May 27, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

 I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day.  I am so grateful for the sacrifices of our military men and women.  God bless America!  Thank you to all who have served and all who are still serving especially my dad!  He's awesome!

This week was pretty good.  We had 21 lessons and found 2 new investigators.  Our new investigators are both teenagers.  It's crazy that we've been spending time trying to strengthen the youth, and now we are teaching youth.  The Lord was definitely preparing us for that!  Sister Soleta and I only have 1 week left together :(  We both have no idea where we will go, or who will be our next companions, but we will figure that out sometime this week.  Ahhhh...I'm scared.

 This week we did have some fun times.  Our investigator, Charlie, donated some pants and asked if we could find someone who wants them.  These pants were big so let me tell you...Sister Soleta and I had some fun.  We both fit in the pants at the same time!  Pictures attached.  Oh that was a fun night :)

 We also had our zone conference.  It was awesome!  We talked a lot about agency.  Agency, our ability to choose, is the only thing that is not God's.  When we choose to follow God we are actually giving Him the only thing that is not already His.  He doesn't really need our money, but He does ask us to pay tithing to see if we will give Him our agency.  When we think of it in this way, it means so much more. 

We also talked about having softened hearts.  Our Mission President said, "The gospel cannot be written in your heart if your heart isn't open!"  Let us all humble ourselves enough so we can listen to what the Lord is asking of us.  Let us all soften our hearts so we can learn what the Lord wants us to learn.

 

We don't have much time today, so that's basically all that happened last week.  One last quote I really liked from Zone Conference:

 

I won't give up, shut up, or let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, and paid up for the cause of Christ.  I must go till He stops me.  And when He returns for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me.  My banner will be clear.

 

Love,

Sister Moon

 

Pictures:

Charlie's pants :)

MTC buddy reunited at Zone Conference!

Sister B

 

May 19, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was filled with service.  We did about 9 hours of hula-hoeing and digging up trees!!  Let me tell you: I'm getting stronger!  The weather last week was really hot and super windy, which was good and bad.  It was nice to have a breeze, but our piles of weeds just blew everywhere.  Oh well.  We had 19 lessons this week, which isn't that bad since we did so much service. 

We had a couple bumps in the road as well.  We met with Charlie and taught him about Tithing and Fast Offerings.  He said that he would never be willing to pay tithing so he doesn't want to get baptized anymore.  We will go back and talk with him, and hopefully he will understand the blessings that the Lord is willing to give him if he obeys this law.  Please keep praying for Charlie. 

We also had a good discussion with Jerry and Ellen at the Johnson's house.  We ate dinner with all them and then we had apple pie for dessert.  Jerry made the pie and he put an "S" and an "M" on it to dedicate the pie for S and Moon.  It was so sweet.  He's super nice, and he makes us pie or cookies every time we visit him.  He's retired so he says that's all he likes to do.  I'm totally fine with it because he's a great cook.

Part of missionary work is to strengthen the members, so we have decided that we are going to help the Young Women out.  We are going to start going on walks with them at night when we don't have an appointment, so we can just talk with them.  Most of them are really struggling so we want to see if we can help them turn their lives around.  The teenagers in California are pretty bad examples for the member's so we need to help them stay strong.  Since we are young we figured we could relate to them, so we'll see what happens.  Pray for them...and us :/

 

Well that's about it.  Hope everyone has a great week!  Love,

Sister Moon

Pictures:

The oldest of our Ward missionaries :)  The Taylor's

Service!  Yes we filled that entire trashcan!

 

 

May 12, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

BILL GOT BAPTIZED and CONFIRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This week was the best week ever :)  We did have 21 lessons this week, too.

I had the opportunity to give the talk on the Holy Ghost for Bill's baptism, and it was awesome.  Bill was struggling with knowing that Jesus Christ is our Redeemer.  When I was researching I found a quote that said, "The Holy Ghost is the ONLY one that can give you a sure testimony of Jesus Christ".  When I told Bill that he was going to get confirmed on Sunday and that the Holy Ghost could give him his testimony, he started to cry,and so did I.  It was amazing to be a part of his conversion.  The confirmation was also one of the best confirmations that I have ever seen.  Brother Gallagher said exactly what Bill needed to hear; revelation and the Spirit are amazing!

 

We also talked with Jackie last week.  Missionaries have been working with her for over 9 months.  When we sat down with her we talked about baptism and asked if she had been praying about it.  She said , "Yes, I've been praying and I talked with my husband about it, and I'm going to do it.  I know it is a step in the right direction.".  We went over the Restoration with her again, and she believes it all!  Fasting totally works, and the Lord is looking out for all His children!  I love missionary work!

We had several other great lessons this week, and we are seeing a lot of investigators start to ask some really good questions.  We are trying to help Jackie, Charlie, Lynn, Jerry and Ellen B, Yolanda, Peggy, and George to progress.  If you could keep them in your prayers that'd be awesome. 

We had a great Mother's Day and I'm pretty sure the whole Relief Society was crying their eyes out yesterday.  We had 4 women talk about what they love about their mothers.  We also had 3 musical numbers about mothers.  We had Sister Mikkelson and her daughter (10 years old) sing "My Mother My Daughter" and that's when everyone lost it!  Well, I really miss my mom, but I know I need to be here at this time.  I did get to talk to my parents yesterday and that was such a treat.  I love my family and I really miss them, but I know that as a missionary I "leave my family for a short time, so that others can be with their families for eternity".  And that makes it all worth it. 

 

Hope everyone has a great week. 

Love,

Sister Moon

Pictures:

Bill's Baptism!

Bill took us out to lunch!

 

And my family...not the best picture, but hey I got to talk to them!

 

 

May 5, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was amazing!  We had 23 lessons and found 7 new investigators!!!!  We rode about 34 miles this week on our bikes, and really followed the promptings of the Spirit!

On Saturday we had a cancelled appointment and then a service project that got cancelled, so we had 3 hours that we needed to fill up with something productive.  We decided to go up the big hill and try to visit some Less Actives.  We usually go up the Jenkins hill, but I felt that we should go up the Newhall hill.  We talked about it and then decided to go up the Newhall hill.  On the top of the hill there was this man watering his lawn.  His name is Al.  We started talking to him, and he said he asked God for a sign because he didn't know what path he should go down in his life.  We talked about how we could help him, and teach him more about God.  We taught the Restoration and he's really interested.  We talked again with him yesterday, and answered all the questions he had.  He is so awesome!

Also, there is this family in our Ward, the Johnson's (who have a daughter on a mission in the Philippines), who have someone (Jerry) that they really want us to teach, but they were having trouble getting him interested.  Jerry's daughter-in-law is Filipina and so is Sister S!  We talked about him and decided that we needed to teach him and his wife, Ellen.  We told the Johnson's that we would make Filipino food for them, and they should invite Jerry and Ellen to eat with us.  We did that last night, and then taught the Restoration to them, and they want to read the Book of Mormon and learn all they can about the church.  We will meet with them again on Thursday.  We all had a great time, and ate a ton of delicious food!  Everyone was happy :)

Two weeks, we extended the baptismal date of May 10th for Bill, and he said he didn't think he would be ready.  He promised to pray about it though.  We know he is ready, and we've been working with him for forever!  We were getting a little frustrated because we had to keep moving the date, but we decided when we met with him on Friday that we would just listen to what he had to say and follow the Spirit.  Usually he will give excuses for why he isn't ready and we'd explain why we knew he was ready, but we decided this time to just listen.  When we sat down with Bill, he looked at us and simply said, "May 10th is going to work for me.  I'm ready."  Sister S and I basically freaked out.  We are so excited for Saturday!!!!!!!!!

Those are probably the three coolest stories from this week.  We are having a blast being together in the A Ward and we're working hard!  We will only be together for 4 more weeks so we need to enjoy every minute of it!  It's not necessarily easy, but it's totally worth it.  I don't remember who said this, but it's one of my favorite quotes: "I know the Lord has a plan for me.  It's not always easier, but it's always better."  That is so true.  We don't grow if we aren't challenged.  I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys the tender mercies the Lord blesses you with. 

Love,

Sister Moon

 

Pictures: A huge pinecone!

Me, Sister S, the J's and Ellen.  (Jerry refuses to have his picture taken)