meow

Dear Family and Friends,

  I haven't meowed in a while. Actually I have, there's plenty of cats out on the street, but I've found it difficult to incorporate meows into the Armenian language. I'll work more on that. Starting meow. 

  So anyway, when I said I didnt want to hear about conference that didnt mean dont write me! Ha guilt trip. No worries, good stuff this week. And I did get to watch conference. Watching 6 hours with an hour or two break is kinda rough, and then 4 the next day with no break, but it was still awesome. I personally loved the talk on meekness, the one (priesthood?cant remember) about being a better teacher, I liked Elder Bednars tithing talk, really loved Elder Scotts about the people of Ammon, and LOVED all the first presidency's talks, especially Pres Monson. So inspiring. and of course i noticed the focus on missionary work- i felt like 2 other speakers mentioned it well, and then Elder Ballard came in and crushed it. His was so good. Anyway Ill try not to preach, but the need for member work is very very real, and i love what he explained about people not understanding that their duty is to just get people to the missionaries. I wish I'd realized how much better missionaries are suited to teach the gospel to my friends that had questions. i know if we can live good examples, people will notice, and when they ask, as long as we arent super weird in introdcuing the aspect of meeting with the missionaries, they'll accept. Anyway I also noticed 2 apostles addressing the role of women, and heard there was some craziness around Priesthood session related. Its sad that has to happen. 

   Not too much else going on in Artashat, but this week my testimony grew about the Love of God, and I wanted to share a lil bit. Armenias tough, no bones about it, its tough to help people accept the gospel and missionaries face a lot of negativity. there are a number of older missionaries in our mission who havent faced that in the right way, and its weighed them down, and now theyre really negative and its sad. i caught myself being too negative lately, not loving everyone, and thinking of ways to just make them understand. but in my studies i hit verse after verse that God loves all His children, and I realized i needed to develop greater love and get back to that focus. two weeks ago I was studying and read the classic verse in Matthew that we need to love our neighbor as ourselves, and I realized something new from that verse- if we can't love ourselves, how can we possibly love others? if we look hard we realize those that are hard on others, at their cores, are harder on theirselves. i suffer that all the time. in looking for ways to love others as God loves them, i realized i needed to remove the obstacles in my own life to feeling His love more. Sometimes we just need to give ourselves a break, because we're far from perfect, and a work in progress. I love what Pres Eyring said once "we never need feel that we are alone or unloved in the Lord's service because we never are" its true, we should be able to feel loved regardless of what were doing, but we're constantly taught that if we serve others and lose ourselves we will feel that love so much more. i have a testimony of that. 

 i was doing a baptismal interview this week for a 9 year old kid, who acts like a 6 year old kid, with the terrible 2s. Basically he's one of the more char (evil) kids i've met in a while. but his mom just got baptized, and he wanted to, and the sisters told me he was doing a lot better and being a good kid. trouble is, he's kinda scared of me, and had just come from karate, so he was nuts. he refused to pray, gave me all the answers i didnt want to hear, and told me he didnt want to be baptized. i knew he did though, so with a lot of patience and some help from his mom i got the right answers out of him (he told me for a good 15 minutes that he was going to drink tea) and then they left the room for me to decide. as straining as the experience was, and my pride kept telling me just to tell the kid he couldnt get baptized, just to "win", as soon as they left I felt the love of God for this boy. (I wont type his name, but it literally means "piece of fire") and I felt the love of God for me, and that God was happy that i had sat patiently, and that PieceofFire was getting baptized, because that's what all His children need so they can come back to Him. 

  I love you all, i love this work, i love the gospel and Savior, and I love the country and people of Armenia, as well as all the great missionaries who labor here with me. Its crazy how love changes people

have a great one

Elder Moore

Oh yeah
so crazy story- our washer was messed up and wouldnt open. i pulled the door release without realizing i needed to drain the thing first, then tried to drain it and some other stuff happened, long story short there was water all over the floor. like atleast 5 gallons. after 3 towels didnt do it we didnt have anything else, and we were going to yerevan for 2 straight days the next morning and didnt want to leave it wet, so we decided we had to leave the door to the balcony open all night and let it air out. its gotten to be winter here, and i still dont have a blanket cause it was so hot notlong ago... it was a long night.