SISTER POWELL: SIX MONTHS

Hello family and friends,

This week’s Swedish surprise is that I actually hit my six month mark.  Never thought that day would come!  Time does pass as a missionary, it just seemed to be crawling by at the beginning.

Måndag:  Sister Johanson and I bought ribbons for our hair. We felt like princesses.  Everyone needs a little ribbon.

Tisdag: Sit down with an investigator and he pulls out this folder of anti-Mormon literature and says, ‘I just have a couple questions for you.’  Haha.  Great.  My favorite kind of lesson.  Won’t even open the Book of Mormon but spent quite some time putting together notes and questions he has found from different websites.  Love it.

Onsdag: A less active invited us over to make pepparkakor (ginger bread cookies) and it just felt a little bit like Christmas.  Speaking of which…. TEN DAYS AWAY FOLKS.

Torsdag:  Celebrated my six month mark with interviews with president followed by Thai food with the elders serving here in Katrineholm.  President Beckstrand came and visited Katrineholm. I walk into my interview and he looks at me and asks, ‘Sister Powell, how long have you been here!?!’  Hahaha.  The few and the proud serve 4 transfers in this little town.  He hinted at transferring in a couple weeks and it made me a little sad.  But at the same time, I just hit six months and haven’t transferred once.  I have been lucky to avoid change for as long as I have.

Fredag: Meeting with an investigator who brought her boyfriend to the lesson.  It was the first time we had met him before and we were just getting to know him a bit and he said, ‘No one can know the answers to three of life’s toughest questions: ‘who you are, why you are here, and where you are going.’  We began to testify of the answers we DO have to those questions and T., our investigator quickly said, ‘Oh listen to them explain this–it is just beautiful.’  It never gets old testifying of the plan of salvation.  Because T. is right–it is just beautiful.

Lördag: Celebrated my first Lucia here in Sweden with missionaries serving in Norrköping and Linköping.  It was so much fun.  I got chills listening to the music in this massive cathedral and thinking I am a missionary in Sweden this year.  There is nowhere else I would rather be.

Söndag: With the snow comes a lot of ice.  And all day long we were just falling down.  It was quite the show!  Syster Johanson says, ‘I finally understand why they sell shoe spikes at every single store here in Katrineholm!’  For reals.  It’s a safety hazard to walk these streets.

At the end of July I had been in Sweden for about 9 days.  We had just had district meeting and it was my second one ever and I was just feeling a little bit down.  Like, man, I am going to be here forever.  I looked around at the missionaries in my district and they were going home in October, November, February, and I thought how I have about 16 months left.  I was just feeling trapped in this country.

I wrote myself a letter that day to open on my six month mark.  I felt like it would make the time pass more quickly or something haha.  I put the letter in the back of my journal and thought ‘I am NEVER going to make it to December 11. Never.’  And I forgot about it. But then, as my six month mark rolled around, I finished that journal.  And I found that letter and on Thursday I opened it.

The girl that wrote me that letter sounded very self-centered and very pessimistic.  She talked an awful lot about the things SHE couldn’t do, the things SHE missed, and the way SHE was feeling.  And she sounded miserable.  She signed it, ‘From your younger, dumber, and sadder self, Syster Hannah Powell.’  She seemed to have forgotten her purpose as a missionary.

I finished the letter just crying.  My heart broke as I thought back to the way I felt at the beginning of this mission.  Just so stuck on myself and stuck on my flaws.  It hurt to read and hurt to think about.  But I felt this overwhelming sense of peace at the same time.  I felt like, wow.   I have changed.  I have learned and grown and I am a bit different right now.

When we were waiting to have our interviews with president Beckstrand, Sister Beckstrand was just chatting with us. We got talking about missions (imagine that, hahah) and the way that they change a person.  She said something I loved.  As a missionary you are put in this bubble.  You are removed from the world and you are protected in this bubble.  You are away from a lot of temptations and you are away from a lot of pollution.  You are equipped with a lot of gifts and you are armed with the Spirit.  Yet there are still some missionaries who refuse to stay under the bubble. They fight against it, refusing to submit their will and their wants and their desires for that of God’s.  They fight against the bubble and refuse the protection and equipment that comes from it.  And they are the missionaries that return home the exact same person.

Sister Beckstrand went on to say that it hurts in that bubble.  It really hurts.  You feel very alone and very isolated and you really miss those things that the bubble asks you to give up.  You want the comforts of home and everything you are.  You want your friends and your music and your family and your car and your desire to be alone and a lot of things.  And the bubble hurts.  But the Lord knows what He is doing.  If a missionary has stayed in the bubble for the duration of his/her mission, he/she is changed.  That missionary is now Christ’s.  And Christ knows that when the bubble comes off, that missionary is a new person.  He is changed.  He is Christ’s.   And that’s why we can’t leave the bubble.

My letter from July 31 reminded me of how much the bubble hurts.  It reminded me of those first couple of months where it just felt like God was stretching me past my stretching point.  I couldn’t stretch any further and yet there He was, asking just a bit more.  But then I received a confirmation that God is pleased with me.  I am learning and growing and stretching.  I am in the bubble.  I know that.  I feel isolated and I feel away from the world but man, I feel equipped with the Spirit and with gifts that I simply know come because of this calling.

I know my days of stretching and feeling alone and feeling unqualified and feeling like I am past my breaking point are far from over.  That’s just what you sign up for when you serve a mission.  But I feel much more confident in my God and in His plan for me and for my mission. I am beginning to see the good that comes from all this heartache. I am seeing the changes and the growth that simply wouldn’t come without the challenges that mission throws at you.

Sister Beckstrand concluded that we are learning things out here in the mission field that people spend their entire mortal lives trying to learn.  We are learning to trust God and submit to His will and it is all because of this bubble.  I love it.  I am so thankful for the things these past 6 months have taught me.  And I feel a bit more hopeful and excited for the lesson these 12 months will bring.

Every day of December I get to open a little present with a scripture that my mom and Aunt Shirley put together for me.  The other day I got a little thing of clay and Isaiah 64:8 “But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we are all the works of thy hand.”  My Father is the potter.  I am learning out here how to be the clay.  He is molding me and shaping me and changing me and I love it.  I am thankful for the tears and the pain and how hard these 6 months have been.  I am thankful for the things God has let me feel and see and hear and experience.  I know that the lessons I am learning and the memories I am forming would not come in any other way.  I am so very thankful for a God who is the ultimate potter.  He has a vision for me that sometimes I don’t see. Sometimes I do.  Sometimes He lets me in on the secret and He tells me what He is shaping me to be.  Other times He just tells me to be patient.  To be submissive.  And to trust Him.  And I love it.

I am excited for these next 12 months. I am excited to see all that the good Potter has in store for me.  I am excited to learn from Him and change and be stretched and to live in this bubble.  There is nowhere else I would rather be!

I love you all.  Thank you for everything.

Syster Hannah Powell