Busy, busy

2011 June 27
Dearest Mommy,

Okay, so there's not a ton of time to write this email because we have a lesson set up to teach a couple of investigators that showed up with a less-active member yesterday to church in about half an hour, so I'll try to get it all packed in here what went down.

So Monday Elders Cox and Wohlleben were about to kill each other, so we split them up, putting Wohlleben with the elders from Bull Mountain and we took elder Cox to the mall because he was looking at getting a new suit. We took a trip to Washington Square, and I spent some money... I spent $20 on a pair of jeans and $8 on a shirt I'm sorry! Then to make it worse we took elder Cox to Cheesecake factory the following day for his birthday where supposedly a salad would only be eight bucks and with a drink would be ten, so 20 to pay for Cox and myself, but it turned out to be more expensive. Add to that fact that elder Anderson forgot his wallet and what you get is $50.00 which I did NOT have on my chase card. instead of the $20 I was going to pay... sucky day. IOU $$$$$$$!!!

So, back to the excitement for the week. At the Mall, elder Cox introduced me to my new favorite store (well, kinda) which is called H&M. Pretty rad place. That night, we had an FHE with an active family discussing how they could answer questions about their church. We had put together what we thought were simple answers for all of them, but when we asked them the questions and asked them to try to answer, they totally roushed us! Instead of explaining how people "know" that God exists, this six year old kid said "I'm not exactly sure how to explain it, but I know some missionaries that can tell you. How bout you come to my house sometime and they can answer your question?" GENIUS! Oh my goodness I never felt so dumb in my whole life. That would be about 1000 times easier than how we were trying to do it haha.

Tuesday, we had a blitz with some elders that are struggling, and it went really well. We just went knocking, and had a total blast. I went with this elder named elder Young, and it was a good thing for him because he's stuck with a companion right now that has him (elder Young) pulling all the weight for the area. The good thing is that we picked up a couple of new investigators for them, so they should be in good shape for at least the next couple of weeks... goodness I love knocking doors sometimes. We knocked for three hours, and in that three hours, we only talked to probably ten people. The thing is though, that was in a total of maybe 12 doors haha. It was really fun!

Wednesday, we started an exchange with some elders in McMinnville that went really well. We went knocking and bumped into a kid that reminded me entirely too much of myself. He's a 2008 graduate, loves reggae, and get this: we found him outside wrenching on his white 1991 Jeep Wrangler SE with the 4 cylinder 2.5. Perfect segue into a conversation, right? We ended up talking shop for a good while and found out that he has a lot of Mormon friends... it was a blastie haha. We're hopefully gonna get him hooked up for some lessons... if nothing else, he's gonna come down and do a Moab trip with me sometime after the mission haha.

Thursday morning we went over and did service for Scott Cunningham, and it went great. He is seriously the coolest guy I've ever met... He's gonna be an amazing member of the church when it finally happens. the cool thing is that he really opened up to me to where we really are friends now. Turns out he finds himself in a situation almost identical to where dad was with Denise. She had already had a kid, he adopted her when they got married, they had another kid, and then, well, you know the rest of the story. Anyway, I know it might sound weird, but I'm gonna see if I can get dad hooked up to talk to him so that he can see the light at the end of the tunnel with what's going on. This could end up being the ultimate opportunity to change someone's life, because when Scott talked to me about this, he didn't know how to deal with what he was going through, and all he wants is so badly for things to work out so that he can have a happy family. That's really his only hope and dream.

After that, later in the day, I interviewed one of Elder Cox's baptismal Candidates named Judy Hope, and she was awesome. We ended up having an hour and a half interview just because we talked so much about, well, everything. It's a bad thing when you have two people in a conversation that can't shut up haha. It was interesting though. I taught her how to pray in a group, because she's never felt comfortable, and when I asked he to do it, she gave the most heartfelt, sincere prayer I think I've ever hear... it put me to tears it was awesome!

Friday, we did a blitz with the Sherwood elders to get them excited about life, and it went really well. It was during the Sherwood garage sale extravaganza, so we put two elders to walk around in the parks to contact, and two others to peruse the yard sales. It actually turned out to be quite effective, and we met some nice folks that all love their neighbor members... hopefully that spells dinners with the families that have those neighbors :-)

Saturday, we did some super service haha. In the morning after studies, Ella Rose's son Matt and his family arrived and we decided to tear apart the entire garage and put it back together again, and it turned out to be a wonderful idea. The place looks spic and span, just like it should :-) After they took off, I did a run-through with the sprinklers and got them turned on for the summer so that the yard won't be burned up... the house is actually really looking good so we're excited to see how it'll be during the summer with a little extra help.

After that, we had a fun little service opportunity with a propane torch burning weeds... holy awesomeness it was fun :-)

Sunday, we had a sweet little revolution meeting with both ward mission leaders where we organized ourselves into what we're going to accomplish with the ward members, which should be good. Then, Scott showed up to church! Plop! After that, we had two non-members show up to church with a less-active member! Awesome! Blessings for righteous living!

I gotta go I love you guys!

-Elder Mooney