March 23rd

       This week felt like it lasted forever. I was transferred in an emergency transfer, and I  was transferred to a city called Poças de Caldas. It's in Minas Gerais. It is freaking awesome because the city is literally inbetween two mountains. It was designed by the same person who designed Rio. So if you want to know what it looks like, just look at pictures of Rio, but instead of a beach, there's just another mountain on the other side.

        Its really cold here and it has rained literally every day since I've been here. Which is good, I would rather have wet and cold, rather than hot and dry. We live on the first floor of an apartment complex, and so when our house gets rained on, all the water just stays and our house has a never ending mold smell. I get allergies pretty bad in the house, but its getting better. 

 My companion is awesome. He just has a problem with his knees with all these hills, and so I think he will be transferred here in the next week during normal transfers.  He is the best companion I've had so far.

The people here are a lot more closed. All we did the past 3 days was knock on doors. This is his first transfer here as well, and so he doesn't have the city memorized yet, but we are learning together. We are working with the members a lot because that's the only way we are going to baptize here. We get rejected A LOT but the people that let us talk to them are gold. But anyways, I really like this city, but knocking on doors all day is getting really old, because we don't have investigators. Not yet anyways.

 

Love Elder Moss

March 16th

So on Sunday, we went with an inactive family to church. We have been visiting and teaching them for the past couple of months, and they finally went to church this past Sunday. It was the first time they had gone to church in the past 7 or 8 years. It was an emotional Sunday, because some of the members saw them walk in and got REALLY excited. Everyone started crying. It was so good! The classes and talks in church were fantastic for that family. During one of the talks in sacrament meeting, one member was talking about his family and how glad he was to see Eric and his family ( the inactives) at church again. He started crying and so did Eric and his wife. The kids (which are old enough to be baptized) talked about how they want to keep coming back. The struggle isn't over, we still have some things to work on, but this is the strongest moment on my mission so far that shows me that I'm doing my job. 

We are meeting a lot of new people that are fantastic! Excited, nice, just really great people. We will go back to their houses this week to teach them and continue working with them.

Tonight we are going to teach a guy who teaches karate, judo, and jujitsu. He stopped us in the street because he wants to speak English, and so we are going to teach him about the gospel and English at the same time. Maybe I can learn a few take downs with him too. haha!

Anyways, that's whats happening here,

Love Elder Moss

March 2nd

This week was not nearly as productive as the past few weeks. A lot of our appointments fell through. I'm honestly becoming much more stressed out with the families and people we are teaching because we are literally trying everything, and teaching with the spirit, but its not enough apparently.
But, all in all, I am happier. I am happier wiht my companion, with the weather, and with our teaching. I wish we had better luck, and knew what to do when appointments fall through, but its all a learning experience.

I don't have a lot of other news, except for the fact that we had a baptism!! After a stressful week, we had a baptism. Its interesting because when I'm frustrated in the street, or with other investigators, and I go and teach someone and they can feel the spirit, I become happy, forgetting all of the other things that frustrate me.

I will send photos!

Love, Elder Moss

February 22nd

The conference sounds awesome! Elder Soares is Jordan Kendall's uncle!

 

This week was sooo good!

To start off, I got a new companion. his name is elder Augusto, (his first name is Caesar) and he is from Sao Paulo. He has been out for 1 year and 5 months, and he is so cool. He's the bomb. Maybe not all that, but I'm so excited to be companions with him, because we have a lot of the same views and perspectives about the gospel, he loves to talk, and he is fun to be around. It was awesome this week. 

I'm a lot happier now and seeing a lot more potential in my efficiency as a missionary. I'm learning so much and trusting the spirit a lot with what we teach and what I say. 

This week we will be working a lot, and learning too. Its kind of funny because we were trained by the same missionary, so we have funny stores and we just start talking all the time.

I hope this next week is as good  as this last week was, and I hope Robert gets better! Try to stay warm in  the cold weather!

Love Elder Moss

February 15th

This week I taught more lessons on my mission than I ever had, 40! We taught 40 lessons this week. Our numbers were really good. 
 Well we did get our transfer, and I will be staying in the same area, bu my companion was transferred to be a district leader in some other zone, and I am staying as a junior companion to someone else that was trained by the same missionary that trained me. I know him a little and he is really cool and enthusiastic, so I really hope that this transfer is fun and awesome.

Sorry I'm emailing so late, this week is carnival (which is absolutely grotesque) and so the only  internet cafe in the city was closed. Our last resort was using the only computer in the secretaries office, and unfortunately I'm the last person to use it. haha I got the short straw. 

Thanks for the positive thinking grammy!

Love,

 Elder Moss

Feb. 9th

Hahahahaha When You said tubing, my mind automatically went to white water tubing. This week was so hot, I forgot that its winter there!

This week we have been working alot. Its getting really easy to make contacts with people on the street. I usually just give them a pass along card and judge from their attitude or the spirit if I should ask for their address. That has been working out pretty well the past couple of days. 

We have had some rough luck with some of our investigators, and really good luck with others. We have been working with a few families, And one of them told us that they are moving, so we won't get to baptize them, and the other family has been going to a young life sort of deal, but for older people, and instead of a general christian belief, its organized by a specific church here in the city. So this next week we have some work on our hands.

 This other investigator, we invited to be baptized this week and she accepted. We are going to her house tonight for dinner, and we are bringing this married couple that are members to share their testimony about baptism.

 We have a couple of inactive families that are really nice that we are working with. We had a really spiritual lesson about the plan of salvation last night with them, their extended family, and friends. There were a lot of people, from a lot of different churches that believed a lot of things differently. But when they would speak, we would just read scriptures out of the bible, and the inactive family would speak up and say to their friends ´´nope, that's not how it is. The elders are reading out of the bible and explaining everything. just listen´´

 I got goose bumps, because I had never heard this family talk about the gospel very much, or even show interest in coming back to church. At the end the dad said that he wants to start coming back, and explained why they left the church. They said that when they were preparing to go to the temple, a friend of theirs, who is a pastor, started telling them that what they were doing was wrong and of the devil. Anyway, they said that they lost a lot of faith, and they want it back. My goal is to get them to go to church, have the dad baptized his two kids, and have that family sealed in the temple. 

On Tuesday, I got a box from Grammy Diane, and I got some letters! 

 Happy valentines day mom :)

I will continue working and praying for strength in this heat. Hopefully it will start cooling down. 

Until Next week, 

Love Elder Moss :)

February 2nd

The surprise birthday party was good! I did not make the cake, but it was a coconut and pineapple cake. It was sooooo good! and huge! 

What else am I doing with my time? Haha what time? This week we worked our tails off. Our numbers were outstanding. We taught like 40 lessons! I'm usually coming back home at the end of the day straight exhausted from testifying and walking.

I bore my testimony on Sunday. It was about how when we do the things we need to do and defend the truths we know to be true, we become an example and a light to the world and people around us. Like 10 of the contacts we made this week were people coming up to us and asking us who we are and what our purpose is. I like those contacts.

I felt all the love on my birthday and thank you!! :)

Anyways, Have a good week! This week should go by fast!

Love Elder Moss