1 week and counting....!

Hola Amigazos!

This week has been absolutely awesome in the MTC. For the first time, we did calls in the Referral Center in spanish...Hoo boy that was an experience haha. Humbling to say the least. I would talk to them for about two minutes and they would understand what I would say,then I'd start speaking from the script to find out if they received whatever they had requested, and then I would get "Que?", "Mande", and then they would switch to english and say "Oh! chya I geet eet." and then continue the conversation in english haha. Definitely showed me that I have a lot to learn about speaking spanish, but it's all good, I still love speaking it.

I seriously cannot believe I am taking off for portland a week from today!@!!! AAAHHH@!!! It is going to be so freaking rad, but I just cant believe it's already here.... It feels like I just got to the MTC like a week and a half ago! I love this place so much, but I am so excited to go out and share the gospel with REAL people for the first time, although I want to share an experience with you that I had this week when we taught someone this week... He had us teaching him the second lesson, and the reason we were teaching it was because he had a friend in the hospital who was dying. I don't know how, but I seriously got so attached to this "investigator" and I really deeply cared about him, and sharing the message of the plan of salvation as well as the atonement of Jesus Christ. After we were done, he broke down...for real.... I was a little confused at first, but the spirit was so strong, that i knew it was because we taught by the spirit. He told us we had answered a question that he (as a real person) had been trying to figure out for quite some time, and it was through the lesson that we taught him that he was able to receive that answer. This goes to show that the spirit really is the ULTIMATE teacher. I tell this story not because I'm trying to toot my own horn about my teaching abilities, but to let you all know that we MUST teach by the spirit in order for people to learn the lessons that they need to know.

What else did we do.... oh man this week on sunday I blessed the sacrament in spanish for the first time! Oh my goodness that was a scary experience haha but it went all right. I prayed my guts out before I did it, and thank goodness the spanish flowed.

I don't have much time left, but I thank you all for your love and support, especially that of my family. I love you all and I hope you know I'm praying for all of you

Con mi hombro a la lid,

~Elder Moonshine~

More MTC photos

MTC photos

Hasta Ver

Dear all,
How's life going for you guys? Things are great here...WAY busy, but really good. i'm trying to get locked and loaded to be ready for the mission field. AAAH! it's only two weeks away from today! I seriously can't believe it! The time here has absolutely flown, and I'm afraid I'm not going to be prepared to start full-blown missionary work, but ready or not, here it comes right?
I can't really think of anything exciting that happened this week... another district in our zone left, and we have a really cool tradition for everyone that leaves. Every time a district takes off for the field, because we're spanish speaking, we all get together the night before they leave, and we sing "Hasta Ver" (God be with you til we meet again) and then they all bear their testimonies. Needless to say, it was a great spiritual experience for all of us, and gets us all pumped for actually serving in the mission field. Speaking of which, I will be leaving the MTC on November 30th, so post up the mission home address, and then I'll give you my address after that okay?
I don't really have any pearls of wisdom from this week because we've been SO busy learning spanish as well as just teaching lessons, so I feel bad, but I really don't have a spiritual experience to share from this week that I can think of off the top of my head... Oh wait! Last night for our sunday fireside, Sheri Dew came and spoke and it was actually really cool. She talked about the atonement for quite a bit, and she brought up an interesting point that I hadn't given much thought to... The atonement wasn't just Jesus Christ paying for our sins, he also suffered for all of our pains, discomforts, our hard moments in life, our sadness, and all of those other things. In order to love us perfectly, Christ had to understand all of us perfectly, and so through the atonement, we are truly never alone. I am so thankful for the atonement in my life, and I hope you all will apply a deeper meaning of it to your lives.
That's all for now, I love you all with all my heart-

Moonshine

Six weeks down, 98 to go...!

Hola pueblos,
You're absolutely right Mom, time is FLYING by here in the MTC! I was just talking to some new missionaries that got here this week, and when they asked me how long I'd been here, I couldn't remember ! I had to ask one of the elders in our district... we have been here for six weeks on wednesday... CRAZY! It's a good thing though, We just study the crap out of the scriptures, teach lessons, and learn a whole bunch of spanish. Oh, and eat and sleep... if there's time for it.... I've actually slowly been weaning myself off of sleep, so I don't need it anymore. I just STUDY! haha jk but seriously, eight hours of sleep seems like i just closed my eyes and the alarm is going off again. It's okay though. One thing I've learned, as long as I'm putting forth 100%, and trying to be completely obedient to the commandments and rules we're given, the Lord will make it possible to do all of it... I still get tired and grumpy sometimes, but I do what I'm supposed to haha.
This week.... ummm.... oh gosh what did we do.... Oh! we taught a bunch of lessons, and had a cool talk last night on the power of Christ's atonement. The guy who taught it was in the quorum of the 70, and it was absolutely awesome. He taught us about feeling fully forgiven of sins we've repented of. this is interesting, because this week,I created a list of difficult questions that i wanted to find answers to, and that happened to be one of the questions I had, so it was absolutely awesome to get that answer, ya know? I found that the biggest problem people have, is that they pray and say that they're sorry, but they forget this extremely important point: to ask the Lord if he forgives them. that and he shared a scripture with us from 2Nephi about Christ being the person who cleanses us of our sins so that we can be in the presence of the Father. This was really awesome for me, because I feel like Satan is beating me over the head with stuff that I've repented of, and it's frustrating, because then i had doubts about being worthy, but this thought from this General Authority struck me, and I decided to inquire of the Lord.... Suffice it to say, I no longer worry about being worthy to serve this mission.
Other than that, I don't really recall what went down... We taught a ton of lessons, we're speaking in spanish all the time now, and we read a cool story in the old testament... 1st Samuel chapter 15. I don't remember specifics, but if you have time, look it up. Old Testament is freaking awesome haha.
I'm kind of bummed about spending thanksgiving here.... So many fond memories of being with the family, ya know? I don't know how I'm gonna handle not having Mom's food, or lazing on the couch with Dad. I don't even know if we can play friggin football! What is this world coming to!? I guess I'll just have to learn to be more....thankful for the other things I've got going right?
I apologize this is a little shorter than my usual emails, I just really cannot remember anything extremely exciting that happened this week haha. Hopefully I'm not getting complacent with feeling the spirit here, because it's so strong. I don't think that's possible though, but yeah, I love you guys so much! Tell my friends to send me some FRIGGIN LETTERS! haha
Sincerely,
Elder "Moonshine" Mooney

"May we cut in?"

Hey everyone!This week has been way rad in the MTC. Once again, I don't know where to start... there were so many things that were awesome and eventful here, and it's all a friggin' blur! So, this week was sad in that one of the districts in our zone that I and a few other missionaries had gotten close to, left for Argentina this morning, so it was hard to see them off.... I envy them in being able to head out and start preaching the gospel right away, but in a way, it's a good thing I've still got four more weeks here, because there is so much more to learn!!! Oh! one awesome thing that happened this week, for our tuesday devotional, L. Tom Perry came and spoke to us! It was really funny because the line to get into the auditorium was absolutely ridiculous, backed up for probably 400 yards or so of just solid missionaries. I haven't mentioned this, but I'm in a trio now with elder Jackson and elder Rodahl. Elder Rodahl has cerebral palsy, and had kind of a hard time walking sometimes... but he sure gets us great seats for general authorities! haha we walked with him (our entire zone almost) to the front of the line, and then started to walk in the doors. Some missionaries behind us yelled "HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?!?! DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST CUT IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE!?!?!" then elder Rodahl says, "Yeah I do because I'm crippled. Are you? Yeah. didn't think so." haha so all these missionaries went dead silent and we proceeded to sit on the third row and had perfect views of elder Perry hahaha. Needless to say, I LOVE having elder Rodahl for a companion. Not just for amazing seats though, but just for all of the crazy-funny stories he has. He's only been a member of the church for about three years, and he is also the only memeber in his family... He is a real example to all of us in our district, and we all love him. Back on the subject of L. Tom Perry, he gave an inspiring talk on missionary work and how to teach effectively. I don't want to go in to too much detail on it because I don't have much time, but there was something that he said that really struck me..."a good teacher is always a good listener." Ever since I heard it from him, I've instituted it in all the lessons we teach. Okay, cool experience number two of being in the MTC. We went to the referral center (RC) and were placing calls and answering questions on chat. A chat popped up for myself and elder Rodahl asking about the second coming of Christ. We ended up teaching this lady, who was an evangelist, about the plan of salvation and it was really awesome! We didn't get to finish it becasue she logged off, but it was a sweet experience to show her scriptural evidence of the pre-existence and stuff like that, which really made her stop and think. After that, just as we were leaving, I decided to to one last call in spite of protest from my companions...I was doing outbound calls, and I came across a couple in West virginia that had requested a book of mormon, so I called to verify they had gotten it. Not only did they get it, but they really loved what they had read about it! Not only that, they had a friend there who they had shared it with! THEY asked me if they could have the missionaries sent to their home to teach more about the gospel, and their friend asked if I could send her a book of mormon as well, so I got her address, and I'll be sending her one in the mail in the next month hopefully! Overall, an awesome week here in the MTC, I wish I had time to write more, but I've got to get back to the wonderful world of missionary work. hasta ver mi amigos-Elder Moonshine