Casi Alli

Another great week in my life as Hermana Moberly! So spiritual and so fun! To start off, I wanted to talk about a story we were told by a teacher here at the CCM. He taught our class one day and told us one of his mission stories. He served in Chihuahua and one day he had a baptism. Then some people that were working with the cartel came into the church building to find someone who was running from them. He and his companion went out to stop them and the man hit him in the head with the barrel of the gun, but then he was able to stand up and command him in the name of Jesus Christ to leave the building because they were unworthy. I wish I had enough time to tell the whole story the way he did, but I can´t. It was so powerful and the Spirit was so strong in our classroom. His testimony was one of the strongest that I have ever heard. I can´t even explain the way I felt. And you know me, I cried through it :) It was amazing.

Normally we are supposed to have 20 minutes each day with our investigators, but I tend to talk a lot , even in Spanish (I get that from my parents). So me and my companion end up going over about 10 minutes each lesson and it came back around to us. Yesterday we only had 5 minutes to give our lesson and it ended up being a follow up appointment. I was kind of worried that we wouldn´t have enough time to bring the Spirit, but it was actually the opposite. It ended up being a short little testimony meeting. We had just taught our investigator about the Word of Wisdom and he has been reading the Book of Mormon. He said that this week he bought some coffee and was about to drink it, but then he thought about Nefi and how obedient he was. So he threw the coffee away because he wanted to be like Nefi. And then I started crying because I was so happy that he was able to take what he learned from the Book of Mormon and use it to be obedient. If I am crying over this, I can´t imagine how happy I will be when I can see the change in an investigator and see them be baptized. 

One day during class this week, since we have an odd number of people in our district, Hna Silva asked me if I would help her go around listening to the other Elders and Hermanas teach each other. I felt super awkward because she said that I just needed to make sure they had the main ideas and were speaking proper Spanish. I had no idea my Spanish was good enough to do that, but I helped out. It’s amazing what the Lord can help you with when you work hard and are obedient. You will always be blessed for those things. 

I gave my first talk in Spanish this Sunday! I was so nervous and I read about half of what I wrote down. We are only supposed to talk for 5 minutes, but again I went over that time. I really need to work on that. But I felt the Spirit very strong during that meeting and I am understanding more and more. And I got a lot of compliments on my talk, so I guess it was pretty good and easy to understand. 

Today we were able to go to the Mexico City temple. The temple is actually closed, but we were able to finally get out of the CCM and go to the visitor´s center. We watched the video that is in all of the visitors centers that I have been to. It’s the one about families and the plan of happiness. It made me so grateful for my family and the knowledge that I have that we can be together forever. I know that that is true and I love the Lord and I know that he loves all of us.

Some messages I got from our devotionals this week:

Start with the end in mind. When you look at people, see them as how they can be. How happy and successful they can be in their lives if they have the gospel. And then try to help them achieve that goal.

Without the Spirit you can never be successful. The spirit is the teacher in all things. We cannot do anything without the Spirit. We have to find where their hearts are and allow the Spirit to work through us to teach what needs to be taught.

As I´ve been reading the Book of Mormon I am looking for the characteristics of the profetas and I´m, on Nephi now. He has a desire to know the things of God, he believes, he ponders, he lets the Spirit lead him, he speaks according to the truth, he is righteous, he is willing to do the will of God, he is diligent and humble. All of these things help him receive joy and great hope and happiness. These are all found in the first 16 chapters of 1 Nefi and I think it is awesome. I want to be able to do all of these things in my life. I find the great characteristics and then work on them myself. Nephi truly is amazing!

My one and only job for the next 17 months is to be a representative of Christ. I´m just going to do what he would have done and say what he would have said. It has been a rough adjustment and I am still working on it, but with God´s help I know it is possible.

The Holy Ghost is just as important as baptism because all the things we receive and learn come from having the Spirit.

Now for the funny stuff. I am on a roll this week with hitting people with things. I nailed Hna Snowden in the middle of her forehead with a ping pong ball yesterday. She got a red welt on her head. Then I hit a tennis ball with my racket and hit my companion super hard. Also I hit one of the elders in my district with an acorn like thing that falls off the palm trees here. Every time this happened I could not stop laughing and all of my strength left so I ended up on the ground. And I couldn´t say sorry because I couldn´t breathe I was laughing way too hard. So I apologized about 5 minutes after these things happened. And I cried a little bit more. 

I met an Elder Durrant this week, and he is 6´8, so my basketball friends will enjoy that :)

Leg day is horrible and hurts really bad. We say all of our prayers here on our knees and it has been a struggle for me to get back up sometimes. 

One day during gym, I was walking by the foosball table and one of the elders made a goal, so he steps back to celebrate and basically runs me over. It didn´t hurt and everything was fine, but later he brought me a milch bar (Mexican chocolate) because he felt so bad. It was so sweet! 

I made a goal to run 6 miles this week with my companion. I´m crazy, I know. What happened to the Kelly you all knew? 

Yesterday during service, the lady that was telling us what to do asked for a picture with us. Since I have the longest arms ever I got to take it, so my selfie game was on fire this week. And I held a cell phone for the first time in 5 weeks. 

I think that is all for this week, I love you guys and I miss you, but I´m learning a lot and I´m doing well :)

Love,

Hermana Moberly

Mexico City TempleVisitors Center

Hna's Moberly and McMillan at Mexico City Temple

Mexico City Temple

Hna's Moberly and Hill

Picture of the Savior, Mex City Temple

Beautiful Visitors Center

Nefi at Mex City Temple

Big Book of Mormon, MC Temple

Dos Mas

We had some amazing devotionals this week at the CCM...just like every week! On Tuesday I learned some important things. One, conversion is a process, not a moment. That is good for me to hear because I feel like the investigators should just have one time during the mission where they understand and feel the spirit and that is all. They are converted, but that´s not how it works. We learn little by little. That goes for me as well. I have to know the doctrine of the gospel before I can be a really good teacher. That´s also not going to happen in a moment just because I´m on a mission. It’s something that I have to study everyday and learn for myself. I can´t just expect to have all the answers for my investigators, I have to get a testimony first. That is why we as missionaries have so much time for studying the gospel. It’s a process that will last through the rest of my mission and throughout my life.

Another thing I learned is that we have to always act in faith. That is sometimes how we get answers to our prayers. In the bible, in Joshua 3, the elders carrying the ark had to get their feet wet before they could pass through the river on dry ground. Sometimes we have to do things like this to get answers to our prayers. Es muy importante that we always act in faith. Strengthen you´re faith so that it can get to that point.

Our Sunday devotionals were really awesome too! ''The youth of this generation have a greater capacity for obedience than any other generation''. Isn´t that awesome? I think that is amazing and I hope it gives you more confidence and incentive to be obedient like it has given me :) ''You cannot be who you have the potential to be unless you really do love the Savior''. Peter had a testimony of the gospel, but when Christ died, he went back to fishing. When Christ appeared unto him after he had been resurrected he asked 3 times if Peter loved him. On the third time, Peter finally realized that he loves the Savior more than anything and that was the point in his life where he became the Great Apostle that we know of. We have the ability to be enhanced by our love of the Savior. When we really, truly love Him, we are given power to preach and serve and be an example. Strengthen that love you have for the Lord everyday by praying and reading you´re scriptures. It is amazing what we have the ability to do.

That night we watched a restoration video that I have never seen before all the way through, just parts of it and it was so good! I had the Spirit testify to me so strongly during one part of the film. Joseph´s older brother, Alvin had died before the church was established and they didn´t know if he would be saved because he wasn´t baptized. They were told by many ministers that he was lost forever. But then Joseph received the revelation from God that those who have died without the gospel, who would have accepted it on this earth would have a chance to accept it in heaven. I was filled with the spirit so strongly in that scene and I know it is true. The people who have died without the gospel do have that chance to receive it in the next life.

Good news! I´ve started teaching my lessons in Spanish without my notebook full of sentences to say. I´ve narrowed it down to bullet points in English that I can expound on and teach about in Spanish. My companion struggles a little bit more than I do, but she is improving so much and our lessons have gotten so much better :) It’s amazing! We have been teaching about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity and that is a difficult subject to teach in English, but we have been managing with the help of the Spirit in our lessons to say the things that need to be said. 

Now I have some sad news. Elder Ballard went home this week because there were some things that he didn´t fix and repent of before he came out. We didn´t get to say goodbye to him or anything, but we do know that he has full intention of coming back out as soon as he can. Also, Hermana Judd left yesterday for her mission and I won´t be seeing her again until I´m back at BYU. But it was such a tender mercy for me so be with her the last four weeks and she is going to be an amazing missionary. 

Now for some funny stuff! I haven´t seen the movie Warm Bodies, but from what the other Hermanas and I were talking about, this seems pretty acurate. So I guess in the movie this zombie falls in love with a human and grows his heart back. The part that is like us, is that during the movie you can hear his thoughts and they are just as fast as any other human. But then when he talks its super slow and not really in full sentences. So that is how we are trying to learn Spanish. We know exactly what we want to say and how to say it, but it comes out super duper slow and not very good grammatically. Accurate. Also, last week I mentioned we were going to have a fast from English...It only lasted for about 6 hours and by the end of the day we couldn´t find the words in Spanish that we needed and we all gave up. I would probably have had to do 50,000 push-ups, so it’s a good thing we didn´t keep track of the words we said in English!

Guess what? I ran this week! Me, Kelly Moberly, the swimmer/ water polo player ran 3.28 miles in 2 days. It killed me, but I did it. My companion was a cross country runner, so after 1 mile I was dying and she hadn´t even broken a sweat. We all have weaknesses in life. Mine is definitely running. On the bright side I didn´t fall this time :)

We went around the room in a district meeting one time and said something unique about ourselves. I threw out that 2 months ago my hair was 13 inches longer and had pink tips. All the elders kind of just stared at me for a little bit and then started asking questions. It was so funny because half were shocked and then the other half it didn´t surprise them at all. And then I kind of got interrogated about my life because I guess when people have pink hair it means they are crazy or something. I don´t really know, haha, but it was really funny :) One more thing, I´m really good at foosbal. We played with our district during gym one day and I beat them. It’s the competitive side of me!

That´s all for this week. I love you and miss you. Find you love for the Lord <3

Love,

Hermana Moberly

Beatles...we had to do it

Mi y mi companera on the monkey bars

The best way to study

We can be serious sometimes

Half Way There!

I officially hit my three week mark tomorrow! I can´t believe I only have 3 more weeks left here! It’s going by sooooo fast! I could use some more letters! ;)

Tuesdays and Sundays here are the best days! We have meetings all day on Sunday,  but they´re all so amazing, even Sacrament which is completely in Spanish. I can understand everything that the Missionaries are saying, but when the branch presidency gets up there I´m lost. Our devotional on last Tuesday night was fantastic. We talked about our reasons for keeping the commandments. There were answers from “because it makes me feel good” to “that´s what we are supposed to do”. Elder Salinas said that we should be keeping the commandments first and foremost because we love Christ. I believe that with all of my heart. Think of the person you love most in this world. Don´t you want to do anything to make them happy? Christ wants us to keep the commandments and in 3 Nephi 17:20 he says that his joy is full when we pray and do what is right. We should all strive to keep the commandments a little better to show the love we have for Christ. That night, later on, we watched a Mormon Message about a man named Todd Sylvester and it was amazing. Please look it up and try to watch for FHE or something. It’s so good and you can feel the Spirit so strong. 

Our devotional last night was really good too. We talked about how through the atonement we can receive strength according to our faith in Christ. I think one of the reasons I struggled so badly going through changes in my life is because I didn´t ask for enough help from the Lord.  But now I am praying all day every day and it has been the easiest adjustment in my life. I know the Lord is willing and able to give us the strength we need to get through these kind of things if we just ask him. Like I said last week, we have blessings waiting for us, we just need to ask for them. Last night we watched a video like every other Sunday and we saw How Rare a Possession. It was all about the Book of Mormon. It showed a man named Vincenzo Di Francesca. He was the man that found the Book of Mormon, but the title page was missing and the title had faded on the cover. He read it and prayed about it like in Moroni 10:3-5 and received his answer that it was true. For years he tried to share its teachings with his congregations. He was a priest in an Italian church. Eventually he was kicked out of the church because he would not burn the book and was afraid of offending God. After years and years, by mere chance he found the name of our church and wrote to the leaders asking to be baptized. They arranged many times for him to be baptized, but it never worked out. He was either stopped by the police or prevented in any other way. He found the book when he was 19 or so and finally got baptized when he was in his 60s. It shows how dedicated we should be with studying the Book of Mormon.  Look at how hard this man tried to find the truth and join the church that he knew was true. We need to develop that same faith and appreciation for the gospel.

One of my investigators, Daniel, has committed to baptism. Even though I know he isn´t a real investigator yet, when he accepted, I started crying! I couldn´t help it! I was just so happy! I can´t wait until I am able to share with people who really don´t have the gospel. I have a testimony of the Spirit and Spanish. I may have mentioned this last week, but my Spanish is getting better and better. During our lessons this week the Spirit has been really strong. When the investigators start asking questions about things we hadn´t prepared for I start to remember the words that I need to give them an answer to their question. The language comes so much easier when I have the Lord on my side helping me out. It’s truly amazing. 

Another thing that will help me with Spanish is that we are having a fast from English from 9 am tomorrow morning to 9 am on Thursday morning. That’s going to be really hard. Our punishment is for every word we say in English, we have to do 10 largartijas (push-ups). I better work really hard on that since I can´t do push-ups with my special wrist.

I think I have a new favorite Elder in my district. His name is Elder Ambler. He´s my new favorite because he laughs at ALL of my jokes, even when they are completely stupid. We have started to call him Ambler Alert :) haha, and my nickname was Moberly in the House (like the white house) but now it’s Obamerly. I´m sure my mom will love that one! Speaking of my mom, thanks for sending me the donuts! But please, never send 2 boxes at once again. There are 4 girls in my room and we ate them all in one day. Looks like we may fatten up before we even get back to the states. We have a severe lack of self control when it comes to Krispy Kreme Donuts. 

So there is a plague-like disease going around the MTC and I don´t think there is a single district that doesn´t have someone out sick. For us, we had Hna Gubler that was sick. But also, last Tuesday the Elders were playing soccer, and Elder Harris took a ball to the face and broke his nose. He had to go to the hospital and have surgery. How scary is that? I would never ever want to have surgery, let alone in Mexico. He still isn´t able to come back to class yet, but we´re hoping he is allowed to tomorrow. With Hna Gubler sick things were kind of quiet without her laughing, it was kinda sad. Hna McMillan is still awesome. She´s so sweet and is always telling me how good I am at Spanish and how she can´t wait till she can talk like me. It’s seriously so sweet. One day I came out of the bathroom and she looks at me and just says ´´You look so beautiful´´. It was so cute! I love her :)

Turns out me and Hna Snowden are exactly the same person. If you just take me and add long brown hair I think we would be clones. It’s fun a lot of the time, but we get distracted really easily, especially by each other. The only difference is that I´m better at Spanish.

My entire district always wants me on their team when we play Spanish games at night. For some reason my team ALWAYS dominates. Not sure why that is...jk I know. It’s because I know a lot of Spanish words. :) hahaha Last night we played trashketball and every time I got up to shoot I made it. So basically I felt pretty cool, but I´m really not that cool. I´m just good at Spanish and basketball. It must come from watching all the March Madness games with Janaye up at BYU.

Another reason that I love P-day is because we get Costco pizza for dinner and it is delicious. The food here is either bad American food or bad Mexican food. Since we are in Mexico I thought it would be authentic, but it’s not. And it’s always cold. My favorite things are the pizza, cereal and pancakes. And Krispy Kreme, but I´d rather not eat 6 donuts in one day again. Overall it’s been a great week and I´ve learned a lot. Keep saying your prayers and reading your scriptures! Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Moberly

The Houses on the hill above the CCM

Some of our donuts!

Semana Dos!

Well, the days just keep getting better and better. I love it here so much, you have no idea! It is always green and beautiful!

First, let me start off with a story. This story also happens to be the most embarrassing moment of my life, so here goes nothing. We played kickball with our zone last Tuesday after I emailed you. So I had this awesome kick, it went super far and out where no one was standing. It was a solid kick. So I started running fast like my mama tells me (I never did that in youth softball). Next thing I know, I'm sliding on the ground because I tripped over my own feet. Now, from everyone else's perspective I look like a hero, except for 2 things. 1, It was first base. And 2, I didn't make it all the way. On the bright side I was still safe! I scratched up my elbow and hip pretty bad though, so that kind of stinks.  Now, in my zone, I will be known as the girl who slid into first, so that's cool I guess. Who slides into first? NO ONE.

Most of you know my problem with movie quotes. I have 2 languages I speak. One is English, and the other is movie quotes. You are all used to it already, but the hermanas in my room are still working on it. They either think I'm hilarious or insane...no in between. We've gotten so close to them already. It’s weird for me to think that we only have 4 more weeks together since they are going to Oklahoma City. It’s going to be a hard goodbye, but they live in Orem, so I'm sure I'll be seeing them again! :) Just a couple days ago there was an insane thunder and lightning storm. The worst I've ever seen and the 4 of us didn't bring umbrellas or jackets to dinner. We thought if we ran back to the casa we wouldn't get too wet, but we were wrong! We got halfway there and were drenched, so we just stayed outside for a little bit and took some pictures! 

I FOUND COURTNEY JUDD! (she says hi to you, mom) We've eaten meals together most of the days and it is awesome and I love it. She's so great and I'm so happy we are able to spend time together! Another funny story, one day, me and Hna McMillan were walking back to the casa after breakfast and 2 native elders came up and asked for a foto. I thought they meant to ask if we could take a picture of them, but they wanted pictures with us! It was so funny! Now two elders have a picture with us :) haha

So our last investigator, Ana, is now our afternoon teacher. Her real name is Hna. Silva. She is amazing and we love her! One of the coolest things she said, was ''When you are  obedient you see blessings, but when you are 100% obedient, you can see miracles''. I thought that was so cool and true. I know that when we all choose to be totally obedient we will have miracles in our lives. So now we have 2 teachers (Hno Rodriguez and Hna Silva) and now 2 new investigators (Daniel/hno rodriguez and Erika/ hna silva). It’s been a little confusing, but we're getting used to it.

It’s probably not the best, but we have a favorite Elder in our district. It’s Elder Ballard, who I wrote about last week a little bit. Whenever the hermanas have something that we are worried about, he has something to say to us that makes everything better. He is so in tune with the spirit and he acts on the promptings he receives as soon as he gets them and it is blessing our lives. It’s hard to think of him as only 19 years old!

We have district meetings about 3 times a week and they are always amazing. We can all feel the Spirit so strongly and we are able to share revelation with each other. It’s fantastic :) I kinda like to call them revelation circles instead of district meetings. The promptings we all receive come from God. This is one thought we had one day. We are all the messengers of God and those promptings are gifts. If we do our job we will receive pay and get more responsibility. However, if we fail to do our job and act on the thoughts we have, we will get fired and not receive that payment of blessings. I encourage you all to act on those promptings as soon as you get them. You will be so blessed for it!

In the Bible Dictionary under the word prayer, it says ''the object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and others the blessings that God is already willing to grant, but are made conditional on our asking for them''. NEVER FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS. You will be missing out on blessings from God. He wants to give them to you. He wants to bless others through your faith in Him. My prayers have changed so much since I have read this. I have started asking for the things that God wants me to have, instead asking for the things I think I need to have. Prayer is the greatest blessing in my life right now. Just in the last week, we have lost some things, so we say a little prayer and within the next 24 hours, whatever it was turns up. I know without a doubt that God hears your prayers. Always remember to call on Him for comfort or help or guidance, or anything. Even if you just need someone to talk to. He is there and he loves you. 

Another awesome blessing I received this week. We watch movies/videos every Sunday evening with all of the missionaries. Last week I wanted so badly to watch The Testaments, but instead we watched Finding Faith in Christ. That video was perfect for me last week. And guess what we watched this week? That's right, The Testaments! I was so happy, I'm sure my compañera thought I was going crazy. I just love that movie and I love the way it shows our Saviors love for us, even if we don't always make the best choices. He hasn't forgotten about any of us. He loves each of us the same and remembers our names. He suffered and died for us all so we can have the opportunity to live with him forever. I love my Savior and I know he loves me too. Through him all things are possible.

I love you all and I hope you have a great week. Don't forget to say your prayers and search for your answers in the scriptures :)

Love,

Hermana Moberly

The Rain :)

The Fab Four on a slide

Beautiful CCM

Hermana's Moberly and Judd

The Fall

The Fall 2

What we study every day!