Monday, May 24, 2010

E-BOM

May 24, 2010
Dear Family,

Okay, so I've got quite a bit to write about what happened this week in Woodburn haha it's been exciting... so first off I've gotta tell you about the miles situation that we had... we were 15 days into the month and had only 200 miles left for the rest of the month basically, so we decided to walk for a few days haha. Last Monday we walked to do our emails as well as to do our shopping, and didn't drive anywhere all day. Tuesday, we had an appointment in Gervais, so we had to donate some miles for that trip to teach the Perez family, but other than that, we had an epic day of walking haha. We walked at least six or seven miles, and it felt sweet to get some exercise in for once haha. Being in a car all the time and only having half an hour to work out in the mornings just doesn't cut it.
Okay aside from being bingo on miles for the last three weeks of the month, we had a funny experience on Wednesday haha. Tuesday night we had taught Ramon and Rocio and were trying to find out how we can help them get baptized, so we got his full name, then decided to go talk to the folks down at the great and abominable... uh... I mean the Catholic church. So anyways, Wednesday during the day, we decided to head over there to see if we could find out if his marriage license actually existed in the church because he says he wasn't sure, and he can't get married and then baptized if he is married to someone in mexico and living with Rocio. So, we went in there, and I about died laughing. So you know how the Catholic church has "holy water" or whatever? We were exploring the Cathedral trying to find the office, and we found a water cooler thing... FULL OF HOLY WATER!!! Needless to say, we're going to be taking another trip back there to fill up a water bottle sometime soon haha :-). Aside from that little experience, we finally found the office and talked to someone, and it turns out they have no idea how we could get in contact with the Catholic church where Ramon was married... go figure. Blasphemous AND unorganized haha.
Aside from smashing the Catholics in my email, I've gotta tell you guys about what happened on Thursday this last week. So we were out tracting, and we bumped into a guy who has the new iPad. Yeah, I'd never heard of one and now that I've seen one, I want it! haha but anyways, we got talking to him about his iPad and stuff and how it was rad and blah blah blah and then we turned it to talking about the church. He didn't seem too excited about the book of mormon, but then I did something that I have to say was pretty freaking sweet. I affirm, and I'm pretty sure I'm correct, that I am the first missionary in the history of the church to give someone a book of mormon electronically while tracting haha! I told him he could check it out on his iPad, so I got on iTunes and downloaded the Book of Mormon to is iPad and had him read Moroni 10:3-5! Oh my gosh it was like the sweetest thing ever!!! haha anyways, just thought I'd tell you guys about that.
Other than that, we've just been busy knocking and finding new people. Patricia has a baptismal date for the 20th of June which will be awesome. The Perez family who hasn't come to church in almost a month came yesterday, and yeah... Gosh I love the mission.
Oh! I was going to ask, but you guys already said that you got to talk with president Pister? Gosh I love that man. He's the branch president here, and he is... ah he's just the man. That is one person you guys are going to have to meet after the mission he's just a great guy. We were at dinner with him on Thursday and all of a sudden he says, "so I talked to your parents the other day, they say hi." and it really kind of shocked me haha. Not only that, but for the first time since coming on my mission, I had grilled cheese and tomato soup... like I make it! Oh my gosh I thought I'd died and gone to heaven it was so scrumptious!
Aside from loving the mission, I hate the weather right now. It's friggin' may and it's still rainy and cold! We've had straight clouds and rain for like a week and I'm sick of it! Where is my friend Mr. Golden Sun? Hopefully it'll get better soon, but yeah.
Okay, so my letter is starting to ramble and I've gotta go do some shopping today, so I'll talk to you guys next week I love you!!!


Love always,

Elder Kurt Mooney

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010

Hoofin' It

Hey mom!
Oh my gosh it sounds like you guys had a whirlwind trip up here in Oregon and then down to St. George right after! Are you and Dad going to be recovering for a couple of days or are you going right back to work after that? Hopefully you guys get a little bit of time to relax after destroying yourselves with a trip like that haha.
Things here are sweet, this week has been busy, but nothing extremely exciting has happened... we taught a ton of lessons this week, had a few exchanges, and yeah... we totally spent our alotted 1250 miles for the month which sucks because now we have to walk everywhere! The main reason is that Saturday night we had to drive all the way to Hillsboro and back for the wedding of one of Rangel's investigators, and then drive to Silverton for dinner the next day, and then Hillsboro right after for the baptism of that investigator of Rangel's. Oh my gosh we seriously spent probably 300 miles or more in this week alone, which brings us to a total of 945 miles for the month... this month is going to suck haha. This morning we decided we're going to be walking on every P-day from here on out to try to save on miles haha. We actually walked to the library this morning which felt nice, and who knows? Maybe it'll help me stay skinny-ish haha. I'm at 210 right now, which means I'm only up 7 pounds from when I started my mission!

Oh man what else has been exciting this week.... Oh! So transfers... Elder Rangel and I are staying (obviously or we wouldn't be doing emails right now) for another transfer together! I am seriously so stoked to have another transfer to work with him because we work so well together here, and not to mention our area is saweet! Another awesome thing about this transfer is that Smithee is training again! That means I'm gonna have a little brother in the mission finally! haha I know that sounds weird, but "lineage" in the mission is kind of a big deal... like I could tell you that my line goes from Haslam to Pfeifer to Tennant to Smithee to me! All great missionaries (not me quite yet, I'm still getting better). But yeah it'll be exciting to finally have some new people in the mission so I won't be the youngest missionary in the field anymore! It's pretty rad we're gonna have 4 greenies coming in today... it's weird to think that's been almost six months ago. On the 30th of this month I'll have six months in the field! Crazy huh? Time flies when you're having fun haha.
Okay, I can't think of anything else exciting that happened this week, so I'm gonna bail outta here and go enjoy some P-day with my buddy Rangel and the english elders, but yeah. Have a great week I love you guys!

Love,
Elder Mooney

Monday, May 3, 2010

furniture aerobics

Dear Mom,

Oh man so this has been an eventful week here in Woodburn, lemme tell ya haha. Okay first off I've gotta tell you about our adventures with the washer and dryer, as well as the couch. So, there are two apartments here in woodburn, but because of the fiasco with so many missionaries going home, one of them is empty right now. The thing is though, is that THAT apartment has (had) a washer, dryer, and a couch, which we did not. Luckily, this apartment is only about half a mile away from ours, so, we decided for our personal exercise time in the morning to run to the apartment every day, and bring back a new piece of essential furniture. We first brought back this huge freakin' hide-a-bed couch that we were so stoked about, and it ended up SUCKING! Oh my gosh its the most uncomfortable couch ever, but we still sit on it just because it was such a beast to carry it all the way to our apartment (yes, we carried it)! Then we brought the dryer which didn't work because it has the wrong plug, then the washer which we hooked up and works (woot woot!). Anyways, so we brought them over, and then just after we finished emails last week, we went and bought a plug that would work for our dryer to hook it up instead of doing what we've been doing previously... you'll see the video, don't worry haha. Anyways, so while I was hooking up the dryer, switching the plug, elder Rangel was giving himself a haircut (we are such missionaries), and I finally got the dryer re-wired (or so I thought) and went to plug it in.... and BOFF@!@# There was a huge spark, and all the lights in the whole apartment went out! Not just our apartment... the whole building hhaaha. So we hurried downstairs and found the powerbox and switched it back on, ran up to the apartment, and I rewired the dryer correctly, so now it works haha.

Other than that excitement, we've been busy doing spiritual missionary stuff I promise haha. We've been teaching the Perez family, and they're awesome. Theyr'e a family of five, and are getting ready to be baptized hopefully in the next couple of weeks... maybe in June, we're not sure yet. The dad has a lot of doubts from what he hears from his friends, although he reads the book of mormon every day with his wife it's sweet! We're also teaching a lady named Hilda who has five kids and is a single mom... holy MESS! She's sweet, but she is the most flaky lady EVER! It's so annoying because she knows its true, but won't get her butt in gear and go to church! She does everything but that! AAAH!HH!!H!H! We're also teaching a guy named Juan who is the husband of a member here, and he's awesome. Theyr'e a younger couple, maybe in their early 30's, and he's got a heart of gold. He'll get baptized before I leave I bet, but we're just becoming friends with him now to gain his confidence, and then SPLASH! We'll throw him in the font haha jk but seriously. There's also a lady named Patricia who we're teaching. She's kind of hard on luck and the church is helping her out, and we're teaching her, but she has real interest it's cool! Not only that, but the week we started teaching her, her sister and her family moved back to Woodburn from Logan, Utah where they were baptized a year ago....PLOP! More blessings from heaven haha!

Oh but now I've gotta tell you the story of what happened on Saturday... oh saturday saturday... We were invited to go to breakfast with a recent convert named hermana Lupe Gutierrez, better known as Lupe-G. Anyways, we showed up to her house at 7, and they were watching a movie (who watches movies at 7 am?) and began to talk with her. We ended up staying and talking with ehr for about an hour while they finished the movie and we went to breakfast, and I felt bad because... well... that's like watching a movie. After that for the rest of the day, I feel like God kind of smited (sp?) us in that ALL of our appointments fell though... now... that wouldn't have been a big deal except for the fact that there were SIX OF THEM! Holy crap I'm never going to half-watch a movie again! Obedience is definitely important in missionary work. Oh! Aside from that I have to tell you a little side-story. So we went to breakfast with Lupe-G and her family at Burger King, and oh my gosh... it was like Jehova-Fest! There's a kindom hall not too far from there, and go figure, being a saturday, it was packed with little testiguitos!!!! Oh my goodness no joke there were probably 50 of them, and they were all scared to talk to us haha. I said hi to one of them and he looked at me funny for a second, then like scampered off to his JW buddies haha. Well, I guess you have a lot to be scared of when your church is founded on blasphemy... oops haha.

Aside from that, I met a family last night, and as I got talking with them, it turns out that he served his mission in mexico in '71 and I wondered if maybe that's when uncle Lee served his mission? Anyways just a thought.

Sorry this email is getting kind of rambly, but yeah... Just thought you guys might enjoy that little tidbit haha. Aside from that, Mom, I'm sending off a little something for mothers day for you, and I hope you enjoy it, and I just sent off pictures to Katie today, so she should be coming over sometime soon... actually, I talked her into coming over on Mothers day so I can talk to all of you :-) Does that sound good? I hope so, because I already told her haha.

All right you guys I've gotta get going and buy myself a new backpack, but I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you on SUNDAY!!!! Oh! Speaking of which, You guys said your church gets out at 1 right? I'll be out of mine around 1 yourtime, so I'll plan on calling at 2:00 in the afternoon, okay? Bye mom I love you so much!

Love, your son,

Elder Kurt Kay Mooney