Sister Moore in Guatemala: There's a Party in Heaven

this week:

A piece came off the messenger bag grandma bought me and showed the original fabric underneath. Compared to what it looks like now from the rain and sun and heat!

Subject: Today, there's a party in heaven.

WHAT A WEEK!!!!!!!! where to begin, well that title there is a translation of something the bishop said at the baptism on Saturday at the baptism of Francisco, "Hoy, hay fiesta en los cielos!" and you know what, that's totally true! If the angels gather to write down the words of every prayer uttered, sheesh can you imagine how elated they must feel when more children of God are baptized! I loved that visual, and I have felt that little heaven party in my heart at every baptism! :)

So this week Francisco got baptized. I'm not sure if I have explained his story before, so if not, here goes. :) About a month ago my comp and I were having a really hard time finding new investigators, so we decided to go through all the street, bus and other contacts we had made in the past few months and go back with them. so my comp found the number of a joven she had contacted on a bus once and we decided to call him. We met him at the park one day and set up an appointment to go to his house the next day to teach him. Well, we get there and cant find him. So we had to go to a tienda and borrow their phone. While my comp was talking to the guy on the phone, this man walks up to the tienda and buys a 7 up and 5 packs of cookies. I was thinking to myself, geez these Guatemalans drink a ton of soda, and my comp was thinking, why would this rough looking man buy 5 packs of cookies, Who is he buying them for? Thank goodness for my intuitive comp because I brushed him off basically without a second thought. She just whispered to me, I want to contact him. We NEED to talk to him; but then he walked away. So I sneaked out to the street and watched him go into his house near by. Score! We know where he lives! :) In a few minutes we went over and knocked on the door. The same man opens the door with a huge surprised smile! He goes, "I didn't think you would come here!" He invited us in and that's when we met Francisco and his daughter Ana, who got baptized last week. Right off the bat they offered to share their food with us. He even gave us one of the packets of cookies he had bought. The Lord PREPARED them to hear the gospel. I have never met people so prepared! They stopped drinking coffee right away because they heard Mormons don't drink coffee. They asked US when they can start paying tithing. They just felt it was true and acted according to their answers. This Saturday Francisco got baptized. It was a lovely baptism. He bore his testimony afterwards and just thanked us for finding them when they were ready. He has strengthened my testimony of this work. Sometimes it's easy to doubt and think that this doesn't work! But then the Lord sends little miracles along the way to remind us that this is His work and nothing will keep it from going forth. :) and on top of that, my favorite recent convert gave a talk at the baptism! The famous Rolando :) Sweet man. He has progressed so much in this gospel. This week he went out and did visits with us. Very slowly, but he bore his sweet testimony and it touched many hearts :)

Also this week, Saturday too haha, we had an amazing activity in our ward. Didn't you know my ward is incredible? We took all the artwork in the church and brought it to the park and showed it to people! We had 10 paintings and like half the ward there. We had the first vision, Alma baptizing in the Waters of Mormon, a picture of a temple, etc. These members were getting their contacting on!!!!!!! It was like a scene from a movie, I just felt so humbled and blessed to be surrounded by so many special people. and us missionaries. Our district came up to help, we went around and contacted everyone!!!!! In the 2 hours we were there we received ONE HUNDRED references! People who actually put down that they wanted to know more!!!!!!! It was probably one of the coolest things I've done in my life. I felt like I was floating on a cloud! I kid you not, ear to ear smiles. :) and one of them came to church yesterday! Onwards and upwards and now we gotta get crack-a-lackin on contacting all of these references!!!! :)

Let's see what else, oh we ate fish twice this week. I used to not like fish here, its all spines and scales, but this week I loved it!!! We had taxmul, It's bomb. Mom and dad it's like fish tacos. I'm so making it for you guys!!!!! I'm becoming an expert on how not to choke and die on fish spines!!! :)

Right now I'm reading in the new testament and I love it so much. Read in Luke 15:11-32. Basically I love this parable. it teaches us so much about mercy and how we need to be to be more like christ. :) i want to be like that :) trying every day but still oh so far from it.

I'm out of time! This week should be NUTS. With a very happy and long awaited baptism on Saturday!!!!! :)

Eating shucos! or pineapple ice cream with lime, salt, chile, and peperatoria. Who knows what that is but it's so spicy and it makes you cry and your nose run! and I love it!!!!!

Love you all and happy wedding day this week Lindsey and Aaron! (still taking credit for setting them up!!!! let all the glory be mineee. ;)

love love love,

hermana moore

p.s. I found this in my area! home sweet home Arcadia!

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 9:26 PM, Erica Moore <erica.moore@myldsmail.net> wrote:

WHAT A WEEK!!!!!!!! where to begin, well that title there is a translation of something the bishop said at the baptism on saturday.

Last week:

Subject: just going to make the permanent title of my emails set as: MIRACLES!!!!!!

WOW. I don't know even where to start! This week was just incredible! INCREDIBLE!!!!

I'm just gonna cut to the best part of my week. . . Saturday. You know that primary song that goes... Saturday is a special day it's the day we get ready for Sunday! I'd like to change that to.... Saturday is a special day it's the day we baptize people and get them on the path to the celestial kingdom! haha it kind of works right?? No but really that is something that they said in church yesterday when the people who got baptized got confirmed.... we are here to get to the celestial kingdom... we are not terrestrial people, or telestial! We are celestial!!! I just thought wow how true is that, we aren't here to settle for anything less than the absolute best! I know that these converts are en acuerdo with that! We are going together to the celestial kingdom, and then we will all have a party up there together!

So anyways... Saturday was a crazy day, I experienced the most rejection that day but then again the most incredible miracle baptism. We went with an investigator that was super positive but he just turned a corner and was super rude all of a sudden. We were there to bring him to the baptism and he was just like no. I don't ever want to hear from you or share anything with you. ever. Take your book I don't want it. Leave. And we are just like dumbfounded like what in the world happened. Then he started going on about how we just believe it because we grew up in it and we were like alright see ya we don't need this! So we left and we just both realized that this was Satan's weak attempt at making us doubt our self worth... we were heading in to the greatest miracle I've seen with the baptism of Ana and the devil was like hey I'm gonna try and make them feel like crap! Well bad news Satan, you can't get me down!!!!. So we just got an ice cream and forgot about that silly experience. Then we went to the church and found Ana there with her dad, husband, daughters, and her two invited family members! They got there before anyone else! We got her all changed and took some pics and then she got baptized. I have never cried in a baptism, but in this one I did. I just kept thinking how is the Lord blessing me with such incredible miracles? After her baptism we asked her to bear her testimony.

Oh, first, I almost forgot. So we are teaching her dad too and he has shown the interest to be baptized but has been a little not sure on when... so when his daughter got baptized we asked him about what he thought. He is a very cool guy, like so tranquilo and sure of himself... so I was like ...

so Fancisco, what do you think of your daughter's baptism?

yeah it was cool

and what do you think about your baptism?}

yeah I'll do it

wait, really! when!!

next Saturday.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!! I'm crying and he's just like tranquilo staring at the font. Then another hermana said she saw him shed a tear when his daughter was bearing her testimony. She bore a beautiful testimony. She said to start off... I know this gospel is true. My heart just sung! Sorry is that to cheesy!???? I just cried with her. I felt the spirit so strongly. She talked about how she had always prayed to find what God wanted her to do and finally she fund it. She called us her angels and then she said I know my family must be in this gospel together and I hope my husband can follow my example and be baptized too! She challenged her own husband to be baptized! The story on him is that he was a little offish when we first met him, but then as he read the Book of Mormon and prayed with his wife, his heart was softened. He works 8 days and then rests 5 so we haven't been able to see him a ton... but he came to his wife's baptism and church yesterday! He seemed so accepted by the ward and just so at home there! Literally just a perfect fit. After relief society yesterday I was talking with Ana and she was like oh by the way my husband wants to get baptized. WHAT! SINCE WHEN! She was like he said he received his answer and will get baptized the next Saturday he is home and not at work!!!!! I just started crying again! It's good I bought waterproof mascara, I've been crying a lot of happy tears lately! :) We went to their house that night and talked with the husband, Jose and he was just amazing. I felt the spirit so strongly in that house! We taught them the plan of salvation and challenged him to be baptized. He told us that he feels that people receive answers in different ways. His wife had a dream, Francisco just felt it, and he received his answer in a totally different way, but he KNEW he needed to be baptized! So we picked out the next time he will be here and he is preparing to get baptized on the 3 of August! I'm elated. ELATED! The Lord prepares people! We just have to sit back and have the spirit do what it tells us and the people will come. Missionary work DOES work. Never ever doubt that. The Lord is a God of miracles and I'm so grateful for that :)

mom wanted to see how curly my hair is!

Basically I'm just a happy camper. We now have permission to work till 9 every night instead of 8 o'clock. So we have been working so hard! I LOVE IT! I continue to have awful nightmares about my mission ending and people telling me, Erica your mission is over! But it just makes me want to work harder and harder each day! I'm so ready for the next few months! Bring it on! Gotta live like your dying... am I right? :)

we got the same shirt!

I really don't remember what else happened this week. I'm just feliz :) Are you? If not, change something! Be happy and love God. That's all we need to do :)

love love love,

hermana moore

with a monkey. hahahaha