Merry Christmas!

My Filipino Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! That may be a little late, but in the famous words of my favorite elf, "Treat every day like Christmas!"

So we had a pretty good week! We had a lesson with Achmed, he's a Muslim guy that we tracted into. He was really nice, and willing to talk to us. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and we're going to go by sometime this week to see if he's been reading it! We also had a lesson with Brother Ho. He's a nonmember, and his daughter has been coming to church with one of her friends for a while now. He saw what a good influence the gospel is on his daughter, and decided that he wanted to start coming! He's come to church twice now, and already has asked to be baptized! The thing is, he doesn't live in our ward boundaries, so we're going to try and pass him off to the other missionaries who really should be teaching him.

Our Christmas was great! Skyping home was definitely the best Christmas gift ever! After talking with our families, we had a real Filipino Christmas with the Hernandez family! Man they love to eat. They had quite the spread of food, and really didn't like our plates to be empty haha. After our lunch with them, we went over to Shannon and Mack's. They're recently reactivated members of our ward, and they invited us over for Christmas dinner. It was great! Shannon invited her uncle, who was basically Steven Tyler, it was awesome.

This was a great Christmas, but definitely different from the ones I'm used to. I feel like I had more time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, and ponder the birth of our Savior. I have felt my testimony of Him grow tremendously in the past couple of weeks. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ and for what he did for us. In Isaiah 9:6 it states:

6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Christ truly is the Prince of Peace. If we turn to Him and focus on Him, we will be able to find peace in this life. I can testify of that.

Love you all! I hope that everyone has a very happy New Year!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Our Mission Christmas Party!

Transfers

The mission family!

Hey Everyone!

So this was a really long and weird week. I got transferred, so the beginning of the week was mostly filled with goodbyes. That was so hard for me. I've grown to love Claresholm so much, and leaving all of the people there broke my heart. I took a slew of pictures this week (close to 100 I think), so we'll see how many I actually get to send.

On Wednesday we drove up to Calgary to pick up Elder Ajeman's new companion. All three of us got to stay the night in Claresholm. We got to eat my last supper with the Hamons, then we went caroling with some families from the ward! It was a fun time!

Thursday morning we had breakfast with our ward mission leaders family, then went and said some more goodbyes. We drove down to Lethbridge for transfers where I got to see my main man Elder Todd, said goodbye to my boy Ajeman, and then all of us missionaries going north hopped in a van and started the long trip to Calgary. We had to drive through Claresholm on our way up which was just awful, talk about salt in the wound. 

So my new companion is Elder Coe, and I'm serving the the Sunridge ward in North East Calgary. I'm in the suburbs, and cover a few neighborhoods. It's definitely a big change from Claresholm and all of the small farming communities I've been around for the past 6 months. Everything is a lot faster paced and busy. And there's so many people here it's weird. I've gotten to meet some of the people that we're working with already, they're awesome. We don't have any investigators right now, but there are a lot of less actives that we're working with. The ward is really nice, and gave us two huge laundry baskets full of food on Sunday. I probably won't need to buy groceries this whole transfer haha. 

Changing areas is really hard, but I know that I'll grow to love this place and the people here.

For my spiritual though this week, I'm going to steal a quote that our President sent out today.

Elder Christofferson recently said ‘I think it’s appropriate this time of the year to just think about that baby in the manger.  Don’t be too overwhelmed or occupied with what is to come; just think about that little baby.  Take a quiet, peaceful moment to ponder the beginning of His life--the culmination of heavenly prophecy but the early beginning for Him.  Take time to relax, be at peace, and see this little child in your mind.  Do not be too concerned or overwhelmed with what is coming in His life or yours.   Instead, take a peaceful moment to contemplate perhaps the most serene moment in the history of the world—when all of heaven rejoiced with the message “Glory to God in the highest, and of earth peace, good will toward men”.’

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful week as we celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Grant and Sister St. Onge!

Bary!

Cassie!

Sister Carlson!

The Perrys!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. . .just not in Claresholm. . .

Elder Stone and I about to do the wing challenge! I wasn't smiling so much afterwards

Hey guys! We had a pretty packed week, and I'm really short on time, so I'm going to try and just share the big things. 

So the people we're teaching are really progressing! We had a lesson with Grant, and he really wants to develop his faith. He's been reading the Book of Mormon, and accepts everything we teach, he just needs to receive and recognize his answer from the Holy Ghost. He's been coming to church, and he is working towards baptism. Our lesson with Sister Carlson went really well again! She is totally willing to come to church, something just always seems to come up. So we're not officially teaching Melissa, but she's doing great! She's been reading the Book of Mormon with sister Gilmour, and I think she's really felt the spirit at church. 

We had a Christmas Cantata in our ward yesterday, which is just a fancy way of saying musical program I think. It was great! A lot of people from the community came. I love how music can invite the spirit!

So Elder Ajeman found out that he's training this next transfer! We got to go up to Calgary on Friday to attend a trainers meeting for him. We went to lunch at buffalo wild wings after, and somehow Elder Stone talked me in to doing the blazing challenge where you eat 10 traditional wings in under 5 minutes. The were habanero wings with Ghost pepper sauce on them. They were really hot. I somehow managed to finish all of them. Everything hurt. Our waiter could tell I really didn't want to do it, and he was so impressed that I actually finished that he bought my meal for me! He was awesome. I even got a free t-shirt! They only had XL though so I'll have to grow into it. 

Well that's about all I've got time for today, I'll have to attach some pictures for you guys too. 

Oh and for my spiritual thought, go to https://www.mormon.org/christmas and watch the video! It's important to remember the true meaning behind christmas this time of year!

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

The awesome Claresholm youth!

We decided to stop at this bridge for a nice photo-op

Me and my cat friend who refused to pose for the picture

Our fancy little Christmas tree and Kinder advent calendars!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

Brother Gilmour is really into photography, and took this sweet picture of us! #TheFieldIsWhite

Hey everyone!

So in regards to the subject line on this email, Alberta is having an abnormally warm winter. It's been above freezing all week, and we haven't seen any snow for a while. I think it's actually in the 50s right now. I've been able to wear short sleeves! Now this weather is great and all, but I'm going to feel really cheated if I don't get to see a white Christmas in Canada, that's all I'm saying. 

Anyways, we had an awesome week! Lets start out with the spiritual stuff. Our lesson with Sister Carlson was great. We shared both personal and scriptural experiences on prayer and why it's so important. It was neat to hear her share her own experiences with prayer and see her testimony of it. It was also a good reminder to me of the power that prayer can have. That's something I'm continuing to learn on my mission. 

On Thursday, we were leaving a neighborhood after stopping by someone, and we passed two of the youth. We asked them what they were up to, and they told us they were heading to a friends house and that we should come share a message with him. We thought they were joking, but apparently they weren't! So we went up to the door with them, and one of the youth was like, "Hey Richie, do you want to hear a message about the gospel?" and he said yes, so we went in and taught him about Jesus Christ and about the Book of Mormon! He seemed interested, and said he'd read the Book of Mormon and pray about it! That was an awesome experience. The Claresholm youth are seriously the best youth in the mission, maybe the world. 

We finally had a lesson with Grant! We've been trying to schedule something with him for the past 3 months. He's already been coming to church and has really enjoyed it. The lesson was fantastic! We had it with Brother Butler, who is an awesome teacher. We shared the message of the restoration, and really focused on receiving answers to our prayers. We challenged him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, and he said that he would. When we invited him to be baptized, he said that when he found for himself that the things we've taught him are true, he would definitely be baptized! 

On Saturday, the Gilmours had us over for dinner, and they invited one of their friends! Her name is Melissa. We got to share a message with her about Jesus Christ and his Atonement. I think she's been feeling a little lost recently, and was really open to everything we had to say. The Gilmours invited her to church and she came! She even came to the Christmas devotional yesterday! The members here have been doing an awesome job inviting people! They've really seen the work pick up in the last few months, and I think it's gotten them a lot more excited about doing missionary work!

Alright, now for the not as spiritual stuff. This email is already getting pretty long, so I'll be brief. Sister Toone made us authentic Mexican food the other day for lunch. Guys, I almost cried with pure joy. Words can't explain the joy that filled my soul as I partook of the beauty that is Mexican food. We also got to sing in two concerts with the community choir! Everyone was in black shirts with red ties, but they let us wear our white shirts and name tags. Needless to say, we really stood out. We had our ward Christmas party this week too! It was a family dance. Probably the only dance I'll get to go to on my mission haha. It was great, I got to show off all of my killer dance moves. I got a lot of compliments on my Christmas sweater too!

Well guys, that's about all I've got for this week. How about we wrap it all up with a spiritual thought?

This week there seemed to be a lot of focus on the idea that we have a loving Heavenly Father. We are his children, and he knows all of us personally. We can turn to Him at any time. If any of you feel as though you can't feel of that love, just turn to Him in prayer and ask, and I know that he'll answer you. 

Love you guys and hope everyone has an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

My awesome zone!

Our district family photo!

Our district family photo!

Us chilling at the dance with the Clareshommies