October 3013

Hola!!!

This week has been amazing!! Yes, I saw Taylor!! (during the priesthood session of conference in the choir) It was Awesome!!!! And I also noticed that he wasn't smiling :P Haha just like me :) I am very proud of you T! You did awesome!! And every elder here knows who you are now because I pointed you out :D
Conference was absolutely amazing!!! I have 2 pages of notes on each session. It was sooo good!! Overall, for me at least, it seemed like conference was really based around the family. I have talked with Elder James several times about how serving a mission really does make you excited to get home and have your own family. I love it. It was amazing!! My favorite part was definitely seeing Taylor. :) 
I did get the package :) Thank you soo much!! Elder James was happy to get something too :) He told me he is going to write home and tell his family that his companions family sends him more stuff than they do :P Haha it was funny. Thank you so much for all of it. I watched the DVD about trek and it made me very happy. That was a really good experience and it was awesome to kind of relive it. Haha thank you for the cleats. We might play football today so I will need them. And thank you for the sketch stuff :) Elder James is a really good artist and so we had actually been talking about that a lot. I almost bought a sketch book the other day and I am glad I didn't :) Thank you.
Well, we had exchanges again this week. They were much better than the last ones. We were with the same elders as my first exchange, where I ate a ton of food at the Tongan's house. Ya it was fun. Nothing too crazy happened, but it is still weird being in English land.
On Monday night we had family home evening at a member's house. Her brother is a less active and they invited her brother's family over for FHE. That is why we were there. We taught them lesson 3 and at first they weren't really interested. But by the end they were listening and agreeing with what we said. We didn't want to force anything on them so we just taught and it went really really well. We might be going back again tonight. We aren't sure. It was so cool though. :)
Okay, we had a crazy experience this week. I will send some pictures. My camera still has no charger so we used Elder James' camera. Anyways, we were driving around and we drove past a little dock. We stopped and got out and Elder James wanted some pictures. We went on to the dock and it was very old and creaky. It didn't look like it had been used in years. I was being careful and walking on the beams where the supports were so nothing would break. Elder James laughed and told me not to worry and that it wouldn't break. We took pictures and then out of nowhere we see something huge come out of the water. We look over and there were 4 or 5 manatees!! We took a video of them. They were only like 20 yards away from us. And then we saw some baby sharks start swimming around the dock!! It was awesome!!! I have never seen a while manatee and it was pretty cool. They were huge!! After they left we started walking back to the car. On the side of the dock Elder James saw a crab. He stopped and I stopped behind him. The crab went under the dock so he walked to the other side, then back. As he came back we heard a crack and the dock collapsed!! I watched as Elder James slid straight into the water and started running up the bank to dry land. The water was only mid thigh height on him, but he was soaked. Luckily he landed on his feet. I was still standing on the dock. Elder James took a picture of me. I didn't realize that everything behind me had fallen too. I was on the only board that didn't fall. It was crazy!! Elder James was not happy because he was soaked, but we both could not stop laughing hysterically!! It was awesome!! I will send some pictures later so that you can see the whole thing. It was one crazy adventure though.
A long with those pictures I will send the scripture of the day. It is in my scriptures and I don't have them right now so I will send it later today hopefully. :)
Well, that was my crazy week :) It was really good and especially ending it off with General Conference. I loved it!! I love you all! Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Moyes
Scarlett is pretty cute. It’s weird she will be almost two before I see her.


Now, this week. It was very long. We have a total of 10 people who will let us in, and 3 of those people are active members who we shouldn't really see and 4 of the other people are people we found while street contacting and we haven't actually taught a lesson to. We have 0 investigators and so we just spend all day riding our bikes around. This past week we only had 5 lessons total and we rode our bikes around the rest of the time trying to find people. Not much to tell, sorry :/ Hopefully this next week will pick up and I will have some stories :)
Now the scripture is 3 Nephi 16. I have a glue-in that says: "Consider this, you are invited to a friends house for breakfast and they put a pitcher of orange juice next to them and don't give you any. Finally, you ask "Can I have some orange juice please?" They say, "Oh, I am sorry. I was afraid you might not like orange juice and I didn't want to offend you by offering you something you didn't want." Now, this sounds absurd, but how often do we hesitate to offer up something much sweeter than orange juice?" How would you feel if someone came up to you after this life and asked you why you didn't offer the gospel to them? Will your answer be the same as this? We need to share the gospel with our friends. If they are truly our friends then they know that we care about them and nothing will change that. They will see that you are just offering up something that is precious to you because you care about them. We cannot force them into anything. WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE MEMBERS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HELP THE MISSIONARIES. THE MISSIONARIES ARE HERE TO HELP THE MEMBERS WITH THEIR WORK. Sometimes we get those roles mixed up. The Lord is Hastening his work and we are right in the middle of it. Are we going to look back and say. "Oh, I was alive when that happened. It was awesome to see it happen." Or are we going to say, "I was a part of that. I helped that work progress. I helped the Lord hasten his work."
I love you all and hope that everything is going well back home. I am happier out here than I have ever been before. I miss you all, yes, but I could not be happier than being surrounded by this amazing work. Keep up the good work at home.
Love,
Elder Moyes

Okay, well, technically I did get transferred. It is a crazy story. So here it goes. There are 3 Spanish companionship's in our zone. Me and Elder James, Hna Daines and Hna Binks, and Hna Rodriguez and Hna Birch. Rodriguez and Birch are in Sarasota, Daines and Binks are in Bradenton, and we have all of Palmetto and part of Bradenton. So that is Spanish. Then we have 2 english sisters. Sis Westberg and Sis Beck. They cover the West half of Bradenton. Then Elder Vanderpool and Elder Buck have the east side. Elder Benson and Elizando have Palmetto. And Elder Schenk and Elder Christopherson have Lakewood ranch. Then our Zone leaders and their Trainee's have all of Sarasota. That is all the English in our zone. That is what it has been for the past 3 months. Now, Hna Daines and Hna Binks are getting kicked out. They are both leaving. Then Sis Westberg and Sis Beck are getting kicked out as well. Then Elders Elizando, Buck, and Christopherson are all going home (they are done with their missions) and their companions are just getting new companions. One Zone leader is leaving and another one is coming in and the two trainees will now be companions working in Sarasota south while the Zone Leaders take the north. And Hna Birch is leaving and Hna Rodriguez is moving into our apartment. And Elder James and I are staying together, but we are moving into the English sisters apartment. And another thing, Elder James and I will be zebra. Which means now, we teach both English AND Spanish!!! So we have a completely new area, but we stay in the same branch, and we have to go to the english ward now. So we can teach basically everybody that we see :) It is going to be crazy. We have so much responsibility now. A huge area, two languages, and we are a district leader companionship so we have a lot to do :) It is going to be AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, and our zone was combined with another one so our zone is huge! I think that is everything :) But because we are staying together and in the same city, we are not going to Tampa, so unfortunately, I will not see Josh :/ He is getting transferred though, so I hope that it goes well for him :)  But we might stay here as of like 5 minute ago so I will let you know my new address next week.

That is basically everything for this week. The scripture is Alma 22:18. I really like this scripture because the king didn't know that there was a god, but he had faith that if there was a god, that what Aaron had told him was true. So he prayed to know. All it takes is a desire to know. We just need a desire and we can work miracles.
Okay, well there could be some crazy new changes. President Cusick is in a meeting with the AP's right now so we will see if anything changes. I will let you know when I can, but that is everything that I know :) So that is everything for right now. Thank you!! I love you all!! Have a great week!