February 2014

So first off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!! I love you and I am so grateful for everything you do for me :) I hope you have a great day!!  

Our investigators are doing well. One of them is getting married so that she and her husband can get baptized!!! It is super exciting, so I might have to help plan a marriage!! :) Haha that's weird.

I don't know exactly how many Spanish elders there are in the mission, but it is around 20 or so. Not a lot. 

The branch is not very big. It used to be bigger, but then it got split now it is really small. There are like maybe 50 people on average at church. MAYBE. Haha it isn't big. 

The branch mission leader is okay. We have been working with him to try and up the work, but there are some obstacles. they haven't really caught on to the changes yet. So oh well. 

We are all doing good. We almost had to move because all 4 of us are sleeping in 1 room, but we are fine here and there isn't anywhere else to go.

Yes I have recovered from all of my injuries :P There are still marks there that are very easy to see, but they are healed and don't hurt at all :) Just flesh wounds :P 

Yeah we took some pictures after we got home from the wreck. The pictures don't show what everything really looked like though.  

Okay so last Tuesday we had zone conference. And for the entire conference we just practiced using the pamphlets and leaving "prayers" at people houses. I say "prayers" because that is what we are supposed to call them. They are really called Peace and Blessings. We use the priesthood to leave a blessing of peace and comfort on a house and on the family so that they are more receptive to the spirit. We do it for members too. It really works. So that is what we did the entire time at zone conference. :) It was long, but it was really good. 

Also, we have a new rule in the mission. There is absolutely no more music whatsoever in this mission. So I will be sending a small package home soon with my ipod. It is just to make us more obedient by taking out even the small things. And to get us ready for the ipads. So just a heads up :)

Okay, so the scripture this week is 2 Nephi 5: 32. "And I engraved that which is pleasing unto God. And if my people are pleased with the things of God they will be pleased with mine engravings which are upon these plates."d  This scripture just proves that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. If we are trying our best and doing what God wants, we will realize that the Book of Mormon is telling us what to do. If we love God, we will love the Book of Mormon and vise versa. I was reading it the other day and I thought it would be a good one to share.

And now, spiritual thought time. So last week Elder Salas and I were on FB and we got a phone call from some random guy we didn't know. He asked us if we could go to the hospital to give his son a blessing. We told him we would and started walking back to the apartment to get the car. All of a sudden a car pulls in front of us and stops us. It was the guy who had called. He gave us a ride to the hospital where we proceeded to give his son a blessing. His son has an infection in his heart and it is very very serious... It was an awesome blessing. And then right after that, the man's wife walks in (the son's mom) and asks us to come with her to bless their daughter who was only 4 rooms down. We then gave her a blessing also and it was super cool. The family lives in Sarasota so we don't visit them. They are members and the parents were extremely devastated with the news of their children being sick. I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to help this family out. I know that when that guy drove by it wasn't a coincidence. Our Heavenly Father is watching over each one of us and he knows exactly what we need and when we need it. It might not be our timing, but it is his and it will be for our benefit.

I love this work and am so grateful for this opportunity. I love you all!!

Love,

Elder Moyes

 

 

I cannot believe that it has been 7 months already!! Time sure does fly :) (Maybe not so much for you guys ;), but for me it has been) It sounds like everyone is still staying busy up there :) That's good :) I'm sorry to hear about Snuggles :( I hope that everyone up there is okay.. I'll miss him, but at least he is happy :) 

Our investigators are doing well. We only really have one progressing now. Magali. She is progressing very quickly though and it is amazing!!! She had a meeting with the branch president and she is going to get married!!!!!!!!!! So I might be having a wedding!!! It is amazing!!! After the wedding she is going to get baptized!! I am soooooo excited for her!! She is so amazing and the whole family will probably be baptized also!!! :D I don't know if I will be here for all of that, but I am so excited for her!!

The prayers are going well. The people can definitely feel the spirit and it gives them a desire to learn more. We have a lot of potentials, but none really new investigators.

Facebook is going well. We have been able to talk to people we can't otherwise reach. And now they are going to be giving us a ton of new rules on Thursday... But it makes sense, because on Thursday we are getting iPads!!!!!!!!!!!! It is awesome!!! Everything will be on them and we can teach using more videos and it is going to be awesome!!!  

Alright, so this week was not super eventful. The big thing that happened was that Elder Salas and I got invited to an extended MLC meeting. This meeting is usually only for Zone leaders, AP's and sister trainer leaders so it was kind of a big deal that we got to go. There were two members from the missionary department there and it was basically a 6 hour long training. It was amazing!!!!! They did such a great job. I can't really put 6 hours of training into a short paragraph but they talked about how important studies are in fueling us for the rest of the day and they showed us how to better use the pamphlets. They didn't spend a lot of time on it because right now we are one of the few missions who really uses the pamphlets to teach and they are amazing!! The training was so good and I learned so much about how to teach more simply so that people understand it better. For the most part we all grew up and we have been active most of our lives and we started in primary. So that is where we need to start our investigators. Start them in Primary and continue from there. It is so amazing how simple this gospel really is and how much it helps people.  

So for the scripture this week it is going to be a little different again. I am going to choose to share the heading to the book of 1 Nephi. Not the heading to Chapter 1, but the heading to the whole book. I challenge each of you to read it and, sentence by sentence, go through and apply it to your lives. The first sentence: An account of Lehi and his wife Sariah, and his four sons, being called, (beginning at the eldest) Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi. 

 This book is going to be about a man, his wife, and their family. It is going to be about what they went through and what they had to do. There. First sentence done. Now you guys move on and keep going to the next sentences. I promise that as you do this, you will realize more about how the scriptures do apply to us today and, more importantly, how they can apply to you individually. Pick your part and read. They didn't write this book for themselves. They lived through it. They were there. They were writing it for us. So the least we can do is apply it to ourselves and get the most out of it possible. 

I love you all!!! Keep up the great work!! Love,Elder Moyes

 

Okay, so this week was really good. We had a lot of lessons and we met a lot of new people. So my spiritual experience was on Saturday. We had a lesson with a member and then right after the lesson she told us about some of her friends. So she took us over to their house and we met them and taught them lesson one. It was super awesome!! They were excited about us coming back to teach and it was so cool to finally have a member who was willing to help out. It was just an awesome experience.

And the scripture is Abraham 2:11. This week we taught a lot about how the gospel blesses our families and it is so amazing how we are all part of one huge family. The blessings that we gain are so essential to our happiness. We weren't placed in these families just randomly. We have the families that we have for a reason. And the best part is that we have the wonderful opportunity to live with them forever. We get to live with the people that we love for eternity. What greater blessing is there? I am so grateful for the plan that we have and the opportunity that we have to live together forever. :)