Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Christmas Week!

December 21, 2015

First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you've all been having fun with all of the Christmas festivities :) I have been for sure! This week we had our Christmas Conference with the mission and it was super fun. We spent the morning in a meeting with our mission leaders and listened to some great messages about Christ and remembering the
reason we are all here as missionaries.

This week I was pondering my purpose as a missionary, which states, "invite other to come unto Christ." I was thinking about the importance of the word come. It easily could say invite others to go into Christ, but by using the word come it implies that I'm already on my way to Him. And it's true, I've been shaping my life in a way so that I'm am drawing closer to Christ and now I'm inviting people to join me in the process.

We spent some more time in the Temple Visitor's center this week, nothing new there! I just keep meeting really great people and I get to explain the importance of the temple and I see people's eyes light up when they realize what we do inside. It's one of my favorite things about working there :)

We had some really powerful lessons this week, totally guided by the spirit. I love my companion because she's still learning Spanish and she relies 100% on the Spirit during our lessons and it makes them so much better! She's super awesome and we are working together really well and having lots of fun!

And the best part of the week...Sindi got baptized! By a miracle her parents signed the paper to allow her to get baptized after 7 months and she was baptized :) it was so amazing! Hermana McMillan and I sang the First Noel. She was so happy and she was glowing :) it was such a great day.

I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the holidays. If you haven't already, watch the new Christmas videos that the church has made, they are so powerful and really help us remember why we have Christmas. Love you all!


Con Amor,
Hermana Moberly






Faith Brings Miracles!

December 14, 2015

This week has seriously been so crazy and it went by so fast! I'm limited on time because we had our zone activity today and we played soccer for 3 hours and we also made our Christmas card! so we have about 30 minutes and I have to email lots of people :) Sorry!

We made it to the temple 3 times this week and we were working there one night, so it was fun. That night the Little River ward decided to go, so we saw a lot of people!

My last companion is currently in Mexico and I miss her like crazy, but my new companion is Hermana Craner, from Arizona/Utah and she is awesome! I love her already and we have been working really hard. Last transfer we basically spent the whole time finding people and teaching lesson 1 about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and recently we have been teaching lesson 2, the Plan of Salvation a lot. I love teaching lesson 2 because the center of it all is the Atonement of Jesus Christ.. If he hadn't come to suffer and die for us, there's no way that we could ever return to live with God. And there is also an emphasis on living the commandment and doing good here in the world. I love it!

We had a little adventure this week. We are allowed to drive to the temple in our mission cars only if we are going to work there. So on Saturday we were going to work, and the GPS took us through DC, so we drove up to Maryland through DC and it was the coolest thing ever. There are some amazing, beautiful things there. Fun fact, we passed by a graveyard that looked exactly like Lord of the Rings. I hope you all got to see the pictures and videos on my iCloud, they're pretty good!

Miracles this week. I love when I know that the Lord is in charge of the work. This week we found a few people that were former investigators because that's what the Spirit told us to do. We were where we needed to be by following the Spirit during daily planning, and he led us to where we needed to go while we were there. It was so cool! I'll write more about these people next week. Some of them had a baptismal date and then they went to El Salvador, so now I know why they disappeared on me!

Love you all! Have a great week! Good luck to those of you who have tests this week :) Have fun!

Love,
 Hermana Moberly

Monday, December 14, 2015

Transfer Week

December 7, 2015

It has been another crazy week! So much has happened in the last few days I don't think I'm going to be able to write it all, but I'll try!

Last Monday after emailing we went to DC for the day! We walked around in the rain for an hour and a half, but we got a lot done! We saw the Washington Monument, World War II memorial, Lincoln, Korea, Martin Luther King Jr, and Jefferson Memorial. It was pretty fun and we got tons of pictures. We were walking around and my companion mentioned that it felt like there was water in her boots and I did too, but we figured that it was the cold...when we got home we figured out that we really were wet, but we didn't know how that happened. A couple days later I found a hole in the bottom of my boot, but we still don't know about the others. And because of that day I got sick this week, so on Wednesday I was told by the mission doctor that I couldn't go out and proselyte. We also had gotten our flu shots earlier that day. So it was a little bit rough. I got sent to the Doctor the next day, and that was a waste of time because the doctor told me to take vitamin C and zinc, which are already both in my vitamins that I take every day. And she basically ran out of the room, so it was strange.

Aside from all of that, the week went really well! We had a Skype lesson on Monday night that went pretty well. We talked about the importance of going to church, and specifically the importance of knowing which church to go to. I love that I get to teach this every day, because it helps me remember really how important all of this is and how much God loves each of us, but especially me. :)

Luis is progressing little by little! We got him to the temple visitor's center to see the lights and the Christmas devotional and he loved it! Rolando is his new buddy in church. Speaking of Rolando, this Sunday he got a calling and he is now a ward missionary!!! I'm so happy :) Its the perfect calling for him, because now he's going to be a part of missionary work pretty much daily between the 3 companionships that we have.

We also went to the TVC on Thursday and Friday night. We had Luis Fernando and Javier come with us. Javier is a newer investigator, but is currently preparing to be baptized on the 4th of January! When we went to the TVC on Friday we went on exchanges with the sisters that work there in the temple and we were TVC Hermanas for the night. It was interesting because instead of us going out and finding people we had to wait for the people to come in and then we could talk to them. But we met people from all over and got lots of referrals :) I don't think that I could be a TVC Hermana because I didn't enjoy sitting and waiting, I like going out and doing things.

We had a training for the members of our ward on Saturday, which went really, really well. It was effective and the members that went had fun with our practice teach and they are more inspired to share the gospel. The only problem is that 14 people came...so we're going to do it again and we'll get more people to come and our ward is going to get even better. We can work so much better with the members and they can know better their role in missionary work.

I think that's basically what happened this week. Since we watched the Christmas Devotional in the TVC they didn't have any translation, so Hna Villanueva got to translate during the program for our group. It was interesting, because there are words in English that I don't understand, some that I couldn't say in Spanish, but overall it was really fun and successful. I realized that I know more Spanish than I give myself credit for. And its easy to translate for people that you love :) We had a huge group with us, we took 4 cars and 19 people, it was awesome! I love this work, these people, and this gospel. I can't picture myself being happier anywhere else in the world! Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
 Hermana Moberly

Korean War Memorial
Batman Hat!


I've Worn Out My Boots
Temple Visitor Center

Thursday, December 3, 2015

December Already?

November 30, 2015

I think it would be safe to say that this week has been the most interesting week of my entire mission. The first half was really weird and not very successful, but the second half was great! Its been a bit of a rollercoaster, and I feel like it can only be fully understood by other missionaries and returned missionaries.

We have met a lot of non-denominational Christians, Pentecostals, and Muslims this week. Starting off with that should give you a hint to our adventures. Monday night we met Jocelyn. She was super open at the beginning, invited us in, mentioned that she had spoken with missionaries before (fun fact, she talked to me and Hermana Pettit last year). All was going well until she mentioned some of the things that she learned from her church and the special abilities that she has, such as seeing spirits and demons. She told us that one time she was walking down the street and saw a man with black eyes and God told her that that man didn't have a soul. Also, she practices praying in tongues everyday for an hour among other things. So we started from the basics and talked a little bit about the purpose of prayer and the purpose of the gift of tongues and the necessity of baptism, all of which she denied and was basically fighting against. So we left her some things to think about and to read and pray about and we got out. I walked away and thought about how grateful I am for the gospel and that God is a God of order and everything just makes sense. I'm grateful for a living prophet and his guidance, and I'm grateful for personal revelation and answers to prayers.

The next day we met 2 Pentecostals and 2 Muslims. The Pentecostals told us that we need to spread the word of God, which is the bible, not the Book of Mormon and basically said that if we spread the Book of Mormon we were going to go to hell. Not the first time I've heard that, but now it doesn't effect me because I've received an answer that it is true. We left them with a few cards and our testimonies that they can know as well. He tried telling us that the sign that you have been baptized by the Spirit is speaking in tongues and nothing else. So I started studying a lot about the gift of tongues, because I knew it was real and that it still can happen,. but I didn't understand it all that well. Now I know that Satan can very easily imitate speaking in tongues and we have to be VERY careful with that. The purpose is to uplift and edify and teach the members of the church, so if there is no translation for it, we must be careful. I've learned a lot this week from the rejection that has come to us.

Now, the Muslims. We met two of them on the same street and they told us two different stories of what they believe, so I still don't know exactly what they believe. One said that Christ died like every other man on the earth, the other said that God switched Christ for a look alike here on earth and was taken up into heaven and is waiting for the time to come back again. Also, the story of Muhammad is very similar to the story of Joseph Smith, except Muhammad was told what to write by and angel, and Joseph was led to find the ancient history of the people here in the Americas and translated it by the power of God. Once again my testimony was strengthened of the principles that I have learned and continue learning. I have spent a lot of time on my knees talking about these experiences with God, not because of doubt, but because I have a desire to help everyone come unto Christ from where they are. I have received answers for knew ways to teach people and of course it has be reaffirmed to me that what I'm doing is part of God's plan and that everyone really needs to know that truth, and they can through prayer. Just most of them aren't willing to do that. God is the only one that we can trust, and if we don't ask him, we can't trust anyone.

We experienced a lot of rejection, but we had a lot of miracles this week too. We found a woman named Marisol, and we just had a quick little lesson on her porch. She has some friends and family members who are members of the church and was actually planning on sending her daughter and niece with her friend to church next week, but now she is going to come too. My favorite part was when Hermana Villanueva recited the first vision, instead of just accepting it she said that she wanted to learn more and invited us back before we invited ourselves. She is so prepared and we are excited to see what's going to happen! Luis Fernando is another investigator and he has real intent. The good thing is that yesterday was the last day of his soccer league, so he can come to church next week! He is awesome and he is so willing to do what we ask him too. This week he will start reading in the Book of Mormon, and the lights start at the temple on Thursday, so we're going with him :)

We had the charla fogonera last night where all the recent converts share their testimonies, so Yessenia spoke :) Also, my companion spoke because she is going home in less than two weeks! Crazy how fast time goes. It was so nice to see my family from Bella Vista and Sudley. The spirit is always so strong in those meetings and everyone leaves uplifted. I have come to realize that one of my biggest sources of stress is time. Its even worse now because my companion is stressing about time as well and its not helping. I feel like there are so many things that I want to do, but I can't do it all in the time I have left. That's probably why I mention it every single week in my emails! I love all that I'm doing and especially all that I am learning. I feel my testimony growing stranger each and everyday. I wish I could share it with every single person in the world, but its not possible. I'll stick to sharing it with the people here for now and we'll go from there :)

Have a great week! Also, this week my companion and I are working in the Temple Visitor's center on the 4th (Friday), so send people you know around here! Love you all!

Love,
 Hermana Moberly

16 Months :0

November 23, 2015

My time is running out, so I'm running as fast as I can :) Literally and figuratively, haha. Last week on pday after emailing we had our zone activity, and we played soccer. Its been a really long time since I played, like a really, really long time. So this week was a little rough the next few days. I don't ever remember being so sore! Haha, I guess that's what I get for trying to play so hard when I'm so out of shape, oops.

We've decided that instead of having office elders, Hermana Villanueva and I are going to be the office hermanas :) Haha, just kidding, but we have spent a lot of time in the mission office that last couple of days trying to work out some visa stuff. All is well now, so we don't have to go back for a while! That'll be nice because we can go out and teach instead :) Most of the time that we were their my companion was on he phones and computers, so I fixed our area book! We had a lot of people with out their full information and a lot of people that we have met that weren't in there yet. The weird part about it was that I enjoyed it. I basically sat there on my iPad for a few hours with millions of sticky notes with information and organized it all. Weird that I found joy in that, haha. But now its pretty and we have almost all the information that we need.

On Friday we had a choir practice. Fun fact, the missionaries in the Washington DC South Mission are singing in the visitor's center on Christmas Eve! So if you know people around here, send them to the temple visitor's center on December 24th :)

We had some pretty amazing lessons this week. One of them we taught in English, which was really strange. But it was good becaseu I really felt the Spirit directing us in what we were saying. The woman didn't accept anything except a pamphlet, she wouldn't touch the Book of Mormon, even though its the evidence of all that we are teaching, but I walked away content and I knew that we had done the best we could and the rest was for her to decide. The other lessons were filled with the spirit and had positive effects. We have some incredible new investigators and they will be getting baptized very soon if they don't disappear like the rest of our investigators!

We've accidentally taken some of the elders investigators too :) haha, I'm not even sure how it keeps happening because its been different every time. I kind of feel bad because we're taking them, but they have other things to do too, and they let us have them. Oh well!

The weeks are getting shorter and the end is coming closer. But this week I am grateful for all that I have learned and all of the changes that I have made and experienced. I know the gospel needs to be the center of our lives in order for us to experience true and lasting joy. Love you all! Happy Thanksgiving :)

Love,
 Hermana Moberly

Another One From Me :)

November 16, 2015

Here we are again, but this time my sister is married! Congratulations Cory and Eric :) My week probably wasn't as exciting as yours, but it was still really good!

So last Monday after emailing we went to Great Falls again, but we went with Hermanas Bliss and Tate and a few sisters too. It was super fun! I'd send some pictures, but I don't have any yet...but when I get them I will send them :)

Most days we have a lot of set appointments and we have everything planned out for what we want to teach people, but one day this week ended up a little different. We had planned on teaching the restoration a few times, but when we got there it was not what the families needed, so we switched it all up, but the Spirit was there guiding us and it worked out perfectly and our people are progressing. I love how it works like that. Even if we think we know what we need to do God provides a way for us to figure out what these people really need.

We had a zone conference this week, which was super awesome as they always are and I didn't have to present anything, so that was really nice :) It went WAY longer than we had planned, so that messed a couple things up in our day, but we left uplifted and edified and we had received revelation, so I can't complain! President Huntsman is awesome and I love him :)

We went on splits twice this week and we saw some miracles. We can get so much done when we are both working in different places at the same time! And the members are great and so willing to help us out. I went with Hermana Cisneros on Tuesday and we found a new investigator. And Thursday night I went with Hermana Barbosa and her two sons and taught a really good lesson to Luis. We started the lesson and he said that he had never felt the Holy Ghost before while praying, reading, nothing, ever. So we opened up the scriptures and read about the fruits of the Spirit. By the end of the lesson he realized that he feels it every time that he prays. So this week he will be paying more attention to those feelings and searching for an answer to everything.

We visited a couple people this week that I had taught previously, one of them being Seyda. We retaught the restoration and she recognized all of it, but couldn't really remember what we were talking about. But now she is preparing to get baptized. We don't have a date yet, but its going to happen soon :)

Yessenia got baptized!!!!!!!!!! It was the most perfect baptism and she is so happy!! Also, we got 12 referrals that night on top of everything, so we were feeling on top of the world. God is so good and he really loves each and every one of us :)

Good news! Rolando came to church this week!! He called me a few times this week and since he's finally back in Virginia we're going to be working with him a lot :) He needs a calling, a patriarchal blessing, and everything else so that he can go through the temple in February, but we're getting there :)

Miracles continue :) I hope that everyone had a good week and didn't miss me too much at the wedding ;) I love this work and I am so grateful for the short time that I have to be a part of it. Thank you for your prayers! I'm going to need all I can get so I can sprint to the end. Love you!

Love,
 Hermana Moberly

Yessenia's Baptism!

Annandale and Springfield Zones

Not Much New

November 9, 2015

Well, I just sent you all an email only four days ago, so not much has happened since then! But I'll share the bigger things :)

Thursday night we had an awesome lesson, the only weird thing is that it was over the phone. We were going to meet with an investigator, but we were running late and it was really far from where we were, so we just called him instead. His name is Luis and he's progressing more than most of our investigators. He's been reading the Book of Mormon, going to church, praying, everything. The only problem is that he doesn't think there is a need for a prophet today and doesn't believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. So we've been getting him into the Book of Mormon so that when he knows that it is true all of his other doubts will be eliminated! So we talked to him on the phone and it was really cool because the Spirit was definitely dominating the conversation and we were able to clear some of his doubts and know what to do next while we talked about the tree of life and Lehi's vision. Then the next night we went to the Temple Visitors Center and watched The Testaments with him and the spirit was super strong. Another problem we can see of his is that the spirit is working with him, but he is denying just because of the way that he was raised and everything. So we're helping him recognize that as well and accepting it. But as soon as he knows the book of Mormon is true he will be baptized probably the next day. But he is progressing and he'll get there :)

We should be having a baptism this week on Friday, but we will be having the interview on Tuesday night. Her name is Yesenia and she has a pretty interesting situation, but the important thing is that a door was opened for her to get baptized and we're taking it! She's been investigating for years, but given her situation she was unable until now. But we are so happy, please pray for her that all will work out!

Saturday and Sunday were pretty interesting days. We had a ton of appointments set with some awesome people and literally all of them were cancelled. So we knocked on doors all day long. The weirdest part about all of it was that we never got rejected really, just that no one answered the doors. And it was pretty cold. It was a very strange weekend. Also on Sunday we were given 5 meals. One after our correlation meeting, a late lunch appointment, an early dinner appointment, and surprise dinner appointment, and also one of the members made food for us and left it in the fridge at church. Our refrigerator is now full, so that's good! Also, Sunday night we were looking for less actives in our area and we found one named Sonia. Cool story is that I was at her baptism back in February right before I left for Sudley. 

So not much has happened, but we're working a lot and I'm really tired, haha. I guess that happens after 15 months of doing this everyday. But its all worth it and I'm still loving every minute, so I hope you never think that I am unhappy. Love you all! Have a great week :)

Love,
 Hermana Moberly

The Deza's

Hermana Sanchez, her husband and a friend