Elder Jared Moser has been called to serve in the Chile Santiago West Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on August 22, 2012.

We will use this blog to post his e-mails, letters, and photos from his mission, to record them for him and to share with his family and friends.

Feel free to make comments, but he will not have internet access and will not see the comments until he returns home.

For readability, some spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have been standardized.

Mailing Address

MAILING ADDRESS


Elder Jared H. Moser
Mission Chile Santiago Oeste
Casilla de Correos 149
Pajaritos 1921
Maipu, Chile

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

E-mail and photos


Thanks for the letter Dad.  Things are going pretty good down here!  We are going to have a baptism this Saturday - that should be pretty good.  It is Jose Luis, the 12 year old that we have been teaching for a while.  He is super ready and I am pretty excited for that.  His uncle, the branch president, will be baptizing him.  There really wasn't too much stuff new this week!  Nothing too crazy happened, just a good week with some good lessons.  We don't have a ton of investigators right now but the ones we do have are pretty good.  Hopefully we can keep helping them progress better and get them in the church.  This week we are going to have a branch activity.  Last time we had some pretty good results so hopefully it works out as good as last time.  We are now living with a kid from Ecuador.  He replaced the Mexican kid here.  He is super cool and he looks like he is 14. He gets teased a lot about that one but he takes it pretty good.  That sister missionary that gave her talk in English, now you know how I was my first couple weeks down here in Chile haha, same kind of deal :)  But the language is coming along pretty good, definitely not a professional, but I am getting the job done!! Just need to work on talking slower, that is my biggest problem right now.  But everything else is great!  We had 65 people in the church so that was a pretty good week for us!  Hope that we can keep it up!!  I hope everyone has a great week!!
Love,
Elder Moser
 Our neighborhood dog, Spencer.

 Chevy


Monday, April 22, 2013

E-mail


Thanks for the weather forecast Dad!  Looks like it is gonna be an awesome week here in the Islita!!!  My letter is gonna have to be a little bit shorter cause we had a big going away party for the Elders that are leaving tomorrow from our zone.  There is a Mexican that lives with me that is leaving which was pretty sad.  I have become pretty good friends with him - he was an awesome kid.  I will be staying with Elder Brow here in La Islita for at least another 6 weeks and I am pretty excited for that.  We have been doing some great work together and I think we are really gonna dominate it this week.  Looks like Sarah had a great trip to Hawaii this past week, and I kinda forgot to say it last week, but Happy Birthday Sarah!!!!!  Looks like it was a good one!! :)  And nice bowl Dad.  You are getting pretty darn good!  I have been looking for some different types of wood I can send a little piece home so you can make me a pen.  Look into Kiwi and Grape wood and see if they are any good!!  The people are pretty impressed with your bullet pen.  I kinda dropped it when I was having a race with some of our investigators.... so I think I am gonna need you to make another pen for me!  Just one out of wood would be great ;)  And Mom we are teaching English classes and we have an English question that we just can't quit figure.  We are both a little on the redneck side and our English aint to darn great.  Would I say "I would have drinken", or "I would have drank" or "I would have drunk"?????  haha  We really don't know the answer to that question!  English grammar just starts to get messed up in our heads!!
I was sad to hear about Megans baby.  This past week that happened to two of our investigators also, and it was a great lesson for me that things happen for a reason and God is in control and even though things just don't seem right at the moment, it is what was supposed to happen in the long run, and might never make sense to us, but everything make sense to God!  Just have to trust him in what he knows is best.  They both have been a lot more interested this week and it has been a sad experience with them, but also a great teaching experience.
Everything else is going pretty good.  Our other missionaries in our branch had a baptism this week and it was really special - first one in the sector for over a year and a half, kinda slow here!!!
I hope everyone is doing great!  I love and miss you all!
Elder Moser

Monday, April 15, 2013

E-mail


Hola!!  Well it was a another pretty good week this week!  My companion was pretty sick a lot of the week so I spent a lot of time just studying and catching up in my journal a little bit, and I realized I am terrible at journal writing!  I definitely need to start being better at that like you said Dad!  Nothing too crazy happened this week.  I was a lot more careful with what I ate and made sure it was only the good part of the animals I was eating this week.  Yesterday we taught a lesson to Luis.  He is the guy that came to our English class.  He is really great but just doesn't see the need to change anything cause he is happy and his family is happy he says, so why change anything??  So we are just gonna try to keep getting him to read the Book of Mormon and explain the lessons a little better.  I think after a little time he will kinda get what we are bringing him - the Book of Mormon is gonna help a lot on this one for sure. This week I was able to go on divisions with a kid named Elder Salisbury and this is his first change on the mission so it was fun being the senior comp.  I really think that when I am with a older comp I don't use my Spanish and teaching skills as fully as I could and I really surprise myself when I am leading out and stuff, so I want to work on using the skills that I have a lot better.  I am kinda living below my potential right now with my comp. That was something that really stuck out to me in conference last week was to live to your potential and don't just fall back cause it is easy.  I think if I really start using what I have, I will be able to grow a lot faster and be a lot more ready for when I do have to be with the younger comp all the time, and with all the new missionaries coming in I think it will be pretty soon!  And thanks for the advice with the manuals dad.  I think it would help this branch out so much if they would use them!!  We kind of realized we just have to start at the basics of the gospel with a lot of these people here, they really don't understand just some of the simple stuff a lot of the time, and I think life would be a lot easier for them if they could understand the simple stuff a little more.  President King told me and my comp to save the members here cause they are at the point of needing to be saved or else they are just gonna fall, so we have really put most of our time into working with the members here.  It is kinda hard to do that cause everyone focuses on numbers so much here in the missions, and lessons to active members don't count for nothing but we kinda realized finally to just forget about trying to get the best numbers and really help the members here.  But I've got to head out, everything is going great!  Loving it here!
Elder Moser

Monday, April 8, 2013

E-mail and Photos


Hola!!  Well it was a super nice week here in Chile!!  It has finally cooled down and the weather was perfect this week, nice and cool at nights and perfect during the day.  I am getting excited to see all the grape leaves change colors, I have heard it is pretty sweet! This weekend was awesome, we were able to watch conference in English in the High Council room at the stake center so we were able to watch all five sessions.  General Conference out here is like Christmas, but way better!!  Definitely have gotten a lot more out of the last two conferences than I ever have the rest of them combined in my life!  Makes a difference to take notes, haha..  So that was a great topper onto a nice week.  We are still teaching Jose Luis a lot and he is pretty excited to get baptized.  That should happen in the beginning of May.  He really wants his parents to quit smoking and get married so that they can join him , so we have been working with them a lot too, but I think it might be a little while!!  We have been focusing a lot on helping the members here be more self-sufficient in the branch.  I think if the missionaries left right now that the branch would just fall apart.  We have been working with the leaders a lot and trying to get them to use the manuals and stuff from the church.  It was kinda funny when the branch president opened the manual for the first time in a few years and said ohhhh, maybe I should read this every now and then!  It has been quite the few weeks here haha.  The people are really great though and they really are trying to do good, they just don't quite know how, so we are helping them a lot with that right now.  This week I did have one terrible experience though... one night me and my comp were really hungry so we went to get a completo, but the place was out and all they had was a sandwich called sandwich potito.  Poto means behind and ito means little, so we just figured it was the rump roast of a little pig or something, so we got it and took it home and I started eating it in the dark without looking at it, and when I took the last bite my comp came in and turned on the light and when I saw the leftover meat that was on my wrapper I knew I had made a big mistake.  Then my comp saw it and burst out laughing, and he said that he remembered what sandwich potito is, and I kinda figured when I saw it, it is not the rump roast of a pig.  It isn't literally little behind, but little part of the behind, that is up in there a little bit.  Yes I ate a sandwich of pig anus literally cut up anus of a bunch of pigs, kinda like intestines, but a little bit worse, or a lot a bit worse!!!!!!!  Anyways I burst out the back door and threw everything up that I had eaten that day and I think the couple days before too, and continued to throw up until the next day haha..  I think it was just a mental thing, I never have been one with the strongest stomach in the world!! and just to confirm we went and asked the guy the next day and he said that some people make it out of intestines but he just uses the anus :)  what a sandwich!!  learned from that experience for sure!!!  It really wasn't that bad though just the texture and the thought is all!! but anyway!  I hope everyone has a great week!!!
Elder Moser

Sweet Chilian Knife 

 Catholic horse parade, looked kinda like the kkk to me!!!

Monday, April 1, 2013

E-mail and Photos


Happy Birthday Mom!!!!  It kinda snuck up on me.  I bought a new watch down here and it doesn't have the dates, and when someone told me it was the first of April this week, I couldn't believe it, haah.  March went by way fast!!  Hope you had a great birthday Mom!  and a great trip to Colombia.  I am excited to hear about that!!  I like Landon's futball jersey!  I have gotten some as gifts and man they are comfy! super nice to wear around.  He looks like a little Chilean now!!  This week was pretty good!!! super fast though!  We had a great ward activity this week.  I was told at past ward activities that usually only about ten people come but we had over forty there this time, it was awesome.  We had a big dessert competition, and let's just say I am glad I live in America.  Chileans really cannot make desserts!!!  Can't wait for some of Mom's desserts again!!  Thanks for going to buy the stuff Dad.  I will try to eat a lot of fruit in the mean time, it is just kinda hard cause they ship all the good stuff to you guys, and the stuff that is down here really is not very good, kinda stinks!!  The pears and peaches have no taste!! and I am kinda sick of grapes, haha, way too many of those the last couple weeks!!  This week we have been teaching a guy that came to one of our English classes that we are having every week.  He is a really great guy and has an awesome family.  I hope things keep going good with him.  He seems pretty interested in the Book of Mormon and things so I am excited to keep teaching him and his family, they are a lot of fun!!  We were able to go to a baptism with a kid that has a baptismal date and he really liked that.  We have been having a lot of fun with him, he is a great kid and a great friend here as well.  He really loves the Church, and it is awesome to watch him with everything.  It was actually super cold the last three days here.  We were in long sleeve shirts and everyone else here was in a jacket and it was overcast.  It made it super nice for working, and I am excited for the coolness to start!!  It has been a long hot summer!!  Today we were able to go to Santa Lucia for a zone activity, the hill in Santiago that I went to before.  I had already seen everything but it was fun to go up there again and do something a little different.  There are a lot of great people in my zone this time and it has been fun getting to know them.  I will try to send some pictures as well - one is me and my companion eating empanadas after the baptism with Jose Louis, the kid that has a baptismal date.  Well I hope everyone is doing great!!  Have an awesome week!!
Elder Moser