Elder Nathan S Moser: General Authorities, Transfers, and Hijacked Conversations!

March 20, 2017

What a crazy week. I'll do my best to remember some details!

Monday...in the OFFICE for more than emails.

Meeting....

Elders King, Taele, and Moser

Preparing for Transfers.

Writing home.

I am now officially with my new companion, Elder King! He is from Dallas Texas and is SO COOL. I LOVE ELDER KING. He is super good with people and we teach very well together. We also both have a vision for what we know can happen in our area and get pretty excited about it. We are having sooo much fun together. Fun fact about Elder King: He played Quidditch professionally in college. This transfer will be one of my favorites, I can tell! And for those of you who have taken the 16 personalities test, we are rocking the ENFP/INTJ combo.

Our week was crazy, but I'll give you a rundown:

MONDAY

On Monday, we said goodbye to the departing missionaries. It was pretty weird seeing them leave because they were all sisters that came out one transfer before me, and I am pretty close to them all. So that was sad.

Preparing to write their names on the missionary wall.

But we had a great time playing some games (Like group Rock, Paper,
Scissors) and had a super cool testimony meeting with President and Sister Lewis
at the end. They will be missed!

TUESDAY

We welcomed three new missionaries to the field! All of them are sisters in an attempt to
replace the 10 that left. They are all super solid missionaries and we are excited to have them!

Lunch time!

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday was crazy. I don't remember everything that happened, but Elder King
and I helped with transfers and driving people around the mission to their new areas. It was fun!

THURSDAY

On Thursday, We had a special Zone Conference with Juan A Uceda
of the Seventy (the one who gave a talk about almost falling off
Machu Pichu last conference).

Elder King and I were in charge of setting up the sound and everything for the Lower
conference here in Yakima, and we didn't really know what we were doing since we are
both pretty new. We got things figured out, and everything went smoothly during the meeting--

About halfway through Elder Uceda's training, the sound started popping super loudly
and the speakers were picking up the frequency to some radio station. We had no idea
what to do and felt totally helpless. It probs took 10 years off our life expectancy.
But we got everything figured out, and it was a great meeting.

Meeting Elder Uceda and wife...and greeting President & Sister Lewis.

President also asked me to play and sing "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul,"
so that was pretty fun but also extra stress. Good times.

Yakima Zone

FRIDAY

We had a special Northern Zone conference with the other half of the mission in Quincy.
That one went way more smoothly, which was good news because I was conducting that time.
It was sweet sitting next to a general authority and hearing the conviction in his voice.
That man knows that God lives. He knows that this is the church. And you can feel the love
of God when he speaks to you. I hope we all can be a little bit like that :) Elder Uceda
focused on learning how to truly study and love the scriptures,
and I learned a ton (especially since I got to listen to it twice).

Yakima 3rd ward is so cool. It is right in the heart of Yakima, and there are TONS of people to talk to, unlike most of my other areas. It's pretty ghetto in parts, but it is super fun and we are teaching the coolest people. Right now, we are focusing on a 12 year old girl named Evelyn who was tracted into a few months ago. Her family is supportive of her meeting with us, but they aren't too interested. Evelyn is an inspiration! Even though she's only 12, she has the maturity of a 20 year old and really wants a "perfect family" like she sees when she goes to church. She has been coming to church every week for several weeks now, and is praying about being baptized on April 8th.

We are also teaching a lady named Kelly. Kelly is super interesting but a great person :) She wants to get baptized, but has been having troubles quitting smoking. She told us in her last lesson that she only had one pack left though, so we are praying for her :)

Overall, I am loving being back in Yakima! The people in downtown Yakima are sooo diverse in every way, and Elder King and I have loved talking to them. Funny story from yesterday: We buzzed into an old kinda trashy apartment complex to see if the resident living there (a less-active member) would come down and let us in. We hit the call button and he answered, and we were making some small talk and told him that we were the missionaries. We could tell that he immediately wasn't a fan. Right then, a drunk black guy falls up the stairs (somehow) and starts talking to the guy for us:

"Look man, let these guys in so I can talk to my son!"

"Uhh, I'm not going to do that."

"Well I think that you need to shut up and let 'em in!"

And that's when things went downhill. At that very moment, they started yelling long strings of obscenities at each other, back and forth. The best part is, the less-active probably thinks that he was with us. Hopefully we doesn't actually think that, but either way.. So. Funny. And I can tell that there are so many more stories on the way! :)

I love being an assistant. It's stressful at times and we have a ton of things to do, but we still get to spend time in our area and we both feel like it gives us so many opportunities to love all of the missionaries. That is my favorite part. We get to associate with every missionary, and I've already made several new friends. I just love it. We also drive a truck, so that is a pretty sweet upgrade from a minivan. Haha. Our apartment is pretty normal. When we drive through Yakima some day I'll have to show you :)

I love you all!

Peace and Blessin's,

Elder Moser