Hola!!!
Well, this week went by super fast.
They all go by fast, but Conference makes it go faster. Sounds like you guys
had a pretty fun Spring Break. :) that's good. :) I did get the picture of the
giant connect 4 game. Haha that is super cool. Dang, captain America 2? That's
weird. Haha I'll have so much to do when I get home. I'll have to catch up. :)
I bet it was nice to have a little break from the busy life. :P haha but now
this week everybody is back in gear. I am so grateful that you guys are there
for me, you guys are the best! :) haha
Also, transfer calls are this
Saturday so please don't send anything this week unless it will for sure get
here before then. I have no idea what is going to happen. Everything could
completely change, or stay the same. We will see.
Alright, well I was well taken care
of this week, for my birthday. I don't go around telling people my birthday, as
you know, but some people still found out... So basically the Estrada's got mad
at me but made us dinner. :) haha they were mad because I didn't tell them. And
Abi bought me some cupcakes and a card. And then the best one was the Carlos
family. Haha this is Nora, Jazmin, and Annai. I think I've mentioned them
before. Anyways, we went over there on Friday and walked in and they threw
confetti at us and the room was completely decorated! So, I had my first
surprise party... But it was just them so I was okay with it. They had balloons
and cake and ice cream and everything. They also bought me and Elder Salas a
tie. They signed mine. I took some pictures so I'll send those hopefully later
today along with all that I took on my birthday. :)
Yeah, we watch conference at the
ward building. Not many people come, but some do. There was one member from the
branch at priesthood session... Woohoo... I really want to throw down on them
in sacrament, but that's not my job. Haha I remember last conference during
Sunday school I was in the youth class. (This was the week after conference
when we had church) And the youth were asked who all watched conference. There
were probably 30 youth in there. 1 person watched conference!!! And they
couldn't remember anything from it!! It is super frustrating!! So hopefully
they watched it this time... In between sessions of conference we try and visit
people. Saturday night between the 2nd session and priesthood we had dinner.
And then we gave a couple blessings in between the Sunday sessions. Normally we
try and visit people though. It is still a normal day for us pretty much. We
did not have any investigators come to conference... :/ we had a less active
though! But some of them watched it at home, so that is good. :)
Alright I am going to combine the
spiritual thought and the scripture again. So, conference was AMAZING!!! Elder
Hollands talk was probably my favorite. There are several close seconds though.
That was definitely how Conference should have started. "Talk about making
God in man's own image." Holy cow! That was the best throw down ever!
However, even though that was my favorite talk, I want to focus in a different
one for my scripture of the week. This was the talk that President Monson gave
at the end of the Sunday Morning session. This talk was about the first two
commandments. Love The Lord thy God with all thy heart, might mind and strength,
and love thy neighbor as thyself. Neither of these commandments can truly be
kept without the other. So the scripture is Matthew 5: 44-47. As we know, these
scriptures are talking about loving our enemies. We all know that. We know that
we need to love our enemies and treat them kindly too. But just like President
Monson said, "Why is it that the ones we love most, become the target for
our harsh words." Loving our enemies is hard, but we rarely voice our
feelings to them. We generally hold it in until they are gone, but the ones
that we love the most are those upon whom we unleash that anger. Why? Are we
not all brothers and sisters? Are those we love not the most important things
in our lives? Do those we love, know how much we love and appreciate them? I
believe that the reason for this is how society tells us to treat people. I
hope that most, if not all, of you have seen the somewhat recent Mormon message
about bullying. Society tells us that whatever we are doing is okay because we
are "just kidding" or "trying to have fun." There is one
line in the video from one of the boys who started it all. A girl asks him if
he is the one who posted this picture that has been going around making fun of
another girl. She said that it made the girl cry earlier that day. The boy then
responds, saying, "I was just joking around so people need to stop taking
things so seriously." In the video this is kind of an extreme case, but in
the background of the video there are a lot more realistic cases. How many
times to we "joke around" at someone else's expense, not realizing
how much pain it causes them? THESE ARE OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!! More
importantly than that, THESE ARE GOD'S BELOVED CHILDREN!!! We understand our
divine potential, and guess what?! They have the same potential! We should not
try and bring them down. We should try and help them reach their full
potential. This is our "4 minutes" to shine. The rest of eternity
will depend on what we do in these "4 minutes," but it is everyone
else's 4 minutes too. So while we try to compete to the best of our ability,
help those around you compete to the best of theirs. They are nor competing
against you, nor you against them. There is more than one Gold medal at the end
of this Eternal Olympic Game, so help the others around you reach their
potential.
I love you all very much! And I hope
that you have a wonderful week. We have 6 more months until the next 12 hours
of new scripture so study what we have and make your Father proud. He loves
each and every one of you. Don't forget that! I love you too!
Love,
Elder Moyes
Well, I'm getting transferred... So
are the other 3 elders here... And we don't find anything out until tomorrow so
our branch is just left in the dark. So with transfers we don't get told where
we go or anything unless it is close by where we are now. So Elder Park and
Elder Salas are going down south. Elder Salas is going to be a ZL down there.
He is going to do great. :) so they don't go to Tampa. They just go straight
down there to save miles. Elder Hall and I will drive up to Tampa together and
find everything out there. I seriously hate this. I don't want to leave... I'm
going to cry tonight while saying goodbye. I already know it. It's not even
just leaving, it's leaving our area completely in the dark for several days. We
don't even know if more missionaries are going to come to the branch. Oh well,
I'm definitely coming back to Bradenton after my mission. I love it here.
Hopefully everything goes well.
Thank you for the packages! I
haven't opened the Easter one yet, but I am glad I got them on time. :) I'll
probably send a letter from my new apartment this week since I keep forgetting
to send one.
Okay, so spiritual experience for
this week was probably Saturday night. We found out we were getting transferred
and none of us could sleep. It has been very hard for me knowing that I am
leaving this area without any knowledge of whether or not they'll be taken care
of. The spiritual part of this was the testimony that I have gained about how
service really helps you gain that love for people. I knew that I loved these
people here, but it was different knowing that I’d be leaving them. I can't
even describe how much I love it here. I feel like tomorrow I am going to be
leaving a piece of my heart behind... It hurts, but it is also so rewarding. :)
I can't wait until I can come back and visit. :)
Alright, well the scripture for the
week will be Alma 8. Yeah, it's a chapter, but it's not very long. This is
around where I was studying this week and this chapter really shows that as
long as we do what we are told, The Lord will provide, even if it isn't what we
expect. This goes along with Elder Holland's talk from conference. We will at
some point face persecution for our beliefs. It will happen. But we will never
be alone. God is always with us, he will always help us.
I hope you all have a fantastic
week! I'll update you on my new area next week! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Moyes
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