I'm Just Waiting for the Prophet to Come!

Happy birthday shoutouts from Paraguay to my May birthday people: Jeff (recently promoted to "Mister" haha), Jordan, Justin, Nana, and Ben!!  Enjoy another year closer to death!  Hahaha love you all.

Ok mom, my shirt size is 16 1/2.  A few white shirts would be nice for the next package.  Now, no need to zip off to the store and hurry and get me a package together haha.  Just wait until you´re ready to send the next one and throw a few white shirts in there.  It´s expensive to send a package from there to here, and there´s better things you can spend your money on.  Put it in my car or school savings, even if its only like $50 or something.  I´d be willing to sacrifice receiving packages here in order to have some money saved up for a car or schooling when I get home.

Yesterday (for those of you who don´t know) I got to call home again!  The second of 4 phone calls I get on my mission.  Crazy, I´ve done half of them already.  Next time I call home, I´ll have a year and almost 4 months in my mission!  That is insane, I can´t believe it.  Time really goes so quickly here.  I still feel new.  My companion who has only 8 months to go still feels new.  It´s just how the mission goes I guess.  But yeah, it was good to talk to home and the family again.  I´m doing well, working hard, and happy!

It´s so good to get emails from Elder Pierce forwarded to me.  My mom sends them to me, and they´re so great!  He is such a stud.  Lucky duck he is!  He gets a bike, a car, AND permission to go to the temple every 6 weeks (what I´m most jealous of)!  Haha but honestly, there´s no other place I´d rather be than Paraguay where the Lord has called me, so it´s alright.  I need his mission address for 2 reasons:  first, I want to write him normal letters.  And second, I want to send him scripture cases like the ones I got here (a few emails ago, I sent pictures of them).  Hand-made leather scripture cases with designs and his name.  Rick and Cindy, if you could ask Elder Pierce what kind of scriptures he uses - a Bible and a triple combination and a quad, and if they´re standard size (they´re standard if they´re not really really small or really really big) - and I´ll get him some scripture cases made.  One servant of the Lord to another.  He will really like them I think.  So Dad, if you could make sure this gets forwarded to them so they can read it, that´ll be great haha.

Interesting fact - I memorized the 13 Articles of Faith in spanish last week.  Incredibly useful in teaching, a tool I never thought to use before.  Every member should know the 13 Articles of Faith, should perchance they have the opportunity to answer a question from a non-member or share what we know.

Just a reminder - I am not allowed to get emails from or send emails to anybody who is not my family (i.e. my dad, my mom, my brothers, my grandparents).  I´ll verify if aunts and uncles are ok and write back next week.  Dear Elders are better anyway for those who aren´t family - I have more time to read and respond to those than emails.

This upcoming Zone Conference, Area President Elder Shane Bowen is coming to talk to us!  He is president of the Area Presidency for this part of South America, so he´s pretty high up there.  It should be really amazing, I´m way excited!  The end of this month should be when he comes.  For the conference, we have to study covenants: The Abrahamic Covenant, the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood, and the coventants made in the temple - all three are subjects I´d like to learn much more about so I´m really excited to see what he will teach us and how he´ll relate it to missionary work.  Now I´m just waiting for the prophet to come!  Haha.

Actual missionary work is still hitting some speed bumps, as is normal with all missionaries.  We´re working hard to come up with new ways to find people instead of just knocking on doors which is really ineffective.  I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament about missionary work, and the commandments that are in the scriptures about how all who have the gospel are required to share it, no matter how big or little their part is.  We do much more of the work as full time missionaries, but that doesn´t mean the members have a less important or less significant role in the work of the Lord.  I told them about the statistics we received about last year´s baptisms in this mission and how over 80% of the converts baptized were referrals from members.  That´s a huge number.  80% of the baptisms don´t come from missionaries, they come from members.  So get out there and help the missionaries, help your lost brothers and sisters, and help the Lord!

Love and miss you all!  Until next week,

-Elder Moore