Milagritos pasan, February 20, 2012

Hola!

Feliz Cumpleaños a Michael Whittle and Grandpa Ben!   I really really enjoyed those pictures of the VHHS play!!! Looks like so much fun!!!!!!!  Man, I wish I could have seen it.  Looks like you had a blast, Hayden!  But take a few days to get caught up on school stuff.... and then you´ll be able to relax a little bit :)  Oh, and when is Turnabout and what´s the story with that?

Okay.  from the campo misional.

Last Monday night, we had a Noche de Hogar with Familia Duran.  The dad moved to Provo when he was 5, grew up there, went to BYU, served his mission in the late 90s here in Chile Santiago West, finished school at BYU, moved back to Chile, got married, and had his family.  He speaks perfect English with a Utah accent, and says that he thinks in English, not Spanish.  His kids speaks English, and his wife understands English.  There was a mission reunion from when he served 15 years ago, so there was another RM with his Mom, who doesn´t speak Spanish.  SO, we had magic cookie bars, and I gave the lesson in English!  It was kind of hard to talk about Church stuff in English, I won´t lie.  But the spirit was super super strong.  super super strong -- one of the highlights of my mission so far.  And Hno. Duran is super cool.  He works for the church here in Santiago.  We also got a reference of an inactive family from another RM sister that served in Las Avenidas, and so that was great.  We have a return cita, we´ll go with Hno. Duran.  We finally got into this other inactive sister´s house, and she totally wants to get active again.  We taught a lesson on Metas for life to an inactive recent convert, and she´s pumped to lograr la vida eterna.  Pres. King gave a training for the obispados y líderes misionales in the stake, and it was awesome, me dio mucho animo.

AND time for the milagro.  Saturday night during planning, we still had 0 new investigators for the week, and our goal was 5.  With just Sunday left to lograr la meta, Elder Callao said where should we go contact?   Wherever comes to your mind, we´ll go, and we´ll find a family of at least 5.  I felt like we needed to go do some contacts on Quinta Avenida.  So we did.  Sunday, no one was answering their doors, no one wanted to talk to us.  Finally we actually talked to someone through their window.  And this group of 3 people walked behind us, looks like a mom with 2 teenagers... and a little baby.  I make eye contact with the guy, and he was like, "don´t you remember me?"  Nope, I had no idea who this guy was.  "should I?"  "Yeah, from La Cisterna, remember?"  "I never was in La Cisterna, sorry." "oh, well you all look the same." and they kept walking.  We finish the window contact, and go catch up to them down the street.  We get talking, and it turns out he had probably talked to Elder Bateman in la Cisterna about employment or something.  But we keep talking about missionary stuff, and the mom says, "ya know what?  Let´s go to the house.  It´s hot out here.  It´s just down the street on the corner over there."  So we go, sit on their patio talk more about mission stuff.  Turns out the two teenagers, Jonathon and Karín, are not married but living together with their 1 1/2 year old daughter, Madeline.  The older mom is Silvia.  We talk some more, and Silvia de repente asks us about the "bible" we´re holding.  So we explain a little about the Book of Mormon, and ask to go inside to share with the rest of the family.  Vicente, Silvia´s husband, and daughter Tamara were there.  We talked about the Book of Mormon, how to know it´s true, and that if they all know it´s true and follow what it teaches, they can have an Eternal Family.  "una familia eterna-- ¿es algo que quieren?" and they got really interested at that point.  We got a return cita, and they voluntarily gave us their cell phone to call them.  When we went to say a prayer at the end, we asked if there was anything we should include, like we always do.  Turns out, the little Girl, Madeline was super sick Sunday Morning.  But throughout the day she got better.  Why? I know it was so they would walk on Quinta Avenida.  So we could talk to them.  So we could share with them.  So we can help them obtener su familia eterna en los cielos.  5 new investigators.  5 new people to help along the path to Eternal Life.  Miracles are real.  The Lord does provide.

I love you and miss you all!
keep writing!

Elder Cole Moffat

Changeless, February 13, 2012

Looks like I´m staying here in Las Avenidas de San Miguel with Elder Callao for another 6 weeks!

Happy Birthday Demarie Cook, btw.  And thanks for the VDay package, Mom.  I got it last Wednesday and I ate a lot of chocolate all at once.  Loved the scriptures!  And the valentines.  Are they on my wall above my desk? Yes. Yes they are.  Also love the fact that Hermana Simicich wrote you, Dad!  How cool!

But yes, I will be staying here with Elder Callao for at least another 6 weeks!  I think I´ll be here in the sector until May or June, but I´ll probably have another companion or 2.  A review of change 3 for Elder Moffat: 1 baptism.  8 lessons with members present, 42 other lessons with investigators, 26 new investigators (Most of them we never got back in their house to teach, though....) 69 lessons to members (inactive, less active, fully active), that´s 119 lessons total, and 257 contacts.  The numbers don´t look too bad.  But is there room to improve? Always.  Always room to improve.  Always things to work on and make better.  This Change I think I´m going to focus specifically on a few things.  I want to pray better and even more often with even more meaning.  According to one of the initiatives for the mission this month, I´m going to work on developing the Christlike attributes of Charity and Love.  How do you develop patience? love.  humility? love.  faith? starts with love.  Just about everything starts with love.  So, I´m going to work on that.  Because the more I am on the mission, the more I realize my lack of love.  Definitely going to work on it.  Help me with it, pray for me if you could :)

The other initiative this month comes from Elder D. Todd Christofferson´s conference talk: El Divino Don del Arrepentimiento--The Divine gift of Repentance.  I really really love this talk, and am glad it´s our initiative.  We all need to repent.  We all need to, and it is possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  And I really like the points that Elder Christofferson makes.  Especially, "For our turning to the Lord to be complete, it must include nothing less than a covenant of obedience to Him. We often speak of this covenant as the baptismal covenant..."  And as missionaries, It is our purpose to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the Restored Gospel through Faith, Repentance, Baptism, The Reception of the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End.  I love that talk.

Divisions with Elder Monsen this week, one of the Zone Leaders.  Divisions are always insightful.  We invited someone to baptism in his sector, too!  and we literally saw the countenance of someone change when we told him about their potential as the Father of his family.  Woah.  Neat stuff!   Elder Monsen is such a great missionary.   He´s about to start his last change!  and He´s sure not going to just die on the mission.  He´s working super hard, and will right up to the end.  That´s what I want to do.

I also started this thing after reading Landon´s letter to read the Libro de Mormón out loud.  I was already reading out loud sometimes, but I would read a few verses, then mark what I wanted to, then read a few more, and there wasn´t a whole lot of reading out loud.  But now I read silently and mark what I want to during personal study, and then during language study I read out loud without stopping.  And I can read like 5,6,7+ pages in like 15 minutes!  It´s great.  I think I´ll be able to finish the Libro de Mormón en voz alta in a month or two at this rate.  Yay!

I love the Book of Mormon.  Honestly, I am just kicking myself for not reading it and studying it and really getting to know it as much as I should have in High School.  OHHH it´s just so amazing.  I had to give a talk on Sunday (with 16 hours´notice), and I chose to talk about chapter 1 of 1 Nephi.  All the things that are just in the first chapter.  Prayer.  Testimonies of BoM, God, and Christ.  Afflictions... enduring...blessings.  Prophets. Revelation.  Role of the Holy Ghost.  All in one chapter.  Well guess what?  There are 239 chapters in the Book of Mormon!  I love that book, and I know it´s inspired.  I know it contains the words of God as given through His prophets, and also the words of Christ Himself.  I know that, as Joseph Smith said, we can come closer to God by following its teachings that those of any other book.  I love the Book of Mormon.  Keep reading it daily!!!

I love you all.
Elder Cole Moffat

Yep, San Miguel, February 5, 2012

Hola!
Feliz cumpleaños a Lauren this Friday!  and thank´s for the emails and the forwarded letters from Maddi Moffat and Michael Whittle!  Honestly, changed my week when I got those.

Interesting things this week.  First, I made my way through the Chilean "MegaSalud" and got my retainer fixed!  I had to go through a secretary, 2 x-ray technicians, and 3 doctors to get it done, but it´s done!  you´re not going to believe it.  They took out the part that was bad, put in a new one (in a much better position, too), and it took the lady like 15 minutes--- $10 mil CLP!  That´s like 20-25 American bucks!!!  That´s it!!! In the States, that would have been like $100-150, maybe even $200.  And boom, just like that, really cheap, and it feels great, and trust me, it´s a job well done.  If it lasts longer than 10 months, it´s still better than my previous retainer.  Successs of the week.

Vacations are hard as a missionary, because everyone leaves.  Everyone.  If we get into a house, it´s soooo hard to come back.  Either we can´t come back for 3 weeks because they´ll be at the beach, or we set a return cita and they´re not there, or they just say, chuta, we have vacaciones and tell us that they´ll call us (nope, never do).  So that´s frustrating, when every single cita or plan A or plan B or plan C that we set falls through-- every single one in the same day.  And when we don´t get to meet with our promising fecha because she worked late every single night because all of her coworkers are on vacation.  but hay que seguir, no más. 

A member told me a joke in English this week, and it was actually pretty funny: "An Elephant is sitting on an orange in front of a synagogue.  what´s he waiting for?  Juice!"  I thought it was quite clever.  me dio risa.

The importance of Obedience was reenforced this week in my life.  a few reasons.  I committed myself to go to bed, wake up, do exercises, do all my studies, etc.  exactly on time, to the minute, and that day was just better.  We didn´t teach a lot, but I just felt better, and had a better attitude.  Obedience really really helps.  Also, from the other side of things.  We finally got into a house after contacting them a few days before, and it turns out both the guy and his girlfriend had had experiences with the missionaries before.  And it´s really uncomfortable when both their experiences were with  missionaries, who played video games with them, kept coming over for 7 months to hang out and eat and watch movies and stuff, never talking about the church or fulfilling their purpose, and other things.  So if not for yourself, the principle of obedience for the sake of future missionaries is important, too.

I´d like to include something that was in Michael´s letter that you forwarded to me, mom, in DearElder.  It really hit me.  "The Invitation we give all people everywhere, to come unto Christ, means nothing if we do not do it with Love.  That is how Christ did it.  This is his Gospel, and we need to invite people His way.  If we don´t, it would be making a mockery of this sacred invitation."  I love that, and I really tried to take that to heart this week.  And guess what, it helps.

We taught a member family about family prayer last night, and when I was bearing testimony, the Lord really filled my mouth once I opened it.  I testified about how our family always did family prayer, and how I can´t remember a time when we started doing family prayer--- because we´ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.  And now I see the blessing of it-- that our family is unified.  And in response to that, the dad said, holding his 6 month old boy, his first child, "I want my son to be able to say that.  I want him to remember us always kneeling down having family prayer.  I want to him to remember that his parents always took him to church.  I want him to be able to say that."  So thank you.  Also, thank you for showing love to your kids. This week we were working with this family, and it just made me so sad that there is so little love in the family.  So un-unified.  Thank you so much, mom, dad, hayden, spencer, and luke, for being willing to go to church and do stuff as a family, for showing love, for supporting each other, and I´m especially grateful for the support you show me, even though you´re miles away.  I feel your love.

I miss you.  Keep going strong!
Elder Moffat