Artesia week 2

Cause I'm HAPPY!!!

 Actually....

Elder Ramirez loves jumping pictures. So we decided to take one when we found this cool tree farm.

Look at us. Studying hard. This picture was not posed at all. Completely natural.

I certainly did get your hump week package, along with a couple other packages from the Grandparents! Sheesh, I am getting bad at saying thank you.... so THANK YOU!

Here's my weekly food picture.

Not the best quality ever, but it is a triple decker, peanut butter, honey, banana, chocolate chip, bacon sandwich. Delicious!!!

Elder Moffitt and Elder Ramirez

I always wanted a pic of my companion and me walking down the street. Elder Pahulu and I almost got one, but my camera died right before it took. Well, in the heat of day, while no one was outside, I placed my camera on a mailbox, pressed the 10 second delay, and then we got an awesome picture!

Wow. It actually rained. And it actually poured for like 20 minutes.

And we were out walking as normal, and got caught right in the middle of it. This really nice man that we had talked to about 10 minutes earlier ended up  finding us in the rain, and giving us a ride to our next place. What a nice random stranger.

Giant tubes. Pretty cool. We wanted to push them down a big hill, but since there are no hills here we decided to just take a picture instead.  And let Grandpa Moffitt know that I was wearing his orange tie he sent me yesterday.

Just a couple FYIs. This transfer is only going to be 5 weeks instead of the usual 6. I think it has something to do with this being President Augustin's last transfer. Wow. New mission president in 3 weeks. Also, I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor and send me a map of Texas and a map of New Mexico. I am hard pressed to find maps, and I think it would be cool to be able to see the whole state and see where I've been and whatnot. Thanks! 

Exciting story: last week was our first Sunday right? We call the bishop Saturday evening to ask him about some of the things in the ward, and he asks us if we would both introduce ourselves and bear our testimonies the following day in church. We say sure. We get to church and see our names in the program for giving talks. Yikes! Elder Ramirez went first. He did a great job, and I went next and couldn't talk as long as him but I tried my best. Then this last Sunday we were asked to give the opening and closing prayer. I guess the just love us so much already :) They also asked us to pass the sacrament, but I said no. We actually aren't supposed to do that as missionaries. They want the ward to do it. Really, if there are like 30 priesthood holders in the ward, the missionaries should never pass the sacrament. We are just stealing the ward's responsibility and blessings if we do.

We did tons of walking around this week trying to find new investigators. There is a pretty cool park here in Artesia with a bunch of random machines (like this elyptical), so we had to get pictures on it.

And there was this cool airplane playground. Surprisingly few people in the park though. I guess it was just too hot. The last couple days have been over 100 here. Whew. It'll whoop you fast.

Now for the investigators...

Daniel: After unfruitfully trying to get into contact with Daniel all week, we finally were able to catch him last night and have a fantastic lesson in which we set a baptismal date for the 14th of June. It was an answer to our fast because it seemed like he was slipping through our fingers. Pray that he will receive a confirmation that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he will be ready for baptism.

Mark: We had a hard time getting in contact with him all week as well. But again, last night we were finally able to have an awesome lesson. He loved the Plan of Salvation. While teaching him we used an extra amount of Book of Mormon scriptures to talk about it, which he loved because he has been wanting to get a taste of what the Book of Mormon in really like. We're seeing him again tonight. Pray that he gets and answer that the Book of Mormon is true, that he will recognize it, and that he will act on it.

Monica we found out has been getting fed lots of anti-mormon stuff from her family and also from all her neighbors. Unfortunately, with her being around 30 miles out of town we can't be there every step of the way for her. But we had a good phone conversation with her, and she is still willing to meet with us this week. Pray that we will have the spirit and be guided in what to say to help her overcome all the garbage she has been getting. The same darn thing happened with this super cool family we found this week. The mom's name is Caroline, and her daughters that we also taught are Gabby, Reyna, and Nelsie. They are super sweet, but the dad who is always drunk when we go over I guess wasn't too fond of us. We almost lost them after only finding them on the street a few days earlier. They'll need extra prayers for sure.

Well fam, it's been a good week. Tough, but good. It seems like that's how it always is. If you want to have success, you have to work extra hard for it, especially as a missionary. It's ok though. Anything that's easy usually isn't worth it. I love you mom! I love you dad! I love you Meagan! I love you Courtney!