E-mail

October 29, 2012

Hello!!  My first full week in Chile was great!  Me and my companion went out and worked hard and found a bunch of new investigators and such!  When I came they had just had some baptisms and it was kind of slow in the sector, so we are trying to push it and get some more baptismal dates and get the sector going again!  We don´t have any dates set yet but hopefully in the next couple weeks we will!  We have several people that know it is true but Chileans are just great with coming up with excuses for things!! haha it is kind of funny talking to the people here because they will agree with you on anything but then they have a bunch of excuses of why they won't do it or listen to us and stuff, it is pretty funny to listen to!  But for the most part they are really nice and accepting and help me out a lot with my language!  The members have been a big help! There is one family that has a son, Francisco, that is going on his mission to Peru in January and we are really good friends with him and he helps us out with a lot of stuff all the time and the family own what is called a local, and it is like a little restaurant thingy connected to their house and they always make us come in and eat food when we walk by, which isn´t bad :)  The two best things to eat in Chile by far are completos and ass. haha, and yes that is what it is called!  Completos are hot dogs with tomatoes and guacamole and mayo on it and ass is thin pieces of beef fried in a pan put into a hot dog bun with tomatoes and gauc on top, and man it is good!!  That is all of the missionaries favorite food here and I now see why!  And we are in the best sector cause we get free ass and completos any time!  We really don´t do too much shopping here!  The members take pretty good care of us!  I have eaten a lot of rice and bread and chicken and stuff like that.  They never season anything so it is all pretty bland but hey its food! Dad, that picture you sent, I really have no idea where anything is haha.  I really couldn't tell you!  The ward we are in is called Rinconada.  On Google Earth go to the street Las Naciones with Rinconada and we live on the little street La Lechería in those apartment buildings, so see if that helps any!!  It looks like the girls had a great time on the trip! Those sound like some great speakers!! and snow?? that sounds pretty crazy!!  It has been pretty hot here the last couple of days!  It will be way weird having Christmas in the summer!  And sorry if my grammar is bad!  It is hard to keep Spanish and English grammar straight in my head sometimes now!  And the mail situation, every week at district meeting they bring the mail to us from the mission office, and so with like packages and everything, they just bring that all to us from the mission office, and we have district meetings on Tuesday so I wasn´t able to receive anything yet but we will see if the Dear Elder is there tomorrow. Dear Elder should work fine though, it has for other missionaries!  And thanks for making that scripture marker Dad!  It sounds pretty sweet!  I think I'm good with everything else!  Yesterday we had a pretty interesting experience, when we were walking down the street contacting, a lady came out of her house and asked if we could get rid of the demon that was in her mom.  So we went in to see what was going on and after talking with her for a while we decided to give her a blessing and before she wouldn't or couldn't talk and she just looked really angry and after the blessing she was just super happy and was talking and stuff.  I don't really know quite what was wrong with her, but I definitely know that Priesthood blessings have a lot of power!  It was just a really interesting situation!  And this week I officially got my first dog bite in Chile!  Lucky it couldn't bite too hard cause it tried to bit the thickest part of my calf so it couldn't bite down to hard before I smacked it with my Book of Mormon I was carrying at the time, haha.  Chile is great!  I really like it a lot!!  And my companion is great and I have been learning a whole bunch from him.  I tried to take some pictures but I didn't get too many taken but I will try to load them on here.  There's a couple of my apartment and then the one with the gaming machines, well that is the front door to the house of the kid that is going on his mission soon, I just thought it was pretty funny.  And then there is one of the huge Catholic church that is here, it doesn´t look that big in the picture, but it is huge!!  And the public bathrooms here, well they are not free, you have to pay, haha, that is one of the pictures also.. and one is my view looking out my back window of my apartment.

Photos

 Apartment

 View out back of Apartment

 Catholic Church

 Front of Francisco's home.

Pay bathroom?

E-mail

October 22, 2012

Hola!!  Man, I realized on Saturday that I do not speak Spanish one little bit!!  haha, or at least I can't understand Spanish one little bit!!  Chileans speak waaay fast and they have their own dialect. Definitely sounds a lot different from the Spanish they were speaking in the MTC!!  My Companion, Elders Myers is from San Diego and he is a great guy.  He will for sure be a real help to me for sure both with the Espanola and the gospel.  I have already learned a bunch!  We are in the Olimpia stake and that is also the name of our area and we are assigned to one ward here.  Yesterday it was fun going to church and meeting all the members.  There are about 80 or 100 in this ward which is about average.  The members and the investigators are really patient with my Spanish.  The only people that aren't are just people that don't want to listen to us, haha.  Every day except p-day we eat at a members house for lunch and wow they feed the missionaries a lot!!  The only times I have eaten since I've been here is just at the mission home once and then at members houses.  They give us plenty of food to go throughout the day! We just rotate through all the members for lunch each day and on Wednesday we eat with the same lady and that is who does our laundry.  We live in an apartment  - just me and my companion, and it is pretty nice for Chile.  Definitely not too nice for America, but pretty decent for Chile!!  Can't complain!!  We only have hot water in the mornings though because we have to light a gas furnace that heats the water, so after we take our showers no more hot water!  I'm in a suburb kind of thing of Santiago which is called Maipu, which is pretty big itself.  It is pretty dumpy everywhere and a lot of the members houses are pretty small and pretty trashy but they are all super happy!  It is awesome to see!  They are for the most part pretty humble and great people!  Just a couple things I have eaten so far here - well for all the meals I have had at members houses they have all had papa fritas every time (french fries).  They love those down here!  And then one day we had a huge plate of rice with 5 hotdogs on top!  Who eats five hot dogs in one meal!!  I guess I do now!  And then another one we had some chicken to go along with the papa fritas, it wasn't too bad!  The ward mission leader is super nice and he reminds me a lot like a Chilean version of Calvin!  It is kind of crazy!!  We just email at this little internet place down the street in a little shop..  Dad, I really don't know my address but you could go on the church locator and look for the Olimpia stake center and that is about the area where I live!  We are just a few blocks away from the church.  I forgot to bring my camera this time so I will have to wait until next Monday to send some pictures!  Sorry!  The day I got here, Friday, we were able to hear from Elder Bednar and that was amazing!  Oh ya, and David Archulleta also sang at it because it was his mission, Rancauga, and our mission combined for Elder Bednar and that was pretty cool!!  Elder Bednar spoke to us for 3 hours straight!  It was intense!  It was just a big question and answer thing.  That guy is awesome!  I really am not sure the best way to write - they say the mail is pretty safe here and stuff should come so you could just send regular mail or Dear Elders would probably work pretty good and emails are fine too.  If you just send regular mail look on the church site for the pouch mail and see how that works, that could be a pretty good option too!  I think it takes about two weeks for mail to get to the states from here and also two weeks to get down here and about a month or so for packages.  It has been kind of a rough couple of days because I have been so tired from the flight and I just don't seem like I can catch up on my sleep!! so hopefully I can get over that sometime soon!!  and hopefully I can start understanding because my companion goes home in eight or nine weeks and I will be leading the sector when he goes home which is crazy to think about, because I'm pretty lost everywhere we go and such.  It isn't too big, there is just a ton of little streets everywhere and it is pretty hard to keep track of where we are.  There are a ton of dogs everywhere!  It is crazy!  Everywhere!!!  They are for the most part scared of people though, but it seems like I always have dog poop on my shoe!  Well I hope everyone is doing well!!  Monday will be my p-day from now on.  Have a great week!  Oh and the pictures you sent of Carrie and Missy's families were great! Thanks!

Elder Moser

hah and oh ya, another fun fact about our mission is we go to bed at 11:30 and get up at 7:30!!

it is great!! :)

also the address to the mission home is :

Mission Chile Santiago Oeste

Casilla de Correos 149

Pajaritos 1921

Maipu, Chile

(Note - it looks to me like the best way to write to Elder Moser is to use Dear Elder.com , There is no charge and if you type your letter by midnight on Sundays, it will go out in the Church pouch mail on Monday.  If we all use e-mail, by the time he reads an e-mail from each of us, he won't have computer time to write back :)

Elder Moser arrives in Chile

Letter from Jared

Hello Mom and Dad!  I'm here in Chile! I guess they will scan this and send it to you.  I made it here great. The flight was really long and didn't get much sleep!  So I'm pretty tired but it is all good.  We got to talk to Elder Bednar in the Santiago Airport so that was fun and we also saw Elder Oaks and talked to him.  We get to hear from Elder Bednar tonight so that should be good!  Hey, and I can't understand a thing when I hear a Chilean speak!  So hopefully that gets better soon!  But Chile is great!  A lot of it looks really poor so it should be fun teaching all those people!  I'm pretty excited!  We have just been at the mission home all day receiving instructions and such.  There are definitely a lot of dogs here so that should be interesting!  It sounds like all the people are really nice here and I'm excited to get out and meet some of them!  Hopefully I can speak to them a little bit!  I get to meet my companion tonight so that should be good!  I think they will send a picture of us with this.  Well I hope you guys are doing good!  Chile is great! 

Love, Elder Moser

 Sister King, Elder Myres, Elder Moser, President King

My Area

E-mail from President King:

20 October 2012

Dear Brother and Sister Moser,

Sister King and I were pleased to welcome your son, Elder Moser, to one of the finest missions in the world, the Chile Santiago West Mission.  He is well and happy, and we are impressed with his enthusiasm for the work.  After greeting him at the airport and a brief tour of the beautiful city of Santiago, we arrived at our mission home. I interviewed your son and gave him a priesthood blessing.  My Assistants and office missionaries then gave him a brief orientation to the mission.  We had a delicious lunch together, he met his new companion, and that afternoon he left the mission home and departed for his first area of labor.

Elder Moser has been assigned to work with Elder Myres, who will serve as his training companion.  Trainers are chosen for their competence, patience and dedication, and are selected after prayerful consideration.  With this letter we are including a photograph taken of your son and his new companion with Sister King and myself.

Please accept our deep appreciation for raising such a fine son.  We feel a genuine fellowship with you in supporting and providing him this opportunity to grow spiritually as he labors to bring souls unto Christ.  It is my prayer that the Lord will inspire us all to sustain him in this challenging assignment.  Please write him frequently, weekly if possible.  Express your love, support, and confidence in him.  You will witness miraculous changes in his life as he engages fully in the service of others.

Being parents ourselves, we understand your desire to occasionally send packages.  For your information, packages sent to your missionary through FedEx often require large duty fees which must be paid by the missionary.  Those sent through Global priority mail, marked missionary supplies and valued less than $100 usually arrive duty free and within 2 weeks.

If you have any questions or if we can assist you in any way, please do not hesitate to write.

Sincerely,

President Richard W. King
Chile Santiago West Mission



E-mail

October 16, 2012

Hello everybody!!  It was a great final week here at the MTC!!  The week started out great because we had the opportunity of Elder Bednar to come speak to us!!  And that was really great and he talked about how we should be studying General Conference talks.  He said we should go through each talk and look at the doctrine the person is teaching, then find the invitation that coincides with that doctrine and then look for the blessings in the talk that come from living that doctrine.  It was a really good talk!  And it was fun listening to him..  And I must be doing something right, because on Friday we will step off the plane in Chile and head straight over to a meeting where Elder Bednar will talk to us again!!  I'm pretty excited for that as well!  That should be a great start to my missionary life in Chile!  I'm getting way excited to head down there!!  Oh, and Mom and Dad I will probably call somewhere between 6:30 and10:00 pm because we have a big layover in Atlanta then, so that would probably be the best time to call!  Today we were able to go up and do sealings again today and that was really good.  It was fun talking to the sealer, I guess he is really good friends with Elder Holland and he was giving us some inside information, haha.  He said that they are opening up a new area in Africa for missionary work there really soon so that should be great!!  And he was just talking about the new missionary age and he said that on that first Sunday after conference there were about 4000 missionary applications sent in and the usual for a week is about 350, haha, so that was pretty crazy to hear!  Also he said that the missionary force is expected to go from about 55,000 to up around 90 to 100,000 in the next couple of years!!  I thought that was pretty crazy!!  It will be interesting to see what the real numbers will be but I'm sure there will be a big jump!  Elder Bednar said he has been asked so many times why they lowered the age for the missionaries and he told us why.  He said that the Lord can do his work, and the Lord will do his work in his time.  I thought that was a pretty good answer!!  And I guess they are preparing us new missionaries that are going out to the field to be able to become trainers in half the time that it usually was because of the increase there will be in missionaries.  So it should be an interesting first six months in the field or so!  I'm so excited to get down there and start helping move along the Lords work!  Well today we are packing up all of our stuff and getting ready to head out!!  It is finally becoming pretty real to me that I'm actually going to Chile!  It is pretty crazy!!  Looks like you had a great trip Mom and Dad!! Thanks for all the letters and everything everybody!  I appreciate it!!  Have a great week! :)

Elder Moser

E-Mail

October 9, 2012

Hello everyone!  I hope that everyone is doing great!!  It was another great week at the MTC!  Looking back from when I first got here, it is crazy how much my Spanish and everyone in my districts Spanish has progressed!  The Lord is definitely helping us out!    A couple of days ago we met an Elder during lunch that is from Santiago and so it was really fun talking to him all about how it would be and everything about how it will be down there, and it got me pretty excited!!  Oh ya, the other day to our surprise we got our travel plans in the mail!  We were all super excited because they came a week early and it turns out we get to leave a week early!!  We are now leaving on the 18th of October which is next Thursday!  This is all becoming very real to me now!  I'm super pumped to head out to the field!  I know I won't be able to understand a thing anyone says but I'm so excited to get down there and keep learning the Spanish and teach some real people :)  Next Thursday is going to come way fast!  General Conference was really good to watch this time and I got way more out of it than I have before!  Probably because I actually took good notes and had to sit up the whole time. haha.  But it was a really good break from everything to just listen to the apostles and prophet.  I think President Uchtdorfs talk on Saturday was my favorite talk overall.  I think it is awesome that they changed the age for missionaries!  The whole MTC was going crazy after the session it was awesome!  I think there is going to be a ton more sister missionaries and that missionary work is going to really take off. The MTC already has plans for a new 9 story building which will be the tallest building in Provo, so they are getting prepared for all the new missionaries.  I was thinking about the change and I'm super glad it came when it did because I got the chance to go to school for a year and that changed me a lot into the person I am now, so I was happy with the time of this big change!  This morning we were able to attend another session at the temple and that was really good as usual!!  It was funny because there were 5 ladies in our session and probably 50 guys!  All these missionaries sure help out with the temple work here!  Sunday night  we were able to have a fireside from Chad Lewis, a former BYU football and NFL player, he gave a really good talk and it was fun to hear from him!  I have two more devotionals before I leave so hopefully we can get an apostle in here before then, haha, it is supposed to be about time!  Well I hope everyone is doing great! and that was great hearing about Cody's baptism!  I'm glad it was good!  It is really good hearing from everyone!  Oh, and mom and dad I am going to be able to call home when we are at the airport waiting to head out!  So next Thursday sometime between 10-12 or so I think I should be able to call, sorry it is such a broad time range!  I'm just really not sure when I will get the chance to call!  We get to SLC airport at about 9:30 I think and our flight is about 12:30, so sometime in between there!  We fly first to Atlanta, and then go to Chile!  The total travel time is about 25 hours so that should be a fun long day!!  Have a great week everyone!

Elder Moser

E-Mail

2 October 2012

Hello!!  It has been another great week here at the MTC!! Still learning a whole lot about the gospel and a whole lot about Spanish!  We have learned all of the grammar lessons, so from here on out it is just reviewing!  I still have a pretty bad Wyoming accent with my Spanish and people get a kick out of that, but hopefully in two years I will have the Chilean accent down :)  This morning we were able to attend the temple again and eat some good food and that was a great experience.  Going to the temple is something I really look forward to!  Well not too much new happened this week!  Just the same old MTC life!!  We had a couple good devotionals again.  One was a member of the Seventy, Elder Golden was his name and he is from South Africa and he was fun to listen to.  And the other devotional was a guy in the missionary department and the ones from the missionary department always have good things to say!  He said that he has witnessed more missionaries being called than any other person in the history of the world because he sits in with the apostles when they call missionaries and he told experiences from that and it really made me realize that Chile is for sure the place that I am supposed to be going!.  I'm getting so excited and nervous to head down there!!  I have exactly three weeks now and then I will be there.  It is crazy to think about that!!  I can't wait though!  This week we are getting a new district in our zone so that will be fun to show them around the MTC and stuff.  It has been a great opportunity to be the zone leader because I get to become close friends with everyone in my zone and that has been an awesome experience.  I have learned so much from all the awesome Elders that are here.  Also I get to work pretty closely with the branch president in branch councils and stuff and it has been really good getting to know those guys and they have taught me so much!  Dad, thanks for more snacks!!  It has been great!!  and thanks for sending those to that other elder, he was really happy to get those things!  and thanks for the popcorn balls and stuff mom!  they were good :)  That is awesome that Cody is getting baptized this week!!  That is really exciting!  I'm getting really excited for conference this weekend -  it should be great!!  It will be nice to have a Saturday to relax and watch conference :)  Thanks for the letters I got this week!  It is always good hearing from everyone!  Hopefully when I get to Chile there will be a little bit more going on and my letters will be a little more interesting!!  I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Moser