Just Call Me Iz...

Hello my wonderful family and friends!

We had a lot of fun this week! We talked to a lot of people, and tried to keep it interesting. Quick shout out to the Mandin Family for giving us a Ukulele! We've used it to sing some songs in our dinner appointments this week, and even went music tracting! We'd do our usual door approach, and then if they weren't interested, we'd ask if we could sing them a song! We walked up to this one guy named Bill who was sitting on his porch and sang him I Am a Child of God, which led perfectly into the Restoration. So we taught him the first lesson! He wasn't interested in learning more, but he was super nice and we had a good conversation!

This week we also got to meet a lot of the members in the Chaparral ward. We met some really cool families, and we're excited to start working more with them! We met one family, the Lawlors, who basically own a zoo. They have 11 pets. It was great! We got to play with their sugar gliders, it was so much fun! 

So the tripanionship is still going strong! We've been having fun together, and we've eaten fried rice pretty much every day! Though Elder Chen has been playing the same song on the Uke for the past week and it's starting to drive all of us a little crazy. But we still love that big ole Chinese Canadian!

Spiritual thought for the week:

With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed.

When there was a controversy in the early Church regarding who was entitled to heaven’s blessings and who wasn’t, the Lord declared to the Prophet Joseph Smith, “Verily I say unto you, [the gifts of God] are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep … my commandments, and [for them] that seeketh so to do.” Boy, aren’t we all thankful for that added provision “and … seeketh so to do”! That has been a lifesaver because sometimes that is all we can offer! We take some solace in the fact that if God were to reward only the perfectly faithful, He wouldn’t have much of a distribution list.

Please remember tomorrow, and all the days after that, that the Lord blesses those who want to improve, who accept the need for commandments and try to keep them, who cherish Christlike virtues and strive to the best of their ability to acquire them. If you stumble in that pursuit, so does everyone; the Savior is there to help you keep going. If you fall, summon His strength. Call out like Alma, “O Jesus, … have mercy on me.” He will help you get back up. He will help you repent, repair, fix whatever you have to fix, and keep going. Soon enough you will have the success you seek.  

This is from Jeffrey R. Holland's talk last conference, and I love it! It's an awesome talk and I encourage all of you to go back and read it!

Love you guys!

-Elder Moffitt

Chender Mercies

Afternoon everyone!

Let's start this email off with some breaking news: CANADA CHANGED THEIR NATIONAL ANTHEM!!! It is now gender neutral haha. Instead of "All our son's command!" it says "All of us command!" Funny thing is, only the English version was changed, not the French one. So yeah, just thought ya'll should know.

And now for some more breaking news: I HAVE A NEW COMPANION AND WARD!!! It's interesting how it all happened. So I'm still covering the Queensland ward, but now we're covering the Chaparral ward too! So we have a whole slew of new members to meet and a lot of work to be done. And as for my companion, well, now there's two of them. Elder Stringam is still here with me, but this week we welcomed Elder Chen into our companionship! He's a super funny kid, and he makes dang good Chinese food! So now we all look pretty legit when we roll up to the neighborhood in our mini van and start knocking doors and chasing people down. When we street contact people they get a little scared I think. There are three of us that swarm them, with 600lbs between us. It's hard to say no when we ask to share a message haha.

So even with all of this craziness going on, we had an awesome week! Let's hit the highlight reel:

I got to go on exchanges with one of our APs, Elder Cervantes, this week, and he's definitely a stand out missionary. He's from Costa Rica, and he's absolutely hilarious! We got to do some service for people, we found a new investigator, and we got some return appointments. It was a great exchange, and I learned a ton!

While I was on exchanges, Elder Stringam and Elder Lee picked up a new investigator in our area! Her name is Natasha, and Elder Pierce and I found her when I was on exchanges a while back. She said we could come by again, and we finally got around to setting up a lesson with her. Apparently the lesson went really well! She's open to learn more, and seems really prepared!

On Friday, we went tracting for a bit. We felt kind of strange with all three of us knocking on doors, so we figured we could go on splits with someone and cover more ground. Well, we decided that we should call and ask Ben, and he said he'd come! So Ben is one of our investigators, and he was willing to go tracting with us, how crazy is that!? He went with Elder Stringam, and apparently he did really well! He's even started talking about maybe going on a mission! Although he wants to go somewhere where they don't tract haha.

That night we actually had a super good lesson with Ben and Martine. We went through the baptismal interview questions, and they had great answers for all of them. They still want to wait for a little bit, but they're definitely getting closer. And I have to share with you one of Ben's quotes from that lesson. We asked about the law of chastity and he said, "The law of chastity is my bread and butter!" Maybe you had to be there, but it was super funny haha.

Saturday our whole zone got to volunteer at a Stampede Breakfast at Chaparral lake. We served up breakfast to tons of people. It was a lot of fun! Pictures to come!

That night we went tracting in a really wealthy part of Chaparral (which is most of it actually), and were talking about how there was no way we were getting in to a house there. Well the Lord definitely reminded us that all things are possible. We knocked on a guy named Matthew's door, and he let us in. Like inside. And we sat down in his living room, and offered a prayer, and then taught the first discussion. We were shocked. Apparently we need more faith haha. I've never been let into a house while tracting. The lesson went pretty well, we'll see if he lets us back over, but regardless, it was a really neat experience!

So spiritual thought for today: 3 Nephi 13:33 (or Matthew 6)

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

If we put the Gospel first, the Lord with help us with the rest!

Well I think that will about do it for this week! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

Tripanionship

Our lesson with Ben and Martine and the gang. We had it on the trampoline outside haha

Elder Stringam and I working the grill last pday

Stampede Breakfast

Stampede Breakfast

Change

Contacting people "DOWN BY THE RIVER!" (sorry if you don't get that quote)

Hello my wonderful friends and family!

So as you probably figured out from the subject of this email, this past week brought a lot of change. It was transfer week, and for some reason those weeks always feel a lot longer. Not much changed for Elder Stringam and I, but there were a couple of changes in the zone. Elder Ajeman was transferred, and is now serving with Elder Todd, who was my MTC companion! They're just one stake over, so we'll probably still see them around quite a bit.

In addition to the changes brought about by transfers, we had Stake Conference this weekend, and there were changes to every ward in our stake. The Queensland ward didn't have any boundary changes, but we did change our meeting time. One of the wards was dissolved completely, and two new wards were created. This created a lot of confusion with the missionaries, as we now don't really know whose covering what wards. We were waiting for President to give us a call and let us know what was going on, but when he finally called, he just scheduled interviews and was getting ready to hang up. When he asked if we needed anything, we were like, "Actually now that you mention it, our stake just completely changed and we don't know where anyone is serving anymore." So now President is on the job, and we should know by tonight what is happening. He mentioned that he might have Elder Stringam and I cover another ward, so we'll see what happens I guess!

In other news, we were able to get together with the entire mission again to hear from President Russell M. Nelson! That was an awesome experience. We had the privilege of hearing from him, his wife, and a few other members of the seventy. Now let me tell you, President and Sister Nelson are absolutely phenomenal speakers, and also hilarious! They had all of the missionaries bustin' a gut one minute, and the next they practically had us in tears because of how powerfully they testified of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. Sister Nelson is actually from Raymond Alberta, which is in our mission. That was Elder Stringam's first area. It was a spiritually filled meeting, and I was able to learn so much about how to become a better servant of the Lord.

We had some miracles this week too! Elder Stringam and I have been trying to get better at talking with everyone. We haven't been doing half bad at it either. The other day we chased down a group of people on the street to talk to them about the gospel. It was pretty awkward, but hey, that's what we're called to do! We've also been tracting a lot in our free time in an attempt to find more people to teach and to show the Lord that we really do want to work hard. Well the Lord certainly blessed us with opportunities because of our efforts. We've been going to 7-11 a lot to get Slurpees and Taquitos recently. Actually we're pretty much there every day. Elder Stringam has a Slurpee addiction, and he's fueling my Slurpee addiction. We're thinking about going to some ARP classes, but that's besides the point. Anyways, the guy that works at the register see's us in there all the time, and the other day he started asking us who we were and why we wear name tags all the time. So we explained to him what we do, and asked if he'd be interested in having us over, he said sure, so we gave him our number! Then the guy behind us in line said, "Hey actually I could use some service guys, could I grab your number too?" so we gave him our number as well! Those were just some nice tender mercies.

We also had some great lessons this week with George and Ben and Martine, and the Chrismas family! Please keep them in your prayers!

Oh and one more tender mercy for you guys. I'm always complaining that there isn't any good Mexican food in Canada, but I was proven wrong the other day. We found a legitimate Taqueria. Best day ever. We knew it was the real deal when the lady we ordered from didn't speak any english. I had to whip out my high school spanish skills. Those were the best tacos I've had in a really long time.

For the spiritual thought today, I just want to share something that President Nelson said. "Men are that they might have joy. If you have joy, please notify your face!" Our Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, and has given us so much in order for us to achieve that happiness. Happiness comes from obedience to the commandments of the Lord. If we're happy, we should show it! Smile! Let others know that you're happy, and help them find that same happiness!

Love ya'll!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

I forgot to take the before picture of the tacos . . .

Lunch at the Taqueria!

Music and Miracles!

Afternoon everyone!

So to start this email off, I want to share a miracle with you guys! Elder Stringam and I were out tracting, and we hadn't been having much luck. A lot of people would see us through the window and not answer, or tell us that they believed in science (which was super serendipitous because I do too! I just also happen to believe that there's a God. I don't understand why we can't do both!). We had planned on doing about an hour of knocking doors, and we were just about out of time. We were about to go back to the car, but then decided to knock on one more door. A guy named Ryan answered, and we introduced ourselves as missionaries and invited him to hear our message. He agreed, and we were able to teach him the restoration right there on his door step! He seemed to agree with everything that we said, and when we invited him to read the Book of Mormon, he said, "Yeah for sure, I'll read anything that will bring me closer to God!". He didn't even seem like that guy that was just being polite, he actually sounded genuine! We're really excited to go back and see how his experience reading went! That was definitely a tender mercy from the Lord.

Another great experience this week, was the opportunity to go to a Choir Concert! We were able to get permission from President because Ben and Martine were singing in it, along with most of the youth in our ward! It was such a good concert! Mostly gospel music too, so it was totally legit. It was just nice being able to go to a choir concert again. And Ben did an awesome job! So did everyone else! We had to leave before it finished though, so we didn't get to see Martine sing which was sad.

Other than that, the rest of our week was great too! We had a meeting on how to effectively work with ward councils, we had housing inspections (which we passed), we got to go on exchanges with the APs, we had another lesson with George, and Elder Ajeman found a dead squirrel! We also had our Saturday chalk full of service. We got to dig some holes for posts, mow a lawn, and help with a move. Needless to say, Elder Stringam and I were pretty sore on Sunday when we woke up.

Spiritual thought! Helaman 3:35

Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.

I love this verse, and I thinks it's one that I'll ponder on a little more. I love how it talks about how a testimony comes little by little. A lot of times as humans we're impatient, and want things to happen right away, but that's not usually the case. As we do those small everyday things that bring us closer to Christ, we put ourselves on the path that leads to him, and our faith and testimony are able to grow little by little. If we yield our hearts to God, and do his will rather than our own, that's when we'll be able to find that joy that this verse talks about.

Love you all!

-Elder Moffitt