Burto the bobble head

Hey Family and Friends!!

Happy Birthdays to Dallas, Brandon, Mom, and Allysa! I hope all of you have a fun day and someone does something great for you!

This past week has been good. Sierra at church yesterday was like, "it's snowing!" and of course I'm all excited. Then I go look outside...yeah there were like tiny flakes blowing around not really even coming down. So it's been pretty cold but no snow yet.

Sierra is awesome! She's having a baby girl in April and we are teaching her boyfriend Francisco. Last night they text us telling us they got stuck with her little siblings and wouldn't make it to the Christmas devotional but as missionaries you don't give in that easy so we text them back and asked if they had BYU-TV. They did :) So we went over there instead and watched it with them. Francisco is so cool, we didn't even ask him what he liked when it ended, he just started telling us what he liked about it. I of course loved how President Eyring talked about missionaries for a second and how people change their lives for the better as they choose to be baptized. Francisco wants to be baptized and so we will set a date with him this week to work towards. I'm not sure when they plan on getting married, they don't live together though.

Last week we knocked on the Evers door. The father had been taught by the missionaries ONE time and then it didn't say why they stopped teaching. His wife, Katrinia answered and it was obvious we woke her up..oops and she had the flu. She told us to come back in the evening sometime. So we did, last Tuesday and it was awesome!! She had SO many questions and her daughter Kaitlyn sat in too. We are excited for them and are going to teach them the plan of salvation tomorrow.

We are teaching Deborah as well. This woman is seriously so humble. I really like her. She came up to the missionaries in the post office and asked what "ministry" they are from. She learned from the missionaries a few years back...it's all about timing! She's very ready for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in her life now. She really like angels so if you want Mom you should send me my "willow tree" angel and I'll give it to her for Christmas.

Yesterday there was like no one at church. The flu is going around like crazy. I'm not kidding this might as well be a branch it's so tiny. We taught gospel principles yeterday and combined the Young Women, Young Men, and Primary and taught. The funny part was the YW, YM, and Primary were 2 families!

This week we have Zone Conference in Wichita, which I'm excited for because it's ALL about Christ and His birth.

I am so overwhelmed with gratitude for the blessings I have every single day. I watch and listen to people tell their lives to me and so many have gone through abuse and such. It's just humbling. Despite our trials though, I know Christ lives and God loves us. He does. Even if horrible things may happen in the world...everyone has the ability to choose and those bad choices negatively effect others but guess what, Christ will be there lifting those hard things and making it lighter if you let Him and accept his invitation to follow Him.

Guess what? Eli was baptized on Nov 27th and Sister Robinson sent me pictures. I was so happy to see him dressed in white.

We decorated around our apartment..it's so ghetto missionary....we found this "bobble head" though its a dog dressed in a Santa outfit and so I stuck tap on the bottom of it and put it on our dash in the car...we just crack up. It says, "Burt" on it and I thought it was a Chihuahua so I added an O and we call him Burto.

I love each one of you and I thank you for every pray, letter, email, package, and thought.

Enjoy this time of year and remember, it's really about the Savior's birth.

Love,
Sister Powell

Pic: Sister Webb and I. We decorated her tree for her.