November 19, 2012

Dear family and friends,

Wow, what a week to be thankful for!! EVERY week is something I am continuously grateful for. The work is going along so well and it's so exciting to see the Holiday Spirit start to soften hearts as we proclaim our message. Our efforts will be finding more people to teach since our teaching pool is getting smaller and smaller  (that's a good thing: it means they're getting baptized!) ;D

Hy's baptism was so special. The Spirit was so strong. He has a lot of friends and family who only speak Spanish  so we had the entire program translated into espanol! The Spirit is strong no matter what language you speak. His friend Cio performed the baptism. Cio was baptized only 7 weeks ago :) He was the one who referred us missionaries to Hy. 

How neat to see those just new to this Gospel progress so quickly and so well! Makes my heart so happy. When Hy came up out of the water he was all smiles and when he looked up at everyone from the font he exclaimed, "Thank you...THANK  YOU!!" :D Hahaha he's a hoot! Yesterday after his Confirmation in Sacrament Meeting he stood up at the pulpit with one of the Bishopric members and said to the congregation "You can take my picture if you like!" and gave everyone the biggest, sappiest grin ever. Oh, I can't wait till you all meet him. He's a very humble man and his girlfriend is just as sweet. She has been trying for 7 years to get him to listen to the missionaries! What a nice surprise for her to come home from visiting family in Mexico to find the love of her life smoke-free and committed to living the Gospel!

LOVE IT!

Seh (the 9 year old kid) was also baptized this weekend. It was great to see the turn out of his family and friends and ward members. Sweet kid and so excited to finally be baptized! :)

We met and are teaching this awesome guy named San! He is Hopi-Navajo and is an artist. He's in his 30's and is doing everything he can to change his life around. From a hard past he has made leaps and bounds to be where he is today. The Hermanas  found him while riding their bikes one day. Just that morning San had decided to give up on God because he felt God hadn't answered any of his prayers. When along came two missionaries! 

The Sisters told us about San that next day so we decided to go over after lunch. The Lord's timing is impeccable  Right as we pulled up we saw a guy on a bike, long black hair in a pony-tail, Native American, and thought "I wonder if that's him!".. He looked at us, waved, and quickly biked away. Confused, we went up to the housing office to look for Sean and up he walks, Book of Mormon in hand. He knew exactly who we were and that the Lord had sent us at the perfect time: he had just barely gotten off work 5 HOURS EARLY, and then we showed up. He's awesome and desires to serve Christ and Heavenly Father. We're excited for him!

I don't believe in coincidences and I know that this work is true.

I am so grateful for this Gospel. I am grateful for the sacrifices that our Brother Jesus Christ has made for us. It's posible for ALL of us to return to Heavenly Father's presence. He's not some scary, unknown Being... He's not un-loving and careless about us... 

He is our Father who loves us, knows us, and wants more than anything for us to turn to Him for everything and to return to His presence.

I hope you all have a beautiful Thanksgiving and take time to really reflect what you are grateful for. 

I'M GOING TO CHALLENGE YOU ALL! WRITE DOWN 100 THINGS YOU ARE GRATEFUL FOR AND SEND THEM TO ME!! :D 

100 seems like a lot, but you'll soon find that there is MUCH to be grateful for! I'll send you mine, too! Deal? Awesome.

I'm grateful for my life! And I'm grateful for you!
I LOVE YOU! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!   

 * * *     * * *    * * *     Sending lots of love!
Love, Sister Moore

PS: Thank you for sending the Stephens cocoa and pics and addresses! I haven't received them yet so I'm not sure when you sent them... Today is a weird P-day... we only have enough time to email and go grocery shopping and then from noon on we will go out and work. Thursday we will work from 10-noon and then have the rest of our p-day that entire day! We've been invited to "dinner" (more like lunch) at a member's home. I was getting worried, because NO ONE had invited us over! And I didn't want to just ASK and invite ourselves over... but luckily we were invited by quite a few people! So we'll have dinner and then we plan on going home, writing letters and decorating our apartment for CHRISTMAS!! :) 

We have 2 mini trees in our closet in our apt and some decorations. We're excited! I bought the Celtic Woman Christmas CD and we've already been listening to the Christmas playlist on my iPod.. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THAT FOR ME!! Gosh, I appreciate it so much! It's kinda hard to get into the holiday spirit when there's no snow, no family, and when you do the same thing everyday! So we're already in the Christmas Spirit! Just think: Christmas Spirit for almost 3 whole months! I am excited to have Christmas with you guys! Thank you for waiting for me to celebrate it! I can't wait! I'm actually getting excited for Christmas this year!! :D :D

PLUS WE'LL HAVE SNOW!! *gasp* 

 

Transfers are this next week, so after Thursday just send all my mail to the Mission office and tell everyone to do the same!

 

I only have 2 transfers left so I may just stay in ^^^, but you never know... whatever and wherever the Lord needs me! :)

 

I LOVE YOU!!! SEE A GREAT WEEK!
HAPPY TURKEY DAY! *gobble gobble*

 

PS- when you're all sitting around the Thanksgiving table saying what you're grateful for, say "Sister Moore wants to add hers too! She's grateful for letters. *hint hint*" 

HAHAHA! JK :) The little Moore girls are doing great writing me letters. They're so cute! AND OH! I got Julie's package with the face cream and face soap!

Well, gotta go. LOVE YOU!