July 21, 2014

Linda família!!

Itainá, the girl who was a referall from the Elders AND members last Sunday, was baptized!  It really was the most smooth baptism of my life.. she is just that elect.  It´s always the youth whoa re like that.  When we followed up with her after teaching the restoration, she just said ´´I don´t usually like to read a lot, but after reading that pamphlet you left, I just wanted to read it again and know everything.´´  She´s pretty shy, but she told us with a big smile she wanted to be baptized.  The spirit was so strong in every lesson and she was just so prepared.  She even went to a YW activity.  I think one of the biggest miracles was that the ward did EVERYTHING at the baptism.  The YW sang, someone made brownies, they had all the talks and messages lined up, usually things the missionaries have to do themselves.  I´m just very grateful for the whole thing.  The church is true!  Her mom came to the baptism and I hope she´ll have the desire to come to church and be taught too, and her older sister too.  

Another miracle this week was finding an elect less-active, Diego.  It turns out a different Diego who was also baptized used to live in that house, so this Diego was just confused as to how we found him when he was baptized in another ward.. LONG ago.  We just taught him from the beginning because he didn´t remember anything.  He even asked us if he could be baptized again.. just a reminder that our success isn´t always in our numbers.  Did I mention he´s in a wheelchair?  He was mistaken for someone else and was shot several times, leaving him without use of his legs.  He wheeled himself to church alone.  So cool!  The Lord really wanted us to find him.

Miracles happen every day, and looking for them really is a skill that you have to practice.  If you just write the good things that happen each day and realize God´s hand in all things, it can change everything.  This week, I´m not sure who we´re gonna baptize.  We finally got a hold of A again and marked and appointment with him 6:00 tonight.  Running into him in the street again was a miracle.  He´s still curious about everything but I think he may have problems with commandments so he´s not really too committed about baptism.  But that´ll change ;)

It´s so fun to hear about your mission, mom and dad.  Mom, you are so enthusiastic in your letters.  I bet the Sisters love spending time with you guys :)  I loved the things you said about companions.  You can´t build zion if zion doesn´t exist first in your home and with your companion!  I´m learning a LOT of things about that, and I hope it at least helps me someday with my future husband.  Something Sister Seal taught me is that ANY problem with your companion is just a problem with yourself.  

That´s so sad to hear about Uncle Lars.  I know dad had a very special relationship with him and I´ll always remember good things about him.  

I love you all so much! The church is true and Heavenly Father loves us. He wants us to enjoy the journey, so remember to laugh!  If you can only be good at one thing, be good at smiling :)

Abraços,

Sister Moore  

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July 14, 2014

Querida Familia:

Here´s a picture of me and Sister Christensen in our area.  Can you find the church?  :)  

Please send my love to ALL the family.  Claire Olivia is so cute and those pictures were really good.  Ali still looks so pretty after having a baby!  Mom and Dad, I hope you are already loving the mission in this first week.  I want to hear about all the little miracles and cool experience that you´ll have as representatives of the Lord!

It´s been basically the same thing here, we had an investigator at church, 20-year-old D who just doesn´t seem that interested.  She was a referral from a member, which is a miracle in and of itself, and seemed like she was in the perfect situation to be looking for God in her life.   From what we already knew about her life, the meetings were all perfect for her situation, but she just had no reaction, to church or to the first lesson.  It´s just kind of driving us crazy, she was making every excuse for us to not pass by and teach any more and didn´t even accept a copy of the Book of Mormon because she wouldn´t have time to read it.  After church our leaders who share the same chapel asked about her and just told us to go find someone who had already been to church who will be our baptism for next week.  Elder Gomes gave us a reference of a girl who had been visiting the church with her cousin who he had taught.

Now here´s the miracle, we didn´t know how to find this girl, but we decided to contact another reference from the same member who introduced us to D.  The reference she gave wasn´t interested in going to church and lived with her boyfriend, but before leaving we asked who else lived there and she said her younger sister.  It turned out her sister WAS the reference the Elders gave, a 17-year-old named I.  We marked 2 Nephi 31 for her to read and marked her baptism for this Sunday!  Today we´ll pass by and follow up.  It was a good way to end the week.

Besides that, the week was a little frustrating but at the end of each day I feel something good had been done.  We are working with T, an 18-year-old who is basically a member but her mom won´t allow her to be baptized.  She´s been going to church in another ward with her cousins for months.  Just meeting her has been awesome, and she´s going to help us teach her neighbor R, who didn´t go to church because of a death in the family but really is interested.  

Another miracle I think was just last night when we went to a member´s house.  The dad used to be a bishop but now they´re starting to go inactive.  Getting to know them a little better, we ended up just talking about hymns.  They had a keyboard and they let me play hymns and we all just sang together and felt the spirit fill the house through music.  For me it really was special.  I have such a strong testimony of hymns now on the mission and the power they have to bring the spirit and worship God.  The habit of singing a hymn when your thoughts aren´t where they should be really works.  We should never overlook them, God ordained the hymnal to be made three months after the church was restored.  Christ and the apostles sang a hymn before He performed the atonement for us.

It´s funny you should mention J, I had the feeling to write her a letter this week.  I don´t think she´s doing very well.  I always remember her in my prayers specifically.

Missions are hard, they always will be hard.  You never really figure it out, and I think it´s meant to be that way.  Once you think you know what you´re doing, God puts you back at square one.  

I´m just grateful for my Savior and for His church.  He gives us so many blessings and is always there for us.  I made a list this week of promises from the Lord and things I merely want.  It really gave perspective to my desires and focus.  Our biggest goal should always be to return to live with our Hevenly Father and to love one another.  I know this church is true, the Book of Mormon will help any one who reads to feel closer to the Savior.  

I love you all so much!!  Seja feliz!

Com amor,

Sister Moore

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July 7, 2014

Queridos Elderes e Sisteres :)

It´s so fun to see you guys as missionaries and to imagine you doing TRC and all that..  I still am not completely sure how to explain exactly what it is you´ll be doing on your mission but I know you´ll bless many lives!  I´m sad that Nick wasn´t baptized.  I´ll keep praying that he works it out.  

Our people last week all turned out to be not so great.  We´ll continue to try to talk to Alexandro, but he´s just been at his girlfriend´s house the whole week after he had surgery.  N and V are a part of some intellectual, non-religion group and they just wanted information to bring to their group and talk about us.  It was really irritating... not the first time someone has faked interest just to turn our words against us in the end.  You can always tell the difference in the spirit of those lessons and you just have to leave.  

We´ve been working really hard this week and it´s been really hard but one of those weeks I feel I´ve learned a lot.  Sometimes you just have to be in a situation you think you can´t handle so you can learn to trust the Lord.  And it´s been going a lot better than I thought already!  I´m learning so much about how to communicate with others and make them feel I care about them, and how sometimes it´s up to you to make a situation funny or less tense.

The miracle came at the end of the week when our zone fasted for everyone to have someone at church to be baptized the next week.  They came late, but all at once four investigators arrived together, three are friends and another we did NOT expect.  A is a 20-year-old who Sister Christensen was working with before but we dropped him because he didn´t seem interested. But we saw him on the street with his friends last week and invited them to come and all three came.  R kind of follows the crowd but accepted baptism, I is more committed than all of them and the most interested but doesn´t technically live in our area, just spends all of his time here. A's been looking up things on the internet about the church so he at least is thinking about it a lot, enough to come to church.  Today we´re going to talk about the Book of Mormon with them and get them pumped about the truth!!

J was the other guy who came.  We had taught him the first lesson  and I think he has problems expressing himself and is a little bit of a scorpion (someone who just wants to talk to sisters)...  so we´re going to teach him with some men from the church to see what he really wants.  He really did seem to like church a lot and he was all happy afterwards when we talked to him and said he had prayed after the first lesson and already feels God is blessing him.  He was really excited to read the Book of Mormon.  We´re trying something new where we only have our investigators read a few verses and we give them a specific question that the verses will answer.  Sometimes we don´t think about the fact that people don´t really know how to read the scriptures.  

I have such a strong testimony about the Book of Mormon. I was reading in PMG today about the reasons why each writer wrote their part in the Book of Mormon.  They really saw our days and this Book is for us to teach us how to live to return to God!  When we carry this book and present it to people, we really need to remember how valuable of a treasure it really is to us and for the world. 

Pray for us to be able to really baptize. Usually the hard part is getting people to church, but here that´s not the problem.  But this is a great ward and the Lord is trusting it with SUPER elect people.  The members here really have a focus on sending each new convert to the temple and they really take care of each other.  

 I have just one more bit of sad news this week, that Antonio, my recent convert, passed away last week.  Sister Johnson called me and they're going to keep working with his wife Joselia.  I´m grateful to at least have given him the gospel at the end of his life.  His health problems kept him from doing many things, but he always wanted to be at church and in the end he did stop smoking.  Now his spirit is happy and resting and he doesn´t have to suffer with his weak heart any more.  

I love you all so much and I´m so grateful for all the things the mission is teaching me and the person God is making me.  I love my Savior and the peace and hope He can give us in our lives. I´m thankful for his love.  I hope your week is awesome and that you face all the challenges and heartbreak of the mission with patience and hope.  We´re on the winning side!

Com todo meu coração,

Sister Moore