Camera malfunction and stolen scriptures! Yikes!

Buying donuts from my sweet recent convert, 

who by the way received the priesthood yesterday and has found a name of a 

deceased ancestor to take to the temple on Saturday!

This week:

Subject: no fotos this week.....

Yeah let's just talk about the saddest story of the week..............

I left my camera with one of our 14 year old converts during an activity so she could take pictures, and she accidentally deleted all of the pictures and videos from my mission................

so no pictures this week.  Here's hoping that mom has been saving my pics for the past 17 months. This would happen the last month of my mission!

But I have a little esperanza because Elder Krueger is all techy and says he can recover the pictures, so he has my camera and will be working on it. PRAYERS. 

This week was interesting.  Lots of divisions and lots of tender mercies.  I am learning that the Lord always blesses us, sometimes we just have the little tender mercies blessings instead of the huge baptizing a family of 5 blessings.  But when we are obedient, he blesses us. :) 

Romans 12:18

If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.

That was my theme this week.  Patience and do everything within your power to keep the peace. haha.  You are all probably thinking Hermana Moore is falling apart, but no, I'm keeping it together, as much as lieth in me, IM KEEPING IT TOGETHER.  For that reason, the Lord is blessing us.

One of the biggest tender mercies this week was on Tuesday when Hermana Merrill called me out of the blue and goes hey theres a road block and I can't go back to my area in Malacatan for 3 hours, can we come work with you guys in your area for a few hours?  I had been praying that morning that the Lord could bless me with SOMETHING to help me to calm down or make it through another day and I was imagining something else but the Lord sent me what I needed...... MY HERMANA MERRILL. Have I said it before?  I love that girl!  I was with her on divisions for 3 hours and it was so nice to teach with her, someone who is just such an incredible missionary.  We found some new investigators and ended it with some granizadas.   Have I ever mentioned that my tastes have changed here.  I now love granizadas and I love fruit but you have to put lime and salt and consome and pepitoria and chile on it.  I literally ate a watermelon today smothered in chile and lime and salt. and then I drank the juice.  Oh and I can't eat anything without tortillas now.... might be a hard adjustment.  But don't worry.  I bought a comal so I'll be making tortillas every night.  Make sure to have corn flour ready for me because we are going to be making tortillas!!!! :) 

I also went on divisions with Hermana Outsen this week.  She has a lot of time in the mission too, so it was fun and she is pilas!  She started her mission in my area so we spent almost the whole day finding her old investigators and inviting them to come to church again!  They seem like a bunch of cool people and I am really excited. :)

I ALSO went on divisions this week with Hermana Herrera.  She is a mini missionary.  Our mission is doing this super cool thing where they got 34 18 and 19 year old jovenes to come be missionaries with us for 3 weeks.  So our mission has a ton more missionaries right now and we are working so hard!  Most of the zone leaders have two minis and so that means they get to do double the work they normally do!  I was with Hermana Herrera for a day and wow it was so fun!  Even though she's only been a mini for 4 days she was so fun and pilas and FULL of the Spirit.  We saw so many miracles! We were in her area and I don't know anyone there and she didn't either so we basically contacted the whole day and we ended up finding a family of 8! BLESSINGS!  It was funny because I was like hmm I don't know this area so I have no idea where to go... but I want ice cream so let's go look for ice cream and contact the owner.  So we did and she owned a tortilleria too so I had to show her that I can in fact tortillar and then turns out she doesn't go to a church and the missionaries had NEVER stopped by her house!  So she was super positive and prepared by the Lord!  All because I was hungry. Haha. 

This week our activity to shake things up a bit and contact in  NEW FUN WAY was to have a car wash in the chapel parking lot. HAHAHAHAH.  Don't worry I wasn't washing the cars, I was just on the corner of the church for 3 hours sweating my brains out screaming CAR WASH GRATIS to every tuktukero and car that passed by!  Super sun burnt and super lost my voice! (didn't you know, I'm black now.  Seriously I'm tanner than I have ever been in my life.  It's my inner Puerto Rican coming out!  Haha get ready for tan, blonde Erica.)   We got a ton of references.  The cool part was that once they were in the parking lot we took them out of their cars and showed them the chapel in a super cool tour!  We had members inside the chapel to explain every room and then in the last room of the sacrament meeting room we had the video "Gracias a El" playing.  SO COOL.  I really love activities.  We have another cool one this week that involves Minute To Win It games.  Should be hilarious! :) 

Okay funny moment of the week. I have gotten really in to essential oils here on my mission....have I ever talked about that?  Thanks Hermana Cadavieco!..... and they are my cure all to everything.  This week in weekly planning my comp was like I'm so tired that I can't keep my eyes open! So I said, "Oh don't worry, peppermint oil wakes you up.  Let me put it on your forehead." I did and then thought, hey I bet if I put it on her cheeks too, it'll make her more awake.......... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.  Homegirl couldn't even CLOSE HER EYES for the rest of our planning session!  She said, "It burns hermana!"  Woooops, my bad! 

I think that is it for this week.  Sorry for the lack of pictures. I bet this email will be super boring. Hopefully next week I have my pictures back. :( if not, I hope you saved them all mommy! :)

*note from the editor: Yes I did. And of course most are on this blog:)

love love love,

hermana moore

Last Week:

Subject: tribulations bring PATIENCE.

Romans 5:3

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience.

If I could describe this week in a scripture, it would be that one. 

What the week.  Where do I even begin.  Let's just start with the fact that I cried more this week than I did last week!  And I wasn't even sick!  Sad tears, happy tears, bitter tears, joyful tears....and rain on top of that!  Missions are just wet experiences. ha!

Skinny me. hahah jk!  Street food for the win!  Do you see all of that mayo and ketchup and grease!  Hot diggity dog!  We have to support our investigators.....It's like a mission law.  And that trumps the don't eat street food mission law.  Haha! 

We have been finding a lot of people who want to get baptized lately.  Just people that have been being prepared by the Lord for a long time and we show up to make sure they get an interview and have white clothes, and then baptism!  It's nuts.  I'm telling you, I've seen more miracles like that here in Reu than any other area of my mission.  Here I thought I wouldn't like Reu.  I was so wrong.  I love this place!  But with that comes a lot of crap from the adversary!  It's like a well known fact here in the mission that when you start to have success in an area is when you start to see a ton of tribulation!  Like in your companionship, in your personal life, or other things. and when it rains it pours!  Okay enough of the pity party.... let's get on to the miracles! 

So this week Marisol FINALLY got baptized!  She was ready to get baptized a few weeks ago but on the day of her baptism her mom fell and she lives in the capitol so she had to leave all of a sudden and help her.   She got back finally this Friday night and was baptized the next day.  We had been reading in the Book of Mormon with her and praying at night time over the phone.  She is such a cute girl.  She has so much faith and has started challenging members of her family to get baptized too!   So cute!  I love baptizing jovenes because they are just full of love and excitement to baptize everyone! 

This week I went on divisions with Hermana Mendez, she is from Mexico and is in her training still! She's a newbie!  But she is so incredible!  She taught me so much!  I was amazed with her teaching ability!  She taught me something cool, to challenge someone to baptism in lesson 1 when you teach about the earthly ministry of Jesucristo.  It was the coolest idea ever and eliminates a lot of back tracking and re-teaching!  We did it all day and literally committed 3 new investigators to baptism! Hermana Mendez!  You're amazing!  Cutie. 

Now for the coolest miracle probably ever......

On Saturday we went to a different chapel in the center of Reu for a baptism of some other hermanas in our zone. we were helping to make some drinks when my comp needed to go to the bathroom , so we left and left all our stuff in the kitchen.  As we leave the bathroom we see a man enter into the kitchen.  We were like oh cool the members are showing up!  But then when we get to the kitchen we both just got this really bad feeling.   My comp opened the door and looked inside and we go in and I see this man with his hands IN MY BAG.   He turns around and he looks super caught and my comp was like uhm do you need something?   He was like oh i just came in because I was looking for agua pura.   Me being the gullible person that I am said, "Oh we don't have agua pura here just from the tap."  He was like oh okay then I'll leave.  We just let him leave like idiots.  I thought to myself as he left, how weird it looked like there was something under his shirt... then I was like OH MY GOSH he just tried to rob me!  So I go look in my bags and find that my cell phone, camera and wallet are all there.   I was so relieved like wow good thing we got here quickly!  Then we went on our merry way. It wasn't until 20 minutes later that I realized that my bag felt a little lighter than normal.  I checked in my bag and to my dismay he had stollen my TRIPLE.   My Book of Mormon.  MY MOST PRIZED POSSESSION.  With the ONLY picture I have of my baptism and all the scriptures I have marked for the past 17 months of my life.  My heart was crushed.  We went to our baptism and when we sat down at the church I just broke down.  I know it doesn't seem like that big of a deal but scriptures are the most valuable thing we own.  Then my comp was like, hey let's just pray.   She prayed in English, she's a cutie sometimes, and asked the Lord to soften that man's heart.  Afterwards I felt a little better and we had a beautiful baptism and everything.  When we were going home and I checked the phone and saw a missed call from the zone leaders.  So I call and they go, "Hermana Moore you owe me 20 qutez!"  I'm like wait what why.   I guess the elders were going to a cita in their area when they saw this drunk man on the other side of the street with a Bible in his hand.  They just thought, huh, how weird why would a drunk have a Bible.  Then they recognized my scripture case and were like NO WAY.  So they chase him down and they are like HEY!  That's ours! and the drunk goes, "Nooooooooooo. It's a tall white girl's!"  He had opened my scriptures and looked at all my pics and taken everything out.  So the elders finally got him to sell it to them for 20 quetz.  It smells like alcohol and has some puke on it but its BACK AND ITS ALL MINE. 

What a miracle right?!?  Seriously, God loves me.  He somehow placed the elders in the path of the drunk and got me my scriptures back!  I was reading in Jesus the Christ and found something I loved....

"Miracles cannot be in contravention of natural law, but are wrought through the operation of laws not universally or commonly recognized."

James E. Talmage

Mission 5K!!  Woooooo Woooooo!

Canches!

I ran.  She walked.  But Homegirl finished. So proud!

Best Buddies!

God loves me and I know it because he answered the sweetest and simplest prayer that a drunk man's heart would be softened and that my scriptures would be returned. 

Hermana Ostler said something funny when she found out.... he was looking for water and found living water, or the scriptures!  Funny one..... didn't make me laugh! 

Another sweet moment this week was when we were teaching a joven and we asked him if he believed that what happened with Joseph Smith was true and he said yes I do.  I was like, but why?! And he was like,  I just do, it feels right.  Aw I love my job!

And now, onto another week.  Should be a crazy one, and fun.  Haha

pray for me!

love love love,

hermana moore

Two weeks of Erica stories

Drinking coco the Guat way

This week:

Subject: BOOOOOOOOO!

Happy Halloween this week! I definitely celebrated Halloween this year, but in a horrible, horrible way. 

Just a disclaimer, this might be disgusting..... tmi? yeah.

So on Halloween we were just working like normal and it started to rain, typical right?  So my comp said, "Hey let's stop by that tienda and buy a nylon to wear over us so we don't get wet."  So we walk in a tienda and I get that awful terrible feeling of,  "Hermana Moore, you need a bathroom.... NOW". So I look at the lady working the tienda and say,  "Pardon hermana, necesito su baño, AHORRITA." I think she sensed the urgency so she threw me a roll of tp and I ran to the bathroom. I don't need to explain what happened for the next 45 minutes, but it involved me not leaving that bathroom.  I don't know if I have ever explained to you guys about the infamous "boo".  "Boo" is what we missionaries say when we have... alright let's just say it, explosive diarrhea, it's just that it happens so frequently in the mission that we made a term for it.  It's called boo because it scares you when it happens. Fine one second, NOT fine the next. Lucky me I experienced the WORST BOO OF MY LIFE on Halloween.  So while all you were watching scary movies and trick or treating, I was having my own little scare in a small dark bathroom full of spiders next to a cantina.  And afterwards, we went home and I fell asleep around 6:30 pm, and slept hard until my alarm went off the next day at 6:30 am. 

Low point.

But hey on the bright side everyone says I look like I'm losing weight!  Hahaha!

Other than that, this week was great! We saw a lot of miracles and a lot of cohetes.  Guatemalans are firework CRAZY.  

Fireworks for Sister Goddard's birthday

The sisters in our zone

November 1 is "Dia de los Santos" which is just another reason to not have school or work and get drunk in the streets and throw firecrackers at unsuspecting missionaries!  I can't tell you how many times this week I was like no porfa don't throw them!  Wait two minutes! Porfa! Hahaha.  They all just laughed and we ran really quick through the danger zone. They do not like Halloween here. I said, "Feliz Halloween to 3 people and they were like shame on you devil worshipper!  Yikes, my b.  But then I understood why when later on that day some crazy kids ran up to me in all black with Chuckie masks on saying, "Give me some money! Give me some money!" I was like,  "No!  Get out of here crazy patojos!"   They would NOT leave me alone!  I just pushed my way through them and my comp and I started to run away! I was so sad, come on kids, that's not Halloween!  You're doing it wrong!

Here in Guate the real fun starts the day AFTER Halloween.  That's when all of Guatemala gets super stoked to eat FIAMBRE, otherwise known as soggy, purple meat salad.  And you can't even use a tortilla to get it down, just a fork and a prayer in your heart that your gag reflexes will go to sleep for 30 minutes.  Yikes.  I'm glad that this week was my LAST time eating fiambre.  Ever. 

This week we saw a huge miracle.  So on Tuesday night everything had fallen through and we decided to pray to know what to do.  We thought of someone so we headed to go visit them, on the way we passed by a joven who is a member of the church and he decided to go with us.  The person we wanted to visit wasn't home so we were like great, still nothing to do!  Then the joven said,  "Hey why don't we go visit Angel!"  And we were like oh yeah!  Let's go!  Angel is a 12 year old boy who was invited to church by his friend last week and came!  He is cute but we didn't think much of it because our appt. with him fell through on Sunday night, so we figured he wasn't interested.  So we show up to his house Tuesday night and he goes,  "Hermanas! I want to invite you to my baptism this Saturday!"  I'm like wait what...... are other missionaries teaching him?  I was so confused. but then we talked and turns out he just wanted to be baptized so badly that he had started planning his baptism!  He had already invited a bunch of people!  Hahah so we were like awesome, first we have a few things to do.  First off we need permission from your mom.  Then we need to teach you ALOT of stuff!  So he's like no prob I'll get my mom right now!  Then the mom came in and she was pretty against it at first but the Holy Spirit touched her heart and 10 minutes later she signed his registro! The next few days we visited him every day and taught him EVERYTHING.  Next thing I know he was interviewed and bam! BAPTIZED on Saturday!  Angel is an incredible kid.  He already knows the whole ward because he goes to every activity and already invited everyone to his baptism!  We had quite the show up to his baptism. :)  So excited for this little guy!  He will be a great missionary one day! :) 

What else, oh Hermana Pister left me this week. I was so sad. I cried. I MISS YOU PISTER.  It's okay, we will be reunited in a few short weeks. 

And, that's it.  Haha pray for me that I can be more patient and loving?  Would be appreciated. :)

love love love,

hermana moore

Last week:

Subject: 6 more weeks here and gone...

We were walking around and found this random Monkey statue.  See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil!

And just like that, another transfer is gone!  This Wednesday starts the LAST TRANSFER OF MY MISSION.  What in the world!  How did that happen!  I still feel like I just got here, but then at the same time I feel like I have been here for my entire life.  It's a weird unexplainable feeling. 

So this week was nuts!  I wasn't with my comp 4 days this week between divisions with the hermanas of the zone and my comp having to go to the mission office to help with the English program. Needless to say, it was a different week!  I started out going on divisions with Hermana Castro!  She is from Honduras and came to the mission the same time I did, so we are really good friends!  We have been together almost our whole missions in the same zones, so it has been fun seeing each other progress. :)  She has been kind of sad and feeling a little burnt out in her area so we just decided to do everything we have ever wanted to do in terms of contacting but haven't ever done because we were afraid or because comps didn't want to.... so I was like I want to sing!  We literally just walked up to people and started singing and would ask them if they want more joy in their lives??  We met a ton of cool people!  We even saw this guy playing his guitar on the side of the road and we were like let's go sing with him!  So we showed him the hymn book and in two minutes we three were jamming out to Come Come Ye Saints.  It turned out being very born-again-Christian-rock-like but it was awesome! Turns out he is an atheist.... wait did you catch that?  Atheist.  This is the FIRST TIME I have met an Atheist in this country.  In 16 months!  I'm telling you, everyone believes in Jesus here!  Except this guy!  But we had a super cool lesson with him.  It was so different teaching him because I couldn't just be like hey just pray to know if its true because he was like why would I pray if God doesn't exist!  So we had to teach him like the missionaries in the Book of Mormon taught King Lamoni!  It was awesome.  We had such a great time together!  Until the morning when I found Hermana Castro doubled over in pain!  We called the nurses and next thing I know she was on her way to the capitol and in the end she had surgery and got 20, yes TWENTY, kidney stones removed.  Poor girl!  But she is resting in the mission home right now where there are hot showers, air conditioning, and nice beds, so I'm pretty sure she is feeling good right about now. :)

Then the next day my companion had to be in the mission office to help missionaries take their English exam and I didn't want to be sitting around doing nothing all day in the mission office, so we found some jovencitas to do divisions with us!  I went out with a sweet girl named Astrit!  She is 17 and it was the first time she had gone out with missionaries before.  She is so cute! I was so excited to go out with her and really show her how incredible this work is.  Then we almost got attacked by goats, and then some dogs chased after us. and then some investigator was hitting on her and then it started pouring rain. HAHAHAHAHAHAH.  Welcome to the REALITY of the mission.  We had fun together though. 

How we dress for the rain.  We look like little ducks!

Oh and I'm happy to report that I am still training for the mission 5 k in December. I ran 10 laps at the sports complex 4 times this week!  Yeeaaahhhh. :)  Only funny thing is that it makes me super hungry, so I'm eating more... but it's fine because I work out. Hermana Pister told me she's on her 6 week diet.  It's called 6 weeks to skinny!  Me too!  Hahahaha.   Surprise!  The mission fills you with the spirit.... and fat..................

So a fun thing we did this week with the hermanas of Monterrey, or Hermana Goddard and Hermana Merrill was that we decided to do something we all have wanted to do.  We did what they did in the Best Two Years and took a box of Books of Mormon to a public place and just gave out Books of Mormon for 3 hours!  We gave out 26 and it was so cool!  A lot of people were like no thank you, but I applaud you for what you are doing.... haha one man literally stood up and applauded.  Oh and I met someone that lives in my old area of Buena Vista and I just about cried. 

My girl Merary! :) She's like a spiritual fireball, as Elder Krueger says.  Such an amazing girl. 

My fave girls! We are teaching their family. :)

The girl on my lap is named Gusy. she is my twin and everyone calls her my daughter because she is really white and has curly canche hair! hahahaha mihaja.... 

Funny moment this week.  There is a jovencita that we are teaching that really wants to be baptized so we were teaching her the commandments.  She really understood the day of rest commandment that we can't work on Sundays and we asked her when she learned it.... Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Funny story with that.  She didn't come to church last week because they were going to sell food in front of her house.  So in the afternoon we passed by and they were selling food and they were like, hermanas support us and buy something!  I was like heck no!  It's Sunday!  We don't buy on Sundays!  She was like why not?  So I said its one of the 10 Commandments silly!  She was like well at least you can say a prayer and bless our little venta and I was like no we can't!  And I can promise you that you wont sell anything because the Lord doesn't bless us for breaking the commandments! She was like oh whatever..... but a few days later she told us that they didn't sell anything!!!!  Talk about an object lesson right??  So she totally believes in the day of rest now. :)  She should be getting baptized next week :) 

Other than that.... it was just a great week.  Learning LOTS about patience and trying to be humble, I'm so excited to start off this transfer.  I know that it will be full of miracles! :) 

Scripture of the week is Alma 7:23.

And now I would that ye should be ^ahumble, and be ^bsubmissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.

Yep. need to tattoo that one on my forehead. 

:)

love love love,

hermana moore