January 27, 2014

Dear Familia:

I'm just going to say it again, but this week was fast.  Time has been flying by ever since I've gotten to Pearson, it's a little bit freaky honestly.  We were teaching Adrian the other day and I honestly was afraid we were going to lose him.  It was a frustrating lesson at first and we just weren't understanding each other, but I prayed SO HARD to be able to help him and have patience.  It was amazing how things changed just from sitting there listening to him.  We'd invited him a bunch of times before to pray about Joseph Smith and have talked to him several times about the restoration, but this time it felt like he really understood.  He was silent for a lot of the time when we were talking about this being the only true and complete church upon the earth and he absorbed it all!  We talked about how he could know and he said something like, "God's not going to speak to me though.."  We assured him that God would and his countenance just changed.  He kind of gave us an ultimatum stating that he would either receive an answer or stop coming, so we fasted on Saturday night in hopes that by tomorrow he knows it's true.  I've been praying a lot to be able to respond to whatever he tells us though, even if he doesn't feel that he's received an answer.  In the end, everything comes in the Lord's time, even though we hope more than anything that he will know by tomorrow.  Fingers crossed!  We seriously did all we could.  There was so much love in the room before we left.  The attitude just completely changed.  

Yesterday we had Stake Conference, like you somehow already knew...  Does everyone have Stake Conference at the same time?  It was a broadcast from Orlando.  Two Seventies, Sister McConkie and Elder Nelson spoke.  It was amazing!  Sister McConkie talked about how she LOVES the commandments. That seems to be one of the themes of last week.  We also had Zone Conference on Friday and talked about obedience.  President Cottle asked us, "Do you think that President Monson is annoyed by the rules he has to live as prophet?"  Of course he's not!  That would be ridiculous.  As we become more and more converted, our desire to sin completely goes away.  It's amazing how that process is just something gradual, but absolutely true.  There are things I used to want that have become so stupid in my mind because of the power of the Atonement.  I really felt President and Sister Cottle's love more than ever in this meeting.  I had the chance to get up and bear my testimony after being called on randomly.  I just talked about how many blessings we and others around us receive because of us serving missions.  I also stated that I love missionaries, regardless of whoever they are just for making the decision to serve and sacrificing so much to come out here.  

 

I love you so much!  I hope that you have a wonderful week.  Find, teach, BAPTIZE!  

Love,

Elder Moore

January 20, 2014

Picking out "new" old ties at a member's house.

"I think I can do that!"

"I can!"

 

 

Dear Family,

This week we were teaching Adrian about the gospel of Jesus Christ and he said something along the lines of, "You really don't need to keep telling me these things, I've already made my decision to be baptized."  I don't get what he's waiting for.  He could be baptized by the end of this week for all I know, he just won't set up for a date, so be praying that he'll stop being stubborn please!  We've set him on a specific date several times, but he never goes through with it, so we're just going to get him interviewed this week hopefully and he'll be in the water soon.  

I don't remember if I told you about the goals we set last week, but we did a lot better than we have been doing talking to as many people as possible.  We met a bunch of cool people, but didn't find many people that really wanted to listen.  Something else I wanted to tell you was that Elder Allen taught all of Gospel Principles yesterday in Spanish!  He did such a good job.  There were a couple of times I wanted to jump in and take over, but I let him do it and the whole class went really well.  The ward mission leader was sitting right behind me and just whispered, "Don't help him!  That's how he'll learn."  Haha.  So I just prayed harder than I have in a while for him to have the gift of tongues.  The whole church service yesterday was just really great.  All of the Spanish members came along with Adrian.  He was saying that he didn't want to stay all three hours because he was bored, but changed his mind after I told him I'd be teaching Elders' quorum.  

This weekend we were planning on going to a quincenera for a member's girlfriend, but we found out that we all have to go to the adult session of Stake Conference, so we were a little bummed about that.  We'll still probably try to make it for at least a little while.  

I studied a lot this week about the Savior and just wanted to end by saying how grateful I am that we don't only have to depend upon the testimony of others to know that He lives and loves us and that the power of the Atonement is real.  I am so grateful for everything that my mission has done for me and would never want it to be any different than it has been.  I love you all so much and I hope that you're able to continue to bless the lives of all those around you wherever you are!  We're all missionaries, whether we're set apart or not.  

Have another wonderful week :)  Love you!

Love,

Elder Moore

January 13, 2014

Elder Stewart and Elder Moore

Dear Family,

We had some fantastic things happen this week.  We set a couple of goals to move the work forward next week especially.  I've been looking and praying very hard to be able to find what the Lord wants me to do before leaving Pearson and I've had several ideas come into my mind.  We have been teaching a Sunday school class for Adrian in Spanish, but it came to us this week in Correlation meeting that we should just have the class every week for everybody that speaks Spanish.  We went and invited a bunch of people to come to it and we had a good three students this Sunday.  I feel that if we keep that up, it's at least going to give the Spanish-speaking members a chance to learn and invite their friends.  Something simple and obvious, but it works because there are Spanish-speaking Elders in the area for now.  It's awesome that we have an RM for our Ward Mission Leader that just returned from Culiacan, Mexico.  We've been learning that stateside Spanish-speaking missions are interesting haha.  

It's so cool that Adrian comes every week. We talked to him about his baptism and he's still not feeling ready, so I felt that I should just tell him to pray and tell us a date that he feels comfortable with.  He has a hard time reading, but he's so willing to learn and meet with us. I had several opportunities this week to assure him that whatever pain he carries from his past will be completely healed if he lets the Savior work in his life and is baptized.  We've been developing much more love for him than ever before lately.  It's been a good week for him.  I hope that he can feel how much we care.  

We don't have many other really solid investigators right now, but there is one lady we met this week that had been to church several times in Mexico.  She asked us a great question after we talked for about 30 minutes about the Restoration.  She asked us, "Why do bad things always happen to me?"  We had just taught her about the role of the Holy Ghost and prayer, so we told her that we wanted her to study it out in her mind and ask God for herself and then we would come with an answer the next time and also find out what she had learned.  I'll have to let you know how it goes!  It's amazing that the restored gospel has answers to every question you could possibly ask.  Sometimes it's better though to let others discover for themselves.  Just give them the tools and send them on their way.  And follow up.  Don't forget that!  Haha.  

I love you  a lot!  We're going to have another great week in Pearson.  I hope you do the same :)  

Love,

Elder Moore

January 6, 2014

Eric with Investigator Adrian

The Elders in the District with the presents Eric got them for Christmas‏  

Querida Familia,

FELIZ ANO NUEVO!!  I hope that everybody has taken some time to review what went right and what went wrong during 2013.  I definitely did!  I'm excited for this week.  This year has the potential to be so awesome.  I'm excited to see what happens.  I found out that I'm going to be with Elder Allen again next transfer, but our District Leader's leaving..  Sad!  He was awesome.  I'll send you some pictures of the things that have been going on.  We had to be in by 6:00 for New Year's Eve.  We just were in the apartment.  President Cottle suggested we take that time to come up with Resolutions, so that's what I did and then we played games for the rest of the night.  Somebody brought us delicious chicken around 10:00 at night haha.  We stayed full on Christmas candy though.  

I'm excited about Adrian.  We determined yesterday it's probably going to be another week or two before he gets baptized.  He was sick pretty much all last week.  We gave him a blessing and I prayed so hard to know what to do for him to make the situation positive and help him progress..  I was trying to think like Ammon and Aaron about using his trial to demonstrate the love and power of God.  Nothing was really coming to mind, but our Ward mission leader just suggested we go over to set up another time to go back but to just see how he was doing.  We did that and he was extremely happy just to know that someone cared.  The time after that we went back and he was a lot more positive and open than he's ever been.  Change of heart!  I went over to teach with Elder Stewart because the other Elders had taken laxatives that morning haha.  So they were incapacitated...  

We found another couple of people that had been attending church regularly and they stopped progressing because they chose to work on Sunday, but they told us this week that they'd like to continue coming to church and be baptized in the coming weeks.  We're hoping they really mean it.  

We're having a lot of fun in the GMM.  There are some members that asked for our home addresses and your e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers, so I guess maybe you should expect something sometime..  I don't know.  Ha.  

I guess if you eat greens on New Year's day, you make a lot of money in the New Year.  So, the Merrell's (Bishop and his family) fed us ham and collard greens.  It was really good!  I love greens and this spicy vinegar stuff that they put on them.  

I love you a lot!  Have an awesome week.  I'm still not trunky, don't worry :)  

Love,

Elder Moore