HEY!

Dear Family and Friends, 

  Hey, funny thing, my companion has spent like 2 weeks ripping audio files from my CDs (my last comp gave me cds of "Stories from General Conference" and "Past Impressions" from Mormon Channel, theyre AWESOME) anyway he had ripped em all to his flash drive, and now he just accidentally deleted it all! whoops. its okay we have 10 days together he can get it done again. 

  im pretty happy this week. Idk why. i told President Carlson that cause we talked about how all the other missionaries say im great but just always seem depressed and bored. who asked them anyway... anyway he made me study happiness. but today im happy. the week didnt go that awesome, i had plenty of stressers. but i was pondering at the end of every day and was just thinking "how else would i want it?" sure, people getting baptized, but thats on them. i would like, but in time, not now, a companion that pushes me to be my best, but i've enjoyed all the lessons i've learned in patience and ministering, not being a critic (even though i do it so well), etc.etc, things with the branch havent been easy, but i feel so much more fulfilled being the one to come in and turn things around then just having it handed it to me, even though i want it to be handed to the next person.and the other missionaries have done a good job on expressing appreciation, which has made such an effect i decided to do it for other people. if i had time id find the verse in D&C about how a big ship is controlled in a storm by a small rudder, something like that. same situation, better attitude = happy missionary. 

  like i said, notta lotta this week. we did run into a man that we had talked to before New Years. he chased us down and showed us the pass along card we gave him- it looked 5 years old, i figured i would see missionary names i didnt recognize, but there we were. he dropped it in water, the only thing that didnt get ruined was our phone number. hmm... anyway he came to the sisters baptism and then church on sunday. its been a focus of mine, trying to instill it in the others, to keep our sights set high on who we bring to church. we arent only inviting the rich, but we do need the spiritually strong, the church is too small in armenia to have nothing but welfare cases. anyway this guys kinda old and his breath smells like too much alcohol and not enough teeth brushing for a year, but hes super nice and he has a family, and inner potential. same thing again this week, in looking for less actives we met an old man whos wife died 3 months ago. his situation isnt great but he has a family. family = contacts, referrals. and everyones invited anyway because God loves them all. 

 HEY! this work is true. haha i was on exchanges with my old MTC comp, whos with a companion that doesnt love obedience or leaders. he said something funny "if this work wasnt true, id punch the guy and move out" its cool to see what people will do when they know somethings true. in the armenians, but in us too. 

 i love you all and hope your weeks are healthy and fantastic. 

elder moore

Faith in the Future

Dear Family and Friends, 

  Yeah I'm not sure whats up with email. I have no clue when what I'm reading was sent or anything like that, I haven't gotten anything from Tyler 2 or 3 weeks in a row now, Idk if thats an email issue or he's just busying getting married or something crazy I haven't heard. But thats alright. I've been feeling the need for a new page to be turned this week. The winter "break" period was a longg one. It's still cold, but its warmed enough for things to start melting and I don't wear a hat anymore, finally. There still aren't a ton of people outside but our efforts in less actives are starting to pay off so we're busier than normal. Theres about 3 weeks left in the transfer and I've just been feeling the need not to wait out and start the next one better. I want to imrpove things now and have that carry me through. 

  first off, we had some outright miracles this week, and i wanted to tell you about them. last monday we were walking in the other elders area (thats where email is, its literally the only time we arent in our own area) and a girl stopped us on the street- baptized member that got back from living with her mom in a town where the church hasnt reached. said she was going to come to church on sunday to find us, but found us randomly on the street anyway. turns out she didnt get to make it this week after all, so if we hadnt seen her it would've been atleast another 2 weeks. she's good though, she'll be a good member when shes fully active again that can help the branch. 

 during email time i got a referral sent to us from mormon.org- why is that a miracle? because it NEVER happens in Armenia. not enough people use the internet or know how to do that sort of stuff. addresses are a mess, the system of Armenia in general is a mess, but elder frey (zone leader) and I managed to actually find the place tuesday. cool guy, wanted a BoM to research, said he'd let us know in like 2 weeks if he wants to learn more. 

  then later on monday i got called and the person just said "cookien enk oozoom" (enk oozoom is we want) I thought someone was just messing with me, so i said "pechenny?" (russian word for cookie) they were confused and repeated themselves, when i finally realized they were talking about Elder Cook, who i never knew but know the name and know he served here. you put the IN ending on a name when its a direct object. basically they wanted elder cook to visit them again, and since hes not here they'll settle for us. we havent been able to meet yet since someone in their family went to the hospital, but they said theyll call us again. 

 we found another less active this week thats served a mini mission and everything, was just in Russia for 2 years working. but he's back, and just got married to a girl he's gunna bring to church. 

finally we were visiting a member randomly cause he wanted help downloading mormon messages in Russian, and ran into the former branch president, whos freakishly tall by the way, like Chase's head will reach his shoulder id guess, who was over there for no apparent reason. anyway the guy hasnt been to church in like 3 years, but i think he just figured he wasnt wanted there since apparently he did a pretty bad job as BP. but we invited him and he came, and the members were all pretty welcoming. 

 And finally the family I told you about last week that showed up on the radar again out of nowhere we finally got to meet with this week. they still like us and the message, they loved the Joseph Smith movie, they just dont really get what it all means/why they need to join our church. they assumed everyone believed that God came from Heaven to talk to Joseph Smith, and gave him the Book of Mormon. they asked me "wait, don't people in the Armenian Apostolic Church believe the Book of Mormon?" I almost laughed out loud, they hate us. but i explained no and they were confused at why people wouldnt believe it. funny thing is they havent read it yet. So theyre in kinda an interesting situation where culture is just overrulling everything, but we're excited to get them connected to some awesome members in families just like them and we know they can be great. 

  so yeah! some pretty great stuff this week. We're working with a recent convert on preparing for a mission, he's doing well. we finally got all the in active member information sorted out and figured out who was in our area and now we're hunting them down. its nice, it gives you a place to walk to instead of just walking around and gives you a reason to chat with people if you cant find the address. most that we've found are in Russia, two people wouldnt open the door for us and another turned out to be crazy. but i was inspired by Chases email from this week about how things went- this focus on less actives for us is working, already 4 people are coming again, but its also showing the branch president and hopefully members they can trust us with anything. I think the miracles we saw this week was evidence that atleast the Lord had noticed that. as we care about His lost sheep, and study on what you actually teach someone who already knows the facts but doesnt want to come (harder than i assumed it would be), He's given us straight up lost sheep who are ready to come back and its awesome. and all in all we still have new investigators to help too. things are still plenty hard, and i'm kinda tired, but i feel good. 

i love you all, i hope you have a fantabulous week and that no one gets sick. oh and shout out to Bo Bleyl! I knew his number was getting called soon but forgot the exact week, but it sounds like this is the one? so excited for him. man its a party. 

k love you all bye

Love Elder Moore

Heyyy

Heyy family, remember me? 

  Hey it's all jokes you guys know I love you and I forgot to write Tyler all the time. I bet the week was pretty uneventful anyway just getting back to stuff. I realized in my journal i had still been writing 2013 until like the 9th, that was weird. The week was another one that didnt move too fast. Not because it was terrible, it wasnt the best but it went fine. im not sure why things have slowed down in my mind lately. maybe its God's way of stressing that i gotta get some more stuff done this last month of the transfer. who knows. I've been thinking about Charentsavan a fair bit lately. Elder Smith, who was in Hrazdan, the other city in that district whos state is a step down from Char, meaning really really bad, until he went to Yerevan to serve as an assistant, was telling me how much he missed Hrazdan because it forced him to rely on the Lord in literally everything if he wanted to stay sane. Char was about the same. I didnt think I could keep walking all day with no one talking to us, i was super young and felt like i was doing it all wrong, and had nothing to rely on. Elder Marco, yes, but he was there longer and having just as rough a time. but we relied on the Lord in everything we did, including together, and things turned out alright. Now, we have to learn those lessons and then move on, so we can still rely on the Lord while more things work out. I'm not saying I want to go back to walking all day every day- i love the responsibilities we have of working with less actives and new converts, trying to strengthen the missionaries relationship with Branch President, and serving other missionaries, especially my companion, and ultimately helping new people get baptized. But it does lead to a sense of complacency- you're busy enough, so thats good, but if youre honest with yourself you know you could do a lot better, but only if you rely on the Lord. And thats harder than it sounds when youre cold and tired and want to tell yourself that its enough. So i've been in an interesting situation within my own head, being tired, knowing I am doing a good job, but also knowing it needs to be better, and then just trying hard to remember the Lord and rely on Him constantly. its been good though. I had a lot of good exerpiences this week with the scriptures and zone meeting and listening to old conference and BYU devotonals, but i dont remember anything specific to tell you all haha whoops. 

  in work, like i said we're working hard to make contact with all our less actives and work with who we can. we haven't gotten in touch with too many people, but it gives you a different feel as you go walking to find their houses instead of just walking to walk. one lady we visited did come to church this week, apparently shes a great person for finding other less actives because she knows a lot of people. we're also working hard with a new convert to get the melchizedek priesthood and prepare to serve a mission, and another new convert who's our mission leader. its been fun to take a new approach to the same missionary lessons, and our focus has been on receiving personal revelation and i love it. we have one man, the dad of the preparing missionary, who just needs to get baptized but was super busy for new years, he said he'll be free soon though. and i dont know if you remember the family we found that just stopped answering our calls but i called him out of the blue and he answered, said they were in yerevan for weeks. he might still be dodging, but i refuse to believe it till he tells me, cause i remember the look in his eyes when i taught him about the Restoration. 

  K guys i love you all tons and hope you have a great week. i love this work so much. i love how hard it is! 

Love Elder Moore  

Crazy Bus

Dear Family and Friends, 

  Man its been a crazy two weeks! They've gone really slowly for some reason but they haven't been that bad, even though they've been slow. No worries about not writing, I took the extra time to look at all our missionaries mormon.org profiles (we have to make one, and they're usually crazy awkward) then i called them and read they're funny lines to see if they'd recognize them. This morning I got to talk to Elder Marco for a while, man I miss that fool. I've served around plenty of other good missionaries since our time together, and its gone fine, i just underestimated how awesome it is to work with a great missionary whos a good friend because hes just like you. but the past two transfers off on my own adventures have provided a lot of good lessons im sure i'll use. 

   anyway i finally figured out what New years in Armenian was like, and if i end up home before the next one i wont be sad about it. before new years everyone was crazy busy getting ready, but the days since new years the streets have looked like the rapture happened. not too many people to talk to. we visited with all our members though and got to talk to their family and friends a little. that was good. anywya new years eve itself we set an alarm to get up like 10 min before the change cause elder christensens never seen a new year (???) the alarm woke me up, but not out of zombie mode, so i turned it off and slept. the fireworks woke me up and i cursed all the dang hooligans in our courtyard. so basically being a missionary for a year has made me turn 70. thursday was my hump day, that didnt seem weird to me until i actually thought about it. i love being an experienced missionary, and im confident the best is yet to come, but it is weird to think how numbered our days are. i ate my mac and cheese that i've saved since june, then i spent a long night in the bathroom. (does 2 month expired mac and cheese actually mean anything? what goes bad? cheesy powder? it might have just been all the armenian food and junk food our members fed us) but yeah the rest of the week was just talking to members about Christmas (theirs is today, all the restaraunts are closed :( ) and goals for this year. so to fill you in, on new years itself they throw a party. then the rest of the week their table is just set with lots of drinks and candy and cake. they wait for people to visit them, then heat up dolma (basically the most classic armenian dish) and bleencheeks (DELICIOUS! WHO IN AMERICA NEVER THOUGHT OF MAKING TACOS WITH CREPES INSTEAD OF TORTILLAS??) and they eat together and go crazy wishing everyone the best year imaginable. then they go visit their friends. when we did see people outside all we had to do was say "congratulations" and theyll talk to you. They mostly think we're Jehovah's Witnesses since they dont celebrate holidays, why else would anyone be outside? so we got to correct a lot of wrong thinking this week. 

  not too much else this week. glad to hear everyone had a good time with all the family. get back to school! im excited to get back to working hard. we have about a month left in the transfer, plenty of time, and i could easily stay here (elder christensens been here 8 months) and i know things can turn around very quickly if we do our part and trust the Lord. I love you all! 

Elder Moore