Merry Christmas!!

Dear family and friends,

Woooohooooo Christmas was super awesome!! I think that I did the majority of the celebrating for Christmas not actually on Christmas.... On Monday we had our activity of Christmas. And one of the best parts of the activity... well actually the best part was when we watched The Maze Runner!! It was suuuuch a good movie, even though it was in Español, I understood everything!!
There was also a little talent show and a lot of people danced and sang. Overall it was a very good time.

Watching the Movie and Talent Show!!!

Other than that, we did a few things here and there, but I hit just about rock bottom in my driving career.... I was trying to turn around in a little street, and as I inched forward, being nighttime,. I neglected to see that there was a giant hole directly in my path. With my ignorance, I willingly decided to let the front left tire enter into the hole, and CLANK!!!! The whole world turned sideways....... Luckily, with the strength of 7 missionaries, and 4 wheel drive, we were able to get the car out of that hole very easily, and no damage was done!!! Or at least I don't think so. Everything appears to be attached still. haha

The famous hole that i drove into...I was just a little embarrassed!

Overall, this Christmas was really a weird one, but I really enjoyed it. Just the fact that we were the only living souls within a 10 mile radius that were awake at 6:30 on Christmas day here was weird. But people celebrate Christmas eve like we celebrate the 4th of July. There were fireworks all night!! Anyway, Life is good, and I am still alive.

I have lots of pictures, and you know what they say!! Pictures speak louder than words!!

Love, Elder Moser

Pics this week...

The Branch Christmas dinner. Interesting how the attendance is like more than the normal sacrament meeting attendance... haha!

Elder Jacobsen and Elder Oliva, my two Zone Leaders.

The big christmas party!

The Christmas card that Elder Maradiaga and I made in 1 week, for the ENTIRE mission :) No big deal.... 

Companionship pictures! Merry Christmas!!!!

The "after-party" with Elder Alfaro and Elder Chen.

The crew that put the party together; Elder Maradiaga and I,  Elder Hirschi and Elder De La Cruz, and Elder Recinos and Elder Cuá.

Hilton Selfie! 

I almost fell into the pool! It was a total accident!

A nice pic with Elder Jacobsen.

Early christmas present! A little scorpion in the shower!!!

Opening presents early Christmas morning!

The reaction when I saw that the peanut butter was already open...

But overall a great time opening presents.... alone...... :) 

It's a Christmas Miracle!!!

What a week!!!! WOOOOW. So first things first:

Bertha and Daniella got baptized!!!! And it was quite the miracle in all aspects. Basically we had decided on Wednesday night that we had been teaching them for a while now, and they knew that it was all true for a while now, the only thing that had been holding them back was the thought of how their family would react. So we decided to invite the ZL's just to come talk to them and say the exact same things that we had been saying, just from different faces. And they got over their feelings! They decided that it didn't matter what the family thought, because it was more important to follow Christ in what they now knew. So they accepted to be baptized that Saturday, or be it, last Saturday.

Here begins part two: So we get to the church and start filling the font, everything is great cause we are super early to make sure their are no problems, and we are doing our studies there in the church, and then I no longer hear the sound of flowing water...so we go to check the font to see what is wrong. NO WATER!!! That is not supposed to happen! The church has a huge backup tank of water because the water always goes out in the neighborhood... But it happened. So we started to call the Branch President and the counselors and all to see what we should do. And long story short, they told us a lot of things that didn't amount to much...... We had an appointment to go to, so we left quickly for the appointment, leaving the knob open so that if the water DID turn back on, it would fill. So we went to the appointment, then to the counselors house to see if he had any ideas, and then back to the church. As we entered, I heard the sweet sound of water flowing into the font. So we went to see, and it was just about full!!! It was a miracle!!! I don't know what had happened, but it solved a little scare there!

Part three: So 30 minutes before the baptism, we call our mission leader to make sure that everything is fine with the agenda of the baptism and that he can still perform the ordinance, and he tells us that he can't go, that he is out of town. He informed us 30 MINUTES BEFORE THE BAPTISM!!!! AND ONLY BECAUSE WE CALLED HIM!!!!!!!! But seeing as how we have many great members in the branch, we made a couple of calls and put some stuff together and it ended up being a great baptism. We even found someone else (a very recent returned missionary from Honduras) that was willing to perform the baptism! So everything worked out well!

Some Pics from the Baptism of Bertha and Daniella.

More from the Baptism.

So other than that, it was a pretty low key week, but our food appointment lady was not in town for the weekend, so we were going to have to find another option to eat on Sunday more than anything. Elder De La Cruz (the one that took the place of Elder Clark in the office as a secretary) suggested that he cook for all of us, so I thought it would be a good idea. It was actually really good, but rather interesting. In the states, it is quite common to eat mashed potatoes, but in the Dominican Republic, I guess it is not so common, so instead, they make mashed plantains...it was interesting. I have no more remarks of the mashed plantains......But the tomato paste weenies were really good!! So they kinda balanced each other out ;) hahaha

The lovely lunch that Elder De La Cruz prepared for us.

Elder Hirschi and I determining if the food is edible.

While Elder Maradiaga doesn't give a second thought.

As far as weird errands of the week go, I think we hit one of the more original ones. As I have said, in the office, there is always something new. On Thursday night, we had to go pick up President Collado's mom, sister and nephew from the TicaBus bus stop, and take them to the mission home because President and his fam are out of Managua right now. So that was pretty cool I guess. I think that there are very few missionaries in the world that have driven their mission president's mom somewhere.....hahahah

So just a little something to think about. Bertha is a great example to me of how we need to make sacrifices to do the will of the Lord. She knew that getting baptized would bring a little disagreement among her brothers and sister and mother, but she did it anyway. In fact, on Sunday she told us a bit about how it had already been starting. That her family was being a little rude and stuff. But the fact that she came to church showed that she had the will to follow what was right because she knew it. It didn't matter what her family thought, or even said. She choose the right! I am striving every day to become more and more like her, so that in any circumstance and at any point in my life, I will always know what comes first: My Heavenly Father, and his son Jesus Christ. There are a lot of important things in this world that can have lots of worth, but nothing even comes close to them. As long as we do what they have asked of us, and will ask of us, we will be alright in the end. I love this gospel and know that it is true!

Love You All very much!!!

Elder Moser

Other pics this week...

Oh yeah...I got a "multa" last week...  >:(     Nicaraguan police are very corrupt, and slightly racist...

They just keep coming and going!

Hello Family!!

Soooo as you can probably imagine, this last week was a pretty crazy one!! But also a lot of fun and cool things happened.

To start off, Monday (the day of changes) was a very special day here, because it was Hermana Collado´s birthday!!!! So being the awesome missionaries we are, the Sister Training Leaders and Assistants and us secretaries put together this poster for her. In the changes meeting they had (Pte and Hermana Collado do not attend) on Monday morning, the Sister Trainer leaders had everyone that was there write a little sticky note to Hermana for her Birthday. Then that night, because it is their Pday, we all put together a poster. We drove up to their house, and while they were having activities and such for the missionaries leaving, we left the poster hung up on the car right outside of the door. She told us the next morning that she loved it!! It was lots of fun too!

Tuesday is always the more stressful day for us secretaries because it is the day that all of the new missionaries come. So we have to get all the breakfast and lunch for them, and we always also get to go to the airport to receive them! That part is soo much fun...when they actually come... thats kind of a funny story. Sooooo USUALLY the Latinos arrive at 8am and the North Americans from Mexico arrive around 9:40am. Unless there are missionaries from the Provo MTC, they come in the night time because they have to travel all day. So following the normal schedule, we went to go pick up the Latinos, they came, we went to have breakfast and all was great! Then we went back for the North Americans and waited..... and waited...... and waaaaaaited.......and decided it would be a good idea to verify when they said they would be coming. We discovered that they had all changed assignments from Mexico MTC to the Provo MTC, so they wouldn't be coming until the night!!!! SOOOOOO we waited for like 2 hours for nothing... We continued all of the activities with just the new latinos. Then we went back that night and received the new North Americans at 9:30ish. We all headed to a restaurant Rosti Pollos and it was so awesome!! It was with President and Hermana Collado, Sister and Elder Barker, and Elder Maradiaga and I, with all the new missionaries. I really enjoyed my time and the new missionaries had a ton of questions for me!!! It was really great!! Then they all came and slept in my house and did the activities and such on Wednesday morning as if it was all planned to work out that way!

There is ALWAYS something that goes wrong, and it is ALWAYS something different each time changes come around. The first time I was in the office for changes, the North Americans came and their luggage did not. The second time was just crazy with more people going home at weird times and people coming at weird times. And this time, none of the North Americans even came until super night time and that threw us off a lot.

So anyway, that was that, but that was not all........ We also had the part of taking the people home that were finishing the mission :( this one was a little more meaningful than the other ones I have done, because two of my old companions were leaving me! Elder Clark and Elder Rodriguez. But they left all good and content, so I guess that is nice.

Saying goodbye to Elder Clark.

Overall changes were fantastic, but I am really excited for them to be over and hopefully to have more time to get out and focus on our investigators. Overall, these changes were a lot easier to handle than the others. President is making small changes that make them all easier, and we are also getting a lot better and more used to the normal routine of the changes. But now that I think about it, there will not be much of a resting period after these changes because we have Christmas coming up!! So it will be nice and busy with that. But HEY, I was informed of a little Christmas present from Hermana Collado to Elder Maradiaga and I. They are taking us to Puerto Cabezas for the Christmas party that they are going to do there!!!!!!!!!! So all is well!

Anyway, this week was awesome and it was really cool to spend a little time with some missionaries that were literally brand new in the mission. And to be able to talk to them was really awesome as well. They are so excited and so ready to serve, and it reminded me of when I was brand new. It gave me the desire to strive to always think of myself as a new missionary so that I can more easily maintain the buen animo and always have a good attitude in any circumstances!! So I am sooooo stinking excited to be here in Nicaragua!!

Love,
Elder Moser

Christmas in coming! But First: Changes... :)

Hola familia!

Holy cow it feels like I was just here an hour ago!! The weeks are getting shorter and shorter!! But at the same time the days are getting longer and longer!

So as you could see from the subject, changes are practically here!!! WOOOHOOOOO time to get no sleep!!! This week we seriously tried to do the absolute best that we could to get to the area as early as possible every day!! We did alright in accomplishing it, but as always, unexpected speed bumps arose in each day. Normally when we have a meeting with the missionaries, I have to be there all day from like 9am to 5 pm getting food ready and cleaning up and taking out the trash and all that jazz. We had a meeting on Tuesday, and because we were so determined to get out of there super early, we totally did it!! After lunch, we cleaned up super quick, got the snack that we always give at the end ready, so that the missionaries could just grab it themselves when they finished, and we got out of that meeting at like 2pm!! That was a record I think!

We are always occupying this room in this chapel!! Haha this is a little idea of what we do during meetings normally.

Snacks for the missionaries!

Just doin' my business in one of the meetings. People ask me for money, I tell them no, and they still have to be nice to me! ;) hahah just kidding!

If you look carefully, I took the position of Assistant to the President for about 5 minutes, writing things on the whiteboard. (Only because they were all gone doing something else at the moment.)

Random photo of us Elder Maradiaga and I hanging out during a meeting. We probably were not doing a whole lot.

The office life has been pretty busy as normal getting calls and having a lot of things to do and all. President and Hermana had to go to Puerto Cabezas this week to have a meeting there, so you know what that means! Team Mom Moser driving the kids to school! :D haha And I even got to go grocery shopping for them this time, because Hermana Collado didn't have time to do it before they left! hahaha But in turn, when they got back, she brought us a lot of coconut bread from Puerto and we hung out with them for a little at the mission home!

Some action shots of me in the office!!! Super exciting business goes down here!! But it is also secret, so I can't tell you what it is...or I would have to kill you!

As far as investigators go for this week, we have spent a lot of the week finding new ones. Of course we are still visiting Bertha, and she is doing Great!!! She finally overcame all of the difficulties on Sunday mornings and made it out to church with us. All By Her Self!!!! So we have been helping her resolve a few small problems and then she will be good to go!!!
But with others, we haven't seemed to have a ton of success finding good new investigators. It probably doesn't help at all that our time has been super limited in the area (as normal) but that will not stop us!! We are determined!!!!

One pretty big difficulty that I have a hard time understanding is that Nicaraguans are HUUUUUGE party people!!! Seriously, I have witnessed at least one HUMONGOUS party a week in the last like 8 weeks!
In our area, there is a gigantic catholic church and rec area named Don Bosco, and seeing as how this church is about 1/4 of our proselyting area, sometimes it can cause problems.... It can easily appear as a more "fun" church to go to because in this church, they often host really big events and about two weeks ago there was one that they hosted where about 40,000 people showed up..... no I did not add an extra 0. I was super tempted to get in there and take the microphone and teach all of them about keeping the sabbath day holy, seeing as how this party was on Sunday. But I didn't. Now that I think about it, I think almost all of the things are on Sundays here.

Another thing that has been going on is something they call the Purisima. To explain briefly, and without trying to offend, almost every Catholic person here has their own statues of Virgins and they have altars in their homes that help them feel more religious and blessed. Well during this week, from Sunday to Sunday (the 30th to the 7th) people invite others to their houses to have a little ceremony thing. What they do is they start by lighting off a ton of fireworks in the front of the house, and then all of the people sing to the statue of the Virgin for like 30 minutes, then they do more fireworks out in the street to signify that they have finished. The person who hosted is obligated to give everyone some sort of gift like bread or something, and then of course the hosts receive a ton of blessings from Mary. Honestly I just don't see how that makes sense to them... They claim to believe the bible, the same one that we preach, is true, yet they neglect completely Exodus 20:4-5. And I would also like to direct you to 2 Nephi 9:37 after you read Exodus. It just doesn't make sense... And apparently Sunday the 7th is when it will be the craziest, because EVERYONE is having one in their homes, and people just walk the streets to join one and get some free stuff.......... anyway enough about that.

Anyway, really other than that it has been pretty uneventful other than getting ready for changes. I would just like to say that I know that this is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true church. I have gained a personal testimony of that, and regardless of what anyone told me, that would never change. I could never deny it. Sure I don't get a whole lot of time in my proselyting area right now, but I don't let that discourage me from using every moment possible to share even a little bit of this truth with the people here in Nicaragua. Everyone needs it, and at some point in time, they will be ready to accept it no matter their circumstance.

I love you all and hope that you have a fantastic week!!!

Love Elder Moser

Pics this week...

Office Birthdays are sooooo awesome!! I cant wait till mine!!! B-)

Doing exercise in one of the meetings (sequence of pictures)

Basically all of these pics from the different meetings are from the different Multi Zone meetings we had all of last week.

We were doing burpees!

And then we did a relay race...

I feel that I was properly dressed,

To earn last place! :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

... here in the office!!