January 30, 2017

Friends and Family!

This last week was full of surprises! First of all, we had a big announcement on Wednesday which some of you have probably heard about already. The missionary schedule has changed! We now have more freedom to choose when we want to do stuff. It's basically the same, but we have a little more time to take care of personal things that need to be done and we can choose when we want to do most of the morning activities (planning, studying, etc.). I love the freedom! We'll come back to that later in the email.....

We also had a nice surprise of Janet coming to church! Yesterday, David came again like he did last week, but Janet missed last week. I thought she was going to come up with some excuse like she did last week, but she came! It was awesome to see both of them there! We're working on finding more people to invite and have attend.

This week's challenge is to try to be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and bring about much righteousness of your own free will. That's from a scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 58 verses 26-28. I think of this scripture in relation to the changes we had in our missionary schedule (told you we'd come back to this). It'll be awesome to see and hear about all of you trying to apply this in your lives. I will definitely do it in mine!

Have a great week!

-Elder Moon

January 23, 2017

Friends and family!

Here I am in the center of Rochester. I still don't know how to sign but my companion is deaf and only does sign language. It's been pretty hard to communicate but it's been pretty quiet. We're working with a couple people and trying to find some more! Two people have already agreed to be baptized and are on date for that! One of them came to church yesterday and the other didn't get any sleep that night before due to some medical thing. But she promised to come next week!

It's been pretty warm for a NY winter so far, but they say it'll get pretty bad soon. This Friday there's apparently something coming. But they "say" so many things I'm not sure what to believe. And speaking of not knowing what to believe, don't believe that my companion is deaf. He's a sign language missionary but he can speak and hear normally. That was just a joke at the beginning. :)

This week's challenge is to work on developing some talent you have, or find a new talent. The scriptures teach us we should not "bury"

our talents, so we should work to improve them. An unusual way to do that is to be grateful for the talents we do have. D&C 78:19 says that when we show gratitude, we gain 100 times more than what we had before. So if you want to get better at anything, work at it and be grateful for the gift you've been given!

Have a stellar week!

-Elder Moon

January 16, 2017

Friends and Family!

Good bye Batavia! I thought I would be staying here at least one more transfer, but it turns out I'm leaving tomorrow. I'll be going to Brighton, New York. That's the neighboring ward of Pittsford, which is the neighboring Ward to Fairport. Therefore, I will have served in 3 neighboring wards! And Brighton is the Ward where the mission president lives, so I'll see his family a lot. He travels to all the wards all the time, so he won't be at his home Ward a ton, but I'll still probably see him more often than usual.

I will also be taking a break from leadership this transfer. There are roses and thorns with that. I like the leadership for the learning experiences and opportunities, but it will also be nice to just be an ordinary missionary again and not have to worry about all the administrative stuff. I will miss Batavia as well. There are lots of good things underway here! We met several people who were interested.

A lot of them were "one and done" where they met with us once and then weren't interested anymore. But those are some good seeds planted!

I will be companions with an elder named Elder Gardner. He's an ASL (American sign language) missionary so maybe I'll learn some signing!

There's a famous quote from Hugh B Brown that says "I am the gardener here!" I kind of want to wake up every morning and say that to him :)

Cindy invited us to come to the temple with her when she goes and we asked President Evans about it. He said we could do it if the logistics work out but it would be hard. Because I'll be closer to the temple than I am now, he said I probably could at least. Elder Gwilliam will have a harder time working it out, but hopefully we can!

The challenge this week is to be healthy. Ideas are take a multivitamin every day, exercise, eat more fruits and vegetables than sweets, etc. We've done a similar challenge a while back about our bodies being temples, but I think it's a good thing to do again.

Thanks for everyone's goodness! Have a great week!

-Elder Moon

January 9, 2017

Friends and Family!

This week was good for us! We found lots of people and have tons of appointments set up for next week! The holiday dip is officially over and things are picking up nicely! We found this guy named Justin who has an abundance of faith! He believes most of the things we teach and reads what we ask him to. We also started teaching this guy named Rob who walked about a mile in 0 degree windy bitter cold weather just to meet with us! Had we known, we would've tried to work something else out! We're excited to see things continue to pick up this coming week!

Cindy is back on her feet. She'd missed church the last 2 weeks because she told us she had a gigantic kidney stone. At first they thought it was some inflammation of some organ that I know nothing about. Kidney, appendix, etc. something. Then they found out it was a

5 centimeter kidney stone. She asked for a blessing last Sunday and passed it last Monday early in the morning. Priesthood blessings work!

What should the challenge be this week? Here's a good one. Try to find someone this week who is "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and aquatinted with grief." One to whom people "hide their faces from" and either ignore or demean, ridicule or ostracize. Find them and include them. Help them feel your love; help them feel God's love. It doesn't have to be someone you ostracize. And it doesn't have to be someone publicly or generally hated. It can be someone who simply feels left out, either usually or just this once. Someone who needs to feel rightly included, whether they're frequently an outcast or have been excluded for the first time. Christ says to us 'inasmuch as he have done it unto one of the least of these...Ye have done it unto Me." If we want to show appreciation for The One who was truly despised and rejected of men and still suffered tremendous pains for them, we should follow His counsel and feed His sheep.

I hope everyone has a great week looking for the emotionally and socially lost sheep!

-Elder Moon

January 2, 2017

Friends and family!

I'm sure you all are enjoying your new year with those resolutions! At least I hope so. I also hope they last longer than January. After all, they are New Years and not new months, resolutions. Does anybody have any they feel pleased with and think I could benefit from hearing?

Both my companions were sick yesterday so I went to church alone.

Haha, as missionaries, we always have to be within sight and sound of our companions with a few exceptions like going to the bathroom. Since I couldn't really be alone, one of the church members picked me up and took me to church. I didn't really have an assigned companion, but was kind of playing a game of ping pong bouncing around from one "temporary companion" to another. We're allowed to not be with our assigned missionary companion as long as we are with another adult member who is our same gender. There are more specific guidelines than that, but that's sufficient for the purposes of this story. Needless to say, it was weird being at church without another missionary.

Things are still slow here. The sicknesses haven't helped. Hopefully we can pick things back up now that they're feeling better. We are focusing on some people who are less active in the church, but we can't seem to get in contact with several of them. We'll keep trying though!

Challenge this week is super simple. It's to get at least one more week of your New Years resolutions in! Quitting within the first 10 days is sad, so don't give up! If you've already missed, start today to get it down!

-Elder Moon

PS Winter is here!!  This is our truck!