Hey everyone - sorry I didn´t write yesterday. We had zone conference, so our P-day moved to today. Zone conference was INCREDIBLE, which I´ll talk about in a minute. Reminder - next week is changes, so email will be on Thursday. Oh, the suspense kills me!
Julie´s package. Juliebear, I got your package with the letters, pictures, and candy. Thank you so much! My face just lit up to see my awesome aunt Julie and uncle Cliff. Madisen looks way older now...kinda freaked me out. Haha. And Jabba is a monster, holy cow! He´s big now! (Well, he was always a tank, but you get the point.) He has teeth and some more hair and everything. I bet the little guy just runs around all day and will be jabbering up a storm in no time. Thanks so much for sending that :)
Cindy - Haha, I´m sorry time isn´t flying yet. I can tell you that the end definitely goes faster than the beginning. I felt like I was in my first area for a year when really it was 4 months. Now I have the same amount of time in this area that I´m in now, and it feels like 2 weeks. Time goes much faster the farther into the mission you are. Stick it out, keep those prayers going :). I can relate to Elder Teshima at the moment haha. Things are slow here the past few weeks. Picking up very slowly and with a lot of hard work. Wew just keep chugging along. And thank you for finding out that information for me! Next week when I find out if I stay or go to a new area, I´ll get his scripture cases ordered. It seems from his emails like he is doing
wonderfully - as I knew he would. He´s a great man and will develop into an even greater missionary. He´s had a lot of success early on, and that will continue throughout the majority of his mission. Tell him to feel lucky too - his mission baptizes about 120 a week, and we baptize an average of about 30! Haha. The work is the same wherever we are though, so the numbers aren´t important. We´re on the same team. As for Jayden, the Sandpipers is the best swim club in Vegas. Put her in there and within a few years, she will be a swimming machine. Tell her I said go for it! And what you asked me to pray for will be included in my prayers. I love and miss my second family very much :)
Julie´s package. Juliebear, I got your package with the letters, pictures, and candy. Thank you so much! My face just lit up to see my awesome aunt Julie and uncle Cliff. Madisen looks way older now...kinda freaked me out. Haha. And Jabba is a monster, holy cow! He´s big now! (Well, he was always a tank, but you get the point.) He has teeth and some more hair and everything. I bet the little guy just runs around all day and will be jabbering up a storm in no time. Thanks so much for sending that :)
Cindy - Haha, I´m sorry time isn´t flying yet. I can tell you that the end definitely goes faster than the beginning. I felt like I was in my first area for a year when really it was 4 months. Now I have the same amount of time in this area that I´m in now, and it feels like 2 weeks. Time goes much faster the farther into the mission you are. Stick it out, keep those prayers going :). I can relate to Elder Teshima at the moment haha. Things are slow here the past few weeks. Picking up very slowly and with a lot of hard work. Wew just keep chugging along. And thank you for finding out that information for me! Next week when I find out if I stay or go to a new area, I´ll get his scripture cases ordered. It seems from his emails like he is doing
wonderfully - as I knew he would. He´s a great man and will develop into an even greater missionary. He´s had a lot of success early on, and that will continue throughout the majority of his mission. Tell him to feel lucky too - his mission baptizes about 120 a week, and we baptize an average of about 30! Haha. The work is the same wherever we are though, so the numbers aren´t important. We´re on the same team. As for Jayden, the Sandpipers is the best swim club in Vegas. Put her in there and within a few years, she will be a swimming machine. Tell her I said go for it! And what you asked me to pray for will be included in my prayers. I love and miss my second family very much :)
Ok, Zone Conference. Wow. Where to begin? Elder Shayne Bowen came - he´s the president of the whole area down here in South America. What an inspired man he is. The spiritual experiences that I have had that were as amazing as yesterday are very few. He talked about a few miscellaneous topics to help us out, and then gave a talk about realizing who we are. Not just as missionaries, but as people in the Church of Jesus Christ - a priesthood bearing people.
God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost never come without invitation. Your invitation to them is your obedience, your dilligence, your desire to know the truth, your drive to discover and apply it, and your worthiness. Remember that. Never stop inviting the Spirit until you feel the inspiration that He is saying "I´m with you".
We should always have questions - written down is even better. If we have no questions, what is Heavenly Father going to give us revelation about? Questions show your faith, your desire to learn more, and your humble openness to accept answers from God.
If somebody isn´t keeping a commandment or isn´t progressing in life (or in the mission), it is because they don´t understand some part of the doctrine. When we truly understand the doctrine, we will ALWAYS want to share it as Lehi´s vision in 1 Nephi 8 teaches us.
Many times, the limitations we have in life are artificial. 2 examples. 1.) If you have a jar of fleas, they will jump out (they don´t walk, they only jump). If you put a lid on the jar, they will smack into the top and it will sound like little pellets dinging against the metal. After a while, they learn that they can´t get out, and they still jump, but only up until just below the lid. If you take the lid off, they still will only jump to that height just below where the lid was, even though there is no limitation there. 2.) To train elephants in the circus to not run off, they tie a rope to their leg and tie the other end to a big stake in the ground. The elephant learns that it cannot escape, so it stops trying. Whenever an elephant trained in this manner has a rope tied to its leg, it will not move even if the other end isn´t tied to the stake anymore. Likewise, many "limitations" we have in life are artificial, put in place by others or ourselves when really there is no limit there. Breaking these artificial limits brings miracles.
There are 3 things every person needs to do in order to develop the faith necessary for salvation. 1 - Realize that God exists. 2 - Recognize his attributes and characteristics. 3 - Live your life in accordance with that knowledge. Master these 3 things (hint: number 3 is not as easy as the first 2) and your faith will be sufficient.
And then he got to the good part. Before conference, we were asked to study the Abrahamic Covenant, the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood, and the covenants of the endowment. I didn´t understand before how they were all 3 related; I thought they were just 3 seperate covenants. In reality, they are very much the same. In fact, one alone has very little effect without the other 2. I wish I had the time to explain all 3, but here´s a VERY quick rundown. The Abrahamic Covenant is the reason we have all we have today - the church, the priesthood, and the Savior Himself came from the loins of Abraham. We are part of the house of Israel in the church because it was promised to Abraham that we would be adopted in through our covenants. Thus, it is like he is the richest grandparent anyone could have, and we get the inheritance. The Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood basically stated that through the priesthood that worthy men of the church hold, we can have all that God has through our faithfulness. We hold the exact same priesthood that Jesus Christ used to create this world and worlds without end. It is no wonder that such a great blessing comes with great expectations and covenants necessary to receive it. The way we fulfill this promise is through covenants made in the temple. It was such a magnificent explanation and I´ll teach it to you when I get home. I understand much more of the plan for us and who I am. That´s unfortunately all I have time to share this week.
So what I was going to send in my email this week was a video. I was thinking that hey, if I can send pictures, why not a video? And I was reading in the missionary manual to see if I could, and it recommends against it, so sorry. Out of luck. When I send my camera memory card home and it´s full, I´ll leave a video of me on there so you guys can watch it. But here´s pictures!
1 - Me and the coolest old guy ever
2 - Stake President Benitez with his daughter Emma and a chicken haha
3 - Camilla Benitez with a pig that Elder Silva made of clay for her
4 - Emma (she just melts my heart)
5 - Me with the shirts that we got made for our zone (zone 3!). The patch is our mission symbol.
6 - The back of my shirt (B, would I really get anything else but number 1? I´ve learned well haha)
7 - A shirt I bought with my favorite soccer club Manchester United (yes I have a favorite soccer club haha)
Until Thursday! Love and miss you all.
-Elder Moore
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