Judge not...

2010 December 20
Hi mommy,
Okay, so I'm trying to work up the gumption to actually write up an email right now, and I am battling with it haha. I just feel like it's not so necessary because I can just talk to you about it on Saturday in my letter, but then I realize that it would be bad if I didn't have a record of what happened someday down the road.
So this week, there was definitely some big excitement among the Spanish missionaries. We had transfers a week ago, and all companionships aside from ours and one in the South zone were changed... pretty nuts eh? It was pretty sweet though. There are some good things going on this transfer for sure.
I'm trying to think of what else that was exciting on Monday night.... oh! One thing that was funny about the night after we got out of transfer meeting is that we went to teach this guy named Nestor (like molester?), who is the boyfriend of an inactive member. It's super funny because he told me that I speak like someone from Mexico. When people ask where I'm from, I say that I'm from the state of Guerrero, near the coast, because I've heard from a lot of people that there are white people with green eyes that speak Spanish. Sometimes they give me this really surprised look and say "de verdas!?" or "are you serious!?" but from there I say that I'm just blowing smoke because... well... it's not the truth obviously haha. I'm not trying to toot my horn, it's just fun to feign being Mexican for a little bit :-) My Spanish isn't native-status Spanish anyways... I don't use words that they do like troca (truck), naifa (knife), esquipiar (to skip), quiquiar (to kick), or parquiar (to park), or things like that haha. It's fun to talk like that though. Anyways, I'm gonna shut up about speaking Spanish because you probably don't care haha.
So Tuesday... oh Tuesday... so here's what happened: We had district meeting that was good until we sloughed out into the rain... lots and lots of it. We knocked doors for a while because our appointments canceled, and then finally came the time when we were going to visit an inactive that we found knocking named Yari. I was frustrated because I thought he was going to bail on us and I have to be honest, I judged him on his appearance the first time we met him. The first time we knocked his door, he answered it with snakebite piercings, ears pierced, with a shirt that said (edited.) From there I thought "wow, what a tool. We came to find out he was super inactive since 15 and yeah. The time came, and elder Van Hook asked if I wanted to go visit him or go visit someone else. I said "al cacho! We've got more important people to visit than an inactive." As soon as I said it though, I felt like I was going to come to regret it. Turns out that we went to visit another appointment, and they canceled on us, so we had to go visit Yari. He's just a 20 something kid who got baptized when he was fifteen. We ended up going in and having an incredible lesson with him for an hour and talked to him about returning to church, and turning his life around. I felt totally humbled and realized that I need to show love for people no matter their situation, because who am I to judge?

Aside from that, I also want to talk about my Wednesday experience. We had no fixed appointment. None. Not only that, it was raining and 40 degrees outside. Long story short, I was about to quit and say forget this let's just go to the apartment when we decided to visit a less active family. Turns out their cousin was visiting, and he's sweet! He's a 16 year old kid who got in with the wrong crowd, but now has left his friends and wants to find God. We taught him about a few things, and one of them was prayer. He said the first prayer of his life, and the spirit struck him... it was really like a Lamoni's father kind of instance in the mission where the spirit was just so powerful! Ah I love it when God throws us a bone. God really helps you out "after all that we can do".

The other excitement from this week came on Saturday. Ivelisse Cruz's parents went to the temple, and I got to go with them! Not only that, but they also were sealed to Ivelisse soon after their session! Oh my goodness it was such an amazing experience! I don't really know what else to say about it because...well... words don't accurately describe it. I do love the session in Spanish though. I think it's because it's the language of the Gods :-).

After the temple, we also got to see the Mormon Portland Choir perform in Vancouver at Skyline high school where I met a few missionaries that know Matt Gammett :-) We actually went with Nestor and his girlfriend hna. Cabrera! The even cooler thing is that the next day, she came to church for the first time in more than three months! Awesome!

The other exciting thing that happened Sunday was that we got to go down to Woodburn again for a baptism! This time for hno. Javier Blanco! Remember how back in the day I was saying I should start a TV show called "DR. Feelgood" because I had been counseling a couple in the branch? Yup. This is the one. Now I've got some credibility so I can get started hahaha! It was such a good experience to see all of the members down there again... They're all making me promise to come back to finish my mission, so hopefully pres. Dyches can hear that cry and push me that direction in a couple months to finish up... oh man that would be so sweet! I actually might be able to spend part of Christmas down there because we're going down for Charlie Raizer's baptism, so we're gonna swing by the Pister's afterwards. We're gonna do our calls beforehand though at the church around 11 in the morning if that works for you guys... well... I hope it does haha. We'll just plan on 11 and I'll call ya from the church building in Keizer :-)
I love you guys and look forward to talking to ya!
Con carino,
-Elder Kurt Mooney