E-mail

     Well, it was great to hear from you all this week!  Sure made it a pretty good week for me!  Looks like everyone is doing good! :)  It is pretty cool how we were all able to talk to each other like that - glad we were able to figure it out :)  Don't worry about the Christmas box not getting here on time!  It did get here yesterday though!  :)  And I liked it a ton!  You knew exactly what I wanted, haha.  The whole almond thing was awesome - that is some good stuff!!  I am all set now with the whole set up of jerky, almonds and chocolate!!  Couldn't ask for anything more, haha.  Thanks for the calendars too!  They are pretty sweet.  I will enjoy them a lot, and hopefully I can learn a little something on the harmonicas - they look pretty cool to me! :)  

     It has been getting way hot here the last couple of days.  Yesterday it almost hit a hundred.  The sun is a killer here - never have felt anything like that before!  But I am enjoying the nice air conditioned office when I am in the office though :)  Makes life that much easier! 

     Well yesterday President told us that we are gonna be moving the mission office to the nicer part of the city so that means I have a pretty big project ahead of me now!  I have to drop the four apartments we are in now and then find four new ones in the nice part of the city.  Last time we found one there it took forever - definitely the hardest one I had to find, so it is gonna be quite the project!  But hopefully it works out good!  It will definitely keep me busy, that is for sure!! 

     About the hair cutting question, well I have been cutting my own hair too.  Elder Harman just helps me out on the back a little bit, but I can get most of it pretty good.  I have been doing about two haircuts a week over the last few months so I have gotten some pretty good practice in, haha.

     Anyways, I hope you and Mom have a good rest of your trips in Salt Lake and everything!  It was great to hear from you all and see you!!  Have a great week this week!  Love and miss you all!

Elder Moser

E-mail

    Hey guys!  I am glad you got my package - didn't  think it would get to you that quick but that is great!  And that you got all the letters sent out.  I was going ask you to do that but I think I forgot about that, so thanks for doing that for me! 

     That is good that you guys got the whole Google Hangout thing figured out.  I wasn't sure if it was gonna work or not but I am glad to hear that it is!!  Should be good!  I am excited to get to be able to see and talk to you all - should be lots of fun! :)  I think it would be the best if we could do it at like 5 my time?  So it would be a few hours earlier there for you guys - does that sound alright with everyone??  We are planning on having a big Christmas dinner with the 2 couples that are here in the office with us, so that should be lots of fun!  Some good States cooking again.  I am looking forward for that one :)  Today turned out to be a pretty sweet day.  The rest of President's family came in today from the States, so we all went over to the airport and picked them up and then we all went out to eat at a place called Johnny Rockets!  It is in the States too, hadn't heard of it before, but they sure had some good hamburgers and shakes!!  It was fun to get to know the rest of President's family.  It is funny how similar they are.  They are a pretty sweet family though, so it was a good experience!

     These last couple of weeks we have gotten the chance to teach one of the coolest investigators that I have ever heard of!  I am not sure if I have mentioned anything about him yet, but we met him when he contacted us.  We gave him a tour of the chapel and starting teaching him and stuff - turns out he is from my old ward, Rinconada, here in Maipu, but missionaries can´t go to his house because he rents a room with a family that are super anti-Mormon, so he just has to meet here in the church.  So we told President about him and everything, and he said that he just wanted us to keep teaching him and he wants us to start attending the Rinconada Ward with him, so that is gonna be sweet to be able to see all my old ward members again and everything.  This guy, Abraham, should be getting baptized here in a couple weeks, so I am pretty pumped for that.  He is such a good guy and loves everything about the church.  He understands everything perfectly, and has started to go to the MTC to practice with the new missionaries that are there and reads a ton in the Book of Mormon - just can't get enough of the church.  So that has made life pretty good lately - it has been nice to finally be able to teach at least one or two lessons a week!!  Makes me feel better for sure!  Just hope everything goes good with him and everything.

     Well I am excited to be able to talk to everyone this week!  Just let me know about the time!  I will get back on to check the day before or something just to make sure the time is alright.  Have a great week this week!  And I will see you in a couple of days!! :)

Elder Moser

E-mail and photos

     Hola!  Man, the weather forecast is looking pretty nice!  It has been getting really warm here lately!  It is a good thing we got the air conditioning in the truck fixed! :)  It was fun to see some of the older pictures that you sent me!  Definitely miss those times in the mountains!  That sounds tough about your class with the lady, haha.  Those are always the worst - always just super awkward moments when there are other investigators and people go off like that!  Happens a lot here in my ward right now.  The ward is struggling a lot for sure.  It's hard to know what to do to get everyone going agian!

     Well, it was another pretty good week again, haha.  Did get to go to the coast again with Elder Harman this time though!  I guess I do kinda go out there alot, haha.  Guess it is a little easier to make up an excuse to do something when it is a cool place, haha. Nah, but we have been doing a lot out there.  President is going crazy with the missioneros there, and has doubled the amount out there!  So we have been doing a bunch with new houses and stuff, but I haven't minded at all, like you might have noticed! :)

     Today we went to one of the big malls in Santiago to go eat and just relax a bit and we had a pretty sweet experience there!  Me and Elder Harman were just kinda walking around trying to figure out what we wanted to eat and we were standing in front of the nicer restaurants, just looking around, and a guy came up behind us and grabbed our shoulders and said in English, "Hello Elders!  How is it goin?!"  It is always a nice surprise  when someone speaks English good, haha.  But anyway, we got to talking to this guy and turns out he graduated from BYU!  But he is not a member - he said that he had the lessons like thirty times but they could never convince him - just didn´t feel right for him.  But he said that he loves the Mormons and respects us a lot.  Anyway he turns out to be the owner of one of the restaurants we were standing in front of, so he told us to sit down and lunch was on him!  Ha, definitely was way above our paygrade!  But it was sweet!  Had some good Mexican food, and he just sat next to us and talked to us the whole time - it turned out to be a pretty cool experience!  A good little blessing we were able to get, I guess! :) 

     Tonight we have a lesson with a guy that actually contacted us.  He is an awesome guy.  We had a tour of the church with him last week, and he is pretty excited about the whole thing!  It is awesome when people already know how good the Church is and stuff.  He already has a really strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and everything, so I hope things go good!!  He is supposed to be here at the church in a couple of minutes so I better get going, but I hope you all have a great week this week!!  It was great to hear from you! :)

Elder Jared Moser

Photos from Sister Bertagma

E-mail and Photos

Hola familia!  Man, I am glad I am here enjoying the nice sunshine!!  It looks stinking cold over there!  The senior couples were showing us pictures all week of their families in Oklahoma and Texas and it was snowing and stuff!  Pretty crazy!  I actually got a pretty nice sun burn golfing today!!  It was nice to be able to get out and enjoy the fresh air a little bit on the driving range!  I have been a super white boy being in the office all the time so it was nice to get a little color to my skin!  It is good that you guys missed all the bad weather!  Got pretty lucky, looks like!!  That is pretty crazy that Gwenna is gonna retire!  She has been there as long as I can remember, hah.  That is gonna be a weird change?  Who did you end up hiring??  Should be good to go down and spend Christmas in Texas!  Looks like you guys might get to have snow for Christmas!  It has been super weird trying to get into the Christmas spirit down here, haha.  Just with it being so hot and I guess it really ain't that big of a deal down here.  There isn't that many decorations or anything - for sure does not feel like it is gonna be Christmas in a couple of weeks!  It will be weird talking to you guys with skype again!  That has come pretty fast!  It would be cool to get some more of the family on like a group skype thing if that would be possible, and  be able to talk to everyone!   My buddy uses another webchat thing called Google Hangout and he said it is easy to do a group web cam call, so that might work and be pretty cool!  I guess we would have to look into that a little.  

Well my week has been going pretty good!  We had one super late night so I have been kinda tired, but other than that one day it is been a little easier around here.  That night we didn't get to bed until the sun was already coming up though, haha.  We just had to finish some graphs for a meeting the next day so that was pretty fun, haha.  Got that part of Excel down though! 

     My comp was talking to President the other day and he said that I am gonna be in the office until the middle of February, so still got a little ways to go!  I am pretty excited though!  It should be fun!  I have been enjoying it!! haha.  Wow, so I was looking back at a few letters I have sent and I thought it was pretty funny cause the one time I wrote something in Spanish to you guys I totally messed it up, haha.  I got a pretty good laugh out of that one.  I said ¨¨come¨¨ esta me familia, haha,  Anyways pretty much saying eat haha, like I am telling you guys to eat!  I hope it was at least around Thanksgiving :)

Well here are a couple pictures of our Thanksgiving and stuff!  Hope you enjoy them!!  I hope you guys all have a great week this week!!  It was good hearing from you! :)

Elder Moser

President 

Late night. 

E-mail and photos

November 30, 2013

Hola!  Sounds like everything was going good for your Thanksgiving down in Greeley and everything!  Glad the weather was nice for you guys on the way over!  I said I was gonna write home on Thursday, but we ended up being over at President's way longer than we thought!  It was an amazing day though.  Probably one of the coolest I have had on the mission.  We took a bunch of pictures, but we are running a little late today, and don't have too much time, so I might be able to send some a little later tonight.  The Thanksgiving dinner we had turned out to be quite the deal!  There were 15 of us in total - the married couples, the four office elders and the four assistants, and then President and his wife and son.  We thought it was gonna be something small, but there was nothing small about it, haha.  It was actually super good - tasted and felt like I was back in the states!  We had turkey and ham and mashed potatoes and the Sisters even pulled through and made some homemade stuffing for us, haha.  It was good stuff! Then I made some "Better than the Book of Mormon" cake to go along with some pies and stuff for dessert - turned out pretty dang good!  Then after dinner we all went to the living room and we all went around saying one thing that we were especially grateful for this year.  I was thinking lots about the one biggest blessing that I have had in my life this year and the thing that really came to my mind was my family.  I always have been very thankful for such a good family that I have, but I really didn't realize how awesome my family is until I came out here and took a look around at the real world and stuff.  So I just wanted to say thanks for being such an amazing family!  I really am very grateful for that!

   Then after that we sang some Christmas songs and then President turned on some Christmas music and we all helped decorate the tree!  It was a pretty cool feeling -  never really thought I would have an experience like that on the mission, to have a big Thanksgiving dinner and decorate a tree and stuff!  I was super lucky to be able to do that with President and his family!

   Haha, Man I guess I shouldn't be complaining too much about the car!  Sounds like you guys had it a little bit worse over there in Florida, haha.  At least there ain't a bunch of bugs everywhere!!  And that is good about the conference talks!  We still have not gotten the conference issue yet down here so I am looking forward to that!  It is always fun to study those!! 

   Well we got to get heading to Peñaflor to finish a contract, but it was great to hear from you this week!  Have a great week this week!  I love and miss you all!

Elder Moser

Photos from Sister Lewis

E-mail

Hola!!  Thanks for the weather forecast Dad - it has been getting stinking hot down here!  And the truck's AC is broken, so it gets pretty tough to drive around!  Think I will have to go get that fixed pretty soon here!  It got up to about 98 two days ago and this is stilll just spring time - hopefully it does not get too much hotter though!  Well, this week was just a pretty good normal week for a pensionist, haha.  Just lots of driving around!  One of the Senior Missionaries has been going around with me a little bit more though, so that has been fun.  He is kinda like my grandpa on the mission.  I have gotten to know him pretty good over the last couple of weeks.  He always sneaks me out of the office and takes me to lunch, haha.

   We had changes this last weekend so it got pretty crazy again, but we were a lot more prepared this time so it wasn't as bad.  And the day after President saw that we were all pretty tired so he invited us all over and he cooked hamburgers and we just relaxed at his house a while - that was pretty fun!  He has been awesome to have as a president. He really does love and care for all his missionaries a lot!  This week should be pretty fun too.  Thursday is actually gonna be our p-day, so that is when I will be writing.  And then Thursday in the evening everybody from the office is gonna head up to President's house to have a big Thanksgiving dinner, so that should be pretty sweet!  I definitely get a little bit of special treatment being here in the office! haha.  I hope you guys have fun going over to Carrie's for Thanksgiving!  Don't get stuck in a big snow storm going across Wyoming!!

   Yup, it was President Gonzalez that came to speak to us - he is a pretty funny guy.  I think he has given a talk in conference recently hasn't he??  Pretty crazy that Josh is already home from his mission!  That went by pretty stinking fast!  It is crazy to think that Cameron and Blake only have 5 and 6 months left!  Crazy how fast that has gone!

   My comp is gonna start driving lessons with a place this week so that should be pretty interesting!  President wants him to be driving before I leave the office, so I hope he is a fast learner!  I am kinda scared to drive in downtown Santiago with someone that is recently learning how to drive, haha.  Anyways, you guys better say lots of prayers for me when that starts!!

   And for Christmas, well the only thing I can really think of that would be sweet would be some of those blue diamond flavored almonds!  One of the senior couples brought them from the states and man they tasted good!!  Oh, and a United States soccer jersey would be pretty sweet!  I have no idea which one or how much they cost, but that would be pretty cool if you could find anything like that.  And about the CD - we can play CD's. I can put them on the computer here in the office and put them on my ipod and stuff.  And musical instruments.  Well I guess we could!  There are some people that have them here.  Hey, how hard is the harmonica??  To play like some hymns or something??  Elder Harman has a violin and we heard a sweet harmonica -viloin duet.  Does it take a while to get kinda good? 

   Well, everything is going pretty good here - still happy and just chugging along here in the office!  I hope everyone is doing good back home!  It is great to hear from ya!!  Have a great week this week!!

Elder Moser

E-mail

Hola!  Well Dad, those were some pretty sweet pictures you had from California!  Got a little jealous about the Mustang though, haha.  Looks like way too much fun!!  And those are some pretty pictures of the coast.  It is crazy how much some of the coast looks like Chile!  Looks like you guys just drove down the coast of Chile!  But the boats in the harbor are waaay nicer than the ones here, haha.  I am glad that you guys were able to have a good trip though - looked like a lot of fun!  This week has probably been one of the coolest weeks of my mission!  Some pretty cool stuff happened.  It started on Sunday when we had the Area President come to a Stake Conference with the Temple President here in Maipu.  Elder Harman and I were in charge of welcoming him in and walking him in so that was pretty cool.  He is a super good speaker, and I learned a lot from him.  Then two days later on Tuesday we attended a 4-mission Mission Conference with guest speaker Elder Jeffery R Holland!  That was pretty sweet!  He mainly talked  about how missionaries need to stay strong after the mission and if we don't, the whole two years was a waste.  He used a pretty sweet scripture that I had never seen used like this before. He said everything pretty straight forward, and he talked about the scripture in Joseph Smith History where it says "they draw near to him with their lips but their hearts are far from him" and he said this was first said for people in the time of Joseph Smith when all the churches were preaching different stuff, but then he also refers to many things, and one of them is the missionaries in our time.  He said for two years young men draw near to him with their lips and they say what they need to say, but really their hearts are far from him, and they never do become converted, and fall away and become a burden to the Church.  It was a very powerful talk.  Every missionary in the place had their eyes wide open, that is for sure - pretty cool experience!  It was held in a chapel over on the east side of the city and there were over 900 missionaries there!  It was a great talk.  That was the first time I have seen him live I think and man he talks with a lot of power.  It is a pretty cool feeling with that many missionaries in the room and with the spirit so strong and stuff.  Definitely an experience I will never forget!  I was able to see my old roommate, Daniel Gleave, there too - he is over in the east mission so that was pretty sweet to see him.  So that was a pretty good start to the week, then we just had some really interesting things happen later on in the week.  My testimony grew a ton of the power of the Priesthood and that it really is a real thing.  I wanted to write a letter about the experience I had, but I would feel kinda weird writing an e-mail about it, so you should get that there in a few weeks. 

     Wow, I thought the pictures of Cayden were pretty crazy!  That kid is growing up!  He looks bigger and bigger every time you send a picture - he is gonna be able to beat me up when I get back!  Payback for all the picking on him I did, haha.  I better watch out!

     Today one of the senior couples invited us to go eat with them so we are pretty excited for that!  She said that we are gonna eat funeral potatoes and pulled pork sandwiches with carrot cake for dessert!  Sounds pretty good to me!!  Hope it tastes like the real stuff!!! :)  But they just called and said that they are waiting for us, so it looks like we've got to get goin!  But I hope everyone is doing great!!  I love and miss you all! Have a great week this week!!

Elder Moser

E-mail and photos

November 9, 2013

Hola!  Wow, Dad, sounds like you and Mom are having a pretty good week!  And a convertible Mustang!?  Dang!  Sounds like the best part, haha.  I bet it is nice getting out and enjoying some of the nice weather down there!  You guys should come pick me up when I am done and rent a convertible Mustang so we can drive down the coast of Chile ;) haha.  It is not as fun when you have to do it in a Ford Ranger like I do right now!  But I definitely enjoy the driving a lot!  My comp does not have a license yet, so I am still driving everywhere we go.  I am liking that part a lot!  Downtown Santiago has been pretty crazy, but I feel like I will be able to drive anywhere after that! 

     Well the week has been pretty good.  It was pretty stressful because an apartment that we had for the senior couple that is coming in on Tuesday fell through, and it is super tough to find apartments there.  But we were able to do it with some miracles from the Lord!  Not sure how we were able to get it.  Usually takes a couple weeks, but we were able to find an apartment and sign the contract and finalize everything in three days - pretty sweet stuff!  That apartment has been what I have pretty much been working on all week so not too much else too exciting happened, haha.  We were able to teach the owners lesson 1 though, so that was pretty fun.  It is always really good when we have the opportunity to do that.  People just think it is so weird that a twenty year old kid is here in Chile not getting paid by the Church doing what I am doing - like taking care of all the houses and stuff.  They always ask why we would do something like this so that leads perfectly into teaching them lesson one, haha. 

     The realtor for the owners was talking to us after and starting showing us pictures of her daughter and told us she wanted us to meet her so that she could go home with us when we went home, haha.  That was kinda weird!  Definitely gonna stay away from that realtor from now on!

     It has been pretty sweet being able to learn everything I have learned from doing all this housing stuff.  I had no idea about a lot of this stuff before and it is helping me a lot to understand a lot more about the business world and stuff.  It really has turned out to be a good way to share the gospel too.  I never teach in my sector, but I am always teaching people from all over Santiago.  At least helping people get a lot better idea of what the Church is.  A lot of people have no idea and have some really strange views on the Church.  That has been something pretty interesting to see after coming out of Star Valley and Rexburg.  I can definitely understand people's views on the Church now. Helps me a lot in becoming a better missionary! 

     Anyways I hope everyone is doing good!  Have a great week this week!  It is always good to hear from ya!

Elder Moser

E-mail and letter from President

Hola!  Wow, the weather is looking pretty good for this week!  It has been starting to get pretty warm here.  Makes me want to get outside out of the office some more!  This next change we are only going up 2 missionaries, so it looks like we are gonna be able to get out and teach some lessons finally!  Should be pretty good!  I think I have forgotten how a little bit!  Hopefully I will be able to learn how pretty quick again!

   Hey thanks for sending the package Dad.  I will be sure to let you know when it gets here.  And man, chocolate sounds like pretty good packing material to me!  I've got no problem with that!  Speaking of packages, this week I should be sending something home for you and Mom for Christmas,  so let me know when that gets there.  I think you'll like it.  Chileans can do some stuff pretty good!!  You will see what I mean when you get it.  Hadn't seen anything very similar to it before, and I might end up having to get me some too!  Just hope I can get it out of the country!  All of the government offices have been having a ton of strikes down here lately.  The place where we get our visas and stuff and the post office was shut down for a long time, so it was pretty tough for us missionaries, and some people almost had to go home early because of it.  And now everyone else in Chile is starting to go on strikes, and even the store where I buy all my housing supplies shut down for a while.  Just kinda like a chain reaction I guess! 

   Well everything is going pretty good here!  Nothing too crazy happened this week, just kinda the same old office life, haha.  We did find a juicer in our pension so we went to the street market and bought a ton of carrots and apples and lemons and we have been juicing every morning for breakfast!  Thought Mom would be pretty proud of me for that one, haha.  Here you can buy a kilo or a little over two pounds of apples for about 80 cents, and carrots are like 60 cents a kilo and lemons you can buy for 150 pesos a kilo, or about 30 cents.  Pretty cheap stuff!  So that makes it nice to do the whole juicing thing.  Definitely makes me feel better throughout the day.  It is pretty funny how cheap some of the fruit can be but then any other food here is at least double than what it is in the states.  A hamburger at McDonalds is 8-10 bucks for a combo.  And milk is about 6 bucks a gallon and stuff like that.  Crazy how people can pay that much for food.  The minimum wage here is less than a buck an hour.  Not sure how people do it, guess that is why people are never home, just constantly working!  Sure are blessed to live where we do I guess!

   It looks like everyone had a pretty good Halloween this year!  Pretty sweet costumes!  I forgot it was Halloween till we went out that night and everybody was dressed up funny.  I was kinda weirded out for a minute before I realized what day it was, haha. Sure do miss the pumpkin seeds though!

Well we got to get going, but I hope you all have a pretty good week this week!  I love and miss you all!

Elder Moser

E-mail

     Hola!  Coma estan todos por allá?  Well, it was another good week in the office, haha.  Just a bunch of the same stuff that I have always been doing!  Looking for houses and cleaning out drains and fixing toilets and stuff, haha.  Yesterday I had to clean out a drain in a bathroom that is from a house that has had sister missionaries living in it for the past thirteen years.  Pretty sure it was the first time that thing had ever been cleaned out too!  I could have made a full wig for a lady out of all the hair that was in that thing, haha.  Pretty gnarly stuff!  The work has been good though.  We have been receiving lots of blessings and have been finding some pretty sweet new houses for the next change.  It is crazy how the Lord makes some stuff so easy when it comes to figuring out stuff for the missionaries!  We still do have to put in a lot of work but he sure does do his part.  A couple days ago me and my companion just got to go walk around the nice part of Santiago where the colleges are cause we are looking for a house there for the new senior couple that is coming in.  We heard it was super tough to find apartments there, especially this time of year cause all the college students.  But anyways, we just walked around looking for a good 7 or 8 hours and in that time we found a couple great ones that had just been opened up that day.  Just happened to be in the right place in the right time.  So we were pretty happy with that.  And when we were walking back towards the car to go home, a guy stopped us and asked us if we knew of any houses to rent cause he knows missionaries are always walking around our sectors.  He said he has been looking for months for an apartment there and there just had not been anything.  So I just thought it was pretty sweet we were able to go and find the perfect apartment right next to the church in just a couple hours.  The Lord definitely helps us out a ton!

     Sounds like you and Mom have been pretty busy running around the last few weeks doing a bunch of stuff!  Crazy that you are already planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas and that those are just right around the corner.  Can't believe how fast this year has gone - for sure the fastest year of my life!  Must be having fun :)

     Thanks for taking care of the debit card and the shoes and stuff Dad, it is a big help! Don't know what I would do without you guys there!

     How has Kaden been doing?  Is he healing up and stuff good? 

Well there is not too much new stuff goin on!  Just getting ready for the changes again! 

I hope everyone is doing great!  Thanks for all the support I have received since I have been out here from everyone!  Have a great week this week!

Elder Moser

E-mail and Photos

Hola!  Wow, that bush in the front yard looks pretty sweet!  I don't ever remember it being that bright before!  And the bears in the park!  Pretty lucky to see those!  That doesn't happen every day!  The weather has been great over here.  It hasn't gotten too hot yet, just nice and sunny and warm, perfect :)  Thanks for sending the package dad!  I got it about a week ago and it was awesome :)  Some good old homemade jerky - that is what I had been missing for the last couple of months!  I did get a nice rack of American ribs in though.  Last week for p-day we went over to the nice side of Santiago into a big new mall and we found an Applebees!  So we all got a full rack of ribs, and man they were expensive!  But they were super good!  Don't know if it is cause I have not eaten good meat in a year or what, but they sure made me happy!  So that was a pretty good start to the week that helped me make it through!  This week was not quite as crazy, but it was still super crazy.  We had another house get broken into last night. That has been happening a lot - not sure what is going on!  So that has been fun trying to figure all that stuff out!  And also President told me he wants to move the mission office to another nicer part of the city as soon as we can, so I have to find an office to buy and 6 apartments for all office missionaries and the senior couples and stuff, so that is gonna be quite the project figuring all that out!  But it should be fun.  Last night I had a meeting with some big shot guy named Jose Gurruchaga up in his penthouse to figure out the new office stuff.  It was the same one I had been to a few weeks ago.  But this time he had recently returned from New York and he brought some baked goods and root beer for us from the States, haha.  Pretty good stuff!  I definitely am getting spoiled when it comes to the food, while being in the office.  When I was in the field, I never dreamed I would be eating some of the stuff I have like ribs and stuff, haha... blessings of being in the office!  But anyway, it was pretty cool when we were up in the meeting with the guy because we started talking about the church and the whole reason we were looking for apartments and just about the missionary work.  We were able to teach all of lesson 1 and stuff, and he told us he had always been really interested in our church. He said it is crazy how many people flock to your church and they become such good people when they are in it.  He said he has been in many different churches and has never seen nothing like that before, and he said there must be something to it.  And that he would love to be part of something like that.  He said he wanted us to come back after he got back from New York again and talk more about it, with some cheesecake from the States!  So I am pretty excited for when that happens, haha.  It has been really good to share the gospel with people who I am doing business with and stuff.  I think it is preparing me a lot by teaching me how to be able  to share the gospel with people when I am back in the real world and not wearing a badge.

    Yesterday we just got news that Elder Holland will be coming to our mission in November, so that should be pretty sweet!  We are all looking forward to that one! 

    Well, I hope everyone is doing good!  I really am doing great and lovin what I am doing!

Have a great week this week!

Les quiro mucho,

Elder Moser

 Me and Maria

 Me and Elder Harman (MTC Companion)

 Me and Santiago

 Me and Elder Caballero

 Me and my shoes

E-mail and Photos

Hola!  Come esta mi familia!?  Sorry about not writing more last week, we just really never had the time.  Thanks for sending the pictures and stuff again - it is always good to see what you guys are up to!  It looks super pretty over there with the leaves changing and the snow on the mountains and stuff.  I definitely miss Wyoming!  This week I had to go way out into the country to a couple of houses that are out there - it is about an hour from the nearest big town and everything reminds me a ton of Star Valley - it is pretty crazy.  It is the same place where I sent the pic of the mountain I said that looked like Star Valley.  I always like driving out there - makes me feel at home again! Man, I can't believe the pictures of Cayden!  He looks so much older now!  Crazy stuff! Man, he is gonna be heading off for his mission before we know it! 

     Well it has been one crazy week for me here in the office.  It was lots of fun but it was pretty tough too.  I had to take a lot of people to their areas that were white washing, or opening a new sector, and I had to finish filling all the houses that we have gotten recently.  And then two nights this week, in the middle of the night, President made some special changes and I didn't get home until 3:30 in the morning from those and we had to be up by 5:30 to get to some meetings and stuff.  So that has been the hardest part this week.  I have just been super tired!  It has been kinda weird lately.  There have been a lot of people robbing the missionaries and trying to break into houses and stuff, so President just wanted out of the areas. 

     My new companion in the office is Elder Caballero.  He is from Paraguay.  That was a huge surprise cause he is the first Latin we have ever had in the office.  So it has been interesting with him, because we only speak English in the office cause the senior couples, and he doesn't speak any English, so that has been kinda tough for him, but I am sure he will learn it though!!  He also can't drive so that is gonna be interesting, cause that is kinda all we do as a pensionist, haha.  So I am not exactly sure how that is gonna work out!  But he is a great kid!  He is really nice and a hard worker.  He has already been to a couple years of law school so he does know a lot about contracts and stuff which is good!  It is kinda funny though, he is like a Latin Travis Clark, looks a lot like him and acts just like him, haha.  He is always going around singing and stuff.  Just feels like I got Travis as my comp!  It will be good to practice my Spanish and keep that up a little bit - last change I barely spoke any Spanish and it was already goin down hill a little bit. So I am excited to improve that a little bit! 

    But everything else is goin pretty good!  Gettin used to drivin in Santiago a little bit more, it is crazy, but lots of fun.

    It is kinda interesting cause one of my jobs is deciding which sectors to open for the next change - kinda thought that was President's job, haha - but that has been good.  One thing that I have learned in the office a lot that I didn't really think I would be learning is how to recognize and follow the Spirit.  Over the last 7 weeks, I think I have improved more in that than I have in my whole life, I think. President completely trusts me on which houses to get and which sectors to open and stuff.  I don't even show him pictures of the house or tell him anything about it.  He just tells me to do what I think is best, so that has helped me a lot with following the Spirit.  It sounds weird, but I guess that is the way I needed to learn how to be able to recognize the Spirit and stuff.  The Lord definitely helps out and is guiding his mission work!

     Well I hope everything is going good for everyone back home!  Have a great week this week! 

Les quiro mucho,

Elder  Moser

 SNOW!!!!!!!

Tallest building in South America. 

 Driving in the coast.

E-mail

Hola!  Wow, Dad those are some pretty sweet pictures you took this last week!!  I am impressed!  The ones in Bedford with the snow on the mountains are super sweet.  Those should go in a magazine or calendar or something, haha..  Looks like you guys had a pretty awesome week this week with everything!  Speaking of snow, last week for p-day we went up to the Andes like I said we were going to do and we were able to run into some snow so that was pretty fun.  Made me kinda trunky to go skiing though!!  It made me realize how much I missed having fun in the snow!!  But it was a great p-day, and we were able to go with the President's son again so we had lots of fun.  The Mexicans were pretty excited to see snow for the first time!  And you went GOLFING????  Never thought I would hear you say that one!  How did you do?  You gonna switch over from hiking to golfing now?? :) 

 Well everything is doing pretty good down here in Chile.  Just been super busy signing housing contracts all over Santiago and getting all the houses ready and stuff.  I was able to go out to the coast yesterday and look at some more houses and everything is looking good out there!  It is getting a lot warmer down here now, looks like summer is coming on pretty good now! 

 Looks like you went to town bottling fruit again Mom!  A couple of weeks ago a lady gave us some bottled membrios.  It is a fruit that is native to Chile I guess.  It is kinda like a lemon mixed with an apple. Sounds weird but that is about the closest I can explain it, anyway, we walked into her house and she had a ton of bottles out bottling fruit - just reminded me a lot of all the stuff that you do. 

 Oh, kind of a cool story that happened yesterday when I was on the coast.  I was working on a contract with a guy and he is a member of the church and we started talking about missions and stuff and he said that he served his mission here in Chile. He said he was one of the first Elders that came into the Chile Santiago West Mission when it opened, and anyway I remembered you saying something about Kirk Hoopes doing the same thing, so I asked if he knew an Elder Hoopes from his mission and he said that he did!  He said he served in the same zone one time or something like that!  I thought that was pretty interesting!  It really is a small world in the church!!  His name is José Gajardo.

Well I am still doing great and loving the mission.  I am still learning a ton every day.  It has been a really good experience for me this last month or so.  I am glad I have been able to do this!

I hope everyone is doing good back home, Feliz Cumpleaños Cameron!  Can't believe your 12!!

Have a great week this week!

Elder Moser

E-mail and Photos

Hola!  Everything is going great here in Maipu!  It was a pretty good week this week, pretty crazy though!  This week would be like the 4th of July in the States.  The 18th of September is the Chilean Independence Day, so we had a huge Stake party on Wednesday.  It was pretty sweet, there was tons of Chilean food and we played a bunch of games and watched a bunch of people do dances and stuff  like that.  They take the 18th as a huge deal here - it is pretty sweet!  The Chilean people definitely have a lot of love for their country!!  I have some pictures that I will try to upload so you will be able to see some of the stuff that goes on here.  The whole Stake here kinda just looked like the Bedford Ward though, haha..  Pretty small for a stake!!.  We had twice as many members there for the party than we did at Stake Conference three days before, haha.  Everyone down here likes to say that they are a member when the parties start and they bring out all the food!  But it was good to see everyone out and having fun.  It was kinda weird though because I really don't know anyone here yet cause we never get out to our sector, but I was able to meet some more ward members at the party, so that was good.  This week we also had the son of our mission president stay with us and work with us all week.  He is a fifteen year old kid named James.  It was pretty fun with him - he is a really cool kid, and already a great missionary!  He is gonna be on a mission for 5 years in a row.  That is a long time!!  He is gonna be a champ after all of that!!  Me and my comp took him out to the coast to go look at a bunch of new houses we are going to rent.  We had a pretty good day out there, and found some pretty nice houses to get.  It is kinda  weird - most missionaries measure their success by how many baptisms they get or lessons they are teaching, but right now me and my comp measure it by how many houses we are looking at and renting, haha.  We are going up 15 companionships in two weeks so it has been crazy trying to get everything ready for that.  But we are doing good.  We just about have all the houses we need now, but then it all starts again getting ready for the next change  - it just never stops!!  But I still have seen a lot of miracles here in the office, even though we are not out in the field working cool stuff still happens a lot and the Lord blesses us a lot.  I had a pretty cool experience happen to me a couple weeks ago.  Back in my first sector in Rinconada, we contacted this girl that was about 20 years old.  She really did not even seem very interested at the time or anything.  Just thought it was another contact we did that would not go anywhere.  She did not even live in our sector, but she did give us her address though so we passed it to the office of the mission so they could send out the reference. By the next day I had forgotten about it, and it never came across my mind again until I walked into church for the first time in my ward here in Maipu.  I saw this girl that I thought I recognized from somewhere, but couldn't remember where.  Anyways, it was fast and testimony meeting that day and she got up to bear her testimony.  She told of her experience of getting baptized a couple months before and how grateful she was the missionaries had stopped and talked to her outside the grocery store and had sent other missionaries to her house.  When she said that it clicked, and I realized that I was the missionary that had stopped and talked to her outside the store.  After the meeting I went and talked to her and she remembered me and was so thankful for just talking to her that day.  That was a pretty sweet experience!  Before I always thought contacting was a big waste a lot of times cause we could talk to hundreds of people and only see one or maybe even less of those hundred people accept our message and maybe get baptized.  I didn't really realize how much just talking to someone about the gospel for a couple minutes could help them change their lives a ton.  That experience helped me realize the importance of talking to everyone.  Even though I might not be teaching any lessons right now I have definitely been talking to a lot of people about the gospel and stuff.  We do talk to a lot of people everyday working in the office so it has been a good opportunity to talk to everyone about my mission and about the Church and stuff.  Lots of people just have the wrong idea about the whole thing, and just a little 5 minute conversation can help a ton! 

Sounds like you two had a pretty good week this week in all your travels!!  Pretty crazy story about the buffalo and stuff!!  That would be pretty sketchy especially there in Yellowstone!  There definitely are a lot of critters there!  But I am glad you guys got out alright!!

Today I think we are actually going to be able to get a little hike in!!  We are heading over to the Andes mountains to go to some snow with the assistants cause they are from Mexico and have never seen snow before, haha.  So that should be pretty fun!  Last week for p-day was pretty sweet too!  We went golfing!!!  Never thought I would do that on the mission!  It was actually pretty relaxing, and a great p-day activity!  Found out I am not a half bad golfer compared to Chileans, haha.  I don't think they get out to golf very much :)  Anyway, I am gonna try to get those pictures up and then we are gonna head off to the mountains.  I will try to get some sweet pics for ya!

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Moser