Cristian Got Married & Baptized!

What's up family?! Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! So it was actually a good week this week! First, we got everything setup for Christian's wedding and we got them married on Saturday. So after the marriage was signed then we started working on the baptism because Christian got baptized tight after he was married! He was very excited! I've been able to see a big change in him honestly. He's doing great! 

So lately we've been doing a lot of service and that's been fun helping people out. This week we helped knock down a wall at a member's house so he can add on to his house. His name is Carlos and he's the husband of a recent convert. He's hilarious! We were knocking down this wall and tearing up the patio and as we started tearing up the patio we lifted up a huge piece of cement and these huge spiders as big as your hand and other bugs started crawling out. So we started killing them so they wouldn't get into the house! So Carlos had this metal mallet in his hand and I went to kill this spider with my foot and well Carlos landed the mallet right on my big toe! But I'm good. I limped around for like three days and my toenail is black and it will probably fall off. But it was all worth it because we got a reference out of it...a friend of Carlos' wanted to know about baptism so we got to talk to him. 

Saturday we got to meet Gina, Adilina and Neyra to the Women's conference at the church building. They loved it! This was truly an answer to our prayers! Things are going very well with the Munoz family and they are understanding more and more. They truly enjoyed the conference and are excited for this coming weekend of conference!

So this week we actually found a good amount of new people that are truly interested in the church. One of them is Neyra's sister who came to church this Sunday and loved it! Neyra is the greatest. Since first teaching her I've seen a change in her. She's a lot happier and outgoing and loves to hear more about the gospel. She's received a bunch of answers from God and her one doubt is the BOM. So we invited her to pray and pray and she told us Sunday that the Women's conference the day before truly hit her and she feels she needs to be baptized! So we are HOPING that this will happen next week. 

Reflection of the week: I know Neyra is going to get baptized! She is so ready and I have just seen a big change in her. I think it was Elder Oaks that said you can see when the atonement has worked in one's life through their face and the "radiant light" that comes from them. I've seen that in myself and in Neyra and in many people here in Peru. We can truly become happy as children of God if we desire it and see it. It is possible. I feel as if the experiences I am having are truly going to prepare me to take bigger decisions in my life. It is so true. I have seen a growth in my spirituality and I feel my willingness to be obedient to the Spirit grow the more I obey the promptings I receive. I love you all! Keep praying for us! Elder G. is down to like 11 days...so that's crazy! #doitforjesus #noregrets

Love,

Elder Moss

Cristian's Wedding

Elder Moss, Cristian & Elder Guerrero

Cutting Hair!

Being an Eagle Scout Comes in Handy

What's up family!? Neyra didn't end up getting baptized but we are hoping for this week! We fasted with her on Thursday because she truly wants to feel that she needs to get baptized. She's going to continue to pray about it. She did come to church so that always gives us hope. Christian is doing great and is supposed to get baptized on Saturday. She knows the church is true but she's worried about getting baptized twice...because she was previously baptized in an evangelical church. So we taught her about authority. So we asked her to ask God about the authority. 

Sunday we got to see Gina and Andalina. They are doing great! It was such a blessing to have been able to find them. They have read all of lesson 1 pamphlet. They told us everything is perfect and that they love how simple things are to understand. We taught them about the BOM. They asked us to bear our testimonies and they listened attentively and you could feel the spirit very strong as Emilio, Elder Guerrero and I shared them. I could see that what we said touched their hearts. They said they can't wait to see General Conference and hear from the prophet. We told them about Seventies and that we had a member of the Seventy here a couple of weeks ago. She said next time a Seventy comes she wants to be invited and get to know them! We are planning on getting them to the women's session this Saturday. They're determined and hoping to truly feel something different. They told us that they have been looking for the true church for a long time and they feel as if the Lord has prepared this all and the timing for them. They love what we have taught and they are hoping their prayers are answered soon. I'm so glad the spirit guided me to Gina and Adalina. I told them that I feel like I knew them before. 

Elder Woltjen and I went on divisions on Weds. He's from California and is two weeks into the mission and he's a really cool guy. He's going to be a great leader here in the mission. He's real ambitious and wants to speak Spanish to everyone. We had a cool contact that was great with a guy named John. We were actually looking for an appointment with a guy named Claudio but we went to the door and this guy John answered. We taught John about 3 Nephi and got a return appointment setup for Saturday. Elder Woltjen was really excited to get to teach this guy. We had a great experience together. 

There's a guy named Carlos that we are trying to connect with but he's hard to track down. We went to try to find him on Monday night but he wasn't there. I told my companion that we need to chase him down and so we keep trying to find him and he keeps dodging us. So we went back Sunday and he still wasn't there. 

Thursday was a really cool guy. We went to Melvin's house...he's a member kid who's working on his mission papers. Melvin's my best friend and I taught him some English. He's always helping us with appointments and stuff. We also did interviews for a couple of baptisms in our zone and I interviewed a guy named named Eric and he's really cool. He said on his second time to church he and his wife knew they should get baptized. He asked me on the spot if I would baptize him and we had his baptism on Saturday and I got to baptize him! Eric's wife and his kid got baptized too so a family was completed!

Thursday we also went and did service this week and helped an older member cut down a tree and chop some wood. Elder Woltjen and I helped him out. This Peruvian dude just jumped up and started pulling on the tree limbs which broke and fell and hit me in the face and scratched me pretty good. But I'm okay! And then Saturday we went back again with the whole zone to cut the trees into firewood. So we went up to this house which is up the canyon. We had the whole zone out there cutting wood. They had two hatches and two machetes and everyone started going at it cutting wood. I have four blisters on my hands! Everyone was going at it cutting with a hatchet and thank goodness I got my Eagle Scout because these guys didn't know what they were doing! I had to show them how to do it right. This older couple that owned the house fed us some lunch which was cool, but the food isn't interesting here. The best thing here is Huanes which is yellow rice which is with egg and chicken and hot sauce and they cook it all together in a banana leaf and in the oven and it is way good! 

Reflection of the Week: I can't tell you everything that's changed about me. I can't describe it. President said that sometimes we just realize that as a person we've changed and that's okay because that's what the Lord wants. Any chance I get where I feel the Spirit I write in my journal. I'm always writing things down. I don't know what's changed but something that has happened to me that motivates me. The Lord has changed me and molded me. There's so much left in life and I feel I want to keep converting myself more. Feeling the Spirit is the coolest thing in the world. I feel as if what I owe the Lord is to give him my all these last few months. The mission has done something big in my life. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet...I know it with all my heart. The changes to me in my life aren't possible without there being truth to the message. My life has been directed in a different direction. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. The mission has brought me more happiness than I've ever felt in my life. I can feel it inside that I am happy and content with what I am doing. I love this gospel with all my heart. I feel more compelled to be obedient and I know that the commandments bring blessings. I have the best mission in the world...I have the best mission in the world! I love Peru and the people here. I want to take my conversion here and bring it home because I know that it's going to help me the rest of my life. I'm so grateful for the things we have in the gospel. I know this gospel changes lives. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Moss

Huanuco Zone 2017

Elder Moss - Elder Ramirez  Huancayo

The Lord is Guiding This Work

What's up family? It's Sunday night and well we had some really cool experiences this past week. So, we traveled back from Huancayo with President in his car, which was really cool. President Silva is really cool and knows a lot so I got to talk to him for the whole ride. The Assistants stayed with us in our apartment for about three days which was really cool. 

Wednesday we had a multi-zone conference with training from President and the Assistants. President talked a lot about faith and how we as missionaries ought to literally imagine our goals, people, the lessons we teach, all of that. We should be visualizing our investigators getting baptized and depending upon ourselves for the working part but then leaving it to God and depending upon him to get it done. This got me really excited to be able to push through and truly imagine finding people to teach and baptize! 

So, on Thursday I did divisions with Elder Valarenzo. He's from Ecuador and is a great kid! We had a great time knocking like three blocks of doors and found a great guy named Fran. He let us right in his door and we taught him Lesson 1 and he said he was determined to pray about Joseph Smith. He is a very cool guy. He's like 26 years old and owns his own company so he's able to make his own schedule. The lesson we had was awesome and we were able to truly feel the Spirit. 

Friday we found a girl named Gracie that works in a place we call the "Tower of Babel" because it's a big casino that she works in. She was a contact from our efforts on Thursday. She's very cool and we taught her a bit about the gospel and she told us to come back later because we were teaching her on her doorstep. Then, we taught Neyra! She's back from being gone to Ecuador. She's going to get baptized this Saturday. We are waiting on her answer to her prayers but we have a lot of faith that she will come through. So we are very excited for that! Pray for her to be able to receive her answer!

So this week was solid, honestly! It has been great and I've been trusting in the Lord a lot with the Spirit. The Spirit has truly been with me all week to guide me to people that we needed to find.Thursday with Elder Valarezo really started everything and we started out with a good place and then I was able to transfer that over to the rest of the week! The more I knocked doors and talked to people the more I believe in contacting. The Lord truly prepares people we just HAVE to open our mouths as it says in D&C 60:2-3..."But with some I am not well pleased, for they will not open their mouths , but they hide the talent which I have given unto them, because of the fear of man. Wo unto such, for mine anger is kindled against them. And it shall come to pass, if they are not more faithful unto me, it shall be taken away, even that which they have."

Reflection of the Week: The Lord is truly preparing people for us. So Sunday night we had absolutely nothing. Everyone failed us. We were walking around with our Ward Mission leader Emilio looking for backup plans. So we passed a door and I kept looking back at it and I felt like I had to knock it. Emilio and my companion were farther back. So I knocked it and they look at me like I was crazy! So we waited and a middle-aged lady named Gina answered. She told us she had been watching the BYU channel in the morning about Joseph Smith and so we said "Perfect!" and asked if we could come inside her house. She let us in and we met with her and her two sisters that were a little older. They had talked about how they had been searching for prophets and apostles. So we taught them Lesson 1 and Emilio was all animated! It was a way cool lesson and they accepted the invitation to church and a return appointment. Experiences like that always cause me to sit and truly think a lot afterwards. I see that if I wouldn't have listened to the Spirit I would never have found Gina and her two sisters. And they wouldn't have heard from the missionaries for a long time if I didn't do what the Spirit told me to do. The Lord prepared them in the morning while thy were watching TV and this has to be one of the coolest contacts I have had. It teaches me to obey the Spirit and not fear man. Again, D&C 60: 2-3 is the scripture that runs through my head! I love it!  I love you all! Pray for us and the area too! #doitforjesus

Love,

Elder Moss

Hang Loose in Huanuco - March 2017

Stuck on The Road for 12 Hours!

Edit: Jake and his companion traveled all day Monday to Huancayo to the mission office for training. They left early in the morning on Monday and due to a rock slide (which covered the road with large boulders) it took them 12 hours to get to Huancayo. So we didn't hear from him until today when they returned.

Hey Family! Yay it's March! I swear I just left Pasco yesterday...time is flying. We had a good week. We've been teaching a good amount of lessons everyday but not a lot of great results. Christian is progressing really well and is still planning on getting married this month on the 25th. A lot of our investigators are either not coming to church and not really progressing. We don't have many people to teach at this time....so that has really been bothering me a lot. We are diligently searching to find new investigators. I know if we don't give up that the Lord will bless us with people to teach.

So I had a cool experience this week! Elder G and I were walking up one of the main roads, Tarapara, to an appointment. I heard some kid yelling so I crossed the street to go talk to him. I started talking to him and it turns out he was yelling at his buddy who lived across the street. I decided to ask him a few questions. His name is Harol, he's 14 yrs old and is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. He actually invited us to come inside and we shared with him a lot of lesson 1 and a little on baptisms for the dead. He's a really smart kid and he said he would pray and read the pamphlet. We came back on Thursday and after we taught him a lesson he said he asked God to reveal to him through a member of his church if what we taught was true. He told us he asked a member from his church. We told him that they aren't going to know anything about the Plan of Salvation because only our church does. We also told him that the Lord reveals things through the spirit. We decide to drop him but hopefully we left him with a lot to think about. Even though it didn't turn out the way I would've hoped for I was glad I took the opportunity to talk to Harol.

President Silva drove us back from the mission office on Tuesday so we could have a multi-zone with him on Wednesday (today). I sat in the front seat and talked to him for like six hours which was really cool. It was me, my companion and two other Elders in President's Nissan SUV!

Reflection of the week: Prayer is such a vital part of this gospel. It truly reveals if the church is true, if Joseph Smith is a prophet, if the Book of Mormon is true and everything else! It we truly pray with faith and sincerity the Lord will reveal to us the answers we are looking for through the Spirit. Being a missionary has truly taught me how to pray for things I need help with and most importantly for others. I am so dependent on the Lord through my prayers. I'm so grateful to know that he's there listening. I love the people in Peru and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve them. I love you all! #doitforjesus

Love,

Elder Moss