Elder Nathan S Moser: April 2017

Friday, April 28, 2017

Transferstransferstransferstransfers

April 24, 2017

Hello!

Our investigators are all doing incredibly well! Nothing has really changed since last week, though, because Tuesday was our temple trip to the Columbia River Temple, and the rest of the week can be summed up in 2 word:

Transfer planning.

From Wednesday to Saturday, we spent several hours a day helping President Lewis with transfer planning. Usually from 10 to 5. It has been pretty exhausting helping President decide where each missionary in the mission should move, but it has been amazing. When we first started, there were several people on the transfer board that I did not know, but after staring at it for literally hours, I feel like I know everyone's name, area, life story... it's pretty great! Working with President Lewis is intriguing. He is so thorough. He takes every factor into account about each missionary, and I can tell that he really cares. If he didn't, it wouldn't take 5000 hours. But it does. :) It has also helped me and Elder King appreciate the simple joys of life. Like when Sister Lewis offered to have us come with her to take a break as she walked outside to get the mail. What was supposed to be a 5 minute walk turned into a 30 minute tour of the really nice subdivisions near their house. It was actually really fun.

Saturday night was the night of transfer calls. Showtime. Long story short, we had to type up a bunch of sheets with information regarding where each person would be transferred, and then stressed out as we sent voicemails to every zone with the information for each of the missionaries in that zone. However, the mission has 2 different types of phones throughout all of the areas, and only like phones can receive forwarded voicemails. To put this into perspective, imaging being on a stage in front of 170 people who all have hearing aids and want you to tell them what they need to hear. Now imagine that half of those hearing aids are broken, some people don't even have hearing aids, and that you have to talk to all of them all at once. And some of those people are coming up onto the stage because they thought you already told them their information when you actually haven't. That was how transfer calls were. Insane.

Sunday was the day that we organized the transfer -- Where and how missionaries, cars, phones, and apartments are moving. It was also insane, since Elder King has only done this once with experienced help and I have never even witnessed the process. To put this into perspective, imagine the CEO of Microsoft asking two 4 year-olds to do everything while he is on vacation. I walked into transfer organizing thinking I was on top of everything, and left barely knowing how to put together a peanut butter and jelly. After several hours, we finally finished. During our planning, we were feeling especially stressed when we got a long text from Evelyn telling us about how much she appreciates everything we do for her and everyone else. She's only 12, but she definitely follows the spirit.

Sorry this email was probably kind of boring. Transfers is just life right now. But it's been cool to see President Lewis work with the spirit this week. He is definitely inspired.

Love you all!

Peace and blessin's,

Elder Moser

Temple Trip!

We get to help plan transfers!

After we write emails home...

Transfer Planning....Day 1

Looking for inspiration.

Getting an assist by the President.

Staring at the mission map....

Day 2 lunch break

Day for Girls fabrics are common in the Lewis home.

Staring at the board...

All this transfer planning is getting to us.... LUNCH BREAK!
DAY 3

Getting it finalized.

The Call's grandson.

The board is done!

Transfer planning meeting run by AP's.

Making the phone calls for transfers.

Easter

Vehicle meeting Monday morning.

Exchanges

Off to work!

April 17, 2017

Hello.

Yesterday was probably the best Easter ever. We had so many people come to church! 5 of our investigators came, 4 less actives, and several other non-members. Matt and Sarah gave us permission to come wake them up at 7:00 on Sunday morning again, and just like before, Matt was ready to go by then. We were also excited to see Sarah awake as well! The only one that needed some help getting up was the 16 year old, Calvin. So this time, we bumped it up a notch with a pan flute and some freestyle Easter raps. Yes, a pan flute. We take wake up calls seriously. It was probably the best feeling ever watching the entire family walk into the chapel that morning! Their kids seemed to like it as well. Curtis, the 2 year old, loves nursery and sits quietly through sacrament meeting. We love their family because we have seen them progress sooo quickly. Just a few weeks ago, none of them were coming to church, and now they are reading, praying, and coming to church together! Matt and Sarah also prayed about a wedding date and said that they could easily get married in May. We are really praying that it works out, because they will get baptized as soon as they are married!

Sister Ray and her non-member fiance, Brian, came wheeling in yesterday morning too, as well as sister Ray's 5 year old daughter, Katie. She is adorable and fit right in with the rest of the kids. They are such interesting people, but they loved church!

Evelyn came to church yesterday (like she does every week), but we also got the chance to talk to her mom last week about her baptism. With Evelyn being the only member of the family, we were so glad we finally got to teach her mom. She committed to come to church with us next week so that she can see what her daughter is going to be baptized into. It is so awesome seeing how converted she is! She is pretty bold in front of her mom when she says that this is something that she knows she is ready for.

Yesterday, the Spanish Sisters that cover our area told us that they have been teaching an English speaking 11 year old girl named Neisha, and that she was on-date for May AND that she was coming to our ward with them. Crazy. Neisha is super cool! She is basically a mini version of Reggina, a recent convert in our ward. We cant wait for them to meet!

A ton went into church yesterday. Besides hooking everyone up with a ride (and some with less-active rides), we felt like we were hosting a giant party the whole time because we were constantly playing match-maker with them and their fellowshippers. We were exhausted by the end of the last hour. Talk about a day of rest :)

We also went on 3 exchanges this last week. The first was with the Yakima Valley Spanish Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Wunderlich. He is also a guitar player, so we had fun talking about that. Our day was packed, and we had tons of fun! Next up was with the Othello Zone Leaders. Othello is about an hour and a half away. I was with Elder Aguirre from Colorado, and the highlight of that exchange was when I ate a burrito the size of my arm. No lies. And Lastly, we exchanges with the Selah Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Hansen, the basketball pro. We had fun talking about some of our similar old areas, and met lots of cool people as we ran around the city. We talked alot about how crazy it is that we were just two children responsible for taking the gospel to such diverse and so much older people. It is an amazing responsibility!

This past week was an overall amazing week. Easter especially was such an amazing day. I felt like it was actually focused around the Savior. It was great. People on the streets were more friendly and also were happy to celebrate His resurrection.

So yeah, being a missionary is sweet. :)

Have a great week everyone!

Peace and blessings,

Elder Moser

I ate a taco this week as long as my arm!

Ward Party Luau...they made us hula.

Othello District council

Giant Bears and Pit-Bulls (again)

April 10, 2017

Today is my "six months to going home" mark. That's all I'm going to say about that.

It was kind of a crazy week last week.

For starters, we were on a 3 day exchange with the zone leaders from The Dalles, Oregon, from Sunday night to Wednesday night. It was pretty sweet having a full house for a while! It was also good catching up with Elder Bird.

Sorry I'm not smiling in any of these pictures. I'm addicted to mean muggin'.

Exchanges with Elder North. I took him out tracting his first day in the field 9 months ago. Such a stud.
We toured this guy's crazy looking tree house.

We had MLC this week, and Elder King and I gave a training on how we can DO more with our instigators for them to keep their commitments, as was taught to us by Elder Uceda last month.It was pretty fun. We borrowed a brand-new CPR dummy (who we nicknamed Alma the Younger) from a member, and then had different missionaries who don't know how to do CPR come up and try to do it after just listening to us talk about it. Then, we had them do it with us. Obviously, they did way better when we did it with them and talked them through the process. Our teaching should be the same way.

Talking is easy, but it isn't teaching. The more we do, the more they will progress.

Our investigator are all doing so well! It was a tougher week to meet with them all, but they are still on track. Matt and his family is doing great! We really wanted to get them to come to church yesterday, so we asked them if it would be alright if we came to their house at 7:00 to wake them up for 8:30 church. When we got to their house on Sunday morning, Matt was awake and ironing his church clothes. Sarah (his fiance), Calvin (his 16 y.o.) and Curtis (his 2 y.o.) were all sill asleep; so Elder King and I put together this improv routine that we call "The Wake-Up Dance." We spent a good 10 minutes going between each of the rooms dancing and signing, giving them each glasses of fresh water, and encouraging them to come to church. In the end, only Matt and Curtis came; but we had a lesson with them last night, and they ALL committed themselves to go next week. Their family is changing so much! They are all praying as a family, and you can see the light in them. I love their family!

We couldn't teach Carolina and Hector last week, but we still got to visit for a few minutes with a convert family that has agreed to have them over in their home for future lessons. The member father, Brother Plata, also new Hector from local MMA and is already friends with him, so that makes our job easier!

Evelyn is still on-date for the 18th. Their family was in Seattle this week and didn't come to church, but we challenged them to visit the temple while they were there and will be following up with her tonight. Her mom still wants to come to church with her before she is baptized since she will be the only member in her family after her baptism.

Sister Ray. Ahh, good ol' sister Ray. We are still teaching her, and she is making big

changes in her life. She has been clean for almost 2 weeks now, which is huge for her. The fact that both of her legs are broken makes that pretty easy, I guess.

Last week, we met another crazy guy. Like, next level crazy. Elder King and I were trying to hold in our laughter the entire time. Here's a snippet:

Guy: "Yeah, I was born in Jerusalem."

Us: "Really? That is so cool!"

Guy: "Yeah, about 2,000 years ago. In the middle ages."

Us:"...Wow. That was a long time ago. What was it like living in the middle ages?"

Guy: "Eh, you know. Blasphemy... Oceans... Giant serpents who's souls I lived off of."

We then picked his brain for a few more minutes, and he told us all about how several years ago he was shot in the back of the head by a laser gun by what he calls "the automated God." Such a spiritual conversation.

Another crazy story: Last night, after visiting one of our investigators, Ana Marie, we were driving away from her apartment complex when we saw her bolting across an empty lot. "Where could she possibly be going??" Then, she turned around and started running towards the road when a massive pit-bull, HER massive pit-bull, ran right in front of our truck. I slammed on the brakes, but THUMP. We hit the dog. Hard. We stared at each other in amazement at what had just happened, and then quickly jumped out of the truck to see what happened. As it turns out, the dog didn't end up under the wheel, but ran into the side of our truck full-sprint and dented our vehicle. Insane. The dog is okay, though.