2011 March 28
Dearest Mommy,
Well, I'm feeling a little lazy about writing a letter right now and it sounds like President Pister stole my thunder as far as informing you on the baptism goes, so I'll write a shorter letter this week haha.
Monday turned out to be a pretty "blah" day for us in that we just did our normal P-day washing and writing before going and playing kickball with the English elders (boring!). After that, Mateo Lopez invited us to his house for dinner and a family home evening with he and his wife. It went well, but it's a bummer because his wife Nelley is going to be in Pennsylvania visiting her daughter for a MONTH, so we won't be seeing her til she gets back.
Tuesday started out as a pretty depressing day in that we had four member-present lessons fall through, but what happened at the end of the night made it all awesome. We had planned on taking brother Muniz with us to an appointment, and I felt impressed to ask his son Yahir to come with us, not thinking that he would actually do it, but at the end of everything, he said yes and came out with us to a visit. He said that he was pretty stoked on the idea of changing, and wants to come out with us more often... sweet! The other awesome thing that happened was that we had a SWEET lesson with Oscar and Franci, where we took them to do a temple tour with hno Sanchez. It. Was. Powerful! The spirit was really strong and they were completely pumped about it... hopefully in the coming weeks they can change their schedule to start coming out to church.
Wednesday we had a couple of awesome things happen. We had an awesome lesson with a girl named Janet who is a friend of the Sanchez' daughter Tania. She had read all the introduction pages to the book of Mormon as well as the first ten chapters of first Nephi and was super stoked on the imagery of the vision of Lehi... She's super smart, and accepted a soft baptismal invitation. Holy cow she's awesome and is looking forward to being able to come to church the Sunday after general conference.
The other awesome thing that happened that night was with a family that is studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses. They had seemed pretty contentious when we met them, so we were more or less anticipating a bash when they said we could stop by. It turned out to be a really sweet lesson and they liked what we talked about. The whole time was just answering their questions and clearing up their doubts.... and planting a few of our own about the JW's :-). I'm starting to get kinda stoked on this area haha.
Oh! One more awesome thing that happened that night is that I got a call about Adan getting baptized and the fact that he wanted me to baptize him! Oh my goodness I about freaked out after hearing both of those things haha.
Thursday, we started out by helping the Sanchez to paint their bathroom, so we laid down some primer and HOLY COW! We used almost an entire can of primer to get it thick enough to look good on the drywall... it was like soaking up everything that we would put on it! After that adventure, we had a sweet dinner appointment with the Chandler family. They're a white couple who own a construction business, and it turns out that they're absolute champs. We taught them a little bit about the revolution, and right then and there he called up one of his workers and said that he wanted to schedule a dinner with him so that we could meet him. Awesome.
Friday we finished the ceiling in the bathroom at the Sanchez by painting it a parchment white that laid down really well. All that was left was to paint the walls, so yeah. We had another lesson with Janet and talked about her reading. She said that she believes that it's true every time that she reads from the book of Mormon and that she wants to come to church. She also wanted to talk a little about what the 10 commandments were (since she hadn't learned about them in the Catholic church), so we talked about that and focused a little bit on the Sabbath day. Awesome.
Saturday, we had a cool lesson with Osvaldo and his mom. We had taught him the restoration the last time we went over there and he understood it... kind of. We left him with Alma 7 to read, but he hadn't read it, so we read with him. It was really funny because I extended the soft baptismal date and he said, "oh well now that we read this it makes a lot more sense! For sure! Once I know it's true I think it'd be the right thing to do." I love the scriptures. Most of the time (I've come to know) the prophets say it best.
Sunday was the magical day of the baptism. We were feeling a little down in the dumps though because nobody had showed up for church and it didn't look like there was any hope for someone getting there. The sweet thing is that as the third hour was about to start, we got a text from Franci saying "hey I'm outside... where do I go?" Sometimes the Lord throws you a bone once in a while.
The baptism was awesome and now Adan Gutierrez is the newest member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I took some pictures, but forgot to bring my camera with me to the library, so I'll have to just send them (in a more secure package this time) when I fill up the card.
After that, we went to the Pisters and had some dinner and talked about how amaz-z-zing the branch is doing there. They've had 30 convert baptisms in the last two years in that little branch. Only ONE of them is inactive, and they're working with her to bring her back. That says a lot about the leadership that goes on in that branch.... I'm just glad that I've been able to play a small part of it.
Well, that's all the news for now. I hope you're enjoying some warmer weather, because we're still in the 50's and cloudy haha. Spring is springing though, so I don't complain. I love you all and hope you're having a great week!
Love,
-Elder Kurt Mooney
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Revolution Continues!
2011 March 21
Dear Mom,
Well, it's been a more or less eventful week here in Beaverton. I had a good time this last Monday making another impulse buy... I got a new fountain pen for kicks and giggles haha. It turned out to be a pretty worthless P-day because we spent it with English elders, but oh well. It definitely made me want to work harder this week.
One thing that happened that night has made us kind of change our game plan. We've been trying to focus a lot on the plan that God has for his children, eternal families, etc. One thing that we realized happened that night in a family home evening we had where some English members invited their hispanic neighbors to hear a quick message from us (the revolution has begun... muahaha) Anyways, we decided to read a little from the family proclamation and talk to them about eternal families. You know what they said to us? (they're catholic, just so ya know) They said that their church teaches that, that their family will be together forever and that they already know about the plan of salvation, blah blah blah. Elder Van Hook and I have come to coin these people "religious grocery shoppers" They pick and choose whatever doctrines that they like and say it's a part of their religion. In short, we've come to the decision that all we're going to be sharing from here on out is the restoration because it will cause them to make a decision whether this is the only true church or not... much more simple. Revolution!
Tuesday was a pretty awesome day for us! It was the most ridiculously rainy day that we've seen in a long, long time, but it was fun because we taught some super sweet lessons after we got out of district meeting in Portland. One of them was a girl that elder Van Hook had knocked into last saturday who is the friend of a member in the spanish group, and she turned out to be pretty golden. It was funny. She was interested in the plan of salvation, and elder Van Hook had left her a pamphlet to read before we came over... she read it! All of it! Not only that, but she also answered all of the questions in the back and had questions for us when we got there! We passed over it and taught her a little bit more in depth and at the end she said, "I've learned more with you guys in this half an hour than I've learned in my entire life in the church that I grew up in!" Pretty sweet right? Let there be LIGHT!
After that, we taught another guy named Osvaldo and his mom Julia about the restoration, and they both liked it a lot, especially about the Joseph Smith story. In his own words, he actually said "that's exactly how I feel about all the different religions! That's all I want to know is where the truth is!" Pretty sweet I have to say.
Once we finished with the lesson we had with them, we had 15 minutes before dinner, so we decided to knock in the rain (pity points means more opened door... usually haha). It's a good thing we did, because we ran into a new guy named Ricardo who let us in and talked about how he didn't trust the bible because it's been changed with so many translations that it's undergone, and he was pretty pumped when we showed him the book of Mormon. I love sharing the truth :-)
Okay, so mom you said you wanted to know if I had any suggestions about talking about individual worth this Sunday? The one thing that I can think of that kind of pertains to that is what I studied this last Wednesday morning in preparation for a spiritual thought that I gave for district meeting. I was asked to talk about being a bold missionary, but bear with me... I promise that this relates. The scripture that came to mind as I was pondering on this was one found in Moroni 8:6 where Mormon is writing to his son Moroni, and this is what he says:
"Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear."
Okay, I know you're wondering what the crap, but the reason this is significant as to missionary work is for two reasons: one, because Mormon had authority from God, he had permission to speak the truth with boldness. Two, because he has perfect love, which casts out all fear. Thinking about this perfect love and how it is that it can cast out all fear, it made me think about the importance showing true love towards all people. As missionaries (or as members of the church) we find it hard to be willing to share the gospel with all people because we are afraid of what people will think or say about us. That. Is. Selfish. When we have those kinds of thoughts, although they're normal, we are being prideful. We are putting ourselves (and the preoccupation for our own self-image) before the eternal welfare of those around us. As the savior said:
"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it."
It is in focusing on others that we find our true "self worth". When we worry about what others think and aren't showing forth the pure love of Christ towards all people, we aren't showing the importance of the knowledge of our self worth that we truly have. We know that we are sons and daughters of God, that he knows us individually, and that he has given us a plan whereby we may become like him. We show that we truly believe that we have this individual (and may I add divine) worth by being willing to let others know about it as well, that they too may enjoy the direction that it brings to our lives to help us increase that worth.
Do you like how I relate everything to sharing the gospel now? I hope I don't make anyone feel too guilty out there... as long as it pushes to you to open your mouths and share what you know :-P.
So moving on with what happened throughout the week, we had a sweet day on Thursday because we had the opportunity to go to the temple as an entire zone! Oh my goodness what an awesome opportunity! I have really come to love and appreciate the temple as I've been out here. A lot of times we get kinda wrapped around the axle of everyday life. Going to the temple gives us an opportunity to take a different view on life... the eternal kind. It makes everything we do in the nitty-gritty daily grind much more meaningful and seem more worth-while.
A couple of things really stood out to me in this last session that we did. The first thing was something that I hadn't noticed before or rather, that I hadn't understood. In the celestial room, there are little bundles of wheat that are gold-leafed (sp?) into some of the pillars. As I was thinking about that, I finally realized that it comes from the principle of the harvest. I know, it's not anything super profound, but it just was a reiteration of the whole "you sow what you reap" thing, and it made me think to myself "dang, if I want a celestial harvest, I dang well better be planting some celestial seeds right now! It put me to think about a scripture in Alma 32. We all know it talks about planting the seed, faith, blah blah blah, but there's a part that especially relates to this towards the end of the chapter. Verses 41-43 say this:
41But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.
42And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.
43Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.
According to our faith, diligence, and patience, we will be able to "reap the rewards" at the end of everything and attain eternal life. Awesome, right?
Another cool thing that stood out to me was the difference between sacrifice and consecration. Consecration wasn't something given to Adam and Eve right as they were booted out of the garden of Eden. Consecration was something that came much later. The thing I find interesting is.. well... what the true difference is between the two. Sacrifice was given to Adam and Eve even though they had no idea what the heck they were doing basically or what life was really all about yet. I would liken this to blind obedience. Consecration, on the other hand, is what is given after receiving a light and understanding of not only what is an "acceptable offering", but that we are willing to truly give up our will and our time to the Lord. The thing that makes this cool is this: Sacrifice brings the blessings of salvation, but consecration brings about a change that can elevate us to exaltation, where our will literally becomes one with the Father's, and we become like him. Kinda cool, eh? Anyways, I thought it was interesting.
Friday, Dr. Feelgood struck again haha. We had a lesson with Alejandro (the reggae guy) which went really well. We went back over the restoration and he felt good about it. He's continuing reading and is feeling the spirit, so we'll see where it leads. The interesting thing is that while we were there, his brother-in-law came and sat down by us and all of a sudden said "can I ask you a favor?" We said sure and he proceeded to spill his guts about how his marriage was failing and he asked if we could help he and his wife to change and come together again. We said yes, and we're gonna be starting teaching them this week. Crazy, eh? I'm telling you, I've got a future in television haha.
Saturday turned into a knocking nightmare where all of our appointments canceled, so we knocked all day. Such is life haha. One funny thing is that we bumped into some JW's knocking and got invited to their church... we went haha.
Sunday, like I said, we went to church with the JW's and got blasted with blasphemy for a couple of hours.... oosh they're lost. I got their version of "preach my gospel" though, and it's entertaining because now I know all the little scriptures that they use and stuff.
The true and living church was great. No investigators again this week, but such is life sometimes. Luckily, Yahir came to church again and now wants to talk to the bishop so that he can get locked and loaded on being 100% active again... sweet right? After church was over, we had stake reports with the stake president, and we dropped some information on him that is going to bring about Obama-status change without all the national debt. We only have three melchezidek priesthood holders in the spanish group, and one of them is moving back to Mexico in November. We talked to the stake president about this and asked if he would consider breaking off part of the Tualatin Valley branch (the biggest one in the mission) and adding it to our group to make a second branch. He was super stoked on the idea, and he wants us to talk to president Dyches about it, so we'll see what happens. Like I said, the revolution has begun... wanna make dang sure I leave a good mark on this mission and by dang I'm doing it!... hopefully haha.
That was about the excitement for the week though.
Anywho, I'm outta here to go enjoy a nice, rainy preparation day, so I hope all is well with you on the home front. I miss you guys... a lot. Have a great week I'll talk to ya later.
Love always,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Dear Mom,
Well, it's been a more or less eventful week here in Beaverton. I had a good time this last Monday making another impulse buy... I got a new fountain pen for kicks and giggles haha. It turned out to be a pretty worthless P-day because we spent it with English elders, but oh well. It definitely made me want to work harder this week.
One thing that happened that night has made us kind of change our game plan. We've been trying to focus a lot on the plan that God has for his children, eternal families, etc. One thing that we realized happened that night in a family home evening we had where some English members invited their hispanic neighbors to hear a quick message from us (the revolution has begun... muahaha) Anyways, we decided to read a little from the family proclamation and talk to them about eternal families. You know what they said to us? (they're catholic, just so ya know) They said that their church teaches that, that their family will be together forever and that they already know about the plan of salvation, blah blah blah. Elder Van Hook and I have come to coin these people "religious grocery shoppers" They pick and choose whatever doctrines that they like and say it's a part of their religion. In short, we've come to the decision that all we're going to be sharing from here on out is the restoration because it will cause them to make a decision whether this is the only true church or not... much more simple. Revolution!
Tuesday was a pretty awesome day for us! It was the most ridiculously rainy day that we've seen in a long, long time, but it was fun because we taught some super sweet lessons after we got out of district meeting in Portland. One of them was a girl that elder Van Hook had knocked into last saturday who is the friend of a member in the spanish group, and she turned out to be pretty golden. It was funny. She was interested in the plan of salvation, and elder Van Hook had left her a pamphlet to read before we came over... she read it! All of it! Not only that, but she also answered all of the questions in the back and had questions for us when we got there! We passed over it and taught her a little bit more in depth and at the end she said, "I've learned more with you guys in this half an hour than I've learned in my entire life in the church that I grew up in!" Pretty sweet right? Let there be LIGHT!
After that, we taught another guy named Osvaldo and his mom Julia about the restoration, and they both liked it a lot, especially about the Joseph Smith story. In his own words, he actually said "that's exactly how I feel about all the different religions! That's all I want to know is where the truth is!" Pretty sweet I have to say.
Once we finished with the lesson we had with them, we had 15 minutes before dinner, so we decided to knock in the rain (pity points means more opened door... usually haha). It's a good thing we did, because we ran into a new guy named Ricardo who let us in and talked about how he didn't trust the bible because it's been changed with so many translations that it's undergone, and he was pretty pumped when we showed him the book of Mormon. I love sharing the truth :-)
Okay, so mom you said you wanted to know if I had any suggestions about talking about individual worth this Sunday? The one thing that I can think of that kind of pertains to that is what I studied this last Wednesday morning in preparation for a spiritual thought that I gave for district meeting. I was asked to talk about being a bold missionary, but bear with me... I promise that this relates. The scripture that came to mind as I was pondering on this was one found in Moroni 8:6 where Mormon is writing to his son Moroni, and this is what he says:
"Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear."
Okay, I know you're wondering what the crap, but the reason this is significant as to missionary work is for two reasons: one, because Mormon had authority from God, he had permission to speak the truth with boldness. Two, because he has perfect love, which casts out all fear. Thinking about this perfect love and how it is that it can cast out all fear, it made me think about the importance showing true love towards all people. As missionaries (or as members of the church) we find it hard to be willing to share the gospel with all people because we are afraid of what people will think or say about us. That. Is. Selfish. When we have those kinds of thoughts, although they're normal, we are being prideful. We are putting ourselves (and the preoccupation for our own self-image) before the eternal welfare of those around us. As the savior said:
"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it."
It is in focusing on others that we find our true "self worth". When we worry about what others think and aren't showing forth the pure love of Christ towards all people, we aren't showing the importance of the knowledge of our self worth that we truly have. We know that we are sons and daughters of God, that he knows us individually, and that he has given us a plan whereby we may become like him. We show that we truly believe that we have this individual (and may I add divine) worth by being willing to let others know about it as well, that they too may enjoy the direction that it brings to our lives to help us increase that worth.
Do you like how I relate everything to sharing the gospel now? I hope I don't make anyone feel too guilty out there... as long as it pushes to you to open your mouths and share what you know :-P.
So moving on with what happened throughout the week, we had a sweet day on Thursday because we had the opportunity to go to the temple as an entire zone! Oh my goodness what an awesome opportunity! I have really come to love and appreciate the temple as I've been out here. A lot of times we get kinda wrapped around the axle of everyday life. Going to the temple gives us an opportunity to take a different view on life... the eternal kind. It makes everything we do in the nitty-gritty daily grind much more meaningful and seem more worth-while.
A couple of things really stood out to me in this last session that we did. The first thing was something that I hadn't noticed before or rather, that I hadn't understood. In the celestial room, there are little bundles of wheat that are gold-leafed (sp?) into some of the pillars. As I was thinking about that, I finally realized that it comes from the principle of the harvest. I know, it's not anything super profound, but it just was a reiteration of the whole "you sow what you reap" thing, and it made me think to myself "dang, if I want a celestial harvest, I dang well better be planting some celestial seeds right now! It put me to think about a scripture in Alma 32. We all know it talks about planting the seed, faith, blah blah blah, but there's a part that especially relates to this towards the end of the chapter. Verses 41-43 say this:
41But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.
42And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.
43Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.
According to our faith, diligence, and patience, we will be able to "reap the rewards" at the end of everything and attain eternal life. Awesome, right?
Another cool thing that stood out to me was the difference between sacrifice and consecration. Consecration wasn't something given to Adam and Eve right as they were booted out of the garden of Eden. Consecration was something that came much later. The thing I find interesting is.. well... what the true difference is between the two. Sacrifice was given to Adam and Eve even though they had no idea what the heck they were doing basically or what life was really all about yet. I would liken this to blind obedience. Consecration, on the other hand, is what is given after receiving a light and understanding of not only what is an "acceptable offering", but that we are willing to truly give up our will and our time to the Lord. The thing that makes this cool is this: Sacrifice brings the blessings of salvation, but consecration brings about a change that can elevate us to exaltation, where our will literally becomes one with the Father's, and we become like him. Kinda cool, eh? Anyways, I thought it was interesting.
Friday, Dr. Feelgood struck again haha. We had a lesson with Alejandro (the reggae guy) which went really well. We went back over the restoration and he felt good about it. He's continuing reading and is feeling the spirit, so we'll see where it leads. The interesting thing is that while we were there, his brother-in-law came and sat down by us and all of a sudden said "can I ask you a favor?" We said sure and he proceeded to spill his guts about how his marriage was failing and he asked if we could help he and his wife to change and come together again. We said yes, and we're gonna be starting teaching them this week. Crazy, eh? I'm telling you, I've got a future in television haha.
Saturday turned into a knocking nightmare where all of our appointments canceled, so we knocked all day. Such is life haha. One funny thing is that we bumped into some JW's knocking and got invited to their church... we went haha.
Sunday, like I said, we went to church with the JW's and got blasted with blasphemy for a couple of hours.... oosh they're lost. I got their version of "preach my gospel" though, and it's entertaining because now I know all the little scriptures that they use and stuff.
The true and living church was great. No investigators again this week, but such is life sometimes. Luckily, Yahir came to church again and now wants to talk to the bishop so that he can get locked and loaded on being 100% active again... sweet right? After church was over, we had stake reports with the stake president, and we dropped some information on him that is going to bring about Obama-status change without all the national debt. We only have three melchezidek priesthood holders in the spanish group, and one of them is moving back to Mexico in November. We talked to the stake president about this and asked if he would consider breaking off part of the Tualatin Valley branch (the biggest one in the mission) and adding it to our group to make a second branch. He was super stoked on the idea, and he wants us to talk to president Dyches about it, so we'll see what happens. Like I said, the revolution has begun... wanna make dang sure I leave a good mark on this mission and by dang I'm doing it!... hopefully haha.
That was about the excitement for the week though.
Anywho, I'm outta here to go enjoy a nice, rainy preparation day, so I hope all is well with you on the home front. I miss you guys... a lot. Have a great week I'll talk to ya later.
Love always,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Monday, March 14, 2011
Revolution
2011 March 14
Dear Mom,
Haha you weren't kidding that email that you sent! No offense, but it was a little downer-debbie haha. I don't know if it's just because we don't hear the news or being on the mission is messing with my noggin or something, but when we heard about the tsunami in Japan, the first thing I thought was obviously that hopefully everyone is okay, but then I thought that those people are going to be a lot more humble and a lot more ready to receive the gospel now. Like I said, I don't know if I'm just a jacked up person or if I'm just really thinking from a missionary point of view. There's actually a lady in our ward whose son is serving in Japan right now, but luckily he's on the other side of the island, so he wasn't affected by the tsunami... crazy though.
So this week was pretty sweet, I mean, transfers week is always a little nuts because there are companionship changes and all that good stuff. Speaking of companionship changes, Elder Van Hook and I are together for another six weeks here in Beaverton, but it's interesting now because the assistants to the president changed. Well... one of them did. It turns out that Elder Gardner (my best friend of the English elders in the mission) got called up! I love it because we have a little bit more say in things now as Spanish elders haha. I don't want to say that I'm exercising priesthood (or friendships) unrighteously, but I'm seeing what I can do about returning to Woodburn to train for the end of my mission. I'll probably be in Beaverton for another transfer after this one to train a new zone leader as Van Hook goes somewhere to train and die, and then I'll get the boot... hopefully to Woodburn so that president Pister doesn't have to complain about his elders anymore :-)
So now for the other excitement from the week. We started a revolution among the Spanish members to help them gain stronger testimonies and be more willing to share the gospel. It's working pretty well, and we're teaching them just like we would investigators. We're starting with the restoration and working our way up so that they have a solid base and can remember all the stuff they were taught before they were baptized... kinda help them connect the dots on a couple things like Joseph Smith, the book of Mormon, and modern day prophets.
One funny thing from the week though is that we went knocking in some supposedly paisa-packed complexes off of this street called Electric Avenue (yeah like the song). Anyways, we get there and we're all stoked because we see cars with rims, curtains in the windows, shoes outside the door, and some Dish 500 receivers. Unfortunately, all we ran into the whole time were a bunch of middle-easterners! I think it must have been a government-contracted property because we ran into seriously twenty Iraqis and several other refugees from Nepal. One guy we met was a correspondent for the Washington Post in Iraq who was under congressional protection... maybe I shouldn't write about this so he doesn't get his head cut off eh? I'll stop haha. Anyways, it was just really interesting to talk to them (although frustrating because there were no Hispanics!) about Christianity. We ran into one guy who was actually a Christian, and said "you guys don't understand. I'm an original Christian... I speak Jesus language!" I had a hard time not giggling a little bit when he said that. It was cool to talk to them though. One sad thing from knocking that street is that we ran into a sweet Nepalese lady who didn't speak very good English. She let us in and had us sit down to try to talk for a little bit. She asked if we were Christians and we said, well, yes. Then she said, oh, I'm already studying Christianity I know all about it (this is where it gets sad). She proceeded to pull out the "new world translation of the holy scriptures", "what does the bible really teach?", and "Jesus, the greatest man". All Jehovah's Witness blasphemy. I think I'll probably offend someone by saying that, but it's just really sad to me that this sweet lady's ONLY exposure to Christianity came from the JW's... it would take YEARS to pull all of that false doctrine out of her head haha. Luckily we ordered a Nepalese book of Mormon and we're gonna try to get it to her this week.
Wednesday we had a leadership training meeting that was nothing special aside from the fact that they said they were going to try out texting with the zone leaders and district leaders this transfer and based on what happens they're either going to have it go mission-wide, or they're going to get rid of it forever. Goodbye texting, and good riddance haha it's going to be gone faster than a pizza at a weightwatchers convention.
On Thursday, I read something pretty cool in 3Nephi 24 that I want you to check out. It's where Jesus Christ is quoting scripture to the nephites from the prophecy of Malachi. We all know where it talks about a man robbing God and tithing, but the following chapter is where it truly gets interesting. It talks a little more about the importance of the attitude that we have towards the church. I had a little revelation that there is a vast chasm that divides those who obey the commandments from those who truly live the gospel. One can read scriptures, pray, and go to church, but the attitude that you have toward those things makes all the difference. I don't have time to write it all here, but just study that chapter and ponder on what the Lord says to the people in that chapter.
Friday was kind of a meh day with some failed appointments and knocking. We had a couple of lessons with new people, but nothing exciting.
Saturday I spent the day in Gresham, which was weird because we drove down highway 26 and I had déjà vu like none other of when we used to drive over the pass by Mt. Hood to go back to Bend when we lived there... it was good though.
Sunday, we didn't have any investigators in church, but we did, however, get one of our awesome less-actives to come out. His name is Yahir, and he's the son of the most active member of the group (hno. Muniz). He's been inactive since like 15, but we're really seeing changes in him where he has the desire to be a better person. We're actually going to start capacitating him to be able to come out on visits with us... we might even be able to go on splits with him and his dad :-)
Other than that, I read in Mormon 8:35-40 and man that's some harsh reading. I think I talked about it in an email the last time I read through this part of the book of Mormon, but it's a good thing to look at to see what you need to change in your life.
That's all for this week, but I love you guys and I hope all is well on the home front.
Love,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Dear Mom,
Haha you weren't kidding that email that you sent! No offense, but it was a little downer-debbie haha. I don't know if it's just because we don't hear the news or being on the mission is messing with my noggin or something, but when we heard about the tsunami in Japan, the first thing I thought was obviously that hopefully everyone is okay, but then I thought that those people are going to be a lot more humble and a lot more ready to receive the gospel now. Like I said, I don't know if I'm just a jacked up person or if I'm just really thinking from a missionary point of view. There's actually a lady in our ward whose son is serving in Japan right now, but luckily he's on the other side of the island, so he wasn't affected by the tsunami... crazy though.
So this week was pretty sweet, I mean, transfers week is always a little nuts because there are companionship changes and all that good stuff. Speaking of companionship changes, Elder Van Hook and I are together for another six weeks here in Beaverton, but it's interesting now because the assistants to the president changed. Well... one of them did. It turns out that Elder Gardner (my best friend of the English elders in the mission) got called up! I love it because we have a little bit more say in things now as Spanish elders haha. I don't want to say that I'm exercising priesthood (or friendships) unrighteously, but I'm seeing what I can do about returning to Woodburn to train for the end of my mission. I'll probably be in Beaverton for another transfer after this one to train a new zone leader as Van Hook goes somewhere to train and die, and then I'll get the boot... hopefully to Woodburn so that president Pister doesn't have to complain about his elders anymore :-)
So now for the other excitement from the week. We started a revolution among the Spanish members to help them gain stronger testimonies and be more willing to share the gospel. It's working pretty well, and we're teaching them just like we would investigators. We're starting with the restoration and working our way up so that they have a solid base and can remember all the stuff they were taught before they were baptized... kinda help them connect the dots on a couple things like Joseph Smith, the book of Mormon, and modern day prophets.
One funny thing from the week though is that we went knocking in some supposedly paisa-packed complexes off of this street called Electric Avenue (yeah like the song). Anyways, we get there and we're all stoked because we see cars with rims, curtains in the windows, shoes outside the door, and some Dish 500 receivers. Unfortunately, all we ran into the whole time were a bunch of middle-easterners! I think it must have been a government-contracted property because we ran into seriously twenty Iraqis and several other refugees from Nepal. One guy we met was a correspondent for the Washington Post in Iraq who was under congressional protection... maybe I shouldn't write about this so he doesn't get his head cut off eh? I'll stop haha. Anyways, it was just really interesting to talk to them (although frustrating because there were no Hispanics!) about Christianity. We ran into one guy who was actually a Christian, and said "you guys don't understand. I'm an original Christian... I speak Jesus language!" I had a hard time not giggling a little bit when he said that. It was cool to talk to them though. One sad thing from knocking that street is that we ran into a sweet Nepalese lady who didn't speak very good English. She let us in and had us sit down to try to talk for a little bit. She asked if we were Christians and we said, well, yes. Then she said, oh, I'm already studying Christianity I know all about it (this is where it gets sad). She proceeded to pull out the "new world translation of the holy scriptures", "what does the bible really teach?", and "Jesus, the greatest man". All Jehovah's Witness blasphemy. I think I'll probably offend someone by saying that, but it's just really sad to me that this sweet lady's ONLY exposure to Christianity came from the JW's... it would take YEARS to pull all of that false doctrine out of her head haha. Luckily we ordered a Nepalese book of Mormon and we're gonna try to get it to her this week.
Wednesday we had a leadership training meeting that was nothing special aside from the fact that they said they were going to try out texting with the zone leaders and district leaders this transfer and based on what happens they're either going to have it go mission-wide, or they're going to get rid of it forever. Goodbye texting, and good riddance haha it's going to be gone faster than a pizza at a weightwatchers convention.
On Thursday, I read something pretty cool in 3Nephi 24 that I want you to check out. It's where Jesus Christ is quoting scripture to the nephites from the prophecy of Malachi. We all know where it talks about a man robbing God and tithing, but the following chapter is where it truly gets interesting. It talks a little more about the importance of the attitude that we have towards the church. I had a little revelation that there is a vast chasm that divides those who obey the commandments from those who truly live the gospel. One can read scriptures, pray, and go to church, but the attitude that you have toward those things makes all the difference. I don't have time to write it all here, but just study that chapter and ponder on what the Lord says to the people in that chapter.
Friday was kind of a meh day with some failed appointments and knocking. We had a couple of lessons with new people, but nothing exciting.
Saturday I spent the day in Gresham, which was weird because we drove down highway 26 and I had déjà vu like none other of when we used to drive over the pass by Mt. Hood to go back to Bend when we lived there... it was good though.
Sunday, we didn't have any investigators in church, but we did, however, get one of our awesome less-actives to come out. His name is Yahir, and he's the son of the most active member of the group (hno. Muniz). He's been inactive since like 15, but we're really seeing changes in him where he has the desire to be a better person. We're actually going to start capacitating him to be able to come out on visits with us... we might even be able to go on splits with him and his dad :-)
Other than that, I read in Mormon 8:35-40 and man that's some harsh reading. I think I talked about it in an email the last time I read through this part of the book of Mormon, but it's a good thing to look at to see what you need to change in your life.
That's all for this week, but I love you guys and I hope all is well on the home front.
Love,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Monday, March 7, 2011
Staying in Beaverton
2011 March 7
Dear Mom,
You've got pretty dang good timing on your letter writing I have to say haha you got it off just an hour before I could get on here :-).
Last Monday was pretty legit. We took a little trip to a place called Sky-High, which is exactly like that "Jump on It" place that we went to that one time with Grace... remember? Anyways, there were a boat load of trampolines, a dodge ball court, and also a foam pit that you could do ridiculous flips and dives into from a tramp. The thing that made the day was that I set the goal to learn how to do a back flip because for my whole life, I've been WAY too scared to actually do one. Fortunately, I worked up the nerve, and was able to do one after practicing doing them into the foam pit :-) Booyeah. Other than that on Monday, there wasn't anything too terribly exciting that happened.
Tuesday, we went to an appointment in the morning with a guy named Alejandro that I thought for sure was going to send us to the horn, but he turns out to be a super sweet guy! It's kinda weird though... he reminds me of a Hispanic version of myself.... He wears board shorts, hoodies, plays guitar, and loves reggae. Not like frijolero reggaeton, but actual Bob Marley reggae! I was pretty stoked on him, and he ate up the restoration. He was super pumped to read the book of Mormon that we left him, so we'll see what happens this week when we have another appointment with him.
Aside from that on Tuesday, we were late to district meeting because of that lesson with Alejandro, but oh well haha. The one sad thing from the day is that it was elder Nielsen's last district meeting before he goes home (today). It kinda freaks me out because elder Rangel will be going home in six weeks... when he goes home, I'll barely have five months left! Yikes! The time is definitely flying
Wednesday, wasn't anything too exciting aside from elder Jimenez' last district meeting and going to a place called Ochoa's in Hillsboro. If you want good Mexican food, you gotta go there. They're almost comparable with the Red Iguana it's nuts! I had their tacos dorados, and they're almost as good as the tacos Don Ramon I had at the Red Iguana.
The other excitement from Wednesday came that night after our correlation meeting. We went to visit the friend of a group member whose name is Casto. He's a guy in his late 40's who is an absolute stud. He wasn't too stoked the first time we went by with his member friend, but this time we caught him at home and just sat at the table and talked to him. He's going through a rough time right now because he got a DUI about a month ago, and they're contemplating deporting him, so his whole life is kinda up in the air as far as...well.... everything. It wouldn't be such a huge huge deal except that he's very well established here. He speaks English, works as a licensed contractor, owns a house, cars, all that good stuff. Basically, he's freaking out because all that is kinda flashing before his eyes and he might have to go back to Mexico where he was almost killed several times. I feel like the Lord is definitely giving him a wakeup call, and it's good on the spiritual side of things. As we talked about all this stuff he's going through, he said "that's a nice watch. do you like watches?" Turns out he's a collector and went to jewelry school for several years because he likes to... I would term it "dabble." He plays guitar, he is restoring a sweet old car, he collects antiques, nice watches, loves BMW's (and has one, but doesn't want to get shot in Mexico driving it), and is very well educated. Basically, he's just a dang gentleman. He caught some interest in what we had to teach him about, and he's now reading the book of Mormon and hopefully going to start coming to church... mainly because he now has a friend already there, and I'm his friend :-)
Thursday,we planned our revolution. We've come to the conclusion that the members of the group are woefully equipped for sharing the gospel right now, so we're taking it upon ourselves (with the bishop's permission of course) to teach ALL of them about the gospel and have them studying "Preach my Gospel" on a weekly basis so that they can receive that true conversion... I'm pretty stoked on it because we're also helping the English members to realize what they can do to share the gospel as well.
Friday, we did some dry walling in the bathroom at the Sanchez', and by we, I mean I. It turned out pretty well though. I repaired a hole in the wall as well as cleaned up the seams of the board so they were all nice and filled in and prepped it for the sanding we were going to do the next day. One sweet thing was that after we finished with that, brother Sanchez who is a boss, took us out for lunch to this sweet place called Sushi Hana right by the Washington Square mall. Oh. My. Gosh. It was delicious! I'm pretty sure I ate WAY too much sushi, but it was super scrumptious. The Sanchez family goes so often that they've made friends there, so instead of just pulling stuff off the little train, they have someone right there that hooked us up with whatever we wanted the whole time. YUM!
Some other cool stuff that happened that day were two lessons that we had. We first got a call from a media referral investigator who wanted a copy of the book of Mormon, so we jaunted over to his place and talked to him for a little bit. His name is Rafael, and he's awesome. He's from Peru, and is super intelligent. He has bachelor degrees (I'm not sure what in) in Peru as well as here in the states, and is an extremely intelligent individual. He originally visited temple square and was really intrigued and got in contact with the missionaries there, but then moved here, so he's pretty golden... we might be handing him off to the singles ward though because he's late 20's and speaks fairly decent English... D'oh! I don't know.. maybe we'll baptize him first though :-P
After that we had a lesson with a lady named Darlin (yeah like if a Mexican were to say darling), and it went well. She didn't answer the door when we knocked, but it was really funny because one of the people who lives in her apartment came home just as we were leaving and said, "are you looking for Darlin?" We said yes, and so she opened the door and made her come talk to us haha. She looked super embarrassed, but let us in and we taught her about the restoration. She liked it and accepted to read the book of Mormon, so we'll see what happens haha.
Saturday we ( I ) had fun doing some more dry walling at the Sanchez. We ( I ) sanded down the drywall so everything was nice and smooth, except there was one problem... where the hole in the wall was, it was still a little wet! So, to fix it, we had to steal a hair dryer and dry it out that way to get it sanded down haha. Once it was all smoothed out, we ( I ) used a couple cans of texture spray to get the walls nice and textured up. Man, can I tell you that if you don't do it the hopper-fed compressed air way, make sure you have some good ventilation because after just ten or fifteen minutes of spraying that stuff I was as high as a kite! haha. the important thing is that we have it all textured now, so we can prime and paint it this week so it'll look beautiful. Thanks for teaching me how to do that Dad. :-)
The other excitement from that day was that we taught a guy named Gerardo who is also a pretty smart guy. He got kinda dumbed down about what we were teaching him because he attended the Catholic church, so we had to re-teach him the restoration and reiterate the importance of the book of Mormon.
Speaking of the Catholic church, I know I'm not supposed to talk bad about other religions, but man, they suck! You know Mario, the golden investigator who had a date to get baptized yesterday? Yeah, he went to catholic church last week, and he totally lost the light we had brought to him. Instead of being locked and loaded on baptism and the restoration (knowing that all other churches are lacking something) he told us that all churches are good and it doesn't matter where you are because it's the same God, blah blah blah. I about wrung his neck! We read the last two paragraphs of the intro to the book of Mormon with him and he total tarded out and couldn't understand that he needed to read, meditate, and pray to know that the book was true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the church was restored through him. I really feel like the Catholic church needs to go away. Anyways, enough ranting.
We got transfer calls, and I'll let you all know, that I am staying in Beaverton with elder Van Hook for another transfer :-) I'm pretty stoked on it actually. It's gonna give us time to work with some of our sweet gators and get the members locked and loaded more than anything.
Sunday, Rafael came to church and we got double dinnered! Bleh! That was about the excitement for the week though. I've gotta bail, but I love you guys a lot and I hope you're all doing really well. Tell Katie Jo congrats on her singing and that I can't wait to hear her voice!
I love you all very much. Read your scriptures every day and pray to know what you read is true... then be brave enough to open your mouth. The Lord will help you do the rest.
Love always,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Dear Mom,
You've got pretty dang good timing on your letter writing I have to say haha you got it off just an hour before I could get on here :-).
Last Monday was pretty legit. We took a little trip to a place called Sky-High, which is exactly like that "Jump on It" place that we went to that one time with Grace... remember? Anyways, there were a boat load of trampolines, a dodge ball court, and also a foam pit that you could do ridiculous flips and dives into from a tramp. The thing that made the day was that I set the goal to learn how to do a back flip because for my whole life, I've been WAY too scared to actually do one. Fortunately, I worked up the nerve, and was able to do one after practicing doing them into the foam pit :-) Booyeah. Other than that on Monday, there wasn't anything too terribly exciting that happened.
Tuesday, we went to an appointment in the morning with a guy named Alejandro that I thought for sure was going to send us to the horn, but he turns out to be a super sweet guy! It's kinda weird though... he reminds me of a Hispanic version of myself.... He wears board shorts, hoodies, plays guitar, and loves reggae. Not like frijolero reggaeton, but actual Bob Marley reggae! I was pretty stoked on him, and he ate up the restoration. He was super pumped to read the book of Mormon that we left him, so we'll see what happens this week when we have another appointment with him.
Aside from that on Tuesday, we were late to district meeting because of that lesson with Alejandro, but oh well haha. The one sad thing from the day is that it was elder Nielsen's last district meeting before he goes home (today). It kinda freaks me out because elder Rangel will be going home in six weeks... when he goes home, I'll barely have five months left! Yikes! The time is definitely flying
Wednesday, wasn't anything too exciting aside from elder Jimenez' last district meeting and going to a place called Ochoa's in Hillsboro. If you want good Mexican food, you gotta go there. They're almost comparable with the Red Iguana it's nuts! I had their tacos dorados, and they're almost as good as the tacos Don Ramon I had at the Red Iguana.
The other excitement from Wednesday came that night after our correlation meeting. We went to visit the friend of a group member whose name is Casto. He's a guy in his late 40's who is an absolute stud. He wasn't too stoked the first time we went by with his member friend, but this time we caught him at home and just sat at the table and talked to him. He's going through a rough time right now because he got a DUI about a month ago, and they're contemplating deporting him, so his whole life is kinda up in the air as far as...well.... everything. It wouldn't be such a huge huge deal except that he's very well established here. He speaks English, works as a licensed contractor, owns a house, cars, all that good stuff. Basically, he's freaking out because all that is kinda flashing before his eyes and he might have to go back to Mexico where he was almost killed several times. I feel like the Lord is definitely giving him a wakeup call, and it's good on the spiritual side of things. As we talked about all this stuff he's going through, he said "that's a nice watch. do you like watches?" Turns out he's a collector and went to jewelry school for several years because he likes to... I would term it "dabble." He plays guitar, he is restoring a sweet old car, he collects antiques, nice watches, loves BMW's (and has one, but doesn't want to get shot in Mexico driving it), and is very well educated. Basically, he's just a dang gentleman. He caught some interest in what we had to teach him about, and he's now reading the book of Mormon and hopefully going to start coming to church... mainly because he now has a friend already there, and I'm his friend :-)
Thursday,we planned our revolution. We've come to the conclusion that the members of the group are woefully equipped for sharing the gospel right now, so we're taking it upon ourselves (with the bishop's permission of course) to teach ALL of them about the gospel and have them studying "Preach my Gospel" on a weekly basis so that they can receive that true conversion... I'm pretty stoked on it because we're also helping the English members to realize what they can do to share the gospel as well.
Friday, we did some dry walling in the bathroom at the Sanchez', and by we, I mean I. It turned out pretty well though. I repaired a hole in the wall as well as cleaned up the seams of the board so they were all nice and filled in and prepped it for the sanding we were going to do the next day. One sweet thing was that after we finished with that, brother Sanchez who is a boss, took us out for lunch to this sweet place called Sushi Hana right by the Washington Square mall. Oh. My. Gosh. It was delicious! I'm pretty sure I ate WAY too much sushi, but it was super scrumptious. The Sanchez family goes so often that they've made friends there, so instead of just pulling stuff off the little train, they have someone right there that hooked us up with whatever we wanted the whole time. YUM!
Some other cool stuff that happened that day were two lessons that we had. We first got a call from a media referral investigator who wanted a copy of the book of Mormon, so we jaunted over to his place and talked to him for a little bit. His name is Rafael, and he's awesome. He's from Peru, and is super intelligent. He has bachelor degrees (I'm not sure what in) in Peru as well as here in the states, and is an extremely intelligent individual. He originally visited temple square and was really intrigued and got in contact with the missionaries there, but then moved here, so he's pretty golden... we might be handing him off to the singles ward though because he's late 20's and speaks fairly decent English... D'oh! I don't know.. maybe we'll baptize him first though :-P
After that we had a lesson with a lady named Darlin (yeah like if a Mexican were to say darling), and it went well. She didn't answer the door when we knocked, but it was really funny because one of the people who lives in her apartment came home just as we were leaving and said, "are you looking for Darlin?" We said yes, and so she opened the door and made her come talk to us haha. She looked super embarrassed, but let us in and we taught her about the restoration. She liked it and accepted to read the book of Mormon, so we'll see what happens haha.
Saturday we ( I ) had fun doing some more dry walling at the Sanchez. We ( I ) sanded down the drywall so everything was nice and smooth, except there was one problem... where the hole in the wall was, it was still a little wet! So, to fix it, we had to steal a hair dryer and dry it out that way to get it sanded down haha. Once it was all smoothed out, we ( I ) used a couple cans of texture spray to get the walls nice and textured up. Man, can I tell you that if you don't do it the hopper-fed compressed air way, make sure you have some good ventilation because after just ten or fifteen minutes of spraying that stuff I was as high as a kite! haha. the important thing is that we have it all textured now, so we can prime and paint it this week so it'll look beautiful. Thanks for teaching me how to do that Dad. :-)
The other excitement from that day was that we taught a guy named Gerardo who is also a pretty smart guy. He got kinda dumbed down about what we were teaching him because he attended the Catholic church, so we had to re-teach him the restoration and reiterate the importance of the book of Mormon.
Speaking of the Catholic church, I know I'm not supposed to talk bad about other religions, but man, they suck! You know Mario, the golden investigator who had a date to get baptized yesterday? Yeah, he went to catholic church last week, and he totally lost the light we had brought to him. Instead of being locked and loaded on baptism and the restoration (knowing that all other churches are lacking something) he told us that all churches are good and it doesn't matter where you are because it's the same God, blah blah blah. I about wrung his neck! We read the last two paragraphs of the intro to the book of Mormon with him and he total tarded out and couldn't understand that he needed to read, meditate, and pray to know that the book was true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the church was restored through him. I really feel like the Catholic church needs to go away. Anyways, enough ranting.
We got transfer calls, and I'll let you all know, that I am staying in Beaverton with elder Van Hook for another transfer :-) I'm pretty stoked on it actually. It's gonna give us time to work with some of our sweet gators and get the members locked and loaded more than anything.
Sunday, Rafael came to church and we got double dinnered! Bleh! That was about the excitement for the week though. I've gotta bail, but I love you guys a lot and I hope you're all doing really well. Tell Katie Jo congrats on her singing and that I can't wait to hear her voice!
I love you all very much. Read your scriptures every day and pray to know what you read is true... then be brave enough to open your mouth. The Lord will help you do the rest.
Love always,
Elder Kurt Mooney
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