No Time for a Title

No Time for a Title. Another sweet future movie project. Details to be developed.

Pretty rough week this week but it is only through trials that we learn and grow! One thing I have definitely learned this week is that missions are HARD. Like legit super hard. Not really physically, or maybe I am just an absolute demigod in terms of physicality and athleticism (probably true), but spiritually and mentally and emotionally DIFFICULT. You have this idea in your mind of how everything should work and how everyone should act and then when things don´t go the way they show in the General Conference mission videos with MoTab "Called to Serve" playing in the background, the fall from ideal to reality hurts. And then you are left to wonder what you could have done and should do now to keep fighting for those scraps of the ideal that you still hope for. Wow, that was depressing. 

I have learned that the best way to endure trials and difficulties is to develop the attributes of Christ. Only in this way will you ever be able to be happy when things don't go your way. The humility to learn from others. The patience to endure delays. The love to accept mistakes of others and weaknesses of yourself. And the list goes on and on. There is a God in Heaven and I promise you that He hears every word and every desire, spoken and unspoken, when we pray. He. Knows. Us. I don´t know how He can pay infinite attention to every single person on this planet but He can and He does. I also had the best day of my mission this week so just goes to show you how confusing life likes to be.

But, before I tell you about that, there was a futbol game between Honduras and Mexico this week and it was crazy!! We were in the street when Honduras scored and everyone ran out of their houses shirtless and started blowing things up and screaming and kneeling in the streets in front of oncoming cars and waving Honduras flags. When the game ended, Honduras winning, everyone went even more crazy and because they had blown everything up already for the first 2 goals that Honduras scored, they brought out their AK-47s and pistols and started firing them in the air hahaha. I am glad they weren't playing USA because they probably would have grabbed me and offered me as a sacrifice to the Catracho Futbol gods.

So, now, cool story of the week. We were waiting for the last bus of the night to take us to the church for a meeting and a taxi driver pulled up on the other side of the street and started gesturing for us to come over. We waved No. No we don´t want a taxi. But he kept beckoning wildly so we went over. He said super energetically that he wanted us to come over and teach him and his family super bad and we were like "Sure, sure we will come. Where do you live?" and he told us to get in the taxi and he would show us where he lived. (There are no street signs or names here so it is super difficult to describe where people live). We were torn between going with him and missing the last bus or taking the bus to the meeting, but we felt that we should go with him. So we hopped in and he took us to where he lived, a tiny concrete shack, and then told us he would drive us to our meeting on the other side of town for free. On the way, he told us over and over how he wanted us, he needed us, to come over and teach him and his family. Then he told us how last Christmas eve, he and his family had practically nothing--no food, no presents, no nothing. He had no job, so it was looking to be a desolate Navidad. Then two elders (Mormon missionaries) showed up with a candle, rice and beans and some food, and some little games for his 5 kids. By candle light, they ate together that food and sang hymns and celebrated the birth of our Savior. He said he will never ever forget that Christmas and it was the most joyful, most beautiful Christmas he had ever had or will ever have. Wow. And though those missionaries didn't get to see the fruits of their labor in him wanting to enter the waters of baptism and make that covenant with God, now he has such a strong desire to come unto Christ it is incredible. He pretty much asked us to baptize him right then and there and we were like, "No, we need to teach you first." Ha. He asked us to pray with him when we arrived at the church building.  We did and during our prayer he began to weep. We met with him on Saturday and despite him working all night (6 pm until 7 am), he came with us to church in the morning and stayed awake the whole time, telling us that no sacrifice was too great for God. Yeah.

This is God´s work. He is preparing the people, He is the one putting them in our path, and He is the one converting them. In reality we just wear ties and nametags and walk around. God is a God of miracles, and this is His gospel and church.

Love you all and invite everyone to do some real pleading with God on your knees tonight and every night.

When life gets too hard to stand, kneel.

Elder Moffitt

P.S. Shout out to my USC friends starting the school year and football season, especially my Trojan Trumpets! Fight on!