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 

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! :) 

Libre Soy

It's a turtle!  Pan that's a turtle!

What the heck, this week went by so fast!!!!  I'm having one of those I'm on top of the world moments.  It's been a good week to be a missionary here in Retalhuleu.  Other than the fact that I'm sick right now... and I totally deserve it.  Just last week I was telling Hermana Merrill that being sick on the mission is totally our choice and a matter of faith and diligence.  I told her how I got really sick 4 months ago and promised myself I would never get like that again.  And look at me, 4 months of health thanks to faith!  Then the next day I woke up with the most painful head cold or sinus infection, ever.  Humbled?  I think yes.  Yesterday I felt like death and fell asleep after church from 11 to 5 pm.  Woops.  A member of the bishopric came over to give me a blessing and he goes,  "I bless you with more faith so that according to your faith you can be healed."  I was like okay okay I get it!  Lesson learned.  I wont murmur and I need more faith!  Hahaha, oh the mission.

So other than being an ill mess this week, we worked our little booties off!  No really, we are workin our booties off.  I have started exercising again!  In a meeting with pres this week he told us, tell the whole mission that it is now a commandment to exercise everyday!  Best news ever.  I've been begging my comp to get up so we can go on runs and now she has no choice! HA! :)  But yeah we ran everyday this week!  We even went to this cool place called the complejo where it's like an outdoor track and tons of people are there running!  There were even horses running there!  I felt like I was back in Arcadia at the race track!  Haha . 

This week I went on divisions with an hermana that I really wasn't that close with before... but wow, we are like best friends now!  We saw so many miracles while in her area!! Hermana Natividad is from El salvador and probably one of the most incredible missionaries I have met.  So much enthusiasm and so much LOVE for these people!  Such a refreshing day!  We were in a lesson and we asked the woman,   "Who should you ask to know if these things are true?"  We are expecting her to say God, guided questions... but she sits and thinks for a minute and goes, her!  Pointing at me! Hahaha I got a good laugh out of it.  She was like,  "She seems pretty good with the Bible." Opposite! I'm so bad a finding scriptures!  But it made me giggle!  We also went with one of their investigators that makes ice cream cones for a living and she let us help! IT WAS NUTS.  Fire and these huge irons and you had to flip this flaming hot iron and then roll the hot waffle cone and I was dying.  I basically destroyed all the ones I touched; but I got to eat the messed up ones, so it was alright! :)

Hermana Nati

Learned a new trade this week making ice cream cones!  Won't be surprised if I come back 

with no finger prints, I burned myself hardcore!

And I failed!

 Hna. Nati is so sweet.  She said I looked cold in the night so she tucked me in with an extra blanket! Seriously, I love this girl!  And we worked out in the morning.  We got soaked that night too!  So wet, we were cracking up and took some funny pics :)  (Oh and someone in their area thought I was from Honduras. Maybe my Spanish is gettin better???? or maybe they're deaf and blind?) 

So miracle of the week.  On Monday night everything fell through, so we stopped and prayed and tried to figure out what to do, we both felt that we should visit a less active girl.  So we went and met her niece.  Her name is Carla and she is 8 years old and 3 months.  Her parents are inactive members but she wants to be baptized!  In terms of numbers, she doesn't count as our convert, but we both felt so strongly that we needed to help her get baptized, even though it counts for the ward, and not for us. So we have been dedicating quite a bit of time to her and her family and we just love them so much! Then on Sunday they showed up with TWO NONMEMBER FRIENDS!!!!!!!  What the what!!!!!!! I felt like it was a little message form God saying,  "Good job hermanas."  Sometimes we have to stop thinking about the numbers and goals and such and focus on the people.  I'm also pretty stoked because we are going to be able to baptized a lot of people just because of a sweet 8 year old who wants to get baptized! :)

Today was p-day and it was AWESOME.  Our p-days lately have been pretty lame.  The hermanas have been really unhappy about it so I told the zone leaders,  "Look this is not gonna work you guys need to do something we ALL like to do on Mondays."  And they go "Fine Hermana Moore, you're in charge of this p-day!  I was like FINALLY.  So we had the best p-day ever.  We decided to make foods from all the different countries of our zone!  We had pupusas from El Salvador, baleadas from Honduras, platano cake from the Dominican Republic, papas a wayina from Peru and peach cobbler from the states!  It was a FEAST!  

Then we all watched Frozen together!  Yeah one year later I FINALLY saw Frozen!  So cute! :)  It was such a fun p-day and our zone is really united.  I love all of them! :)  Last night we had a sleepover with all the hermanas of the zone and it was so fun.  We had s'mores and laughed and slept on the hardest tile floor of my life.  But I love my hermanas!  We literally couldn't be a happier zone! :) 

This week should be a pretty incredible week, I am so excited for this Saturday :)  Send prayers our way, we will be having a little party of white!  :)

Also I completed 16 months on my mission this week, say what?  Where has the time gone? 

Well, I love you all. I hope that we can all open our mouths and share the gospel this week! :)  Help the missionaries.  Be BRAVE! 

love love love,

hermana amor :) 

2 years ago today...

Rainy days, everyday!

Like my rain gear?  A sheet of thin plastic!
(Editor's note: What happened to the rain jacket we sent her with????)

Bad hair day! hahahahahaha. This is what happens when you ride back in the back of up pick up truck for an hour. 

Great hair.  Welcome to 200 percent humidity!

Two years ago today I was sitting in the conference center with Lindsey and Presidente Monson changed the age of missionary service, and look where I am now! I never could have imagined in that moment how much everything would have changed, how much it HAS changed!  I AM so grateful for the incredible opportunity I have to be a representative of Jesus Christ as a sister missionary, seriously.  When there are hard days I just try to transfer myself back to October 6, 2012 when I had stars in my eyes and felt like I had just won the lottery. Serving a mission has always been my dream, and it truly has been the most incredible adventure of my life. :)

This week was INSANE!  Complete insanity!  I feel like I was hardly in my area because we went and helped some elders in their area one day and I had divisions another day and then it was conference!  But I like it, it keeps the mission exciting! :)

Hermana Florinda

So on Wednesday we went to help the elders of the area, El Codo, otherwise known as The Elbow. They were having a rough time so we did and AREA ATTACK.  We all went there to help contact and invite people to conference!  So we went and I got to go with an hermana from the area, Hermana Florinda. She is a mom and SO COOL.  She literally knows everyone and has no fear to invite everyone to the church!  We walked straight on in to every house and was like hey everyone how are we all doing this morning!  Then I did my shpeel and we did that for 3 hours!  We invited like 30 people to conference!!!!  The elders saw so many miracles this Saturday and Sunday and were able to bring quite a few people to conference!  It was a great team effort!  Haha I loved when Hna. Flori was let's contact this house!  I looked over and saw a church, it was like the evenagelico church prince of the rock or something and I was like oh we aren't supposed to contact around other churches, or the churches themselves.... and she was like who cares!  Let's go!  So we invited the pastor to church!  Haha :)  Then I decided to have an adventure and ride to lunch on the elder's bikes! The elders of El Codo are the only elders in the mission authorized to have bikes! It's because their area is enormous!  So I became a biking missionary this week :)  My WHOLE body was sore. hahahah. 

On Thursday I went on divisions with some hermanas in the zone!  I went to the center of Reu with Hermana Peguerro!  She is from the Dominican Republic and she is so AWESOME!!!!!  Literally this girl has so much energy!  Her area is really urban so we just contacted pacas, goodwill type store, all day long.  It was so fun and we learned a lot from each other!  She told me allllll about the food of the Dominican Republic and now I want to go there!  I have a lot of places to get to know in the world! :)

Then was conference, oh conference.  I always get just what I need! :)  Someone gave us a ton of bananas this week so I made some yummy banana pancakes for breakfast on Saturday morning and then we were off! HOW COOL WAS IT to hear some of conference in SPANISH!!!!!!!  I'm telling you, over here we were like standing up and cheering!  We were so excited to hear conference in Spanish, not just the voice over!!!!  What a blessing :)  We were able to bring quite a few people to conference but what amazed me more were the members!  We have a joven that is helping us a ton and he showed up to every session with a friend!  Talk about a member missionary!!!!!  Now we are teaching them!  I want to be like that when I get home! :)  Another fun thing in conference was when I saw Miss Jennifer in the MOTAB!  Yeah I shed a little tear, it made me feel like home wasn't actually that far away!  You are beautiful Miss Jennifer!!! :)  Conference is just wonderful.  On Sunday for lunch we were at a members house and I was chatting with her 95 year old dad.  He has been a member for like 50 years and he has a lot of health probs now.  He can't hear or see anymore. He told me, I cant hear, I can't see, but do you know why I go to conference?  To feel the Holy Ghost!!!!  What an inspiring little old man. Little Faustino Lopez.  I hope I'm like that when I'm old! :) Inspiring! ;:)

And to end, here is an inspiring quote....

"Mountaintops are for views and inspiration,

but fruit is grown in the valleys." 

Time to grow some fruit!

Looks scared, right?

love love love,

hermana moore