New Comp!

My new comp, Elder Ajeman is on my right.  Elder Stone is on my left, and his new boy Elder Linford on the far right.  

Salutations!

I hope that everyone's week went swimmingly! So as you probably could have guessed from my subject line, I got a new companion this week! More on that little later.

So after I left from emailing all of you beautiful people last week, Elder Stone and I went to visit the Hirsches. For those of you that don't remember, Sister Hirsche is the small austrian woman in our ward that resembles Edna Mode from the Incredibles. As we were pulling onto their street, we see little sister Hirsche briskly walking our way. So naturally we stopped to see what she was up to. When she saw us she got really excited and took us visit her friend Norma. So we got to meet Norma and her husband and have a nice chat with them. They're a very kind couple, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of them. Oh and side note, I loved Norma's husband. He was awesome. He's an older British gentleman who served as a Major in the British Army and he has a moustache, watches football (soccer) all day, and wears short shorts around the house. It's fantastic.

The next day we had a lesson in the morning with the Lenz's, who as I've said before are amazing, and then headed up to Calgary to pick up our new companions. My new companion is, drum roll please, Elder Ajeman! And for those of you trying to figure out how to pronounce that, just say it like a white person. The j is not silent. He's from Thatcher Arizona (Another Arizonian, what's the Lord trying to tell me here?) and is a fantastic kid! He's full of greenie fire and ready to work! He has very different interests from me, sports, hunting, and roping, but I'm sure that we are going to get along just fine! Elder Stone is actually training his MTC companion, Elder Linford, and they are now stationed in down town Calgary.

On Thursday, we had two lessons, one with Connie and Bary, and the other with the Seguins, a family in the ward. They both went really well! I love teaching and having the opportunity to bear my testimony about the gospel. On Friday we attended a funeral for a nonmember. We were invited to attend by Bishop Toone, who was officiating. We got to say the opening and closing prayers so that was fun! Bishop Toone's father, Bill Toone, was asked to say a few words, and he basically taught the plan of salvation, it was fantastic! He talked about resurrection and even did the whole object lesson with the glove representing the body haha. I love that guy.

We got to see Norma and her husband again on Saturday. We were invited to join them and the Hirsches for dessert. We had a smashing time, and got to see a lot of sister Hirsche's art. She is an incredible painter. Sadly she said she won't do any more portraits of Missionaries, so there goes all of my plans haha.

Spiritual thought! Sister Fortenberry I'm actually going to steal yours this week if that's okay with you.

Commandments! Why do we have them? Probably just to tell us what we can and can't do and suck all of the fun and joy out of life right? Wrong! One of the first things we teach as missionaries is that God is our loving Heavenly Father. He loves us, and because he loves us, he wants us to be happy. In order to help us achieve joy in this life, He has given us many things, commandments being one of them. The commandments we are given are to keep us from sorrow, and help us find joy and fulfilment. As my Dad often explained it to me, the commandments aren't a fence, but a guardrail. A fence is built to keep people away from something, sometimes to take away their freedom and contain them. A guardrail on the other hand is built to protect people. They keep you from going off the side of the road, or off of a cliff, and keep you safe from harm. The commandments are the same way. They keep us safe and happy, and they are what bring us true freedom in this life.

Love all y'all!

-Elder Moffitt

Me and a nice bowl of poutine

The guy in the white shirt is Christian, an awesome young man in the ward, and the European looking gent is Brandon, he just got back from his mission in London.

Elder Lusk is on the left, and that is a tie he knitted himself (one of many).  Elder Stone is on the right.

GREENIES EVERYWHERE!!

Well hello everyone!

So the big news for this week: I'm training this transfer! I pick up my new greenie tomorrow! I'm super excited for this opportunity, and can't wait to see how it goes!

We had the opportunity to teach Connie and Bary again this week. The lesson went well, we'll see how interested they are as time progresses. We have another lesson set up for this week and we're excited to see them progress!

We had another lesson with the Lenzs as well. We had an awesome experience with them this week. We had Stake conference on Saturday and Sunday, and on Sunday Brother Lenz gave a talk, and then was ordained as an elder after the meeting. It was so neat to see. The gospel has had a profound effect on their lives since they've come back 5 or so months ago, and now they're preparing to go to the temple and be sealed together for all time and eternity. I'm so excited for them, and can't wait to see them make those covenants in the temple!

So as you know, the area in which I'm serving is chiefly made up of farm land. Our ward mission leader (who is fantastic by the way) is a farmer, and he took us on a combine ride this week. They were harvesting canola, and so we got to hop in some combines and get a taste for what the farm life is like! It was great! Those machines are massive, and they fill up a couple semi trucks a day with the tiny little canola seeds they harvest. It was a sweet experience.

President Miles announced that we'll be getting a set of sister missionaries in our district this week! We're really excited. The work is is really moving forward! I'm excited to see what the next 3 months in Claresholm have in store!

Time for everyone's favorite part of the email: the spiritual thought! So today I want to talk a little bit about Alma the younger. He was quite the man. We know that he went about persecuting the church and doing some not so righteous things. Then he and the sons of Mosiah had an angel come down and tell them to stop what they were doing and repent. After this experience, Alma became a great prophet and missionary, and spent the remainder of his days in the service of the Lord. In Alma 5:45-46 Alma states:

45. And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?

46. Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit . . .

I love these verses because it shows how we gain a testimony. Alma didn't believe in the gospel because he saw an angel, but because he prayed and fasted for that knowledge. Testimony comes through the spirit.


Alright my friends, that's all I've got for you this today. Love you all and hope you have joyous weeks!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Home Sweet Claresholm

Afternoon everyone!

I got the opportunity to teach a little bit more this week which was great! We had a lesson with the Lenzs, a recently reactivated couple. I love talking with them and hearing about the change that the gospel has made in their lives. They're just so much happier now that they are active in church again and striving to keep the commandments of the Lord. The gospel truly does bring happiness.

We got to have a lesson with Connie and Bary again, and they agreed to set up weekly appointments with us to come and teach! They seem open, and we're really excited to get to teach them more. We actually got to see them quite a bit this week. They joined us for dinner with the Rices, an older couple in the ward who Bary worked with a few years ago. We got to see them again on Saturday morning when we went over to help them clean up their front yard and get it prepped to put in grass.

On Friday we had a meeting with Elder Martino from the seventy. It was great seeing a fellow Texan! He was born in Denton, and was actually in Frisco about a week ago! He did such an awesome job teaching us. We learned about working with members, and how to find people to teach. We're really hoping that as we apply what we learned with him, we'll start to see the work in our areas progress.

That night we went on splits with the Zone Leaders and got to teach the first discussion to some members in the ward. It was such a great experience. I'm by no means the best teacher ever, but I love teaching so much, and I feel like I grow a lot as I do it. The Zone Leaders spent the night with us so that we could all go up the the Champion area the next day. We stopped by member homes, and got some referrals from them and some lessons set up. We also found a less active family who agreed to take the discussions with us! I think as we work through members more, the work will really pick up in that area.

Sunday evening we got to teach another member family. The spirit was very strong in the lesson, and it was definitely a good experience for us. I love getting to teach about the restoration of the gospel! Which actually leads perfectly into our spiritual thought for today!

I want to challenge each of you to read Joseph Smith account of the first vision, and ponder your feelings as you do. To make it easy on you guys, I'll even put part of his account right here in the email.

I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!

I invite you all to read his full account as well. I know that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet of God to restore the gospel to the earth. Through him, we were able to receive the fullness of the gospel as it was established by Jesus Christ when he was on the earth. I'm so grateful for him and the sacrifices that he made. The gospel has been a tremendous blessing in my life, and has brought me more peace and joy than anything else.

I love you all and hope that you have super awesome fantastic weeks!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Real Taber Corn!

Howdy!

Hope everyone had a great week last week, we definitely did!

So Tuesday we pretty much did service all day and it was great! We helped a new family move into the ward, and then after that we went straight to another move. The second move was for a non-member family who are good friends with some members in our ward, so we got a big group of youth together and went and helped them move. The move went really well, and Sister Perry told us that Cassie, the lady we helped move, said she'd be open to learning more about religion! We're going to drop by her house this week and see how she's doing and then see if she'd be willing to take the discussions!

I did Tim-Tam slams for the first time this week. I don't know if they have Tim-Tam's in the States, but it's basically a chocolate cookie thing. For Tim-Tam slams, you bite off the corners, and then drink hot chocolate through it, and when the hot chocolate reaches your mouth you quickly throw the whole cookie in your mouth and then it just melts. It's quite delicious, and I highly recommend trying it if you get the chance. While i'm on the topic of food, I may have mentioned before that my companion and I go through phases with different food. At first it was chips and salsa. We went through so many jars of salsa and bags of chips. We now consider ourselves salsa connoisseurs, sadly there are not many salsa brands here that are really good, we did however find one we liked. After the salsa phase, we went through a juice phase, and bought a ton of juice. We drank about 10 liters in a week and then decided that we had a problem and needed to kick that habit. So naturally we moved on to something else, Jello. So we bought a ton of jello, and have been eating jello every night before bed. Anyways, back to actual missionary work.

Now the reasoning for the subject line of this email, it's Taber Corn season. Everyone here always talks about how delicious Taber corn is. It's grown in Taber, which is pretty close to Claresholm, and so every summer trucks with Taber Corn come and spread the joy of Taber corn to the citizens of southern Alberta. They love it so much that we had a ward activity centered around Taber corn, they call it a Corn bust. So Elder Stone and I had the privilege of helping shuck some 200 ears of corn for this shindig. The activity went really well! Linda came with her husband, Ken, and they really seemed to enjoy themselves! They got to meet a lot of the people in the ward too which was awesome! And I must say, that Taber peaches and cream corn is quite good stuff.

Our sacrament meeting this Sunday was great! Ken and Linda weren't able to come, but Bary was. He's a non-member that we ran into a while ago, and he wanted to come to fast and testimony meeting with us. The testimonies that were given were all very good, and the spirit was very strong in that meeting. Bary said that he really enjoyed it, and that we could stop by Tuesday and see them again. We're excited to see how he progresses!

Spiritual thought! This week I want to talk about love, and how central it is to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We read in John 14:15

15. If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Now this verse is pretty cut and dry. If we truly love Christ, and want to follow him, we must keep his commandments. Elder Holland said, the crowning characteristic of love is loyalty. Just as faith without works is dead, love without works is dead. Love must be shown though our actions. Furthermore, in John 13:34 we read:

34. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

If we love Christ, we will keep his commandments, one of which is that we love everyone. How do we show this love? Through charity, which we learn from the Book of Mormon is "the pure love of Christ" (Moroni 7:47) and that "if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth" (Moroni 7:46). We must remember to always be charitable, be willing to give of ourselves to other to help lift them up when they are in need. Just as Elder Bednar talks about in Character of Christ, we must turn outward, and begin to think more of others than we do of ourselves, this is how we start to become like Jesus Christ, and find true happiness in this life.

Love you guys and hope everyone has a magnificent week!

Love,

Elder Moffitt