Sweat, rain and a new phone!

WE WON THE BAGS OF THE MISSION!  This means we baptized the most people in our zone in August. :)  Rockin it! these bags are so cool, corte and comfy!  It's like a big fanny pack! :) 

This week:

Subject: sweat, rain and a new phone!

Making tortillas!

Yeah this week was super wet, between the rain (it starts everyday at 3 pm when we leave the house, God is testing our diligence!), the sweat (welcome to Reu, humidest, hottest place ever) and the tears (haha, we are sister missionaries, we are an emotional bunch!)... we had our fair share.  But all in all it was an incredible week.  We have been gearing up for conference all week so we are so ready to see miracles this weekend!  We have the goal of bringing TWENTY investigators to conference between the 2 days of sessions.  Do we even have 20 investigators?  No!  How are we gonna do it, no idea!  But I have faith that the Lord will bless us if we work hard and trust in Him!

We have some awesome beyond awesome investigators right now.  I'm telling you, this area is all about seeing the glass half full instead of half empty!  In one way you could see it as overworked and very negative but in other way you could see it as an awesome excuse to not contact and work only with the references of the members!  And we are doing the second one! :)  The members are incredible in our ward, INCREDIBLE.  They give us references of families that are progressing!  We have a family we are working with and the husband and daughters are baptized but the mom isn't quite there yet.  She is reading and praying and we are working so much with her!  I have such a love for this family, even though I don't really know them that well, but the spirit is so strong in this house and I know that they will be an eternal family!  When the wife finally feels her answer oh my gosh she will be a FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH!  She is incredible.  She, like many other Guatemalans, had a lot of dreams and I really am not much of a dream interpreter so we recommended that she read 1 Nefi 8.   Have you guys read Lehi's dream lately?  I learn so much each time!  Read it when you have a minute!  We recommend it to a lot of people and they usually find some way to relate their dream to his, and a lot of them have gotten baptized!  Thank you Book of Mormon! :)  It has all the answers! So keep the familia in your prayers :)

This week I got to go on divisions with Hermana Merrill, she is the Hermana Lider Lider, ha she's basically the female assistant, but it's because she is the most incredible missionary, ever.  I ADORE Hermana Merrill! I am so happy that I have had so many opportunidades to go on divisions with her in my mission, she is so full of enthusiasm and is just like a breath of fresh air in my area!  She was like, "on divisions, we INSPIRE the hermanas".  We can ALWAYS find a new family on divisions! And we did!  We were walking and our cita fell through and we were trying to think of what to do, I only have one week in the area so I was trying to think of something and she was like let's go down here, contacted a house and BAM!  Family!  Doesn't go to a church!  Challenged them to be baptized!  That girl is a miracles worker!  And like a walking ball of sunshine! :)  It was too fun. and at night we made the chapin dinner.  Oh beans, eggs and tortillas, what would I do without ya!

Oh the other cool thing about this week is that I got a cell phone!  I heard all the nonsense about the new iPhone 8, wait what number is it now?, and just happened to be blessed with my very own....... NOKIA BRICK PHONE!!!!!!!!! I feel so blessed.  Moving up in the world, from a huge home phone in a plastic bag to a cell phone that even has the brick game on it!  What more could a girl ask for?? :)

So Sundays are usually pretty rough for me, I don't know why, but it always seems that everything falls and it rains harder... haha (not to make you guys trunky or anything but only.... 10 more sundays...O_O)  So this Sunday we went to a cita and the people hid from us, but we could see them and I was like what in the world Paquita!  I see you!  And she still didn't come out.... then it was raining and I was getting soaked because I had given my umbrella to the member with us, and we had no idea what to do, so I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off because I still don't know where everything is... and at that moment we get a text from the zone leaders that the weekly zone dinner is canceled and we had no food in the house!  Then I get another text that says, interviews with president tomorrow, clean your house and update you area book!  So I'm like great no food, no sleep (our house was a disaster and the area book, even worse) no fun!  How selfish right? But then I just stopped and thought,  Hermana Moore, what does the Lord need you to do right now. And I just thought to myself.... I DONT KNOW.  But I know He knows.  So we prayed.  I asked the member to pray because I was not feelin up to it, so she did and I was just racking my brain of what we could do.  Then she said amen and she goes, "I know where we need to go".  So we went to visit a friend of a friend of hers.  At first she didn't come out and we thought she was hiding so I got a little ornery and I was like "BUENAS!!!!!!!"  Super loud.  Well it didn't make her come out; but it made the vecino  (neighbor) come out, and then she came out!  So I look at my comp and I go, you talk to her and I'll talk to him.  Long story short we met two extremely prepared people and the Lord led us to them!  We set appts. to go with them later on this week and went on our way.  That 5 minutes of success was enough for me, the rest of the day was pretty much down the tubes too, but I know that the Lord was watching out for us, guiding us the whole time.  And I have high hopes for those two contacts! :)

Me and the comp

Really that was my amazing week. :)  I hope you all enjoy conference!  Go into conference with a QUESTION and it will be answered!  That is what we are telling all of our investigators to do! :)  Do the missionaries and the Lord a favor and invite a friend! :)  Go out with the missionaries!  Give them food!  It's the end of the month and I almost guarantee you they all have no money! :)  Serve and you'll be blessed :)

In an ulera.  These are the trees that make "rubber"!

love love love,

hermana moore

last week:

Subject: New area, new comp!

HELLO FROM REU! yep, I came to where I never thought I would, Reu!  Took me 15 months to finally serve in Retalhuleu, but here I am!  I am in an area called Tzununà (soonoona) and my new companion is Hermana Aguilar.  She is from Peru!  Yeah!!!!  Latina companion!  Haha I thought, wow time for my Spanish to skyrocket!  But my comp is also in charge of the English program here in the mission and is.... fluent in English!  It's actually pretty cool, it's good for us both, we speak Spanish outside the house and English inside the house.  She's literally fluent.  I'm so impressed with her!  She is teaching me some pretty hilarious things too.  Just the other day she was a little frustrated with the people of Guatemala and she goes, "they don't care a cucumber what I say!".... hmmm..... word choice? interesting..... ;)

So time to talk about the MIRACULOUS WEEK we had!  When I got to this area we had no investigators and basically nothing going on.  Great, sounds fun right?  So we hit the pavement and went to work, (no literally I hit the pavement this week and tripped and fell flat on my face in front of a cantina.  I gave all the drunk men a nice laugh.... )  Anyway, we went to work.  A member gave us the reference of this guy who is the brother of a recent convert.  So we went and met this guy and he was super cool.  He had met with elders like 3 years ago but the only time he made it to the church was to play basketball.   We invited him and he said sure!  We met his wife on the way out who was supposedly a member but inactive so we invited her too!  Fastforward to Saturday night, we were calling all the people that we had invited to church and I called Oscar, the reference.  I was like hey are you coming to church and he was like no I have to cut down a tree!   I'm just like noooo lame excuse come and he was like no I can't, sorry.  And that was it.  So I invited him for next week and hung up.  I was pretty bummed.  Then two minutes later we got a bunch of messages on our phone from him saying call me!  I did and he was like hermana!  We want to go to church tomorrow!  Can you pick us up???  Please!   Wait... what ....who is this?  Is this even the same person?  So we said yes and picked them up the next morning and they came to church!  Oh and turns out his wife ISN'T a member, she had just gone to church a lot in the past!  I guess what had happened is that our recent convert had been with him when I called and after he hung up he was like no man, go to church instead of cutting down the tree, it will bless you so much!  And he did!  Recent convert power right there!!!!!! :)  It was such a miracle and tonight we are having a FHE with him and our ward mission leader.  So cool :)

Something I learned from my last companion was that when you expect miracles, they come abundantly.  Seriously thank you compa, you changed my life. 

Speaking of my beloved area that I left in San Francisco.... I didn't say bye to anybody, I couldn't do it.  The only person that I did say bye to was my convert Abelino because he called me and said a few nice words and then with Byron.  I shed many a tear my last night in mission heaven.  San Francisco will always hold a very special place in my heart.  Pedro is building a house for me so I can have my second home there in 10 years ;) 

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Look who I saw!!!! MARIANO!!!!!! HE IS THE SEMINARY TEACHER IN SANTO DOMINGO NOW.  

Convert miracles!

My last night in San Fran we taught the amazing familia Garcia how to have a noche de hogar.  We had the dad, Carlos, direct and he was like, well I don't know what I'm doing but the hermanas told us its something we need to do and so we are going to do it, because they know what's best for us.  I love that family so much.  It was so hard to leave them but I know that their future is so bright!  I can't wait to see them again one day in white, again. :) 

One last thing, my comp has been super tired lately and she was like I'm pretty sure I've never walked this much in my life!  Oh get ready my friend, I learned how to work from Hermana Phillips, and there is no such thing as rest in the life of a baptizing missionary. :)  Especially if she ends up being with me till the end, ooooooooo we about to echar fuego here in tzununa. :) poor girl ;)   One super fun thing about being in Reu is that every Sunday night we have dinner with all the missionaries of the zone in a members house, it is so fun and delish and just relaxing to see all the missionaries.  Well have a great zone and we are going to see lots of miracles!!! :) 

alright I gotta go!  I just want to say one last thing....

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES (even in Reu)

The Hermanas heart attacked our door....cuties.

love love love,

hermana moore

p.s.  My new zone leader is Elder Krueger, who was in my district at the MTC!  Hahahahaha it's hilarious, he said that my accent hasn't changed since the MTC, well that's what I get for having 6 white comps!  Hahahahaha