Blessings on Day 2

Hola!

I have been speaking and writing in Spanish all day and I almost started writing this is Spanish.  My companion is named Elder Worthington and he is a professional lawnmower and competitive sewer from Ogden, Utah. Not even joking. He is super enthusiastic and energetic and has a willing heart. And he can sew my clothes. So he is great!

Elder Worthington and I taught out first investigator today. IT WAS SO BAD! We both are super bad at Spanish so it took us forever to just say one sentence and it was usually wrong or made no sense at all. But it is okay; that is why we are here.

The MTC is super hard but I am learning, ever so slowly. Turns out one of the guys in my district (five companionships in my district) and one of my four roommates, is the son of Utah’s U.S. Senator, Mike Lee. Pretty cool. He is going to Mexico.

It is super easy to be discouraged so early in the MTC process. We are surrounded by incredible, smart, super spiritual young men and woman and we can barely even talk to each other because we don’t know Spanish, but I know that if I do my best Christ will make up the rest. I am positive that I am training with the future prophets and apostles of this church. Please pray for me at home that I can do well here.

Our days are SO busy. I have never worked this hard, but it is for the best cause. All the elders in our district gave each other blessings today and it was a super spiritual and awesome experience. I truly am a part of an amazing church with incredibly powerful young men and women. I love it.

The food is really good too.

Estamos llamado a servir! (We are called to serve!)

-Elder Moffitt

My companion, Elder Worthington, and me in front of the Provo Temple 

So It Begins!

In the words of King Theoden on the besieged walls of Helm’s Deep, “So It Begins!” 

My first day at the Mission Training Center (MTC) was awesome. Just to make things clear, I’m not homesick yet, they just told us to write home. I GOT MY NAMETAG?!  So cool. Now I’m officially official. The MTC is awesome. It is so cool to be around so many worthy, righteous, and energetic young elders and sisters. It is very humbling to realize how much more I have to learn and understand. The teaching is very different and you have to be so in tune with the Spirit. There are a millions ways to respond to an investigator but only one way to touch his/her heart, and the Spirit knows the way to most powerfully respond to an investigator. My companion is Elder Worthington from Orem, Utah, and he is awesome. Just out of high school but really focused and spiritually ready.

All the experienced Spanish missionaries say, “Bienvenidos!” to us new missionaries when they walk by. It wasn’t until nighttime that us new elders realized that saying “Bienvenidos!” back isn’t the right response. haha. Turns out all the elders in our intermediate group know as little Spanish as I do. With a bit of hard work and the Lord’s help, however, I know that we can learn it. All the guys in my district are awesome and we are already really close, even though we have only known each other for a few hours. Half of our district is going to various parts of Mexico, including my companion, and three of us are going to San Pedro Sula East.

I am excited to be a part of this army of missionaries bringing the world the truth. We are answering a call to serve from a God of miracles, and I am confident that we will change the areas where we go serve.

Stay cool in Arizona mi familia!

Love, Elder Moffitt

My Address

Elder Moffitt's new address until August 5:

Elder Adam Moffitt
AUG05 HON-SPS
2009 N 900 E Unit 156
Provo UT 84602

Mission Call to Honduras!

One man. One mission. One million two hundred and forty five thousand five hundred and ninety eight people.

LET THE WORK BEGIN!

My name is Elder Adam Moffitt from Tempe, Arizona and I have been called to serve in the Honduras San Pedro Sula Mission. I will be reporting to the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah, in 5 days (WUT?!) on June 26th. Once there, I will spend 6 weeks learning the language (Spanish, not Ancient Maya unfortunately), and preparing and learning how to serve as a full time missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been looking forward to missionary service for as long as I can remember, and so I am incredibly excited (and a bit nervous) to go serve! 

Interesting minor detail about where I will be spending the next two years of my life—San Pedro Sula is the world's most dangerous place/murder capitol of the world for the second year in the row, with an impressive 169 homicides per 100,000 residents last year.

Goal #1: Change that.

Goal #1.5: Don't get killed changing that.

This is my mission blog, where my family will be posting the letters that I write home each week as well as pictures, embarrassing stories from my youth, etc. All in all, it will be an awesome site to come visit (OFTEN!) and I fully expect it will go viral. In a good way. Not like Rebecca Black going viral.

Goal #2: Don't let this blog be like "Friday."

Right now I am packing my bags. Well, taking a break from packing, if you want to get technical. 1 suit, 12 white shirts, 8 pairs of slacks, enough bug repellant to drown a very large mammal in, and, of course my scriptures: Old Testament, New Testament, Doctrine and Covenants, and Book of Mormon, the latter being one of the primary reasons for my mission and this entire church.

The prophet Joseph Smith said in November of 1841 that the Book of Mormon was the "keystone of our religion." I testify that it still is the keystone of our religion, that all questions posed by Broadway musicals and/or curious investigators regarding the validity of Jospeh Smith as a prophet or fraud, the authority of the living prophets and apostles leading our church today, and the correctness of the doctrine of this church, all depend on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. If it is a true book, a book written by divine command by an ancient people for the people of today, as it claims to be, then Mormonism is true. It is as simple as that. Which makes my job as a missionary quite easy.

My purpose as a missionary, as stated in the missionary handbook Preach My Gospel is "to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." The primary way in which us LDS missionaries do this is by inviting and encouraging people to read the Book of Mormon. 

We do this because of the promise given near the end of the Book of Mormon, in the book of Moroni, "Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things (Moroni 10:3-5). 

More than any convincing piece of evidence or proof, the most accurate way to know if the Book of Mormon is true is to read it, and to sincerely and faithfully pray to know if it is true. God is not the "author of confusion" (1 Corinthians 14:33), and I promise that he will give you an answer. I know because I have tried it, and I have received an answer.

That spiritual witness that I have received, after reading the Book of Mormon and many times since, is the foundation for my strong personal testimony and my testimony of the truthfulness of this work is the reason that I am going to spend two years amongst cockroaches as big as my face. 

I invite all who are reading this blog to read the Book of Mormon (it is super easy to get a copy either read it online or go to this website http://mormon.org/free-book-of-mormon or look for someone who looks suspiciously mormon and they would be more than happy to give you one. NO EXCUSES) and pray about its truthfulness. I invite you all to come back and read my blog often as I send back updates, stories, and lessons that I have learned while taking this leap of faith into the jungles of the Ancient Maya and the current home of the Honduran people, who I do not know and yet feel a strong love for already. I want them to know of the love that our Heavenly Father has for them, that they are his children. I want them to know that he rejoices when they are righteous and weeps when they are not. I want them to know of the peace and assurance and joy that comes from following the commandments. This gospel changes lives for the much better. I know that it has sure changed mine.

And so, in the words of the language that I will (hopefully) be speaking fluently soon,

Para siempre Dios esté con vos,

Elder Adam Moffitt

Elder Moffitt at the Mesa Arizona Temple