Shady Characters

This is John, one of our ward missionaries, me, and Ben.

This weeks email will be a quick one!

We had a really good week! Not too much new stuff to report though. We had a lesson with Ben and Martine again. We taught the Law of Chastity, and Ben was super excited to introduce the lesson for some reason haha. It went well! He and Martine are solid.

We had a lesson with the Chrismas' again this week. We had to make it a shorter lesson because Jace was gearing up to do a radio broadcast. Apparently he's really into heavy metal music, and he has a radio show about it. He started while we were still there, and just muted the mic and the music so that we couldn't hear it. And we had to keep really quiet as he announced some of the songs. So we can now say that we've been "on air" during a lesson!

We had another lesson with George too. We went on splits with the Mandarin Elders, so Elder Fong and I went to teach George while Elder Stringam and Elder Butler went and did something else. They said that his english was good enough for us to keep teaching him, so it looks like we'll be seeing more of George! He's a great guy, and very open to learning more. He's evangelical, but he loves learning about other religions.

Other than that, we got to do a lot of Tracting and street contacting this week. We got a few potentials out of it, so we'll see how it goes!

For our spiritual thought today, we're taking a look at the Stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon. After the battle of Manti in Chapter 58 of Alma, Helaman finds that none of his Stripling Warriors were killed, and then in verse 40 says,

But behold, they have received many wounds; nevertheless they stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has made them free; and they are strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day; yea, they do observe to keep his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments continually; and their faith is strong in the prophecies concerning that which is to come.

I think that this verse can apply to each of us. As we go through spiritual battles, sometimes we may be wounded. Maybe those wounds come in the form of sin, or doubts and questions, maybe it comes from depression or some other spiritually damaging thing. However, if we always remember our God, and strive to keep his commandments and grow our faith, then we'll be able to overcome anything that we face.

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Zone Conference!

Well this week was just fantastic!

So on Monday we ate some steaks that were super super rare. I actually don't think they were cooked in the middle at all. But we said a lot of prayers, and we didn't get sick! What a tender mercy, eh?

Tuesday was just an amazing day. We had Zone Conference at the Calgary Temple, and got to do a session with a few other zones. That was my first time to ever see the Calgary Temple, and the first time I've gotten to go to the temple in a while. It was so much fun! Especially to go through with so many missionaries and President and Sister Miles. After we went through the session, we had the remainder of our Zone Conference in the Stake Center next door. Our whole meeting was just made up of Testimonies of Jesus Christ, and a discussion about the Atonement. It was such a powerful meeting. The spirit filled the room there as we talked about our Savior. Elder Weidner (another missionary in our zone) and I had the opportunity to perform a song as well which was pretty fun.

Tuesday night I went on exchanges with Elder MClaren, a spanish missionary in our zone. Sadly, I didn't get to use my Spanish very much, but it was still fun! We got to go to the Calgary Food Bank and do some service. We were handing out hampers of food to people as they came in. They had some extra things that we could throw in if they needed it, like dog food and cat food. And for some reason they had Chinchilla food there. Elder MClaren and I were looking at the Chinchilla food like, "Why would they have this at a food bank?" and then as we were talking about how random that was, a lady came up and said, "Hey I saw you guys laughing at the Chinchilla food, but I need a pack of it. I have a pet Chinchilla." Haha we were shocked that anyone needed that. But hey, I guess the Chinchillas of the world need food too right?

We also found a new investigator this week! His name is George. We street contacted him last week, and he said he'd be willing to meet with us! We met with him at a Tim Hortons, and had a lesson with him on Thursday. It went really well! He's from Mainland China, so we may end up passing him off to the Mandarin missionaries, but his english is really good, so we'll have to see. He's already Christian, and wants to learn more about the LDS church! We're excited for him!

We met with Ben and Martine a few times this week and they're both really doing well! Right now they're just focusing on getting an answer on whether or not the church is true.

So for the spiritual thought today, I wanted to share a quote from the talk Justification and Sanctification by Elder D. Todd Christofferson.

Happiness is the product of righteousness. It is a question of cause and effect. Happiness, the effect or result, can exist only when its necessary cause, righteousness, is first present.

Keeping the commandments we receive from our Heavenly Father is what leads to happiness. He gives us commandments because he loves us and wants us to be happy.

Love you guys! Hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Magic Tree House

Cool view of the skyline while riding our bikes home for the night!

This week went well!

It's crazy that it's only been a week since Mother's day, that feels like it was forever ago! We had a lot of good things happen for us since last time, so let's get down to it!

To kick off our week, Monday night we had President Stephen P. Miles himself accompany us to our lesson with Ben and Martine. It went really well! We taught them about temples. It was a super cool lesson, especially with President Miles there helping us answer their questions. Brother Humphreys, the Father of our fellowship, bore a powerful testimony at the end of the lesson about the blessings of the temple and of eternal families. You could tell that Ben and Martine were feeling the spirit. We also helped clear up how we receive answers from the spirit. Martine was a little more confused on how we feel the spirit, and at the end of the lesson President asked her how she felt right then. She explained that she felt good and warm and happy, and then he said, "Martine, that's the spirit." It was so cool to just see that click with her. We can tell throughout these lessons that we've had that both Ben and Martine have a lot of real intent. They truly want to know that what we teach is true, and they're taking the steps necessary to find that out. Keep them in your prayers!

On Tuesday we got to go on exchanges, so I was with Elder Pierce (Elder Ajeman's companion) for the day. We had a lot of fun together! We had the opportunity to give some service to a less active family in our ward. We were helping remove a tree stump from their backyard. And let me tell you guys, that ain't no small task. We worked at it for quite a while on that stubborn stump digging it up and chopping at roots, but I don't think we even got halfway to getting it out. We'll have to go by again. But before we left, we got to share a message with the lady, and she seemed pretty receptive, so we're hoping that we'll be able to help them start coming back out to church!

On Saturday Elder Stringam and I got to participate in a mini MTC for the stake. It was super fun! We got to teach a class on how to share the gospel as youth, and as full time missionaries. It was cool to see all of the youth. I have to say, that the Queensland ward has the best youth in the stake!

We also had another service project that we got to do with the Elders in our Zone. Some guy wanted to disassemble a tree house and then move it and reassemble it. I don't know how good of an idea that was. But we came to help, so we did the best we could. We spent most of the time trying to figure out how to take the roof off. It was an adventure to say the least. Thankfully we've got some pretty big guys in our zone.

On Sunday we got to have dinner with the Vances. They're a super great family that have us over a lot. It was Sister Vance's birthday, so Elder Stringam and I wrote and performed a rap for her. It was pretty awesome. It'll probably go viral. No big deal.

Well that was our week in a nutshell. And now for a spiritual thought!

This comes from "The Fall and Infinite Atonement" a talk by Elder Spencer J. Condie.

Through repentance we can become at one with Christ, or, as Jacob put it, we can "be reconciled unto him" (Jacob 4:11). Amaleki invited the people of his day - and us as well - to "come unto Christ . . . and partake of his salvation . . . and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him" (Omni 1:26). We become reconciled with him when we willingly give our souls to him as he offered his life for us.

When we turn our will over to our Heavenly Father and to Jesus Christ, that's how we really become one with him.

Love you guys! Hope everyone is doing well!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Here's us working on the tree house:

Our sweet ride:

Slurpee night with Elder Stringam:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Happy (late) Mother's Day everyone!

So this week went really well! It was even better once I got to skype my family yesterday! Love ya'll!

So let's talk about some of our investigators. First we've got Ben. He's awesome! He told us that he does want to get baptized, but that he want's to wait until after graduation to do it. He graduates in about 5 or 6 weeks, so we're excited for him! He loves coming to church, and he's got a ton of great fellowship. He's also just the funniest kid ever haha. He's always joking around. Next we've got Martine! We talked with her more about baptism the other day, and she expressed to us some of her concerns. She also hasn't gotten an answer yet on whether or not what we've been teaching her is true. We invited her to pray and ask Heavenly Father, and she said she would. We have another lesson with her today, so we'll see how it went! She seems to have a lot of real intent, so we're really excited for her to find out for herself that the gospel is true! We also found another investigator this week. Her name is Rita. She's investigated before, but was willing to have us over again! We had a neat lesson with her, and got to hear her testimony about how she knows God is real and loves her. We'll see how much intent she has, but we're hoping and praying for the best!

In other news, we got to go downtown contacting this week. So our whole zone takes the C-train downtown, and we walk around for a couple hours talking to whoever we can! It was pretty cool! Calgary has a pretty nice downtown. We got to talk to a good number of people while we were there. A couple really nice hobos, so that was fun. We talked with one guy for like 30 minutes about the gospel. He was pretty cool. We discussed the Bible and went over some points of the restoration. He ended up not being very interested in learning more, but he was a really nice guy, and we enjoyed talking to him!

Probably another one of the highlights of our week was DINNER AT THE PEPPINGERS!! The Peppingers are a senior couple that work in the mission office, and they're pretty much the nicest people ever! They're like our mission grandparents. We get to see them every week in the mission office, and it always brightens our day. So they had us over and cooked up some delicious Mexican food. They seriously made our day!

So overall, things have been going well in the Queensland area! Elder Stringam and I are getting along swimmingly. We quote movies back and forth all the time. We'll do it in dinner appointments and see if anyone notices. Things like, "Man, these cups are perfect for holding water". It's fantastic haha. We'll also talk to each other like we're Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. Oh and, last week I talked about how we drive a mini van, well now we're about to sound even creepier. We've been doing a lot of tracting in the government assisted housing, and there are always a ton of little kids playing outside. Well they like to come up and talk to us, and Elder Stringam always gives them those little lifesaver mints. So now we're two guys rolling up in a mini van handing out candy to little kids. But it's okay because the gospel is true! Plus all those kids love us now and ask for mints all the time haha.

Well it looks like it's about time to wrap up!

In light of mothers day, I just wanted to share a video with you guys about moms.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-00-1440-it-was-mom-a-mothers-day-tribute-to-moms?category=topics/mothers&lang=eng&cid=HP_FR_6-5-2016_dMIS_fMLIB_xLIDyL1-A_

There's a few there, so go ahead and watch a few, wipe your tears away, and then go and thank your mom!

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Cruising around town in a mini-van

Hey Everyone!

So this weeks email is going to be super short, sorry about that, but I'm about out of time. 

The new area is great so far! We've met a lot of great members in the ward. Our investigators are coming along well! We had a lesson with Martine and Ben this week. They're both progressing, and it's really fun getting to teach them! They were both at church, and we got to teach a really fun lesson on the Holy Ghost in Gospel Principles. Ben actually reminds me a little bit of Scott for those of you who know who that is. He has super long hair, and he's really funny. He's a senior in High School, and he's got a lot of fellowship in the ward. 

In other news, we got a new car! We hit 80,000 kms so they swapped our car out. We get to cruise around town in a Mini-Van which is pretty awesome! 

Elder Stringam and I are doing awesome! He's a great guy, and super funny. We're always crackin' jokes and quoting Hot Rod together haha. 

Spiritual thought! (I may have done this one before)

2 Nephi 32:3

"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Moffitt