HOME.

Return Home

Well my mission has come to a close. It has been a month since I packed up my clothes, passed by some recent converts, including the family of Wendy and Marcos (who have become just the strongest mormon family ever, they have like 20 book of mormons in their house, temple pictures taped on the walls, and have weekly noche's de hogar in which they invite the whole neighborhood!) in San Juan, Satelite, and then had our farewell dinner with President and Sister Klein. Then I boarded the plane, survived a 9 hour layover in Miami, talked on the plane to a fire dancing scuba diving harpoon fishing yoga instructor a little about God while debating in my mind following the same career paths as her, and then finally landing at 10 pm in good old Phoenix Skyharbor airport in Arizona. My family and some good friends where waiting for me, including the Sister Hilton, The Martins, Sara Prokop, Matthew Dickens and Mr. Dickens, Isaac Miller, and Bella Roig. I was pretty overwhelmed, tried to give handshakes to everyone like a good missionary but everyone made fun of me and made me give them hugs. Oh well.

The adjustment is pretty hard. Getting back to english wasn't that hard, but it was hard finding a purpose. As a missionary our purpose is so clear and so defined. Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, the reception of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. That is what you do all day every day. Why do you wear a tie? To Baptize. Why do you eat? To baptize. Why do you shower in the mornings? To baptize. Everything is centered on helping OTHERS. And now, I have to worry about myself again. What am I going to study? Work? MARRIAGE ?  :O And how do I arrive at those points.

It is also hard being in Babylon. But I can do it and will do it. With Christ, all things are possible and are worth it. My mission is just starting, and I hope to always have that missionary spirit and be worthy to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all those that surround me.

If you ever want to chat or have a question, my email is admoffitt15@gmail. com. I would love to hear from you!

Hurrah for Israel!

Sincerely,

Adam Moffitt

Best parents ever

My sister Jessica!

I HAVE FRIENDS

My little sister clara

Mi familia! Together for the first time in 2 years

The new temple in Gilbert Arizona that was dedicated while I was gone. It is so beautiful!

Presents for the family! Bull horn trumpets, machetes, coconut purses, what more do you need?

ITS GOOD TO BE HOME.

THE END.

Tarantulas, Off, and Baptisms for the Dead

Last big email of the mission - May 25 2015

 I have to write a double email this week because I didnt write last week. These last two weeks have been really full of awesome happenings. Last week was the week of the family. IT is a tradition here in latin america, I dont know about there in the states, but the church really capitolized this week because of the focus we have in the family and helping families become eternal and happy. Every day in the church we had an activity. Wednesday, my companion and I were in charge and we taught about how to protect our families from the attacks of Satan in a turbelant world like the one we live in today. we read efesios 6, and then organized the members and investigators into 4 teams, and then each one made their own set of armor in a competition. It was a great success and everyone had a great time and learned a good lesson.

  On Friday, there was a stake wide activity that was really  cool. The leaders of the stake invited all of the major officials of the governement and other leading positions, including the leaders of other churches, and had a presentation about the family and its importance in society. They showed several little skits about the programs that the church uses to strengthen the family like scripture study, family nights, and family prayer etc. 

They had this part where they explained the doctrine of baptisms for the dead and the vicarious temple work that we do for our ancestors to help them leave spiritual prision and go to paradise and be able to be saved (1 cor 15:29 1 pedro 3:18-19 1pedro 4:6) and I felt the spirit really strong. I know for myself that this doctrine is true and I believe that it is one of my favorite doctrines of the church. 

YES WE MORMONS BAPTIZE FOR THE DEAD.

no, we dont dig out corpses drag them to rivers and baptize them. come on. 

but we do perform baptisms FOR AND IN BEHALF OF those family members that have died WITHOUT the ability or opportunity to accept a valid baptism in this life by the power of the restored priesthood of Jesus Christ. That is a glorious doctrine because it explains that God is not a respector of persons. He taught that all men must be born of water and of spirit to enter into the kingdom of God (john 3:5), so that means that jonny who grew up and died on an island where he never learned the gospel is not condemned for not doing something that he never even knew or had the chance to do! Someone can, in a holy temple, be baptized in the place of him, and he, in the spirit world, can accept of reject that baptism. Every single human soul that has lived or is living or will live will have the opportunity to accept or reject the saving ordinances of the gospel of jesus christ such as baptisms for the dead. 

No. other. church. teaches. this doctrine.

This week we have helped recent converts do family history and have helped converts prepare 11 names to bring to the temple to have the work done for them. 

Anyways, the spirit was very strong and testified to everyone who was paying attention to the truthfulness of temple work. Because the activity was of the whole stake, I was also able to see  several recent converts that I was able to teach and baptize from La Sarrosa, including my favorite family ever, The Archaga family, as well as miguel tome, who is preparing for a mission this year and is in charge of family history now in ward. Also, I saw my mission son Elder Navas, who was my companion in la Sarrosa. This was very special to me because it meant alot to see that these people are still active in the church and are enduring to the end. I felt a joy equal to or greater than they joy I felt baptizing them seeing them enduring to the end. It was also cool because these people have been sharing their testimonies and have in turn brought other people into the church to be baptized. Miguel, has baptized two of his brothers, The archaga family has baptized their 21 yr old niece, and other converts have also been the means of bringing more of their family to the gospel. What joy to see some of the fruits of my work and what gratitude to God for letting me teach these people. Truly he did all the work.

What else... Oh yeah. So my companion one day this week stuck his hand in his shoes before putting them on and yelled and I look over and this big tarantula just crawls out of his shoe and starts running around our house. There is really only one thing to do when this happens, other than curling up in a ball sobbing and pleading for mercy.

Grab the bug spray, OFF, and aggressively soak the wild tarantula in OFF.  as it slips and slides around, grab a match, light it, throw match in slow motion at tarantula, and watch it explode. 

This is the only way to effectively kill a tarantula. Trust me.

There were many other amazing experiences that we have had these weeks, including many miracles here in the field. We are seeing Gods hand in the work even in spite of the adversity that there always is.

I love you all!

Elder Moffitt

ahhhhhhh! Kill it!

Luke, God. is. your. FATHER!

May 15th 2015

Well here I am in my last change of my mission! After 6 months in Tocoa, Colon, and on the verge of lung cancer, I was changed to Barrio Berlin in Progreso, Yoro, Honduras. I was on the verge of lung cancer because I hadnt rained in 2 months in Tocoa, and the streets are all made of dirt, so when vehicles and or wind and or small insects pass the street, all the dust flies up . So there is like this chinese pollution factor of pure dust that makes the sunsets look like starwars epic becuase of all of the dust in the air. Every time that a car passed us my companion and I would have to take a deep breath and squint like arab traders. We were going to get darth vaders masks and prosylte like that but it probably would have scared people off even more. 

¨(kuuukeeekuuukeeee...Pedro.... God... is your FATHER!!!!)¨

But anyways I will finish my mission here on the outskirts of Progreso, a big city with wendys, pizza hut, and all the rest. There is even a dunkin donuts and a baskin robbins I think! But dont worry I am going to stick with rice and beans for 6 more weeks and then I will pig out. My goal is never to touch rice for at least 248 days upon returning home. My companion is named Elder Monroy, he is this chubby little guatamalan guy that is a real jokester. He is really funny and is just starting his mission, so I am finishing up his training with him. 

The ward here is so cool! The members are really dedicated and really have a desire to work. I am not sure if it is just my worn collar but we have recieved a ton of references from the members and we even passed the young womens group on sunday going to visit all of the less actives in their organization!!! They asked us if we were teaching any young women that they could go visit. I had to grab my jaw and stick it back on before responding. That was the first time someone had asked us if they could go visit one of our investigators. 

When I got here we had a total of 4 investigators, so we have spent the majority of this week just contacting like crazy and trying to find people that are chosen and have been prepared by the Lord to recieve this message. It is always super fun to contact because you never know who you are going to find. It could be someone really wierd, or some really apostate person, or the next general relief society president. who knows? Yesterday we had 15 minutes before our next cita so we contacted a few houses and this one guy came out bald and super smiley and invited us in and I thought he was a jehovahs witness cause his smile was super creepy and was getting ready for that but turns out he was baptized in the church like 6 years ago and is a air force sergeant for Honduras that was super excited to find the church here and wasnts to go back. We left him the war chapters in Alma to read for homework because I think those are so cool and can teach us alot about how to conquer Satan in the spiritual war that each of us is part of.

Today we had a zone family history activity and I really got to figure out how to use the system and could really feel the spirit testify to the truthfulness of the work. I love the work of the temple and the obra vicaria, not sure how to say that in english, but the work for our ancestors. It is so cool to see where I come from and feel the spirit of the work of slvation on the other side of the veil. I am totally going to work in family history a lot more when I get back, or at least help others do it cause my family history is pretty well done haha.

Pretty much I am just determined to finish strong my mission. This is not a time to slow down but to really give it my all until the last day and then have the rest of eternity to think about it and relax. I was called to serve for 24 months, not 23, or 22, so I still have plenty to do.

Endure to the end is much better expressed at USC. Fight on!

I love you all and will see you soon enough. Plan cool things for us to do when I get back, cause I dont really have time to think about it. 

Love you all!

Elder Moffitt

Life is Hard for the Best People

This week was great but hard. SO MUCH APOSTASY! But it is good. we cannot expect to be representatives of Jesus Christ without dealing with harden hearts and blinded eyes and ununderstanding ears. It is incredible to me to see how traditions of ones fathers can just completely mold and hardens someones form of belief. That pattern is so visible in the jews of the bible, the lamanites of the book of Mormon, and people here. People only want to believe what is familiar to them, and there are so few that really understand the import of our message and the weight of the invitacion to really pray and ask God, the fountain of all truth, for an answer and a confirmation. 

The guy we found milacrulously in Trujillo on divisions, remember, that is our neighbor, has been progressing. He is really open, and always tells us the errors that he commits. He has talked to us about his challenges with the law of chastity and the word of wisdom. He has problems drinking and really has a desire to change and is starting that repentance process of recognizing his errors, and feeling godly sorrow for them. I hope to be here when he is ready and repentant enough to wash away his sins in the waters of baptism.

I found this quote today and it hit me pretty hard. As I am nearing the end of my mission, it seems like I am working as hard as I can but not having the same results that I would expect. Here it is: 

If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived - Jeffrey R. Holland

I think the Lord is just giving me those last few trials to be able to pass with courage and steadfastfulness (is that a word?) to be able to then enjoy the last few miracles of my mission.

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder MOffitt

Changes a'Comin'

Hi Mom! 

Thanks for your cheerful emails. Nice to always have emails waiting for me on Monday. 

Changes are this week, on Wednesday, and I am still not sure if I am staying here in Tocoa or leaving. It would be nice to have a change of scenery since I have been here over 6 months. But I will go where the Lord wants me to go. To describe how changes work, is that they call us Tuesday morning with the change information, who is leaving the zone, we work normal that day, and that night we frantically pack up and write letters to leave behind with recent converts and friends and then Wednesday morning the tell us where we are going and with who and we head out. Sometimes it feels like we are recieving nuclear missile codes or something for the secrecy levels and how they tell us the change info last second and little by little but that makes it fun.

Love you!

Elder Moffitt

Sorpresa!

Well, hello everybody. Kinda tired this week so my weekly message is just summed up in this scripture:

3 John 1:13-14:

13 I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:

14 But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.

See you in Phoenix on June 11 at 9:57 pm!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

General Conference in Tocoa

Hello all,

This week was great because of General Conference, or in other words the biannual opportunity that we have to listen to the prophet and 12 apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ in these times. I know that these men are called of God and have his priesthood and are guided by revelation in what to tell us.

My favorite talks were by Elder Holland, about the meaning of the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it saves the human race from spiritual freefall. 

Elder Uchtdorf talked about the meaning of Grace and how it saves us after all we can do, not because of all we do. We cannot earn our way into heaven, but understanding how the grace of God opens the heavens to us fills us with the desire to do the right and obey. 

My all time favorite talk was by Elder Ringwood of the Seventy, who talked about selfless service and being truly good and without guile. I felt the spirit very strongly listening to that talk and the importance of ignoring dominion, titles, and authority as motives to help and serve and be rightous. Why does it matter if others see us if God is always watching?

I learned so much from the conference and received a flood of revelation for what to do with my life during and after the mission. Nothing to do with what major I should study or anything of course, that is way too practical for God to guide me in right now it seems. But pretty much the overlying message of every apostle was "get off your phone and get married" -- progress spiritually!

It is amusing to me that only a few years ago I had difficulty enduring one session of conference without being sleepy with my head cleverly angled so that you couldn't see me snoozing on the floor, Dad, or pleading pitifully for backrubs during the talks. And yet these 10 hours of conference passed so quickly and I filled pages on pages with notes. Truly great parenting is teaching the principles and showing by example and letting the children get to that point by themselves.

Love you and and I love the work. 

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Moffitt

While in Trujillo, I was able to visit the first young lady that I taught the gospel to, Yaneli. She is still active in the church in Ceiba, and came to Trujillo on vacation that week that I was also there. She later got a boyfriend, this massive handsome guy, and invited him to church and he was baptized. They are planning on getting married in the temple. This was a very neat experience for me as I haven't seen any of the other converts
that I taught after leaving those areas.

Sometimes you just have to be silly in the jungle.

Fruits of the Spirit: Peace, Love, and Joy

This week I really learned a lot about the Spirit. Here are some miracles of the week:

On Sunday last week, we passed a man sitting on the balcony of his house alone at about 7 at night. One tradition that I have is that I always like to contact males when they are sitting alone. It is usually the most spiritual part of their day and they are usually pondering or meditating or thinking about something so I always like to just ask them how they are what they are thinking and if they are sad and need someone to cheer them up. The two elders I was with and I passed the house and I thought, "naw, leave him alone. no talk to him. naw leave him alone. no come on talk to him." Never sure if they are my thoughts or the spirit, I sighed and, like I do 93% of the time, turned around and walked back to ask this guy what he was thinking. Always better to err on the side of the spirit. He chuckled and said he was fine, just tired. Surprisingly, he responded by asking me where I lived. I told him Tocoa. Long story short, turns out he lives in this wealthy house RIGHT in front of our apartment. I had tried to contact that house several times but it was surrounded by massive walls and no one ever came out. So here I am 50 miles away from my area and find my neighbor! I asked him when he was going back to Tocoa, and put an appointment with him. 

The next day, we went in the night to go visit him. He is about 25 years old, let us in and told us that he has made a lot of mistakes in his life and wants to change. We challenged him to be baptized, he accepted. 

This Sunday he came to church with us. Coincidence? No. God finds ways to get inside even the highest walls.

Made quacamole for an investigador family that we are teaching for family night. Nobody died. SUCCESS!

On Thursday we were in Saba, and our 2 citas cancelled, so when a kid tried to talk to me in English (they usually do and then run away laughing), I called him over and asked where he lived. He pointed to the distance and we asked him if we could visit his family. He said, sure, and started to guide us to his house. We passed by a school on the way there, and all these 6-8 year olds were at recess and when they saw us pass by. One of them asked us for a pamphlet, and then literally the whole entire 1st and 2nd grade came running and threw themselves against the fence asking and begging for pamphlets. It was pretty hilarious because it was like they had never seen missionaries before, which is probably true, but I only gave out 2 pamphlets, one to the boys and one to the girls, because I only had so many. I half expected them to rip each others arms off trying to read it but they all ran over to the shade and started reading. Awww.

Anyways, we got to the house of this kid who is 12 yrs old and turns out his mom went to the church before when she was young and is the neice of the only active and endowed member in all of Saba! What's more, turns out the dad (they are not married of course -- welcome to Honduras) is actually a member of the church. He was baptized as a youth but now has problems with smoking and is abusive and stuff. You have to believe that God guided us there because we are talking about finding her in a city of 20,000 people with no church members. 

Another miracle. On Friday, we went to Sonaguera to do divisions with the district leader there, Elder Dickson from Utah. We went to visit someone, no one was there, so we contacted a house and out came a 12 year old that had gone to the church once and was a friend of the recent convert we had gone to find. He let us in to teach him, and we asked him if he wanted to be baptized. He responded, yes, but in 13 years. Why so long? we asked and we explained what baptism is and why it is important. What if Christ comes before 13 years are finished? He understood perfectly, but was still unconvinced. So we asked him is he would pray and ask if he needed to be baptized in the church. He nodded with the faith of a 12 year old kid and prayed simply to know if he needed to be baptized in the church and thanked God for sending the missionaries. He paused, and then said the same thing over again, and finished the prayer. We looked up and tears were streaming down his face, and when we asked him how he felt, he said, Tranquility. Peace. He said firmly, I want to be baptized.

The fruits of the spirit of God are peace, love, joy. It is an enlightening influence that opens the mind and fills it with light and understanding. It touches the soul and makes the heart burn. It is real, true, precious, and  beautiful, and to be sought and prayed for diligently. Strong spiritual experiences are few and far between, but they cannot be denied. I wish to be able to teach more with the spirit, because the lessons in which the spirit is present are so much different than lessons that we are only teaching with our own understanding and knowledge. When the spirit is not there, everyone is bored. When the spirit is there, there is hunger to learn and understand. I love the spirit. I like the scripture in Heleman 5:30 about the influence of the spirit.

All those who sincerely and humbly pray to know if the church is true will feel that same influence. The same thing for those who pray about the Book of Mormon or to know if Joseph Smith really was a profet or a fraud, and everything else. God doesn't use visions and dreams when he can just whisper to our heart. If you don't feel an immediate answer to your prayer, keep looking and keep asking. It will come.

Other than that, had many other cool things happen, we had a baptism this week that was a complete miracle, but I will tell you all about that later. Love you all and please pray for the missionaries here in Honduras. 

And don't forget that I am in the murder capitol of the world. 

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Moffitt 

Our Tocoa District

Our Zone. Yep, I coordinated the shirts. It's a thing we do here.

Just keeping us safe here in the jungle.

Book of Mormonopoly

Sorry guys, but I like never have time to write you all. Not that you are second priority but, yeah, actually you kinda are. I have to be focused on the work of the Lord here and am always so busy designing teaching aids, helping missionaries, sending datos, and other missionary things I just don't literally have time to write you all. 

This week started good with a lesson on Monday with a youth who just straight up told us he wants to be a member of the church so we taught him about baptism and he accepted. Cool. 

I have learned how to walk here in the mission. I fly. Honestly we don't have bikes or anything. We just walk dusty streets all day so we have to go fast to really get a lot done. 

Thursday we went to Saba again, that city we are opening, and had several people come up to us and ask us about the church because they had had contact with it beforehand. I love it when people ask us how much a Book of Mormon costs. FREE!!!!!!

I went on divisions there in Saba with a returned missionary that I knew in San Pedro Sula that moved here to Saba and pretty much the whole time he was just philosophizing about marriage and how to find and choose the perfect spouse. yeah...

But it was good and we had a lot of good lessons. It is hard trying to get people to show the faith necessary to travel an hour to go to church, and to get them to understand that there is something so special and important about this church, that it is literally the Church of JESUS CHRIST, that it deserves traveling that far instead of going to one of the many churches here. But Sunday we had 3 men investigators come to church from Saba. It was sweet.

Saturday night, we went crazy and called like every number we had written in our agendas to try and get people to go to church the next day. On Sunday, we went extra early and passed for like 50 people to go to church with us, and no one wanted to. You get used to stuff like that in the mission so I wasn't that affected by it, but it is always pretty sad to know that you have the pearl of great price and that people don't want it.

Sunday afternoon, we grabbed our lunch and hopped on the bus to go to Trujillo and do divisions with the elders there. Can you imagine eating rice and beans on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland? What about Space Mountain? Well, combine those two and you get the bus ride to Trujillo, and me trying to eat my lunch on the bumpiest road in history. My rice kept messing with me and jumping off my fork right into my eyeball.

Trujillo is beautiful and after a hard day's work on Sunday with the elders there, we woke up Monday and helped the elders deep clean their house, which was really quite exemplary in its dirtiness. The toilets were, impressively enough, the worst I have seen in my entire mission. I bought muriatic acid and showed them the power of the holy destructor, aka muriatic acid. That stuff is so powerful you put it down and it literally shouts a war cry and gives a quick battle speech and then goes and slaughters every germ within a 10 foot radius. It literally smokes and sounds like cooking bacon. I don't even know if it is legal in the U.S. but this stuff goes hard. Then, after the spirit once again could enter their house, we went and studied the scriptures on the beach on the perfectest day ever. So I'm not super jealous for your Rocky Point trip family -- I was on the beach too, just didn't go swimming. and it was only 2 hours, but still...

So I had 2 brilliant business ideas this week -- one was Book of Mormonopoly, or a Book of Mormon themed monopoly game if you couldnt figure that out for yourself. BRILLIANT!!!!!! Put that in Deseret Book in the family night section and it is gone. Can you imagine the Black Friday crowds?

2nd brilliant idea came this morning. We had doused and scrubbed the shower floor with muriatic acid so you literally couldn't enter the bathroom without a Darth Vadar mask. But I wanted to shower so I stuck the fan in the bathroom and went for it -- freezing cold bucket shower of course. But as I walked out, a wonderful wall of air hit me and I just dried off with the fan. So my idea was this sort of high velocity air jet body dryer thing that you stand on and it just shoots air up in this wind tunnel and dries you off in like 30 seconds. I was so pumped about it and already had my degree in mechanical engineering and then an MBA in business just to launch this business called Cyclone with this crazy body dryer planned and was already making advertizements for it when I told shared my idea the person here in the internet and they looked it up and turns out it already exists.

So.

Depressed.

Back to the get rich quick drawing board.

The church is True, Christ is our Savior. We are working with several families to get married and trying to keep all of our recent converts active and strong in the church, enduring to the end.

Some scriptures for you all:
 - Mom:  Acts 9:34

-  Dad:  Romans 16:18

- Jessica:  Lucas 14:26

- Chris and Clara:  I'll look for some for you guys this week!

Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Zone Conference coming up!

Quick message as I have to prepare for a zone conference tomorrow and try and review the USC class options that you sent. Please communicate my love for the family and that I will write next week. This week we had a special conference with Elder Neil L. Anderson. Shook his hand. Cool deal. Will write more next week.

Thanks for the help with college registration. If you could, please send me a list next Monday with several possible major requirements and some commentary for why it would be a good major for me. Let's see how good you are, missus college counselor. :) That way I can print it out here and read it and ponder and pray about what major I want to firmly decide on and pursue. Thank you!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Brownies and Ice Cream and Hot Showers, Oh My!

Dear Family and Friends,

This week went very well. Elder Duncan, the Area President from the first Quorum of the 70, came and we enjoyed a multi-zone confernce on Thursday. And then on Friday, my companion and I went to San Pedro Sula to stay the night in the AP house with the other zone leaders before our meeting the next morning. Elder Brimly, Elder Clouse, and I, all three from Arizona (!), decided to take advantage of the OVEN that is in the misison house and make BROWNIES. Like no one here in Honduras has an oven (and if someone does have an oven, it is always broken or they don't have gas for it). So we made like 5 tons of brownies and bought ice cream and ate hot brownies with ice cream until we puked! Then I took the first actually HOT SHOWER that I have had for almost 600 days in which there was warm water falling from the wall onto my body. For 600 days I have either dragged a bucket of freezing cold water into my house and repeadedly dumped bowlfuls on my head while scrubbing myself (yes mom, I use shampoo) and weeping profusely -- or stood and cried under a freezing cold stream of water pouring from an open PVC pipe in the wall. Both ways are far from ideal. But actually, my hot shower surprisingly wasn't all that satifying. All this time I have been dreaming of a nice warm shower, and when I actually took one again, it was like, yeah? that was it? The thing I learned is that the work that I am doing is a lot more important than hot showers, and so, yeah, cold water stinks for an Arizona boy, but it is worth it for the Lord. 

The next morning we had a leadership meeting with Elder Duncan in which he called us all to repentance and taught us about how we have to know our sheep, like Christ knows his sheep. Our sheep are not just our investigadors, but also the investigators of our missionaries in our zone, and also the missionaries themselves. Lots of people to be thinking about!!!!  We need to know if our missionaries are progressing or not. Also, one thing that the spirit taught me in the conference was the difference between our baptismal date as missionaries and their baptismal date as investigators. Sometimes we try and force baptisms to achieve monthly goals. We give dates based on our own desires. This week, we felt that we should explain to one of our investigators that she could choose her own date. The lesson started with her telling us that when we first met with her, she was not living the law of chastity, but when we mentioned it in the first lesson, not teaching it but just mentioning the importance of not comitting fornication, she stated that she felt something that she had never felt in all her years of hearing other churches preach against fornication. She talked to her boyfriend, ended the relationship, and said that she felt peace and she felt free now that she had left that behind.  We were very impressed and felt that her repentance was sincere and told her that she was ready to be baptized this next week, which was the date we had set with her, or choose her own date. She looked at the calender, thought about is, and decided she would like to be baptized on the 28th of March. The spirit flooded the room in the church (we were teaching the lesson in the chapel). It was tangible. We asked her if she felt it and she smiled and nodded and said that she felt it. It was a lesson and testimony to me of that principle, of the importance of letting the investigator DESIRE to be baptized, like the people that heard Samuel the Lamanite  DESIRED to be baptized and went to look for him to be baptized (Heleman . I would love to just sit outside my apartment and wait for people to come to us to be baptized, but it is not always that easy; we have to look for people and help them gain that desire, but when they have that testimony and that desire, we need to let it work in them and let them use their agency to work their own salvation.

Yesterday we taught a sweet quick lesson with a great college kid named Hector. We taught about the Book of Mormon and I felt the impression that we should watch the Mormon Message about the Book of Mormon with the black bishop in England. Being the high tech missionary that I am, I whipped out my handy dandy usb that my awesome mom sent me, and him being the awesome college kid that he is, whipped out his laptop and we watched it. It was super cool because he liked it a ton and gained practically an instant testimony of the Book of Mormon and said that he was going to share that video on his facebook wall.  He commited himself to really study the book today and tomorrow and we will visit him on Tuesday to talk about what he has learned and felt. Really, the Book of Mormon has so much power.

Check out this sweet video about the story of Alma and Korihor in the Book of Mormon that is super aplicable to our society today: 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-08-2257-all-things-denote-there-is-a-god?lang=eng

We have a lot to do in our area and in our zone. We will be working with our district leaders this next week to devise a plan de zona and put it in practice.

Hurrah for Israel! 

Elder Moffitt

This is Elder Castillo de Nicaragua, my companion, and me taking a photo op in La Ceiba on the way to our conference. I have had companeros de Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatamala. I just need a companion from Honduras and one from Panama to cover all of Central America!

Miracles!

MY FAMILY!!! AND FRIENDS!!!!!!

Everything is good here in Honduras. What happened this week .... 

Just spent the whole week teaching the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! What could be better? We had several awesome lessons this week, one with this black college student that we taught the restoration and after was like, yeah, I believe it, and I was like, umm well how much do you believe it, from 1 to 10? And he said, 8. So I said, well, do you believe it enough to be baptized by someone holding that priesthood authority? And he was like, yeah, yeah I do, I'll do it. The only problem is that he studies in the university on sunday mornings when church is. Darn..

Pretty much the routine of missionary work is, first, testimony, then afterward, desire, then afterward overcoming all of the obstacles that stand in the way of someone being baptized. First, someone needs to believe that it is true, then they need to have the desire to change and act upon that message and then we just go 1-on-1 with Satan to try and get them ready to be baptized. Many are lost in that battle, because they don't have the strength or faith to do all they need to do to be ready to be baptzed, but the saddest is when people just don't have the desire. 

I love being a missionary and we are working super hard to keep our zone together. Miracles always accompany us. This is the work of God and he leads it. 

The weeks just go faster and faster. Honestly. Sorry for writing such lame emails but everything just blends into this blur of salvation and apostasy. 

Prayers!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Moffit

The gospel of Jesus Christ:

1. Faith in Jesus Christ

1. Repentance

3. Baptism by immersion

4. Recieve the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands

5. FIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monkey in my hair!

Well, this week in Tocoa was pretty sweet, got a mystery package with some awesome CDs of Vocal Point and Mormon Tab so that was really nice. Not sure who they are from but THANK YOU to whoever sent them to me! 

Elder Moffin. My name is since Moffitt is hard to say here.

One day this week we were in this lesson reading the pamphlet of the restoration and the youth we were teaching was reading the pamphlet and instead of saying Aaronic Priesthood, he read, Aerodynamic Priesthood. It was really funny. Trust me I was crying laughing. 

Other good story was this week:  

We went to lend service for a big local woman by fixing up a food cart thing, like one of those street vendor stands with wheels, and then bring it about 2 miles to her house. So we followed her directions and found a blue food cart with a destroyed wheel, so we thought, "Well, let's be nice and fix it. So we take off the tire, go and get it patched and all fixed up, we repair the steering wheel and steering system, and we start to haul it to the house of the lady. All this was took 1 and a half hours of us working on that cart. So we start walking and we think, "Hey, maybe we should call this woman to make sure this is the right cart." We call her, and right then three guys in motorcycles, like the Honduran version of Hell's Angels, pull up and surround us. We are like, "Uhh, what's up?" They asked, "Where are you taking this cart?" We replied, "Well, to this lady that asked us to bring it for her." Turns out the cart was theirs, and that the blue cart we were supposed to bring was one more block away, so we were pretty much stealing someone's food cart. It was kinda an awkward moment but we explained it all and laughed a little nervously and then helped them haul it back to where it was. It was a pretty hilarious experience and I kinda wanted to be in the paper headlines as Mormon Robbers Steal Food Cart. We were lucky that we didn't take it any farther because in Honduras you don't really call the police when people rob you; you just grab your gun and go get it. 

Here is a picture of a monkey examining my hair. Nice guy. Monkeys are super cool you have to play with one someday. This one was just the pet of an investigator we contacted.

Sorry for the short letter. Everything is good over here. The work will always go forward. Love you all! 

Happy Birthday Dad and Jessica! Congrats on finishing your mission Sis, even though I don't know when you go home no one has told me yet, but have a great last few weeks. It is crazy to think that I started before you and wil finish after you, but thats how it is. Love you so much!

Elder Moffitt

P.S. I owe you both Birthday presents. Don't forget!

Weddings in Honduras!

This week was super great. The whole week we were frantically planning and preparing for... 

A WEDDING!!!!!! 

The parents of a family we have been teaching for a while got married this week, making it my first wedding here in Honduras that I have been able to experience. Two other families that I have taught have gotten married but both after I have left the area, because it is very difficult to get the money and the papers and organize the whole process in the short time that we find, teach, and they decide to take to repent and be baptized. It was an awesome experience. As often happens with me I feel, for lack of other volunteers, I ended up directing the wedding, even though I barely even know what goes on in American weddings, let alone Honduran wedding culture. But, I did my best, even though I forgot the names of our investigators that we were getting married in front of everyone for a split second. Awkward. We invited the district president to come and give a talk and he did and it was really good about the importance of marriage in a world that teaches that it is unnecesary. Honestly, looking back, the fact that everything went so well and it was such a legit wedding in the middle of impoverished Honduras is a big miracle! It was a tender mercy for me to finally get to see a wedding after 19 months of teaching the importance of the marriage covenant. This family was totally prepared. They killed one of their lambs for food for the wedding. Awesome. Also, the district president liked the wedding so much and the family that he told us he would pay the expensive 8 hour trip each way to Tegucigalpa so that they can got to the temple at the end of this month! I WANT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE!!!!

Baptism of Ernesto y Marta. Their daughters were baptized two weeks ago. Despite the happy day, it is the tradition here in Honduras to take pictures like a serious mug shot. Not sure why no one smiles in photos, even when we tell them, come on and smile!  

Wedding of Ernesto y Maria!

Now we got them to smile!

I also gave a talk this week on the concept of Grace. I love the idea of grace. Are we saved by grace? Yes. Everyone? Yes. 

Everyone will overcome death and be resurrected thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In that aspect, we are all saved by grace. But grace is more than that. Grace is the ennobling and divine power that lets us to only be saved, but changed. It helps us to become more than we can alone, and to overcome weaknesses and temptations that otherwise would be unovercomable. It saves us after all we can do. It is not that we have to earn our way to heaven, but we do have to learn our way to heaven. We need to be different, better, even one day perfect (matt 5:48) to enjoy an eternal existence with God. Grace is not the back up generator that turns on after the primary fails, but is the constant source of energy that lets us overcome sin and come unto Christ. I spoke in my talk about my caving trip with Chris and the darkness that we felt turning off the lights in the cave and that the grace of God and the atonement of Jesus Christ give us the light to find our way out of the cave of spiritual darkness. It was cool. 

Love you all! 

Much to say but little time. 

Elder Moffitt

This picture is not for the faint in heart. What is it? Glad that you asked. It is Mondongo. It is, frankly, cow stomach. Well, this is actually lamb stomach but normal mondongo is cow stomach. You clean it, then make soup out of it. Not going to lie, it is disgusting. Yes, I have had to eat it several times here.
Pray for the missionaries here in Honduras. It isn't just bullets that can kill people. :)

Accosted this kinda oblivious guy with his USC shirt and explained to him why he was wearing the best shirt ever and then taught him the Fight On fingers. V for Victory all day every day!

Happy New Year from Honduras!

Happy New Year Everyone!

So much to write. To make up for the lost work time in Christmas week, we taught a grand total of 64 lessons this week! We were so blessed this week in so many forms. We pretty much contacted for this whole week. Contacting is fun but you run into a loooooot of apostasy.

Welcome 2-0-1-5!

To celebrate New Years Day, after a hard day's work and teaching 10 (!) lessons, we pulled a grill in front of our apartment and cooked Honduran steak and some sausages and made hot Mexican salsa, kettle corn, and cooked s'mores. It was a bittersweet moment, as I said goodbye to my only full year of 100% dedicated service as a full time single missionary in my life. 

Some great blessings of this week were that we gave the priesthood to 2 recent converts, and went to visit on divisions with 3 of our recent converts. It is so cool to watch someone who weeks and months ago didn't feel comfortable offering a public prayer to then testify that our message is true, and testify of the power of the gospel in their lives to others. 

On Sunday, we had such a powerful sacrament meeting! So many people attended, we had over 15 investigators at church, and the spirit was so strong. The thing I love so much about Honduras is that there is NEVER one minute of silence in testimony meetings. From the second the bishop turns the time over for testimony meeting, a line of 5 people forms, and from then on there is always 2 or 3 or 8 people waiting to share their testimonies. Wow. I am always blown away by that desire that they have here to share their testimonies. Of course, it is a challenge getting people to share that powerful testimony outside of the church. If you have a testimony, share it!

One day we were walking and we passed by these super sketchy guys and one of them shouted at me in English, like all the people here that are deported from the U.S. always do. They are always so proud that they know how to say "hey how ya doing bro? I live in the States five year!!" that they lose no opportunity to accost every Elder Moffitt they can find to tell him. Anyways, this guy comes up and he is covered, like covered, in tatoos. There was no unmarked part of his body. And he starts to tell us that he loves Jesus and shows us this big tatoo of Jesus on his left arm on the cross, and some angels, and other bible stuff, and we are like wow man that is so great! And what is this on your right arm, ohhhhh wow that is a big satan face! hahaha his whole right arm is just covered in pure death satan stuff. And he tells us proudly that he is a local leader of the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the 2 biggest Central American gangs, and lifts up his shirt and he has MARA SALVATRUCHA tatooed all over his chest. So we are like well, that's really great! But not so much. Have you ever killed anyone? Oh no, I don't kill people; I just smoke and drink and stuff. And tatoo myself. Well, that's good. But it was a really clear Matthew 6:24 moment, like we can't just say we love Jesus and then have Satan tatooed all over our right arm. We have to have Christ more than marked on our arm, he must be marked on our heart and his image must reflect on our very counterance. Our actions will convey that we are Christians far more than the darkest ink. We talked to him of the gospel and gave him a pamphlet. We are going to get him to gather all his phonies and preach them the gospel some day.

I just love finding the chosen people of the Lord, those that the Lord has really prepared to recieve the restored gospel and who long to make those changes in their lives. If someone is so deep in  the apostasy and they don't want anything, well let them stay there. The field is white and ready to harvest. 

Wierd thing about Honduras: they eat cough drops for candy.

I think that the greatest thing that I have learned in the mission is to love. I feel such love for my family and my friends and the people here in Honduras it is wierd. I have never been really good in communicating that I love people so that will be my next step. 

Love you all! 

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Moffitt

Baptism of Leonardo, a really bright young man that is one of the most intelligent and quick thinking 15 yr olds that I know. He really wanted to get baptized since we started teaching him. He will be a great future misionary.