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

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





Monday, March 25, 2013

E-mail and Photo


Hola!!  Well it looks like Mom and Megan are having a great time in Columbia!!  That is a pretty big temple!!  A lot bigger than the one that we have here!!  I have heard lots of good things about the people from Columbia!  Hope she is having a great time!!  Those are pretty cool stories about those license plates dad.  I will definitely have to swing by his house one of these days while I am in Talagante for my p-day.  He was a great guy, and you are right, probably not a coincidence!!  Man one thing I have learned while I have been in Chile, my spelling of English words is getting worser and worser while I have been learning Spanish!  I am not sure what I am gonna do when I get back and have to write a paper!  That will be interesting!!  Well this week was pretty good here in la Islita!!  We have one kid we are working with alright right now and he came to church for the first time and liked it a lot.  It is looking pretty good for him.  Also it has been great working with the young men.  We made empanadas for mutual this week and we got a lot of non members to come.  A lot of them connected good with a lot of the kids form the ward so that was awesome to see that.  I think mutual here will be a big key for a lot of the young people here.  We also had a pretty big miracle.  In one week our attendance went from 30 to 65!!  Pretty crazy, right!!  It was awesome, our little capilla was packed!! lots of investigators and menos activios, now we just got to keep them there!!  The sad news is in one month we are losing the contract for the church and we will have to go into the lisa to go to church, the capilla was awesome and I am thinking the attendance will go down a lot, but hopefully I am wrong.  People sure do look for excuses here, it is kinda sad!!  But we will keep working hard with them and hopefully we can keep getting them there!!  And about the food, well we do eat with the members every day, and I didn't think it was very much different, but my body thinks otherwise!!  I think that it would be great if you sent me a bottle of fiber pills.  I can't find them here, and I need something!!  I have been kinda suffering the last couple of weeks haha, so if you could send some that would be great!!  Well there is a dog that lives right next to our house and he always likes to rub up against us, and I have been itching the heck out of my legs!!  Looks like Chilean dogs really do have fleas!! man!! But everything else has been great!  Loving it here in my branch!!  Hope everyone is doing great!!
Elder Moser
They gave all the missionaries motorbikes!!! OK not really, but that would be sweet!!  Just a member's.

Monday, March 18, 2013

E-mail and Photos


Hola!  Well Dad I guess they don't celebrate Saint Patrick's Day here, cause I forgot about it and nobody ever said anything!  So I guess not!  And ya people were pretty excited about the new Pope and everyone asks us what we think about it... EVERYONE haha.. we just kinda say in a nice sort of way that we really don´t care too much.  Everyone here says the world is gonna end cause they say in the Bible there will be a black Pope called, and they say that is him... but I am not so sure about their reasoning there, but oh well!   And the church is the second lot up on the right side of the road, looks like they put another building in there after they took that picture.  And that is where my house is  - it is the first building on the bottom side of that road. And we live with the other elders too, makes it a little funner!  And about watering the grapes, I have no idea, never seen it done haha, do grapes need water???  It has only rained once the whole time that I have been here!!  And the assistants came to visit our zone and they told me about Talon, says he is doing great, and ya he is in city.  That is where estacion central is and where all the poor people go, lots of good stuff happens there so he should be having lots of fun!  That is great you are a veil worker!  I miss going to the temple!  This Saturday we are probably going to go with our ward to do baptisms for the dead with some of the recent converts, so that should be great, and I am pretty excited about that!  Well being here in Chile has started to make me like soccer a little bit more! We play it quite a bit with the zone.  I was terrible at first but now I am not too terrible and it is great exercise too. I am excited to keep playing and get better during the mission!  This week our stake did a mini-MTC for all the youth and then after the class us missionaries went out and worked with them, it was a lot of fun.  I went with a 17 year old recent convert, and he wasn't so sure about the whole mission thing but we had some great experiences that day and he is pretty excited about the whole thing now, it was awesome to see the change in just one day!  But one of the cool experiences we had was we were just walking down the road on the way to an appointment and I looked over and there was a pickup with a Wyoming license plate in the window!!  I got pretty excited about that and the guy was outside so we started taking to him and he said that he lived in Casper and Cheyenne for a while doing janitor work cause the pay is way better in the states.  And we ended up having a good lesson with him, it was awesome, he is in the other missionary's sector, so I won´t be teaching him anymore but it was a cool experience.  I will send a picture of that.  Also Sunday morning our branch president asked if I would be the concluding speaker in sacrament meeting  - he said it will probably be about ten minutes so it wasn't gonna be that big of a deal, but when the other two speakers where 12 year olds that took about a minute and a half each, well that 10 minute talk quickly turned into a 40 minute talk haha.  I didn't think there was any way that I could get up and talk in Spanish for 40 minutes but with some help from the Lord I somehow managed to do it and I was surprised at how good of a talk it was and how good my Spanish was,  I kinda just opened my mouth and words came out haha.  And it sounds like that won´t be the only time I will be giving 40 minute talks here either.  I might try to have one ready every week from now on!!  Well everything is going good for me here.  I hope everyone is doing alright back at home!!  Have a great week!!
Elder Moser


This was a huge old spider that I found in my bed this morning.  I about wanted to cry, you know how big of a girl I am with spiders haha... it is about the size of a silver dollar, and the most poisonous spider in Chile.  That thing can mess you up a little bit, good thing i found it before it got me tonight!!

Monday, March 11, 2013

E-mail and Photos


Hola!!  Well, I was kinda sad when I saw the weather forecast for this week!!  I thought it was gonna start cooling down a little bit too, it did a few days last week and it was so nice!  But it looks like I will just have to stick it out for a while longer!  It is not too bad though.  I had a great week in the Islita, we definitely do not teach as many lessons out here as we did in Rinconada, just not as many people, but the people are just better though, a lot nicer out here out of the city. It was an interesting first Sunday here with church.  My first week here was stake conference so this was the first one.  There was about 30 people there yesterday, and us missionaries taught Sunday School and Young Men's cause the teachers kinda ditched, so it is gonna be an interesting time here!  We had 4 people in the Sunday School class and two in the Young Men's.  Kinda weak!!  The only strong group here is the Young Women's - they have about 7 or 8.  The President of the rama or branch here is a recent convert, so he relies on the missionaries a lot too, it is super different than what I am used to back in the states!  And after Sacrament Meeting everyone just goes and eats grapes outside by the entrance to the property, so it is hard to get things started haha, but I am excited to work with the people here, they really are great people.  And Dad, in the picture of Google Earth, I live on the very very bottom right smack dab in the middle of that picture.  There is a little group of houses down there right in the middle and that is me. The houses that are in perfect rows were a government project that they did so the poor people could own a house.  You can buy one for 600 American dollars, they are not too bad, small but nice.  Pretty good price, I would say!  And our church is right at the top of those houses in a street called San Antonio - it is one of the streets connecting that and the next neighborhood above that.  My sector is only the new houses and the neighborhood above that and the one right below it named Concha de Correros, and above those is the other missionaries sector which goes up for about 25 km.  They have a huge sector! This week we found a really good family.  The parents just got divorced but are still living together, but they seemed really interested so it should be fun teaching them.  They have a 16 year old son that is really awesome and is the most interested so I am excited to work with him.  There is also another 12 year old kid and his mom we are teaching, and he has a baptismal date for the beginning of May because kids under 14 or so have to come 8 times before they get baptized, but he is doing great and loves reading the Book of Mormon, but other than that we really don't have too many that are really progressing too much, and we are kinda focusing on finding new people right now.  Kinda hard with the limited people we have in our sector but there is a lot of good people to be found!  Looks like you and mom had a great time in Utah, looks like a fun hike!  My companion said that he does know where Lake Isabella is - it is super close to his house - what was your comps name??  Ya, and I am pretty sure that this part will get absorbed into that mission, and I am pretty sure I will be in this part when it changes so it should be fun!  Lots of new different places I can go!  Well I hope that everyone is doing alright back at home!  I am loving it out here in Chile!  Have a great week!  Thanks for the letters!  Dad, I still have not gotten the packages and we don't get mail this week either, so hopefully it is here by next week.
Elder Moser

Google Earth 

An old fence 

Anti-Utah 

Exchanges with bike missionaries - sweet! 

Elder Brow and Praying Mantis 

Elder Moser - outstanding in his field. 

Weekly Weather forecast from Dad.

Monday, February 25, 2013

E-mail and Photos


Hola!  Well it was a great week here in my Ward Rinconada. Saturday our Bishop called President and got permission for us to go to the ward activity and that was pretty awesome.  It was at a big park outside of our mission so we were lucky to go!!  I am leaving for another ward tomorrow, so it was fun to spend my last weekend with all of the members. I have made some pretty good friends here, and it is sad to leave them but I am excited for the next adventure I will be having!  I do not know where I am going yet.  We find out in the changes meeting tomorrow so that will be fun.  I hear they are awesome.  We had a big barbeque, called an asado here in Chile, at the ward activity so we ate lots of good meat.  Chileans sure do like a lot of salt though!  I have never eaten that much salt at one time before.  That is the only seasoning they use and they use a lot of it! and one of the pictures is of an asado that me and my companion had last p-day.  The ribs were pretty good and I tried to make the chicken soaked in sprite.  I think I forgot a few ingredients but it was pretty good for guessing!  Our new house has been super nice, and best of all it is really quiet in the neighborhood around us now, and that is a big change from the last one!  I have been getting lots more sleep!  Dad, it is on the corner of Casas de lo Espajo and O' Higgens, just down the street from our old one. It looks like the new mission president should be pretty good.  Everyone is kind of bummed though because President King has been so awesome.  He is an awesome Mission President.  I'm sure the next one will be great too though.  Dad, I did get the pens and I gave them to Bishop and he liked them a lot - he was pretty excited about it. He has been a great bishop, I don't quite know what the ward would do without that guy! And you should probably send the jerky with something else, just to be safe.  I think it depends on how much the border patrol guy likes jerky or not if the package gets to me. One that you sent was opened but nothing was missing so I guess that one didn't like it! Well I hope everyone is doing good! Have a great week!!
Elder Moser


Monday, February 18, 2013

E-mail and Photos


Hola everyone!!  It was a great week here in Chile, probably my favorite one yet.  Everyone looks great from the pictures and it sounds like you had a really nice funeral.  I was kinda sad I could not be there, but I would lots rather be here!  This week we were able to have two baptisms.  It was a really fun experience cause they are my first ones here and it was even more awesome cause they are both really solid and have really strong testimonies. Edith Rios was baptized by her husband that recently got activated again.  It has been really fun teaching her, they are an awesome family.  She is from Mexico and he is from Chile.  She is the one that always makes awesome Mexican food for us.  It was awesome to see her gain a testimony of the gospel.  A few months ago we talked to her and she told us she would never step foot in a Mormon church, but later I promised her husband that if he kept coming his wife would follow his example and the next week she came and loved it and we started teaching her and now she is pretty solid!  And the other one was Victorhugo Urbina.  His wife has been a member of the church for over a year now and he has always come to church, just never wanted to be baptized, but a few weeks ago he said he is finally ready, so we have been teaching him a lot getting him ready, and he has a really strong testimony of the gospel and a strong family in the church so they should be really good.  It has been awesome to see the change in him since he decided he wanted to be baptized and Bishop baptized him. We moved houses this week and had the baptisms so it was a busy week but we now live in the most expensive missionary house in the mission, it is pretty nice haha, but I will probably only be here about a week longer, it has air conditioning and everything! Definitely not complaining about my house now!!  Well I don't have too much time cause we helped a guy build a shed today, so it kinda ate up our p-day, but it was good and fun to help.  I hope everyone is doing great!! Have a great week!!
Elder Moser

PS:  Dad, thanks for the pictures of when Grandpa was younger.  That night after President King called I read in the scriptures about the spirit world and stuff and that night I had a dream, and I saw a 25 to 30 year old guy dressed in white, and well I had never seen a picture of Grandpa that I remembered when he was younger but after you sent me the pictures I definitely know who I saw!  He looked a little different, but for sure the same guy!  pretty cool!  And thanks for sharing the experiences you had as well, it was interesting hearing those!!