To learn Spanish, eat spicy Mexican food...!

September 6, 2010
Hey Mommy!
That's sweet to hear that BYU did well in their first game of the season... I'm always a little worried about them haha they tend to be terrible when they first start off. I'm also not very surprised that poor OHS is choking in the beginning of their season... we always started off that way too haha. Ah man football.... here in Gudburn football is something completely different haha. Woodburn high won their first few games out of the last nine years surprisingly enough in american football. In soccer however, they're almost state champs every year! You might not believe it, butr I'm starting to get into get into it myself!
Actually, on the subject of soccer, that's what we did yesterday for Labor day! We did a combined zone activity in Sherwood and played soccer again, but this time it was a little brutal. Elder Rangel, within the first five minutes, slid for a ball on the turf field, but his cleat caught hold, and POP! He dislocated/totally destroyed his ankle! I haven't seen swelling on an ankle like that since... well... when I fell rock climbing that one time haha don't worry about it. From what I heard yesterday, he is now doing okay and in a boot... just like I was... hopefully he can still knock doors! Who knows? Maybe it'll help them get a little more success in Tigard haha. Aside from elder Rangel maiming himself, we had a game of epic proportions with sufficient players to have two complete teams. We ended up playing for about four hours and afterwards we were pretty much trashed haha.
Afterwards, we were invited to eat at the Pisters, so we ran home, showered off as fast as we could, and cruised over to their house where we enjoyed some nice tasty burgers. Before I go any further, I have to reveal a funny saying I heard the other day from Lupe-G's brother. he said if you want to learn to speak spanish well, you should eat spicy Mexican food, and if you want to learn english, you should eat lots of hamburgers haha. He's always got a good joke up his sleeve. For example, he said he had a joke about Jehova's Witnesses, and it goes a little something like this: Once there were two Jehova's Witnesses that were very faithful their whole lives knocking doors, preaching, going to church, etc.. One day, they both died and found themselves before the gate that leads into heaven. One of them went up and knocked on it to see if anybody was there. St. Peter peeked out and saw them, then turned to everybody inside and said, "SHHHHH! Don't answer it's the Jehova's Witnesses!"
Maybe not so funny for people who have lived in Utah their whole lives, but for everybody else, you've gotta admit that's pretty dang funny haha.
Okay, enough playful banter with the Jehova's Whitnesses. Aside from that, We had a baptism this week! SWEET!!!!!! Rosario Reyes Silva is now the newest baptized person in the Woodburn branch. The one hitch is that she doesn't want to go to our branch very badly right now because she investigated with the Mollalla (sp?) branch for more than two months, and suddenly had to move to Hubbard two weeks before her baptism. The one really good thing was that although her baptism was in Mollalla, more than half of the Woodburn branch was there. Out of her own branch, there were only about 15 people there, but from Woodburn, there were more than 40. I love this branch. I've decided I'm just never gonna leave until my last six months, then I'll go up where elder Jackson is serving with the Tongans in St. John's haha.
Aside from Rosario getting baptized, we're doing some good work with our investigators right now. This coming Sunday Felipe will be getting baptized, and the week after that Juan Velazquez will be getting baptized as well... both to make complete member families! Woohoo!!! After that, we've gotta get Adan & Rab's butts in gear on marriage so they can get baptized, Laura needs to come to church, and Leticia is going to get married, so she needs to come to church too haha. Aside from that, we're teaching a lady named Norma Pacheco that lives in Felipe and Maria's house, and she's sweet! We were re-passing the restoration with Felipe and she was there and listening very intently, so we decided to direct the lesson a little more to her. At the end of the lesson we invited her to pray and at first she was really scared, but at last accepted to do it. It was a really cool thing because that was the first prayer of her entire life, and she started to cry afterwards... it was a pretty powerful spiritual experience. I love seeing the power of change the spirit brings to people when they open their hearts to it... it's something that you can't describe, but it's almost tangible in the room when it's present... We'll see where things lead with her as she continues to pray and learn. We found a new family last night, and they seem pretty sweet. They were a referral from the english elders, and usually, I have my doubts when they give us someone to go visit because... well... they're english elders haha no offense to them. No but this family was absolutely wonderful. They moved here from Tijuana about four or five years ago, and the mom is a total sweetheart. Her name is Arcelia and her son's name is Jose. We were originally coming to visit with her older son Jesus, but since he wasn't there, we took the opportunity to teach those two instead. They're super humble, and they accepted the doctrine of Christ right away. I love teaching prepared people! We'll see how things go with them this week when we visit again.
The only other excitement aside from that this week is that we did leadership training again for four days from 9-5... it kicked by butt, but we still somehow managed to have 14 member-present lessons and crank out a baptismal interview/baptism. Hooray for time management skills... Heaven knows I didn't have them before the mission haha.
Anyways, we've gotta get going so we can visit the Ruybal's today, so I'll write you guys later. I love you all so much and I hope that everything is going really well now that school is started up again and you've got Shane and Zandy living with you. Be safe and remember I love you guys.

Love always,

-Elder Kurt Kay Mooney