Week 42 - May 14, 2018 (Planeta Rica - Week 12)

Happy Mothers Day! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Happy Mother's Day mom, I just wanted to first tell my mother how much I love her, and how much I really appreciate how much she does for me. I have realized now that my parents told me no that I couldn't do things because they really loved me, that the were trying to protect me and keep me safe. I am so grateful for them, and especially my mom for all that she has done for me. She is always watching out for me even now as I am on a mission, she tries to make sure I am eating well and am talking all the medicines she sent me with. It was so awesome to see and talk to you all, I miss you all a lot, but I know this is where I am supposed to be. I loved laughing and having fun on the call, time flew by and now I have to wait to Christmas to see you all again.

So this week was a tiring week, and we have been a little sick, so we slept a lot on our P-day. It also has been raining a lot here so we decided to stay in and clean and rest. My companion is on his last transfer, so we have to keep pushing ourselves. He is a super humble guy, I love him, he has taught me a lot. I need to figure out what I can do to make things super fun his last transfer here on the mission. I also need to really work with him to teach him English, so he will know a ton before he goes home.

Let me tell you about our friend Joel who we have been teaching. I love this kid, he makes me smile every time we see him. Last week when he came to church, he had cut his hair real short, and I asked him about the haircut and he said he was preparing himself to be like us and be a missionary. We had this awesome lesson, we were all hyped and his mom was all excited, she was like my favorite gringo is here. She made like this huge thing for mango for us, and she was so excited for us to teach them. We had an powerful lesson about faith, repentance and baptism. They loved it and it was a great night. Oh I forgot to mention, he had invited about 7 of his friends to listen to us. It was so cool to sit around and talk to them and hear what they felt. It made me miss hanging out with my friends before the mission. It was awesome though that he wanted to already share with his friends the things that he has been learning. Later in the week we took him and some of his friends to the branch activity, it was a really good activity. Family Soto came by themselves to the activity, so I was super happy that they are doing well. The activity was about the Armor of God, and keeping ourselves protected. We watched this old video about Nephite soldiers at the lake with some of them having their armor on and some had taken it off to get in the water (The Whole Armor of God). It was a really good activity, especially with Joel and his friends being there.

On Saturday we went out and bought a bunch of flowers and some chocolates for the women in the church for mothers day. We went and delivered them and it was great to see their expressions. It was a fun day. Then I got to talk to all of you, one of the best days of the mission.

On Sunday we had 6 investigators at church, which was good. It is cool to see them progressing and growing. We have some baptism lined up, so hopefully all continues to go and they will be ready. It was Mother's day, so it was good, the talks and lessons were good. Later we went and taught Joel and his friends, and he was like begging us to go out with us to teach people. So Tuesday he is going to spend the day with us.

Love you all, especially you Mom!!

Elder Moore

Talking with Elder Moore for Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, I love you Mom!

Week 39 - April 23, 2018 (Planeta Rica - Week 9)

Feliz cumpleaños mama! Happy Birthday Mom!

So the mission has times where it feels like it is going by super fast, then other times where it feels like its going by super slow.
So last week on our P-day I bought the Colombian Monopoly game. It was a knock off version, but it is cool and it gives something for me and my companion to do on P-day here in Planeta Rica. We also bought some pancake mix and syrup, and made pancakes. It was delicious!
On Monday night we went and taught a lady that lives down the street from us. Missionaries had taught her before, and I felt we needed to stop by and begin teaching her again. She had a lot of things going on in her life that has been hard on her. We taught her about faith, and believing in our loving Heavenly Father. On Tuesday we went to Monteria for our zone meeting, it is a long drive there and back. There are a bunch of iguanas in Monteria. I went to the doctor to look at my skin rash. It is monsoon season here on the coast, the storms come in the evening and drop some good rain on us everyday. We went and had a lesson with an investigator that was coming to church everyday for like a year. He wants to get baptized but wants to wait until his girlfriend wants to get baptized. We went to another investigators house, she has a son on a mission and a daughter who is a member. She comes to church but is waiting for her son to come home to be baptized. Anyway we installed a TV antenna for her using some cable, a soda can. We walked a lot today, we had a bunch of appointments, but we only ended up having 3 since a lot of the people were not home. My companion is such a great guy, he is super humble, I learn a lot from him. My Spanish is getting good since all we do is speak Spanish, but my English is getting really bad, I do miss speaking it. One thing that I have learned out here is that I feel really good after I study, especially when I have read the Book of Mormon. It is a great feeling and helps me to know that it is True. On Wednesday we had a great Family Home evening with a bunch of members and investigators, we taught them about repentance and had a great object lesson. Thursday we had a bunch of lessons and they went great. It is super cool here to be able to teach all the time. We then went and painted a house for service. It is so hot and humid here in Planeta Rica, I come home with like a layer of nastiness on my body.
On Friday I came home and was not happy that the water was not working, I couldn't take a shower, I hate that the most. So lately we have been trying to do a really good job of updating the area book. Anyways as I was going through the book I kept seeing this guys name, Diego, appear. It really stood out. Then as we were walking down the street, this young man comes up to us and says, "Hey why haven't you guys come by to see me, I have been trying to call you but you never answer." He said he was meeting with missionaries before, but that they just stopped coming by. I asked him what his name was and he said Diego. I was in shocked and we knew we needed to go and teach him, so we set up an appointment to teach him next week. On Saturday we had a packed day, we had 7 lessons planned for the day. We had some good lessons and some that were not as good. I am starting to become a lot better teacher, I have learned to really listen to them and find out what their concerns are. We did have to change one of our lessons because we didn't have time to get to all of them.
On Sunday we went a picked up a bunch of investigators to go to church, family Soto, Jose, and some others. Church was good, we had good lesson with all of the investigators.
Today, Monday, we went to Monteria again to play soccer as a zone. They think that I am an American so they always pick the South Americans first for the teams. They don't know that I am half Spanish and that soccer is in my blood. Anyways I played really well today and scored a bunch of goals, I think I scored like 4 of our 8 goals, and the other team only had 3 goals. I am definitely out of shape, and I was cramping up a lot from running all over.

I love you all,

Love Elder Moore

I love you MOM!!!!

The Monopoly game I bought

Pancakes that we made

My companion E. Acero

E. Acero enjoying the pancakes

Week 35 - Mar 26, 2018 (Planeta Rica - Week 5)

Well we were in Medellin for about a week and returned Friday night. My companion is doing better, but he still has to take it easy. The doctor told us for him to rest during the day and only to work at night. So that is what we are going to try and do. So my poor companion, we went to the hospital to go get his incision cleaned, and while we were there in the waiting room we got up to go talk to a nurse for like less than 5 minutes, when we went to sit back down, his wallet was stolen out of his backpack. The bad thing is that we had just got reimbursed for a bunch of the medical stuff and so he had more money than he normally does. We searched all over the hospital for it, but we couldn't find it. So that was the not a good thing, and so now we are back here in Planeta Rica and my companion doesn't have any money.

So my highlight of the week was going to pricesmart (Costco) with the mission credit card and restocking the kitchen in the office. Other then that I just helped out at the office, going through all of the apartment contracts and organizing and helping renew them. Went on the splits in the evenings with the office elders. Medellin is huge and has lots of hills. It has all of the American fast food places, so I had Burger King, it was so good!

One thing that I have really realized out here is how much you (my parents) truly do love me. As I have had a lot of time to read, and think, I have realized that you really do care so much for me and JT and that you both want the best for us. That you love us so much. You have always sacrificed a ton for us and have set a great example for us. I am so grateful that I was born into this family, I am very proud to have you as parents.

So we are able to go back to teaching and we taught a really good lesson to our neighbor. We went to church on Sunday and there wasn't a lot of people there. We need to get back to getting them out to church both members and investigators. We went out that night and found some really good new investigators.

So to add to all of our problems, our phones stopped working. The water hasn't worked in our house in the last few days, and it looks like the whole town is without electricity. So it is great being here in Planeta Rica, but at least the people here are super awesome and are great to teach.


Love all of you,

Ciao,

Elder Moore

E. Harbertson's incision 

It was a little infected

Week 34 - Mar 19, 2018 - Planeta Rica - Week 4

So we didn't receive much from E. Moore this week. His companion continued to have pain from the surgery, so his Mission President decided it would be best to fly them into Medellin and have them go to the doctor/hospital there in Medellin. So they flew in and he didn't have any connections for his camera or audio recorder. He did say that Medellin is super big, that he has been working/helping the office Elders. They stayed at the office elders place and they ate really well. The doctors said his companion had a little infection so they opened him up and cleaned his incision. He said they will probably stay about a week so they can go to the hospital a few times to have it checked out.

Week 33 - Mar 12, 2018 - Planeta Rica - Week 3

Well after a few days in the hospital, they let my companion leave Wednesday afternoon. However, he is still not to do any work for at least a week. So let me tell you what has gone on. When we got to the hospital one of our members that speaks English and Spanish was there and helped us out a ton. Then Sister Calderon (Presidents wife) arrived and everything went well with the surgery. I got to stay with my companion here at the Hospital, and lets just say they didn't like us sleeping, because every 15 minutes it felt as if someone would come into our room and turn on the light, not really do anything, and then leave, leaving the light on and the door open. It wakes up my companion all the time and he needs to rest. The first few days was pretty stressful in the hospital, I slept on the couch, and was able to travel with the zone leader to the house to shower and pick up things for me and my comp and return. Also with us in the hospital was Sister Fernanda, who is like our mother here in Planeta Rica, both her and President's wife made sure they took good care of us. We also have a member in the ward that just had his appendix taken out here so he has helped us out a bunch. I love the members here so much, they are awesome and have helped us out so much! The only down side of being in the hospital was everyone was either calling or coming by to check in on us. Like literally every 15 minutes we were talking to someone. Our dueno of our apartment is such a good guy, he came by a few times and made sure we were alright, and told us to call him if we needed anything. So most of our time in the hospital we spent watching church movies, so it was OK, but we were so glad to finally be able to leave and head home. I lost track of what day it was, but we finally got home and continued to watch church movies. Thursday I went with a member while his son stayed with my comp, and I bought a lot of stuff to clean and sterilize the house. I have been cleaning everything, I didn't realize how much stuff there is to clean and sterilize. I have learned a lot. I really have learned to appreciate everything that my mom did for me. She always had the house clean, and always went above and beyond when we were sick. I sure do wish she was here now! Staying in the house is difficult because we keep losing electricity in the whole city, and occasionally the water doesn't work. After spending the last few days in the hospital and now here in the house, I really miss going out and talking to the people and teaching lessons. At first we thought it was going to be 21 days, but my companion said we can start preaching in 7 days.

We can't really leave the house for the next few days, so the members have been great and have brought us a ton of food over. We have ate really well, and have had a lot of chicken. My companion is getting better, but it still hurts for him to walk around a lot, so he stays in bed for most of the time. I got to read the Book of Mormon and that was awesome to just sit and read and study the scriptures for a long time. The one good thing about us having to stay inside is that it has been raining a lot and we were already in the apartment so we didn't get wet. So we just have been reading, studying and chilling on the balcony.

Not a lot has happened, but my companion is recovering which is the most important thing.

Love all of you,

Ciao,

Elder Moore

The baptism right before E. Harbertson went to the hospital

The baptism right before E. Harbertson went to the hospital

The scar they left on my companion, I have been cleaning it really well!