Good Week, February 11, 2013

James Van de Graaff from Northbrook, IL surprises Cole!
James served his mission in Chile years ago

Well, this week we focused on The Living Christ with the members, and we had some pretty neat experiences!  Missionary work works better when the members become the source of the new investigators!

There´s a young man in our ward named Rodrigo, a convert of 3 to 4 years, who is going on his mission in a few weeks to Cusco, Peru.  Well, he´s very excited, had his temple recommend interview this week, and went through the temple on Saturday.  His family couldn´t go through with him, because they´re not yet members of the church.  So, he asked us if we could go through with him.  We asked permission from President, and he said yes, considering the circumstances.  The Relief Society president also came.  When Elder Gehring and I got there, Rodrigo was there waiting in the changing room.  A temple worker came up to us and was like, "Elder Moffat.... you.  Rodrigo has asked that you be his escort through the session today.  Quick, get changed so we can start!"  It was a really neat experience going through the temple with someone for their first time (my second time in Spanish!).  I just love the temple.

Afterwards, we went over to the distribution center to buy some things, and there was this GIANT man who we knew was definitely NOT chilean. (in fluent, not too gringo spanish) "Where are you from, Elder?"  "Chicago"  "Oh really... Elder Van De Graff is over there around the corner in the chapel.  Well, to you he might be President Van de Graff. You should go see him!"  Well, I only know one Van de Graff family, and so I figured it was probably them, so we headed on over there.  And sure enough, James Van De Graff is there!  They were having a mission reunion from the Misión Chile Viña del Mar ´79-´82 I think.  He was actually one of the people who planned it.  We talked for a bit, it was great.  We also talked with a few other people there whose spouses were the RMs from Viña, and they didn´t speak spanish (so they were really happy talking to 2 gringo missionaies.  Elder Gehring made some connections some of the people from Mesa (Richard Skousen?).  They all knew his dad and grandpa ("Grandpa Lou!")  So it was a fun time.  What are the chances, right?

Well, that´s all I have time for this week.  More to come next week, from Republica.

Love,
Elder Cole Moffat

Another Week, February 2, 2013

Hey!  It´s February!  Time flies, seriously.

This week we decided to try a new method of talking to people and having them actually wanting to talk with us.  A few days of the week, we set up a table outside the church with a quesiton written on a piece of posterboard.  We had our pamphlets and cards and other stuff, but also a few notecards where people could write their answer to our question.  "What do you expect from the Mormon Church in our neighborhood?"  "What would you ask Jesus Christ?"  "What does Faith mean to you?"  Simple, open-ended answers.very few people actually came up to answer the question, but a lot of people came up to talk with us and ask other questions.  So, while we didn´t get any new investigators from it (which is what was happening before anyway), we were able to talk to a lot more people that were actually interested in talking with us.  And 9/10 cars (yes, a measured and accurate statistic) that passed through the intersection read the sign with the question.  Some even slowed down to read it.  So, even if we didn´t talk with all of them, we got people to think about the church, christ, faith, etc.  And with the people that passed by without stopping, even after we tried talking to them, we definitely sparked a few conversations about Christ and religion.  success!

The specialized training was on Thursday, and Concilio was this Friday, and they were awesome.  We really need to focus on Christ more.  That´s just the bottom line I´ve learned this week.  We need to focus on Christ more.  I want you guys to read "The Living Christ" this week.  President invited each of us to memorize it as well.  I just want you guys to read it together, and really think about it.  "What think ye of Christ?"  That´s something we can all ask ourselves and analyze a little more often in our life.  What do we really think of Christ?

Food for thought.

Well, I love you guys!

Elder Cole Moffat

Click here for the document, "The Living Christ"

Baptism, January 28, 2013

Hey I got letters from the Rubows, from Val Dawson, from the Eyres, and from the Bishopric.  And the dear elders.  It was a good mail week!  Also, I´m not sure I made the comment about getting the Whittles´ package about 2 weeks ago.  the Gingersnaps were still soft and WONDERFUL!  Send cookies more often, folks!!!

Ana Rañiman got baptized on Saturday!  It was a wonderful experience.  She just looked so happy afterwards.  Well, before, too, but especially afterwards, as she was sitting with her 11 year old son, who got baptized in November.  Elder Gehring baptized her. There was pretty good support from the ward, too.  There were probably 30+ people there.  nice!  And about 20 of us went to their house afterwards to have refreshments.  So fun!  But the fun part came the next day, Sunday, when I confirmed her!  On Saturday, after the baptism, she asked me to do the confirmation on Sunday.  Well, I´ve never confirmed anyone before, and I´ve definitely never done it in Spanish   And the only times I´ve given blessings, it´s only been just the person there or maybe their family, too.  I´ve definitely never had to give a blessing or confirm anyone a member of the church speaking into a microphone in front of a whole ward.  So that was interesting.  It was nervous, but when I got up there, the words flowed.  Interesting how that works.

Other than the baptism, there´s really nothing else to comment on.  The work is kind of slowing down here in Republica  It´ll probably be like this through February, but in March it should pic up again (when there are actually more people walking around, when investigators and members are actually in town, etc.).  This week we´re going to start contacting a little differently, because like Preach My Gospel says, we shouldn´t just do the same thing over and over and over again.  It has some ideas in it, but it suggests that those ideas should be a starting point to develop our own creative ideas.  I´ll let you know how it goes.

Well, I love you guys and miss you loads!

Elder Cole Moffat

ps- I did my own visa run this week, and got my second visa.  here in a few weeks i´ll get my new chilean ID, and I´m pretty sure the picture looks IDENTICAL to the one I took last year.  you´ll see....