The Rain Came Back

Yep.  Read that title, multiply it by 50 and scream it from the roof tops.  Looks like the rainy season has come back, and it will stay for the REST OF MY MISSION.  Oh joy.  Time to break out the boots again and become known as the gringona with the big green boots!  Hahahahaha.  Yesterday afternoon at like 2 it started to rain, but our house is on the third floor and very open, like we don't really have outside walls.  It's all open or windows and it was raining so hard and so windy that our house flooded! We were all running around with brooms trying to sweep it out, but we just got soaked, inside the house!  Somethings not right there.... ha!

A view of the two volcanoes from my house

another view from my house

So other than getting soaked everyday, this week was an interesting week, to say the least. the highlight was definitely the multi zone conference we had on Thursday.  The new area president, President Duncan, came and spoke to us. HE IS INCREDIBLE!!!!!  We talked about so many things that I needed to hear.  It was amazing.  Also we had more than half the mission there so we got to see a lot of people, including my favorite missionary, mi hija Hermana Cadavieco.  I swear, I love that girl so much!  It was a really nice refresher, spiritually, socially and emotionally.  And physically because I sat half the day.  Ha!  We work so hard everyday, I imagine we walk like 5 miles a day if not more.  So by the time we get home I'm like.... alright I'm dead.... peace out world. 

This week I was thinking a lot about a scripture story of a miracle that Jesus did.  When he healed the paralytic that was lowered down through the roof?  President Duncan told us to think about the love Jesus had for the 4 men that brought their paralyitc friend to Jesus.  I had never thought about that before.  It says in Mark 2 verses 1-5, that based on the faith of the friends the man was healed.  Are we doing everything we can to bring our friends to Jesus Christ?  These men weren't apostles, they were just his friends and their faith and action saved this man!  The room was crowded?  They couldn't get in?  No matter, we will go up on the roof!  Better yet, we will take apart the roof and put our friend in front of the master.  Faith requires ACTION.  How are we acting based on our faith?

There is always more that we can do for the Lord and our friends. 

And now, I'm gonna go have lunch.  Love you all!  I'd appreciate your prayers :)

a successful Family Home Evening

They made me s'mores!

Crazy kids!

love love love,

hermana moore

The Most Blessed Normal Missionary In The World

It's a frog I found!

It didn't turn into a prince , or a person ready to get baptized, like I had been hoping.

Oh my goodness, this week was one that surpasses words.  I have never felt more tired in my life, but I just feel like the Lord is pleased with my work.  It is such a wonderful feeling!!!

SO this week was very special in Central America, the Area Presidency deemed this week the "Semana de la familia" and requested that every ward have activities every single night to bless families and get more of them to the chapel!  Well turns out I'm in the best ward in Guatemala, so we had activities every single night!  I'm talking about FUN activities!  They had some workshops nights, my favorites were "salvando tortillas" or literally how to save the tortillas you didn't use at lunch and repurpose them, and the music workshop where we taught these slightly tone deaf rhythmically blind people to lead music!  There are some funny videos of me trying to help them.  We also had a sports night, even we played!  Ha we played basketball and we were trash talking like crazy!  I even had a Lakers shirt on, and then we lost.  BADLY.  These chapines know how to play ball!  And the last night was the most fun, TALENT SHOW!  You better bet that the ward's favorite hermanas did an act!  We four did a jump roping show!  Hahaha more like Hermana Goddard pulled out her coolest tricks from elementary school and we jump roped in the background.  She is NUTS!!!!!  I swear she is a professional, so they all thought we were pretty cool.  Then last night we had a big fireside with all of the Central American area over satellite and it was awesome!  All about family and marriage and kids and love and..... oh wait, 6 more months?  What? Hahahahahahaha.  Baggy moment.  Anyways the week of the familia was a complete success!  But that wasn't the reason this week was nuts.  All week long we had those activities at 6:30 at night and then we had to get a bunch of people who lived all over the place ready for their baptisms!  And we got them ready!  And they got baptized!!  Basically it was nuts running all over the place and getting everything ready.

We started this week with two people preparing for this Saturday.  My comp and I were pretty content. This Wednesday were changes and neither of us had changes which meant neither of us were training. I know it sounds dumb but we were a little bummed.  We were talking about it and kind of wondering what the Lord wanted of us since we wouldn't be having any sort of ... how do you say it... special purposes other than our area. So we prayed about it and we both just felt the same way... sometimes you have to follow before you lead.  So we decided we were going to be the BEST normal missionaries we can be!  We don't need any special assignments to shine!  We are going to be the most positive, obedient, happy and successful misioneras this world has ever seen.  

District Bilbao!  Our District Leader, Elder Tenney went home this week and now Elder Calero,
the other elder, is our DL. Our cute district!!!

So we decided that on Thursday morning when we were planning and we just felt so happy like this was the right choice and suddenly all the feelings of anxiousness for changes or the jealousy of other people that were going up the leadership ladder were gone!  Then, we saw a MIRACLE!  Thursday night we brought an investigator to the sports night and we wanted to show her the font. so we brought her new found friend, a member girl who is the granddaughter of a recent convert, and went inside the church.  We were at the font and talking and I asked the little member girl, tell us how you felt at your baptism, and she goes, well I haven't been baptized yet, hermana!  WHAT?   How old are you?  And she is like I turned 8 in January! AKA the perfect age for a convert baptism.  So then I just asked her, "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized on Saturday?"  And she was like, YEAH!!!  So we went and talked to her grandma, had her interview the next day and her baptism on Saturday.  I can't even believe it!  She is so sweet.  She was ready to be baptized, obviously, she's had a lot of time going to church.  We really just felt like that was the Lord saying,  "Good job.  Thank you for your work and keep working!"  I know that there are even more unbaptized members of families out there that I have to find!  I feel like I have a baptism radar now.  That's how we had all THREE of our baptisms this week.  Kids of less actives or just people that didn't know to get baptized!  It's amazing. 

On top of all of that, Rolando, my sweet used-to-be-homeless convert, blessed the sacrament yesterday. Have I mentioned that my ward is AWESOME!!!!  The sweet man no longer lives in the streets, he has a house and a bed and food and a semi job for his abilities!  We are so blessed to be in this amazing area. I LOVE SAN FRANCISCO.  I want to stay here the rest of my mission.  I would legitimately live here.  I love it that much! :)

Welcome to rainy season round two!

I just feel so blessed to be a missionary.  I KNOW that the Lord has a purpose for me here and I'm ready to do amazing things for Him!  If ANY of you feel inadequate, just remember, the Lord made YOU because He needed YOU on the earth.  He has a work just for you and you need to find it!  I feel like this week was a lot of finding myself and I have never felt so confident and happy to be who I am! Right now I am Hermana Moore!  The best one I can be! :) 

love love love,

hermana moore

p.s. we went rope swinging today. enjoy...

What A Wet Week!

Okay if I'm being honest, I'm not feeling the whole email writing thing right now.  So instead I'll just send a bunch of pics and write a super good email next week :) SOUND GOOD?

Good.

Peace out!

love love love, 

hermana moore

p.s.  This is a pic with the whole obra misional in my ward!  Love these people!  We will baptize all of San Francisco! :) 

It was cold one day so we pulled out all the scarves and cardigans I got in San Marcos.  By noon we were sweating again.  Had to take a pic for proof!" :) 

The Hermanas of San Fran!

Me and my comp:)

How to survive a hurricane in Guatemala!  Don't worry, only my black mold feet are suffering, ha!

The Broom I made for Hermano Rolando!  I'm basically a boy scout!

editor's note: In the background is the house they found (?) for their sweet homeless new convert.  The ward has really taken him in and helped him with this shelter and a mattress and kitchen necessities.  Erica reports that this man's testimony is so strong and  he is very happy!

Cleaning the pila with a broom I found in the dirt and some soap we found there too! yay!!!

Erica helping get Hermano Rolando settled in

Editor's note:  What would an email from Erica be without foodie pics????

Granizadas!

healthy breakfast stilo: dadi!

Blessings and other things falling down on me!

what. an. incredible. week. 

pretty flower and my face isn't even in it, haha!

I seriously don't even know where to start or how I'm going to write about it all in 20 minutes.  Let me just start by saying...

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. 

We had breakfast for lunch one day!

So this week was one of the most incredible weeks of my mission, sorry have I said that before?  It's because every week it somehow gets better and I don't know how!  So one of my friends wrote me this week and told me to challenge EVERY PERSON I SEE to be baptized and that it will bless me a lot. So I decided to try it out!  Why not?  So I was telling my comp about it and she got me even more excited to do it!  We decided, hey why not push ourselves, let's challenge 1000 people to be baptized in between now and the end of May?  Sounds nuts, I know!  So we left the house and BAM!  First man we saw, "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be BAPTIZED by someone holding the Priesthood authority of God?"  Yeah. this is real.  SO we challenged everyone we saw on the way to district meeting.  Then while there, we got our whole district on board!  Then 2 days later at zone meeting, we got our whole zone on board!  Then while I was on divisions with Hermana Merrill in the other zone this week, we did it there in her area too!  I have never felt so excited to challenge people to be baptized!!!  All in all we saw MIRACLES.  This week, actually just from May 1st till today, my comp and I challenged a total of 56 people to be baptized.  From doing that we TRIPLED the amount of new investigators we found this week!  The Lord is blessing us!  Those are just the numbers, the experiences I had with these people, most random strangers, were incredible!  We had so many opportunities to meet amazing people. I truly believe that the Lord puts each person in our path for a reason!! When we challenge them to be baptized, we find that reason right away! :)

So like I said, I went on divisions with Hermana Merrill this week.  She is one of my favorite people so it was a treat :)  

We challenged EVERYONE! even the people we would normally ignore, like the men who catcall at us in English.  But I was just thinking... you know what, he wants to talk to us, when a man was like "Hey baby!" we went to his house!  We ended up meeting his wife and kids and they are an amazing family!  They told us they had questions about Jose Smith and we said, we have answers! We connected with them really fast, especially with his wife.  She is incredible.  I love being a missionary because we get to hear the most spiritual stories that people have all the time.  It's like they see us as servantas of God and want to share their most prized memories with Him.   So the hermana left for a minute and came back with a foto in her hand.  she gave it to me and was like this is a foto of my baptism 3 years ago.  It was her in a pool getting baptized by two men in black.  In that moment I just felt so.... I don't know how to express it, I felt a desire for her salvation!  I could just see how wrong this picture was, but how she was so convinced that this was good but that it really wasn't.  I knew I had to tell her that her baptism wasn't valid in God's eyes, but at the same time, how could I tell her that with her most prized possession, everything that she lives fore, her relationship with Jesus Christ, in my hands!  I'm telling you, that picture felt like a thousand pounds in my hand.  But as the himno says.... Dios Da Valor!  God gave me courage.  I was able to explain to her about the restoration and authority and challenge her to be baptized and she understood!  I love that woman, seriously, and I can see that her future has a lot of white in it :) 

trying to eat healthy, haha.  The Mission President always treats us to Subway!

This Sunday was amazing.  It was fast Sunday and we fast a lot as missionaries so it has kinda just become routine; but I wanted to make it special again so I started a fasting journal!  It's like you write down your purpose for fasting and any spiritual impressions you get during your fast.  Well it helped me to see a lot of miracles!  This Sunday we were helping a lot of people come to church or so we thought!  EVERYONE said no. and they were really rude about it!  But we did have a less active family we were going to help and their son isn't baptized so he is an investigator!  So we go and we felt all happy and calm and patient, really rare for Sundays... we went on to church, instead of crossing the river as normal, we went through the jungle......

and through the field........

Then we get to the street and it's already LATE and there are no tuk tuks to be found... like ZERO. And we are far!  I just prayed really quick and not lying as I said amen I heard a tuk tuk and one came down the hill!  Blessings!  So we get in and I said, "Hermano, you are an answer to our prayers!" Then I'm just all happy and ready to go to church but he had to drop someone else off before.  Tuk tuks are basically like buses hahaha, but tiny.  I had to get out.  Right when I got out I looked down and saw bird poop hit the ground right next to me!  I literally don't know how it didn't hit me!  So I look up and I'm like WOW how many miracles am I going to see today!!!  So blessed! Then I  look down and then 

SPLATTTTT. 

bird poop. on my head. in my hair. 

humility check.

Luckily we were almost to the church so I just went to the bathroom and got it out.  But it was pretty flipping hilarious. :)  Gotta stay humble right? 

Basically I'm walking on sunshine again, I love it :)  Someone told us today that in Lehi´s dream, there is a special spot for the missionaries.  We aren't where the members are.  In the morning we are on the iron rod eating of the fruit of the tree of life but in the day time, we descend to the part where it is the mist of darkness to help people find the rod and partake of eternal life!  That's why it's so hard!  But it's so worth it! (1 nefi 8 and 13)

I love my mission.  It's flying by way too fast and I don't know what to do!  I feel like I'm in my stride, nothing can stop me!

teaching another ward how to make cinnamon rolls

Haha so I was in the war chapters of Alma this week and couldn't help but imagine Lord of the Rings the whole time.  Aragon is basically Moroni.  Nerd moment, sorry.  Hahahaha! 

Also fun scripture, read Helaman 3:7, if you have ever been to Central America you'll understand, AKA the country made of cement!  Now I know when it all started! :)

With that, I'm out of time!  Only one last thing..... look up the video on youtube that has the words like this, Jesus, Jesus quiero contarle algo. a ver que es, digame niña preciosa!  It's a cute video about prayer that someone in Guatemala made and some members showed us!  That song has been in my head ALL week.  So cute :)

Oh and also go watch the video by mormon.org called gracias a el or whatever it is in English!  I don't know what it is in English but OH MY INCREDIBLE. I get chills and cry every time.  If I had a facebook, I'd post it there. :)

Well loved ones, I ADORE you all.  Excited to see your cute faces this weekend :)

love love love,

hermana moore

p.s.  Oh today for p-day the hermanas of the 2 mazate zones had a big sleepover

and then we went to learn to make lasagna at home with a hermana!  So fun!  This guy from the newspaper showed up and said we will be on the news at 6 pm channel 13 in Guatemala!  Hahaha, his name is Eddy Morales or try Temerario Morales if you want to see his story of us on Facebook. Surprise!  We are famous! :) 

So cute!  She gave me so much and I said,  "No hermana please just a tiny bit.  I'm trying to lose weight."  And she goes, no! and gave me HALF THE PAN!!!!  So I gave some to the other hermanas.  I love her!