Feliz Navidad!

FELIZ NAVIDAD EVERYONE!!

On Christmas Eve I will have completed 6 months in the mission. Pretty crazy. Almost know what I am doing here. 

Looking back, it has been a blur. I honestly don't know how I have made it this far. Well, yeah I do. All with the Lord's help. I like that poem called Footprints where a man is walking on the beach with the Lord and across the sky are flashing scenes of his life. Turning around and looking back, the man realized that during the hardest times of his life, when he needed the Lord the most, there was only one set of footprints. Turning to the Lord he asked why it was so, why he was left to walk alone during the most trying times of his life, to which the Lord responded, "Child, it was during those times that I carried you." Honestly I have been carried so much during these 6 months it is insane. I can speak Spanish now. What? I can eat sopa de mondonga (cow stomach soup) and only throw up 4 times while I am eating it. I am living in the murder capitol of the world following the call to serve from a living prophet of God, and it is not at all easy, most of all it is just spiritually and emotionally and mentally draining. But what I have learned is that when we are doing the Lord's work, we are entitled to His help. Pretty sure that God has gotten way buffer from carrying me through the sand all this time but I have needed it.

Everyone here is super pumped for Navidad. You can tell because at night you feel like you are walking through Iraq. It sounds like a legitimate warzone. There are explosions and fireworks everywhere. There have been a few times when a firework has rolled in front of us as we have been walking and we have had to do epic dives to save ourselves and when we get up our ears are ringing. We pretty much look like this all the time, except with shirts and ties...

We had good week and a ton happened. We went and visited a part of our area we had never visited to try and find new people to teach and found some really sweet new people to teach. 

And Claudia got baptized! I don't remember how much I have written about her but she is a super smart and dedicated single mom that we totally found miraculously about one month ago. Even though she has had people from pretty much every single religion come and just attack the church with every lie/misconception/whatever-they-can-think-of from the moment we first visited her, she dedicated herself to finding the answer for herself by reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it with an honest desire to know, and she received an answer that it was true. That really is the only way anyone can know if what we say is true, And the reason I am here is because I did the same thing and got an answer through the power of the Holy Ghost. Anyways, we went to walk with her to the church to be baptized on Saturday and she was going to leave her baby with her mom. Apparently, someone had left the stove on and so the oven filled with gas and just as we were about to leave, Claudia's mom opened the oven and all the gas exploded out, but miraculously didn't ignite. Everyone was pretty shaken up, and we thought that Claudia would be way too upset to still want to be baptized that day but, being as super awesome as she is, she still wanted to go so we went and baptized her. The thing is, that morning we had passed by their house and felt pretty nervous about the baptism, like Satan was going to try again to pull something and stop her from following through with her decision. We said a quick but fervent prayer to ask that she would be protected and that everything would go as planned, and it did. One more miracle for the count.

Other than that, just prepping for a Christmas filled week! We are going to focus on just visiting families and sharing a Christmas message this week. Sometimes people get so focused on calling us "Mormons" and the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith that they forget that we are members of the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints, and that He, Jesus Christ, who was born in a stable as the son of a humble carpenter, is the center of literally everything we say and do. We talk about J. Smith and Book of Mormon a lot because it is what people don't know about or don't understand and want to know about, but we are really just Christian missionaries, doing the same thing that the Apostles and the early Elders of the church that Christ established 2000 years ago did, traveling from home to home sharing the good news that God speaks to us, that He has sent a Savior to succor his people and to give them hope, and that this same Savior taught us how to have true happiness and return to live with Him forever after this life. I know that the story of Christmas is real, that the spirit of Christmas is really just the spirit of Christ, and although I won't hear the words "You'll shoot your eye out" or watch "Elf" or have a white elephant gift exchange Moff Christmas party this year, it'll still be a great Christmas. Even in Spanish. 

Iguana!

Thanks to everyone who wrote me a short little blurb thingy. Made me remember how blessed I am to have so many amazing friends and to know so many awesome people. Have an amazing Christmas and God bless you, Everyone! 

With love,

Elder Moffitt

A Zone of Men--San Pedro Sula

Satelite Zone, San Pedro Sula, Honduras

We call ourselves the Zone of Men.  (Our area is too dangerous for sister missionaries.)

Sometimes we are very serious and thoughtful.

Sometimes we are not.

Our District (a district includes about 8 missionaries and a zone includes several districts)

Soccer game on our zone's p-day (our weekly prep day when we do our laundry, 

grocery shopping, write home, and, if we're' lucky, play some soccer)!

Welcome to My Home in San Pedro Sula!

"On the street where I live"
My home is the caged green beauty on the far right!

From the days of my sweater adventures in the frigid 80 degree week long ice age 

we had here in HONDURAS.

Elder Curichimba and me.

Elder Rodas from Guatemala rocking the sweater with me.Notice the green garden view across the street from our patio.

   

 

Us Men in White have some serious swagger.

Here is our apartment. 

My "closet" and room.

Well ... it's colorful.

And there's running water.

Our desk where we study scripture each day.  

Just added the triumphant USC pic. :) 

Sounds like that was a good game.

Just Love Your Washing Machine

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy December!

So I first want to apologize for not having written you all for the past 2 weeks! It's been below 95 degrees so we were afraid to go outside. No just kidding, but it actually has been surprisingly fresh outside this past week. I even got to wear my sweater!!!!!!!! It was really funny because it was like 75 degrees maybe and everyone was walking around in like Artic exploration gear. It was like that "Day after Tomorrow" video except without it being cold. But I slept without my fan for 4 days so there is great cause to rejoice here.

Well, lots of things have happened in these past few weeks. One, we were stuck in our house

for 3 days without being able to leave because Honduras had their national election for the president, mayors, etc. this last week and everyone was afraid that Honduras would break into civil war or that El Salvador would invade, so we barricaded ourselves in our house with rice and cookies to wait out the incoming political tempest. Unfortunately, I didn't get a Tianemen Square picture facing down a tank, but it is good that Honduras didn't dissolve into civil war. There is still a chance though, so you can all still think I am really cool and brave for being in a dangerous country. Speaking of dangerous country, we watched "Tangled" in Spanish while we were stuck in our house (we are allowed to watch Disney movies in the mission on a rare occasion) and it's a great movie, even in Spanish. 

I have a satchel now so I kind of feel like Flynn Rider preaching the gospel. 

Still working on the smolder, ladies. Prepare yourselves.

Pues... We have had a difficult couple of weeks trying to get people to take the steps necessary to progress and to enjoy the plethora of blessings God has waiting for them. There were a few days that I went to bed feeling really alone and like I was just spinning my wheels without any heavenly traction (thats a good one too someone copyright it). Anyways, the lesson I have really learned these past few weeks is that the majority of the time, it isn't until we are in the fire of affliction or difficulty that the miracles come. My dad sent me an email about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the book of Daniel in the Bible, and I spent a lot of time thinking about that story the past few days. Besides having extremely awkward names, these three guys were about to be thrown into the furnace for refusing to deny their faith and their God. Talking to the King with great courage, they basically said, "Look buddy, we know that our God can save us from this fire, but if he doesn't, we are still going to believe in him as we turn into carne asada." The key word here is CAN. God is a God of miracles (see Mormon chapter 7 in the Book of Mormon), always has been, and always will be, but sometimes it just isn't part of His plan to divide the Red Sea at the moment that we think it would be reaaaaaaally convenient. Sometimes we are just sitting there in the furnace and it is getting really hot and we are praying and it keeps getting hotter and we feel deserted and alone. But is it then that we give up our faith? Better not because really at those moments is when your faith is all you have!

There is a scripture in Ether 12:6 that says we won't receive a witness until after the trial of our faith. What I have seen and learned these past few weeks is that that is really true, and that when the floor starts heating up we need to be firm in our trust that God CAN save us, that He has the power to do it, but also the trust that He knows what's going on much better than we do, and that he will show His hand when the moment is right, as long as we continue doing the right things and keep ourselves clean and worthy of His help. Miracles happen and they will come. 

The past few weeks we have only had 0 or 1 person come to church with us. We have worked and worked and taught and served and sweated and prayed and wept and gotten our pants really muddy ... and have only had 2 people come to church with us to see what we are talking about in 4 weeks. Despite our efforts, the attendance at church has been dropping consistently from 85 to 60ish.

Yesterday, at church, despite it raining, we had 12 investigators at church with us, and an attendance of 114. It was a powerful meeting, and I know the people that came with us felt the spirit of God. I got up and bore my testimony about what I have been saying in this email and started crying, and it is really hard to talk in Spanish when you are crying, but I really saw and felt the Lord's hand (after weeks of feeling the flames of adversity) that Sunday and His confirmation that although I'm not perfect, although I haven't mastered the legendary Flynn Rider smolder (see example below), He is conscious of me and will do His work in His own time.

Well, I made myself a turkey lunch meat sandwich on Thanksgiving for dinner to be festive but it tasted terrible despite all my good cheer. Don't worry, I'll celebrate Christmas better.  I was going to send you all pictures of me mish-ing it up in my sweater but I loaned my camera to a member for her son's graduation. Here they have summer break in winter. It's awkward, but we deal.

Love you all and I hope you all get your Christmas lights put up fast because people here have had them up since the first week of November, and even if they houses made of aluminum and rotting wood, they have some pretty hip Christmas lights. Props to Hondurans.

Oh yeah, about the title, just .... love your washing machine, because here we get buff slamming our clothes and our faces against bumpy metal with soap, repeatedly, to wash our clothes. It takes a long time. But I'm a jungle man so I can handle it.

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Moffitt

Counting Blessings on Thanksgiving

Hey Moffitt family! 

First I want to say that we have a really awesome family. As a missionary you deal with a lot of people, and a lot of dysfunctional families. If you think Jessica in the morning is bad, you have no idea. Love you Jessica. We have a great Dad who works really stinking hard and who recognizes that he has a responsibility to raise his family with LOVE and as a good example. We have a dad who honors his priesthood and is worthy to use it to bless us. There are a lot of fathers here that have the attitude "Well if my son is messing up it is his fault because I am perfect and I do my thing so he should do his thing. No, I am not going to bring him to church or pray as a family or anything; he needs to figure it out alone". I have really come to realize how great of a dad we have although he regrettably has no hair and makes us listen to Enders Game every roadtrip. The little things you do really do add up, like doing the dishes or packing up all the stuff at the beachhouse in that nasty little closet by yourself so we could have more time playing.

We also have a great mom, who is a great example and a great motivator. She always loves us (except for 23 hours before an imminent vacation) and does so much for us. Thanks for working so hard to get us to school and to church and even to swim team. I know we give you a hard time a lot, mom, but thanks for sacrificing so much for us, sacrifices that we see and don't see. Thanks for supporting us in the activities we want to do and always pushing us to succeed in everything. You have taught us spiritual lessons and have helped us gain our own testimonies.

How cool is it to have an older sister that is serving a mission dressed as a booba and speaking a language with the same letters that the transformers use? A sister that is so talented that she got into Stanford and is a super good singer and knows like 40 languages. To this day she has given me the best Christmas present I have ever received: my fire blankie. She loves to laugh at the little, usually pretty stupid things, but has helped me to recognize the little funny moments that are always passing. She is going to be an awesome missionary in Ukraine.

Christopher is kinda like the butt of the family but he is a really nice butt. Very nice to sit on. Oh man I am so mean to you Christopher. I am sorry. You are a great kid and are really talented and smart. Thanks for always being my lego table buddy and videogame buddy. I know how much potential you have if you stay involved in the church and school and don't let the world get to you. EVER.  

Clara is like the cutest thing ever and she is my epic slug laughing buddy. She is already smarter than Dad and is even cool with her new glasses. She always helps resolve contentions and has always been the one with a smile when no one else has one. Thanks for being an example of Christ and always being so loving, Clara. You are my favorite little sister.

I just want you all to know how grateful I am to be a part of this family. We aren't perfect, but we are trying and that is all that matters. They say that you don't realize what you have until it's gone, and maybe stepping away from the family to look at it from the outside has helped me realize how inspired and blessed we are to be together in this family. 

The mission is pretty hard but it is a place of a lot of personal growth. Some cool/ funny stories from this week- I was feeling super tired and disanimated so to pump myself up I started shouting "bring it Satan, lets go, you and I bring it!" and I took three steps, stepped in a puddle, and my feet flew out from under me and I fell flat on my butt. Luckily I am spiderman so I didn't get super dirty, but it was still a lesson that Satan is a real being and we shouldn't taunt him cause he will mess with us. 

The kids here always ask us for one lempira, they say, "regaleme un lempira." So one time a kid asked me for one lempira and I told him if he gives me two lempiras I will give him one. So he took out 2 lempiras and handed them to me. Luckily I felt bad for the Honduras system of education so I didn't go through...

The wildest news though is that we can't go out of our apartments at all, for anything, not even one step outside, all day Saturday, all day Sunday (except for sacrament meeting), and Monday and Tuesday. The elections are this next weekend, and the church leadership is worried that Honduras might very well break into civil war and or be attacked by El Salvador. It is pretty crazy. Kinda stinks that we will lose 4 days of work, but the church isn't about to put its missionaries in danger. Spend the week thinking about how cool I am because I am in a dangerous country.

I love you all a ton and just wanted to say thanks for being an awesome family. 

Fight On in the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Elder Adam Moffitt 

Salvation is Not a Cheap Experience

Somehow made it through my first week here in San Pedro. Honestly, could not tell you how, but we made it!

Our first few days were super slow and depressing. We went two days in a row with only 3 lessons each day. Basically in 10 hours that we have to work, we could only find three people to teach. 2 days in a row. All of the appointments we had set up fell through, and by the end of the day we were just sliding slowly face first in the mud toward our house. But I decided to hit Thursday running and be happy and excited no matter what. So when everything fell through on Thursday, I just smiled and went looking for someone to contact, and I had a super good day. I felt the Spirit of God so much more. We were guided to people to talk to, we taught powerful lessons, and we had a successful day despite our difficulties. The thing I learned is that our happiness really doesn't depend on other people or everything going our way. If we want to be happy, we need to obey the commandments, know that God is guiding us and taking care of us, and then suck it up and be happy. Laugh when Satan throws a bad day at your face and you’ll be able to shake it off a lot faster.  

Eating choco bananas on p-day. They are frozen bananas covered in chocolate on a stick.
Pretty much the best idea ever. 

I've always wondered why missionary work is so hard. If this really is the Church of Jesus Christ, led by living prophets and apostles, the very same church with the very same power and authority that Christ established on the earth during his earthly ministry--and I testify with all that I am that it is--then why don't we just baptize people all day long? The apostle Jeffrey R. Holland gave a talk about that in the MTC that really hit me hard and I have thought about a lot this week. He posed the same question, asking why isn’t the only danger in the mission field getting pneumonia from standing in the baptismal font all day long. The answer is that salvacion is not a cheap experience. 

Pause for dramatic effect.

SALVATION IS NOT A CHEAP EXPERIENCE!

If it was, it wouldn’t be worth it. We know that when we labor to bring people to Christ, we are taking upon ourselves the same purpose that drives everything that God does, even to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Christ came to earth with this sole focus and purpose, and if it was hard for him, why should it be easy? If he sweat drops of blood to give us the ability to return to live with him, why would we think it would be a breeze to take part in the same work? Everyone's road to salvation must follow the steps of our Savior, which eventually lead to Golgotha and Calvary. Salvation is not a cheap experience, but it is worth fighting and sweating and being in Honduras for.

To be honest, the only really hard thing about missionary work for me is that I can’t make these decisions for people. I can teach and I can pray and I can invite these people to make changes in their lives that I KNOW, I KNOW will make them so much more happier, but I can't change their lives for them. I can't make those sacrifices for them. I wish wish wish wish that I could, but I can’t. If they don’t want to read, ponder, and pray, I can't do it for them, and they won’t receive an answer. If walking and working all day and night could help them in some way to understand the importance of what we are saying and to help them make those choices, I would totes do it. But I can’t. So the hardest part of missionary work, for me and I am sure for our Padre Celestial, is to teach and to invite, and to watch someone refuse. To pray, to stop drinking, to go to church, to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if all this stuff is actually legit, I can’t do it for anyone. But I can invite so that’s what I’ll do, because to work all day and find someone who wants these changes in their life, that wants an answer and is humble enough to look for it, is more than worth it. I don’t think we will actually realize how worth it everything is until after we die and get a look at the whole picture, and then we will realize that every little sacrifice really was so so so so so so worth it.

Anyways, it always seems like I start writing and thinking about the week and then up writing a little spiritual sermon about something to bore you all to death and then my time is up to write. I’ll try and work on telling you all some cool stuff that I am doing and that is happening to me the next week.

Hugs and kisses, 

Elder Moffitt

Some Testigos, or Jehovahs Witness stopped by during our personal study time and gave me some sweet pamphlets, including their famous magazine.
I gave them a pamphlet on the restoration of the gospel, to be fair. :) 

I. AM. YOUR. STEPFATHER!

Hello everyone,

I am no longer in my lovely La Ceiba anymore! I got changed (transferred) and am now in a part of San Pedro Sula, the one, the only, murder capital of the world! I am not even going to try and pretend like saying that doesn't make me feel super cool, because it does. So I have officially survived four days as a gringo with a backpack in San Pedro.

So. Much. Street cred.

Anyways, my departure was pretty sad. What everyone does when they hear they are getting changed on Monday is go around on Tuesday visiting their favorite investigators and members and saying goodbye and bearing some epic final parting words and testimonies. At least that is the idea. So Tuesday I went around visiting everyone and it was super sad because I probs won't see these people for a long time but it was also so cool to see that I had made some sort of an impact on these people's lives.

I headed out of La Ceiba with my clothes wet because we had a baptism that night for the two kids of one of the best families ever. The mom was baptized when she was 14 but pretty much went inactive right after. We found her in an internet store about 2 months ago when she asked us if we were Mormons. We were like yeah! And she said she used to be part of the church. We asked her what happened and she told us that she really liked coffee and we were like, Sister, coffee isn't going to send you to Hell haha. But anyways, super long story short, we helped her reactivate in the church, and she is now super dedicated and has a super strong testimony. And she gave up coffee (atta girl). She wants to convert everyone, especially her husband, and to go to the temple one day and be sealed to her family for eternity. Her kids are the best ever. I wish I could write everything about them but I can't. That night was super bittersweet because a lot of my fav members were there so I was able to say goodbye. One of the children and his mom totally started crying and it was super touching--a little uncomfortable but it meant a lot to me to know that I had helped someone, and to feel that even if I had worked for 3 months and sweated my face off just to find this family and help bring them closer to Christ, it would have been worth it. Families can be together forever, and it is such a blessing to know how they can be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. I hope they wait until I finish my mission so I can go with them! Despite my protests, she brought lobster on a plate to the baptism for my companion and me. So to celebrate our final night together, Elder Sweat and I went to Wendy's and bought large frostys and ate lobster and frostys. Best night ever.

Our last night in La Ceiba. Frosty's and Lobster at Wendy's with Elder Sweat!

Anyways, so I ended up getting assigned to a branch of the church in San Pedro Sula called San Juan. And I got assigned as a senior companion, training an awesome new missionary from Peru, Elder Curichimba! Definitely took me a few days to get his name down. At first I kept saying Elder Cuchiramba, Elder Chicirumba, Elder Ruchichichibumba, Elder Timon and Pumba, etc. but I finally got it down. In the mission, the missionary who trains you for your first 6 weeks is your padre, and if you get a different companion for your second 6 seeks, he is your padrasto, or stepfather. So I am officially a stepfather! It is a ton of responsibility because I have only been out for 3 months and I am still trying to figure things out, not to mention that little obstacle of everyone-speaks-a-different-language, but I know that God doesn't give us commandments or assignments that we can't handle. We have basically no investigators because we are opening an area, but it is all good. With prayer and with hard work we can do whatever challenge God gives us.

My new companion, Elder Curichimba (next to me) from Peru, and our new roommates from Equador and Guatemala. No English spoken in this home!

Tree of Life in San Pedro

I know this is God's work and that we are here to change lives. I am so grateful I was able to help some people these last 3 months and now its TIME TO GET TO WORK in the infamous murder capitol. BRING IT, SAN PEDRO!!!!

Love you all,

Elder Moffitt

There Can Be Miracles, When You Believe

Hello everyone! 

This week was straight up awesome. Elder Sweat (my companion) and I were pretty disanimated because we have been working really hard the past few weeks to help the people we are teaching, many of whom are in super tough economic positions understand that the only guaranteed way to have happiness and to secure that everything is going to be okay is to keep the commandments. Yeah it is going to be a sacrifice, yeah it won’t always be easy, but God has promised us, many times, in the scriptures that if we keep the commandments, we will prosper in the land. 

So for weeks now we have been doing all we can to help these super special people help themselves, and their situations still haven´t really changed. Feeling a bit disanimated and wondering what we have been doing wrong, or what we could improve to better bless the lives of these people,we read in Mormon 9 and Moroni 7 about miracles, and how God has been, is, and always will be, a God of miracles.

In Mormon 9 we read:

18 And who shall say that Jesus Christ did not do many mighty miracles? And there were many mighty miracles wrought by the hands of the apostles.

 19 And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.

 20 And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust.

 21 Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.

Elder Sweat and I decided to try and do more fully the three things that verse 20 says are required to see the miracles of God in our lives:  we need to have strong belief and faith, we need to be obedient, walking in the right way, and we need to know the God in whom we should put our trust.  Kneeling in fervent prayer, we asked to see miracles in the lives of our investigators.

We did indeed see many miracles these past few days, and it has been awesome. I want to share one in particular with you all. I have been working with and teaching a family for almost 2 months now. The father is the taxista that found us in a really cool way that I think I told you about several weeks ago. Anyways, the father has great faith and really wants to come closer to God. He has great desires to be baptized and to marry his wife, but he has been struggling with unemployment off and on for the past several weeks. We are waiting for the legal papers necessary to get him married to arrive, but he still hasn’t been able to save the 400 lempiras necessary to pay for them when they arrive. There are members that are willing to help pay for them, but we feel that it would be best if he and his wife really made the sacrifice to pay for the partidas as part of the repentance process. He just lost his job as a taxista again last week, and they are once again literally penniless, just like when we started teaching them. To make things worse, we have barely been able to find the dad to teach him the past few weeks because he is always away from home looking for work and the appointments we have set he has not been able to make. I have worried and prayed a lot about this family because I know they could be great members but they are just suffering so much. One of the miracles we prayed for was just to be able to find him in his house and to teach them. Long story short, we miraculously found him and went with him to his house to teach him. We felt inspired to teach him about tithing, and about the power of obeying the law of tithing. That day, he had walked around practically all of La Ceiba looking for a job with his 3 year old child, and someone had given his child 23 lempiras. After teaching Javier about the law of tithing, how God requires that we give him 1 tenth of all the money we earn, not to pay church leaders but to build the kingdom of God (church buildings, temples, humanitarian aid etc.) and in return he promises to bless us incredibly, he promptly took out the only money he had to feed his family of 5 kids and his wife, 23 lempiras, or about 1 dollar and 15 cents, and handed us 3 lempiras, embarrassed at how small it was but wanting to do all he could to have God be pleased with him. We taught him how to fill out a tithing form, and as I watched him put his 3 lempiras, 15 cents, into the tithing envelope I felt the Spirit so so strongly. I couldn´t help but start weeping at the incredible feeling of the Savior´s love for them and their desires to follow him and I promised them that I did not know when the blessings would come, how they would come, or what they would be, but I knew that their faith and obedience would open the windows of the heavens and that I knew that the blessings would come. Javier and his wife also began to cry as we all felt the powerful witness that these changes that they are making in their lives, these sacrifices, are indeed true. 

I know that the things we teach really are the words of a loving Heavenly Father that wants to bless us so much. He is a God of miracles, and all we need to do to see those miracles in our own lives is have as much faith as we can, to do the right things and follow the commandments, and to put our trust in God.  I am so grateful to serve as a missionary and for the first and most powerful time so far in my mission I felt the extent of the divinity of my calling, that these commandments really will call down the blessings of heaven and that these blessings WILL come, even though it may not be until after I am transferred from the area.

I love you all and know that miracles are real and possible in your lives as well if you do your part to see them happen!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Waterfalls and the World Cup

Buenas!

So for Pday last week we went to the mountain behind La Ceiba as a zone to hike up and see a few AWESOME waterfalls. Needless to say, it was incredibly beautiful, very humid, super green, and there were even cool rotting Indiana Jones bridges to cross. I was pretty sketched out because the movie Predator was filmed in Honduras, so I was just waiting for Arnold to come storming out of the underbrush covered in mud or to just get jumped by a super advanced alien assassin.  

We went to Pico Bonito, the big mountain behind La Ceiba. We went with all the missionaries (sisters and elders) in our zone. It is always so cool to be all together. Everyone is so great and so powerful.

The hike. We were keeping our eyes out for Bird Eating spiders and Maya warriors
and Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Predator.

Not going to lie; walking over this bridge made me feel more than a little like Indiana Jones.
One of the steps even broke as I walked over it but I am lucky that I am spiderman
because I didn't fall to my death in the snakey undergrowth below.

I used to be afraid of bugs, and then came HONDURAS.

Luckily, we survived the journey. Although we had to run the whole way back because we got attacked by a giant tribe of biting bees that chased us out of their bumble abode. 

haha. bumble abode. heh heh.

That was actually a typo but then I reread it and liked it a lot. 

Anyways, the work is progressing over here in El Iman. We just keep chugging along and teaching lessons. I don't really like writing the details about our investigadores, partially because I don't have the energy to write specifically about the people we are teaching and don't know how to describe their situations in just a few sentences and because I don't know which of them are hiding from government forces and don't want to be identified through my blog posts. And saying that about my investigators shrouds them with a curtain of intriguing mystery and intense secrecy so you should all really want to know about them now. Maybe I will let a few details slip throughout my letters back. Don't let the suspense kill you.

Well, Honduras qualified for the World Cup, so everyone of course went crazy and fired every bullet within reach into the air. I have always wondered what happens when you fire bullets into the air. When they fall back down you think they go fast enough to kill someone? Food for thought. 

At church we taught the Gospel Principles class for new converts and people that are getting to know the church and we showed the Restoration video. It was really powerful and several of our investigators afterwords told us that they felt the Spirit of God super strongly during the video. One young guy we are teaching said all the hairs on his arms stood straight up during it and that it answered all the questions he had from reading the pamphlet we gave him the day before. I know that there truly are answers out there if we have the desire and the faith to look for them or wait for them.

Our District: The awesome missionaries here in La Ceiba!!!!!

A place Elder Sweat and I found where we really want to baptize people in the river.
Doesn't that look super legit?

It is easy to get discouraged as a missionary, especially when we don't have many people to teach, so members, GIVE MISSIONARIES REFERENCES! Last week I wrote my Dad talking a little about the difficulties and challenges of life and especially life as a full-time missionary and he replied with the following wise words:

"Dear Son,

It could be worse.

You could be being hunted by an alien life form that comes to earth for sport hunting!

Think about it."

May we always recognize the blessings before the hardships we have in our lives. No matter how hard your problems may seem, no matter how strenuous the mountain before you may appear, always remember that you are not being hunted by a Predator in the jungles of Honduras. Well, probably not. If so, stop reading this letter and run!

Love you all,

Elder Moffitt

 

Come and See!

Querido Familia y Amigos,

I am really tired, and it is super hot in this little internet cafe, and it is about to rain so it is super humid, BUT I AM GOING TO WRITE YOU GUYS A LETTER DANG IT!! GET PUMPED!!! GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! WOOOOOO!!!!! 

This week we had the AWESOME opportunity to listen to the living prophets and apostles that guide our church through ongoing revelation! FOR 10 HOURS!!!! Don't worry it wasn't all at once, it was spread out through 2 days and 5 different 2-hour sessions. And it went way too fast. I filled out 13 pages of notes and DIDN'T FALL ASLEEP ONCE DURING IT. And I am so glad too because in every single talk given I learned something that I needed to learn to become a better missionary and a better person. 

We worked so hard to get our investigators to understand the awesomeness of having a living prophet with the exact same power and right to receive revelation that Moses and Noah and the ancient prophets had, and we were rewarded by having 11 investigators showing up to the Sunday morning session with us in the stake center. That was such a blessing for my companion and I because we worked our bu... super hard to get people to come and Saturday night we were both pretty despondent, wondering what more we could have done to get people to come. To see the Lord´s hand in these people´s lives the next morning and then to watch conference and hear the inspired words of the men and women I KNOW have been called of God to lead his church made every sweat bead during the week worth it. 

Click here to read, watch or listen to the inspired messages of General Conference

One of my favorite talks was by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, the second counselor to the President of the Church, Thomas S. Monson. In his talk he talked about how someone seeing the insane number of things that we Mormons do for our church--going to church for 3 hours every Sunday, reading the scriptures every day, serving 2 year missions in crazy places, fulfilling callings as leaders of the church (yeah we have a lay clergy), cleaning the church, weekly activities, early morning seminary, the list goes on and on--in addition to the commitment we have to keeping commandments that the world has long since abandoned. One would have to wonder, why would anyone want to join your church?! The answer is that this church was restored in our day by Jesus Christ himself. The church doesn't require anything of us, its members, but Christ asks that we give Him everything. 

Too often people think that belief or faith is just that, belief, but 

NO!!!!!!!!

Our belief is NOT passive. Our daily walk with our Savior, Jesus Christ, brings incredible peace and lasting, pure happiness but we need to WALK with him. Sometimes it is downhill, sometimes it is uphill, and sometimes we just want to sit down for a bit, but if we truly are converted and if we truly love the Lord we will keep walking, not to get ripped calves, but to obtain those blessings that the world just cannot give us. That being said, this church honors agency so much that its restoration began with a boy who questioned what he believed, who went looking for answers. Our belief is active in its practice as well as in its birth. We cannot expect to gain a testimony from just sitting down and staring at the Book of Mormon, or saying a mindless prayer, or telling ourselves we will go to church next week. Jesus at the pool of Bethesda asked the afflicted man, "Wilt thou be made whole?" Only we can decide if we want to receive the blessings that this church and this gospel has to offer us. And, yes sometimes it involves stepping off, or falling off, our comfy hammocks and walking to church when it is hot outside, or reading the scriptures even when you are tired. Do you really think Satan is going to make it easy for you to find answers to questions of the soul that will tear you from his grasp?

The message we carry as missionaries is meant to change lives. But we can't change anyone's life for them. 

But we can invite, and so invite we shall, using the same words as the Savior in his ministry on earth, even "Come, and see." 

And we will continue to invite, for, as the Prophet Joseph Smith has said,

"The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of Gad shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done."

I love epic quotes.

I hope we can all try a bit harder to do the things we know are right, and if you don't know what is right, 

(drum roll please)

COME AND SEE!

Con amor,

Elder Moffitt