Thursday, September 17, 2009

Week 2 at the MTC

Hello all!
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> So much to talk about, so little time!!  First thing's first, happy birthday B-ryce!  Hope it was a good one.  Sorry I didn't get to write ya, this missionary business is busy!  But I do have a quote for you to make up for it by Elder Dallin H Oaks about missionary work: "We invite all to come unto Christ by repentance and baptism and confirmation in order to open the doors of the celestial kingdom to the sons and daughters of God.  No one else can do this."  Get excited bud!
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> Chief:  Thanks for the  scriptures and encouragement!  I have some scriptures for you in return.  Helaman 5:12, Alma 26:10-12, 2 Nephi 4:19, 2 Nephi 9:39.  It was hard to pick just 4, but there ya have it!  Love and miss my second family.
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> Thanks to everyone who has sent me letters and Dear Elders, and just words of encouragement!  Sister Hunt and family, Oma and Opa, everyone else, I'll get to writing you at some point, I promise!  I'm a busy boy, but you'll all get your letters!
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> Mi Familia:
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> (I'm going to be a little random here with what I say, there's so much to say and I don't have time to make it all sound nice lol)
> I'm still loving the MTC, it's great here!  How is Steve doing?  I hope he's well.  I haven't gotten my raincoat yet, but everybody here says that's normal.  If you want, you can call the store down here and see what's up, cuz I can't do it lol.  And I don't need detergent, I got some here, but thanks :].  My 2 addresses for Paraguay are in my book, those are really my addresses.  It's still the same mission president that's in the book, he's the one who wrote me the letter from Paraguay.
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> Our district is doing well!  Everyone except 2 Hermanas (Sisters) and 2 Elders are going to Paraguay.  The 2 Hermanas are going to Carlsbad California, Elder Bishop is going to Jackson Mississippi, and Elder Mills is going to Tulsa Oklahoma.  We're all Spanish-speaking though.
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> Thanks for the care package!  Wait like a week to send the next one though, we have food for days!  Haha.  We're only in our room for 30 minutes in the morning, at night to sleep, and once during the day to change for gym and that's it so we have no time to eat it all haha.  But thank you, send another soon!
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> Happy anniversary!  How was it?  Sheesh, you guys aren't sick of each other yet?!  Haha, kidding.  I hope it was excellent, sorry I couldn't be there!!
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> That is excellent that Tommio moved into our ward for a while again!  Give him my address, I'd love to hear from him!  Tell Ryan he can have my address too I GUESS.  Haha.
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> We got to go to the call center and make some calls last week.  We go every Friday.  It's a lot of fun, I like doing that!  I'm gonna be ordering baptisms over the phone in no time!  It's a blast.  We also get to go to the temple every Thursday (I'm beating you Dad!).  It's a nice temple here, I like it.  We're doing initiatories today instead of a session.  I'm also keeping a study journal here, they taught us how, so I'm gonna be able to create some Teshima-quality lessons from this bad boy!  Tell him I said that haha.
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> On Sundays we get to go walk around the temple grounds for an hour and take pictures and things, just as a relaxing thing.  This Sunday, believe it or not, there were BYU girls there hitting on the missionaries.  How retarded is that?  Missionaries have it tough enough already, you don't need to distract them taking pictures on your camera phone or anything.  So one of the Hermanas in my district, Hermana Denker, went over there and chewed them out for a minute and they left hahah.  It was excellent.
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> Being District Leader is pretty tough.  I have extra meetings every week so that's less study time, and a lot of responsibilities, but I'm doing well.  It's hard to be the bad guy though when people aren't on task, because our district is so close and we're like family already, it's hard to keep people focused and be the bad guy.  I'm doing fine though, I like it :]
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> We have to write talks every Sunday (3-5 minutes) all in Spanish.  But only 2 Elders/Hermanas are called to speak each week, so you write one every week, but you don't know if you'll even have to give it haha.  It's good practice though.  Next week we're having "English fasts" during meal times where we can't speak any English the whole time we're in the cafeteria.  Eek!
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> Remember how I told you about the TRC?  Where we go every Tuesday to teach members posing as investigators?  There's another thing called the TE (Teacher Evaluation) where you go do the same thing, but the investigators are teachers/return missionaries here.  You get to set up the situation and what you want to teach instead of having it picked for you.  And the teachers are allowed to give you feedback, whereas the TRC people aren't.  It's really helpful.  Elder Short and I are working with a teacher named Brother Sharp.  The first lesson he played an investigator named John Arpeggio with a girlfriend who just left him with their 2 year old son.  It's just like teaching a real investigator, he doesn't go out of character the whole time we're there.  We taught him about the Restoration on Monday and Wednesday we went back to follow up with him and set up another appointment to teach the plan of salvation and take him to church with us.  It's a lot of help, my favorite thing to do here so far.
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> Being a missionary is unreal.  It is so difficult sometimes, but I know that nobody else can do this work and that I'm in the right place.  Our purpose is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them accept the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end".  There is no greater thing I could be doing.
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> We have devotionals every Tuesday night, and this week it was the apostle Jeffrey R Holland!  Elder Short and I were 4 rows from the front!  He gave an INCREDIBLE speech, really motivated us.  He said this IS the real world, not the world we left behind.  He said that all these hard times are for a good purpose, the road to salvation always goes through Gethsemane.  We are experiencing salvation right now, doing this work.  It was really great to hear an apostle of the Lord come talk to us.  I loved it.
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> I also got to give 2 blessings already to 2 of the sisters who are struggling a bit.  What a great blessing and privilege it is to have the priesthood and be able to bless people's lives in a way that nothing else can.
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> Well, time's up!  I'll write again next week.  Love you and miss you all so so much!
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> -Elder Moore
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> P.S.  What is Jeff's email?

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