May 15, 2017

Friends and family!

Well here we are, the final week of my mission! It's been a good run and this last week will be a sprint to the finish! Last week we had a good amount of success! We met a man on the street and talked for a half hour. He accepted our invitation to tour the church tomorrow. So that night we met a lady and invited her and she said yes! So we invited yet another man that night and he said yes! 3 people I'd never met before (my companion had last transfer, but we hadn't been able to meet with them since then). One of them he'd only met for 2 minutes, the other had had a couple lessons. It was awesome though to have 3 people agree to tour the church the very next day! Unfortunately only one came. But we had a good tour!

This week's challenge is to be your best self! Live with no regrets! And have a great week!

-Elder Moon

May 8, 2017

Friends and Family!

This will be short this week because not much has changed in this last week. Same tracting for hours and same not very exciting results. Unfortunately we haven't tracted into any more miraculous church tours but I hope you all had an opportunity to participate in one. 

This week we will continue trying and looking toward optimistic results. We'll strive to see with an eye of faith what is possible in this area and invite as many people as we can to learn more. 

This week's challenge comes from a story we heard yesterday in a regional broadcast. A woman said as an 11 year old girl Elder L Tom Perry (an apostle) came to their house to spend the night. I assume they were visiting the stake or something and her dad was the stake president. She said Elder Perry offered to help her feed the chickens which was her chore. She went skipping down the trail to the barn with her flashlight. Elder Perry, who didn't have a light of his own, tried to follow. She went skipping along and hopped over a small creek. Elder Perry didn't recognize the difference between skipping and hopping over a creek, and without a light of his own, he couldn't see the difference between the ground and the creek either. Unfortunately, he stepped into the creek and got his foot soaking wet (potentially tripping too, but no injuries were acquired). On their way back he declared in his distinct voice "I need my own light!" How profound that is! We all need our own lights. 

I extend my challenge this week, my penultimate challenge, to each of us. That is to find our own light. Use borrowed light as needed, but daily strive to find our own light. Christ is The Light of the world, but He invited each of us in Matthew 5:14 to BE a light to the world. We must find our own testimony, our own conversion, our own channel to The Light. May we do so with as much haste and humility as we can summon! 

Have an awesome lighted week!  :)

-Elder Moon

P.S. As a special treat, Elder Moon sent a link to a recording of a version of Homeward Bound (music) and Oh How Lovely was the Morning (lyrics).  He is playing the piano and another elder is singing.  They will be performing the song in church on Elder Moon's last Sunday--an appropriate time to play Homeward Bound!!   

Oh How Lovely was the Homeward Bound

May 1, 2017

Friends and Family!

We actually had an amazing miracle this last week! We went to knock on this door and asked the guy if we could share a message about Jesus Christ and he let us right in! That's a miracle in and of itself, but we proceeded to talk and ask about his religious background and he said he grew up in a church. But right now that isn't working well for him and he'd fallen away from it and is currently in spiritual turmoil. He asked about what it would be like if he came to our church so we said "the church is like 2 minutes down the road, we could give you a tour right now if you want" and he said "I'll meet you there in 10 minutes" so we gave him a tour of the church on the spot! Never happened to me on my entire mission! Never heard of it ever happening like that in this entire mission! It was amazing! We talked about baptism as we got to the font and he said he wants to investigate more before committing to that, but he likes the idea of a fresh new start and all that. Unfortunately, he didn't come to church yesterday and we stopped by to chat with him. He's going to read more and pray and get back to us. The spirit was so strong in the tour and I feel absolutely confident he will read from the Book of Mormon and get back to us soon! He had such good questions during the tour and is truly searching for the truth!

Other than that, it's been much of the same knocking on doors and trying to share our message. We have a few people who are willing to have us back, so things are starting to pick up, but not all that fast. Hopefully lots of the people who allowed us to come back will start to progress in the coming weeks!

In light of our miracle, this week's challenge is to tour an LDS church building if you aren't a member. If you're a member but haven't been in a while, attend this Sunday. If you're a member and actively attend church each week, invite someone on a tour who isn't a member! If you don't know how to go about organizing a church tour or if you'd like to go on one, check out LDS.org and go to the Meetinghouse locator and call the bishop. He'll connect you with the missionaries and they'd love to show you around! :)

Love you all and have an awesome church filled week!

-Elder Moon