Birthday Week! November 18, 2013

22! That's dang old! I'm the oldest fart in the field!

That's awesome to hear that Chelsey's going to be taught. I'm not going to be able to teach over Skype probably. I talked to one of the assistants the other day about that and he said maybe when more people are on Facebook and everything.. I'm not really sure when that will be, but probably not within the next month.

Nate has been doing amazing! We invited him to read the whole Book of Mormon starting from the beginning and in a week and a half or so he has read up to Jacob 6! I'm amazed what the spirit can do. People don't normally just decide to do something like that on their own. Leah, his wife, told us the last time we went over that they've all been very proud of how much he's been doing lately. It's honestly all in the hands of the Lord as to when he will be told it is true, but I wish that I knew what more we could do to help. Just have faith that he will discover something that changes his life. Like we tell everyone, it's difficult to describe what the Holy Ghost feels like, but when you do feel it, you know.

I was thinking a lot this week about how much the spirit teaches me when the Apostles talk. Wouldn't it be cool if every word we said or heard was by the power of the Holy Ghost? Man. That's probably what Jesus taught like. I told Nate that it might be my last week and he and the family were sad, but I'm praying this week is the one he decides to take the plunge :) We didn't get to teach Luis this week, but he came to church! We actually invited the whole family, but only he came. Next week we'll have 'em. Haha

That man that said estas se llaman tortillas has been giving us several referrals, I can't remember if I already told you that. We went over to teach one of them the other day and it was a pretty cool experience: So it started off with us looking for the house. It was back in the middle of nowhere in a neighborhood of trailers and a random giant house so we knocked a couple of the doors and ended up finding out that this man, Vicente, lived in this little house that looked like the shed to the giant house. We started walking up to the house and this big dog started walking toward us. He had already been barking, but we figured he would just stay put. It was easy to tell the dog was super old, but it was still big and its wheezing made it sound like it was snarling haha so we backed away slowly hoping it wouldn't charge and got into the car. It was probably so funny to watch. I think I've been more cautious around dogs since hearing about Charlotte being attacked and bitten last week! Nothing to worry about though if you didn't hear, she's fine. Hannah's too much of a dog charmer to be bitten too, so don't worry about that either :)

We called Vicente and he came out and the dog went away. We talked to him about the restoration. He had an interesting question. He wanted to know what God's name was according to our church. I didn't really know how to answer, but we'll write down a list of them or something for him when we go back over. It was so nice having him be so attentive and willing to listen. In the prayer he said for us, he prayed that we would continue to pass by and teach him more. It's kind of nice that he lives in that little house by himself because he loved having company. I'll let you know more about him in the future :)

We attended Parris Island graduation and I got to meet Recruit Costello's family! They were all so kind. They told us that the difference was huge between the letters before he started attending church and the letters after. I sent him the address to the church in his hometown over Facebook and obviously also added him. Facebook's the best for that! I don't think it's coincidence that I'm the last Facebook missionary and serving up here at Parris Island. It makes it easier to see if they're still going to church when they leave. It'd be cool if when people got baptized they just became part of my home ward :) It'd be so much more convenient that way, don't you think?

Thanks for sending that package :) I'm sure it will be wonderful! I love you all so much and hope that you have a great week!

Love, Elder Moore

The pictures are as follows:
Elder Moore and Elder Wright with Private Costello and his family at Parris Island Marine Base
Graduation
Parris Island Marine Base Graduation
Elder Moore and Elder Wright's Father-Son Pose
Eric on the Ingrams dock after they fixed him a low-country boil for his birthday dinner!

November 11, 2013

Dear Family,

It's weird getting an e-mail from you and not hearing about the thousands of missionary experiences you've been having with the neighbors! I hope that everything's just as good as always! How are things going with the people you were teaching a couple of weeks ago? Are you being persistent? :)

We had Veteran's Day yesterday and all of the libraries were closed, so we are using some time Tuesday to write you... Weird! But anyway, we had a couple of awesome things happen this week. I'll start off with Parris Island, there's always something great to say about that place! So, we have been teaching a recruit that was given a Book of Mormon on the plane ride to Parris Island. On the plane she also met someone else that was a member of the church on her way to Parris Island as well, so they figured they'd probably see each other around during their time here. She was dropped to FRP for an injury she had and then was put into something called STC (I think) which is basically just the waiting area for the few recruits that have to go home to recover or drop out of training... She's going home this week, but coming back to the main point of the story, she's been really receptive and reading the Book of Mormon for the past couple of weeks. We taught the restoration and after the first vision she asked us if she would be able to give the closing prayer for the her last time at service on Parris Island, so of course we let her and then we pulled her aside when everyone was cleaning up and getting ready to leave and invited her to be baptized. I've never seen anyone more enthusiastic or happy to be invited in my life!! She told us about how great she feels being in the church and how she can't wait to go outside of Parris Island. Remember, I said that she was going home, but guess where home is?? Savannah, GA!!!!! So I'll be going down on a trade off on the 20th (my birthday :)) to teach her with the Zone Leaders, the missionaries we'll be handing her off to! The work is moving forward! :) I'm so happy for her.

Recruit Costello is graduating this week and I told him that I would attend his graduation since it might be one of my last weeks here and I want to see him off! He is so solid! He gave his departing testimony in church and talked about how Parris Island is an amazing and spiritual place where he was baptized and received "his Aaronic Priesthood." I only put it in parentheses because that's the way he says it. I really hope that some of these people come out west. It'll be fun to see what it's like when I'm a normal person and can just talk to them whenever.

I hope you remember me telling you about Luis. He's been attending church for a very long time now and we were thinking he wasn't getting baptized with the permission of his parents at least until his birthday in November, but we just talked to his mom and found out that she's completely fine with whatever decision her children make as long as it teaches them to do good. So we got to set up an appointment to teach her and her daughter as well as Luis tonight with a family in the Ward, the Atwells. She also made tamales and told us to stop by to get some. They were WAY good. You know things are going good when people offer you food! I'll let you know how it turns out, but I'm excited to teach them and many others this week.

 Like I've told you before, the youth in the ward has been on fire missionary work-wise. We gave a tour of the church building to one of the member's friends, Anna and we'll be teaching her family as soon as we can get a time worked out with the Morgans. It's been so much more fun to have the youth involved and the families in the ward. I think that's the way missionary work is meant to be done. Most solid converts seem to stay solid when they have good friends in the church anyway, so it's a win-win working with the members :)

Sounds like you had fun in San Antonio! You better have energy for my kids!! Keep up the good work. I saw in the newsletter that there were only 28 baptisms in the whole stake last year.. Man! It's good to know one of them was Myles Ramos :) Keep helping the Elders out! You're being wonderful examples to every member of the church, myself included :)

One more story - we're teaching a Mexican man and his family and they also made some food and offered us some, so of course we accepted and he was explaining it to us like we had never seen food like it in our lives. "Estas se llaman TORTILLAS!" Haha (these are called tortillas) "MEXICAN FOOD!" Little, round discs you eat your meat and beans with... Who'd have thought?

I love you so much! Thanks for the updates and for writing such wonderful e-mails :)
 Elder Moore