I bought oranges the other day...they were not good. It's funny, the best fruit I've eaten here has either been when i buy it off the street, or pick it off the tree, the supermarkets never really have that great of fruit! Much the opposite of the US..

We've baptized for 3 weeks in row now! I think the roll might be halted a little bit though because we switched areas.. we got to mark 2 or 3 more baptisms for our other area right before we left, but now it is just the assistants area...and they don't work all that much in the area, so i'm scared for my people! I hope they continue on and get baptized like they know they should! It would have been cool to stay there and baptize 5 or 6 weeks in a row, but I guess there are people in the Recife ward that need our help now! As a matter of fact I know there are because we baptized a girl this past saturday in the Recife ward. She is awesome. Here is an easy name for y'all.. Rebecca! haha she is a great girl (23 years old) and came to live with her aunt a little while ago (her aunt is a member). She had some great experiences and received a power answer to her question about the church and baptism!

It's cool to be in the Brazil Recife mission...in the Recife stake...in the Recife ward... :) not many people get to do that! The ward is great and is a very "old" ward. Meaning that the members have been members for a long time and are very solid and faithful in the faith. It also means that we are gonna have to work extra hard to gain their trust.. but that's okay. I'm giving a talk next week on the Book of Mormon! :)

That is about it!

Also, could you let people know (maybe post on the blog if i still have one..) that the address of the office is changing? It will be the following now:

Elder Peter Moore
Rua das Ninfas 30
Boa Vista - Recife - PE
50070-050
Brasil

Thanks so much,

Elder Moore

Life is pretty dang great! Just a little hot.. :)

English class is going...normal haha. It's usually just youth but sometimes we have some adults show up out of the blue. We have 3 baptisms marked for this week and next, and should mark another man for baptism for in a few weeks. This weekend we are going to have the baptism of a mom and her son (the rest of the family are members...we just had to wait for her "husband" to either make it legal or leave...he left...he is a drunk). And next week we will have the baptism of a man who is very very special, but rather quirky :) I like him a lot.

The work is going well, but I'm still just waiting till I can do it all day every day. The location of the office is going to move here in a couple weeks I think. With that, I've proposed to the President that the Secretaries (My comp and I) should switch areas in order to be within 5 minutes (walking) of the new office and it would be much for effective. He loved the idea and said that we will do it. So I will be moving to a different area (President is also going to call a new Secretary in place of my comp at the transfer in a couple of weeks too) with a new comp! Woo hoo! I like changes. I've been in this Stake before, too. So I'll get to see some of the people from one of my old areas (Torreão) again! I've missed them alot, but this ward (Pina) has become like a home to me.

I don't know if I've told you much about the happenings of the mission here (and for that I am sorry) but a few weeks ago Presidente sat the 2 secretaries and 2 assistants down in his office and we had a little council. He said that he wanted to call 2 more assistants to help out give trainings, so we helped him choose the two missionaries for their new duties. So now we have 4 assistants. We all know that the mission need to baptize waaayyy more than we are now, so hopefully with these 2 new assistants, we can give out more trainings faster to help motivate and excite the Elders. That is the purpose anyway!

Did I ever write to y'all about the mission tour with Elder Godoy? It must have been about 3 weeks ago.. I'm not sure if I said anything, so just let me know if I didn't and I will give you a full account on that! It was very very good, and as a result of some things that he said, the mission has been changing a lot of things...for the better :)

The secretaries of the mission (My comp and I) make a little newspaper like thing on Powerpoint every week to send out to all the missionaries so that they can see what's going on the mission and it has how many baptisms we had that week and fun little things like that. It also has a spot in there for whatever I need to say about money and what Sister and President have to say.

Sorry I've been awful at writing this past.....what... 4 months or so? haha but I'll repent and improve :) I like the new assistant that lives with us a lot (Matthews...the one that replaced Hocker) and hope to keep in contact with him after the mission. He is an extremely great guy and everyone just loves him to death! Maybe y'all will get to meet him one day.

Well, ask me more questions! I hope this made you happy though! I think it's been a while since y'all have gotten a big email from me :)

I love this work so much and it's scary to think i've been out for a year and a month now... time is going by incredibly quick and it makes me appreciate all the time that I have. Remember that we don't have much time on the earth after all. So always tell your loved ones how much you love and care for them. Never let anything go unspoken! - No Regrets -

Love y'all!
- Elder Moore

I think you should just discontinue the blog haha. At least for now... I do the same thing every day and don't really have much to say! I'm being a good boy/missionary and working a lot. Pretty stressed out all the time, but I know the Lord is blessing you and me for this service. Plus, it's kind of the least I could do since he kind of gave his son so that I can have happiness forever.

That's way cool that we have a new bishopric!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABBY!

Love you all,

Elder Moore

ol! 

I got a picture from dad about jared 5th birthday party! How cool. It is weird to have conversations and stuff with him? I will always think about him as a little  kid. Looks like he is definitely a barker and michael is definitely a moore. That is cool though. It will be fun to watch them grow up. 

Well, it isnt really restaurants every day like you are thinking of that we eat at. It is more of like a little diner or something that they have in the states. It isnt really good food at all, and it is about 10 reais. BUT. We found this all you can eat place that is a little further and a LOT more money (after a drink it is about 30 reais) so we went there a couple times and it is delicious! They have a ton of sushi and then all the traditional Brazilian food. it is so good though! we just cant go very often because it is so expensive! 

Yay shoes! I am so happy that i am getting those (You will see why in about 2 weeks)

We have zone conferences every other transfer so about once every 3 months. We actually have the zone conferences this week! But we split it up into two days and there are half of the zones in one and the other half....in the other day! 

 

Well, that is about it for now. Talk to you next week (then in person in 2 weeks)

- Elder Moore

I will NOT be 20 tomorrow. I refuse to give up being a teenager.

We dont get that much tyme to teach because we are in the office a ton. Things are pretty busy and Im having to deal with a bunch of junk right now. Another Elder whent home yesterday. He only had 3 more months to go on the mission and his daddy got really sick so he had to go home early.

The assistants baptized this past saturday. **Side Note** the assistants and the secretarys have the SAME area. Its not split, so we kind of all teach everyone. So when i say the assistants had a baptism, I got to take part (even though it was just a little part) in teaching and helping the young lady progress. She is 24 and her name is Carmilita :). I like her! And she has two brothers that we will continue to help and teach!

Did you know that we teach an english class every friday night? It is pretty cool.



- Elder Moore

Favorite General Conference Talks April 2012 Conference

The first, is the talk by one of my favorite speakers (and almost all missionaries favorite speaker) Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. His talk spoke to me and I understood a lot because of the scripture study that Ive have had the priviledge of doing! I actually studied the parabol that he spoke about not too long ago, and he helped me increase in my knowledge and understanding of this marvolous teaching story. The parabol of  The Laborers in the Vineyard. I got to thinking when i was reading this passage and at first, like Elder Holland states, it is natural to think of the Master as injust and honestly, kind of a jerk! But then when you ponder about this story, you can feel the wisdom and power - the justice and mercy in the Masters decision to give all of the Laborers the same wage at the end of the day. 

We need to think about this in our everyday lives. If we do, we will become far more greatful and start to appreciate the things that we have even more. At first when we think about our lives, we might see ourselves as the laborer who got chosen at the very first of the day. The laborers who are most likely the most physicaly fit, and able to do the jobs, as those are the people that would most likely get picked by the foreman who is looking for some workers and not just some kids to stand around all day. They will be looking for men who are probably looking a little on the rough side, but that they know have the strength and ability to work throughout the day in the hot sun and get the job done, and do it well. This we might think, is us, but sometimes, we need to look in the mirror more than once before we can really tell what we look like. 

If we see ourselves as this person, great! There is nothing bad about that, other than the fact that we might be a little more toward the PROUD side and scooting a little farther away from the HUMILITY side... and that is something that we can not afford to do. We should be willing to be the first pick and have the strength to do the hard work throughout the day (or our lives) but we should not see ourselves as the best and be upset if we ARENT the ones who get picked first. 

There are a couple more explanations about the other workers who got chosen to work that day, but i just want to focos on the two extremes. The first to get picked, and the last to get picked. The last to get picked had probably been waiting there all day, tired as heck, and just wanted to go home. But, they stayed to see if there was any possible way to get chosen and maybe make a little money for the day so that they could feed themselves, or maybe the family that is waiting at home. The finally chosen worked the rest of the day probably to their full potential and were tired from not a full days work, but work nonetheless. 

Then came the sweet part of the story that we all need to learn from, the Master came out. The master lined all of the tired and wornout workers up and then to all of their surprise, gave them all the full days amount of pay. Now this is the part of the story that we can take things differently from. If we are more towards that pride side, we might think, "hey! i worked all day, and these other guys just worked a couple hours!!! How the heck is this fair that they get the same amount as me?" Or from the other side of the road, "Woah, this must be some kind of mistake, I only worked a couple hours, but recieved a full days pay, what a blessing." I can imagine some tears rolling down some cheeks as the tired men who only worked a couple hours reveived more than they ever hoped for. They would be able to eat/feed their families. They could go home feeling good and satisfied. Probably even a little confused still as to why they recieved such a blessing in their lives. 

We know that these questions were asked and it was disputed as to why everyone got the same amount of money, the Master had one of the best responces that he could have given........“My friends, I am not being unfair to you. You agreed on the wage for the day, a good wage. You were very happy to get the work, and I am very happy with the way you served. You are paid in full. Take your pay and enjoy the blessing. As for the others, surely I am free to do what I like with my own money.”.............how awesome was his love and compassion on everyone! And better yet, was he not 100% right? It surely WAS his money, his gift, to give to any and all that he saw worthy. What mercy and what a lesson that we have to learn from this glorious man! 

I feel like this talk stuck out directly to me and i applied it directly to myself. Even if i didnt work that much and got to the field a little late, it is always up to the Lord to decide what blessings he will give, and when he will give them, to his children (workers). I know that I am not the best person in the world and that I have definitley done my fair share of wrong things in this world, but im trying to be better. Im trying to get to the field when my Lord and Master chose me and now I am ready and willing to work my hardest until the days end, but I know that our Lord is a merciful one and he will give the same gift to all men who work their hardest for him. It does not matter who we are, where we are, or what the circumstances, we can start now. We can offer ourselves up to the Lord so that we can be his workers. His laborers. We can work our hardest, and I dont think we can EVER do too much. At the close of the day, or of our lives, I suspect that while looking back on our lives, none of us will be expecting the wonderful and great things that lay in store for those who work with all of their might to share this work and build up the Lords kingdom. I want those blessings. I want to be worthy of those blessings. I love this work so much.

It is for this that I am on my mission. So that I can share what I KNOW to be true with as many people as I can. As often as I can. And I do know this work and this Church to be the one and only true church of God. Jesus Christ personally reigns as King and Ruler over this church and it is only through him and revelation that we know what we are supposed to do so that we can be worthy of those great gifts that are waiting to be seized by us. 

I love you all. I love this work. I love the Lord, and I wish you all the best,

Com amor,

Elder Moore