Dear Mom,
Well, I have to say that I absolutely love life as an English zone leader haha. It's definitely a whole different animal, but it's still fun nonetheless....
Anyway, here's what happened this week. Tuesday was our technical P-day, and we had a blast! After doing emails, we went to lunch with some guys named Mark and Brent. These two are absolutely loaded and just like taking the missionaries out to lunch about once a week, and holy cow they lay down the cash! I was dumbfounded to see the vast chasm that separates the poverty of the Spanish community and the affluence of the residents of Sherwood... it's night and day man, holy cow! It's funny to see what are considered "hardships" between the two. Case in point: someone we were doing service for had a doorknob break on them to where they couldn't get the latch to release to open the door to their garage and also had the wiring to the outlet for their 65" big screen short out, so they couldn't watch the tube and she made the comment of "The Lord is really testing me right now." It just makes me think of the stuff the hispanics deal with like not being able to work because they don't have papers, getting deported to Mexico, family members dying and not being able to afford a funeral, etc.. I'm not saying that this lady was total griping about life, but it's just interesting to see the difference of what comfortable living does to your point of view... ya know?
Anywho, we went to downtown Portland and visited Nordstrom Rack along with a few other entertaining stores before coming back to Sherwood and having a couple of sweet member lessons. What elder Wylde has started here is pretty awesome and it's working... He took my "revolution" idea to heart and has applied it to the two wards we're covering. I went on a split with our ward mission leader to teach a less-active member named Amy, and it went amazingly! We just taught her the first lesson and talked about how it applied to her own life and what she could do to bless the lives of others, and we got off on a tangent about one of her friends that hopefully we're gonna be teaching tonight now because we sparked some missionary fire in her... Revolution!
Wednesday, we had a good day... I have to say that English district meetings are really weird, however... like extremely different, so we're gonna be working on that. I'll talk more about that with the district leader council that we had on Saturday haha. That night though, we had splits with one of our wards, and it was awesome! Holy cow I about freaked out because we had three ward missionaries, our ward mission leader, and ourselves to go do some visits, and it was awesome! I'm not used to having so many dang resource so easily accessible and so adept to what we're doing as missionaries... I kinda like being able to do what we're doing here haha. This area is gonna blow up!
One thing that I'm finding very hard in this area is keeping the morning schedule. Not because we're really lazy or anything, but because we live with sister DeLong. Her full name is Ella Rose DeLong, and she is the sweetest woman to ever walk the face of the earth! She's actually a Hinckley, her father was an apostle, and she has personally met or had an experience with every prophet from Heber J. Grant to the present excluding Howard W. Hunter... crazy right? Like honestly, if the quorum of the 12 and the first presidency disappeared, I'm pretty sure this lady could preside over the church and things would go just fine haha. How this relates to us struggling getting out of bed at 6:15 in the morning is the fact that we stay up until 12:00 or one in the morning talking about doctrinal stuff and hearing her amazing stories... she is an amazing lady! You will have to meet her when I'm done with the mission or if she takes another trip to Utah... absolutely wonderful. She's even the cousin of elder Maxwell's wife :-)
So, one of the days that we had a battle getting out of bed on time was Thursday. We ended up having a good day though, and even found time during weekly planning as we plotte- I mean, planned what we were going to do with the zone to make it amaz-z-zing by making miniature planners. These things are sweet! They're half sized, so they fit perfectly in the pocket of our pants instead of being an awkward size that trashes your shirt pocket haha.
Friday, we did service for that lady who felt that she was being tested a little bit, and it was pretty fun! We spent a good chunk of the day stripping paint and sanding her deck and front steps of the nasty white paint that had been laid down on it when their house was first built. It was fun! It was funny talking to this lady and her son about being a missionary and stuff. He's only like 12, but doesn't really want to serve a mission, but his mom was trying to convince him that it's not "just boring church stuff" but that there are other benefits, so it was a good time to show that you can learn a different language, become smarter, learn how to re-wire a dryer (haha), and even install doorknobs and pick locks with a credit card (yep, know how to do that now too haha), etc.. He kinda got a little more pumped about serving a mission at least from sharing a couple of those experiences with him, so hopefully he'll go in a couple years haha.
Saturday, we had a district leader council where elder Wilde and I decided to kinda lay the beat down on everyone so that they'll know what to expect in this zone. We weren't mean about it, but we just told them that we had high expectations and that if they didn't achieve them, we were going to send them to heck haha. We revamped how we want district meetings run, what we want them to be reporting to us, and how often, so we'll see how things go in the following weeks. Like I said, Pres. Dyches kind of set us up with... um... challenging elders in some places, so we'll be put to task to keep them running like a well- oiled machine.
We went contacting random people in the park on Saturday day, and we ended up talking to four people. Sounds terrible right? The good part is though, that out of those four people, we set up three return-appointments. It would have been four, but the fourth person was a pastor's wife and lived in California. Revolution! People can contact 200+ in a day, but I'll take my three with return appointments haha.
Sunday was interesting in that being in a ward is WEIRD! There are lots of people, lots of talent, and lots of money! Everyone was dressed nicely, can sing, and doesn't say blasphemous things over the pulpit... I'm still kinda not used to it. It was good though, and now I know what I'm bringing people to, I'm not worried about it as much as far as investigators go haha.
I know my emails are a little bit shorter, but it's because I don't have as much time, and being an english zone leader is a little more demanding in some aspects just because the caliber of missionaries is a little bit lower and so there are more... how shall I say... needs haha. Thank you so much for the thoughtful easter package that you sent me mommy, it really means a lot! It's always good to hear from you guys. I hope everything is going well for you and that you're having a great week... and hopefully enjoying some sunshine.. I know that we sure have this past week!
I love you tons and I'll talk to ya on mothers day!
Love,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Transferred!
2011 April 19
Dear Mom,
So, I wanted to respond a little to the email that you sent me before I start my letter haha. What you are doing with Katie is exactly the right thing. What you did with me was exactly the right thing as well. We may come from the same family, but we're not two peas in a pod haha. Keeping me home for my first year of college really helped me to establish a spiritual foundation that I NEVER would have gained had I moved out to go to college... honestly, I think it saved my life (the spiritual one at least) and allowed me the ambiance necessary to get me locked and loaded on a mission. What you're pushing Katie to do is going to be perfect for her because she doesn't have the same struggles as I do. She has a testimony (which I originally didn't) and she doesn't have the opportunity to serve a mission (something that I do), so her going to school away from home is going to be exactly what she needs in this point of her life to really help her learn and grow. I've come to know that the only way to live life is by always progressing. If you're not progressing, you're stagnating. In the scriptures, there's a good word used for this state of being: DAMNATION. I know that's harsh to say, but it's entirely true, and as we find new opportunities to learn and grow in life, we become better people and more like our Heavenly Father. Okay, no more preaching... just don't worry about Katie and the decision to head her off to school... she'll be great!
Okay, so on to the big news... transfers! Yes, I did get transferred haha. I was shocked when the call came, because elder Van Hook only has three more transfers, and he's spending another one in Beaverton, so who knows what's going to happen with him after this one. the other big news is where I got transferred... brace yourselves, okay? I got transferred to Sherwood... ENGLISH SPEAKING! I'm now a zone leader for the Tualatin zone with elder Kenton Wylde, and I'm PUMPED! I know that I've been talking smack on English elders for my entire mission, and now I finally have the opportunity to help them not suck and show them how we do things estilo-latino haha. The other thing that makes it great is that I couldn't have asked for a better companion to be with. Remember how I told you all about zone leader council meetings where I threw all the English missionaries under the bus (probably the big reason I got sent here haha) and how I hoped that they could change? This elder Wylde was one of the few English missionaries that I respected and was friends with before coming here because he knows how to work and be successful. During the zone leader councils, he was only one in English saying the same things I was, so president Dyches decided to put us together to show everyone what's up... REVOLUTION! I feel like it's pretty funny because the member we live with speaks Spanish, and so does her maid (yup, I went from the dumpiest Spanish apt. to having a maid and parking in a garage... I'll talk more later about the living situation outside of the parentheses), so elder Wylde is left to learn a little Spanish before he goes home. Oh, just so you know, he has six weeks left before he goes home, so he's gonna have to learn fast!
Seriously though, this is quite possibly the best English-going situation possible that I could have come across. I am also officially the first and only Spanish elder to be both a Spanish AND an English zone leader haha... who knows? Maybe I'll be the first to train in both as well before I die. Speaking of which, only four transfers left until that happens... yikes! Anyways, to talk a little bit about the living situation, we live with a member named sister DeLong, and she's awesome! She actually knows a bunch of the prophets personally as well as Hugh Nibley and a mess of other church scholars like Truman Madsen... interesting right? Another funny connection is that she is actually Neal A. Maxwell's wife's cousin :-) anyway, even just from being here one day, I can tell that this place is gonna be sweet. We share the house with her, and it's a pretty cush place... it's so strange to go from poverty to affluence again. I can't lie, it's nice, but I'm not used to it now haha. We park in a garage, have someone to do our laundry, a tailor that does our stuff for free, a place that does at-cost dry cleaning for the missionaries, an opportunity to golf Pumpkin Ridge for FREE, among a whole mess of other hookups... I'm kinda stoked on this area haha. Aside from just that, there is tons to do as far as work is concerned. I guess elder Wylde's last companion was kind of dragging his feet, so now he's super pumped to have some new life in the area and to find more people to teach as well as baptize some investigators that they have right now.
Okay, now that I've given you that, I'll update you a little bit on my last week in Beaverton:
Monday we took a trip as a district on the Max over to Clackamas to hit up the DI for some books, and oh my goodness I lucked out! I picked up a couple that are worth some major cash for next to nothing... for example: "Since Cumorah" by Hugh Nibley which at Deseret Book goes for $40 normally I was able to pick up for $2.50 at the DI... I love bargain shopping and even more importantly, I love READING! I ended up hauling around like 40 pounds of books for a couple of hours because I bought so many haha.
Tuesday, the sun finally came out, so we went jackets off for the first time, and had an interesting knocking experience haha. We were let in by this guy who turned out to be a total paisa. We talked to him about the restoration and then he stopped us to ask us something "important" He said "do you believe in Santa Claus?" We kinda looked at each other a little confused and said "well.. we did as kids.." and he said "well you should believe in him like we do in the Catholic church. It talks about him in the bible." Elder Van Hook was about losing it and covering his smile with his hand and covering his laugh with a cough as this guy recounted us the story of Santa and how he lived in the woods and made toys for kids, but as he got old and God was going to take him back to his presence, the children were sad, so God decided to let him stay and keep giving out gifts to kids, and that's why Santa clause is real... I'm still looking for that chapter hahaha. Pretty good right? I thought you might enjoy that haha.
One cool thing about that night was the fact that we had a sweet lesson with Oscar and Franci where we found out that Franci has completely stopped drinking coffee and got work off on Sundays... she's gonna be able to come to church!
Wednesday we had a beatdown lesson with a guy named Arturo. His two kids Marcos and Miriam both had baptismal dates, but he (supposedly an inactive member) had a hard time that we were preaching "John Smith" instead of Jesus Christ. We had a nice little lesson about the servants of the lord, and it went pretty well. It's interesting because I wasn't angry at all, but I spoke as I was moved upon by the spirit, and literally left him dumbfounded... it was like Nephi and talking to his brothers when he was building the boat and they finally put up and started helping... similar situation. 1Nephi 18. Read it. The coolest part is he committed to read and pray about the book of mormon to "rekindle" his testimony.
Thursday we had a great visit with the Muniz. I really love those guys and Yahir recounted us a cool story about how he was talking with his dad about changing his life and being at a loss as to what to do, and how fifteen minutes later we showed up and I felt inspired to give him a book of mormon to get him reading again. It's cool to have little blessings like that drop on you once in a while. Anyways, they gave me their address and phone number in Mexico because they want me to visit down there after the mission.
To kinda combine the rest of the lessons from Thursday with Friday, I've realized that the more time I have in an area, the more bold I become with how I teach people. It's kinda how old people kinda come to a point where they do what they want, that's what happened with me and I got bold with some people haha. I laid down on some members for being slackers haha the good thing is that the ones I rebuked all came to church on Sunday.
Saturday was interesting because no transfer calls came, so we were kinda stuck floating haha. We also went to McMinnville for a baptism of elder Van Hook's.
Sunday at 6:30 in the morning we got a call, so I got all of my stuff packed, and HOLY CRAP! I have a lot of stuff! It's all good though because it fit in the car haha. I'm kinda shocked, but I was really sad to leave Beaverton.. it was a great area and I learned a lot not only from Van Hook, but from all of the members and investigators there as well... I'm gonna miss it.
Anyways, that was the excitement for the week. I realized that with this transfer, there are two ways to look at it: I can belly-ache and complain about not being in Spanish where I wanted to be, or I can take this change as an opportunity for growth and change (remember the damnation thought) to become a better person... I'm really stoked on this though honestly. I have such a great opportunity that NO other elder has ever had, so I plan on taking full advantage of these circumstances.
Well, I love you all a lot. I'm sorry this email is so scatterbrained, but that's what happens when you get transferred haha. I'll talk to ya next week!
Love,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Dear Mom,
So, I wanted to respond a little to the email that you sent me before I start my letter haha. What you are doing with Katie is exactly the right thing. What you did with me was exactly the right thing as well. We may come from the same family, but we're not two peas in a pod haha. Keeping me home for my first year of college really helped me to establish a spiritual foundation that I NEVER would have gained had I moved out to go to college... honestly, I think it saved my life (the spiritual one at least) and allowed me the ambiance necessary to get me locked and loaded on a mission. What you're pushing Katie to do is going to be perfect for her because she doesn't have the same struggles as I do. She has a testimony (which I originally didn't) and she doesn't have the opportunity to serve a mission (something that I do), so her going to school away from home is going to be exactly what she needs in this point of her life to really help her learn and grow. I've come to know that the only way to live life is by always progressing. If you're not progressing, you're stagnating. In the scriptures, there's a good word used for this state of being: DAMNATION. I know that's harsh to say, but it's entirely true, and as we find new opportunities to learn and grow in life, we become better people and more like our Heavenly Father. Okay, no more preaching... just don't worry about Katie and the decision to head her off to school... she'll be great!
Okay, so on to the big news... transfers! Yes, I did get transferred haha. I was shocked when the call came, because elder Van Hook only has three more transfers, and he's spending another one in Beaverton, so who knows what's going to happen with him after this one. the other big news is where I got transferred... brace yourselves, okay? I got transferred to Sherwood... ENGLISH SPEAKING! I'm now a zone leader for the Tualatin zone with elder Kenton Wylde, and I'm PUMPED! I know that I've been talking smack on English elders for my entire mission, and now I finally have the opportunity to help them not suck and show them how we do things estilo-latino haha. The other thing that makes it great is that I couldn't have asked for a better companion to be with. Remember how I told you all about zone leader council meetings where I threw all the English missionaries under the bus (probably the big reason I got sent here haha) and how I hoped that they could change? This elder Wylde was one of the few English missionaries that I respected and was friends with before coming here because he knows how to work and be successful. During the zone leader councils, he was only one in English saying the same things I was, so president Dyches decided to put us together to show everyone what's up... REVOLUTION! I feel like it's pretty funny because the member we live with speaks Spanish, and so does her maid (yup, I went from the dumpiest Spanish apt. to having a maid and parking in a garage... I'll talk more later about the living situation outside of the parentheses), so elder Wylde is left to learn a little Spanish before he goes home. Oh, just so you know, he has six weeks left before he goes home, so he's gonna have to learn fast!
Seriously though, this is quite possibly the best English-going situation possible that I could have come across. I am also officially the first and only Spanish elder to be both a Spanish AND an English zone leader haha... who knows? Maybe I'll be the first to train in both as well before I die. Speaking of which, only four transfers left until that happens... yikes! Anyways, to talk a little bit about the living situation, we live with a member named sister DeLong, and she's awesome! She actually knows a bunch of the prophets personally as well as Hugh Nibley and a mess of other church scholars like Truman Madsen... interesting right? Another funny connection is that she is actually Neal A. Maxwell's wife's cousin :-) anyway, even just from being here one day, I can tell that this place is gonna be sweet. We share the house with her, and it's a pretty cush place... it's so strange to go from poverty to affluence again. I can't lie, it's nice, but I'm not used to it now haha. We park in a garage, have someone to do our laundry, a tailor that does our stuff for free, a place that does at-cost dry cleaning for the missionaries, an opportunity to golf Pumpkin Ridge for FREE, among a whole mess of other hookups... I'm kinda stoked on this area haha. Aside from just that, there is tons to do as far as work is concerned. I guess elder Wylde's last companion was kind of dragging his feet, so now he's super pumped to have some new life in the area and to find more people to teach as well as baptize some investigators that they have right now.
Okay, now that I've given you that, I'll update you a little bit on my last week in Beaverton:
Monday we took a trip as a district on the Max over to Clackamas to hit up the DI for some books, and oh my goodness I lucked out! I picked up a couple that are worth some major cash for next to nothing... for example: "Since Cumorah" by Hugh Nibley which at Deseret Book goes for $40 normally I was able to pick up for $2.50 at the DI... I love bargain shopping and even more importantly, I love READING! I ended up hauling around like 40 pounds of books for a couple of hours because I bought so many haha.
Tuesday, the sun finally came out, so we went jackets off for the first time, and had an interesting knocking experience haha. We were let in by this guy who turned out to be a total paisa. We talked to him about the restoration and then he stopped us to ask us something "important" He said "do you believe in Santa Claus?" We kinda looked at each other a little confused and said "well.. we did as kids.." and he said "well you should believe in him like we do in the Catholic church. It talks about him in the bible." Elder Van Hook was about losing it and covering his smile with his hand and covering his laugh with a cough as this guy recounted us the story of Santa and how he lived in the woods and made toys for kids, but as he got old and God was going to take him back to his presence, the children were sad, so God decided to let him stay and keep giving out gifts to kids, and that's why Santa clause is real... I'm still looking for that chapter hahaha. Pretty good right? I thought you might enjoy that haha.
One cool thing about that night was the fact that we had a sweet lesson with Oscar and Franci where we found out that Franci has completely stopped drinking coffee and got work off on Sundays... she's gonna be able to come to church!
Wednesday we had a beatdown lesson with a guy named Arturo. His two kids Marcos and Miriam both had baptismal dates, but he (supposedly an inactive member) had a hard time that we were preaching "John Smith" instead of Jesus Christ. We had a nice little lesson about the servants of the lord, and it went pretty well. It's interesting because I wasn't angry at all, but I spoke as I was moved upon by the spirit, and literally left him dumbfounded... it was like Nephi and talking to his brothers when he was building the boat and they finally put up and started helping... similar situation. 1Nephi 18. Read it. The coolest part is he committed to read and pray about the book of mormon to "rekindle" his testimony.
Thursday we had a great visit with the Muniz. I really love those guys and Yahir recounted us a cool story about how he was talking with his dad about changing his life and being at a loss as to what to do, and how fifteen minutes later we showed up and I felt inspired to give him a book of mormon to get him reading again. It's cool to have little blessings like that drop on you once in a while. Anyways, they gave me their address and phone number in Mexico because they want me to visit down there after the mission.
To kinda combine the rest of the lessons from Thursday with Friday, I've realized that the more time I have in an area, the more bold I become with how I teach people. It's kinda how old people kinda come to a point where they do what they want, that's what happened with me and I got bold with some people haha. I laid down on some members for being slackers haha the good thing is that the ones I rebuked all came to church on Sunday.
Saturday was interesting because no transfer calls came, so we were kinda stuck floating haha. We also went to McMinnville for a baptism of elder Van Hook's.
Sunday at 6:30 in the morning we got a call, so I got all of my stuff packed, and HOLY CRAP! I have a lot of stuff! It's all good though because it fit in the car haha. I'm kinda shocked, but I was really sad to leave Beaverton.. it was a great area and I learned a lot not only from Van Hook, but from all of the members and investigators there as well... I'm gonna miss it.
Anyways, that was the excitement for the week. I realized that with this transfer, there are two ways to look at it: I can belly-ache and complain about not being in Spanish where I wanted to be, or I can take this change as an opportunity for growth and change (remember the damnation thought) to become a better person... I'm really stoked on this though honestly. I have such a great opportunity that NO other elder has ever had, so I plan on taking full advantage of these circumstances.
Well, I love you all a lot. I'm sorry this email is so scatterbrained, but that's what happens when you get transferred haha. I'll talk to ya next week!
Love,
Elder Kurt Mooney
Monday, April 11, 2011
Baptism! Surprise!
2011 April 11
Well, like the title says, I had a baptism! I say "I" because it was one of my investigators from Woodburn that got baptized haha. You remember Lupe G right? Well, for a long time I was teaching her son Angel's girlfriend Maggie. At one point, she had a really solid baptismal date, but then she broke up with Angel and fell off the map. Anyway, I came to find out a while back that Angel and her had gotten back together and that... well... she was pregnant. Because of that, they decided to man (and woman) up and tie the knot. Because of that (and a lot of pushing from Lupe G and counseling from Pres. Pister), they got married and Maggie got baptized! Ta-daaa! It made for an exciting weekend because Lupe G insisted that I be there for the wedding as well as the baptism, which were held on two different days. It. Was. Sweet! haha Mexican weddings are a total party. President Pister married them and afterward we enjoyed ourselves eating birria, rice, beans, and tortillas whilst everyone made comments about how freakishly skinny I look now compared to how chubby I was during my time in Woodburn originally haha.
Okay, so regressing to the beginning of the week to fill you in, here's what happened:
Monday, like I said in my last email, we had our combined zone activity where we played soccer in the rain for a good two or three hours. It was funny because first we played a good ol' civil-war status game of North zone versus the South, and just like history tells us, the North was triumphant :-). We beat them 4-2 and then decided to play old-farts versus the greenies.... the problem was that everyone was so young that in order to divide it evenly, we had to take from nine months and older to make the teams even! It was a blast and a super tight game. The best part? Yours truly scored the winning goal to finish the game 4-3... you can just call me Rooney instead of Mooney :-)
After that, we got home, emailed, and tried with a couple of appointments. They fell through, so we visited an inactive member that we had knocked into, and met his kids Marcos and Maira. Turns out that they're super sweet and want to learn about the gospel (they're unbaptized). So, we taught them the restoration and they ate it up and wanted to read the Book of Mormon and pray to find out if it's true. It was definitely a good way to end the day because it was at like 8:45 at night and we were planning on going home, but something told us to go try with them. Hooray for the guidance of the Spirit.
Tuesday we had zone conference which wasn't anything exciting aside from the fact that I have come to the conclusion that being in Hispanic culture for so long has made me talk way too much. Now that I've learned to talk a lot, I'm gonna need to re-learn how to shut up after the mission haha. After zone conference, we had a lesson with Oscar and Franci where we talked about the 10 commandments and taught them to keep the Sabbath day holy and then the word of wisdom. Not because we had planned it, but because they asked questions about it, so we kinda burned their eyebrows off with all the information that we fed them. They liked it though, and they committed to live it, so we'll see what happens.
Wednesday, I went on exchange with Elder Ballard in the Aloha area. He's a super sweet kid! He's a farm boy from Benjamin, Utah up in the Logan area, and he is seriously a champ. He definitely knows how to work! One thing about being in his area is that I was really jealous of all of the Hispanics that are there... it gave me a good idea of what we're gonna be stealing from them in the future because our plans for making a branch includes a good chunk of their area... muahaha :-). One thing that was funny from that day was the food that we had. It was an awesome Mexican meal of just enchiladas and carne asada, but holy cow it about killed me! I'm not used to eating that much anymore, and I couldn't shovel it all in like in my other areas... I'm skinnier than I used to be, so I can't fit that much food in me haha.
Thursday, we decided to do some spring cleaning and oh how the apartment needed it haha! It was a total mess! I mean, we've cleaned it so it didn't like stink or anything, but it's just been hard to find the time (and the effort) to give it a thorough cleaning, so we decided to buckle down and clean 'er out for a good hour or so during weekly planning haha. After that we taught Marcos and Maira and gave them a baptismal date for the 8th of May. Yes!
Friday, we had a sweet lesson in the morning with a lady named Angelica as well as with her brother and sister that are all sharing an apartment. They accepted the challenge to read the book of Mormon and pray about it. One frustrating thing that happened was with a referral from sister Farbe in the ward. Their names are Estela and Cesar, and they were pretty sweet people. Unfortunately, before we went over for a second lesson with them, Cesar spent a good couple of hours poring over anti garbage and then read the first seven chapters of the book of Mormon. To be brief, it sucked and I was really upset at how idiotic he was being. He said "how can I believe that the book of Mormon is true without any proof of the gold plates even existing? If they were real, they should have them on display or something." I said, "you know what, you're absolutely right. We should have the resurrected Christ on display right next to them too so that you could just know instead of having to have faith... ya hypocrite." yeah, he got pretty fired up when I talked to him about that and said "no, that's not the same thing!" What he doesn't understand is that it's the EXACT SAME PRINCIPLE. Anyway, we ended up closing on a good note to where he wants to keep reading and have us back (mainly because I destroyed him), so hopefully he is humble enough to show some faith and real intent with what he's doing. I tell ya man, I can't handle people bashing the truth anymore it makes me SO MAD!
The thing that gets me about anti-Mormon reading is this: I'll put it into a sort of parable so we can understand this. If I'm looking into buying a Ducati motorcycle, I'm going to first hear about it from a friend or advertisement. From there, if you want to know more, who do you go to? You go to someone who specializes in building, riding, and selling them, then do your comparisons with other bike companies that claim to have similar bikes. Instead, those who I would liken to anti-readers would look up some nonsense like "why Ducatis are the worst bikes ever made" It doesn't make sense... ya know what I mean?
Anyway, enough ranting. Saturday we had another exchange and I went with elder Garland to the wedding down in Woodburn which was a blast. After the wedding, we went to a dinner (yeah, we were already full of Mexican food haha) with a lady who wanted us over to talk to one of her friends about the church. Turns out the guy was really sweet. He was someone who really "gets" it. He talked to us about how people would try to tell him anti crap about the church and he said "I don't care. If I want to learn about it, I'm gonna learn about it from those who live it, experience it, and believe it. He was open-minded about it, so it turned out to be awesome. We kinda chit-chatted for quite a while about a myriad of religious subjects, then talked about the suffering in the world today. He was saying, "ya know, I know that there's a purpose for it, and that God is obviously in control of everything that is happening and it will turn out okay... I just don't have the answers as to why he can let it happen. That's when I had the opportunity to explain to him the understanding we have of the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it covers not just sins, but pains, afflictions, sufferings, sadness, sickness, and all other negative aspects of human life if we will come to him. When I said that, he kinda sat with a pensive look on his face. Then I told him "ya gotta read the Book of Mormon man, it'll give you a deeper appreciation for what your Savior did for you." After saying that, he said "I really do want to read it... do you have a copy that I could borrow?" We gave him a copy and jotted down his number and told him to call us with any questions... I'm pretty stoked to have another opportunity to teach him. he's a sweet guy.
Sunday, we didn't have anyone in church unfortunately, but it was good in that afterwards we got to go to Woodburn for the baptism of Maggie :-) The only other exciting thing that happened was just something that I read in the Book of Mormon in 1Nephi 17:8-10 that talks about personal revelation. The thing that makes it interesting is that Nephi receives the revelation that he needs to build a boat. As soon as Nephi learns this, he heads up the mountain to talk to the Lord. When he gets there, he doesn't ask "okay, how do I do it?" rather he asks "Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?" It's pretty sweet in that he took the initiative after just receiving a little nudge from the Spirit as to what he was going to do. The same applies to us. If we want personal revelation, we have to be open to the Spirit. After we receive the initial nudge, we have to be willing to do all we can within our power to follow that prompting so that we receive further light and instruction. Sweet eh? That whole chapter is sweet. Check it out.
All right, I'm outta time, but I love you guys and I'll talk to ya next week.
-Elder Mooney
Well, like the title says, I had a baptism! I say "I" because it was one of my investigators from Woodburn that got baptized haha. You remember Lupe G right? Well, for a long time I was teaching her son Angel's girlfriend Maggie. At one point, she had a really solid baptismal date, but then she broke up with Angel and fell off the map. Anyway, I came to find out a while back that Angel and her had gotten back together and that... well... she was pregnant. Because of that, they decided to man (and woman) up and tie the knot. Because of that (and a lot of pushing from Lupe G and counseling from Pres. Pister), they got married and Maggie got baptized! Ta-daaa! It made for an exciting weekend because Lupe G insisted that I be there for the wedding as well as the baptism, which were held on two different days. It. Was. Sweet! haha Mexican weddings are a total party. President Pister married them and afterward we enjoyed ourselves eating birria, rice, beans, and tortillas whilst everyone made comments about how freakishly skinny I look now compared to how chubby I was during my time in Woodburn originally haha.
Okay, so regressing to the beginning of the week to fill you in, here's what happened:
Monday, like I said in my last email, we had our combined zone activity where we played soccer in the rain for a good two or three hours. It was funny because first we played a good ol' civil-war status game of North zone versus the South, and just like history tells us, the North was triumphant :-). We beat them 4-2 and then decided to play old-farts versus the greenies.... the problem was that everyone was so young that in order to divide it evenly, we had to take from nine months and older to make the teams even! It was a blast and a super tight game. The best part? Yours truly scored the winning goal to finish the game 4-3... you can just call me Rooney instead of Mooney :-)
After that, we got home, emailed, and tried with a couple of appointments. They fell through, so we visited an inactive member that we had knocked into, and met his kids Marcos and Maira. Turns out that they're super sweet and want to learn about the gospel (they're unbaptized). So, we taught them the restoration and they ate it up and wanted to read the Book of Mormon and pray to find out if it's true. It was definitely a good way to end the day because it was at like 8:45 at night and we were planning on going home, but something told us to go try with them. Hooray for the guidance of the Spirit.
Tuesday we had zone conference which wasn't anything exciting aside from the fact that I have come to the conclusion that being in Hispanic culture for so long has made me talk way too much. Now that I've learned to talk a lot, I'm gonna need to re-learn how to shut up after the mission haha. After zone conference, we had a lesson with Oscar and Franci where we talked about the 10 commandments and taught them to keep the Sabbath day holy and then the word of wisdom. Not because we had planned it, but because they asked questions about it, so we kinda burned their eyebrows off with all the information that we fed them. They liked it though, and they committed to live it, so we'll see what happens.
Wednesday, I went on exchange with Elder Ballard in the Aloha area. He's a super sweet kid! He's a farm boy from Benjamin, Utah up in the Logan area, and he is seriously a champ. He definitely knows how to work! One thing about being in his area is that I was really jealous of all of the Hispanics that are there... it gave me a good idea of what we're gonna be stealing from them in the future because our plans for making a branch includes a good chunk of their area... muahaha :-). One thing that was funny from that day was the food that we had. It was an awesome Mexican meal of just enchiladas and carne asada, but holy cow it about killed me! I'm not used to eating that much anymore, and I couldn't shovel it all in like in my other areas... I'm skinnier than I used to be, so I can't fit that much food in me haha.
Thursday, we decided to do some spring cleaning and oh how the apartment needed it haha! It was a total mess! I mean, we've cleaned it so it didn't like stink or anything, but it's just been hard to find the time (and the effort) to give it a thorough cleaning, so we decided to buckle down and clean 'er out for a good hour or so during weekly planning haha. After that we taught Marcos and Maira and gave them a baptismal date for the 8th of May. Yes!
Friday, we had a sweet lesson in the morning with a lady named Angelica as well as with her brother and sister that are all sharing an apartment. They accepted the challenge to read the book of Mormon and pray about it. One frustrating thing that happened was with a referral from sister Farbe in the ward. Their names are Estela and Cesar, and they were pretty sweet people. Unfortunately, before we went over for a second lesson with them, Cesar spent a good couple of hours poring over anti garbage and then read the first seven chapters of the book of Mormon. To be brief, it sucked and I was really upset at how idiotic he was being. He said "how can I believe that the book of Mormon is true without any proof of the gold plates even existing? If they were real, they should have them on display or something." I said, "you know what, you're absolutely right. We should have the resurrected Christ on display right next to them too so that you could just know instead of having to have faith... ya hypocrite." yeah, he got pretty fired up when I talked to him about that and said "no, that's not the same thing!" What he doesn't understand is that it's the EXACT SAME PRINCIPLE. Anyway, we ended up closing on a good note to where he wants to keep reading and have us back (mainly because I destroyed him), so hopefully he is humble enough to show some faith and real intent with what he's doing. I tell ya man, I can't handle people bashing the truth anymore it makes me SO MAD!
The thing that gets me about anti-Mormon reading is this: I'll put it into a sort of parable so we can understand this. If I'm looking into buying a Ducati motorcycle, I'm going to first hear about it from a friend or advertisement. From there, if you want to know more, who do you go to? You go to someone who specializes in building, riding, and selling them, then do your comparisons with other bike companies that claim to have similar bikes. Instead, those who I would liken to anti-readers would look up some nonsense like "why Ducatis are the worst bikes ever made" It doesn't make sense... ya know what I mean?
Anyway, enough ranting. Saturday we had another exchange and I went with elder Garland to the wedding down in Woodburn which was a blast. After the wedding, we went to a dinner (yeah, we were already full of Mexican food haha) with a lady who wanted us over to talk to one of her friends about the church. Turns out the guy was really sweet. He was someone who really "gets" it. He talked to us about how people would try to tell him anti crap about the church and he said "I don't care. If I want to learn about it, I'm gonna learn about it from those who live it, experience it, and believe it. He was open-minded about it, so it turned out to be awesome. We kinda chit-chatted for quite a while about a myriad of religious subjects, then talked about the suffering in the world today. He was saying, "ya know, I know that there's a purpose for it, and that God is obviously in control of everything that is happening and it will turn out okay... I just don't have the answers as to why he can let it happen. That's when I had the opportunity to explain to him the understanding we have of the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it covers not just sins, but pains, afflictions, sufferings, sadness, sickness, and all other negative aspects of human life if we will come to him. When I said that, he kinda sat with a pensive look on his face. Then I told him "ya gotta read the Book of Mormon man, it'll give you a deeper appreciation for what your Savior did for you." After saying that, he said "I really do want to read it... do you have a copy that I could borrow?" We gave him a copy and jotted down his number and told him to call us with any questions... I'm pretty stoked to have another opportunity to teach him. he's a sweet guy.
Sunday, we didn't have anyone in church unfortunately, but it was good in that afterwards we got to go to Woodburn for the baptism of Maggie :-) The only other exciting thing that happened was just something that I read in the Book of Mormon in 1Nephi 17:8-10 that talks about personal revelation. The thing that makes it interesting is that Nephi receives the revelation that he needs to build a boat. As soon as Nephi learns this, he heads up the mountain to talk to the Lord. When he gets there, he doesn't ask "okay, how do I do it?" rather he asks "Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?" It's pretty sweet in that he took the initiative after just receiving a little nudge from the Spirit as to what he was going to do. The same applies to us. If we want personal revelation, we have to be open to the Spirit. After we receive the initial nudge, we have to be willing to do all we can within our power to follow that prompting so that we receive further light and instruction. Sweet eh? That whole chapter is sweet. Check it out.
All right, I'm outta time, but I love you guys and I'll talk to ya next week.
-Elder Mooney
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
2011 April 4
2011 April 4
Dear Mom and family (and everyone else who reads this)
Holy cow I'm really dragging butt right now haha. We just got done with zone activity where we played soccer with both the north and the south Spanish zones in the freezing rain! Dangit! Now I spoiled what I was gonna write for next Monday haha oh well. So regressing to the point about freezing rain, I think it's what I deserved for laughing about the snow that I saw during the Sunday session thinking of you guys freezing your hindparts off in the good ol' Utah spring. This weekend here was absolutely beautiful and sunny for almost the entire time, so I found it a bit comical that Utah was cold and cloudy/snowy while we enjoyed the sun haha. Like I said though, I brought upon us some really rainy, cloudy, cold weather to welcome in the new week.
Okay, so starting with last Monday, we started off the day right by giving the Sanchez bathroom a coat of paint. They decided on a sort of light earthy green color that I was sketched out about, but it looked really sweet at the end of everything. After that, we went bowling with a couple of English elders, one of which had served in Woodburn while I was down there. It turned out to be a good time! Ya know why? I won! Lemme tell ya a little about my score though... it wasn't in the triple-digits category. Yup, I pulled the "W" with a good, solid 98 points hahaha! That's how we roll (or bowl, better said) in Beaverton haha.
Tuesday was a pretty decent day. We had our usual district meeting with Portland, and afterwards decided to do what's called a "blitz" with the English elders... mainly because we ran into them at the place we were going to knock haha. Now, to explain a blitz, it's pretty simple. We switch companions, so I went with an English elder while Van Hook went with the other one, and we both knocked in some complexes that were close to each other. I have to say that I was not very impressed and in fact, a little sad about the English elder's ability. The elder that I was with has the same amount of time as me in the mission, and his knocking was TERRIBLE! Holy moses man, I mean this was the approach every time: "hello, we're missionaries and we share a message about Jesus Christ. Would you like to learn more?" Yikes dude. It's no wonder English elders don't rock any baptisms from knocking haha. Unfortunately, they don't baptize that many from the members either. I'll talk more about this subject when we get to the zone leader council section of Friday (D'oh! I'm always spoiling my surprises!)
Aside from the sad blitz, we had a good lesson with Oscar and Franci where she said that she loved church and is going to try to come more often.... now we just need to get Oscar to be able to get work off for church. He really believes that it's true. I think they'll get baptized in the near future.
Wednesday I read a cool scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants in section 18 during my personal study. I just finished the Book of Mormon again, so I figured now I'll go 50/50 between that and the D&C this time and see if I can't finish them both again before I die (I mean in the mission, silly!). I was pretty stoked about what it talks about between verses 33 and 36. I know here that he's talking to some who were going to be called as apostles, but it still applies to us as well as pertaining to the scriptures. This is what it says:
33And I, Jesus Christ, your Lord and your God, have spoken it.
34These words are not of men nor of man, but of me; wherefore, you shall testify they are of me and not of man;
35For it is my voice which speaketh them unto you; for they are given by my Spirit unto you, and by my power you can read them one to another; and save it were by my power you could not have them;
36Wherefore, you can testify that you have heard my voice, and know my words.
Kinda cool right? It also applies as to what we hear during general conference too :-) Ooh I'll talk about that in a minute too, don't worry!
so going back to Wednesday, we started off the morning right with a lesson before district meeting in Portland with a lady named Viviana. She was a new-ish person that we found knocking, and as we were teaching her, I threw out a baptismal date for kicks and giggles, and it turned out to be a good idea because she accepted it haha! She will be baptized the first of May, so we'll see what happens.
Another interesting thing about Wednesday is that I hit 18 months! Holy schnikes Richard! I'm OLD! haha
Thursday I had another cool personal study from the D&C again, and it's found in D&C 19:29-32 and it has to deal with sharing the gospel... Read it. Study it. You'll feel more compelled to do what the prophets told you during conference haha.
Another exciting thing about Thursday is that we finally finished the Sanchez bathroom 100%, and I have to say, it looks pretty dang nice haha. We also did another blitz with a different set of English elders. Yup, they still don't know anything. I love them to death, but dangit we're gonna have to teach them not to suck at life. One funny thing that did happen while we were knocking though is that I met a guy who answered the door with a baseball bat and I was able to talk to him for a few minutes while the English greenie (double-whammy right?) sat in shocked and fear-instilled silence haha. That's about the most exciting thing I've run into tracting thus far though.
Friday was the day of zone leader council... I ripped English elders a new one because of several reasons:
1.) They don't know how to tract
2.) They don't know how to teach
3.) They don't know how to ask for referrals
4.) They are LAZY!
I don't know if this qualifies as speaking evil against the Lord's anointed, but dang man, they need some serious help. We're teaching the English elders in our ward to not suck at life so bad so that they can have more people to teach from the members and ultimately more baptisms, because right now, we (the Spanish elders) are getting more referrals from the English members than they are.
We presented some ideas to President Dyches as well as the other zone leaders, and I think I made a lot of enemies with the English elders because, well, I threw them under the bus where they belong haha. Maybe I'm visionary, but I could see them being so freaking successful with all of the resources that they have in the English wards here, and they aren't utilizing ANY of it! Can you tell I get a little fired up sometimes out here? Goodness I'll stop ranting now, I promise. In short, we're doing a lot more training/practice with the English elders (mixed with us to a certain extent) so that they can actually find and baptize the Lord's elect.
The thing that topped off the night on Friday wasn't the usual soccer, but the meal that came before it. We ate with the Farb family, and they usually have these extravagant, wonderful meals, and this day was a little different. I was a little confused, because instead of the usual dining ware that she has out, there was a bunch of ghetto silverware, like spoons with holes drilled in them, forks with the pointy things (don't know the name of them) all twisted and bent up like corkscrews, and it was kinda dark in the dining room. Anyways, she said that we were going to start out with dessert, and I was kind of confused. She brought out some "sundaes", and then I finally caught on. I realized that it was april fools day! These "sundaes that she had made for us looked like vanilla ice cream on a big brownie with chocolate sauce and a cherry on top, but they turned out to be mashed potatoes on top of a steak with dark brown gravy and a grape tomato (go figure) with a little stem sticking out of it for the finishing touch. It. Was. Good! After that we finished up with "the main course" which looked like spaghetti, which was actually a cake with the frosting squeezed out on top to make it look like it was... dang it was good. Not quite as good as your april fools jokes or food though mom, don't worry :-).
So, Saturday and Sunday... I don't want to get too far into the nitty-gritty of what every talk that I liked was about, but this is what I mainly got out of it (dang, I'm gonna have two lists in my email!):
1.) We need to seek personal revelation to have a stronger personal testimony
2.) As members, we need to find more opportunities to serve those who aren't members. (remember what M. Russell Ballard said: baptisms don't come from knocking doors... they come from people the members are friends with!)
3.) As members of the church, we need to share the gospel! (refer to the above parenthesized sentence haha)
4.) If you're single, get married soon. If you're married, do all you can to stay that way!
Good counsels for all of us, right? I know that these men (and women) are called of God to speak his words in these conferences. I hope you paid attention to what President Monson said in his closing remarks. He said that when the May issue of the Ensign comes out that we read over it and study it. Do you know why? Because it's the word of God! This is literally like scripture in newsprint! I hope that you'll do that when you get your copies. That way, the next time you tell someone "yeah we believe in prophets" and they ask you "oh really, what does he say?" instead of saying "oh !@#$#^%" you can actually have an intelligible response to help them know that it's important to you.... our biggest claim of the modern day is modern revelation, and if you think it's really that important, STUDY THE WORDS OF THE LIVING PROPHETS! Okay, no more rants I promise haha.
So, that was about the excitement for the week, really. Nothing too terribly important to report as far as investigators right now... we're still knocking and teaching up a storm... we just need to get a couple more solid people and get our branch started. For the meantime, we're firing up the English ward and teaching our Spanish brethren of the group to get, well, their poop in a group (actually, I'd prefer a branch haha).
Speaking of Katie and Dad as well, I wanted to thank you both for the awesome letters you sent to me last week. I apologize that I haven't sent you personal responses yet, but I really appreciate your words of encouragement. At times I feel like it'd be more effective to shoot myself or something instead of deal with this group haha. The days that I received your letters, you really gave me a boost that I desperately needed. It's not that I'm not working, it's just at times I don't feel effective because, well, I'm not baptizing like in Woodburn haha. Anyways, thank you so much for your awesome letters and for the spirit that you bring to MY life. I know we're out here and feeling the Spirit and receiving revelation, but that doesn't mean that we don't need spiritual strength from our loved ones.
I love you guys so much (you too mom!) and I am so glad to hear that you're all kickin' butt and taking names. Keep doing the good things, stop doing the bad, and things will be fine. Like President Packer said: "forgive a lot, repent a little, and the Lord will pour out his choicest blessings."
Talk to ya next week.
All my love,
-Elder Kurt Kay Mooney
Dear Mom and family (and everyone else who reads this)
Holy cow I'm really dragging butt right now haha. We just got done with zone activity where we played soccer with both the north and the south Spanish zones in the freezing rain! Dangit! Now I spoiled what I was gonna write for next Monday haha oh well. So regressing to the point about freezing rain, I think it's what I deserved for laughing about the snow that I saw during the Sunday session thinking of you guys freezing your hindparts off in the good ol' Utah spring. This weekend here was absolutely beautiful and sunny for almost the entire time, so I found it a bit comical that Utah was cold and cloudy/snowy while we enjoyed the sun haha. Like I said though, I brought upon us some really rainy, cloudy, cold weather to welcome in the new week.
Okay, so starting with last Monday, we started off the day right by giving the Sanchez bathroom a coat of paint. They decided on a sort of light earthy green color that I was sketched out about, but it looked really sweet at the end of everything. After that, we went bowling with a couple of English elders, one of which had served in Woodburn while I was down there. It turned out to be a good time! Ya know why? I won! Lemme tell ya a little about my score though... it wasn't in the triple-digits category. Yup, I pulled the "W" with a good, solid 98 points hahaha! That's how we roll (or bowl, better said) in Beaverton haha.
Tuesday was a pretty decent day. We had our usual district meeting with Portland, and afterwards decided to do what's called a "blitz" with the English elders... mainly because we ran into them at the place we were going to knock haha. Now, to explain a blitz, it's pretty simple. We switch companions, so I went with an English elder while Van Hook went with the other one, and we both knocked in some complexes that were close to each other. I have to say that I was not very impressed and in fact, a little sad about the English elder's ability. The elder that I was with has the same amount of time as me in the mission, and his knocking was TERRIBLE! Holy moses man, I mean this was the approach every time: "hello, we're missionaries and we share a message about Jesus Christ. Would you like to learn more?" Yikes dude. It's no wonder English elders don't rock any baptisms from knocking haha. Unfortunately, they don't baptize that many from the members either. I'll talk more about this subject when we get to the zone leader council section of Friday (D'oh! I'm always spoiling my surprises!)
Aside from the sad blitz, we had a good lesson with Oscar and Franci where she said that she loved church and is going to try to come more often.... now we just need to get Oscar to be able to get work off for church. He really believes that it's true. I think they'll get baptized in the near future.
Wednesday I read a cool scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants in section 18 during my personal study. I just finished the Book of Mormon again, so I figured now I'll go 50/50 between that and the D&C this time and see if I can't finish them both again before I die (I mean in the mission, silly!). I was pretty stoked about what it talks about between verses 33 and 36. I know here that he's talking to some who were going to be called as apostles, but it still applies to us as well as pertaining to the scriptures. This is what it says:
33And I, Jesus Christ, your Lord and your God, have spoken it.
34These words are not of men nor of man, but of me; wherefore, you shall testify they are of me and not of man;
35For it is my voice which speaketh them unto you; for they are given by my Spirit unto you, and by my power you can read them one to another; and save it were by my power you could not have them;
36Wherefore, you can testify that you have heard my voice, and know my words.
Kinda cool right? It also applies as to what we hear during general conference too :-) Ooh I'll talk about that in a minute too, don't worry!
so going back to Wednesday, we started off the morning right with a lesson before district meeting in Portland with a lady named Viviana. She was a new-ish person that we found knocking, and as we were teaching her, I threw out a baptismal date for kicks and giggles, and it turned out to be a good idea because she accepted it haha! She will be baptized the first of May, so we'll see what happens.
Another interesting thing about Wednesday is that I hit 18 months! Holy schnikes Richard! I'm OLD! haha
Thursday I had another cool personal study from the D&C again, and it's found in D&C 19:29-32 and it has to deal with sharing the gospel... Read it. Study it. You'll feel more compelled to do what the prophets told you during conference haha.
Another exciting thing about Thursday is that we finally finished the Sanchez bathroom 100%, and I have to say, it looks pretty dang nice haha. We also did another blitz with a different set of English elders. Yup, they still don't know anything. I love them to death, but dangit we're gonna have to teach them not to suck at life. One funny thing that did happen while we were knocking though is that I met a guy who answered the door with a baseball bat and I was able to talk to him for a few minutes while the English greenie (double-whammy right?) sat in shocked and fear-instilled silence haha. That's about the most exciting thing I've run into tracting thus far though.
Friday was the day of zone leader council... I ripped English elders a new one because of several reasons:
1.) They don't know how to tract
2.) They don't know how to teach
3.) They don't know how to ask for referrals
4.) They are LAZY!
I don't know if this qualifies as speaking evil against the Lord's anointed, but dang man, they need some serious help. We're teaching the English elders in our ward to not suck at life so bad so that they can have more people to teach from the members and ultimately more baptisms, because right now, we (the Spanish elders) are getting more referrals from the English members than they are.
We presented some ideas to President Dyches as well as the other zone leaders, and I think I made a lot of enemies with the English elders because, well, I threw them under the bus where they belong haha. Maybe I'm visionary, but I could see them being so freaking successful with all of the resources that they have in the English wards here, and they aren't utilizing ANY of it! Can you tell I get a little fired up sometimes out here? Goodness I'll stop ranting now, I promise. In short, we're doing a lot more training/practice with the English elders (mixed with us to a certain extent) so that they can actually find and baptize the Lord's elect.
The thing that topped off the night on Friday wasn't the usual soccer, but the meal that came before it. We ate with the Farb family, and they usually have these extravagant, wonderful meals, and this day was a little different. I was a little confused, because instead of the usual dining ware that she has out, there was a bunch of ghetto silverware, like spoons with holes drilled in them, forks with the pointy things (don't know the name of them) all twisted and bent up like corkscrews, and it was kinda dark in the dining room. Anyways, she said that we were going to start out with dessert, and I was kind of confused. She brought out some "sundaes", and then I finally caught on. I realized that it was april fools day! These "sundaes that she had made for us looked like vanilla ice cream on a big brownie with chocolate sauce and a cherry on top, but they turned out to be mashed potatoes on top of a steak with dark brown gravy and a grape tomato (go figure) with a little stem sticking out of it for the finishing touch. It. Was. Good! After that we finished up with "the main course" which looked like spaghetti, which was actually a cake with the frosting squeezed out on top to make it look like it was... dang it was good. Not quite as good as your april fools jokes or food though mom, don't worry :-).
So, Saturday and Sunday... I don't want to get too far into the nitty-gritty of what every talk that I liked was about, but this is what I mainly got out of it (dang, I'm gonna have two lists in my email!):
1.) We need to seek personal revelation to have a stronger personal testimony
2.) As members, we need to find more opportunities to serve those who aren't members. (remember what M. Russell Ballard said: baptisms don't come from knocking doors... they come from people the members are friends with!)
3.) As members of the church, we need to share the gospel! (refer to the above parenthesized sentence haha)
4.) If you're single, get married soon. If you're married, do all you can to stay that way!
Good counsels for all of us, right? I know that these men (and women) are called of God to speak his words in these conferences. I hope you paid attention to what President Monson said in his closing remarks. He said that when the May issue of the Ensign comes out that we read over it and study it. Do you know why? Because it's the word of God! This is literally like scripture in newsprint! I hope that you'll do that when you get your copies. That way, the next time you tell someone "yeah we believe in prophets" and they ask you "oh really, what does he say?" instead of saying "oh !@#$#^%" you can actually have an intelligible response to help them know that it's important to you.... our biggest claim of the modern day is modern revelation, and if you think it's really that important, STUDY THE WORDS OF THE LIVING PROPHETS! Okay, no more rants I promise haha.
So, that was about the excitement for the week, really. Nothing too terribly important to report as far as investigators right now... we're still knocking and teaching up a storm... we just need to get a couple more solid people and get our branch started. For the meantime, we're firing up the English ward and teaching our Spanish brethren of the group to get, well, their poop in a group (actually, I'd prefer a branch haha).
Speaking of Katie and Dad as well, I wanted to thank you both for the awesome letters you sent to me last week. I apologize that I haven't sent you personal responses yet, but I really appreciate your words of encouragement. At times I feel like it'd be more effective to shoot myself or something instead of deal with this group haha. The days that I received your letters, you really gave me a boost that I desperately needed. It's not that I'm not working, it's just at times I don't feel effective because, well, I'm not baptizing like in Woodburn haha. Anyways, thank you so much for your awesome letters and for the spirit that you bring to MY life. I know we're out here and feeling the Spirit and receiving revelation, but that doesn't mean that we don't need spiritual strength from our loved ones.
I love you guys so much (you too mom!) and I am so glad to hear that you're all kickin' butt and taking names. Keep doing the good things, stop doing the bad, and things will be fine. Like President Packer said: "forgive a lot, repent a little, and the Lord will pour out his choicest blessings."
Talk to ya next week.
All my love,
-Elder Kurt Kay Mooney
Monday, March 28, 2011
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
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 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
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