March 30, 2009

Well Hello there!

This week was..... really bad. First off, Elder Herrera had the flu for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so we didn't go out at all. We just stayed in the apartment. Then he finally got better but.... He goes home in June and has no desire whatsoever to do missionary work. It is very hard. All he talks about is going home, and girls, and wanting to leave here. I hate it. It's hard to get him to do anything. We get along very well. I love him. But still, I have so much desire to go out and talk to people but he just wants to sit around. It's also hard because he doesn't speak a whole lot of spanish to me. So I have been doing A LOT of studying on my own.

Yes I do know Elder Quintana, he is a Spanish Elder in Denison, Iowa right now. I will be seeing him on Wednesday at Zone Conference. So why else was this week just bad?.... Well Alister did not pass his baptismal interview. Elder King, the one who conducted the interview asked him a question not on the interview that Alister didn't know. Ha...I think Elder King was expecting him to know everything.... but Alister obviously doesn't yet. I was disappointed. But We are going to work with Alister really hard this week and have him ready for Saturday. We are going to have the baptism and wedding in between conference sessions.

Elisa will be baptized this week also. Not sure which day right now. She is going to probably be leaving for California because her mom is having a surgery done. But she will be baptized this week. And she attended church for the fourth time. She really enjoys it. She is a lot happier since she quit her job. I like it.

Gabriel has a baptismal date for April 25th. Last time we were over there he was drunk. We talked to him for a long time. And he really has the desire to change. So we are going to be working with him extra hard. We are bringing Roberto, a recent convert with us on Thursday to teach Gabriel with us. Roberto went threw the same situation with drinking everyday. It'll be good to have him there with us. Other than that.... Not a whole lot happened this week.

Since receiving Elder Herrera as my companion the work has slowed down a little bit. And I really do hate it. We have so many people that have so much potential but we don't see them as much as we should. So I think I am going to sit down with him this week and just have a talk. Ha and be straight up. I am good at that.But I did receive some good advice from Amber's dad in a letter he sent me. He told me to try and find one thing positive out of each day. That has been hard this week. But it has helped me to realize sometimes we just remember the bad and forget the good. But when I have focused on the good it has helped to realize that no matter how bad the day was, we helped to change the life of someone. And those are the types of things I want to remember.

My spanish is continuing to improve. I can pretty much understand all of my church meetings now and teach all the lessons. That's good! But everyday conversation is hard. People use so many weird words I just don't know. But I am working on it. And using the little book Uncle John gave me everday. It is quickly feeling up with new words.

There is no greater feeling in missionary work than watching someone make that covenant with God and enter the waters of baptism. I have never felt the spirit as strong in my life as when I was there with Oscar. I can't wait to have that opportunity again with Alister and Elisa!

It is so sad to see missionaries not complete their missions. It is definitely very difficult and challenging, but it's not worth it to leave. I have never been tested so hard in my life as I have since I have been out here. But on the other hand I have never felt God's love as strong as this. It's definitely a lot of mixed emotions. But it's changing my life.

Oh yeah.... funny story. So we helped a member clean out her store since she was closing it down. And she bought us pizza. So I was eating pizza and one of the pizza's had mushrooms on it. I am not a huge fan of mushrooms, so I picked them off. Ha! So later that night on the same day we had dinner with la familia Ramirez. Ya want to know what we had? Mushroom soup. So I gladly ate it. I just can't win though. :)Dinner appointments are always interesting since ya never know what to expect.

I love you all very much! I miss you and hope that you are all taking care of yourselves. Since I am not there to keep you in line and all. :)I hope you are all looking forward to conference this week. It should be amazing. Being able to hear talks from God spoken through the mouths of his servants. I have learned that God has given us everything we have. We can't give back anything, except our will. We do that by making correct decisions and striving to develop the attributes of Christ. Continue to better yourselves. I love you Mom. Don't forget about the 1.

Love Always, Elder Moore