Elise at temple

Elise at temple
Hermana Moser

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Field IS White!

January 19, 2015

Hellos my dear and beloved family!
I hope that everything is well at home. This week hasn´t been super eventful... We have just been working really hard to find all of the investigatores that the elders had and find new investigadores en our area as well. It is still an adventure because sometimes we get lost. And then sometimes we don´t know what we are doing. I have gained such a HUGE testimony of the area book! That thing is IMPORTANT.

The awesome part about Cunduacán is that it is a ward of workers. People want to help. They say that they will come on citas with us and then they follow through! It is awesome! And our ward mission leader called US the other day to ask about our investigadores and stuff. I have not had a mission leader who cares since Frontera... It is a huge blessing. I feel like I have been put in an awesome ward and that the time is ready to harvest! .. No pressure. haha

We went to Jalpa the other day. Turns out our area is actually HUGE because Jalpa is like 20 minutes away in taxi and it is just as big as Cunduacán! What?! It was raining and freezing the whole day so we didn´t get to see as much as we wanted to, but now we can say we have been there. And the cutest little old lady gave us lunch. She was one of the first members here over 30 years ago, and has been traveling from Jalpa to Cunduacán every single week to attend church. She is probably 70 years old, but she runs a ticket booth for the bus station out of her home and you should see her run and jump when the phone rings! And she is constantly cracking jokes. She is adorable. 

We found an entire family of young people last week, and this week the three boys came to church! There is a 13, 14, and 17 year old. They beat us to church, and they had to walk really far! It was so exciting to see them there! They were going to leave after church because they were too embarrassed to go to the class, but the YM president came and talked them into staying. And they LOVED it! They could not stop talking about how nice everyone was, how everyone treats everyone else with respect, how they felt loved and how much they loved learning about God... It was perfect. When we went to visit them that afternoon they were talking about baptism and serving missions themselves! haha... We are super excited to work with them this week!


The truth is we have a lot of progressing investigadores now. There was one man in church that, after principios del evangelio, said, "I am here with the purpose of being baptized." WHAT?! NOBODY JUST SAYS THAT! Especially the first time meeting the missionaries! Ah. The Lord is blessing  us in every single way. We are so grateful.
I love you i love you I love you!
Que esten bien!

Hermana Moser

Koondooahkán (así se pronuncie)

January 12, 2015

Buenas tardes mis queridos...

This week has been QUITE the adventure. We have yet to have a day completely normal. It seems like every day has something out of the ordinary... 

Monday: We had transfers, which obviously means that no one washed their clothes. Today was a REALLY long p-day gracias a all the clothes we had to wash. 

Tuesday: The ward used to have 4 missionaries... 2 hermanas and 2 elderes. Unfortunately there was a bit of tension with the bishop blah blah blah and now we are nada mas 2 hermanas here in the area. As you might imagine, the elders has an apartment FULL of things that had to be moved out. So that is what we did the better part of the afternoon....clean out a nasty elder apartment and put all their junk in our house. We now have 3 bed frames...2 fridges...un BUEN de materiales...4 tables...Our apartment is jam packed. 

Wednesday: We had el consejo with the zone liders and the presidente. It was awesome because, well the president and his wife are the best. They told us about the new iniciate from the church with the little cards that have all the questions on them! how exciting! It is SO MUCH EASIER to contact with those little guys! I love it. So  was full of counseling together and traveling. It takes about an hour to get to villa from here. 

Thursday: Zone class. I had to speak again, but it was awesome because we did a little play. hahaa... the elders were good sports and helped me out. "will you guys help me?" "yeah sure." "Good.. here are your costumes." "WHAT?"  hahaha GOOD Times

Friday...pretty much normal.

Saturday:   We had a baptism of a little kid that is a genius. His name is Yair and he is 9. He is awesome.
Hermano Yair en su bautismo :)



Sunday: I gave a talk in church!! I am pretty sure the bishop is trying to see if I am good enough or something... He also asked us to go give FHE at his house tonight. #gulp.

Pyues... the assistants just called me and took up all my time. Sorry about it. It is not my fault. I love you I love you I love you!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO NAFLIN AND BRAD!!! (did they ever get my letters?)

Hermana Moser

PS. I keep forgetting to tell you... Gloria and her babies LOVED the presents!!! You are their hero. 

MY BABIES! :)
        Sitting in the trunk on the way from the hospital to the Christmas dinner. 
The district presidente shut the door on my head shortly after this picture was taken.
       New years eve dinner with the body-builders.
     The Dad in this family has a date for the 24th :) 
He was the one we were helping by not eating bread.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Cunduacán

Jan 5, 2015

Heey! 

So.... I am not in Zapata. Again. But this time it is permanent which is super sad and exciting at the same time. But really sad, because I love Zapata a lot. It felt like home to me. Anyways... We have had transfers, as you might have guessed. I am with hermana Rivera de la Guarda in a little town outside of Villa called Cunduacán. My companion is 23 and from Florida, but her parents are from Peru. AKA home girl speaks perfect Spanish. But it´s FINE because I do too. (hahaha... That was a joke). The people here have been super nice so far, and I am excited to get to work! WHOOOOOOO!
Cunduacan
Last week was a blast because we FINALLY had our Christmas dinner, which was awesome because this year we did service. Our zone went to a hospital in Palenque to visit the sick people. That was awkward because I am still currently coughing up a lung...Do you know what the general reaction is to sickness in a hospital? It´s kind of like "Please don´t breathe my air. I already have problems." haha. But we met some really wonderful people who needed a message of Christmas to lift their spirits. We shared El es la Dádiva.. we sang hymns... we colored pictures... we talked about how awesome the gospel of Christ is... It was awesome.

And then we went to the little house of prayer for the devotional. They had each district get up and sing a special number. OH the hilarious times.... I can´t sing very well... Hermana Zimmerman had lost her voice.. and Elder Bingham started the tone really high. Have you ever seen that Disney channel movie Lemonademouth? Where they go to the competition and totally fail because they´re all broken? That was kind of like our musical number. "Faaaalllll on your knneeeeees cough cough cough" hahahahahaha I still laugh when I think about it. President gave us italian chocolates for Christmas. And a new white board. You know what he didn´t give us? Packages. This week. This week we will get them. Don´t you worry, Mom!

Luego, Hermana Reidelbach was pressuring me to go tell the president that I want to extend. Welll, that freaked me out and I started crying. For various reasons I was just feeling super inadequate and like I didn´t deserve to waste anyones time by staying another month in the mission. Then the president came in and talked to me and reminded me that change comes little by little and that I need to be patient. He accepted my request to extend, which means I will be coming home June 8th :) Sorry about it. He also gave me a blessing that was exactly what I needed to hear. A lot of things from my patriarchal blessing were repeated, and I was reminded of the love God has for little ole me. It was a humbling day. But now I feel more spiritually healthy than I have in a while. 

New Years we ate a lot. We went with an awesome body-builder investigator family to eat spageti y carne polaca. It was delicious. We had to be home by 8... so we had ourselves a mini fiesta right there en casa. IT was really fun. We went to bed at 10:30. Slept through all of the fireworks. ,...HAPPY 2015!
Let´s all be a little bit better this year, and help others do the same.
I love you I love you I love you
Hermana Moser

Monday, January 5, 2015

Long Live the Acordian

December 29, 2014

FAMILY!

It feels like FOREVER since I have talked to you! haha... Just kidding. It feels like it's been approximately 5 minutes. I don´t even feel like there is anything left to say. 

I am kidding, of course. Skype is awesome, but it feels like we finally get down to the good stuff and then we have to say goodbye. I am glad you think that I look happy and well adjusted.. because I AM! I LOVE THE MISSION! I love my companion, I love the area, I love the house... except for the little problems that we have with tiny bathroom details like light and plumbing... My life is gooood. I mean, all that could change with the cambios that are coming this next week, but right now i am super content. 

We had a baptism on Saturday morning of a couple that we met a few weeks ago. They were a reference from Jorge´s mom, which is funny because she still doesn´t want anything yet she tells everybody that these two muchachas can do wonders to help them. haha She makes me laugh. The Ramirez family has had a really rough past, and with the fall that hermano Anastasio had a few months ago.... They have been really humbled and are all about coming closer to God. We figured that his baptism would be the hardest because he has three giant screws coming out of his foot and he can´t move his hand, but he only took two tries and the had it. Hermana Mary, on the other hand, was baptized ELEVEN TIMES. ELEVEN!!! It still blows my mind how long it took. Turns out that she almost drowned when she was a kid and now has an irrational fear of the water. She could not put her face in. She would get so close and then she would spaz out. The whole ward was yelling advice and words of encouragement... It was probably not the ideal spiritual setting. But she did it!!! And they were both confirmed yesterday, and they were just beaming. :) It was awesome. 

Ramirez Family
um.. que mas que mas.... My cold is getting better. I mean, a little. It is about time, too, because it has been here with me for about a month now and I am over it. Apparently the branch is sick of my sniffling and coughing too because everyone is giving me medicine. haha.. They are good people. 

A few nights ago we had a mariachi band outside our window. They were there singing to the neighbors, but we like to think that it was a special serenade for us. I really love mariachis, but they make me laugh because there is ALWAYS an accordion, and they play it like they are just the coolest thing in town. It makes me laugh. Every time. 

You asked what we do for exercise... Sometimes we "dance" to APPROVED music.. sometimes we run stairs outside the appartment.. sometimes we are laying on the floor doing leg lifts with our eyes closed... It kind of depends. haha but the president just came out with a new rule that we all have to leave the house to go run or walk in the morning. Don´t know what THAT is about, but ... guess we´re going outside now. I will ask him tomorrow because we will get to see him and hermana Morales! YAY! POR FIN we are going to have our Christmas dinner! And we are hoping that means packages. :) 

I love you I love you I love you!!!! Have a wonderful week! Talk to you next year :) hahah. I am clever.

Hermana Moser

Christmas Dinner!

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!! SANTA CAME!!!
And by that I mean Mrs. Clause. Santa is a boy and cannot come in. 


FELIZ NAVIDAD A TODOS!!!!

Dec. 22, 2014

The most exciting thing that happened was the baptism that was held on friday. I mean.. We didn´t do much for the baptism. Fernando was our investigator for a while.. but then stuff happened and we gave him to the elders a week before his baptism date. But the important thing is that he got baptized, and he looked SO happy! He was just beaming, bless him. Love it when that happens.  

Jose´s daughter was also baptized that day. She is awesome. And his wife is coming back tonight! WHOO!!! Can you hear weddng bells? I think I hear some wedding bells.....

It was crazy, though, because after the baptism we were going to have the big christmas party. But the relief society president wasn´t there and there were NO decorations and no chairs and basically no nothing. So we watched until the actual ordinance and then we RAN to the salón sacramental to decorate everything. It was a great time. We had a nice little program where the choir sang... it was funny, but not quite as funny as last year... and then they had THREE piñatas and a dinner-slash-dance party. Do not worry. We missionaries did not dance. We have incredible self-control. The party was still going strong when we left at 9. hahaha... i do not know what I am going to do when I go back to the chairs-are-up-at-8:30 life. 

Yesterday was a good time, too, because the church flooded. We asked all the members to meet us at the church at 5 to go out and sing to the less active families. We get there, and there is the district presidency and their wives and the branch presidency sweeping out the church. It flooded BIG TIME from a broken pipe in the ceiling. We were there for over an hour sweeping out the water. That´s the good part about all-tile, I guess. Only the presidents office has carpet. When you step down on it it ripples out underneath like a waterbed. :) Gooood times. 

Hermana Solis and I went to Palenque on... Thursday and Friday to help our hermanas with the mission work there. Those misioneras are wonderful. :) I just love them. We met some super prepared people. There was a kid sitting on the sidewalk, so we decided to go watch Él es la Dádiva with him. He started to talk about how he used to go to a Christian church, but then his family started having some major problems and he turned to drugs and alcohol. We talked to him about the atonement and his Savior and the LOVE that our Heavenly Father has for us. We talked to him about how never is too late. We talked about how God is still waiting to receive him with open arms. I don´t know what will happen to him... but I hope that something of the message we shared stuck. He is only 17 years old. It breaks my heart to know that there are still so many people who doubt God´s love. It is the best gift that anyone could ever receive at any point in time. I am so grateful for the scriptures, for the restored gospel, and for the testimony that God has blessed me with. I am grateful for prayer. I love being a missionary, and I am so grateful to be spending this holy season in His service. 

I love you I love you I love you.

We good if we skype at 5 mexico time on Thursday? Sure hope so... I will email when I log on :) PLEASE BE THERE!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Hermana Moser