usually a good sign for a missionary :) She said that she has received an answer and feels that it's true. We pointed out that the good feelings she was having was the Holy Ghost.WOOT! :D The work is really starting to explode here in Panghulo :) We have the potential to have 5 or 6 people baptized sometime in January if they'll keep commitments and go to church.
So things are good here :) I love you all TONS :) Send my love to the fam at Mutual Dell :) Send me any more questions you have before Thursday and I'll get back to you during the week.MAHAL KITA!!! :D

Elder Powell  12-18-11