MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

This is coming late because the libraries were all closed for Boxing Day today, and we had to wait until we got to the office tonight to shoot a quick email to ya'll. So this one is going to be super short.

This week was great! We had a visit with Bala and Smita, and they're doing well. We brought a member with us, and she made dinner for them! We got to share a Christmas video with them and talk about Christmas a little. It was really cool!

I got to volunteer at the Calgary Live Nativity that the church put's on every year! It was really neat. If you want to see pictures of that, you can look for the Calgary Nativity on Facebook. See if you can find me in the pictures!

Christmas eve was sweet! We got permission to see our recent convert, Ben! He's doing great! We saw him over at the Humphrey's house (His fellowship) and Martine (our old investigator) was there too! She's actually planning on getting baptized in January!!!! We're pumped!!!! We got to be with them for a while, and it was so good to just catch up and see how everyone was doing. That night we went over to a member's house for dinner, and we got to have an island themed dinner with dishes from all over the place, and then we got to put on a nativity with the kids. Elder Stringam and I were shepherds. We're basically pro actors, so it was pretty much the best nativity that anyone ever did see.

Christmas day was just the best ever! So I got to talk to my family which was definitely the highlight! We also got to have lunch with President and Sister Miles, and then spent the rest of the day with the McLachlans. They're recent converts in our ward, and they have the coolest story ever, but sadly I don't have time to tell it all today.

So for the spiritual thought today, I just wanted to let you all know how grateful I am for our Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that when I've struggled in my life, especially the times I've struggled on my mission, that he's been there to lift me up, and to help share my burden. I've felt His love in my life, and I know that he cares deeply for each of us. He suffered for each of us willingly, so that He could know what we will go through in this life. I love my Savior, and I'm forever grateful for the sacrifice that He made.

I love each of you, and hope that you each had a great Christmas!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

♪♫♪ I'm Dreaming of a Warm Christmas ♪♫♪

Merry Christmas Everyone! Well almost.

This week was jam packed with good stuff! We were out of our area a lot again, but we had some amazing experiences. The first miracle of the week was having a blessed Chinook roll through! The temperature has gotten all the way up to positive 1! Time to break out the short sleeves am I right!?

This week we were on exchanges in Cardston and Lethbridge, so we were down there for a few days. On Tuesday I got to be companions with Elder Linford again! What a great guy. We had a fun time tearing up the streets of Lethbridge together! We had some good lessons that day. One was with a YSA (young single adult) kid who was coming back to the church. It was neat to ask him about his testimony and see what a difference the gospel has made in his life. He told us that he recognized how only the gospel brings true joy into our lives, and he wanted to feel that again. You could tell that his testimony was so strong after going through some of the experiences that he did. It's so true though, the gospel brings us lasting joy in this life. That's why as missionaries we get so sad when people won't listen to our message, or choose to leave the church. They just miss out on so much.

On Wednesday we had exchanges with some other Elders, and I was with Elder Murdock again. We did some tracting and some stop bys for most of the day. One really cool thing we got to do was help out at the nativity exhibit they were doing. Holy cow, they went all out. Easily the coolest nativity exhibit I've ever seen. I love the spirit at those things. Christmas is such an awesome time that we have to reflect on the birth of Christ. What a spirit this time of year brings!

On Thursday we got to go to Cardston, and I was with Elder Todd! Man that's a fun exchange with those two. We had a great time together! We got to teach one of their recent converts whose solid. It's neat to see how the gospel has changed her life. She's done a complete 180 turn in the past little bit. That day we also got to do some service for a member of one of their wards. We got to knock down some walls and a chimney, it was great! Hopefully I'll be able to send some videos of that some time. That night we also got to go caroling to some people in rest homes and in the hospital. It was so much fun! I love caroling.

On Friday we got to go to our Christmas devotional with a couple other zones in Calgary. It was great! There was an awesome musical program, and the spirit there was strong.

Saturday was definitely the highlight of the week. We got to go and see the McLachlan family be sealed in the temple. They're a family of recent converts and they're so awesome! It was incredible to see them sealed together with all of their kids. Guys, the gospel is so true, and I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity to live with our families forever!

Well for a spiritual thought I'll leave you with Isaiah 9:6

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.

I think my favorite name for Christ here is the Prince of Peace. He really does bring peace into our lives. I'm so grateful that Christ came down to earth to perform the Atonement for us. I know that he lives today, and I'm grateful for that.

Love ya'll, and I hope that everyone has an amazing Christmas!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

 

Beautiful British Colombia Pt. 2

How's everyone doing this sunny and warm afternoon? It warmed up to -10 Celsius here! This past week our high has been about -18 Celsius (0 Fahrenheit) and has gotten as low as -25 Celsius before the wind chill. So It's been pretty cold.

Well we had some more great experiences this week! We weren't able to spend too much time in our area, but some really neat things happened.

We got to go out teaching with Elder Weatherford Clayton of the seventy this week! That was a really really cool experience. Both of our appointments for that evening fell through, but we were able to have some good lessons with members, and have a great talk with Elder Clayton about missionary work and about the gospel in general. It was so cool to be able to learn from him in a one on one (well, two I guess) setting. He has such a great spirit about him, and you could tell that when he spoke, he would pause and listen to the spirit, and then start talking. It was amazing to watch.

We also got to go on exchanges in BC this week! We had a fun road trip down to Cranbrook, BC (I've gotten a lot better at winter driving!) and got to spend some time with Elder Ajeman and Elder Robbins. Those two are complete red necks living out in the bush haha. I love them so much! We had lots of good teaching appointments with them, and just a grand old time in general! Elder Ajeman and I did quite a bit of walking, and ran into this guy on the street that we decided to contact. He told us that a while back, the earth was falling off of its axis, and that there was going to be a second Ice Age, but then he prayed really hard, and he fixed it! So we all owe this guy a big thanks! Then he took our pass along card, gave me a hug, took another puff of his cigarette, and went inside. BC is something special, let me tell you. It was great being in the mountains though!

I also got to go on exchanges out in West Calgary this week, and had a really cool experience there. We went to the hospital to give someone a blessing, and while we were there, another guy recognized us as missionaries and asked us to come back later to talk to him. When we came back later that day, he told us about his life, and about how he had gone through some depression and some addictions, and then was able to feel the love of God in his life, and had some spiritual experiences. We taught him a little bit about the restoration, and he was excited to learn more! We gave him a Book of Mormon, and he said that he'd read and pray about it. He was a super cool guy, and to make him even cooler, he looked like Neil Patrick Harris but he was bald and had an awesome beard! But in all seriousness, it's really cool to see how the Lord reaches out to his children and helps them feel of the love that he has for them. I hope that Devon continues to learn about the restored gospel and strengthen his relationship with his father in heaven.

We also got a 10 on cleaning inspections so I'm pumped about that!

Spiritual thought! This is something that our Mission President shared with us last night. In Alma 34:10-14, they talk about the Atonement as being infinite. Do we sometimes in our lives make the Atonement finite instead of infinite? Do we not allow the Atonement to change us? Do we not draw upon it for strength in times of need? We shouldn't limit it, we should use it. I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the impact that it's had on my life. I know that each of you can use it, and in each of our lives, we can make it an infinite Atonement.

Love ya'll!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

The String Theory

Elder Stringam enjoying the beautiful scenery on the way home from Rosemary

Hey everyone!

So this was a pretty solid week with some great experiences.

The highlight of the week was definitely teaching at Eston College. Our Mission President gave Elder Stringam and I the opportunity to go and teach a group of college students for their world religions class. They were all about our age, and had spent the past week in Calgary listening to representatives of other faiths explain their beliefs in a classroom setting, and Elder Stringam and I were invited to teach them about Mormonism! It was so cool! We were pretty excited about it but stressed at the same time because we weren't sure what to teach. They had given us 2 hours to speak, and we had no idea what to do with all that time. But we planned something out, and then right before we went over there we met with President Miles and went over it. He gave us some more direction and suggestions, and we basically ended up scrapping what we had 30 minutes before the class started. So we decided to go in there with a few topics to talk about that we thought they might be interested in, and then just follow the spirit. So we get in there, and it's about a class of 18 students, and we just kinda started going. We did a get to know you thing so we could get to know all of the students in the class, and then we started talking about who we were and what we did, and about our belief in Jesus Christ. From that point on, the spirit took over. These students were all pretty religious, and had a lot of really good questions for us, so we used our time to basically answer questions that they had, and teach to needs. The cool thing about this was that nobody was there to be contentious or try and disprove us (except for maybe one kid) but simply to learn. We were able to clear up a lot of misconceptions about who we are and what we believe which was really cool, and by answering their questions, we ended up teaching the first three discussions! Once we started getting into the grove of it, we were really just able to be ourselves. We were joking around and cracking jokes and having a ton of fun just being our goofy selves, and because of that we were really able to connect with everyone! We were able to be serious when we needed too, but we were all having a great time too! They told us that we were their favorite group yet just because of how much fun we had, and they said that they were really impressed with how we handled all of their questions. Because we were having so much fun, we ended up being there for 3 hours just answering questions and teaching doctrine! We were able to leave each of them with a Book of Mormon, a restoration pamphlet, and a pass along card for the Light the World initiative. It was so cool! Definitely an experience I'll remember forever.

This week we also went on two exchanges, one with the Elders in Medicine Hat, and the other with the Queensland Elders. I stayed in our area for both of them. We got to make the beautiful drive out to Rosemary Alberta two days in a row though! (It's actually not that pretty) We had some fun on exchanges! It's been hard to meet with our investigators recently, but we'll keep trying. We're working a lot on finding right now too, so we got a fair bit of tracting done this past week. It's also been really cold here. Winter is definitely upon us. We got a lot of snow in the past couple of days, like more than I've ever seen in my life. So we've also spent a good amount of time shoveling peoples walks for them! Oh and for those of you that aren't aware, ice is really slippery. I had to find that out the hard way.

The spiritual thought for today is a verse I came across in studies that goes along perfectly with the Light the World initiative that's going on. It's in 3 Nephi 18 and it's verse 24
Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed.
Christ is the light that we are to hold up! We do that by living a life like he did. We must do our best to keep the commandments, and to reach out and help others. I know that as we strive to hold up the light of Christ, he will make us the means by which he blesses his children.

Well, till next week!

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Moffitt

The class we got to teach!