"Bear witness of the Light"

October 18, 2010
Dearest Mommy,
Okay, so here I am at 7:30 writing to ya and trying not to fall asleep haha. Today for our P-day, we played soccer with both Spanish zones... again... and we did it for three hours haha. Oh my goodness I was totally trashed afterwards haha. It was such a total blast though I loved it.
Aside from that excitement today, we had an all-around good week! Last tuesday I had a super sweet exchange with elder Davis, one of our zone leaders, and then later on in the week I had the opportunity to serve with elder Rangel again!... but this time in Salem! Ah it was so sweet being able to go back and serve with him again! I'm pretty sure they should let us open a new area together, because we would blow it up. We were able to teach four lessons, two with member, and talk Charlie (Miriam, my Cuban Abuelita's husband) into getting baptized! I am so excited!
What's even more exciting than exchanges is the fact that Rivera is now back to normal! We actually went walking around for the first couple of days this week! It was really nice to be able to go out and about and not feel so fat... ya know? I think this whole near-death thing has really changed him as well. Now he is really carefree, happy, and good at teaching it's rad! He has no fear to open his mouth and teach doctrine to anybody. Not only that, but now all the members love him!
I'm trying to think what else exciting happened... ooh! I bought my jacket today, and it is fuhreaking sweet! Like really, it's gonna be way nice once the weather really hits. It's a North Face soft shell.... yeah it might be easier if I just send you a picture of it haha. Anyways, it's gonna be relly warm, keep me really dry, and last for a long time... *knock on wood* I was super bugged because I had planned on buying this Helly Hansen jacket that I've been looking at basically the whole time I've been in Woodburn, but unfoturnately today when I went to go get it, it was GONZO! Oh well I think this one is cooler haha. Anyways...pretty exciting, right?
Anyways, I'm having a blastie here in Woodburn, although I think my time has run out for this area... I don't know... we'll find out in the next couple of weeks, but I realized I've been here for almost seven months... I love it! I hope I get a chance to come back here again haha.
What else what else...... ooh! Okay, so this is kind of weird and you guys will probably think I'm an idiot, but I had kind of a spiritual experience running the other morning. So we go running around a neighborhood by our apartment complex, and part of it runs through an old folks neighborhood where every house is cookie-cutter exactly the same. One thing that's interesting is that every one of those houses has motion-sensor lights. As we're running in the mornings, it's dark obviously, and once we get to that neighborhood, every house we pass by, the lights turn on out front, and all of them seem to stay on after we run by. The interesting thing is that by the end of the houses, if we're taking a more leisurely pace, the sun comes out, and we don't get to play our little game of turning on all of those lights, so we always try to run a little bit quicker when we see the light starting to come out. You're probably thinking, "wow elder Mooney, this is totally not related to the gospel", but bear with me. I was thinking about my mission and how it seems like we always seem to be in a rush to find new people, teach them, baptize them, etc., and I always thought, why can't we just take a nice, steady pace to do it... doesn't the old saying go "slow and steady wins the race"? Then I kind of had an epiphany. The mission is a lot like the route we run in the mornings in that you only have a certain amount of time to get things done, and then it's all over once the sun comes out. If we waste time dawdling or "taking it easy" as missionaries, there will be people that we won't quite reach in time, and have a chance to be touched by that "light".
It's kinda like it says in John 1:7-9... likening it to myself a little bit, it made a lot of sense
7" ...[elder Mooney] came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. "
I love our church and the opportunity to let my light so shine before men... I hope you guys are willing to do the same.
I've gotta go cause my time is up, but I love you all so much have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kurt Mooney