23 February 2014

Soooo, yeah it was the BEST of times, it was the WORST of times. So I learned some new things this week..... 

-  We are helping a 60-something year old man as he learns how to read and write again since his 3 strokes have taken away those precious skills. We read from the children's Book of Mormon storybook and have him write down every sentence after we've read it.  SO apparently when you say period, as in the punctuation mark to end a sentence, you are suppose to refer to that marking as a "full stop".... because a period has only one meaning here.  So when I said "period" pointing to his paper, I suppose I can understand his confusion and shocked expression.... or at least I didn't until my companion filled me in later that night. 

-  That family forgave us for burning their carpet. They were even asking us to come around because it had been too long since they last saw us. Many of you asked what the object lesson with the fire was about so here’s the explanation. It’s about repentance and you start off by having the kids write down their sins on a piece of paper, or just things they have done that weren't nice. Then on a different piece of paper you write down the same list with an erasable pen.  So you take a lighter and put it behind the list written with the regular pen and watch as the paper gets dark and brown (as its burning) but the ink still stays on the paper, even as it’s burning up you can still see the wrong doings..... However, when you put the lighter on the paper written with the erasable pen the ink magically disappears leaving the paper completely blank. I suppose my companion really wanted to hit on how dirty or dark we can become by not repenting... looks like it worked though! 

-  Teaching this young family of kids (fire family). We went to their house to invite them to church. The parents were sleeping but this young boy, about 5 y/o comes out of the house in a white collared shirt and jeans and says, "is this ok to wear to church?" so cute! His cousin decided he wanted to come in his pajamas but ran inside and wet his hair down to the side. We ended up taking the 3 children (all under 8) to church with the sleepy mum's permission.... Our poor branch may never forgive us for that Sunday.  We had the primary teacher in tears because all the kids were getting rowdy (especially her own) and I had to sit with them in primary to keep them from touching each other or leaving.... but they love church. So, we'll see how to improve things next week. 

-  Men here love to wear short shorts. Short jean shorts. I think there are just some things a person can (should) never get use to. 

-  Read an amazing talk: "the strength to endure." by Elder Richard J. Maynes which pretty much sums up everything i am in need of right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kme-6_eX0-s   Check it out. 

 

-  Life is hard as a missionary but we are all here to learn specific lessons for each of ourselves individually. That is why God wants to show us our weaknesses so that we can be aware of them and to make us stronger. I learned a lot of my weaknesses this week. But I’m trying to make turn them into my strengths.

Kia Kaha, 
Sister Moore

 

16 February 2014

The floods came down and the rains came up... No that's not right, the rains came down and the floods came up, right?  Well everything is backwards in New Zealand anyhow.

So, I think Hell broke loose this week, or maybe just my tear-ducts and/ or my mind.  So how do I say this in a positive way.....
Let's start with some positives because there were many:
-I SHOOK ELDER RUSSELL M. NELSON'S HAND!!  So yeah, he came to New Zealand and we had a big mission conference.  My companion and I decided to fast that day so that we could be spiritually fed and get everything we possibly could out of his visit. We were suppose to come seeking answers to a question because we were told there would be an opportunity to ask our questions directly to Elder Nelson. My question was: "How can we be patient with all things and in all things?"  Want to know the answer?? SO DO I!  Man, stinkin' nerves plus other Elders and Sisters stood up before me and burned up all the time..... I suppose in a way now I have to learn patience to figuring out the answer to patience... Tricky, tricky.  See what happened there?  Anyone else think God has a sense of humor?
Key points from the conference:
Sis. Hamula(sp):
• our decisions determine our destiny (check out Elder Nelson's talk on line)
• you are never too old to change and you are never too young to learn
• a pivotal spiritual strength is self mastery
Sis. Nelson:
• when you are really on the Lord's errand you will have access to His power and will not be lonely and unfulfilled (for all us single people out there)
• Obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles.
• the best way to be the best companion is to be companions first with the Holy Ghost
• pray to be lead to those people who's ancestors are desperate to have their ordinances done. then watch where you are lead to.
President Rudd's father:
• Fall in love with the people. when you learn to love the people, you will learn how to teach the people
PRESIDENT RUSSELL M. NELSON:
• pay close attention to HEARKEN in the scriptures. it is a verbal footnote (it means to listen with the intent to obey).
• just as a doctor should never prescribe a one cure for all medicine to his patients before understanding their concern, so should we never try to give people the solutions without knowing and listening to find out the problems.  Once we do listen we should apply the solution (the atonement) directly and specifically to relate back to the needs of the person.
• lose yourself in the work
• ...and for all of you, my family members, you have been blessed by Elder Nelson himself that you will have health and healing powers working among you... so think of that :)

So lessons are going great.  One of our investigators is just on fire.  She is keeping commitments and reading things over and over and over, coming to church, and even telling us that we forgot to set up a follow up appointment.  Little does she know, she will be baptized next month.  Well, hopefully :)  ....Meanwhile another lady we are teaching, Maggie. oohh Maggie. She gives us her stolen avocados  :)  Her garden is full of every possible lawn ornament you could possibly imagine and her love of animals can be smelled when you walk into her home. She is one of my most favoritiest people ever.  But she has a problem with high anxiety and a fear of praying out loud. Maggie is probably around 70 and the last time we were with her she was in the fetal position on the ground rocking back and forth because she was too scared to say a prayer.  But later she calmed down and talked about coming to church....  Only now we are having a hard time getting a hold of her or trying to get her to answer the door when she is home.  She'll come around.  She's pretty overwhelmed though because after we started teaching her several different religion representatives have popped up out of no where and are trying to teach her also... sneaky satan, sneaky.
Have I ever mentioned that we go to the old folks home every week!?  It's so great.  There is this one lady, who has dentures and every time she talks they come out and slide all about her mouth and she has to pause between every word to get them back into place.  I feel so sorry for her. She is so sweet. The people there are so happy to have visitors and we are so happy to have people appreciate us!  Sometimes I pick out a few songs on the piano (it's painfully hard to listen to and even worse to sing to) but every time I always get an applause from my "friends" Bill, Joy, Lavina, the whole gang!  Want to feel better about your skills?? Go to an old folks home.  They will love you.
Time for some not so great news....
*My companion lit someone's carpet on fire..... uh yep.  Last time we ever do THAT object lesson!  But let's just say we left that carpet burn as something for the family to remember our lesson forever. gahhh :/
*I've been to the doctor's twice this week for different things.  I've had a migraine headache since Saturday (today is Monday) and it feels like someone is smashing me in the face with a hammer.
*Had some good companion inventory the past several days (aka releasing of build up annoyances and frustrations) turns out I'm not crazy just perceptive. and lets just leave it at that :)
Thank you my home ward for the Valentines Day Cards and Christmas Cards!  I got both at the same time.... Apparently they accidentally sent the Christmas cards to Bermuda?  lol
Went to church this Sunday in the first ever chapel in Katikati.  A very monumental time. WE even took pictures (possibly for the paper?) I wish I had a camera cord to show you all the pictures i have been taking :(

p.s. Megan & Brita: on that USB drive, can you please see that there are some ukulele songs on there, too? :) :) :) 
That's all folks! (Hope you all had a wonderful Valentines Day..... no one bothers to celebrate it here.  It's good though.  They show their love all the time and they do not support the commercial way of lovin.)
LOVE,  Sis Moore

***HAPPPYYYY BIRTHDAY to all you February Birthdayyysssss::
MEGAN!
JEFF!
DAVID!
MAREN!
TIFFANNNNNYYY
AIVA!
STELLA!
(Hope I didn't forget anyone.... This month has a lot of birthdays!)  Hope you all have a day as wonderful and as special as you are ;)  Kisses-n-Hugs and a Bop upon the Head! 

--

9 February 2014

9 Feb 2014

 g'day maties!

I am realizing more and more that I am not in America anymore... You would think that somewhere on the other side of the world would be vastly different and it is.... but subtly. 

I don't think I told you but I learned how to drive a car on the opposite side of the road and on the wrong side of the car!  ...And now my companion won't let me drive any more.  It's the strangest thing ever.  I'm not bad at it, I'm just not good.  And if you thought driving was hard TRY BACKING UP!!  Now that's something I never imagined doing before...  

So when I say things are different here it's more than just the cars... People move on a different schedule. It's like everyone moves in slow motion and talks with these long pauses that serve no purpose other than extreme uncomfortableness and emptiness for me.  Everyone wants to be seen as laid back and relaxed until they are suddenly in a hurry.  Maybe it's because I'm white, maybe it's because I'm American or maybe it's because I'm me but I am having a hard time of being relaxed and structured.  To one relaxed, it means putting our lesson on the backburner and as a last minute thought before we leave. To one structured, it means jumping right into the lesson with very little preliminary or idle chit chat.  ...GAH balance is key eh? 

Elder Russell M Nelson will be here this weekend!!!!!!! We got a special letter from our Mission President to prepare and he asked that we specifically clean and cut our nails, wash our hands and comb our hair so that we do not look like hobos… Very specific advice.  We have to wake up at 4am and catch a bus by 5:45am to get to the conference on time..... It's going to be harder than I thought to not look like a hobo.

We attended an Area Presidency Broadcast last night which was.... AAmmmaziinnnngggg!!! I thought it would be good and maybe even a little boring, but it was GREAT.  Kevin W. Pearson is a wonderfully powerful speaker (even though on the surface he looks rather stiff and boring).  He asked the members in our Stake to think of who was the last person you saved?  If you can't remember or can't think of one then you need to WAKE UP and do something.  We’ve all heard that there are people who MAKE things happen, those who WATCH things happen, and some who WONDER WHATS HAPPENING.

1.     We have faith to serve but we need EVEN MORE faith to succeed.

2.     We are involved in a spiritual work and spiritual work requires spiritual POWER:  We need to gain more spiritual power.  We can:

·       increase our faith in Jesus Christ by deepening our conversion in him!

·       re-commit ourselves to the Law of the Fast!

·       immerse ourselves in the Book of Mormon!

PEOPLE ARE FUNNY!   So we went to go find the house of some people who had told us to visit them sometime but we accidently went to the wrong house but decided to make the most of it and strike up a conversation. The man acted very casual and friendly but then would periodically turn his head and say "Leave me alone." or "Go away" and then he’d resume talking to us as if he had not spoken those words..... I say Good on him for getting the words out!.... It's hard to say what you really mean and pretend to be happy with those you are talking to.

My dear sweet Australian sister was talking to me about Washington and asked me what they call people who live in Washington but before I had a chance to open my mouth she answered her own question: "Washing-ding-dings."  Knowing better than to correct my companion I said, "Yep!" I then told her that we are in fact Washing-ding-dings but we had gotten it wrong and had been calling ourselves Washingtonians all these years... silly mistake on our part.

AHHHH THE Computers times us here.... 1 min left/

Love you all!  Kia kana

Be Strong!!

Sister Moore

QUICK QUESTION: How do you SHOW YOUR LOVE? It is through REMEMBERING and SHOWING and EXPRESSING GRATITUDE!

2 February 2014

2 February 2014  -  Here it is at 100 million miles/ hour:

Kia Ora!

Ok so today's email is going to be very, very short.... We decided to have a relief society presidency "girls day" and go shopping ALLLLLL morning at the second hand stores with our new convert.... I think she underestimated what we meant by "we will be doing a little shopping".  No one told her that 1 hour of shopping really means 5.... And that’s how we spent p-day.

So we had transfer and guessss whattttt???.... I'm still in Katikati!! :)  But now there are only two of us: Sister McCarthy and Me. Now I can say that having a companion learning English was so hard!  Imagine trying to teach a lesson while trying to help the people you teach to understand while also trying to help your companion understand what everyone is saying..... There were also a few cultural differences that proved to be a stumbling block for some of us as well. But all is well. We still love each other and she is now speaking her native language in a different area.

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!! I was in a less than positive mood last week, which is why I spent last week seeking advice rather than emailing another lengthy letter about my views/thoughts/and perspectives about so many random things. But here are some bullet points of things I haven't yet shared:

·       People are so honest here... but only about things you don't want them to be honest about. This week I have been told that I am fat, have bushy hair (by a 2 year old!), my face is too oily and that my American accent is too harsh. lol sad eh?

·       My last companion (Sister Hutt) cut my hair because it wasn't even on the ends... Turns out she more or less didn't fix it as well as we would have hoped. So this week (3 weeks later) I had a less active woman "fix it" for me... (Great way to get her to talk to us!)... Even with her best attempts I am still too cheap to pay $30 to get my hair trimmed so I will proudly walk around with noticeably uneven hair.

·       SPORTS NIGHT! One of the best days of the week.... We play touch football every Wednesday and get as many investigators and less actives to come as we can.  Last week my Samoan companion decided to tackle me.... twice.  And once when I wasn't even near the ball! Everyone was concerned we weren't getting along after which was funny.  The 3 days of back pain after that wasn't so fun though.

·       ELANA!!!  I finally, finally, finally met someone that knew your Dad!  Her name is Katrina Driver and she said that your dad was one of the best teachers she has ever had!!!

·       Gas is $8/gallon here. Crazy eh?

·       Katikati-being interpreted is: Nibble, Nibble or "Nibbled by the Rats"

·       Maggie is a dear old lady who loves to give us an abundance of free avocados from work... It wasn't until after we ate them that she told us that she stole them. "Did you sisters enjoy the avocados? Yes? Good. I stole them."... I'm still not sure how to respond to that.

·       We are surrounded by so many fruit trees and gardens.  I ate a fresh passion fruit right out of someone's garden. (And no, I wasn’t stealing!)

·       Phylip shared an experience with us about his attempts to give up smoking and drugs... "I had a thought pop into my head that just said- 'Do not consume it'... What does consume mean??"   Precious.

·       When I teach I try to be like Elder Holland and Elder Uchtdorf.... and I think I scare some people when I speak but then they know its okay because they see how much I love them.

·       I feel like the most loved sister ever.  I love getting mail from all of you and having pictures to hang on to. Notts! Thank you for your letter and letting me know how SIs. Nott is doing!

·       It's getting harder to eat the food we are being served sometimes... My sweet, sweet companions will quickly put my food on their plates when people aren't looking or ask for more so that I will have more time to try to get the food down... I’m blessed with good companions

·       Elder Russell M. Nelson is coming to town in 2 weeks!!!!

·       I have been reading about Jacob quoting the story about the vineyards... ch#5.  What do you think the significance of your roots are?

·       We have had two fast this week and they get easier each time- because you are so desperate to get blessing sometimes. My companion told me that she always fasts once a week, no matter what because it is so important to get blessings for the work.

·       There has never been a prophet that has not "prayed with all energy of heart in behalf of the people." I have to pray ALL the time to learn to love people. I think I love them but there is so much more love to give. The only way to develop the real "pure" Love is to pray for it every day with ALL THE ENERGY YOU HAVE.

Now that I am a missionary I have a totally different view about feeding missionaries.

#1. Never dish up a plate for them. You don't know how much they will eat or what they really like vs. what they pretend to like... We had hamburgers at a member family's house and I hate hamburgers yet I decided to have one instead of going hungry. I picked the smallest of the bunch (clearly a left over piece of scrap meat so that I could say there was meat on my bun.)  The lady of the house grabbed the meat off my bun and told me to get a bigger one. I was so close.

#2. Always offer them water to drink. When you are talking with people all day you are pretty thirsty. Also, if offering them a drink don't say do you want a drink just say: Do you want water or juice/milo/milk I always say no, but options seem to make the decision to take a drink easier.

#3. If you chose to watch your missionaries while they eat, instead of eating with them (no one eats with us) be prepared to talk with them about missionary work- just know its coming.

#4. Dessert is so great, but right after a heaping plate of dinner food makes one feel like he/she is going to die a terrible death. We went to someone's house the other day and they served us each two pieces of cake and heaps of ice cream. They made me finish it all. "Eat Moore, Eat Moore." it was the hardest thing I had to do all week. So this week must have been pretty good :)

Our baptism was Amazinggg!

Gotta run. P-day is over. Love you all!

Sister Moore

Sorry if I didn't respond to your emails.... I haven't read them yet

19 January 2014

19 January 2014

Kia Ora, 

YOUTUBE: check out Elder Jones opening his mission call to the Bermuda Triangle.... yep, that’s my District Leader. 

If you YouTube Kia Kaha Hamilton NZ you should be able to see me and the WHOLE mission area singing a song. If you look closely and see me (which I don’t know if you can or not) you will see that I do not know the words.

So... sad news. 3 missionaries got sent home this week. There is a lot of disobedience happening. Apparently there was some lying to the president and a lot of flirting...... Not sure who got sent home but president is annnngrryyyyy..... He sent out a "VOICE OF WARNING" to everyone. Poor man, he has a big job to do. 

So we had a mini transfer this week. My trainer, Sister Hutt was moved!!!!! Noooooooo. My other companion cried and I was in shock for the rest of the day. Luckily the lord loves us and sent us sister McCarthy from Australia. She is so fun and such a blessing to have here (Did I mention she is a Chief???? She bought lots of food her first dayyyy.  We will never be hungry again! lol).

Now more than ever I feel soooo "white". I thought I knew what that meant before but I didn't. I can't really explain all that it means but part of it is not being quick to hug, then being awkward when you do (handshakes are so much more simple which is probably why all "white" people do it) gahh mahh berr gerr. My companions will tell you I am white and nerdy... and that, ladies and gentlemen, goes deeper than just the color of my skin :)   Some of the "white" people we have met are very fascinating. We met one, who wore jean shorts, shorter than his legs! It looked quite painful but it did make his legs look longer (daisy duke dude) which is the only possibly reason for one to wear shorts that short, right?.... 

One thing I am picking up from my Samoan companion is - talking with my eyes. This involves the expressive motion of moving your eyebrows up and down several times quickly in a conversation. It also means, "yah" or "yep".... when done twice in a row.   

Anyways, exciting WEEK!! This Friday our investigator Joanna is getting MARRIED! And BAPTIZED!! Everything is falling into place and we even have people donating wedding dresses and flowers and food (most of which aren't even members or investigators). But a lot of people have seen Joanna's transformation and want to give her their support. Funny story... Our Branch President (formally a Catholic) came to our class on Sunday (taught by a member) where we were to talk about Baptism in the Gospel Essentials class. By the end of the class we had talked about garments, hell, & everything in between. It was the roughest lesson I have ever had to sit through! We tried so hard to bring it back to the basics but some people just love to talk, eh?  But our investigator still getting baptized so it must not have scared her off too much. 

We are starting an ESL class this week as well as a Sports Night for the youth in the community. Because there is nothing to do in our small town everyone is involved in drugs. Soooo, thanks to the help of Sister McCarthy we are going to be creating a lot of activities that keep people busy!

Kia kaha (be strong)

Sister Moore

12 January 2014

Hardest. Week. Ever.

…So maybe I should have served in Germany. Every time I meet someone from Germany, which is more often than you would think, I tell them how amazing I think they are, because I am German too!!! They think its weird but then they become my friends and start begging to take a Book of Mormon with them.... Okay that happened once but still, I’m learning that the more love you show for a person the more they will want to know about you and what you believe in. 

 This week was hard. Really hard. The stronger we become as missionaries the more trials we seem to endure. This week we got verbally attacked by a drunk man that we had never met before. He came into the house (of good ol’ Ian) and had the neighbors all scared, that they were about to call the cops on him. When he first came in he demanded that my Samoan companion, who struggles with English, answer all his questions and wouldn't let her talk to us to help her understand what he was saying. And ended with him swearing so hard that he was spitting all over the room as we slammed the door shut on him. One of my companions broke down hard and started crying and shaking because she was so scared. He had come into the house three times and each time getting more and more aggressive. We were in the middle of a prayer to feel the spirit again when he came into the room the third time and interrupted our prayer.... after the drunk man left and we slammed the door on him, when my companion was crying, Ian started back up again, with the prayer she had started, and prayed for all of us and our safety. It was the most scared I have been in a while but also such a great experience to see Ian pray so fervently for protection and peace.... especially since he had just told us that he wanted us to stop coming by and teaching him. After that day though, he told us we can come back and he would pray again to know if the church was true. 

 Things always get scary at night. I’ve been praying for not just our flat to be protected but the perimeter around our home as well. As missionary work gets stronger the leaders in the church have encouraged everyone to re-dedicate their homes.... so do it! it will help protect your families. 

 BUT on a different note, we have been learning a lot about the Maori culture! Turns out the poi dance that they do with the balls on strings was first done by the men to loosen their wrists so that they could better use their weaponry. Now, according to our friend Wero, it has been made into a floosie dance where the women can show their flirtatious side. We also learned that they use to have a lot of women assassins. Killing men with their hair pieces after taking them to bed. Women over here are very strong. They were said to be the hunters and food gatherers while the men did the traditional work of women today.... Never mess with a Maori woman, you might end up dead! (Also the Kamate Kamate in a Haka (a traditional ancestral war cry, dance or challenge from the Māori people) means… I’m gunna die, I’m gunna die. Watch a Haka and understand my confusion.)  [EDITED to add link to BYU Rugby Team doing the Haka before their play-off game in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DujWf34VCD0 OR, here is a pretty awesome Haka done by some men in traditional Maori get up:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bISVUxMYASo ]

 Our branch is doing well. …except that they don't understand the role of missionaries exactly.... they're a very... interesting bunch, but we LOVE them and are trying to work better with each other. EVERYONE HELP THE MISSIONARIES!!! Lip service is great but it means nothing unless you are giving the missionaries names. Thank you :)

 We are meeting some very nice people recently. Not everyone is progressing as we would hope but we are going to try harder and we will be teaching an English class soon which should bring in quite a few new people into our teaching pool.

 Lesson learned this week: It's always the small things that have the biggest impact. The people here are so chill they'll tell you that you would have to go to Antarctica to get any chiller.... Yet it is always the very simple and sometimes insignificant things that make them lose it.... Satan is very sneaky. Taking offense is his favorite tool to use because it is so easy and works every time to cause contentions and losing love for one another. 

 Love more!

-Sister Moore 

-----

Some pictures:

Me w/My Companions:

 

 Brown Tithing Envelopes!

 

Food Members Feed us:  

 

Pretty view of the bay from Katy-Katy:

Ready to do a Haka!

Katy-katy Countryside (driving on the L-side of the road!):

 

 

 

5 January 2014

Kia Ora, Dear Loved Ones!

WHAT A WEEK!  If it's not hot its cold.  It's always rain or shine.  And I mean that both figuratively and literally. 

There are some lesson you have to learn the hard way.....
SO, my trainer is wonderful but strict.  We ran out of food the other day and she wouldn't let us go to the store to get more.  You have an hour for every meal and there is more than enough time to go and get food but apparently you only do that on p-day.  As a result of our poor budgeting and planing we ate some really "fantastic" food combinations this week.  Let's just say there was a lot of (leftover holiday) candy and butter involved.... because that's about all we had.  I will allow you to imagine how you will, how we survived on that alone for days. I am still not proud of myself for the things I ate out of sheer desperation.... which reminds me, we created a new word the other day- hangry, its what happens when you are angry as a result of being hungry.
On Tuesday we went to Hamilton (3 hour drive) to have the first time ever Mission Conference!!!!  That means that EVERYONE in the Mission got together (some people had to travel 8 hours to meet us!) and got to hear from our fearless leader, President Rudd. It was great to see my MTC companion and roommates.  Turns out sister missionaries are very dramatic.  Not to go into too much detail, there have been a lot of cat fights between some of the sisters, high school mentality and boy crazed crushes on Elders..... oh boyy!  Those silly city sisters.  We are out in the country and have bigger things to worry about, like how the 40 bug bites on my feet are now 60 and how to better coordinate our dance moves and singing at the end of a hard day.  But the Mission Conference was good.  We made a goal for the New Year to have 1,016 baptism this year! Which means 86 baptisms a month, which means each companionship needs one baptism a month, which means we we had a very, very large fast yesterday.
I find that as I observe how weird some people are in NZ I am also discovering how weird Americans are as well..... I don't know if I mentioned this in the last letter or not but everyone parks their cars on their front laws or on the grass on the sidewalk. I always find myself walking carefully around the grass as if i am afraid to touch it.  Here, grass is for walking on, and that's a hard thing to understand, it always seemed so fragile in the states.
We have this investigator, her name is Joanna. and oooooooh how we love Joanna!  She's Maori and lives with her partner who is a less active member. We invited her to be baptized and she said YES! she has the sweetest spirit you could possibly imagine but she is struggling with depression, smoking, and drinking. She tried to kill herself 3 times before but has had some remarkable experiences that have made her realize that she needs to be alive still. What's hard is that there are times when we teach her and her partner and her partner's cousin decides to sit in on our lessons.  He goes through 8 bottles of beer in 40 minutes and rambles on and on about science and how humans are evil and how he wants aliens to save him and take him from this dark hole that is earth..... Meanwhile, we are trying to have a very thoughtful and deep conversation with Joanna and her partner Phillip (you can't reach someone when he is so heavily drunk, so we had no choice but to ignore him).
Phillip and Joanna don't have the highest education and struggle a bit with reading, even simple words.  The cousin mocks them every time they begin to read or we ask them questions about their reading. I have never before seen such a heartless & cruel encounter such as this!  Phillip and Joanna keep their heads down and try to remain engaged in our lesson and do not respond to the cousin (nicknamed Satan).  I was getting boiling angry, which I know is wrong because the spirit cannot be with me when I am mad.  It was like watching a helpless old man getting lashed with an invisible whip, which cannot be stopped but it's effects are clear.  Without rambling on I ended up asking Careel if he loved his cousin and wanted to help him, to which he began to ramble on more about how evil man is and how we are all worthless humans without any hope or love...... its hard to explain but there was no spirit there and you could feel things getting bad. I will never forget the simple word my companion said: "STOP". That one word has never meant so much or has ever before been said so powerfully.  And he did stop and he left.
Enough about that deep ol' stuff. Joanna has quit smoking!! We brought a garbage bag to their house and made them give us all of their smokes and coffee. In exchange we gave them a brand new bag of Milo (great drink, comparable to hot chocolate). Then we threw the bag in a trash can down the road we don't even want to be around that stuff more than we have to and we certainly weren't letting that get into our car.
The biggest lesson I have learned this week is that we are all at different spiritual levels. Everyone. Someone old and gray-haired may be only an infant spiritually. They say even as a missionary you start off like a baby and then grow and develop throughout your journey. Yet, no matter what your age I believe there is something wise in the small and simple things. Our beliefs are simple.  And so should our teaching be simple. Sometimes I think I am really wise and go off during a lesson about some great point I am trying to make. Something my companions have taught me is that even though we may have a lot of great things to say it will not matter if they are not understood. We must teach for understanding. And in order to teach for understanding it must be simple. I believe that the most powerful lessons are those that are short and simple. --------Refer to the parable of the sower.... it shows how great understanding is! ------------
This week I am trying to become more simple and teach each person I meet according to their own understanding.
So this letter is a very, very bad example of how I am trying to be more simple.
Ha,
Oh happy dayyy!
Sister Moore
p.s. LOVED that I had so many emails in my inbox today!  I only got to see a few of them, so if I didn't respond I haven't read them yet :( sorry.

Man is not evil. But there are times when he is not himself. If you are looking with your spiritual eyes you could see that every time he opened up another beer can it was when he was starting to let us in and hear us. There were brief moments of sincerity where we saw him, but mostly it felt like we were talking to someone else.