Surrounded By Earthly Angels

Buenas tardes from San Marcos.  Another week in the cold, but I think I'm getting used to it, as in I'm not shivering all the time now! :)  This week was different, my companion has been sick and I have been trying to get her to rest, and she finally let herself rest, so we didn't work a few days this week. 

This pic is kind of a joke.  My comp wears tights every. single. day. So I got tights just so we could be twinners!  I adore her!  Have I mentioned that before?  I love my comp!

Actually one day my companion and the other sisters in the mountains they had a sick comp too, so i was on divisions with Hermana Woods!  We tried to work in both of our areas, as in we were walking all over the place!  Definitely got our workout that day!  But don't worry about my comp, we went to the doctor today and she is on a ton of meds.  We just have to take care of her and she will be better in no time! :) 

Hermanita Lopez

This week the president came down for interviews!  We got to see the president and his wife and the enfermeras!  AKA Hermana Pister!  I love that girl!  They were all dying from the cold! Hahaha welcome to the mountains!  It was good to talk to president! :)  He told me very specifically that I have to learn my area, now. as in.... he is taking my comp away from me!  I could have cried.  I've never felt so in sync with a comp before!  She actually reminds me a lot of Grandma Iris.  IDK if it is her laugh or what; but I just love my comp!  Basically I told the president, don't worry I know my area, it's only 3 streets. and he was like, know it!  So I'm trying really hard to learn it so that I can be ready to show this area for a new comp! 

Chinese buffet with the president

This week we also went to ... THE TEMPLE!  Remember when I was so worried that I would never get to go to the temple, turns out not!  No really I just ask the elders to ask president if we can go every time my ward goes. and president loves us so he has said yes!  We didn't find out that we were going until like 10:30 the night before though!  I was so excited that I could barely sleep! :)  What a happy day! 

I got super car sick on the way there and back though.  Turns out driving in the mountains is a pain in the rear, especially in a bus.  Booooooo.  But after the temple we went to eat lunch at a mall and I ate SUBWAY!  Yeah boy!  I could have cried!  It was in a beautiful mall attached to Walmart! Ahhhhhh the life.  

I love the temple.  It always makes me feel so good.  Like refreshed and ready to preach the gospel!  It got me super pumped up for my talk this Sunday.  I gave a talk!  They spelled my name super wrong in two different ways in the program.  Hermana Morr and Hermana Morz.   I just, ayayay these silly people!  I think my talk went well though! :)  All I know is that I talked for 12 minutes in Spanish in front of a ton of people, the gift of tongues is real. :)

This week we worked only with the members!  That means, a lot less lessons, but amazing lessons! We had so many amazing experiences with these people!  We found people that are ready to be baptized like now!  It just amazes me, how that when we work together, we can make miracles happen.  I feel so loved by these people.  They are always with us, up till they take us home to our house at night.  They truly care about us and it makes me feel so appreciated. I feel safe with them. 

We found, more like the members gave us a reference this week of an amazing woman that is so ready. Also, a woman that has been investigating the church for a YEAR told us this week that she will be getting baptized in February.  God is so good. 

This week we made 3 different cakes.  Basically people have found out we like to bake so they take us to make friends with their female investigators and we make cakes with them!  It's really fun :)  This week I'm teaching the relief society how to make cinnamon rolls!  Maybe we will make it a tradition in every area? haha :) 

healthy breakfast. straight hair. big smiles. my face is getting fatter. ha!  Welcome to being full of the Spirit! Hahahahaha!

Basically, I feel so blessed.   I feel all of your prayers.  Thank you for all of your kind emails every week.  I couldn't appreciate it more.  I just hope you can all help the missionaries in your wards.  They need you...your friends neeed them!  Be a part of this work of salvation! :) 

A pic of my desk...aka my Jillian fan wall :)

As for the title of this email, I just can't even describe how grateful I am for the people in this ward, the senior missionary couple, my companions, the zone leaders, my district leader, the mission president, and the Lord. Even though there are trials I know that I am never alone. NEVER. I was reading in 3 Nefi 9 yesterday afternoon and it just brought me so much comfort. Nephi went out and preached aun que habia un monton de adversity and he was visited by angels on the daily!  Even the voice of the Señor!  He was given so much power and authority that the people were angry with Him because they couldn't disbelieve his words!  They HAD to believe him. and it says in the chapter that he didn't have a ton of converts but those that he did help to convert and change were changed forever.  They too went out and bore testimony! 

I know that I am where I need to be. President Hodgeman, of the senior missionary couple here, gave me a blessing yesterday and in it he said, you need to be here Hermana Moore.  There are people waiting to meet you.  There are people that you WILL lead to the waters of baptism.  I KNOW his promise is true.  I know I am supposed to be here.  The only reason we have adversity is because satan can see that we are making miracles happen here. His presence almost reassures me that I'm doing the right thing, but he can't keep me down!  I have a whole bunch of earthly angels lifting me up, and countless angels that I can't even see helping me too.  I just feel so blessed to be surrounded by these people. 

Well I'm off, we have a family home evening tonight with some potential investigators and I guess we are making fired sandwiches? pray for my arteries. 

love,

hermana moore

Freezing my rear off in Guatemala

Yep, you heard me.  IT'S SO COLD!  Honestly this week I experienced one of the coldest days of my life.  We are pretty sure it was around 30 degrees all day but with winds that you cant even imagine! We were outside ALL day long!   We only got into 2 lessons. HA.  Needless to say, this week was a little hard. but now its a little warmer and I'm looking back and laughing about it!  Yay for attitude changes!  No but something that really helped me this week is the talk by Elder Richard G. Maynes in this past general conference called, eh all I know is the title in Spanish.... "Fortaleza para Perseverar". That and the scripture in Mosíah 4:27.  I learned a lot about my limits this week.  Like dad told me a few weeks ago, we need to listen to our bodies and not push ourselves too hard.  If we do, then we can't work at all!  We don't want that!  My comp is sick right now and I'm forcing her to rest, poor thing just wants to work! 

What I look like everyday!

In other news, this week we did a TON of service,  I'm telling you my comp has like a service radar, so we are always washing dishes, clothes, sweeping, the works!  It gets us into a ton of houses!  Once this week we got in to a house that turned out to be a PANADERIA!  Heck to the yes!  So we got to help them take hot bread out of their giant oven and then we got to teach them!   A family!  Then they sent us off with hot pan!  Ahhh can you talk about a dream come true! :) So don't you people worry, we are making miracles happen in the mountains!  Thanks to my amazing comp!  I seriously have the greatest companion EVER!  I think I'm catching a bit of her Nicaraguan accent. you don't pronounce s`s ever. Hopefully people understand me! hahaha  I'm learning so much from her, including some expressions. On Sunday she leaned over and said, me estoy urinando, which means I am peeing, so of course I'm like ehhhh....... maybe you should go to the bathroom!!  But apparently me estoy urinando just meant I NEED to go to the bathroom.   Right.... HA! 

Also with service, we as a district went and served this week.  We demolished all the weeds in a field with MACHETEs!   

We don't need lawn mowers here,,,, more like they don't exist.... but still!   We mowed that lawn Guatemalan style!  Machetes in hand and then we burned it, all of it. ha!  I love machetes, I want to get one made that has my name on it, but we will see! ha!  I def developed some nice calouses!  It's a much more efficient than a silly lawn mower!

district service project

This week we also went down to Reu! 5 hours in a bus next to a rather large woman who sells fish for a living, yeah I'm surprised I didn't lose my lunch.  

We went down for a conference with the whole mission in Reu!  Elder Soares of the Presidency of the 70 came!  It was such an amazing conference. We are truly blessed to be missionaries!  We came down a day early because it was too far to come down the same day.  We stayed with my trainer, or mom,  Hermana Morris!  Mommy!  Hahaa.  She was also comps with my comp so that was so fun!  There were 8 of us Hermanas in the house, it was pretty dang fun!  We chatted all night!   Aww I love the sisters in this mission!   After the conference we headed back to San Marcos, and thank goodness!  It was freakin hot in Reu!  We were so ready to come back to our cold wonderful town! :)  I love you San Marcos!

Lovely!  This is at the top of Piedra Grande. yeah all the cities here have weird names.... they are like Native American where it's red wolf or blue rock.  It's all like palo gordo or piedra grande.   Otherwise known as fat stick or big rock! ha! We live in mosquito...... ha!   But there are NO mosquitos to be found! 

Let's see, what else?  Oh this morning for p-day the elders called us and were like, so we are gonna play soccer and your going to make us brownies. ha!  These elders!  But I was okay with it because I love baking.  So we went to the senior couples house, which is beauitful and feels like America, and we made a cake!  Yay for p-days!  We also ate pupusas with our district!  We do EVERYTHING TOGETHER.   Hahaha it's good.  They are just trying to watch out for us!   We also went thrift store shopping and my district leader bargained for 3 beautiful scarves.  I'm pretty pumped! :)  Getting all my warm clothes ready :)  It's still winter! 

So I feel way too loved in this ward.  Starting today we sisters cant be out of the house after 4 unless we are with members.... so when we told this to our ward they all freaked out and we now have at least 15 members signed up to do visits with us this week!   They are all giving us references of their friends that they want to visit!  One couple signed up for one day from 5-8 pm, they told us they invited one family over from 5-6, another for 6-7, and then they are giving us dinner from 7-8.  Ahhhh!  I love this ward!  They are afraid that if they don't help then they will take us out of the mountains, which is what president said.  They all told us how much they appreciated the Hermanas!  It made us feel so good and loved, although I felt kinda bad for the Elders.  You see we share the ward with the zone leaders and they didn't have hardly any members on their list of people to go out with them.  Hey it's a sacrifice they are willing to make!  No I'm serious, we are so loved here.  I feel like a princess! :)  So even though the area is so much harder than I ever imagined, the members are more incredible than I ever could have imagined!  People give us food every night,  It's ridiculous!  But luckily I live with an aspiring personal trainer,  Hermana Woods.  We do insane workouts eery morning at 6 am!  It's killing me, but I'm managing!  We worked out 5 days this past week!  Proud??   You better be!  Tell Aunt Amy that I can do Burpees now.  Bam. :) 

Well, I gotta go, gotta get to work!   Basically, I'm cold and happy,  Never thought I'd say that!  I'm so blessed to be a missionary.  I can honestly say that I have never been happier! :)  I'm so happy for all my people at home too!  All your happiness and such, it makes me so happy!   Also go check out the blog of the senior missionary couple here!  They are like our parents!  They buy us peanut butter from Walmart in Quetzaltenango because we don't have ANY in this valley!  Sad day!  Their blog is Hodgeman in Guatemala at blogspot or something.  Incredible, incredible people. :)

Well that's all for now.

Love you all dearly!

love love love,

hermana moore

hola from San Marcos!

This week's blog post:

Just for a giggle.  Jerico's grandma. Can we all just take a second to laugh?  This is my life.  I'm a giant!

Hola from 8000 feet higher than I was last week!  Yep, I HAD TRANSFERS!!!!!! 6 months in Coatepeque and now I am about 5 hours away in a town called San Marcos. LAS MONTAÑAS!!!!!! So basically, I've never been happier in my life. :) I feel super at home here already because we are in the mountains!  It's kinda like Utah, we are in a valley, but we are higher up.  Yeah did you catch that we have an elevation of 8000 feet???  Basically this means it's pretty hilly, says my aching calves, and it's FREEZING.  Yeah I was super smart and didn't bring hardly anything for cold weather, which can you blame me?  I just spent the past 6 months sweating all day long!  But now it's the opposite!  We sleep with 3 ponchos, the super thick mexican blankets, and we have hot showers!  Because if we didn't we would probably die... and I always have my jacket on.  I'm actually going to buy tights.  I never thought I would be wearing tights here in Guatemala but turns out winter does exist here. I actually just spent the last hour shopping with my new companion.  I bought a fake Ralph Lauren peacoat and a couple fake Abercrombie sweaters.  So fake.  SO fake.  Ha!  I'm just trying to work with what I've got here. and I actually bargained!  Proud?  Better be! :) 

Oh I haven't even mentioned yet about my new companion!  I finally have a Latina companion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Hermana Lopez!  

Las Hermanas de San Marcos

She is the cutest person ever. and funny thing is we are technically "sisters" according to mission family relations, this means we had the same trainer, or mom. So basically Hermana Morris trained us the same and it has been a breeze/dream working with her!  It has helped my Spanish sooooo much!  After 2 hours with her I have just felt like zero problems speaking with anyone!  She is from Nicaragua and has 10 months in the mission.  I ADORE her!  We have so much fun together and she is a super hard worker!  It is just so easy to work with her and we always have the same ideas! :)  I hope we can be comps for a while! :) 

I finally got my Christmas package.  Even though it was a few weeks late, heck I celebrated Christmas in January! I'm going to keep the tree up till June, at least.  ;)

In other news of why San Marcos is incredible, I am in the best zone EVER.  Since there are only 4 of us sisters in the zone in all of the mountains, they take care of us soo much!  If we have any little worry or care, they are like no don't worry sister we will take care of it for you!  I've never felt so loved and appreciated!  It's super hilarious being in a zone of all elders because, well its just a little different.... all morning we played dodgeball.  Ha!  They crack me up,  I love this zone! :)  Plus, our district is AWESOME.  Seriously, it's the greatest. again, so much support.  Whenever anyone in the district has a baptism, we ALL go! I LOVE IT!  Baptisms aren't as common here in the mountains so its pretty much a celebration when someone has one.

Speaking of baptisms, I had the best welcome to the area when we had a baptism this week!  The sweetest little girl got baptized.  I don't know her super well but she was so prepared and so excited to get baptized! :)  Cutest! She was a reference.  

Another great thing about this amazing place, we work so much with the members!  We aren't even allowed to leave at night without them.  Like I said they take CARE of us here.   Every investigator we have is a partial member family or reference, it's a whole different ball game here, and I couldn't love it more!   A little cold, but I'm just loving it!

So my last few days in Coatepeque were awesome.  I had a few tearful goodbyes with some of my sweet converts; but the sister whose place I took here in San Marcos is now in my area, so I know she will take care of them! :)  

my baby boy Jerico

despedida in Coatapeque.  We learned how to make tamales!

Sweetest thing, I said bye to my girl Marisol, she's like my best friend; and she was all stand offish.  I think she doesn't like goodbyes.  Then the next morning right as I was leaving the house she called us and was like meet me on the corner.  So I ran there and she gave my a sweet little going away gift and another hug and then I just went off crying!  Ah I hope I can see her again one day.  If not, I know I'll see her again after. :)

me and my girl Marisol

Wednesday I packed up all my stuff and went to Reu to go to the change meeting!  

Saw my favorite people at the change meeting! Love em! Elder Krueger and Hermana Pister are in the office, Hermana Pister is the mission nurse, and Hermana Webster is training! 

When I saw my name that I was going to the mountains I almost threw up; but then before I knew it, off we went on our 5 HOUR bus ride to San Marcos.  We had to go through Quetzaltenango to get there!  We finally got here at like 630. We went straight to correlation with our ward mission leader.  This was when I learned how incredible this ward is.  First off someone picked us up, in a CAR, to bring us.  Then they FED us!  I have gotten so much food here!  Lunches, dinners, morcaf (not coffee but tastes like it) hot chocolate, pan, and other goodies.  Like I said,  I'm feeling incredibly loved.

More than that, well I'm not sure if there is more than that.  I'm basically ridiculously happy and I've never wanted to work harder. LETS GET TO WORK PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!

love love love,

hermana moore 

p.s. did i mention there are not ants, cockroaches, or MOSQUITOS in San Marcos? yeah, I'm basically the happiest girl in the world. 

gross

ya, this is real

Last week's blog post:

Haha I have like zero desire to write this email right now.  All I want to do is read all the crazy exciting news that I got in emails this week!  I feel like everyone is getting married!  Goodness gracious!  But I'm sitting here like jumping up and down! I don't know if I could be more happy for all of this ridiculously happy news that is coming through my email!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!  Life is just a string of amazing surprises. :) 

So anyways, holy cow, its 2014!!!!!!!!!!  Can I just say that this is about to be the best year of all of our lives!!!! 

My new year started off with a bang, literally, with the amazing Guatemalan tradition of fireworks.  But I don't think you understand just what fireworks, or bombas, mean here in Guatemala... basically it means that everyone buys Disneyland sized fireworks and they all set them off at midnight!  Everyone in the country!  We were sitting out on the roof terrace thing and then at midnight it started!  The loudest half hour of my life!  Oh my crazy!  We have this incredible view of the mountains and we could see huge fireworks all the way in the mountains!  Just imagine, baseball field Fourth of July fireworks all around you for 30 minutes straight!  Then when I thought it couldn't get any more incredible, our neighbors started lighting off fireworks 20 feet in front of us!  It was like IMAX but real, huge fireworks directamente arriba de mi cabeza, to quote the words of Jose Smith.  Not kidding, the most incredible new years of my life!  I have like 3 minutes of it on video, so don't worry, in a year I'll show it to you! :)  But yeah, incredible! 

Before the midnight madness, we spent dinner time celebrating with my favorite family that we also spent Christmas with!  

We brought stuff to make gingerbread, or graham cracker houses and they provided the firecrackers!  We made gingerbread houses for a while and then blew them up!  

'bouts to explode!

It was so fun and def gonna be a tradition for their family here in Guatemala! :)  Let's see.... what else.... oh we ate so much during that two day period of new years that.... well I just would rather leave that in the past.  I'm glad the holidays are over.  We will just say that! :) 

This week we worked really hard, and it was really fun. and well, I cant remember much else. ha! I spent all morning today learning how to make Guatemalan tamales with some women in our ward, get ready for when I get back because we will all be making tamales! :)  They are super different then Mexican tamales, they are more aguado.  But they are bomb!  And I know how to make them! 

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve in this area and meet so many amazing people. I have never felt so loved!  This 6 months here has been incredible! :)  I can't believe how quickly the time has passed by!

And..... I'm kinda done, that's all I can remember!  Sorry this email is lame, but I want to email all the amazing people in my life that are having such amazing things happen!

love love love,

hermana moore

ps  Mosiah 18:22, preach the gospel, become children of God.