nananananananana BAT GIRRL!

February 9, 2015

Hola!

Do you want to hear a good story? It is a really good one. BOY will you ever laugh.

Once upon a time, we (hermana Rivero de la Guarda de la iglesia de Jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias and I) were doing our daily studying. I thought, "I need something from the bedroom." So I got up and walked into the bedroom. When I opened the door two huge creatures flew at my face and almost knocked me over before flying out the window. I thought to myself," HOW did birds get in here?!" Then I looked to my right, above the bed where sleeps my lovely compañera, and there were bats. BATS. Dangling there like they owned the place. Well I commenced screaming and turned on the lights, which only made the bats scared and they started flying again which made me scream more which made my companion wonder what in the world was happening.... It was quite a good time. I think I have had just about every little unexpected creature crawl into my room. YEAH Mexico! haha

I am sure you are now wondering, "But HOW? How did bats get in there?" I will tell you the other side of the story: 

We live in one of the upstairs apartments, and there is a full house downstairs. No one is renting the house downstairs because they want a ridiculous amount of money for it. But the owner was there the other day cleaning it, and when he turned on the lights he spooked all the bats that had mad their residence there. So then the bats flew up through the hallway and in through our window that has a whole in it where we keep the invisible clima (air conditioner). He had thought that they had flown away away.... Until he heard the screaming. :) Then he came upstairs to save our lives. 

So that´s the story. 

This week I was called to repentance repeatedly. First, in the consejo de liderazgo that we had with the zone leaders and with president. We talked about how to be better leaders and better missionaries and I felt like I have definitely not been doing enough. I have been super selfish and that is not okay. We will see what will happen  with the cambios this weekend... I feel like my days as a leader will be over since the only other companionship of hermanas in the zone are going home and their area is closing. So we will just have to see what happens. Hopefully I get the chance to make restitution so my repentance can be complete :) We also got to go to the temple and it was awesome! I love the temple. It never gets old, and I did not want to leave. 

We had a baptism on Sunday! Of a sweet little girl named Johana whose parents are being reactivated. Her dad talked with the bishop, and he said that he could baptize his daughter! SO that was really awesome! They are the sweetest people. They just love instantly and are so humble. They live about 1000 miles away, though, so it is hard to see them. (It´s like a 20 minute combi ride). She will be confirmed on Sunday.

We have two more fechas for this weekend, and we are SO hoping that they come to pass! Their names are Rodelmar and Laura and they are so funny. The other day Hermana R. had this idea out of the clear blue to go see if we could find an investigator named guadalupe (who is Roder´s brother). So we get there, and Laura is sitting outside! They had just finished a reso (no se como se escribe) for the dad that passed away 5 months ago. I noticed that she put her drink down really fast, and so I asked her what it was. It was coffee! haha But it was still full. She said they had just barely handed it to her and she didn´t know what to do. And then when her husband got there and saw a cup of coffee on the ground he was like, "But the missionaries are right there!!" and started laughing at her bad fortune. hahaha it was really funny, actually. We are working hard with them and praying that they will stay strong for Saturday. We love them so much!

The people here are awesome! I love the work! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!

I love you I love you I love you!

Hermana Monse. 

FEBRERO!

Feb. 2, 2015

HOLA!

This week we FINALLY had our interviews with the president. I have been waiting for a very long time. The actual interview was actually really short and there are no problems and I didn´t even cry! He helped me a lot with some super difficult investigatores that we have and he is just the best mission president ever. His wife is super intimidating, though. While we took turns going to the interviews she gave us a special training. It ended with this crazy game that was terrible. hahaha It was a dice that had a different terrifying question on each side. One side was "memorized scriptures" (because we all have had to memorize 2 scriptures for cada principio of the lessons) and another side was "Predicad mi evangelio." The worst side was "30 second contacts" where she would give you a material and tell you to contact someone while she timed you. The best side was "personal questions".. but one elder was asked about his family and he couldn´t remember anything! hahaha.. He is about to finish his 2 years, bless him. It was a good time. 

Then afterwords.... CHRISTMAS CAME! hahaha I think it´s hilarious that everyone is smack-talking the mexican mail system the week that it finally arrived. :) You all out-did yourselves this time. The elephants... the handmade necklace.. . the recipe book...(subtle haha)... It was all so exciting to unwrap! And then...a book. I was really confused at first because I was thinking, "Ah..bless them. They sent me a Christmas book IN ENGLISH. How will I share this with people?" And then I realized what it was. And then I pushed the little button. And then I cried because all of your voices came out at me from the tiny speaker. And then I laughed because when Nathan says his name he says it really funny. It is the best gift I have ever received. Thank you VERY much!!!!

And let´s stop bashing my country, aight? No one got their Christmas packages in December. I think they were just super overloaded. Also... They say that it is good to send stuff through the US post. They are the ones that never get opened. So good job, family. :) 

We have an incredible ward here in Cunduacan. They members are super excited about the work! They have been giving us references like crazy. And our mission leader loves us! And he goes on visits with us! Last night he taught us right from the scriptures in our correlation meeting, and it was awesome! I love this ward. I am just afraid of messing it up. haha

I am trying to think of other funny or random things that happened this week... but I can´t. Tengo prisa. Sorry about it. I will write things in my journal and we will read it together someday. :) 

I LOVE YOU I love you I love you!

Hermana Moser

Lovin' the Pineapple

January 26, 2015

BueNAS!

I apologize for what I am sure will be a super lame email. I do not know what is wrong with me. I feel like every day is monday and that there is nothing new to tell... I probably should have read my journal or something to freshen up on the happenings of this last week but... I didn´t. So let´s just hurry and remember things, shall we? 

On Tuesday we had divisions with the sisters in Comalcalco. They are so fun! The hermana I was with has SO MUCH HAIR!. So much. And it´s huge and curly and awesome. Kind of like the princess in the movie Brave. It made me feel a little weird with the um... less than a lot hair that I have haha. She was really nice and I learned a lot from her. Both of those sisters are about to end their mission in 3 weeks. I know that I am the one that is supposed to be helping them, but I really just feel like it´s the other way around. They are totally the ones teaching here. Hermana Rivero and I are always like "SHARE YOUR WISDOM!" They are great. 

One object lesson that hermana Hernandez taught me we used with hermana Bertha. Have I told you about hermana Bertha? No? Well let me just tell you... She is a lovely daughter of God, but she is a piece of work. It is exhausting to teach her because sometimes she is just in a mood and will back talk every little principle you teach. It is awesome. But she wants to get baptized and she is the wife and mother of members.... We are practicing patience with her. She is wonderful, really. She gives us food all the times, and blankets too because it has been FREEZING these last few weeks. Gracias a this new object lesson and also the spirit that was there, she actually agreed to read the book of mormon! This is enormous progress with her!!! YAY!

Speaking of crazy neighbors.. We have this neighbor who is Adventista (I am not sure what religion that is in America). She is trying to convert us and also trying to marry us off with her sons. THAT is not going to happen for a plethora of reasons, pero bueno. She is super nice and always willing to give us food. She believes that everyone can be a prophet and that Saturday is the Sabbath. She is not currently progressing.

We do have two investigadores with fechas though! For the 14th of february. They are precious. We taught the first lesson this week, and they asked all the right questions and gave all the right answers and didn´t even hesitate to the baptismal invitation! YAY!!! We are so excited!

I have a food story. Ahem: 

Yesterday we were eating some tacos. Normal, right? I was DYING inwardly because something was super spicy and I could not for thelife of me figure out what it was! I tried the meat with only the salsa... the meat only with the other salsa.. the meat alone... Do you see where I am going with this? It was only when I tried only the meat and the PINEAPPLE that I realized what was killing me slowly. THERE WAS CHILI IN THE PINEAPPLE! Who  even does that? That is sneaky sneaky. hahaha Hermana Rivero and I got a good laugh about that afterwords because she had done the exact same thing with the taste testing. Listen... I can eat chili... but not THAT much chili. WHOO. 

WElll.. I am happy and healthy and I hope you are the same. 

I love you I love you I love you!

Hermana Moser

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.

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

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.