September 19, 2016

Friends and family!

This last week was really good! We had so much success! We found a new family who live by members of the church and they love how the members have everything together and balanced (faith, family, work, etc.). We offered to help them with that and they invited us over! We're going again tomorrow and it'll be great! Prayers for the Shin family would be great! James is also doing great. He came to a fireside last night and loved it! He's come to church twice and is ready to be baptized.

There are some obstacles to overcome first, but he should be prepared and able to take that step in October!

We've been jogging in the mornings so that's a nice change. My last companion had asthma so exercise wasn't as fun. Jogging is good though, it's easy to use the time efficiently and effectively. We also have another set of elders in our district now so we played basketball today. It was fun! My former companion who's in our district just sprinted right into me and that was less fun now that I have a bruise on my hip, but other than that life is good!

This week's challenge is to not ram into people playing sports. Haha, another challenge is to thank someone every day for something they do.

It can be the same person, but it can't be the same thing! This is a great way to continue the humbling we started last week by showing our gratitude. As we're grateful, we overcome enmity which is the root of pride, an opposite of humility. Enmity toward others and enmity toward God vanish as we show our thanksgiving (maybe this will come up again at the end of November)....

Have a great week!

-Elder Moon

Bro, you live in water, why the umbrella??

September 12, 2016

Friends and family,

We had transfer calls and I'll be staying in Pittsford. Elder Peterson will still be a zone leader with me, but he's going to the other area in our Ward and will train a new missionary. I'll be getting Elder Walther and together we will work hard and bring about much righteousness in this area!

James is doing well! He came to church and loved it! We also had Linda and Cherub come and stay for Sunday school, or at least the first half hour. Amy is going to meet with us this Thursday and we're still looking for those fish who are ready! I thought about it some this last week but I can definitely do better this week! And prayers for those 4 people would be appreciated if you want someone to pray for!

For the challenge, we've been over several things to conversion. For ourselves and for others. Now we want to make sure we're humble about these things and aren't trying to infringe our will on anyone else's, especially God's. So this week I challenge each of us to have the motto "come what may and love it" for this week. If you have time, look up that motto on LDS.org because it's a great talk by Elder Joseph Worthlin.

Love you all and I hope your weeks are great! But if not, come what may and love it! :)

-Elder Moon

September 5, 2016

Friends and Family!

This is going to be short due to zone Pday today! But happy Labor Day and I hope everyone enjoyed not laboring! Things are going well here.

James is preparing to come to church and set a baptism date for October! Linda is still coming along slowly but surely and her kids are now both interested (the daughter Amy was and now Nick the son is!

And his girlfriend wants to learn more too!). The members are not as excited to do anything though in this ward so prayers for them to be excited to share this wonderful message and even be soft enough to have us come by for 5 minutes to help them set goals for the baby steps!

This week's challenge goes along with applying things. Something I read about last week was in the end of John (St John, one of the gospels, not the 3 at the end of the New Testament) was how the apostles caught 153 fish without moving their location. There were fish, but they couldn't find them until The Savior helps them see what to do! I challenge each of us to look at this week and rather than doubt there being fish, expect to catch 153! Rather than doubt you'll do well on a test, study hard and believe in yourself! Instead of dragging your feet, work hard! See the good in this week and believe there will be "fish" :)

Love you!

-Elder Moon

August 29, 2016

Friends and family!

This last week was rather good. We had some lessons and had a miracle at church yesterday. Apparently one of the young women has a friend who has been coming for a few weeks that we didn't know about. She's interested and wants to learn more about the gospel! We set up a time to teach her in the young woman's home! It'll be awesome!

Other than that, things are still going well. We're trying to work more with the members and it's starting to seem like they don't want to do anything. Bummer. I wish everyone would realize spreading the gospel is the duty of every disciple of Christ, not just the ones who wear name tags!

For this ongoing challenge, we'll move to the next step. But a challenge is pathetic if there isn't a follow up. I might as well email this to a wall if I don't follow up. So who was able to read from the scriptures each day last week? If you were able to and did it, wonderful! If you didn't do it, I invite you to do it this week. I was able to and it was wonderful!

The next step is to apply. Jesus tells us how to know if things are from God or not in John 7:17. He teaches that "if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." We can know if what we studied in the scriptures was true or not by applying a principle in our lives and then evaluating how it affected us. I invite each of us on the second step to pull a principle from their daily studies this week and apply it! You can do a new little one each day based on what you study, or pick something you learned in a study and then work on it all week. Take these correct principles and govern yourselves, and then let me know how you did applying God's word!

With love,

-Elder Moon

August 22, 2016

Friends and Family,

This week was good, and I think I say that a lot. But that's ok because it's better than repeatedly saying "this week was terrible."

So I'm not complaining!

We had Tommy come to the Sacred Grove (some of you may remember Tommy, he was from Victor a few months ago who came to church and left because he didn't expect it to be the way it was). He's come to church the last two weeks in Pittsford now and he believes the first vision happened based on a spiritual confirmation. We asked why he believes it happened and he said something along the lines of "I just feel it's right" which is the spirit! By the way, for those who aren't as familiar, the first vision is when Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I testify that it happened and no power on earth could convince me otherwise. If you have doubts (member of the church or not) I invite you to pray about it, and if you want to take a road trip to Palmyra NY to see where it happened, the Sacred Grove is always there! :)

Linda and her daughter Amy are also on our list of people to visit.

Linda has been investigating the church for months and for the first time she stayed for the 2nd hour of church (she usually leaves after the first hour, sacrament meeting). Amy started looking into the church last week and seems pretty interested in it! She'll be starting her senior year this year and wants to find her place in religion.

As for a challenge, I'm not exactly sure what to use. The scripture "when thou art converted, strengthen thy bretheren" from Luke 22:32 keeps coming to mind. This is what Jesus tells His chief apostle Peter toward the end of His mortal ministry. So for the next few weeks the challenges will be related to this. I invite each of us to become more converted during these linked challenges beginning with scriptures.

Alma 31:5 tells us that the most influential thing in the world is studying God's word. So I invite each of us to commit to do that every day until the next challenge rolls around! Ideally, we keep doing it from this week on each day of our lives, but if that's too much for now, at least do it for 7 days. You can commit to anything for 7 days!

:)

Love you all!

-Elder Moon

My Zone!

August 15, 2016

Friends and family,

This one will be short, we went to the temple which took a good part of the day, but I'm not complaining. The temple is amazing! If you're not worthy to go, I invite you to become worthy to! If you aren't able to go for other reasons, baby steps :) But this last week was good. We got ahold of some more people and had 2 people come to church. Things are starting to pick up!

Challenge: Adam, when he was kicked out of the garden, started offering sacrifices. An angel asked him why he was doing it and he said "I know not save The Lord commanded me" and thn the angel explained the reason to him (see Moses 5:5-7). I challenge each of us to pick a commandment we may not like or fully understand and then study up on it! Pray about it! I can't promise an angel will explain it to you, but I know God answers our prayers!

-Elder Moon

Ask the missionaries, they can help you! 

August 8, 2016

Friends and family,

This week has been much slower. Flushing into an area (coming in at the same time as your companion) isn't very common for missionaries, unless you're Elder Jared Moon in the  New York Rochester Mission! But things will pick up, the Ward is getting excited about missionary work!

Figuring out what zone leaders do is fun as well! We called in numbers yesterday and that was cool (if you don't know what that is, haha you should've gone on a mission!). Other than that, we're just trying to get the ball moving with everything.

This week's challenge is to find someone who has been silently and consistently doing good and tell them you appreciate them for it. You can tell them with a plate of cookies, a thank you card, or a personal visit! Or anything I didn't suggest. The world needs more silent good-doers and the ones we have need to be thanked!

Love you all! Or y'all in my "native" language ;)

-Elder Moon