Not so terrible, now that it's past april fool's we seem to be ok .... eom

Things have gone terribly wrong!!! Help please, contact state department

All,
Terrible news! My comp and me (asefkk anllx dwerm) decided to go on a tracting marathon. We decided we wouldn't stop till we found a golden that would be ready for baptism and be baptized the nearest weekend, in the nearest body of water. We really went for it.

Thought we'd be protected but it seems we've surrounded by Crimeans and Russians? All I know is the first tank we saw we ran and hid. Why is there a scythe painted on it? We are faithful, and have tried contacting people while we hide, but most don't speak our language.

We walked NW for about 8 days, but don't know where we are.  Could someone scan a map and send it to us, or maybe estimate where we are?

Worried! In Armenia?
Elder Hlztak (Moore)

I'll email the rest of the story tomorrow.

We busy

Dear Family and Friends, 

   I keep reading other missionaries emails that say they have so little time and basically just wonder what other people do on preparation day. we have no where to play sports, our zones are too far away to do activities, and there isn't that much to go see. plus no temple or anything. so idk. that being said, im gunna go quick this week cause i need the pc time to organize my pics a little bit. and i dont have much news. 

   so the main news of the week is mother and son, who are boggling our minds and stressing us out at the same time. they havent put forth the amount of effort needed, so they dont know if joseph smith was a prophet or if the book of mormon is true, and they didnt come to church yesterday and dont really feel bad about it. BUT, if you ask them about their baptism saturday, theyre super stoked and really want to make it (they dont really realize they may not make it) i honestly dont get it. we always try to help people realize they get baptized for the remission of sins, not just to join a church they like, but they've taken that and run. they dont like the members or church that much. seriously they drive me crazy. but the mom, who has some sort of chronic illness, said a few weeks ago she told God if she didnt get sick before the 29th she would take that as a sign that this was His church and be faithful in it forever. so with our leaders advice we're just trying to fuel that and get them as prepared as we can. if we dont feel shes ready we'll have to wait a week or two to show her we're serious, but she could make saturday. so pray for her to stay healthy and wear out the book of mormon!

  no other news. we're staying pretty busy with meetings and branch stuff. this week we'll be in yerevan twice or thrice. trainings hard, getting kinda harder. im pretty happy with how things are though. 

   anyway i hope you all  have awesome weeks. miss you all tons, but this work is so great!!!

love yeretz avelin

hey hey hey

It's Fat Elder Moore 

  Dear Family and Friends, 

   Yeah I was losing weight. Then Elder Potter showed up. We buy like 3 containers of butter a week, he makes popcorn every night to celebrate the fact that planning is over, etc etc etc. not that i couldn't still be healthy, its just a lot easier when your companion eats like a bird and doesn't cover everything in salt. ill get back on it though. 

  im gunna try to finish up a little quick and send a bunch of pictures, its been a while. plus theres not too much going on today, good news mostly. tuesday we had pres bennett come to yerevan and teach us how to shift our mindset into one of teaching- we don't go contacting on the street anymore, we go teaching. it hit me. i didn't write a ton of notes down, and the predominant thought was "now I have more work to do solo as a trainer" but i remember being hit with the feeling that this was going to change my mission if i would work hard at it. that specific thought. and the early results are good. i had slipped a bit and shifted my head that i was going to find people to teach, not just to talk and chat with and get a phone number from or tell to stop smoking. to teach. elder bennett promised us there were hundreds in our city that are ready to be taught.  we found 5 new investigators this week, the most for us in atleast 2 months. i actually said prayers with people on the street. i taught a lesson right in front of the armenian church haha. it was really cool. 

  our investigators are starting to progress. we brought one of our strongest members who decided to let us take the night off and teach the whole time to our mom and son preparing for the 29th. she was teaching and testifying and committing and it was all exactly what the mom needed. she read a few chapters in the BoM already and came to church early. she can make it. 

  our other investigator got his marriage license and decided he didnt really care what day his baptism was, so he's looking solid for the middle of april and also has great help from his member wife and our mission leader, who lives across the hall. all way cool stuff. 

   this week i lovedd my studies and listening to speeches from BYU. I studied the doctrine, the actual WHY, of conversion. not the applications (keeping commandments, making covenants, not sinning, etc.) or the principles of changing our lives and giving them to the Lord, but the why of itall.it was way cool. and i did the same for repentance, with a lot learned. 

 final thoughts about how awesome the gospel and missionary work is- President Bennett gave us a crazy challenge to promise people better and bolder blessings. he said the Lord will back you up, and I'm confident He'll back me up as I say this- offer cooler promises. so i thought about that a lot, and decided to offer my companion and district a promise from the final verses in Alma 31- focus all your efforts on the Lord, and dont worry about what you wear or eat. and as i was preparing a promise i realized i could back it up because its happened to me. i've tried to forget myself, and literally been less hungry, and cared less about food, and less about what i wear, and less about sleeping, and i've run off less sleep doing more work than i thought i could for a whole year. the all things are spiritual- all things, even food and sleep, and thats why it seems like the Lord is so quick to bless us temporally as well as spiritual- because its all connected. 

  stay too legit to quit

love elder moore

Mom and Son

Our Last District and two members

How my mornings go

New Frames

Dear Family and Friends, 

   I don't know why but I've honestly been bored these past few weeks. Sure, I get to laugh at Elder Potter and all the things he isn't used to, then laugh at myself for being used to it, but I've been in a rhthym/funk that just feels dangerous even though nothings wrong, I'm still obedient and trying to work hard, especially in training. it's tough to push myself in the language, especially when im constantly in a state of half english half armenian, trying to explain things to elder potter, push him to speak armenian, and still talk to armenians. the days just arent that long anymore, especially with our extra study time, and any disappointments dont really last past the day. i dont know, its a good thing but im looking for ways to just make this work harder for me, because i know theres more that can be done. 

  anyway i got new glasses this week. they're pretty hip (thats a thing, right?) my old ones were scratched up, i wanted to get my eyes checked and have good glasses to give my eyes a rest from contacts. funny thing- they had me look at the chart, and all the letters are in Russian. i know them, thankfully, but theres two letters- H, which is their N, and then a backwards N, which is their I. There was a H and N one after another, and I called them both Hs (Ns) stay with me- she didnt realize I got it wrong, she thought i knew the H was an N but not that the backwards N was an I, that I thought it was also an N. so she told me i just didnt know the letters, and missed the fact that I actually could not see them that well. it's okay i figured it out. living in a country with three different main language problems. they look good though, took a little adjusting to slightly stronger lenses, but im happy with them. 

  other news, it was Womens Day this week- not Mothers Day, Womens day. I said "Congratulations on being female" they thought that was funny. we got flowers to give to our members- in Armenia an odd number of flowers is for happy things, even for bad, like deaths. which worked fine, we just gave out 1. i knew that, what i didnt know is apparently white flowers are also only for sad occasions. too bad, we handed out like 15. American style- take whatever we want and make it our own. 

  the week was pretty slow, our investigators were all busy. the mom was only free saturday, and just wanted the sisters to make brownies with her for womens day, then she didnt come to church and hasnt touched the Book of Mormon. she can still make the 29th, but only with the help of Heaven. we're working on creating a blind branch (okay hes only the 2nd one, but still) with the husband of a member. our blind member we work with all the time showed us his English braille BoM (dont ask me why they gave it to him, he doesnt understand a word) its HUGE. a giant binder, big pages, and like 400 of them make up the start- 2 Ne 12. craziness. we were thinking about having him start writing the Arm braille BoM, since he can, and if we dont have meetings he just sits home all day. but he doesnt want to. lame. 

  this week we had zone conference, they asked elder marco and i to teach about teaching to meet needs. it was a lot of fun to teach with him again even if it was to americans . it was cool though, and Pres Bennet from the Area Pres is coming this week too. should be fun. 

  I love you all, hope you all have a great week. WHY is it still snowing there? you're the best

love elder moore

MUD

Dear Family and Friends, 

  I HAVE MUD ON MY THIGHS. How is that possible? the members all get mad at us cause we keep tracking mud into the church (atleast its not a carpeted floor) sorry people, its your city's fault, and we're out talking to people all day! haha crazies. anyway it finally warmed up, I'm back to my favorite look of long white shirt only , but it is mud city. literally mud everywhere, where there isnt mud there's puddles that cars drive through and get your glasses muddy. i keep using the mud as a conversation starter, asking when itll dry up, but they just laugh at me. awesome. 

  other than the mud, things are going well. our mother and son agreed to be baptized on the 29th. they like it, they like churhc and liked the elders baptism this weekend. their concerns are a lot of reasonable concerns that investigators have in armenia a lot as the church grows slowly but surely- the members. Alma 4:10 is a rough way to put it, but its the most accurate sometimes. we have rowdy members, some hate each other, refuse to turn their phones off, argue over points of doctrine and both are wrong, etc. etc. its not like thats every one of our members, but its enough to bother investigators, and you can't blame them. its sad when someone can't focus on the doctrine of the church and realize they are the ones that need to help us make the change. anyway this mom and son are kinda getting that, they'll overcome it. the real issue is she's still investigating three other churches- she told us she wasn't a church person until a short while ago, and when she decided to look for a church 4 (including us) found her within a month. i respect her ability to decide, but the problem is shes not reading the BoM. if she would, it would disappear quietly. if she doesnt, we'll never convince her cause thats not what we do, and i refuse to get into the ring with other faiths. so pray for her. 

 other than that things are going well. trainings hard. really hard. but elder potters fired up about little things that i had gotten lazy over, so thats good. he makes me call everyone we've ever talked to constantly. i'd be a lot happier if he could call them haha, but its a good thing. and i'm getting good advice from my leader, and a lot of good advice from my trainer (mostly all the things i did that he had to deal with!) but the work is going well and it still has farther to go, so thats whats really exciting. zone conference this week will be just what i need to get back to A game. 

  love you all! not too much to say this week but thats not a bad thing. i'm healthy, even though these crazies keep stuffing me full of oil soaked food. 

have a fantasmazing week

love elder moore

huh?

Dear Family and Friends, 

   I'm paying the full price for making fun of Elder Maughan at the end of his mission (but seriously, he hadn't seen the last Harry Potter!) I have NOT been gone long enough to feel this old. Elder Potter was shocked when he realized I had missed 2 of the new editions of the video missionaries go to watch once a week, never saw iron man or superman or sunglasses man or whatever other new superhero movies I've missed, blah blah blah. he keeps telling me how much he wants his iPhone 5S, like thats supposed to mean something to me. hey. my phone lets me make my own ringtones. whenever our members call it plays a hymn in phone tones. i love him, but today we went to a meeting with the elders and elder miller and i were just excited to talk fast armenian, so we let our new companions talk about their mtc hooliganness. its crazy how time and effort combine to change people so quickly. 

   the works going alright, nothing too much to complain about this week but we hoped it wouldve gone better. the mom and son havent met with us all week. she's working crazy hours. the thing is, i feel i've done a pretty good job learning to be patient with armenians, especially investigators. but i need to now learn how to be patient with other missionaries and members that have no patience for investigators. and thats a whole new problem. our member, when he heard the mom was asleep instead of coming to church, suggested we teach about laziness, and throw in all the reasons why the Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong (she's learned about them some) thank you, but no. all she really needs is love, patience, true doctrine, and more effort to be consecrated on our part. 

 but like i said we went to a lesson with the elders today (they found her, she lives right next to our house) and her and her mom said "we want to join your church, is that okay? what should we do?" yep, that is fine with us. the girl works every day, gets one free day a month, but she said she would read and try to make sure that free day was a sunday. the mom will come once the weather warms up, she just had surgery and is still pretty weak. theyre awesome though. Its times like that, when unexpected blessings just fall in your lap, that you realize 1. how important it is to just be a missionary all the time and 2. how pleased the Lord is when you do it. I had another experience like that yesterday, we went to a members who isnt coming to church because no one will come to visit her at home, so we missionaries went over for her birthday. the other 3 elders were on the couch chatting and enjoying cake, the sisters were focused on the member, so i just decided i would chat with her neighbor friend who was just sitting in the corner. we talked about the classic stuff that armenians tend to enjoy discussing with americans who are interested- languages, especially armenian and russian, the soviet times, their lives and how different it is, etc etc. then he told me about how his wife and mother had died within the last 3 months. if i had just preached to him from the start, he probably wouldve shut off. i can chat about normal stuff, but as soon as things got real i told him about the temple and my testimony of it all. then i finished my cake. we're gunna teach him and his son's family this week. 

i love being a missionariy. and i love doing it all the time. sure sometimes i put on jeans to do service and realize how comfortable normal clothes actually are, but i love the white shirt and tie. i love having it tucked in and polishing my shoes, and not just because it makes me look good. most of all i love the tag. 

  you all are awesome. i miss you tons, i hope you have a fantabulously boring week

love elder moore