E-mail and Photos

February 11, 2012

Hey Dad, thanks for the pictures of Grandpa - it was great being able to see those. President King called me Thursday night and told me the news, and shared with me D&C 42: 44-46.

     "And the elders of the church, two or more, shall be called, and shall pray for and lay their hands upon them in my name; and if they die they shall die unto me, and if they live they shall live unto me.  

     Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, ...

     And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them;"

It was hard for me at first knowing I wouldn't be able to spend any more time with him in this life, but after the scripture and what President said to me I know that he is in the place where he needs to be right now doing what he needs to be doing. That night I also read Alma 40 about the spirit world and the resurrection and that helped out a lot too.  It was interesting reading it with him in mind.  I got a lot stronger testimony and better understanding of that and the plan that God has for us, and the things that Christ has done for us. This past week President challenged all the missionaries to memorize "The Living Christ".  While starting to do this, I really started to realize the importance of the things that Christ has done for us.  Without the things he has done we wouldn't be able to live in the presence of God, happy with our families. But by accepting the things he has done for us both for the spiritual and physical death we are able to live happily with our families in the presence of God.  This time right now is just a little separation for a little bit but I know that we can all be united again after this life.  Without the knowledge of the gospel that we have this life would be a lot harder to accept and understand the things that happen in life.  I am very grateful for the things I have learned about the gospel on my mission so far and especially this week.  I hope everyone is doing great there at home!!  Dad do you have a picture of Grandpa when he was like 25 or 30 or so?  If you do, you should send it to me.  I will tell you why next week, and I can listen to a CD here cause every apartment has a DVD player to watch the missionary videos so that would be great!!  I am loving every moment of the mission and am glad I am not anywhere else right now.  I am excited to keep learning and becoming a better person that I want to become.  This morning me and my comp and my district leader and his comp, the great-nephew of Blair Erickson went to climb the same hill that I did a while ago, and this time we made it for the sunrise and it was awesome to see the sun come over the mountains.  I was kinda wishin I could be up in the mountains skiin or fishin or something, but I guess that will have to wait.  I should have some pretty good pictures of some stuff that is gonna happen next week so hopefully I can send those!!  Have a great week this week.  I miss and love you all!

Elder Moser

E-mail

February 4, 2012

Well it was another awesome week on the mission in Chile!!  There have been a lot of good things going on in the mission here lately so it has been fun to see all the success the missionaries are having.  We have two super solid investigators right now so that has been fun teaching them, one is a husband of a recent convert and the other is a wife of a recently reactivated man in our ward, she is from Mexico and cooks lots of Mexican food for us so that has been really awesome!!  Yesterday we went with them to another baptism and she knows that is what she needs to be doing and she has seen a lot of blessings just from receiving the lessons and going to church so far it has been fun to watch.  We have been doing lots of contacting the last couple of weeks and it gets a little tiring sometimes in the hot sun, but we have found some new pretty good investigators so it will be fun to keep teaching them.  Dad, I got one package with the jerky and it was awesome!!  I only eat a little piece every now and then to make it last a long time, the smokey sticks are the best!  It has been nice having some good tasting food!!  Today we went with the zone to go bowling and it was kinda weird, it felt like I was in the states again!  I think there is only one bowling alley here in Santiago and it was way funny to watch the latins bowl cause it was their first time for a lot of them!  We had a competition between companionships and me and my comp dominated so that made it even more fun!!  I have been having a lot of fun with Elder Cervantes, we always make sure we are having fun whatever we doing and man the time has gone by so fast this last month!!  This last weekend we fasted and wow, that made a new meaning for fasting for me!  All of our appointments fell through so we were out contacting all afternoon and I don´t think I have ever been so thirsty in my life, but it was cool cause this time I got a lot better idea of what fasting is really for so I was thankful for being in the street all day!  Thanks for the pictures dad, the temple looks awesome in those pictures!  We have been trying to get the members more excited about the temple and to go more often and I think it has made a big difference in some of their lives as they have been going more.  That is one thing I do miss a lot!  So I am excited for when I will have the chance to go next!  I hope everything is going good with everyone!  I am lovin the mission!  Have a great week!

Elder Moser

E-mail and photos - January 28, 2012

January 28, 2012

Well it was another great week here in Chile, and it was not quite as hot this week, so that made it nice!!  Me and my comp have been together for a month now and that month went by so fast!!  It was crazy!!  The weeks are starting to really fly by now, it is crazy, it is Monday and then all of a sudden it is Sunday night and I feel like one day has gone by!  My language has improved quite a bit this last month and I can understand pretty much everything now so that makes the work a lot easier!  I still need lots of practice talking, but at least I can understand!!  This week was great, we set a baptismal date with a wife of one of the recently reactivated guys here, she knows this is the true church and needs to get baptized, just has a couple fears, but we are trying to work everything out with her so it should be pretty good!  It was awesome to watch her learn about the gospel, and the blessings it has brought to their family since they started coming to church.  And she always makes us awesome Mexican food so that is a plus!!  This week I had some really good experiences with food and some really really bad...... I tried my first humita, which is like a Mexican tamale, but is not spicy, and they are super good, we have been eating a lot of corn products the last couple weeks!  It is a good thing I like it!!  And I also had some awesome empanadas this week, those are super good too. The bad food experience: Yesterday someone made this seafood plate for us, well, I did not think it would be too bad, and then I took a bite without smelling it and as soon as I tasted and smelled it my mind went straight back to my college anatomy class, the day we worked with cadavers.  I swear the guy used the exact same stuff for a sauce on the seafood as they do to keep human bodies good in the cadaver lab.  It smelt the exactly the same and tasted just how it smelt, well, I chewed and swallowed as fast as I could and then tried to eat another bite so I did not make the guy feel bad, the second bite I could not handle it, and I started gagging and ran to the bathroom and threw up.  It was honestly the nastiest thing I have ever eaten in my life!!  Luckily after I came back from the bathroom the guy left the room and my companion took it all from me and ate it.  I was sick all night long, and I sure hope that is not a traditional Chilean recipe, cause I do not think I could handle it again!!  Now I definitely will not be complaining when someone gives me a plate of rice for lunch!  at least it does not taste like formaldehyde!!   Other than that it was a great week!!  and I am excited for all of the weeks I have left!!  I hope grandpa starts doing better!! doesn't sound too fun right now!!  I have not received the package yet dad, maybe tomorrow.  I hope everyone is doing great!!  One of my new favorite chapters in the book of Mormon is 3 Nephi 27, it is a good one!!  If you are ever bored read it!!  Have a great week!  Oh and the pictures, one is of me and Francisco, he is leaving tomorrow for his mission, we will miss him!! he has been a big help with the work here is this ward!!  And the other is cheese from the south of Chile someone gave us, that was also a bad food experience, not as bad as the seafood, but still, never buy cheese from the south of Chile!!!

Elder Moser.

E-mail and photos - January 21, 2012

January 21, 2012

Well it was another great week in chile!!  It was a little cooler this week so that was a nice break!  It was stinkin hot for a while there!!  That's great to hear I am gonna have a new nephew when I get home!  That's one, now there just needs to be three or four more by the time I get home!!  It is always funny telling people that I have 18 nieces and nephews here cause the people that live here have max one or two brothers and sisters, so 6 sisters and 18 nieces and nephews, and parents that are still together sounds crazy to them.  Thanks for being such an awesome family.  Here I have seen lots of different things and I have definitely realized how lucky I am to have the family I have!!  I musta done something right in heaven!  Thanks for all the support I have had while I have been down here, it sure makes being 5000 miles away a lot easier!  This week we had a husband of a recent convert that has been coming to church for about a year and a half or so tell us that he is ready to be baptized because he has seen how much the gospel has blessed his family.  He wants to be baptized in February, but he is gone a lot so we will try to catch him home as much as we can so he can be ready.  It is awesome to see the gospel change people's lives.  The happiest people I see down here are on Sundays in the chapel.  There are lots of hard, and bad things down here but the people always tell us the one place they feel the safest and the best is in the chapel.  It is awesome to see how much of an effect the gospel of Jesus Christ can have on people.  Dad, about the cord, I did find one in the fedia here but it looks like it is well used, so I am guessing it won´t last too long, so thank you for sending the other one.  I will let you know when I get the package.  Dad, what is the address of my missionary blog??  Richard wants to know but I don´t remember it! and thanks for the recipe!  I am excited to make it!  The only problem is they don´t sell coconut in the bags here, haha, you just have to buy the real thing, so we will see how that goes!! :)  I hope everyone has a great week!!

Elder Moser

E-mail

Hola!  Well it was a pretty good week here in Chile!  Lots of sunshine!  It has been really good with my new comp, Elder Cervantes.  He is a great teacher and it has been really fun to teach with him.  My Spanish has gotten a lot better with him so far.  But we do speak a lot of English too because he wants to go to BYU, so he needs to know it good, so we speak both a lot.  Man, it sounds like it has been pretty cold in Star Valley!  I can't even imagine it being that cold in a different part of the world!  Today my comp had to go to the mission doctor which is in the east mission underneath the Temple, so I got to see the temple for the first time - that was really fun.  It is super small but it is really pretty, and I am excited for when I can do a session so I can see the inside too.  We ate more Mexican food with one of our investigators again and it was super nice to have some food with taste!!  It was a great change!!  I don't think spices ever made it to Chile, but it has been interesting eating with all the different members and getting to know them more.  With all the new missionaries coming we are getting two more in our ward, so we will be splitting the sector, which should be great so we can focus in specific parts a little more.  Those missionaries will be here at the end of February so we still have a little time but it should be great.  I just got an e-mail today that my new release date is going to be September 9 and school starts either that day or the week after so that should be interesting when that all happens!  Won't have too much time for relaxing!! Mom can you send me the recipe for coconut shrimp??  I was studying the other day and that sounds really good all of a sudden so I figured I would try to make it!  So that would be great if you could send me that.  And about pictures - well my comp kinda left my camera cord in the cyber a couple weeks ago, so I don't have any way to charge my camera or send pictures right now.  I have looked all over down here and can't find a cord so I think you will have to send me one.  And until it gets here I will keep looking, but I don't think I will find it - I have looked all over.  I just need a cord for a Nikon Coolpix camera.  Hopefully you can get one of those sent to me! Sorry about not being able to send pictures until then!!!  Sounds like grandpa is doing alright.  But I hope he can get healed up soon!  Doesn´t sound like a lot of fun!!  I hope everyone has a great week this week!!

Elder Moser

E-mail and Photos

Hola!!  Thanks for the e-mail!  Looks like it is gonna be another warm week in Chile!  That is great to hear that grandpa is doing good!  I was thinking about him a lot this week.  This week was another great week.  We got to go to Santiago Central to go to the medico for my comps foot so that was a pretty fun adventure, and the picture I sent is the tallest building in Chile.  It is pretty stinking big, it was pretty cool to see.  Man, people here that live in Maipu have to travel to Santiago Central to work a lot of the times and it is like 1 and a half to 2 hours on the metro.  I can't imagine going that far to work every day!  Now I realize while they are never in their houses!!  This week was another great week with our investigator, Martin.  He is awesome!!  He read almost to the end of Alma and he read almost half of the Principles of the Gospel book that the Sunday School class uses.  He told us he wants to be baptized really bad and knows that this is the truth and where he needs to be.  The only problem is he needs to get married.  So he is working on setting up a date with the city so they can get married.  It usually takes about three months so I probably won´t be here to see him baptized, but it has been such an awesome experience teaching him the last couple of weeks.  He was definitely someone prepared by the Lord before hand!!  It has been a way awesome experience.  We also have some other ones that have been doing pretty good, so it will be fun to watch them progress.  Today we had a asado, or grill with our zone.  Had some really good food and played some basketball - it was a great day.  I have some great elders in my zone.  It has been really fun getting to know them all.  I really like my new comp a lot and we are having a lot of good things happing in our sector the last little bit..  It is a little adjustment from Elder Myers, but we have been having a really good time.  The crazy story for this week..  well we were doing a contact at a house and another lady that lived at the house came from behind me and grabbed me by my arm and started pulling me in the house and said she wanted a gringo in her house with her.. haha..  It was quite the experience and I will make sure not to go back to that house while I am in Chile!!  It is pretty interesting being a gringo here haha..  I get lots of comments every day. haha...  Probably shouldn't repeat most of them in this letter, but it has kind of given me a little bit of an eye opener to what the world really is like outside of Star Valley!!  Well I am really starting to love the work a lot, and there have been some great experiences.  I hope everyone is doing good!!
Elder Moser

E-mail and Photos

December 31, 2012

Hola!  Thanks for the pictures Dad!  I really enjoyed seeing the snow!  I definitely miss that a little bit!  My comp thought it was crazy that where I live, we have snow and mountains and barely any houses haha..  I have a way bigger appreciation for Bedford after being in Santiago!  The city is fun for a while, but I definitely like small towns a lot more!!  This week was a great week.  My trainer went home, which was kind of sad but I got a new really good comp so I am ok!  He is from Peru, but he is pretty much fluent in English which makes it nice, but I think my Spanish skills will grow a lot with him too now.  I am excited to work with him in our sector and I think great things will come soon! About two weeks ago we found a new guy by helping his mom carry her groceries home from the store.  This guy is awesome.  He told us that he has been looking for the truth his whole life and knew that is the reason why we were in his house.  From Thursday night to Saturday and about 2 in the afternoon he read from the beginning of the Book of Mormon until a little ways into Alma.  He said he couldn't stop reading it!  He came to church with us and he loved it there so things are looking pretty good with him.  But like most Chileans, he is not married to the woman he lives with, so we will see what happens there, but it was just awesome to meet a guy that excited for the truth!  It was a testimony builder for me as well!  It was awesome to see someone be able to recognize the truth so fast and feel the spirit and know that what he was reading and hearing was true.  That guy was definitely the highlight of my week this week!  He thought it was awesome how many families were in the church and how happy they all looked - there is for sure something to the gospel!! haha..  Today for a zone activity we were able to go to a Chilean air and space museum.  It was pretty fun with all the missionaries but it was a Chilean airplane museum.... sooo, there wasn't too much stuff haha.  But it was a fun experience!  something different!  It was another super hot week here! and it looks like it is gonna be another, but I better enjoy it while I've got it!!  Thanks for the letters!! I hope everyone has a great week!!

Elder Moser

MTC companions and their trainers