A few Moore mission pictures! 2/17/12

They built this driveway!

It's funny that the mission cars are the exact same car that Eric drove in high school!

I just think this is the coolest looking place.  Kind of scary and adventurous.  You don't know what's down that road, but you'd kind of like to go down there!!

February 13, 2012

Dear Family,

In Gainesville we are having a hard time finding investigators that will progress...  We find and find and find and find some more, but it seems like literally everybody in the Hispanic world works all the time.  It's amazing that they can even do it!  We got a media referral this week from a man that requested a visit from the missionaries himself named Victor.  He is reading Jesus the Christ and very interested in the Book of Mormon.  We didn't get to teach him anything when we went over there because he conducted an interview with us it felt, but we did tell him to keep reading from the Book of Mormon and praying.  He is strongly Catholic, but we'll get him.  He has 3 kids and a wife and I think that they are from Peru.  

You're right about everything working out.  I know that's true in every situation because when worse comes to worse, nothing bad can eternally affect you except sin.  It's like how there are a lot of things about my mission that I wish that I could immediately be better at, but I know that I'll get there one day if I'm just patient and keep my covenants that I have made!  It's really weird what we are doing as 20 year old men, but I know that it's what the Lord wants and he equips his called.

Keep on being amazing!  I love you.  Thank you for the card and little box of chocolates...?  I haven't opened that package yet, but I'm assuming that there is a card and little box of chocolates inside of the package and that card and little box of chocolates is the card and little box of chocolates to which you refer when you say "Did you get our card and little box of chocolates?"  I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Love,

Eric

February 6, 2012

It sounds like you have a load of plans ahead of you this week.  I hope that everything works out wonderfully and that Hannah finally decides on a school.  It's great that she is auditioning at Utah State.  One of the sister missionaries was telling me about how, surprisingly, their music program is pretty high up there in nation ranks or something like that.  She is going to have the best time ever at All State.  Those were some of my best memories from high school.  You learn so much it is incredible!  

I would say that I am jealous of the foot of snow outside and the bright blue sky, but here it's still green and in the 80's.  It's crazy how moving just a couple miles south makes such a HUGE difference.  My new companion's name is Elder Winward and he is from Lehi, UT.  He has been telling me a lot about the areas that he had been in before in Georgia and South Carolina and it sounds like there are a lot of funny people up there.  We technically are further south, but when it comes down to it, I would say that Georgia's probably the most southern state.  Elder Winward's Spanish is amazing.  He told me one of his goals is to talk like he's a Mexican by the end of his mission.  He does a good job at it too, I just told him that I would prefer to talk more like someone from South America.  Mexican's use a lot of twang when they speak and have a million slang words.  It's almost like a different language sometimes.  It's great how being around Hispanic people all the time is helping me to distinguish where somebody is from just based on their appearance or the way that they talk.  It makes it a lot easier to talk to people and you connect a lot better when you can guess where they are from.  

Speaking of Mexicans, we met a man named Erasto from Cuernavaca last night.  He was really smart and could understand every single thing that we told him.  He told me that they call it the land of eternal spring and told me it's wonderful.  It made me think about how that's where almost all of my district is right now and it was a little sad, but really I feel like being a missionary is probably pretty similar no matter where you are.  I love Florida.  

Elena is progressing so much.  She will be baptized sometime soon, the only problem is that she doesn't feel the joy that she felt in the Catholic church.  We are trying to help her have a spiritual experience, and we have explained to her that it might just be that she feels that joy in the Catholic church because it's what she is used to.  Her sister that lives in Honduras is a member and told her she would buy a plane ticket to come over here if she is baptized.  There are just so many things pointing her in the right direction, we just are trying to help her recognize that.

It's still the same work...  We're finding, teaching, and baptizing in Jacksonville, FL so just pray that we'll be blessed with more elect and ready people to teach.  I love you a lot and hope you all have a wonderful week.  I am doing great!

Love,

Eric

January 30, 2012

Dear Family,

This week was great.  We just heard from Elder Ballard yesterday in a Regional Stake Conference all about missionary work.  It's so true that great things lie ahead in the future for the church.  He talked about if everyone would invite one person into the gospel each year the number or baptisms would be substantial.  It seems like the leaders of our church are really trying to help every member to realize that their responsibility is to help their friends into the gospel and not just immediately tell the missionaries to go see them.  The Spanish members in Gainesville are all so wonderful.  They are trying their best to help us find new people in this predominantly white and black part of the United States.  :)

Elena is going through some hard times right now with her health and I'm not sure at times what to even tell her.  It's amazing that regardless of how complex or nasty your problems are physically, simple doctrine, like resurrection or eternal life, shifts your mind from worry mode to living the gospel mode.  Elena is still praying.  She is really on and off about being baptized, but she's the one that always brings it up now, so we're just waiting until she undeniably feels the Holy Ghost in her life so we can help her into this wonderful church!  

Stephanie came to church this week!  She doesn't seem to be progressing too much, but we challenged her to live her life as if she was a member of the church and she's doing a good job at it so far.  She's just scared to be baptized...  President Barry told us an interesting quote this weekend about success in missionary work.  Success isn't measured by how many people you can fit in the font, but how many you can fit into the pews.  Haha I like that quote a lot.  

On Saturday we volunteered at this event sponsored by the family of the man that invented Gatorade.  They were all turned off by the fact that we were dressed in suits and had tags that say Jesus Christ on them, but all of the people we talked to wanted to know about what we did.  It was funny.  We were assigned to help out with a "science experiment" all day where we would trap CO2 in bubbles using dry ice and dish soap and the people that came over to our table wanted to talk more about the church than about the bubbles.  It ended up being a lot better than I thought it was going to.  We weren't allowed to "solicit" to anyone, but we still got the name of the church out and showed people that we are just normal people.

Yesterday we got to watch a man named Marvin Goldsteen perform a devotional based on his piano-playing and conversion story.  He talked a lot about Judaism and how he travels all around the world and helps people to feel the spirit, regardless of race, nationality, or religion.  He talked a lot about how music needs to be incorporated into every day of our lives and should be something we use in missionary work.  It was a wonderful performance and he inspired me to sing more hymns than we already do when we proselyte!  

That is crazy that Garrett is going to Helsinki.  I'm sure that he'll meet Bryce there...  I couldn't imagine that mission being too huge or anything.  That would be great if he was trained by him.  Let Madison know that I am so proud of her and I love her and know she will be a great missionary in Disneyland.  I'm sure that they will both be wonderful.  Tell them that the trick to missionary work is to talk to everyone and ask everyone for referrals, work hard, and always be 100% worthy for the spirit.  They have a LOT to look forward to.  I really do feel that I have learned more as a missionary than the rest of my life put together.

I'm going to the Mayo Clinic today for a check-up at 3:00.  I have to drive 2 hours to get there, but hopefully they tell me some good news or at least make it worth the trip.  I'm feeling fine and I am happy as can be.  I'll let you know what they tell me next week if Sister Barry doesn't.  

Keep up the good work!  I love you a lot and love hearing from you.

Love,

Eric