Miracles of Diligence

Hermana Merrill did a photo shoot:)

A WEEK OF MIRACLES!!!!  Sorry do I say that every week?  Have you gotten sick of it yet?  Well sorry I'm not sorry but that's what you will be hearing about for the next few weeks. 

The sun is coming out on our area, Tzununa is rising from the dust!!!  Too dramatic, but I am in love with this area and the members and the work we are doing!  I didn't know the Lord could prepare so many people for His Gospel! It is such a priveledge to be an instrument in His hands!  We just need to trust in Him! :)

So this week was so awesome, we tried a lot of new things this week!  Like an awesome movie night activity!  We watched Johnny Lingo (it made us feel baggy, we want to be someone's 8 cow woman! hahahaha) and I learned how to make popcorn without a microwave, and I made like 40 bags of it! We had 50 something people there, 8 of them being investigators! :)  That is a huge deal!  Also this week we got together with the hermanas from the ward that borders ours,  Hermana Merrill and Hermana Goddard, and drew the Plan of Salvation in chalk on the road! A friend of mine told me he had done it in his mission and ever since then I have wanted to do it. so one morning we just decided, today is that day!  Haha you should have seen the people flock to us, they had never seen chalk like that before.  There were 20 kids around us and parents and store workers and they were like what are these crazy white girls doing??  We were able to walk quite a few of them through the Plan of Salvation, literally, and invite them to church!  Let's be honest, none of them came, but it was a fun different way to work and ALOT of people saw us, good publicity! 

Another fun part of this week was that I was able to go on divisions with Hermana Laiche in my area. Hermana Laiche is possibly one of the cutest hermanas ever. EVER. she is from Peru and she started her mission in Coatepeque when I was there.  I remember when she got to the mission and bore her testimony to us and was just like oozing love and it was her first day!  

Hermnaa Laiche and I at the famous Tzununa Bridge!

Her love has somehow increased and our day together was just SO fun!  She loved my investigators to death! we saw so many miracles in our time together and at night we ate super unhealthy food.  But it's okay that we eat unhealthy because us hermanas of Retalhuleu are WORKING OUT!!!!!  President said he is going to have a 4k race and my hermanas are training for it!  Every week we go to this public track and run our little booties off!  It's so so fun and I am so sore!  Even this morning when my comp was like noooo its p-day, I made her get up and sit on the side of the road and watch me run for 45 minutes! 

girls in the zone at the track

Okay time to talk about the miraculous baptisms we had!  So this week we baptized Rocio and Carla. another little member girl was baptized too!  Her and Carla are both 8 years old and it just made me remember my own baptism!  I reminisced and it was lovely! :)  Rocio is just a baptism that fell from the skies.  Missionaries have been teaching her for 4 years and she has been going to church and loves it and has wanted to be baptized!  But her grandma never gave her permission!  When I got here I was like what could it hurt to meet her grandma?  So we met her and she became my best friend. She is a sassy old woman and I love her.   Then 3 days later Rocio calls us and goes,  "Hermanas! my Grandma said I can get baptized!"   Then just like that, this Saturday she was baptized.  We literally visited her TWICE,  because she already knew everything!  She has been at church for a while! I loved her prayer the last time we taught her.  She just thanked God for changing her grandmother's heart.  It made me realize that we don't really do anything as missionaries, God does all the work and we just witness the miracles happen! :)

Carla also got baptized this week.  She is 8 years old and her mom is a less active member, so it doesn't count for us in terms of numbers, but I just knew that if we didn't prepare everything for her baptism, then no one would have.  The ward is busy with lots of other things and it's hard to put the time into little 8 year olds from less active families.  So we helped.  She is the cutest girl ever and ALWAYS volunteered to say the prayer and sing "Put Your Shoulder To The Wheel", her favorite hymn.  She is a little gift from God for her family and because of her, family and friends are coming to church now and we are teaching them!  It has been such a lesson to me about how we need to follow the Spirit instead of just worrying about numbers and more numbers!  I love being a missionary!

Yesterday after church we visited all the people that miraculously came to church on their own and wow, these people are so prepared!  It was lesson after lesson of ,  "Yes hermanas, I know the church is true!  When can I get baptized?"!   We were like wait, what! are you serious!!!!  It just proves to me that the members know all the prepared people because every single one of them were references!!  One of them gave us a list of his questions and one was,  "How do you know that the church has the authority of God to baptize?"  Wow could you ask a more perfect question???????  So incredible!

I love teaching! :)  One of them came up to me at church and asked,  "Hermana Moore, I want to know if this church is true but I can't pray.  Will you teach me?"   Heck yes with tears in my eyes! Prepared people!  In Reu! What is happening! :)

This week I have been focusing a lot on diligence.  It can be easy to say, I know that contacting doesn't work so I'm not going to do it, but what I have seen is that when we put in our part, all of our effort, the Lord rewards us with the miracles!  So we did a lot of contacting this week in different ways.  One day we went around with cake pans to tell people we were making cake and they were invited!  Then we taught them the message of the restoration using those pans!  Ha I love my job! :)

Today we went to the beach in Champerico! SUCH A FUN DAY.  I am burnt to a crisp and so red; but I love my mission and my life.  Don't let it end!! :)

Hermana Goddard, me , Hermana Merrill

Granazidas at the beach!

love love love, 

hermana moore

p.s.  I read Enos 1 this week and it just changed my life.  He was so diligent!  Verse 1 made me think of you guys mom and dad.  Thanks for being my examples. :)

pic of me and the comp at the beach! :)