A Change

hey guys!!!

it was so great to hear from you on christmas!!! i havent gotten the package yet, but i´m pretty sure they´ll be getting it to us soon...so, my time has ended in san jose! i am gettin transferred to MELO....the city is called Centenario....it is the farthest part of our mission and i will be going shortly in bus six hours!!! it is close to the border of brasil!! and my new companions name is hermana medina....haha i changed companions but she has the same name as my last companion! only my new comp is from nicaraguas!!! so that will be my third latin companion, it is going to be great! it is going to be even hotter up in Melo, haha that is the only thing i am not looking forward to, everyone keeps telling me to buy a sombrero and wear it, the big ugly straw cowboy looking ones are the only ones we are allowed to wear, haha i might actually have to buy one and wear it out of pure survival...even tho i swore i would never wear one....well, sorry its short again...i hope you all enjoy the pics!!

love, gioia

Foto de la Misión

quite possibly my last week in san jose....

so...heres the dealio...the christmas call, is gonna be a lot shorter than i want, yeah i know, but here´s what ya gotta do.

and here is the time you have to call. i have no idea when the time difference is so i am speaking of the time here in san jose, uruguay...so make sure you call here my time....the call can only be a max of 40 minutes, so since i have 2 families i have to split the time and our mish president was super strict and clear about the call...that its only to speak to parents...yeah totally sucks!!! but he said that we would be blessed by obeying and making the call short and only talking to our parents...so ya, i get twenty minutes with the leavitts, and 20 minutes with each family....not the most exciting thing, but i guess its just another opportunity to try by faith and obedience...the mission president has his reasons...sorry savannah, so unless you are at the leavitts house when they call, i wont get to hear from you ever!!! but thats cool, thats why we have letters right? sorry this seems kinda complicated but yeah...anyways, other then that things have been going great this week i`m kinda hoping is my last week in san jose..sunday they will call us and tell us the changes and who my next comp will be...i am super excited, not gonna lie, i need a change....but yeah, this christmas eve the bishop and his family invited us for christmas, and they are gonna make us asado!!!!!!! its gonna be sweet....savannah if you read this, call the leavitts and make sure they understand how the call works, because if they dont read this email they wont know, that they have to call me, and i dont have any of there numbers...so go to there house! i want to be able to talk to them more than anything!!!!!!!!!!

well, keep me in your prayers haha so that my next change  and comp are great!!! i love you and miss you all, cant wait to here from you all!!!

the church is definitley true!!!!!!!! stay active!!!!!!! chau!!!!!!!

love, hermana moyes

still san jose

ok...soo, sorry that i couldnt write on monday...they always change our pday at the last minute and i hate it!!! oh, well, i am not even sure when our next pday will be because they are prob gonna change it again as well...but normally it is supposed to be every monday....anways, this week has been crazy, ahhh...we had this sweet fireside planned, the president and his wife were coming and everything, but guess what happened? it rained allllll weekend and we had to cancel it...i hate the rain here it ruins everything, and nobody leaves their houses, on sunday there were a grand total of fourteen people in sacrament meeting....the rain and the wind stop life here. and i am now on my fourth umbrella because the wind just destroys them, but there is no way around it...so yeah, the week started out rainy and cold, and the last three days we got hit with a crazy heat wave, i´m pretty sure the sun fried my brain yesterday, we were walking around ALL day in the sun...all of the appointments we had planned fell thru, and nobody was home anywhere!! it seriously was one of the longest days i have ever experienced in the mission..and i´m pretty sure i drank like 5 liters of water it felt like we were stranded in the sahara...but thats ok, because we have set 2 baptismal dates this week!!! they happened with two of the people that i least expected that would progress, but we have had more success in finding people who are willing to complete the commitments, and they have come to church multiple times!!! yeah, i thought the day would never come when one of our investigators would come to church on there own free will....but luckily now i can see that the people that the lord really has been preparing to recieve this message will bring themselves to church, because they themselves want to learn more...anyways, what else...tomorrow we are travelling to montevideo (malvín) to have our christmas dinner...well its actually a lunch, but they are still calling it dinner....and i´m sure they have something cool planned...it will be the first time that i will get to be with the entire mission....i think the mission only comes together like this once a year around christmas, so it will be cool to see everyone....what else, christmas is sooo close!! i cant wait to hear from you all, but i am going to have to give you our phone number and you guys have to call us here, at the time that i tell you...not sure when that will be....but i´ll let ya know...but just in case email me your home phone numbers...i dont remember anybodys and i dont think i have them written down anywhere!! so email me your phone numbers just in case...

the pics i sent are of me and my comp hna medina...and of the other missionaries in our district, we made tacos one day, and shared with everyone..well at least we attempted them...they turned out ok...considering what we had to work with..haha....and as you can see me and my comp ran home one day when out of nowwhere we got pounded with rain, and were soaked head to toe....if its not the blazing sun...its buckets of rain...

all in all, it honestly has been a tough week, but we have been able to see some small little miracles occur in the lives of these two investigators, oned named carlos, about 45 years old and the other named jose about 60 years old. i am kinda getting nervous this coming week is the last week of the change and everyone in my district thinks i am for sure getting transfered....ahh, it will be my first reall change of the mission, but i am kinda lookin forward of it, i am almost at 6 months in the mission, and i am still in the area that i arrived at...i think i need the change...

well, i love and miss you all,

hermana moyes

san jose 3rd week of my 4th change

ok, soo, sorry i dont know if my last weeks email got sent or not...anyways i have realized that my emails the past few weeks have kinda sucked...lacking detail i mean...haha sometimes i just get frustrated cause by the time pday comes around i can barely remember what even happened in the previous week, let alone be able to answer peoples questions and explain everything to 2 families in 30 minutes....ahh but thats ok, becuase christmas is gonna be here soon and i am sooo excited to talk to you all, but the call can only be a max of 40 minutes...

but yeah, anyways, something that i have really learned alot of lately, seeing as that i am no longer a new missionary that wisdom and great teaching is not just acquired over time, it doesnt matter how many times we teach the message of the restoration or of the plan of salvation if we are not actively studying to adapt the lessons to the needs of each person, our teaching doesnt improve, i guess i just figured that the longer you have in the mission the stronger you become and the better you get...which is true, but only if we work and strive daily to maintain our knowldege and testimony, even and especially as a missionary, i have learned that time alone doesnt just instantly make us wise, and for all of the great experiences that we have, they dont mean anything until we really write down and study and apply everything we learn...repeating the same basic things is soo important in our progression as missionaries....this sunday is going to be our activity  like i said and president da silva and his wife are coming...its going to be interesting...i know it will turn our great, but we have been praying and inviting everyone that we can possibly imagine, the only thing i´m worried about is that they wont come....there arent very many members to begin with, but if the members would just come!!!! they dont even know what they are missiong out on!!! i guess thats what its like with every church meeting, we should never miss out on these opportunities because we are only losing the chance to learn more and change....lately the mosqiotos have been eating me alive....but thats ok...i think today i´m gonna buy a mosquito net to sleep in....and it is soo stinkin hot now!!! but yeah, i am really grateful to be hear...and that i havent really gotten sick yet...i started to  drink the tap water, but stopped cause that will give you instant diarea...but yeah other than that, theres not much else to worry about....

love, gioia

Zone Conference Picture

wow, i can not believe you are making that many pumpkin pies, that kinda seems a little insane, maybe you could just send one this way...this week flew by like all the rest of them...and i can not believe that in less than a month i get to call you all.,..the only thing that sucks is that its only going to be for 40 minutes that we can call, and i have 2 families to talk to, totallly not going to be long enough, but i hope you are all together on christmas...the weather has been gettin pretty hot, and super muggy..ahh you guys are all preparing for blizzards and my tan lines get worse everyday haha....its crazy, having to be outside all day tracting really takes a toll on ya, but i`ve actually gotten used to it.they changed our pday today, and we had a district activity.

love, gioia

My First Missionary Fight... not really, but she didn't title the email so I did :)

so, this week totally flew by, ah we had the craziest experience the other day, i can barely believe it.def not something that i am ever going to forget...ok so we were knocking doors in this one neighborhood like normal....but nobody answered so we crossed the street to talk to a few people that were sitting on the curb outside of there houses, there was a man in about his thirties i would have to guess... and then two women...so we present ourselves as normal, and then he said that he already knew everything, so my comp asks him...so tell us what exactly do you know about our church? because they always so they have heard everything about our religion and in reality they know nothing...then he was like, well where do you want me to start, with Moroni or with Jose Smith...and we were way shoked cause it seemed like he actually knew what he was talking about, and we got to know him a little bit more, he seemed nice at first and told us that he is a priest of his own church, which he wouldnt mention the name of...and said that he had done a ton of research about all the major religions before he finally decided to stay with the one he is with now...then he started asking us questions, well basically he directed every question at  me and was totally trying to destroy my testimony....i literally met zeezrom from the book of mormon....and i knew that all he was trying to do was confound us, which he did not suceed at doing...i cant even remember all the questions he asked us, really deep complex questions that nobody knows the answer to, and then when we said we dont know everything, he would critisize us and say "you dont know, you dont know" you have been called of God, why cant you get amswers to these questions, there is always a why to every questions, and you cant be true servants of a God if you cant answer a question....so we threw the same questions back at him, but he wouldnt answer them either....it was completely strange, and i knew that he was only trying to get us to deny our testimonies, then he started saying really horrible things about our church things that i am not even gonna repeat..and it was the first time that i have ever felt angry with an investigator, but i just kept testiflying to him and said that everything that he was saying was a lie, nd he was like but how do you know? you cant know the truth, and i just said i know that thru the power of the holyghost these things are true and its something that you should seek to obtain, and he shut up, and we walked away...ahh, i cant even describe well how it went, but yeah, after that my testimony def grew, and for all of his intentions of trying to get us to deny our faith we held firm and his plans failed.

love, gioia

Still San Jose- Cambio 4

hey you guys!!!!!

ah man, this past week has been so great!!! the temple was amazing!! i´m not gonna lie i was super nervous to have to go through a session that wasnt in english, but it was great! and afterwords presidente da silva and his wife had a great zone conference with us. We got to discuss some great things about the temple!! things that i had never ever thought of before!! anyways, changes came, but i am staying here in san jose one more change at least, ahh, and i can hardly believe that i will be approaching 5 months already in the mission, which is practically already six and that mean that i am nearly a third way through the mission? but who´s counting right? haha it is crazy how fast it is going!! i cant say that i am a greenie anymore!! or as they call us here i am no longer an oro....anyways...next week we will be back to our regular schedule and pday will be on monday as usual...

ok, so something big that we have been planning that we are going to be doing here is we are planning to have a family home evening with the entire ward led by the missionaries...and we have been planning it for a long time, because honestly the situation here is pretty grim, and the progress slow!! we are going to teach the members the importance of the social role that they play in missionary work and how for any investigator to recieve a true conversion they have their are 2 types of conversion...the social and the spritual, and how important it is that they do the social part, which is the easiest part!!! anyways, we have been planning a ton of practices and want the ward to be involved, basically its like an interactive fireside, but i am kinda nervous because the other 3 missionaries that are in our ward are pretty much depending on me to make this happen, but i know that if we plan it well this activity is really going to make a difference in the ward we are in...there are so many things that need to change here!! and we need to start with building up there families and encouraging them to live the gospel more fully, because until they do, we will be knocking doors all day everyday, doing the work alone...but that is not the way it should be, their is so much success if we can get them reactivated and invloved in a very personal way...i have sent  a bunch of pics from zone conference and the temple...you can see the missionaries in my district, and the one with the four of us is me and my comp and the elders that are also serving with us here in the same ward....there are four of us here, but even if we had six more missionaries the work would stay the same, we need the members so much!  but yeah---i am gonna try and send more letters soon!! i love you and miss you all and i can not wait to be able to call you in a month and talk on christmas!!!! ahh its gonna be great, i hope you all can be there together so i can hear from all of you guys.

here is the address again...to send any letter or package to

MisiónUruguay Montevideo

Dalmiro Costa 4635 bis

C.P. 11400

Montevideo, Uruguay

:)

hey guys!!!! i freakin love you all thanks for all the emails!! sorry they changed pday only thins week because we are going to the temple tomorrow!!! woot woott!! and yeah! zone conference is tomorrow!! so excited! and heads up, changes are this tuesday, so i will be having the next pday on tuesday, so yeah...i might be staying in this area, might not...i have one favor to ask, there is a talk by diana holsher i think is her name...called the missionary next door!! all of you need to listen to it soooo good, and i need someone to see if it is available in spanish, we want to do a ward activity but its kinda long for us to translate ourselves..anyways, i will write much more next week,,,i´m pretty sure that me and my comp will be together for at least 1 more change in san jose, but ya never know!!

love, gioia

San Jose... I can't remember what week

hmm...i am not sure what week i am at now, i cant keep track anymore....but i am way excited because we are going to the temple in 10 days, and it will be my second zone conference....so exciting. this week we had some tough experiences, two of the really great families that we had been teaching dropped us...man i hate when that happens, they told us that they like our company and the messages and everything and that they dont doubt that it is true, but they just dont think that they need to change, or that they dont feel it is neccesary...i never thought it would be so hard hear that, from people that we have learned to love so much...but they have their free agency and its just not their time to accept the gospel right now i suppose, kinda sucks, but thats part of this work...moving on with hope and faith knowing that the poeple who are prepared to recieve the gospel and are willing to change their lives, are out there...i know they are, but it has been so stinkin hard to find them....it has really caused me to reflect alot and really made me gain my own testimony....i never really understood what it meant to have your testimony tried, and even tho it is growing daily, it is being tested...so many times investigators, pretty much all the people we meet, have so many profound questions about life, sometimes it makes me wonder too...if God really does love us, why does he let so many things happen? or why is it so hard? but then i just have to constantly remind myslef that His plan is perfect and that without these tests my testimony would stay the same, every time someone questions us we are called to anwer  as the voice of the Lord, and even tho sometimes i dont even understand why people are faced with so many things, the answer is always the same, thru the gospel of Jesus Christ their problems can be solved, or at least made bearable, our burdens will be lighter with our knowledge and underdstanding of His plan for us. even though my knowledge is not perfect i know that there is no other way to have happiness in this life, we can either liv the rest of our lives wondering why things have to be so hard, or we can rely on the Lord, ask Him in prayer what He wants us to learn form it, and gain strength, we really cant be stronger until we are tried and tested, and i love be able to help people realize that. that yes it is true, life is hard sometimes, for many of the people here, all the time, but if they would just think for one minute and take the time to ask our father in Heaven if He really does exist, will He please help us? then they would recieve the answer to there prayers and they would be willing to act and follow the example of the saviour...everyday we strive to improve the way we teach and live worthy of the spirit, which is the only teacher there is really. i am so happy for all of you and that you have been writing me, and i hope that whenever you start to question something, especially your testimonies of the church and the principles of the gospel, that you "would not ask if these things are not true"  there is a quote by gordan b. hinckley that has really helped me out lately..."Do you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. Lend your efforts to helping people...Stand higher, lift those with feeble knees, hold up the arms of those that hang down.Live the gospel of Jesus Christ."

if we are not willing to make an effort and live the gospel of Jesus Christ, we shouldnt expect to recieve the fullness of the blessings he has in store for us...i guess that is what sometimes makes me sad when we find great families who just "dont feel like its neccessary to change" when if they would just experiment upon our words they would recieve the promised blessings....thats how it is for all of us, and i guess its good to question things sometimes, it makes us think about why we do or dont do certain things...but until we try our faith and test the Lord to see if by our obedience He will bless us, we will never know partake of the amazing blessings that await us. the more we appy these principles, the more we recieve, we just have to ask and try it for ourselves.

 

love, gioia

San Jose

wow!! thank you all for writing me! we have had a really great week...i can hardly believe i have been here for 4 months now...yesterday we had stake conference in las piedras, and m russel ballard and boyd k packer spoke to our area thru a special broadcast...it was way good! the church here really is still in its young stage, not a lot of stong wards have been formed yet, but i know that it is only going to continue to progress! haha before i forget, yesterday the funniest thing happened..i dont know if i have mentioned in other emails, but  the dogs here are insane, there are like 50 dogs in the street for every person here...and they are everywhere...i have kinda gotten used to them, haha but i still hate them..so the other day we were contacting at this one house and this dog was in front of the door and i rubbed its belly with my shoe for like 1 second, and when we left the house it followed us like all day! it was ridiculous, and it was attracting tons of other dogs, it was horrible, everytime we passed by a pack of dogs they ran after the little dog that was following us and tried to attack it, so it ran towards us for protection and we were in the middle of a dog fight, it was horrible so we spent all afternoon trying to ditch the stupid thing....it followed us everywhere, we finally waited until it wasnt looking and we sprinted like 3 blocks to get away from it...ah...there are so many strange things that happen to us, haha we were laughing so hard after we had finally ditched it, and we were out of breath...gosh, what experiences we have had....

i got to do my first interchange with an american hermana...hermana kleinman...it was way fun! the first companion that i could speak english to, it was like we had been sisters all our lives and we only changed companions for one day!! i had forgotten how great it was to speak english and talk to someone who understands life back at home!! shes from orem....but yeah, i love my paraguayan companion!! she is teaching me soo much! when her family joined the church, all of the people in her neighborhood that had been close friends all her life stopped talkind to her family and now they dont associate with them because they are mormon....but she has the greatest testimony of the church! i have sent some pics...one with my comp and the other elders that are serving in our ward.....i cant wait for savannahs package, tell her that she can send videos if she wants i can find accesss to a dvd player..

love, gioia

Almost 4 Months

this last week has been a long one, but luckily we have been able to focus oon a lot more of the investigators that really are willing to listen to us. i hope that everyone is doing good at home. it would be great to hear how things are going! savannah was able to send a few of erins wedding pics in the last email!! they looked great!! we found out the other day taht after a million years of asking they are going to let us missionaries go to the temple...our zone is going to get to go november 11th and i am so excited!!! it is going to be great! haha this week we had some funny experiences....being here i have met quite a few catholic priests, and usually they are nice haha, but we were knocking doors the other day and this man came out was like i´m a missionary too and didnt want to listen to us so we asked him if he had heard of the book of mormon and we invited him to read it, but he refused and we asked him if he knew anybody that could benefit from our message and he said no then got all angry and was like if i told you someone to help then you would be working for the catholic church and he was like these are my people...haha but we just kept testifying to him of the truth and that we were there to lend service to everyone, doesnt matter what there religion is, we have met so many other priests and other people like him...thats always the best when they get all angry and dont want to listen to us, i have learned to have patience with them, and to maintain our testimony of the truthfullness of the restored gospel....i never would have thought i would have been confronted by other priests and teachers of other religions, but its interesting how many different types of people we find everyday in there homes

sorry this is short, hope you like the pics...

love, gioia

Week 18

Wow! it was so good to hear from all of you guys! the last email didnt have the pictures, haha so you will have to tell stacey or erin to work there technological skills...i am so excited for you all....haha it made me laugh really hard when you said to nicole that she she ask again next summer to shave her legs...wow everyone is just growin up! and kort is having another boy!! maybe when she gets to the 8th kid it will be a  girl!

 well, my new companion is great i am really blessed to have been placed with her...even though we are completelu different, i honestly have learned more from her example in just one week than i had in the first 2 changes....and guess what? she is teaching me how to speak guarani haha we´re starting  with a few small frases.. anyways, i thought it would be harder ahving had to be in charge of showing my new companion the area, but it really wasnt at all... i really feel like i have grown a lot this past weel, because most of the things that my companion before always did, i have been doing...like calling all the investigators and the members and making the appointments, and having to decide more things, because i know the area, and my comp doesnt...its been good tho, things that i thought were hard before, or that i was a little hesitant in doing, have become natural, and easy, just another part of missionary work....but i cant describe how much my new comp has taught me, she is really obedient and i love her testimony and how she works hard and does thing the right way!! and she is a little OCD like me and she keeps things really clean!! its been a relief to have a change of companions!! and we have been able to focus more on finding people whom the Lord really has prepared...we have always had a lot of investigators, that love us and let us come and teach them regualry, but they never still after these few months have come to church....so long story short, we had to be really honest with oursleves this week and going to drop a lot of the investigators that we had been teaching, because we had been losing a lot of time on people that were not progressing and willing to make the necessary changes in their lives....its hard, because we try so hard to convince these people the truth, and many of them have become our friends, but they are not ready to accept the gospel now, and i know that the their are people that have been prepared to hear our message and that really want to investigate the gospel, because they really are searching for the truth...i know these people are out there, and me and my companion are really excited, its going to be hard, sometimes it feels like we have nothing or nobody to work with...but i know that we are going to have succes, and that we will be led to those willig to change there lives.

 

i love you all, thank you for writing....i cant wait to see the pics of the wedding

!

 

 

love, gioia

Changes

Well, i can hardly believe it this is my first change in the mission!!! guess where i am going??? haha, nowhere, i will be in san jose at least one more change and guess what?? i have a new companion...her name is Hermana Medina and she is from Paraguay!! i havent really gotten to know her yet, we just met at the bust station and are writing emails in montevideo before we go back to san jose!! well!! i can not beleive how Amazing the conference was!!! it was so great! all of the talks were amazing...i loved the talk by elder arnold, it way crazy, because just a few weeks ago he was here with us teaching us at our zone conference! and it was such a blessing to meet him and his wife! they have such amazing and active testimonies!! talk about people who live what they believe, they truly carry a great spirit about them....
ok, i wasnt nervous at all about this change until these last few moments!! but i know that me and hna medina will have some great times together and that i have much to learn from her. i can´t wait to see what difference we can make together with the investigators that we have...and now it is up to me to show her the area, i`m a little nervous about that...im sure we are going to get lost alot haha, but i`ve been there 12 weeks so i should be fine! well, seems like everything is going great at home!!  . that last email i wrote i was way excited because i thought spring had arrived then it rained and stormed all week...haha we had to buy some really nasty looking and smelly rain boots, cuz thats all they had, its pretty funny you would laugh if you saw me wearing them, dont worry i`´ve got pictures...when it rains the streets turn into rivers, and i mean gushing ones!! haha the water doesnt stop.. well, conferenece really was amazing, i love our prophet and our leaders and i know that what they say is true, and that like they said the words of the living prophets are even more valuable than the words of deceased prophets! and how blessed we are to have a living prohet!!! i know that if we listen and apply there teachings we will be happy and we will have successful lives and accomplish everything  that the Lord sees fit that we need to accompplish . i have to send pics in the next email, because i dont have my usb cord with me to put them on the computer...but i have some pretty good ones haha, the conference weekend...me and my companion and another set of sisters stayed the weekend in an area called Progreso, so that we didnt have to travel back and forth from our area every session of conference because the stake center is a few hours away...but anyways, it was interesting i will just say that...6 sister missionaries in a tiny old one bedroom apartment...haha, good times, and there were only two beds, so we didnt sleep to well on the floor, but we just looked at it as if we were camping haha, we might as well have been outside!
send me pics of erins wedding!! you guys are killing me!!!! and tell chris and james and stacey and erin to send pics and updates too!!! savannah said she looked beautiful! tell stacey to forward me some pics soon!!!
well i love you and hope you keep writing me and send more pics!!!

love, gioia

San Jose Week 11

This week we had some great experiences, and i am soo excited i actuallly have time to write some of them...ok, well the most interesting thing that happened was just a few days ago...we had a really great teaching experience with one of the investigators that we have seen for a long time...gloria is an older lady who taught catechism for years...and she has been listening for the missionies for quite a while...anyways, the lesson that we had with her was very powerful, and it is amazing how people even after being so deeply involved in catholisim, are led to the truth and are able to change their lives...for quite some time we have been inviting her to pray about the book of mormon, because she always read it faithfully and she loves its teaching, but she still wasnt able to understand the importance of knowing that joseph smith was a prophet and that he translated this book...so we explained in a simple way how simple and clear the evidence is that this book proves to us that the church of jesus christ is here upon the earth directed by a living prophet..and by simply reading this book and sincerly asking our heavenly father to know if it is true, we WILL know.. it was a simple lesson, but being able to feel her conversion slowly come thru the power of the book of mormon has been a great experience...it has been such a blessing to be able to teach people with 100 percent confidence that when we do what the lord commands us, he will provide us with the promised blessings....everyday , we are instructed in ways to be able to teach more effectively, and i have learned so much from listening to the spirit...being able to put my trust in the lord and learning how to really listen to peoples problems and concerns and try and put myself in their shoes, i have been able to speak what heavenly father wants them to hear...its not always easy to teach the people when we are in the habit of just teaching the same things in the same order, but the greatest moments we have are when we forget the order, we look at the people who accept us into there homes and we LISTEN...then with the spirit we respond...and teach the doctrine....the spirit always directs us to ask inspired questions, which help the people share with us there religious beliefs, and the lesson isnt a structured thing, but a converation in which is led by the spirit and which i know that we are helping these people increase there faith in God, and live better lives....i know that when we really try and look at these people as our own brothers and sisters and we love them sincerely, we have a more developed desire to ask them simple inspired questions, and with the inspried questions we recieve inspired answers....this process of asking our Heavenly Father for HIS guidance has been the most effective thing, and really, the ONLY way that the gospel of Jesus Christ can be taught...when we listen, and want to know how to help these people, He always lets us know how.

 

 

anyways, this is the last week of the change...we`ll see if i stay or go.. at least there is a 95 percent chance that i am going to have a new companion....i cant decide which i would like more ..being in san jose longer or getting to know a knew area....either is great...but finally! spring is starting to manifest itself here!! and the insane amoung of rain has gone, at least for now...but i know that this summer is gonna be tough, because when it is hot, its unbearable...but i still love it!!

i finally mailed a ton of letters to savannah, so they should get there soon and she can give them to you all!! tell the family its always better to email me here...and if they use the urumontemission email they need to include my full name in the subject line so that the leaders know who it is for...but i prefer u email me here...i love and miss you all!! dont forget to email me, even if its just a pic and one line i love to know how you are all doing!!

love, gioia

New PDay

time is passing way too fast!!! well, they changed our pday to wednesday and we dont have much time, but just want to write a few lines!! i am so excited for conference that is coming up!!! i can wait to hear our prophet speak to us....being here i have come to appreciate so much the power that the book of mormon has in our lives, when we read, meditate, and pray about the stories it contains we recieve the stregnth and power that we need to do all things! i love and miss you all, and i have about a million letters that i have written over the past few months that i am going to finall send off soon!!!

 

love, gioia

San Jose Week 10

how have u alll been? send me pics of the wedding! i am so excited for erin!! and miss and love you all!!

 

one of the talks that i read recently by elder holland really left an impact on me...i think it is called....However long and hard the road....anyways, elder holland talks a lot about the history of the process and the sacrifice that the early saints took in building the salt lake temple..and he talks about details that i never knew! anyways, i loved the part most when he mentions the 1st general conference that the saints held...in one room there were gathered maybe 30 saints, and they had much persecution ahead, they were proposing to fight the very forces of satan and establish the very kingdom of God on earth...and how elder holland says how persumptuous and crasy that would seem that 30 humble, land tilling saints, had a purpose so vast and noble...and so much opposition...but they had seen visions!! and they knew the truth! and as insane as it all seemed or as impossible as the task ahead seemed..they moved forward with strenght and firm testimonies to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to all. and what a blessing it is today to see the church growing and people learning the truth that had been lost for so many ages...reading all the family history stories i brought with me has been such a blessing...

 

sometimes it feels like our work here on earth is so hard so unattainable, but when we look toward the future we keep working! sometimes the work here feels impossible...we have the entire city of san jose to conquer! to help convince the people here of the truth! and our area leaders..and apostles have seen visions of these countries being filled with temples!! and i know that it is possible that every person we teach every person we find that moves closer to the truth is part of that grand vision...and we all have so much in store!!! thank you for helping me be a part of this great work.

love, gioia

San Jose Week 8

guess what we had our first baptism!! it was great ;) we had been teaching a young girl of 14 yrs named yescica. she is so great and such a strong example for her family, i really feel blessed to have met her, and shared the gospel with her! ...anyways...i hope everything is going great at home!

so, i know your all busy with the wedding haha, but what in the world is going on!! haha, i dont even know what day erin is getting married :) fill me in please and send pics!!! of her engagement and everything...erin and stace can help attach them to one of your emails. i love and miss you all ;) and remember that i need addresses for everyone...savannah is the only one who emailed me her address so for now i am going to send her all the letters i,ve written to stacey and erin and everyone so that she can get them to you all, until i know where to send them.

tell erin i am so excited for her! and that i miss madi and niki! i miss you all! but i am so grateful to be here...haha i was just realizing the other day that when i get back i will be 23 haha, that makes me feel old.

..also, something everyone should know just in case....dont worry about sending packages amd paying more so they come sooner...send them the cheapest way possible, because even when they say it will come in 2 weeks or 2 days...it will not come in that time...once it leaves the country, and enters uruguay they hold it at customs and inspect it...so just know that i prob wont get any of the birthday packages for another month or so,,,,it takes almost 2 months to get them...so just know that when they say it will get to me in 2 weeks it wont, so dont pay extra to send it....

anyways, i love you all, and am so excited to continue working here....

love, hermana moyes

San Jose Week 7

Where have you guys all been?? haha, i know it must be super busy with erins WEDDING!!! what is the day she is actually getting married? and i want to see her engagement pics!!! someone should email me them!! hmm...well, i am staying in this area for another 6 weeks at least, but i was glad i didnt change areas, beacause finally we are getting closer to seeing some results!! wow, last week we had zone conference with Elder Arnold, the area 70, and it was amazing these leaders are truly servants of the Lord, i have never learned so much in one afternoon all at once! whats been going on with you all? how are chris and james and stace and shad and erin? it def stinks that i cant email them, but i still want to hear from them :) what else is going on back at home...today, can you believe it is my 2 months in the mission!! 16 more to go, it honestly feels like i have always been here! this week we had some really great experiences!!! this entire time on the mision we hadnt had a single investigator come to church, it has been so hard to get them to come!! and the ward here is very weak, there are a lot of problems between the members that we are trying to fix to help strengthen them abd build the area, but me and my companion decided to fast and pray even harder to help the people have a desire to come to church, and i couldnt believe it this week!! we had 4 people show up!! me and my companion were so happy i can not even describe it! it has been the biggest battle here! that was one of the most important lessons i learned this week, to trust in the Lord and be patient, because the results will come! and they always come when we least expect it!!! i have learned to expect these miracles when we least expect them to come!! but they always come in due time, when we maintain our faith...it reminds me of a story someone told us in one of our meetings...about a worker who was put out in a field..God had set giant boulder in the middle of the field and told the man that his work was going to be to push the boulder...so day after day the man worked, with every piece of strenghth that he had, pushing pulling, sweating trying to make the boulder move, but after months and months, it still hadnt budged even an inch...so later after wanting to give up and feeling useless, he asks God, why isn´t this rock moving? i am working as hard as i can, i dont know what else to do? then God responds...¨"i didnt tell you to move the rock, i asked you only to push it.¨" 

and the entire time the man had been pushing it, he had gained muscle and strenthg that he had never before know, not realizing that the change and the work that took effect wasnt in moving the rock, but strenghting him.

i know that that is how life is, sometimes we feel like we are up against a giant boulder not making a difference in the lives of anybody, but we are making a differnce! and we are growing stronger as we do it! i love this story, because it teaches us to never give up or think that the good we do is in vain...if we trust in God and do exactly what he commands us to do, we are going to be blessed and strengthened..even when we dont understand or think it will at first...we must put our faith in him, and miracles will happen, when we least expect them to!

 i love you and miss you all, i wish i had more time to describe the people we are meeting here and to write more experiences we are having...the rest of this pday i am going to actually write you all more letters!! but still...please have somebody email addresses! i dont really have anybodys!!!

love, hermana moyes 

San Jose Week 6

 cant believ this will be my last week of this change...i dont have time to write today this pday we woke up at 3:45 am an took a train to our district mtg and then sone activity...and we just got back, so its late and our pday is almost over! next week will be as normal and i can fill u in on more details and send pics :)

 

love, gioia

San Jose Week 5

wow,

i cant believe how fast time is passing here! thank you all for writing me!!! i promise you will be receiving letters sometime soon! ok first i need you guys to ask everyone to email me there addresses, i dont have a single address! so if you could email them to me that would be great...but until i get them, i am going to have to maybe just send an envelope with multiple letters for all you guys and you can send them or give them to everyone else for me...i have letters, but i dont know where to send them ;) and also if u could email me some simple recipes...banana bread, bread dough, choc chip cookies, brownies etc....i dont know how to make anything off the top of my head, and i dont have any recipes with me :)

alright, this week has been great! yesterday we had a great experience, we have been working with a youg married family and we hadnt been able to contact them in a while, and we thought that they were avoiding us, but yesterday, they said we could come over and teach them, so we finished up the planning that we were doing and were so excited that they wanted to hear from us that we ran to there house! we ended up watching a dvd of the restauration with them, and they thought the dvd and the story of joseph smith was beatiful, and they are really progressing! i have realized more and more each day, the importance of being obedient to the Lord. he really does put people in our path for a reason, but if we are not following and listening to the spirit, we will miss these opportunites! i know that this church is true, and that joseph smith was a prophet! we are so blessed to have this knowlede, and everyday i have the opportunity to testify of Jesus Christ, i have realized more than ever that we really are in the latter days, and that the only way to be happy and to feel peace in our homes and for ourselves is by following the will of the Saviour, and learning about Him.

i love you and miss you all!

you can send me packages and letters to the mission home anytime throughout the mission, always send it to the mission home at this address!

Mision Uruguay Montevideo
Dalmiro Costa 4635 Bis
C.P. 11400
Montevideo, Uruguay

last preparation day we went to the zoo here...haha it was more just  like a park with a few cages, but it was fun!! hope u enjoy the pics! :)

love, hermana moyes

San Jose Week 4

ok, first of all i am so jealous you get to enjoy the sun! haha, it is freezing here, and i have never expierenced so much rain in my entire life!! at least twice a week it rains all day and night non stop...and we come home soaking wet...we tried tying grocery bags around our feet but somehow the water still gets into our boots...it was hard at first, im not gonna lie i hate the rain, but we have learned to get over it and have as much fun as we can, sometimes it works to our advantage haha cause when we are knocking on peoples doors they feel sorry for us and let us come in and teach them, when they otherwise would have just said no...for example the other night we had the greatest experience ever...we were completely exhausted and it was about 8pm, we are supposed to be out contacting til 9pm, but with the rain all day and night we were soaked and we still needed to get about 10 more contacts to meet our goal of contacting 20 new people each day, so we finished a lesson and decided even since we were freezing and soaking wet, we had to complete the goal and find more people, so we decided, that since we only had an hour we wouldnt teach any lessons, we would contact the people give a brief message and make an appointment to come back and teach the lessons....but, the Lord had something else in mind....after knocking on a few houses and getting rejected, we found a house and a man with his 2 children let us in and he was really interested in our message! we ended up teaching him the entire message about the restoration and the book of mormon, and he was soo excited and interested and kept asking questions...we definitely felt the spirit with him and his family. and after that experience we left his house soo happy haha we ran home, and kept thinking about how important it was that we persevere, even when the rain is pouring down! we wont be led to the people whom the Lord has really placed in our path if we arent willing to give everything that we have...that was just one great experience that helped me this week, now the rain doesnt bother me as much haha...

hmm...ok, i will def take pics of the house....it is very modern...haha, actually i am not gonna lie, when i first got there, my companion from honduras kept talking it up and saying it was the best house in the mission, compared to all the other areas, but it is horrible haha, it was extremely hard for me to adjust to living there, almost none of the outlets work, a lot of the lights dont work either, and if we want to flush the toliet, we have to fill up a bucket of water and fill the toilet tank ourselves, or else it wont flush....haha it makes me laugh now, but at first i was thinking "you have to be kidding"  after being in week in some of the members houses seeing them with 3 kids with barely a roof and no electricity, what we live in is a mansion! and i would never have thought that before, but the Lord has humbled me ALOT and i realize everday how spoiled we are in the States, we really are blessed with so many day to day things that the people here dont have....i am going to send some pics of everything so you can see what i am talking about. the people here are great, although not very many come to church...that is one of the hardest things here...nobody has a car, some have motorbikes, but the majority dont have anything, so when it rains nobody comes to church, and nobody will make the effort to walk to church...we meet amazing new investigators everday, and we are trying to prepare them for baptism, but they wont come to church because they are lazy! it is soo sad, we have been working alot with this problem...

what else, well someone needs to tell savannah she is a bum for not writing me! i havent heard from her in a month! and if you guys could forward this weekly email to all the siblings that would be great! tell them all that i still want them to email me!! even though i cant repy thru email i still love reading there emails, haha its a little selfish, haha but thats the rule, i can enjoy their messages, but they cant enjoy my responses, unless i send them a letter...well, time is almost up, it is crazy how fast it goes, i will get better at writing more letters throughout the week, so i am not rushed trying to cram in all my experiences in 30 minutes on the computer...

here is the address of the mission house, send all my mail here...they never send stuff to our actual address that is why i havent given you one....so send it to the mission home always...and they will make sure i get everything

i love you and miss you all!

there are some pics of when we crossed some railroad tracks it was a scary bridge haha, and a pic at one of our district meetings.

Mision Uruguay Montevideo

Dalmiro Costa 4635 Bis

C.P. 11400

Montevideo, Uruguay 

San Jose Week 3

wow! i can barely believe that it has been so long....i month already in the mission...ok, where do i begin! we have had some great experiences this week!!! i will start with a few funny ones, the other day we were walking down the street trying to contact people, and just talk to everyone we could about the chruch, and we walked past this guy and were about to greet him, when u just said, "no, no, no, i am satan, dont talk to me or waste your time, i am the resureccted satan....its amazing what crazy lies people come up with to avoid talking to us!! haha, but it makes me laugh. later that same day, we met another man, and began to teach him about the gospel, then as we testified that we had a living prophet on earth, he got really angry and yelled at us and told us that thomas s. monson is a false prophet and that so were we....it was really sad, all we did was testify to him the truth, but he is so lost!!!

 

anyways, some great experiences we had were...we had a service project cleaning this guys house that is more like a shack, and we invited the elders in our area to help us, but when we gotr to his house we didnt realize how bad it was because we had never actually been inside, basically they lived in mud, and threw their trash on the floor everywhere and had bugs and straw and nasty stuff all over, it was a disaster...and after the service project the elders laughed at us and thought that the project was pointless, because it looked like we hadnt even made a dent in anything, and basically i kinda thought the same for a moment, that they are never going to change and are prob going to continue to live like that...but guess what!!! this man, who hadnt been to church in 20 plus years....came yesterday!! and he had showered and shaved and was wearing a suit!!! he looked like a commpletely different person, and when we saw him, we felt so grateful that our efforts no matter how small they were, werent in vain! he changed somehow, and that is what this gospel is all about, making us better people!!

 

 

sorry i dont have much time...i will be writng you all more next time, and more letters will come! with details of everything!!

 

 

love, hermana moyes

One Month

we made brownies to celebrate my one month date in the mission...this is our kitchen in san jose!

 

 

love, gioia

San Jose Week 1

hey, guys...

i have some news...i will not be able to email anybody but parents...however anybody can email me through the following address...they will print your emails and send them to me from the mission office..so if you can tell savannah to post my email on facebook or something...the only thing is that i can´t respond to anybodys email here with this account i can only write back to my parents...but i still want  to read all of your emails so please write me! it has been a really hard week, and i havent had anbody write me or email me for the past 2 weeks, i know you are all busy, but i really miss you all and still want to know how everyone is doing. so if you guys can forward this email to everyone else that would be great...when i get your emails i can print them and write you a letter back through the mail, its just going to take a while for u to get a reply. but i love my companion, and i love the work we are doing here...its nothing like i expected, but its all worth it. thank you all for helping me get here and for making this mission possible. my first area is called san jose, it is in a zone they call las piedras...it has rained everday and night for the past few days, but we are still able to find a lot of good people even in horrible weather. if i didn´t believe this church was true and that this work is the work of the Saviour i wouldn´t be here...i know that all these expereinces are going to bless the lives of many people, and i am grateful to be a part of it. here is a pic of my first trainer her name is hermana enamorado. and also i have 2 pics from the mtc with my companion hermana da silva...my comp now is from honduras.

love, gioia

Uruguay

omorrow morning i am flying to uruguay, so they gave a a few minutes to write before we head out!!

 

 

love you and miss you all, i will prob get to write more when i get there and will tell u where i am assigned and who my comp is!!

 

love, gioia

MTC Week 2 (last week, then its off to Uruguay!!! )

ok...first off the first day of proselyting was AMAZING we talked to sooo  many people the first 2 people we found walking in the street were way nice and one accepted an appointment, by the end of the day we had given 14 lessons and  contacted about 26 people this saturday we have 15 different appointments from people that wanted to hear more, among the good experiences we had a few funny and scary ones, but i learned that u cant walk up and ask if they have a few minutes to hear our message, you cant ask them if they want to hear it at all, because they will immediateley say no, they dont have time, or they arent interested, so as soon as we walk up to somebody and say hello, we testify as soon as we open our mouths, so that they pretty much listen to our message whether they want to or not. it is so effective though! when u arent direct from the start they wont let you speak. 

this is one experience that was my all time favorite of the day!!

so me and my comp had stopped and sat down on a little brick wall to eat lunch during our day of proseletismo and we were sitting on the corner of a small street that had a little fruit stand/produce "store" as we were eating 2 guys walked by us and i heard them saying something about us and they pointed and said  " son evangelistas"  basically they thought we were evangelists, but my companion didnt here them, and they had already passed us by quite a distance, i dont know how i  heard and understood them while my companion didnt, so i turned around, and they looked over and i kind of raised my voice and said, "no somos evangelistas, somos mormones." something like that, and i signaled them to come over and talk to us, so the one guy came over he looked super surprised that i had heard him, but he seemed intrigued and happy that we wanted to talk with him. so i began to explain....somos representantes de la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias.....and we began to teach him about our church.,,,,as we began to get to know him we taught him about how god is our loving heavenly father and he is there to help us etc, they he began to get very contemplative and told us if god loves me, and is my father, and sees me and guides me like you say then why isnt he helping me right now, we found out that he lived in the streets, and basically had nothing, and then my companion offered him her lunch and then i gave him what i had left. i handed him an apple and a sandwhich and some cookies and when he saw the apple in the bag, he looked like he was going to cry, he just stared at it and said, "an apple" you are giving alll of this to me??? he was so excited and grateful that he would be able to eat, and not have to spend money, 

i wish u could have been there, i can not explain how strong the spirit was!!! he really had sincere doubt, the "questions of the soul" does god know me, and love me etc,....and to be able to stand there and testify that christ lives and that god loves him and will take care of him was  so amazing, he looked at us as if we were angels and we couldnt get his contact info because he had none, but we wrote down the address to the church and told him what time the meeting were on sunday....wow, it was so great! he was so skeptical at the beginng, but as we walked away, and as he walked the opposite way down the street, he kept yelling how greatful he was and saying how beautiful the experience had been, it really was unforgetable, i dont know if he made it to church or not, or if the church can help his situation, but i know that at least he left knowing that god does know him and love him, and for that precise reason we were there eating lunch at the moment they passed by us, we were there to testify that God loves him and has not forgotten him, and that the church of jesus christ has been restored and it is the true church. 

anyways, its crazy that this saturday we will be teaching so many lessons, i was surprised that we were able to make so many appointments on our first day of proselyting, by the end of the day we were exhausted, but we met some amazing people with great potential. i hope that they will accept our message on saturday and that we can find even more people for the missionaries in that area, well, its crazy to think, but i will be leaving here on tues really early in the morning...so the 13 i will be in uruguay!!!

thanks for everything!! i´ll let you know how it goes when i get there!!

love, hermana moyes