December 26, 2016

Family and Friends,

Merry day late Christmas and Happy 5 day early New Year! I hope everyone had a great time with family and friends yesterday and throughout this week! The holidays are the best, especially the ones where we can celebrate the Savior's birth and set goals for a brand new year to more fully reach our potential. Goals that are physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional are very helpful to make sure we become well rounded people. Well rounded isn't referring to getting fat, but fit in every aspect.

This last week was pretty slow in general. We had some good lessons but people were pretty occupied with Christmas and all that hoorah (no idea if that fits there or if it's the right word) so the work was slowed. This week will hopefully be a bit faster.

Stay hanging out with your family and friends for this week, I won't bore you with more New York news.

This week's challenge is to write out your New Year's resolutions. And don't be "that guy" who says "I'm not going to set resolutions just because it's a new year" or some other excuse. Take this opportunity to improve, because we all know we all need it.

Have a great rest of 2016!

-Elder Moon

December 19, 2016

Friends and Family!

Christmas is upon us! We have less than a week! Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year. I love when people are thinking about the true meaning of Christmas and why we should be celebrating it. It makes the world feel more loving and lively. I hope everyone has taken care of everything they need to for the holiday season and they don't get caught up in chaos. It's nice when you don't have to rush around for things at the last second (says every high school or college student about finals and projects... Oh wait, they never know that feeling of peace because they always procrastinate! Yes I've been there and unfortunately will probably be there again and again...)

Anyway, this last week we had some miracles! And some people dropped us. So every rose has its thorns. But the miracle is we had the director of proselyting come train the mission leaders and he told us to always ask for referrals and focus on the ones who are prepared.

Not new stuff, just reminders and tips for doing that. Well we did it that next day and had this kid accept a copy of the Book of Mormon, and then we got 2 referrals from him. When we went to sync our area books that night, he'd referred himself on Mormon.org. We texted him and he said he wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon for his grandparents and another one for his aunt and another one for his uncle and a Spanish one for his Spanish teacher and there's another family that might be interested and he just kept sending referrals!

Crazy!!

So the challenge this week is to prayerfully select a Christlike attribute you want to have as your gift to Christ this Christmas.

Write it down on a paper, describing how you'll act as you give this "gift" to Christ. Then seal it in an envelope and pack it away with your Christmas stuff when you take down the Christmas decorations.

Next year when you get them out, put it under the tree and open it Christmas morning (2017) and see how you did, if you really gave Christ a gift, or if you forgot to make the effort. Remember, today He wants our effort, not our perfection! Perfection is far far away (on Judea's plain) but effort is today!

Have a very Merry Christmas!

-Elder Moon

December 12, 2016

Friends and Family!

This week was good! We had an awesome baptism this last weekend and note to self: make sure the hot water works long before the baptism so you don't have to boil giant pots of water right beforehand. Trust me, it makes it much less stressful if the hot water works!

Taking over the other area in addition to ours was good. A bit of a slow start trying to learn who and where everyone and everything is.

We will be focusing on refining our teaching pool this week and seeing who is actually interested and which less active members are ready to come back into activity.

This week's challenge is to reach out to a person who hasn't been to church in a while. Regardless of your or their religion, invite them to either your or their church again!

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Moon

December 5, 2016

Family and Friends,

I hope everyone has gotten the chance to see the Christmas video and that everyone has started doing the daily challenges. I don't know if I need a weekly challenge with this new Christmas thing going on!

This last week we had some good lessons. We met a few more people who are interested in learning more and we're excited to continue working in this area! We got news about transfers and Elder Gwilliam and I will be staying together. We will also be getting a third companion named Elder Self, so there will be three of us for a time. It will be an interesting twist on things, but I'm excited to see how it goes.

I've never been in a trio before!

Cindy is still doing very well and we are all excited for her baptism this Saturday! If anyone wants to come, it will be at 11 AM (Mom, sorry but mission rules won't allow you, or any family and friends for that matter). We also had several people come to church yesterday that haven't been in a while, so it was good to see them come back!

This weeks challenge is to continue (or start) doing the Christmas activities listed on Mormon.org. An additional challenge is to write

10 reasons why you love Christmas, and then share them with someone means a lot to you.

Love you all and have a great week!

-Elder Moon

Our District