Small World

BREAKING NEWS:  Summer has officially ended here in Paraguay!  According to the calender, yesterday was the last day of summer here.  ¡Por fin!

How´s everyone doing today?  Still sleeping, I´m sure.  It´s 11:14 am here, probably 6 or 7 there.  Here´s a nice Paraguayan email to wake up to!

This past week was pretty good.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  We have 2 people with baptism dates - a 14 year old boy for 3 of april and a 21 year old girl for 17 of april.  Keep your fingers crossed!  This week will be a little different.  Usually we have interviews with President Callan every change about the time we have zone conferences.  Usually our interviews are in Asunción in his office.  But this change, he and Hermana Callan are coming to every single pention in the mission to check it out and do interviews.  Yikes!  Needless to say, we have to do a little cleaning haha.  We don´t know what day or time he´s going to come, so we have to be ready.  Kind of exciting, that should be fun.

In 2 weeks is conference!  Wow, General Conference is every 6 months, and it seems like yesterday I was in the MTC gym watching Conference on the big projectors there.  Time passes quickly.  For those who read this and aren´t members, General Conference is an incredible opportunity that everybody should take advantage of.  Every 6 months, the prophet and other leaders of the church gather in Salt Lake City in a huge conference center where thousands of people go to watch them give speeches.  It is broadcasted everywhere so we all can watch it.  Saturday April 3 and Sunday April 4, at various times, the prophet of the world and his counselors (along with other church leaders) will be giving talks about various aspects of life and the world.  It is a chance to listen to the prophet himself give his counsel to the world.  I invite everyone - member and nonmember - to participate and watch the conference.  You can go to a local LDS chapel and watch it, you can watch it on BYUtv if you have that, or it will be available online (probably the day after).  Go watch it!

Mom and dad - some cool news I found out today.  You can come pick me up at the end of my mission, and we are allowed to stay here for up to a week travelling around and seeing all the places I´ve been and people I´ve visited.  How cool is that?  I´ll translate for you for the people we talk to, but it will still be really cool for you guys to see where I´ve been and what Paraguay is like.  You´ll be amazed how good we have it at home, even during hard times.  If you can´t figure out how to book a hotel online because it´s all in Spanish, I´m sure towards the end of my mission you can call the mission office here and they can get it all set up for you.  You´ll have to wait until about 6 months before I´m scheduled to leave, because I´ll get some papers to fill out verifying which day I want to leave and all that, so we can plan based off of that.  Thought that was pretty exciting.

Something really funny happened the other week.  I was in the area next to ours called Ñemby, and talking with a few members there something really cool happened.  They were like "Elder Moore is your name?  Do you have a brother that served here too?".  I said no, but asked how long ago the other Elder Moore was here.  They said it was "a few years ago, and he sang really really well".  Turns out it was Casey Moore!  Haha how funny is that?  They remember him from a few years ago, and he was in the area next to mine.  They asked me for his mailing address, so dad if you could get that for me and email it to me, I´ll be able to give it to them so they can write him.  Small world.

Not much else for this week.  Working, working working working.  Waiting for interviews, zone conference in the next 2 weeks, and general conference, the end of this change will go fast.

Rick and Cindy - I´ll write you guys within the next 2 weeks to see how you´re doing haha.  The time is come!  You should be so proud of your son - I am.  Well done.

Well, to finish off this email, this last part is directed to Elder Pierce.  Buddy, you´re a stud.  You enter the MTC in 2 days to start your service to the Lord. I am so excited for you and BEYOND proud of you.  You´re going to affect a lot of lives, whether you realize it or not.  It will be the hardest and most rewarding experience of your whole life.  Just follow the rules and trust in the Spirit to guide you, and you will have such a successful mission.  I´ll have a gift for you within a month or 2, so be waiting for that.  You´re such a strong spirit and I know you will excell beyond what you thought you ever could do.  You´ve got something that people out there need - something that you and only you can give them.  Good luck buddy, go baptize some people!  Love you man, return with honor!

-Elder Moore