Melo...Week 2

hey guys,

so, first of all i absolutely love my area here so far...the members are really helpful and my new companion´s name is Hermana Medina....again....a different companion, but she has the same name as my last companion...she is from Nicaraguas...i think i mentioned that in the last email....anyways, we get along great..its actually a huge relief, she speaks english, well she at least understands everything i saybut is too timid to speak english..so i speak a mix of spanish and english with her and she only answers in spanish...but she is way fun!!!, and the area here is amazing....its way small, but totally different terrain and everthing, much more dirt roads and steep hills, the last area was pretty much flat, but sometimes i feel like i´m in peru or something cause its so distinct here...really rural, lots of campo...theres a few pics of some cows waiting at the bus stop...they just roam the streets in herds here...way funny....but yeah, its strange here, like this is gonna sound way dumb...but its like uruguay used to be foreign to me, but i adjusted, but its like melo is another country, prob because its so close to brazil....but i like it...so yeah i cant believe savannah is getting married april 28th..insane!!!! i´m so excited!!! and oh yeah, pat.the package hasnt come yet..not so sure what the deal is...since we are so far from the mission home now, things take a really long time to get to us, even more so than before, so hopefully it will come in the following weeks...

 

love, hermana moyes

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