July 16th, 2019

Titery-Irie-Aye

For some reason the last email didn't send so here is the email without the pics. Maybe those will send later.

Hello friends and family.

This week I met a punk rocker and I talked about some old bands I used to listen to back home with him. He had a girlfriend who told us she has a bunch of family that are members of the church, and that she was surprised a "goody two shoes" knew about all that stuff. It was fun to break stereotypes because I knew some of the bands he was wearing the logo of. I never saw a people get so wide-eyed over a missionary in that context. It was fun.

We had a lesson with a drunk guy who called my companion racist. It was hilarious because he thought I was his best friend, so he told me to help my companion become not racist. Disclaimer: my companion is not racist. I don't think he knows what races are anyways. All he knows is humans and potatoes.

I went on exchanges with an Elder Wolfe last week and he is going home in a week from today. It was crazy to talk about how our two years is almost up. Wild stuff. I'm not trunky or anything... just realistic. We have been having a ton of success lately.

We went on a wild goose chase for a returning members home that took us on some old dirt back roads that took us down by the Colorado river and through some fields. We listened to some old folksy-country-rocky Christian tunes that were incredibly appropriate for our environment. I felt so happy in these moments. We found his house two days ago after trying to find it a second time. I had a smile on my face the whole time. Every waking moment is a blessing because the Lord is placing me in a bunch of situations that happen to make me feel joyful, cheerful, and frankly... at peace with everything.

My companion gave me a painting of Christ sitting next to a campfire, with His apostles on a boat in the background. I appreciate it a lot. I (metaphorically) see myself in it.

I have been feeling very spiritual lately. I don't know what is going on, but I feel like the Lord is doing everything, and I just happen to be along for the ride.

We are going to have some Baptisms soon. Woot.

Now for a cool thing...

There is a lady in our area that has been taught for a long time by missionaries. She happened to drive by and she asked us to text her and stop by. So we did. At church there was a girl who attended who is about our age and we weren't sure who she was but she left before we met her. We taught the lady who talked to us on the street a few times and she expressed some concerns and things about receiving a sign from God that she should be Baptized. So we decided to teach her about the Holy Spirit and how to receive answers from God. We learned that her daughter was the girl who went to church a few days before, and so the next thing we did was we taught the lesson on the Spirit. Her daughter happened to be there, and long story short, her daughter listened in and then shared a very personal experience about when she prayed and felt something come to her and comfort her. It was timed so perfectly. We ended up planning out a lesson on a different subject for our next lesson and so everything seemed to line up perfectly. We got to our next lesson and felt prompted to change our original lesson and we focused on teaching the Restoration of the Gospel instead. The spirit was so strong. Turns out next week they are leaving to go to upstate New York and have changed some of their plans to visit Palmyra and the Sacred Grove. It all happened to line up so perfectly and we are literally watching God set everything up, and we happen to be along for the ride. I am actually drafting this the night of these events so they are fresh. This has been nearly a 5 week experience so far. I think the biggest thing for me was to bare My testimony of Gods love to this girl. Because of personal things that I cannot discuss here, she forgot her eternal identity as a daughter of God. That is the best way I can describe it without going into detail. The more we testified of Gods love the stronger the spirit felt. I also had the privilege to bare testimony of the Book of Mormon to her. I nearly cried. It was one of the most sincere testimony I think I ever bore. I love this Gospel. God is in command, so we do not have need to fear. He knows all of us personally. We are never out of reach for His love. Sometimes we forget and we put ourselves in situations where we forget His love or we ignore it... but it is there. Please do not forget it.

-Elder Moore