Elder Moore's Mission Blog--Georgia Macon Mission: October 14, 2013

Familia mia,

We said goodbye yesterday to one of the best Elders I've ever known, Elder Lash. He finished his mission and is probably sitting in the airport in Atlanta right now - Trunky! It's been really hard saying goodbye to a lot of the people that I have come to know and love so much, but I've been thinking a lot about how things are fine. We pass through these trials and changes to grow. Every single other time I've allowed myself to just wait and pray, I have come out so much better and happier because of it. I'm serving in Beaufort for at least another 6 weeks. I'll find out right before the holidays and my birthday if I'm staying here forever!

I don't know if I told you a lot about Chris and Maria last week. Maria just moved here from Texas and Chris has been here for a while already working on Parris Island. Maria's a member of the church and Chris is not, but he has been very interested in learning about the gospel. We taught him the restoration on Friday with Brother Slade, a member of the ward. Chris told us that he is going to be doing everything he can to learn everything about the church and continue to investigate and learn. It's a little bit frustrating to me, just like Hannah says, that people don't just immediately recognize that this isn't just another place where people meet to talk about being better. I wish that the restoration came together perfectly clear in everyone's head the first time around! We're going over there tonight to watch the Restoration video at Maria's request. It helped her to know that it's true, so we're hoping it will help Chris as well! Pray for them both to receive the witness that it is and choose to be baptized and come to church until the end!

We spent a lot of time finding on our own efforts this week and haven't found too many. Elder Wright's powerful when he speaks and people listen to him. I think it's a gift of his, and because of that Satan does all he can to keep him quiet, but we've been switching off every other person we talk to and he's been opening up a lot! It's been great to see him grow so much this transfer.

Dad - We haven't been working to use family history in our efforts. I agree that it would be helpful, we just have a hard time knowing where to start because we don't have a family history center that is regularly open. We'll continue to talk to people about their families and why they are important in God's plan, but let us know what you think we could do in this particular area to use it. There are a million different ways to find people and get them interested in coming to church, it's just a matter of doing them.

I have been thinking over the past few days about what makes someone really enjoy and love their mission and I think the key is to accept that you don't do what you want to do but what the Lord wants. You receive blessings and are happy when you don't fill your mind with things that distract you from the work. It's been one of the hardest things for me to do on my mission, but I really think it's the answer. It's been a blessing to have Elder Lash living with us for that reason. He loved his mission and really seems to have done all that he could to serve the Lord. I want to be able to look back every week of my mission and honestly tell myself and the Lord that I did my best. I did every thing I possibly could to serve Him and His children. I want to look forward and say now, I'm going to do better. I feel a lot of responsibility again with him gone in making sure that these Elders are trained right and that the district moves in the right direction. I hope that the next Elder that comes in is a "Fourth Missionary."

I love you!

Elder Moore