SISTER POWELL: STRENGTH
Hello family and friends!
This week’s Swedish surprise was that we are teaching a lesson and their little daughter just drops her pants and pees right there on the floor. The mom just looks at her, looks at us, and says, ‘Fortsätta’ or ‘continue’. We just look at each other and kinda laugh and just keep going.
Måndag: Sitting in a chaotic lesson with this family. Cutest people but it’s always a little crazy. One is in the room with us, the other in another room with the kids and we’re all just yelling to one another to try to talk to them. They ask ‘How old are you?’ I answer, ‘Nineteen’. From the other room, ‘Which one is nineteen?’ From our room, ‘The tall one!!’ hahahaha. Then we’re like, actually we are both nineteen. The mom says, ‘Oh, the short one is nineteen too!’ hahaha
Tisdag: After district meeting two elders came to Katrineholm for splits. One goes home in 8 days and he was having this little meltdown about dating. We spent the entire train ride giving him advice and it was just hysterical.
Onsdag: Got a letter from one of my very best friends serving in Ukraine. With it was Ukrainian money and this beautiful letter about change and the atonement. And I just sat there crying because missions change people and I love that I have so many friends serving right now.
Torsdag: Systrar conference in Stockholm. All 37 sisters in the mission got together and we received counsel and love and just talked with each other. It was the first time I had seen a couple sisters since arriving here in Sweden and it felt so good to talk with them again! I love the people that I get to hang out with every day.
Fredag: Met with my FAVORITE family here in Katrineholm. S. and her husband have six kids. SIX. That is a lot here in Wweden and they are so darn funny! The oldest is 28 and the youngest is 9. There are three girls and three boys and they have 2 big dogs that come and sit on both of our laps when we sit down. They have 5 cats and there are always laundry piles around and the kids are running and yelling at each other and the TV is always blaring when we walk in and music is blasting from the boys’ room and I just love it. I don’t know why but it is my favorite place to be here in Katrineholm. The first time we went over the TV stayed on, the kids continued to yell and scream and run all throughout the house, Suzanne was all over the place cooking and cleaning and we just sat there like this is a disaster. On Friday we walked in, the TV was turned off, the dogs came and sat on our laps, the boys came out and we did our secret handshake, the girls sat down and started talking about school and S. sat anxious and ready to talk. And I loved it. The gospel blesses families
Lördag: Made our way to Stockholm for stake conference. We stayed with some sisters in Stockholm afterwards. It was so fun. We talked and talked and laughed and I just loved it.
Söndag: I got to see two of my grandparents’ closest friends at stake conference, the Summerhayes. It was so good to see a familiar face! They gave me a huge hug and took pictures to send to my family and it was a great little tender mercy.
This week I have thought a lot about the atonement. It started early in the week as I read my patriarchal blessing. I am counseled to learn all I can about the atonement. I spent a good chunk of my study time thinking and pondering about what I know about the Atonement and how much more I have to understand and apply.
“I have learned my lesson of the Atonement and how it changes you. That change didn’t come from doing nothing. It came only through true, sincere repentance.”
I got a letter in the mail this week from another friend and he talked a lot about the Atonement. He said, ‘I have learned my lesson of the Atonement and how it changes you. That change didn’t come from doing nothing. It came only through true, sincere repentance. I’ve had the Atonement change me from the guy I was to who I am now. I really have had some experiences that have proven to me how real the Atonement is. Hannah, it is more real than this paper you are reading! And more powerful than the drugs you took getting your wisdom teeth pulled. It is why we are here. to help people realize the reality of the Atonement. So as a missionary I am glad I have that testimony. Even though it’s come with a lot of pain. You can’t convert someone higher than your own conversion, so do whatever it takes or steps it takes to get a very powerful testimony!’
I felt inspired after I read his letter to learn more and more about the Atonement and how it works. I want a burning testimony of it.
An elder in our district compared life to a long running race. I had never thought of it this way before but he explained that all we have to do is run. We cannot win. Someone else already has. We cannot achieve the needed time alone. Someone else already has. We can’t do anything but finish. We are not expected to beat anyone else, nor to come in first, nor to get the necessary time. We can’t. We are expected to get to the finish line. It might take everything we have. We might collapse at the finish line and we might crawl across and we might take a break and we might hurt. But we have to finish. And that is why we need the Atonement. Because we can’t win and we can’t beat anyone else and we can’t get the necessary time. We can’t. We need the Atonement.
His example changed Mosiah 4:27 for me, ‘For it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.’ It just makes more sense. We can’t run faster than we have strength to run. But we have to be diligent, and finish, so that we can obtain that prize.
There have been times out here where I feel like I am running and running hard. I’m at that point in the race where your form starts to slip because you can’t even feel your arms anymore and you have no control left in you. And it is hard. And yet I can’t seem to finish. The finish line doesn’t exist and I just keep running and running. I’m learning that that is why we have the Atonement. Because I can’t finish on my own. It is through that power that I can keep going. I don’t slow down. I don’t cut a corner. I don’t get distracted or think negatively. I keep running hard. And I receive that strength to do it.
My mom sent me a quote a couple weeks ago from a RS manual, ‘It is an important fact, shown by direct acts and by implication in all the scriptures, that God has done for men all that men cannot do for themselves to secure salvation, but He expects men to do all for themselves that is in their power.’ She shared, ‘That stuck out to me this morning. God has given us the Atonement because we absolutely cannot do these things and He has given us every other tool we need but He expects us to work and do our best.’
2 Nephi 25:23, ‘For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.’ After you have run hard, after you have kept running and have not gotten the needed time. It is then that Christ’s sacrifice and His time compensates for yours.
If there is one lesson that God continuously teaches me out here is that I am nothing without Christ’s strengthening power. I absolutely love the blessings and strength that I am entitled to as a full time missionary. I never want this calling to end as I know the specific strengths will leave also. I am understanding more and more how much God QUALIFIES those He calls. My cousin Rachel said in her homecoming talk, ‘If you go work for the Lord, He’ll teach you what you need to know!’ He knows we can’t do it on our own. No one is ready to be a missionary, friend, daughter, sister, wife, mother, primary teacher, Relief Society president, ward activity director, or nursery teacher without help. We simply cannot do it. And my mission has taught me how anxious God is to grant us the needed talents, abilities, patience, virtues each calling requires. So I trust Him with all the other callings I will one day have. I feel confident I will be okay.
Each week I record the lessons God has taught me that week and scriptures that I have seen illustrated through the last 7 days. One of this week’s scriptures was D&C 17:8, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’ It is. His grace is sufficient for ME. My first 3 weeks here in Sweden I cried a lot. I cried and cried and I would pray and say Heavenly Father–I can’t do this. I am so far out of my comfort zone and so away from my element. I am so tired and I need to be alone and I can’t talk to one more person in this weird language and I can’t study for this many hours and I can’t write my mom only one time a week. I can’t do it. Oh I was so upset and felt like God had truly called me to fail. I have learned a lot. I can’t do it on my own. I am so far out of my comfort zone and so far away from my element. I get drained and I get grouchy and guess what? It’s okay. I feel God giving me the strength to do it. I am learning how little I am when I try to do this alone. I know how weak my efforts are when I don’t ask for heavenly help. I have learned a lot with my time here in Katrineholm about God and His good nature. He is waiting to help each and every one of us. He knows we can’t do it on our own. That is why He has given us His son and His son’s sacrifice. Because He loves us. He is waiting for us to humble ourselves and ask for strength to do this work. And I testify that He steps in as soon as we ask Him to. For me, I needed a mission to humble me. I needed to be so low and feel so abandoned and picked on and forgotten to understand how completely WRONG that is. I needed to feel like I felt to understand that I am nothing without God. Here I am doing what He has asked me to do and I know it is only through Christ and His atonement.
‘We are infinitely more than our limitations and our afflictions.’ -Elder Jeffery R. Holland. Give it all to God. Accept that you can’t win the race. You can’t get that time you need to enter the Celestial Kingdom. Accept that you aren’t racing against anyone else. Accept that you need help. Give over your limitations and your afflictions and I promise you things will change. You will understand God and Christ differently and you will understand yourself differently. The biggest paradox I have met out here is that true confidence comes from realizing how weak you are. I can’t wrap my mind around that one but it’s true. It is when we realize how little we can do, how little our contributions are, and how flawed our character is when we feel the most confident. It is when we put our trust in our God and in our Savior and we choose to trust them. Confidence comes.
I love you all. I miss you all but I am so happy to be here.
KÄMPA PÅ!
-Syster Hannah Powell
