12.19.11

Confirmação!

So, this week was way short, and waaayyy long. We went to Recife for Wednesday and Thursday so that was cool...i mean HOT... But Wednesday we went to... THE TEMPLE! Woo hoo! I love the Temple. SO much. I actually stayed in the Celestial Room for about an hour and i got about 10 mintues to myself after everyone else left the room to think and pray and sort out some things that are going through my mind right now! It was so good.

The Thursday we had our meeting of Christmas! It was very good, but we didnt get home until about 9:30 or so at night.

Friday - I went and did my first interview for a baptism! It was...interesting. The baptism was a woman named Iolanda (Yolanda) and she is one of a kind. I was actually one of the missionaries who found her! It was about 3 months ago on a division with Elder Locatelli.  So she remembered me and of course i remembered her, and it was a joyace occasion and it filled my heart with happiness to know that I had been a part in her conversion. I just didnt know how big of a part. So...the interview lasted for about 2 hours... in the while we talked about everything that had happened after the night i had met her. She told me how much she remembered that first night when she met the misisonaries (Elder Locatelli and I) and how big of a difference she had in her life because of us. Then she asked if I would baptise her... so of course i did! Friday night we had her wedding and then her baptism. It was such a wonderful night and just such a fufilling feeling. I felt so wonderful to know that she was making the right decisions in her life!

Saturday - Saturday was pretty normal except for the night. We went to a members house to be led to a reference that she had for us. We arrived and the member left... we werent expecting that. But then we met Evoni. She is a wonderful woman who had 4 kids living and no husband. But she has a heart of gold. Her oldest son and her parents were killed about a year ago in the same week and ever since then, she has been scarred. She is questioning why God left her on the earth and took so many people that she loved out of her life. She said she doesnt want to suffer anymore, but she just wants to find the peace she once had in her life. Lucky for her, we have the only cure for this sickness. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. We taught her and told her that if we live good lives and follow the example of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we can not only live with our families again after this life, but we can live with them in the presence of our Heavenly Father too. She said at the end of the lesson that she felt a little better and she wants to learn more, and wants our help in finding a way to be happy in life again. I love her.

Sunday - Suday was alright, Evoni went to church along with another very special girl that we are teaching, Danielle. She is so smart and knows a lot more than she  thinks about the Gospel. She is the friend of Davi and I hope that when she really knows that this church is true she will follow his wonderful example and be baptised by someone holding the authority of God.


Love you all so very much and have a Merry Merry Christmas! Remember why we have Christmas and always remember the Saviors birth and death. He did so many things for us in His life. Lets give a little back this Christmas Season.

Com amor,
Elder Moore

12.12.11

This week was way good. We had the baptism of Davi and he chose me to baptize him! Woo hoo! My filhão is doing very well and im very proud of him! He is growing up so fast... :) Im just trying to teach him as much as I can.

Well, its hot here during the day...really hot...but during the night its way nice so we sleep with the windows open and its wonderful. I love being in the mountains! :)


Com amor,
Elder Moore

Dec. 5th, 2011

Im so lucky to be a trainer, but its a little intimidading at times. I only have 6 months and this guys looks up to me and expects me to know everything! He is way cool though and I love him.

I was pretty sick but that was a while ago! I was coughing up a storm and had a fever of 39.6! It was pretty cool :) but thats all over now so dont worry! Be happy! :)

This past week was a little slow becuase i had to stay in Recife to wait for my kid, but when we got home we started things off with a bang. We found a lot of new people this week to teach, and we marked the baptism of one of my best friends. David! I dont remember how much ive told you about him, but he is a miraculous young man. He has 16 years and is a friend of a member. We have been teaching him for about a month and He is doing so well. He bore his testimony yesterday in church and said that he hopes everyone on this earth can have the change of heart that he had and come to know of the Church of Jesus Christ that we have here on the earth again. It was powerful... and I got to be a part of that conversion! Im so happy for him. He will be baptised this Saturday and Im so excited for him!

Well, not too much happened this week, but we will just continue to work more and more and help more and more people come to the knowledge of this wonderful Gospel.

I love you all and Im so happy that we have this chance during our lives to be members of this church. I know that this church is true, that we can be together forever, and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can help anyone with any problem about anything at any time in their life. For this, I am a missionary.

Com amor,
Elder Moore.

Another Week In Brazil.

Woah. This week was so fast and we actually got a good amount of things done, but with not that many results. We taught a bunch and got 12 new investegators, but only had one show up to church! He is the father of one of the recent convernts in our ward and he is just such a wonderful man! Yesterday...was rainy. It POURED rain and now a lot of my stuff is soaking wet because we had to walk to an appointment! We couldnt stop just because of some rain! But now i have a semi dry day to try and dry out all of my things! That kind of sticks but i better get used to it because it is a lot worse in Recife! 

I get P-Day today :) we arent going to Áugas Belas because we have to save our money this week for ZONE CONFERENCE!!! Woo hoo! I love zone conference. It will be this friday, so we will lose a day of work, but we will get some much needed council from our beloved Presidente Lanius. Im so excited! Also this week we made some packets that we are giving to members for our messages after lunches. The packets about Member missionary work and how we really need our ward to start helping us if they want to grow. Some other GREAT news that i think i forgot to tell you.. WE GOT LAND!!!! WOOO HOOOO! Representatives from the church came to our area and surveyed where they can build a chapel because we have the numbers for a chapel now! IM SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT TOO!!!! We should have a chapel built and completed before I have to go home. Im so excited for the members of the ward and they are all so excited too! Its a big deal to have a 3rd chapel here because when we have this chapel we will be able to see the other 2 because they are all going to be on their respective hills (but the hills are more like mountains...) 

Also this week, i got 6 letters... and a package! Woo hoo! The post office isnt on stike anymore so im getting everything in abundance. I think that i will get the other package you guys sent at zone conference, but i dont know for sure. I got a bunch of missionties though! It was great to read. 

My American still hasnt prayed yet, but he is reading the Book of Mormon in English now beacuse we found one in the house and he wasnt understanding the one in Português that well. He  has so many questions and is so excited about it! Im excited for him and it gives me a chance to practice my english. Yup. Thats right. Practice my english. Its acually really horribel now and I have trouble talking to people in english for a long amount of time. Its really frustrating because i always think of the words in português before i think of them in english. Also, we cant spend the night in Áugas Belas, but its only like an hour or hour and a half away so we can go spend the day there and return at night no problem. 

I dont need toothpaste or anything, and i actually dont use my sunscreen... :) im getting pretty dark and one of the members said that I am going to be black when i get home and my famile isnt going to recognize me cause ill be black and skinny. Thats another thing. Ive lost about 20 pounds since leaving home now! But im healthy still so its all good! 

Love you all so much and I cant wait to wright about the experences to you next week!

Com amor,

Elder Moore

Happy Halloween!

This is Elder Moore reporting from Pernambuco Brasil from the city of Garanhuns! This week was a long one and very productive. Lets start with last P-Day.

Last P-Day we went to Augas Belas. We arrived at about 3:15 to find out that the last car back to Garanhuns left at 3 o clock :) So...we were stranded. With nothing. In a city that doesnt have members or a church. WOO HOOOOOO! It was pretty awesome. Augas Belas has a reservations for the Indians there and we taught some indians. You know what you call indians in Brasil? Lamanites.... yup. We taught the Lamanites. We will be going back there next P-Day because soooo many people are interested and have never heard the Gospel before. We found a ton of people there and we are excited for this new town about an hour and a half away. But that night we slept (not really) in the street and waiting for the first car back to Garanhuns which left at 4:20 am. :) It was definitly an experence and a wonderful experence at that!

The rest of the week we were pretty tired, but we managed to find 17 new investegators this week so that was good.

Also, we had a milagre! The area of the LZs had a baptism this past Saturday and one of the people who attended was a girl who had been investegating the church for 5 years. She has been taught by countless missionaries and has been invited to be baptised who knows how many times, but she told the missionaries after the baptism of this man that she wanted to be baptised, so what did we do? We got that girl an interview and then lead her to the water! She was baptised that same night and then confirmed in our ward yesterday. She is truley one of the elect people of God. 

I am still living my story of The Best Two Years and teaching the American. He is reading the Book of Mormon and enjoying it a ton, but he has never prayed before in his life and he is scared to. That is going to be one heck of a day when he decides to pray! I know that he will find out very quickly what he has been missing out on with prayer. 

I love you all and hope you are all doing well! I love and miss you and Happy Halloween!

- Elder Moore

Mais uma semana de servindo O Senhor!

This week was good, but the weeks are always so fast!

I dont have any cool stories to share with you guys this week, but I do have a stonger testimony of the love of my Savior Jesus Christ. Ive felt His love for all of us this week as He has guided to His chosen people. We arent teaching as many people right now, but we are teaching people that are SO READY for this Gospel!

Also, today, I am offically not being trained anymore! My 12 weeks are up and I am a regular missionary now! Whoop! That means we can start leaving at 10:30 instead of 12:30! That means we can teach more people and have more time! Finally!

Also, this week we will be switching houses for sure! And we are being reallllyyy spoiled. I love our President so much. He is awesome. He and Sister came here to see our house right now and the houses we are going to be moving into. Elder Pires and I thought we had found a good house for a cheap price. Then we talked to Pres. He was a Sealer in the Temple for a long time so he wants he says that he wants our houses to be places we can recieve revelation, he thinks about the temple. ill take some pictures from our new apartment this week when we move in. its incredible. possibly the best house in the mission. :D thank you president!

Anyway, this is my email telling you that everything is good here in Brasil. We are about to go to Aguas Belas to some people who want us to teach them, but its about an hour away so we are going to use our pday to go there :)

Love you all so much. Stay firm in the faith and if there is anything I can do you just tell me!

- Elder Moore

10-18-11

Be nice to the missionaries. I heard something this week that is absolutley true about when missionaries are over for dinner or lunch or any meal. You can make the missionary encredibly happy by doing 4 things.
1. Feed them
2. Ask for them to share a message
3. Give them references
4. Tell them to go work!

Its so true and i wish the people did that here. I got asked a question yesterday that made me...mad. The question was at lunch yesterday at a members house and she asked, why dont missionaries stay in the members houses and make appointments with members throughout the day? She got kind of upset with us because we are the only companionship who hasnt done this. I wanted to say BECAUSE ALL THE OTHER MISSIONARIES YOUVE MEET ARE FUBECAS AND NEVER WORKED! But i didnt and poiletly explaned that we are called to teach people about the Gospel and to help people prepare for baptism. She still didnt really understand but she understood a little bit more. That is my angry story for the week! So talk to the missionaries and be nice to them :) ask them about home and just be their friends, but most importantly, GIVE REFERENCES! Also, make it known that you are willing to go on splits! Lessons with members are so much better than without members.

Thats my advice for the week! I love you! Have a wonderful week!

- Elder Moore

10/10/11

House Shopping!

We are about to go to a place and see if we can switch houses because our house sucks right now and we want to live in our area! Wish us luck!

This week has been waayy good, but SO FAST! I dont believe how fast time flys by every single week. Starting today, I have one more week being trained! Woo hoo! Im almost not a filhão! But things have changed. Elder Webb was transfered this past p-day and we have a new ZL now. So ive been living with 3 Brazilians for the past week! Woo! The Lord has blessed me so much and I can finally tell you that Im fluent. My comp told me that I was fluent when i hit my 4 month mark, so that was pretty sweet. Everyone is freaked out when they find out that Ive only been out for 4 months! I have 3 favorite questions I like to ask when we are meeting new people.

1) How long do you think ive been speaking português? =  Ive gotten from 1 year to ´wait...your not Brazilian?´ I absolutley love this question because I can get honest feedback and get to make friends at the same time!
2) How old do you think I am? = Ive gotten from 15 to 25 :) This question is pretty fun too.
3) This question is a bit different that the other ones. This question is during the first lesson after we tell the story of the first vision. The question is - What do you think about this story? To you, is this story easy or hard to believe? I love this question because every single answer is different and we get to know what the person thinks! Its always a fun time for me during the lesson.

So, this next monday is transfers, but i wont know anything until Sunday night. So if you dont get an email next monday, then im on a bus or metro or something going to Recife to go to a new area with a new comp!

This past Saturday we had 2 more baptisms. Eva (42) e Camila (11). They are both such wonderful examples to me and are suuuchhh cool people! Camila chose me to baptise her and Eva chose Elder Pires! So we both got to baptise! Woo! In the pic both of our shirts are soaked because we only brought one shirt each... that was silly... it was cold that night and we were freezing!

We had 2 investegators in church this week so well work for way more this week, but we will lose a day or so because we have to go to Recife this wednesday because i think a member of the area presidency is going to talk to us! Woo!

Well, thats about it for this week! Oh yeah, we have a lady in the ward who has a salon type thing and she cuts our hare :). I actually just got a harecut this morning!

Love you all so much!

- Elder Moore

4 Months!!

Woo hoo! This past Saturday was my 4 month mark. I know its not a lot, but i cant believe that it has already been 4 months!!! Where did the time go!? Well, this week wasnt very preductive for my area at all! I only worked in my area for 2 days this past week!!! Tuesday i was in Boa Vista with one of my ZLs and then Wednesday we worked in our area (Barão de Nazaré) then Thursday was in Arcoverde. Then Friday again was my area. Then Saturday and Sunday were conference! Woo hoo! I love General Conference soo much! But, i would like to listen in English so that i can hear the voices of the prophet and apostolos. That is one thing that i missed about conference. But other than that Conference was amazing as usual.

This week we were blessed with marking baptisms for 2 very special people. Eva and Camila.

First the story of Camila. - She came to church last sunday and we talked to her and marked a day to go visit her. When we got to her house we already knew what the outcome would be. This girl is sooo great! She has 11 years and is so smart! Her Book of Mormon is marked up and every time we read a scripture with her she gets sooo happy and runs to go get her red pencil. She truely was prepared for this Gospel and will be baptised (hopefully with her mom) this Saturday. Her mom knows that this Gospel is true and is a very special women too, but is having problems with stopping smoking. She has smoked all her life, but she has cut down drasticly this past week. Im so proud of her!

Now for the story of Eva. Eva is a verrrryyyy special woman who missionaries have been teaching for a while! We marked her baptism about a month ago, but she said she needed more time to prepare and pray about it. That is such a wonderful answer. That means that your investegator knows and recognizes the importance of baptism and knows how big of a step it is!!! Anyway, we talked to her about a week ago and she said she would be baptised when she finished reading the Book of Mormon....yup. We thought for sure that it was gonna be forever until she would be baptised. BUT this past Wednesday we stopped by her house and taught her. It was a simple lesson because we stopped there randomly, and it dont even remember what it was about honestly. Just a random scripture that Elder Pires picked because it was his turn! So he read the Scripture and talked a little about it and then it was my turn to talk. (When we she told us the couple weeks before that she wouldnt be baptised I was really sad and she could tell that I was sad and we talked about it.) Right when i was about to open my mouth she said... `WAIT.. i have some news for YOU. (Pointing at me)... I am going to be baptised not this saturday, but the saturday after that. Okay?` I was shocked. Compeletely and utterly shocked. I feel bad now, but all I said was, ´Are you serious?´ Hahaha. She talked to us about it and said she had recieved revelation for her that morning at about 4 oclock in the morning. She said is was a very personal experience and she didnt want to share it, but she knew that she needed to be baptised. The funny thing? She is on Chapter 10 of the Book or Mormon. She said she wanted to read the whole thing before being baptised and then changed her mind on chapter 10. How great of a blessing is that?! She has such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon now and she said she cant believe that anyone would ever say that this Book is not true.

Well, those are some stories about my week! I love you all so much and I know the Lord loves us all so much too because we all have SO MANY BLESSINGS IN THIS LIFE!!!

Have a great week everyone. Remember to thank our Heavenly Faher for all that you have because everything you have came from Him.

- Elder Moore

26 Sept. 2011

Another week gone? Whhhatttt?

This week was waayyyy fast.

Nothing very interesting this week, but my comp and i have been sick all week, so thats not too fun. especially because we both didnt want to stay home and we just worked verry slow all week. We got 7 new investegatores this week and a couple of them are sooo amazing, but it is the biggest challenge here to get people to church. everyone here travels on the weekends. or works. or sleeps. or just doesnt want to go to church! thats prettty frustrating. We have 5 people at church this week, but one thing that i was most happy about was that 2 whole families of less active members were there. that is our job as missionaries too is to help reactivate the less active people! TWO WHOLE FAMILIES :). That was pretty exciting.

Other than that? Not much happened this week honestly! We will work hard again this week to get people to GC because I know that it will be incredibly powerful! Im very excited for General Conference!!! Also, Im so excited for David!!!

Well, thats it for this week.. sorry for the short email but there isnt anything to say other than i love and miss you all so much!

- Elder Moore

9/18/11

!!!! My trip was good, and really bad. It was really long and we left about mid day last pday so we didn´t get pday! It takes more or less 5 hours to get to Recife and it´s a long journey but it´s fun with 10 missionaries!!! We didn´t have a meeting, but we did have interviews....One interview with President and then an interview by someone a little higher up. Elder Cláudio R. M. Costa!!!!! He is such an amazing man! I love him. He has such a powerful spirit and I´m so lucky to have met him! Woohoo! The bad part was the mosquitos. They are different here in Brasil and they do not like me. Not even a little bit.  

Unfortunately, if we are blessed with a lot of new investigators one week, we don´t get to focus on them and not look as much the next week. We have a goal for the mission of 10 new investagators a week. This week we only got 6, so we gotta work extra hard this next week to get 14 so we can keep up with the goal.

I do want to write to you today about missionary work. It is not just missionaries who need to do missionary work! We are all blessed with this gospel and we all need to bless the lives of others with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It really hit me hard while ive been on my mission that this church is the same exact church that Crist organized when he lived on this earth. WOAH! The same church? Yep. The one and same. We don´t do anything in this church that Crist didn´t do when he was here.

Food storage is not a big thing here. Not many people have gardens per se, but everyone has fruit growing somewhere close to their house.  We don´t meet in a chapel, it´s just a house, but Next time I go to Recife I´ll take a picture of the Chapel all the missionaries meet in for transfers. It´s incredible. Almost temple size. Bigger than some temples i assume. Yes. I do have trouble speaking English. All the time. I only speak português unless it´s a Brazillian who wants to practice English, and when I speak english it´s not real english. It´s half portuguese and half english. I always mix up words and I feel like and Idiot when i speak english so I´ve pretty much just switched over to portuguese full time. Most american missionaries don´t do this because they want to speak english, but it´s actually harder for me to speak english full time now, so i speak in portuguese with the americans and they almost always just talk in english. But that´s fine.

 
We will get to watch general conference! I´m so excited for it!!!!

 

Have a wonderful week family!!!

- Elder Moore

Sept. 4th, 2011

This week....this week was way too fast. This past tuesday we had zone conference in caruaru so we were gone the whole day because we are so far away from everything. We took the six o clock bus to there and were gone the whole day. It was sooo good though. The next day my comp and I went to arcoverde. this is the farthest out area in our zone and we went on divisions with them because my comp is DL. They needed some help because they are opening that area and not getting much done. But good news. EVERYONE IN OUR ZONE HAD PEOPLE AT CHURCH! Woo! We had 5, so that was better than our 0 last week. To answer your question about pesquisadores, we get more and more every day. this week we got 7 so that is a decent amount. A cool story about my português this week.

I was on divisions in an area way far away (arcoverde) and we were at our lunch appointment and the guy was talking to us and asking us how we liked our missions. then he was talking about how 2 years is such a short time really. i asked him to say how much time he thought everyone had and he was right for everyone except me! he said he thought i had about a year and a half in the mission :) that made me pretty happy. 

Every other day was the same old same old, bringing salvation to souls. :) It goes by soooo incredibly fast. 3 months already! Woo hoo!

Yes, everyone in my apt gets along sooo well. We are all best friends and im so lucky to have these people as my first companions!

Thanks for all the prayers and everthing!!!

Very fast week.

  Well, this week flew by and we didn´t get as much accomplished as I would have liked! But I do have 2 funny stories for you that I´ll write at the end of this email. First of all, we only had 2 people at church this Sunday. That sucked. It was fathers day here in Brasil for this past Sunday, so we are just hoping that a lot of people went out of town or were doing family things! We worked alot this week, but Soares (the man with the baptismal date) wanted more time and his baptism is rescheduled for this coming Saturday! He thinks that he isn´t ready, but he really is. Here are the funny stories from this week!

First of all, this past tuesday I had my first bad food experience. We went to this old couples house for lunch on the way over Elder Pires and I were talking and decided we both werent really hungry at all. Then we got to their house and they were eating what I can best decribe as ´fish goop´ it was very interesting, but I managed not to throw up. We both didn´t take a lot and that is a sign to members that we are nice missionaries and we don´t want to be rude and take a lot. They use this as a reason to ´plop´ more food onto our plates and say EAT MORE! It was pretty disgusting, and the man just kept plopping it on to our plates. We finished the whole pot that they had made and had a good laugh about it the rest of the day.

Second story. We are teaching this lady named Roseanglea and she is wonderful. She doesn´t have very good eye-sight so she can´t see to read the Book of Mormon, but she has her sister read it to her! This story isn´t very long, but it packs a punch I promise. When we were teaching her Wednesday night, it was going great and everything was SO good, so I decided to invite her to be baptised. I just opened my mouth to invite her when her little girl that she was holding pulled up her shirt and started brestfeeding. Yup. That just happened. I felt super awkward but apparently that´s not too weird for Brasil. I stumbled my way through the words while looking slightly at the ceiling. It was great.

Well, that´s a little bit of how my week went! Hope everything is going wonderfully at home! I love and miss everyone sooo much!

Com amor, Elder Moore