So Little Time

Dear Family and Friends, 

   Hey erreboddy. Todays a little weird, we're doing email and groceries but then going right back to work, cause this Saturday we're going to Vernasage- I might have explained with Elder Maughan, but at the end of the mission misisonaries are allowed to swap one pday for a saturday and go to vernasage, a massive flea market in yerevan.elder chojnacki is not at the end of his mission, he leaves in february, but he and the other 2 elders in his group don't have any sisters to go home with, and apparently vernasage is lame in the winter, so they got permission to go now. at the beginning of my mission i would be stoked to go somewhere all saturday and buy cool stuff and then eat at a restaraunt. but i've already been, i spent too much on stuff that i have to take with me all my mission now, and i just want to do missionary work. plus this week was a long one and i was looking forward to a few hours to sit and recharge, but itll have to wait. 

  anyway like i said it was a long one. tuesday we were in northern yerevan for district meeting for weird reasons, and we took transport (bus, subway, transport van) back instead of a taxi- we argued about that, then we got home at 6 and got nothing done, so i was annoyed. wednesday i had to go to yerevan again for another meeting, not anyones fault, but then we were late getting out of the building cause we needed to stop chatting with others and we got home late again. the rest of the week things just didnt work out, we couldnt meet with our investigator except for once- it went well though, he goes to a kinda crazy church that believes in the gift of tongues, but we got him to pray in armenian which was a big step. we met with the man who doesnt want to be rebaptized, taught the plan salvation, which he LOVED. Thought it was so interesting. hes in helaman- asked us about why he hadnt read about the day night day at Christ's birth in the Bible (its significant cause it means he's actually reading and understanding) anyway it went great, then we explained that only this church teaches the Plan and accepts the BoM because only this church is true, then the meeting blew up and went to trash. just a very prideful man that makes me sad. we're going to teach about prayer- he refuses to pray about if he needs to be rebaptized (he says that would offend God for thinking it wasnt valid, but he really just doesnt want the answer) anyway if we cant get him to pray then we wont have much left to do. our only other investigator is still harvesting grapes. the seeds were gross, the grapes were great. and yes i paid the price for eating so many. 

  anyway i say so little time because we really dont have much time to be missionaries. i saw that two days in a row and it ate me up inside, i was itching to even just get out on the streets to talk to people that would most likely not want to meet. a good friend had the same experience - they had to clean their apartment cause they're moving, then had some branch activity thing, etc etc. he said if he had done all that at home he wouldve been shocked he got so much done, but none of it was teaching investigators, so it felt like a failed day. this time really is special. the transfers almost half over (remember we do 12 week transfers) and not much has come about, and who knows how long ill stay in Artashat. but the Lord has promised our days will be enough if we try to use them right. 

  Lanes- dont assumed that I know what hsm means. Although im embarassed to say i did figure it out. 

  Zaz- Maxwells my favsies too, he loves to talk but such a great kid. the whole family is amazing though, the carlsons are just the bomb. tell em all i miss em! as for the mousetrap, dont use a fishing rod! we tried at it was illegal. dad helped (did) mine at the deadline, get advice from him and then get your group in gear. 

  Dad- the weathers cooled off and stopped raining. im back into my long sleeve shirts but still not a coat, which is my favorite (a little bite in the air, plus i look good in a long sleeve white shirt) tell abby hey. I know theres an armenian sister in temple square that comes home in october, she lives in my ward now so ill get to meet her. maybe its her. as for priesthood session- i thought theyd never do that cause only the men were supposed to watch it? was i wrong? interesting. 

  okay thats all folks. love all of you mucho mucho. oh and one final word DO NOT TALK ABOUT CONFERENCE! we dont watch it till the 12th and 13th, and i do not want to hear anything about it. write emails and save them as drafts, i know everyone forgets about conference after 2 weeks. k thanks. and dont wear my shirts. 

love elder moore

Bonus Content ... second email on Sept 23rd!

Dear Party People,
  The Dirty South has gotten lots of rain, and now its become the
Muddy South. I'm not a big fan, but inch anenk (whatr ya gunna do) I
love Artashat, but it's been difficult. We have good things going on,
but I feel they could be better. We have a great amount of worthy
priesthood holders, but almost everyone in Armenia is inexperienced on
how to lead the church. So its a constant process of being grateful
for what we do have, but ultimaltey being discontented and working
hard to improve things. It'll always be that way within myself as a
person and missionary I hope.
  Couple quick points- since Artashat is south and hot, its great
growing weather. Everyone- literally everyone, grows grapes this time
of year and the past 2 weeks they've all been harvesting. Ive never
eaten so many grapes in my life. I've eaten grapes every day for 2
weeks now. And they all have seeds, which everyone keeps telling us
are healthy and to eat them, but they're not tasty. Anyway. Grapes.
  We had 8 people come back from the Kiev temple this week, a couple
that was sealed, and 2 others with them receiving their own
endowments. They bore their testimonies in sacrament. It was nice, I
miss the temple, but what struck me was watching our 2nd counselor sit
and cry the whole time. He's been baptized since 2004 i think, got
sealed like 2 years later, and hasnt been to the temple in atleast 6
years. Its expensive, but even if he saved the money it would still be
hard because the church only has about 100 seats to send people twice
a year, and there are a lot more new members waiting to go. He's an
older man, he may never see a temple finished in Armenia. I hope he
does, but it just struck me. How special the temple is, and how much
he misses it. Armenias not the worst case, I've heard of people
sacrificing more to go for whats likely the only time they'll ever go.
But it made me realize how much i had underappreciated the temple. we
always say it, but it was personally relevant to me, and i hope i
never lose it, that we always need to have a temple reccomend and need
to go often. Ill have no excuse at BYU, and the traffic to DC is a
pain, but its not 3 days on a crappy bus like it is here. Anyway. My
preachy moment for the week.
  Not too much else going on, we had an awesome zone conference
friday. i sang with two sisters in my district that sing ten times
better than i do, but it was good. we still dont have too many
investigators- one is a man who loves the BoM and Joseph Smith, but
refuses to be baptized again, and is just prideful in a way that makes
me more sad than annoyed. we have others, but everyones busy
harvesting grapes.
  sounds like a pretty routine week. Hopefully the girls quit
complaining about school and try to live it up! as for lanes, she'll
look back on how cool she though she was and laugh, and she'll
understand eventually why i dont even want to come home now (although
i wouldnt mind if linus and livs paid me a visit) you guys are
awesome, have a great week, rock on
Love Elder Moore

Rain Rain Go Away

Dear Family and Friends,

  It's always interesting how when the mission makes you give up all these things you realize you don't really need them, atleast not for 2 years. TV, texting, facebook, etc etc are all just time wasters. Not the devil, but not needed, I actually believe that, and its easy too since theyre just not available to me. The same thing has happened with basketball, wearing clothes except the same pants and shirt and tie every day, petting dogs, and even drinking milk- the sister being trained in Artashat drinks Russian milk, I told her not to, she said "you dont understand" and I laughed at her. I do understand. But one day Ill drink milk. later. 

anyway the same thing happened during the first 5 months I was in country, in Charentsavan. Being 30 min away from Yerevan you're far enough so that you dont go and people dont come, but youre close enough so no one worries about you. theres no restaraunts or fun stuff to do, and theres only 2 other elders in your district. Elder Marco and I used to feel lonely sometimes, but now i miss being off in my own corner of armenia to just work hard with my comp and have every one else leave us alone. now its different. in our district is the heart of Yerevan, with great resaraunts and cool stuff to see. Its a little distracting to me, but mostly to the other missionaries in the district, and im just kinda tired of dealing with it. and i have 2 sets of sisters that are only allowed to call me if they need anything, so lifes a little more hectic. I dont particularly like it, but just being left to myself for 2 years would be selfish when i can serve others. but i miss super focused, literally 0 distractions, hard work. its like im a different person or something. :)

Well i was gunna send a seperate email home with a few pictures telling a special story. but we arent allowed to send pictures with other people. ill mail them, but i couldnt wait. 

 Charentsavan was a very difficult time for me, everyone's read plenty about that already. but the bright spot was M and his family. They were people who actually managed to see and focus on what was important in life and set their sights on that, leaving everything else behind. M quit smoking, and his wife and mother stopped coffee. They came to church and prayed as a family. The wife was the only one with eyes good enough to read, so they listened to her as a family. leaving Charentsavan was hard for few reasons, but those few reasons (people, M was one of them) made it very hard, especially going south where our building has a font, so we wouldnt be allowed to go to yerevan for baptisms. but this friday i was on an exchange with elder kopsa, who serves in yerevan. we got a call that even though the elders in Char didnt think it would work out that week, M had successfully quit and passed his baptismal interview. we worked it out so that we finished our exchange at the right time, and Elder Marco (Elder Kopsa's comp) got to join their baptism. M and his wife asked us to baptize them. I wish I could send you the pictures. it was easily one of the happiest days of my life, to see people I had grown to love leave everything they needed to leave, do everything they needed to do, and be baptized on the original date that Elder Marco and I extended them 6 weeks ago- they were baptized on the 14th, so they can go to th temple next year on September 15th with the group going. what a special day. 

  Other than that the week was a rough one. It wasnt till it was over that I realized we got very little done. We met with a man who loves the Book of Mormon and says he believes Joseph Smith was a true prophet, but refuses to be baptized again and accept that his church is not the complete fullness. thats been hard. it happens though. its hard to explain whats been going on though. the weeks of my mission are starting to speed up for me, but theres still not much getting done. mission wide thats the feeling coming down from the top, and i see it in my own area and district. the mission isnt reaching its potential, and Pres Carlson is trying with all his might to push us forward. it has to come from within us at the end of the day though. thats been weighing on me a lot lately. 

  i hope everyone has a great week, congratulations to bo bleyl on brazil! crazzzzyyy. Im so proud though. i know me being proud doesnt amount to too much, but im so excited for him. ive already realized why no one can explain what missions are like. calling it awesome doesnt do it, and calling it the hardest thing ever doesnt do it either. its hard to explain, but for 2 years you suffer and have joy and just give everything you have to a work that is so far beyond you, all for reasons that you wouldnt normal suffer for and have such joy over. its incredible. 

 after the baptism we were late getting out of yerevan, but managed to catch the last passenger van leaving to artashat, so we squeezed on with 30 other people. i was half on a seat sharing it with a nice lady, surrounded by people who like me were all just sweating and stinking. and i thought about how id never and will never do something like that in america. and then i thought about why im doing it. and then i smiled. 

  as for the girls- lanies got swag. too much. someone needs to beat her down. with a stick. and im actually not okay with the girls wearing my shirts. so please dont. that yellow service shirt is my favorite bball shirt. work hard in school, but enjoy the rideeee! okay ive been cliche enough this week. 

  With hugs, smiles, sweat, rainbows, tears, and love from the DIRTY SOUTH, 

ELDER MOOORE

I've Been Spoiled

Dear Family and Friends, 

  It's always interesting how when the mission makes you give up all these things you realize you don't really need them, atleast not for 2 years. TV, texting, facebook, etc etc are all just time wasters. Not the devil, but not needed, I actually believe that, and its easy too since theyre just not available to me. The same thing has happened with basketball, wearing clothes except the same pants and shirt and tie every day, petting dogs, and even drinking milk- the sister being trained in Artashat drinks Russian milk, I told her not to, she said "you dont understand" and I laughed at her. I do understand. But one day Ill drink milk. later. 

anyway the same thing happened during the first 5 months I was in country, in Charentsavan. Being 30 min away from Yerevan you're far enough so that you dont go and people dont come, but youre close enough so no one worries about you. theres no restaraunts or fun stuff to do, and theres only 2 other elders in your district. Elder Marco and I used to feel lonely sometimes, but now i miss being off in my own corner of armenia to just work hard with my comp and have every one else leave us alone. now its different. in our district is the heart of Yerevan, with great resaraunts and cool stuff to see. Its a little distracting to me, but mostly to the other missionaries in the district, and im just kinda tired of dealing with it. and i have 2 sets of sisters that are only allowed to call me if they need anything, so lifes a little more hectic. I dont particularly like it, but just being left to myself for 2 years would be selfish when i can serve others. but i miss super focused, literally 0 distractions, hard work. its like im a different person or something. :)

Well i was gunna send a seperate email home with a few pictures telling a special story. but we arent allowed to send pictures with other people. ill mail them, but i couldnt wait. 

 Charentsavan was a very difficult time for me, everyone's read plenty about that already. but the bright spot was M and his family. They were people who actually managed to see and focus on what was important in life and set their sights on that, leaving everything else behind. M quit smoking, and his wife and mother stopped coffee. They came to church and prayed as a family. The wife was the only one with eyes good enough to read, so they listened to her as a family. leaving Charentsavan was hard for few reasons, but those few reasons (people, M was one of them) made it very hard, especially going south where our building has a font, so we wouldnt be allowed to go to yerevan for baptisms. but this friday i was on an exchange with elder kopsa, who serves in yerevan. we got a call that even though the elders in Char didnt think it would work out that week, M had successfully quit and passed his baptismal interview. we worked it out so that we finished our exchange at the right time, and Elder Marco (Elder Kopsa's comp) got to join their baptism. M and his wife asked us to baptize them. I wish I could send you the pictures. it was easily one of the happiest days of my life, to see people I had grown to love leave everything they needed to leave, do everything they needed to do, and be baptized on the original date that Elder Marco and I extended them 6 weeks ago- they were baptized on the 14th, so they can go to th temple next year on September 15th with the group going. what a special day. 

  Other than that the week was a rough one. It wasnt till it was over that I realized we got very little done. We met with a man who loves the Book of Mormon and says he believes Joseph Smith was a true prophet, but refuses to be baptized again and accept that his church is not the complete fullness. thats been hard. it happens though. its hard to explain whats been going on though. the weeks of my mission are starting to speed up for me, but theres still not much getting done. mission wide thats the feeling coming down from the top, and i see it in my own area and district. the mission isnt reaching its potential, and Pres Carlson is trying with all his might to push us forward. it has to come from within us at the end of the day though. thats been weighing on me a lot lately. 

  i hope everyone has a great week, congratulations to bo bleyl on brazil! crazzzzyyy. Im so proud though. i know me being proud doesnt amount to too much, but im so excited for him. ive already realized why no one can explain what missions are like. calling it awesome doesnt do it, and calling it the hardest thing ever doesnt do it either. its hard to explain, but for 2 years you suffer and have joy and just give everything you have to a work that is so far beyond you, all for reasons that you wouldnt normal suffer for and have such joy over. its incredible. 

 after the baptism we were late getting out of yerevan, but managed to catch the last passenger van leaving to artashat, so we squeezed on with 30 other people. i was half on a seat sharing it with a nice lady, surrounded by people who like me were all just sweating and stinking. and i thought about how id never and will never do something like that in america. and then i thought about why im doing it. and then i smiled. 

  as for the girls- lanies got swag. too much. someone needs to beat her down. with a stick. and im actually not okay with the girls wearing my shirts. so please dont. that yellow service shirt is my favorite bball shirt. work hard in school, but enjoy the rideeee! okay ive been cliche enough this week. 

  With hugs, smiles, sweat, rainbows, tears, and love from the DIRTY SOUTH, 

ELDER MOOORE

Going Dark

Dear Family and Friends

   Haha okay I think it's not gunna be as bad as it sounded at first. We went to zone meeting tuesday and Elder Kopsa (maybe my favorite missionary in Armenia) read the new regulations that they had just received that morning, basically telling everyone not to share any pics or any info about anyone that wasn't us ourselves, not even other missionaries. I pictured it as when the patronus comes to the wedding  and announces "the minister is dead. the ministry is fallen. they are coming" everyone went crazy with questions, concerns, complaints, wondering if the government was gunna bust through the door at any second. We're not really sure why this is all coming out now, everyone and their uncle has had a blog their whole mission. i guess its with the whole facebook and social media stuff being announced. Anyway after a quick read through the letter they sent to everyone, it sounds like the blog just needs to be private. idk how hard that is, the letter says if its by invite only it should be fine. idk how many people are keeping up with it, but if you make it private and then just put it on my facebook that to read it they need to get an invite from you we should be able to keep all the pictures up on a private blog. Pres Carlson will come back from Russia and maybe be able to answer more in detail questions. But for now just make the blog private and we'll wait on any further news. Oh and the address that you have is already the mission office address anyway. As for pics Im still not quite sure. 

   That being said, there wasn't too much to report this week anyway. We went to Khor Virap monday which was superr cool. Its an Armenian church, and the history behind it is apparently the start of Christianity in Armenia. Look it up, Khor Virap and Grigor Lusavoritch, i dont remember it all. the church was pretty though, we got to descend into the pit (khor virap means deep pit/dungeon) where Grigor was apparently imprisoned for a while until an evil king was cursed and then accepted Christianity or something. Its an interesting story. the church was super cool though, its on a cliff overlooking Ararat, but it was pretty cloudy so i dont have amazing pictures. it was a fun time with the district though. the best is pretending like you dont know Armenian (they dont like us at their churches, so we try not to give away who we are) i have plenty of funny stories about that for later. 

  this week was a pretty slow one, we had one man listening but he was too busy this week and may have dropped us. we're not sure yet, thats never good. the higlight of the week is a man who we met with, neither elder chojnacki nor i could remember meeting him on the street, but his number was in our planner, so we called and he let us come over. taught, he liked it, said it was good, but that he didnt need to get baptized or anything. that was frustrating. but we left a pamphlet. saw him on the street a few days later and he said he'd read the pamphet and wanted a BoM "just to get acquainted with it" poor guys already ours, he just doesnt even know it yet haha. i love when it works out this way. so we went over and gave him the Book, and he was a changed man. he'd studied the pamphlet and liked it all. went over 2 days later and he'd already read the intro and up to 1Ne 18! dang it was crazy. he understood it all and remembered really well. we watched the JS movie and stuff. but we found out that he didnt want to come to church or get baptized not just because he didnt think he needs it, but because hes concerned about others judging him. thats something we've struggled with a lot. armenians are either independent and dont care at all what others think, or they're the very opposite, and its really difficult to get them to trust God. He thinks he can sit in his apartment and read and that will be enough. his understanding that he cant just do that will increase as he continues to read, but itll take a lot of work. but we're committed. 

  that was about it for this week. ive struggled a lot this week to find direction. with the change and being moved into a tiny apartment and starting from scratch, everything else kinda went downhill with it. my studies were rough, my prayers werent that great, everything just felt like going through the motions. i wasnt sure if i shouldve been doing more (having more success from the start, being a better leader, etc) but i knew that i should be better myself. idk. it still hasnt been great, the feeling of the work in general has kinda dropped, but the good news is i hate the empty feeling thats been here about two weeks, so i'll be working hard to get back up to the high mark i and my first two comps had held each other to. 

   sounds like everyone at homes doing well, good to hear the cougars did something impressive. Work hard at school! I've kinda forgotten how much school could stink some time, but work hard and enjoy the good times at every appropriate opportunity! Love all of you

Elder Moore

the joy is in the journey

Dear Family and Friends, 

  Man missions are an adventure. Even with Char getting kindof old there were still just crazy things, and my time in Artashat has been really hectic so far, but Im learning to embrace and love that. This past week the Yerevan sisters called me and said "hey guess what we found out? the kida we baptized with her grandma last week was actually SEVEN, not eight!" I laughed so hard, with a little concern seeing as the BoM defines that as an abomintion, but it was a really funny story. the problem is that in Armenia for some reason everyone rounds up, basically saying "im in my eighth year" but only saying "im 8" its kinda dumb. and the sisters just werent paying attention filling out the baptismal form, honest mistake. President Carlson thought it was hilarious. the funny part is the kid turned 8 like 9 days after her invalid baptism, so shes just being rebaptized and we didnt send the form to the church headquarters. crazyyy stuff. 

   in other news, i keep forgetting to announce my prediction in the future of missionary work- 2 year sister missions. i think it will only be optional if they want it, and idk when it will come out, but i think after technology thatll be the next big thing. so just remember when it happens in 10 years that i called it first. 

  last week we got to go to a really cool vank (pretty but empty church) in yerevan, and there was a little carnival next to it, so elder shields and i rode what ive termed the vomitron. it turned in vertical circles while your little car swings freely, so basically you just flip over and over way too much. i couldnt feel my hands or face, and it was awesome. today we're going to Khor Virap (KH is a hard throat H) which is like the coolest and most historyish vank in armenia, and you only get to go from shat! should be super fun

   So Artashat is really hot. like really really really hot. Im not sure its any worse than a blazing and humid day in RVA in mid Aug, but i didnt have to walk outside for 6 hours in that heat. its been pretty rough. usually we come in for lunch, i pull my 1.5 liters of water out of the freezer, drink it all, and then have no appetite. the work is still pretty slow. we met one man last week and got to meet with him once. he said he would pray for strength to quit smoking (he smokes ~60 a day) and then two days later he said he was starting to work it down, but we havent been able to meet since. one of our members invited a man to church and he really enjoyed it, wanted to keep coming, so that was good. he lives in Ararat, maybe 45 min away, but comes to Shat often enough, and Elder Chojnacki and I are also planning on going to Ararat for a day every now and then cause we have a fair number of members there (there was a branch, but it closed) 

  We met 2 enlgish speakers in 20 min last night it was crazy. one is named Ed, hes from CA, hes a preacher for some Pentecostal (?) church and he does not like us at all. i knew arguing with him would be useless and i figured since we were two people on the other side of the world for our faiths he wouldnt want to meet, but i tried really hard to be nice and to find a common ground of Christianity and respect for sacrifice so we could leave on a good note. But he just refused to let me have it. he asked if i actually believed what i teach, and i said yes, and then he said he felt sorry for me. i asked why i would be here and not at school or working or dating for 2 years if i didnt atleast feel strongly about it, and all he said was people do crazy things. he was just really unpleasant. he had major problems with very deep and not-the-most-important doctrine of our church, and refused to read the BoM because it was "teaching those things" i told him it wasnt, that he was putting the cart in front of the horse, and that at the end of the day we were very very Christian. but he just wouldnt let me have any ground, so i condemned him just a little and we left haha. he told us to do some serious introspection that night into why we were here, who we were actually serving, etc, and i did- i prayed about it actually. and i felt a peace that id been searching for for about a week with everything being so hectic. so thanks Ed. then we walked 100 yards and met Armenians/Assyrians from Canada. the dad and his son spoke enlgish, the dad spoke Armenian and the son spoke Aramaic. He really liked us and actually asked us to give his son a blessing so we went to the church and did. they said they would meet the missionaries in canada, they leave this week. so that was super cool. 

  sounds like good stuff from home, shame to hear about BYU. its crazy that schools already starting again, i remember summer flying when i was a student but as a missionary the girls school break was just a blink. todays my 8 month, 1/3 mark, but im not really worried about that sort of stuff anymore, im in my trenches and wont worry about anything till i only have 6 months. in january ill burn a shirt cause thatll be awesome, but thats about it. 

  anyway i love all of you, and i hope you understand how important this gospel is. i hope you understand how important it is to me, but i hope its important to you. 

much love

elder moore