E-mail and Photos

Hola!!  Thanks for the pictures Dad.  It was great to see some of the family and some pictures of the Tetons.  The whole different seasons thing still kinda wigs me out!!  And Evalyn looks a lot like Gracie in the picture!!  She has gotten big over the last few months!  That is good that you guys got to spend some time with family this past week! Definitely miss that part of life!  And good job Troy on the graduation!!  You have almost got it licked now!!  Well this week turned out to be a pretty good week!  We were able to go to the Temple on Wednesday and that was awesome!!  A little different experience all in Spanish, but it was way good!!  I realized how much I had been missing it!  Except for the missionary that threw-up on me on the bus, that made things stink a little bit throughout the day haha.  The Santiago temple is super small, but really pretty.  They use lots of the blue rock that they have here, makes it look pretty Chilean!  The picture I sent at the temple was me and Elder Salisbury and me and my comp.  This week was also kinda sad though cause I found out Salisbury is heading home today to take care of some stuff.  He was a way good friend here in this zone so I am way sad to see him go!!  This week we were able to have a couple great ward activities so that was really good!  Lots of investigators came which was awesome!  Church attendance was pretty low again, which was ok cause I had to give another super long talk again haha.  Sometimes President Ortega doesn't plan too great for the sacrament meeting!!  It was two youth talks and me haha.  I talked about the atonement and I guess it turned out pretty good!!  Well we have changes this next week and President asked me if I am ready to be senior comp, so  it looks like am probably gonna be leading out here next change!  We will see how that goes haha.  I think I will be alright though :)  I am pretty excited for it!  It will definitely make me work harder though!!  My comp is leaving for sure though, so I hope I at least get someone that only speaks Spanish!!  The practice would be really nice!! :)  My comp has definitely gotten a little more trunky these last couple weeks so it has been a little tough!  So I am pumped to get a young one!  It will keep me going a little bit better!!  Well all in all it was a great week.  I am super excited for the rain.  It has been raining pretty good today so far, and it is super cold.  Makes missionary work way easier though.  Lot easier to walk around in cold than hot!!  But I hope everyone is doing great! 

I love and miss you all!! Have a great weak!!

Elder Moser

 Elder Moser and Elder Salisbury

Elder Brow and Elder Moser

 Yerba Mate

E-mail and Photos

Hola!!  Well it was another pretty good week here in Chile!!  We finally got the first rain of the season and there was some pretty bad flooding in Santiago.  We saw some sweet pictures of it from one of the members.  I guess the streets just kinda turn into rivers during the rain in the city.  Their drainage system isn't too good I guess!!  Well this week we did divisions twice so I was with other elders as much as I was with my comp!  It was lots of fun though.  Elder Cervantes, my old companion, is my district leader so it was lots of fun catching up with him and the other day I was with Elder Salisbury - I have become pretty good friends with him over my time here in Talagante - we are super similar - it is pretty crazy..  We had a meeting with another zone and President King this week.  It was great and we learned a ton.  I always look forward to the meetings with President King, he is such a great teacher, it is sad to see him go!!  We were finally able to find some new investigators this week, it has been a while since we were able to find any so that was pretty sweet.  They are a family who is kinda all drunk a lot but they are really nice and want to change.  He actually stopped us in the street the other day, and asked us to help him out, so we went to his house Friday and had a pretty good lesson with him, so hopefully that keeps goin good!!  We didn't have any investigators in the chapel though this week, so hopefully we can get that turned around soon.  We are getting pretty close with a few people, but they just keep hanging back a little..

Well it has been a pretty good p-day so far.  Me and my comp got up at 6 this morning and hopped on a bus and headed over to a little town called Lonquen, and it has one of the biggest hills in the area. When I first got here a few months ago the first thing I saw was this hill, and we can see it from our apartment pretty good too.  But I have always just wanted to climb the dang thing. and I couldn't just let that mountain stand there without being climbed, so last night I decided I wanted to do it today and so we just went and did it!  It was actually a little bigger than I thought haha... but after a few hours I reached the top, my comp had to stop just a little ways from the top cause there was some pretty good rocks we had to go over and he said he was a little too top heavy for it haha, so he just watched me and I ran up to the top, snatched a few photos and a video and we headed back down.  It was awesome though!!  And we met an old guy that lives nearby, shooting rabbits up on the hill.  We had fun talking to him for a while, until he realized we were Mormons, then he got out of there pretty fast!!  But it was a great day, and a great stress reliever!  I felt like I left the world for a while - it was awesome!  And this week we get to go to the temple again to do endowments for our name so I am pretty excited about that - another chance to leave the world again!

And Dad, I can't believe it but I forgot to take a picture of the cup again, so I will have to next week, but I think I thought of a good idea.  Could you put a glass insert in it??  I have seen quite a few with glass..

Well, I hope everyone is doing great!!  Have a great week!!!! :)

E-mail and Photos

Hola!!  Thanks for the photos of grandpa this week Dad.  I really enjoyed those!  It is sweet to see him back in the good ole days!!  Well it was a pretty good week this week!! We were able to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead with a recent convert and that was super good and he is excited to go back again.  That was a super good experience.  And then Saturday I was able to talk with Mom and Dad, and that was a pretty good topper on the end of a good week!  Couldn't ask for anything more!!  Those little carvings are pretty sweet Dad, fun to see.  And thanks for the talk - that was really good, kinda just what we need for this ward haha :)  I will be sure to print that out and try to apply it here!!  It is crazy how little people say they read in the scriptures here.  It was really surprising when I first got here listening to people talk about that, so hopefully I can help get some people to start working on that!!  Today I was able to buy a new suit, so that got all taken care of.  It wasn't too expensive and I think it was a little decent.  My thighs are just too big here though!!  You can´t buy a separate coat and pants so I kinda have to squeeze into the pants a little cause that was the size of jacket that fit, but it should work out ok I hope.  And we were told today we aren't getting any money next month so it looks like I will be going on a diet anyway!  Maybe I can get the pants to fit a little better.  Cold showers in the winter isn't gonna be very fun though, so we will see how that goes!!  But other than that there isn't too much new going on, still looking for some new people to teach, that has been a big struggle here, but hopefully we can start finding some here soon!  I hope everyone is doing great!  I love and miss you all!

Elder Moser

 Santiago Chile Temple

Elder Moser and Jose Luis 

E-mail and Photos

Hola!  Thanks for the pictures Dad.  Every time I see pictures of the family it makes me realize how awesome of a family I have and how lucky I am.  I didn't really realize that until I got here and took a look around a little bit.  So thanks for being such a great family everyone!!  I really do appreciate it!  This week was a great week!  There were some pretty hot days again and looks like it is gonna be a nice week this week!  We were able to have the baptism of Jose Luis this week and it was awesome.  I think it touched his mom a lot so hopefully we can keep working with her.  I will be sure to send a picture of that.  It is just kinda hard to get the branch support here, but we were able to get a few there so it wasn't too bad.  We also had a great activity this Friday.  We are trying to get people excited for the temple so we watched "The Mountain of the Lord" and we had a pretty good turnout.  We only had 25 people in Sacrament Meeting this week which was kinda sad, dropped down a lot since the last couple of weeks, but hopefully we can try to get that up a little more!  For the activity me and my comp wanted to make something a little different so we kinda made up a recipe and made pretzels!  It worked out pretty dang good!!  We were able to make them in the church with what is called a horno de barro or a mud oven type thing - I guess it is something that all Chileans use to make bread and stuff like that.  We had a lot of fun making those and the people thought they were pretty good I think!  Might have been lying but they usually tell the truth about everything like that so I think we were ok.  I will also be sure to send some pictures of those also.  And yes I did get the package this last week and thanks a ton for that!!  I got enough jerky and gel to last me for a while now!!  And thanks for the jacket too - it was a nice surprise and let's just say taking care of business in the bathroom has been a lot more comfortable the last couple days too, so thanks for the fiber!  It is kinda a must have here in Chile!!!  And about Skype this Saturday, it is 8 in the night I was talking about!!  And I really have no idea about the time difference!!! Just look on line - I am sure there is a website that has world times on it!  But I am talking about 8 pm my time.  I hope that makes a little more sense and I hope that will work out for you!!  And don't worry dad, you might feel old, but you still look pretty young.  I realized Chileans age waaaaaaaaaaay faster than gringos.  A lady told us she was 60 and I about spit my drink out - I really thought she was 75 or 80.  I don't know if it is the diet or genetics or what, but wow!  Feel lucky!!  The photo with the woman and the baby are some less actives that we are trying to activate.  They are awesome people and would be a huge help to this branch, just a little lazy getting up they say!  But hopefully we can get them going here soon!!  And thank you for sending the pens!!  You could just throw some chocolate in there if you want to :) don't eat a lot of that here!!  I don't think we get the broadcasts here, especially where we are, but I am not really sure about that!  Well I hope everyone is doing great!  Have a great week this week! 

Elder Moser

 The Gringo Pretzel Maker

 Baptism of Jose Luis

Autumn Grape Leaves

E-mail and photos

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

Love,

Elder Moser

 Our neighborhood dog, Spencer.

 Chevy

E-mail

Thanks for the weather forecast Dad!  Looks like it is gonna be an awesome week here in the Islita!!!  My letter is gonna have to be a little bit shorter cause we had a big going away party for the Elders that are leaving tomorrow from our zone.  There is a Mexican that lives with me that is leaving which was pretty sad.  I have become pretty good friends with him - he was an awesome kid.  I will be staying with Elder Brow here in La Islita for at least another 6 weeks and I am pretty excited for that.  We have been doing some great work together and I think we are really gonna dominate it this week.  Looks like Sarah had a great trip to Hawaii this past week, and I kinda forgot to say it last week, but Happy Birthday Sarah!!!!!  Looks like it was a good one!! :)  And nice bowl Dad.  You are getting pretty darn good!  I have been looking for some different types of wood I can send a little piece home so you can make me a pen.  Look into Kiwi and Grape wood and see if they are any good!!  The people are pretty impressed with your bullet pen.  I kinda dropped it when I was having a race with some of our investigators.... so I think I am gonna need you to make another pen for me!  Just one out of wood would be great ;)  And Mom we are teaching English classes and we have an English question that we just can't quit figure.  We are both a little on the redneck side and our English aint to darn great.  Would I say "I would have drinken", or "I would have drank" or "I would have drunk"?????  haha  We really don't know the answer to that question!  English grammar just starts to get messed up in our heads!!

I was sad to hear about Megans baby.  This past week that happened to two of our investigators also, and it was a great lesson for me that things happen for a reason and God is in control and even though things just don't seem right at the moment, it is what was supposed to happen in the long run, and might never make sense to us, but everything make sense to God!  Just have to trust him in what he knows is best.  They both have been a lot more interested this week and it has been a sad experience with them, but also a great teaching experience.

Everything else is going pretty good.  Our other missionaries in our branch had a baptism this week and it was really special - first one in the sector for over a year and a half, kinda slow here!!!

I hope everyone is doing great!  I love and miss you all!

Elder Moser

E-mail

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

Elder Moser