My children regularly hear me tell them, "It's the hard that makes it great!" and everything in me believes it. Some parts of this email are tough to read. I'm so grateful he is strong and is living "the rest of the story!"
Monday, March 18, 2013
Happy birthday to you India!! You'll love being fourteen and going to dances! I'm excited for you! After sending that letter and being homesick everything got better and I loved my stay at the MTC as well as all the people there, but we were all excited to get into the field. And then when we were at the mission home and in a motel the first night we were just all so excited to meet our trainers and get into the field. But now it's back to being hard. I'm losing my excitement and when we are in our flat I get depressed, especially at night. I expected it to be just like the THE mission but it's not. (THE mission is an acronym for our home mission, Texas Houston East Mission) We strive to be obedient with exactness which is great, and I thought it would be relatively easy, but as it turns out strictly following the letter of the law without exceptions for the spirit of the law is difficult. I'm not complaining about that though. The worst part though is the politics of the mission. Like I'm not supposed to ask anyone how long they have been out on their mission or how many baptisms they have had, which isn't a rule it's just a missionary political thing, and I don't understand things like that but oh well.
The very worst part, the thing that drives me crazy, is that we don't talk and have real conversations. It's like we talk plenty and say plenty of things, but it's all about missionary stuff and never just conversation. Because we don't talk I get tired of it, I even mentioned it to my trainer but he didn't agree, said maybe I talk too much, and that talking is inefficient to the work so maybe missionaries keep it to a minimum. But oh well, I guess I'll get used to that too. However, we try to talk with everyone else though. As it said my letter from the mission president, we talk with EVERYONE. That was not exaggerated. As we are riding, walking, or even driving down the street we will stop to try to talk with anyone we see. If we are riding our bikes down the sidewalk and see someone across the street heading the opposite direction it's no worries! We cross the street and catch back up to them. For instance, the very first guy we tried to talk with on my first day just glared at us and didn't even say a word. It's not very often that people just ignore us like that, but it does happen sometimes. Everyone tells me that after you've talked with lots of people you get used to it, it stops being awkward, and you begin to enjoy it.
We were also double shifted into this area which means that neither of us was here before, we are both brand new. And since this area was closed for a few weeks prior to us coming, and the previous missionaries kept a bad area book, it was fun trying to figure everything out the first couple of days. We're doing pretty good now though. As you probably guessed this is a biking area, but the area is extremely tiny so it doesn't take more than 15-20 minutes to ride across it (and my companion likes to ride slow). We cover the Finlayson ward in a town called Clendon which is in Manurewa which is a part of Auckland. So I am in way southern Auckland in an area which is actually more of the Bronx from what I hear. But as far as missionary work goes it is actually a gold mine. We are currently teaching a family who are so keen to get baptized (keen is something they always say here) and the only thing that is holding them back is the dad because he thinks they are too young to get baptized (the oldest is 13) but we'll help him get around that soon. He thinks they are going to make mistakes in their younger years and wants them to get through all those mistakes before getting baptized, but they attend church every week. There are five kids out of the eleven who are old enough to get baptized, plus the dad whose name is Manu. Only 3 or 4 of the kids are actually his though, the others are cousins who are over there a lot and stay the night on Saturday so they can all be picked up together on Sunday (unfortunately they don't have a car or a job that I am aware of).
Or ward mission leader, Bro Soo Choon, is awesome. He is only 22 but he is so on top of it, and he was only just baptized three years ago when he was 19. With him along with our bishop, Bishop Rere, we should have a lot success in this area. Like I said, this area is very small (probably one of the smallest) but being that it is in the city it is still packed with people. Pretty much all of the people in south Auckland are Polynesian which is awesome. I think I might have seen one other white person in our ward, but we're pretty much it as far as white people go.
President Lekias also told us that while we were in the MTC the church changed the rule for emailing. We are now allowed to email friends, so let my friends know that and they can decide if they would rather write or email. We don't have a time limit to email, so I can email for as long a s the other missionaries want to stay which will probably be for about an hour and a half or so.
I hope I haven't sounded too negative this week, I just thought everything would be so different than it is. I am awful at being a missionary as of right now. I'm trying to be like President Gordon B. Hinckley and forget myself and go to work, but it is difficult. The hardest thing is feeling lonely, which is something you would never expect when you are with someone 24/7 and I don't know how you would prepare for that either. I doubt it is like this everywhere, but I'll have to think of a way to make up for not having normal conversations anymore. I love Elder Denkers, but I want Elder Sadleir or Hoffman to come train me because that would be fun and we'd talk and joke, etc. Elder Denkers is 19 and he's from Indiana. I'm his first missionary to train. He's a good missionary and is very obedient. He's also very good at planning, keeping things organized, and keeping things like the area book. Unfortunately we don't have a cell or "mobile" as they say here. Only the zone leaders and district leaders and sister missionaries get mobile phones. We do have a land line though.
Also you don't have to worry about me getting hungry with only four meals with members a week. We got here on Thursday, went to the store and bought a few things to hold us over, and despite that we still have a fridge full of food right now. We went and met the Relief Society president on Friday I think and she sent us home with watermelon, then she fed us on Saturday (which was KFC because they didn't have time to cook) and they sent us home with the leftovers. Then last night another family had signed up to feed us but couldn't do it between five and six, so had bought pizza for us Saturday night and dropped it off Sunday after church, so we still have chicken and pizza and some fruit plus the food we bought. And we are going to buy more food after this. So, the Lord definitely takes care of us. Another weird thing is that our church meetings are backward. We start with priesthood meeting, then we have classes, and have sacrament lastly. This isn't a normal thing here, but it's how are ward has to do it. Recently they had a few Stakes split, so our mission currently covers 21 Stakes. But despite being in south Auckland I am currently in the Hamilton Mission boundaries. I don't know which mission I will be in when it splits in July, I just want to go wherever the Lord needs me. Our area doesn't have any big hills either, but most of the time we are riding up or down some sort of grade. Nothing is ever as flat as back at home and the trees are all very pretty, I love the trees here. Maybe I just like them because they are different from what I'm used to.
Well Happy Birthday again India!!! I hope you have a great day, and week, and month, and year! :) I love y'all! I'll look forward to getting to communicate with y'all again next week. :)
Love your favorite missionary,
Elder Moore
