My Last Email As A Full-Time Missionary

So, this is it.  I can´t believe it came.  They all say that, but it´s true.  I don´t even know where to begin.  There is no way I could sum up these past 2 years - and my unbelieveable appreciation and love for this experience - in just this email.  There have been so many little, seemingly insignificant moments that have made this such an amazing experience.  Looking back, I am surprised that I even made it on a mission.  But I did, thanks to my Heavenly Father, my incredibly loving and supportive parents who allowed me to make my own mistakes while never - ever - giving up on me, and to a humble servant of the Lord bishop Tim Hunt who really is responsible for getting me out here. Not to even start to mention all of the priceless positive influences I´ve been so fortunate to have growing up, both within the Church and without.  I honestly have no way to ever thank or repay you for all you´ve done for me.  For the rest of my life, I´ll do my absolute best to make you proud and see you all in the Celestial Kingdom.

My Last Zone Conference

Hello everyone!

Last week was incredible.  I participated in my last zone conference.  Want to know who came?  Elder Arnold, the president of Sudamérica Sur area and his wife, Sister Arnold.  They...were...incredible.  Last Wednesday night, the assistants came and slept in our pension with us (because the conference was held in our chapel).  The 4 of us woke up at 4:45 Thursday morning to go to the church and set up tables and chairs, clean up one more time, and just get everything ready.  Then while our companions were in another room, President Arnold had a meeting with the 4 zone leaders, us 5 district leaders, and us 2 trainers - 9 people in total in a meeting with a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy.  He actually gave a talk either last General Conference or the one before where he told a story about cows in the field and one of them broke through the fence and died, and related it to how the commandments help us to be safe (look it up, it´s a good talk).  Elder Mervyn B. Arnold.  I´m not kidding, this man is inspired.  There were about 4 times just in that first 55 minute meeting where he said that he had something else planned but the Spirit was telling him to go another

Will Ye Also Go Away?

Man, something funny always happens to me.  There are a lot of people here who don´t know about missionary work or who have very misguided ideas of what we do.  But there is one thing that people who don´t know anything about the church usually ask me:  "When you go home, are you going to continue in this church and still be Mormon?"  Uhh....duh!  Haha.  It´s like when Christ asked His apostles, "Will ye also go away?" and good old Peter says something along the lines of "Where would we go?  For thou hast the words of eternal life."  This isn´t a "job" that I´m doing here or just a gig that I´ll come here, complete the task, and go home and be "normal" again.  I´ll never be normal again.  (I don´t know if I was ever really "normal", but you know what I mean haha).  Nothing in life nor death could ever separate me from this Gospel and this Church.

This week I have more pictures, and I took some time giving some tips and instructions to my dad in another email for when he gets here, so my time is short.  But I´ll attach the pictures to this email and promise to write

And Besides, We're Canadian!

Hello family!

This week has been craaaaazy.  Haha.  Oh boy.  To say the very least.  Ups, downs, funny stuff, extremely difficult stuff...all kinds of "stuff"!  But the work goes on.  The branch here is really kicking it into gear in terms of the leaders getting things organized and moving.  We have an excellent, hard-working branch president and an incredible 1st councelor in the district (stake) presidency who is really helping us out.  We have people coming to church - both less active members and investigators - who haven´t come in a long time.  This branch has incredible potential.  The leaders are in place, the missionaries are in place (oh you betcha haha), and we´re ready to get this thing rolling.  It´s about time Rama 1 had some success down here.

Quick funny story to leave you with.  We were walking down the road by the plaza last Friday, and I see this drunk guy across the street just making a B-line right for us.  "Oh this should be interesting" I thought haha.  It

1 Fast Sunday Left. Boo:(

Weird realization last week:  I only have 1 fast Sunday left in my mission.  Boo :(

Thank you Nana for sending me those recipes and copies of those talks.  They were great!  I love you and will see you soon.  Tell Great-grandpa to stick it out for another month and a half until I can get down there and that I love him too.

So this week has been good.  Congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. Austin Hunt!  And welcome back Tyler!  Looking forward to seeing you guys again.  Sorry there´s not much to write this week, but I´ve run out of time.  It just so happens that when I FINALLY figure out how to send pictures from this cyber after playing with it for a while, I don´t even have my camera.  Blah!  But I do have my companion´s camera, so I´ll send you some from his camera just so you have a few and I´ll bring mine again next week.  Love and miss you all!  Have a great week!

-Élder Moore

Temptation And The Adversary

This week has been a good week.  We found a golden investigator and will soon meet his family.  His name is Julio Espardella.  Julio´s dad actually obtained the land for the chapel back years ago when it was built, and he remembers the missionaries coming over to his house when he was a little boy.  He´s now 40 or so with a wife of 18 years and 3 kids.  He was a reference from missionaries from another branch, and we´ve gone by his house twice and haven´t found him.  We just happened to be looking for people on our list of inactive members and saw his house nearby so we felt we should stop by.  He came out and was like "Hey Mormons".  So we were like aw dang this guy is going to be a heckler.  But he was way nice.  He asked us to come in without even asking our names or anything, just opened the door and said "come on in, good to see you".  We had a great lesson with him, found out a little more about his life, and taught him the message of the Restoration.  At the end, we presented the Book of Mormon to him, and he said "Yeah, I´m going to read this tonight".  Gold.  And then we said that after he reads it, he´s got to pray and ask the Lord if it´s true.  He was like "No, I don´t need to do that, I already believe it´s true."  Who says that?  Haha.  Great man, and I hope his family is the same.

Drink Up Of The Waters While I'm Standing At The Fountain

This is weird.  In 2 days, I will have 6 weeks left on my mission.  My group will be the oldest missionaries in Paraguay (besides President and Hermana Callan).  We´re on deck for going home.  Freaks me out.  Don´t like to think about it.

Hermana Callan is actually going home this week for 2 weeks.  Their youngest 2 daughters are getting married both within those 2 weeks, and they´re the last two of the Callan children to get married, so she gets to go home for that.  There are also 5 birthdays in those two weeks, 2 grandchildren to meet that they haven´t met before, and one of those little ones is getting blessed in church one of the 2 Sundays.  So she´ll be busy!  She told me that there are some missionaries who have already gone home that are going to be there too, so that will be neat.  I don´t know how it works, if she´s on an authorized 2 week release, or she´s still on missionary duties or what, but she gets to go home.  She´s really excited, so that will be good for her.

We had a really good lesson with the family - Pedro and Sonia - who we are trying to get baptized and married.  We had planned on going there to watch the Restoration video with them, but we got there and they had