Talihina-Week 6

Oh boy. I can't believe this transfer is over already! Christmas and Thanksgiving really made it fly! It was SO fun to have a big project to work on. Sharing "He is the Gift" was one of the most effective and heartwarming things I've participated in thus far on my mission. The first presidency is so inspired. I'm really REALLY sad it's over, but we'll find something new to motivate us. I actually am thinking of creating a New Year’s message. I just need the Mormon messages DVDs...Would you mind purchasing and sending me those mom??? It would be SOOOO helpful! So many people around here don't have the internet...or a TV for that matter so if we bring dvds and our portable dvd player we can still show it! As for Christmas, it was fantastic! We had so much fun hanging out with The Cooks and the Ingles all Christmas eve, watching movies and eating too much haha. President Ingle tried to make peanut brittle...it kinda turned out to be peanut taffy haha I love him! He calls us his kids :) Every time we come over for dinner or something he calls to sister ingle: The kids are home! :) You HAVE to hear his accent haha I'll try to record him! Then Christmas morning we had breakfast with the Lujans whom I adore! They had like 10 cute little white fluffy dogs that attack us. The chubbiest one loves me, of course :) haha they're always the cutest. His name is Chip. Anyway we had TAMALES!!! They were delicious. I miss real Mexican food!!!!! SO MUCH! So that was nice. Then we spent the rest of the day at the Shaws! Aka my other family. :) I love them SO much! Gosh darn it! Why in the world does this happen??? I just grow to love these people SO much and then one day I'll have to leave them forever :( BUT! That's why we must live to be worthy to enter the celestial kingdom so that we can be with ALL of our loved ones again. :) Until them we soak up every minute we can with them. Well on Tuesday we had our Book of Mormon Zone conference and it was AMAZING. I can truly testify that I know that I know the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God. I've never had a more spiritual experience than I did discussing the Book of Mormon that day. I have a goal of using it WAY more in my teachings and findings this coming year. One way is. We're going to start reading the Book of Mormon with ALL of our ACTIVE members in the branch. We've got some lined up already! I'm really REALLY excited! I know that by getting them in the scriptures and having spiritual experiences they will be strengthened and they will have a desire to share the gospel with the friends and family. Plus! We're also starting a month long youth missionary challenge. Sister burrows thought of it this week. We're having a youth fast this coming Sunday for missionary work and then for a month we'll be giving them challenges to complete every day of the week. For example week one will be to pray for missionary opportunities every day and week two will be to pass out one pass along card each day and then we're still brainstorming week 3 and 4 haha. But the last challenge will be to invite someone to a church tour in which we'll show: "Finding Faith in Christ" and HOPEFULLY we'll get some new investigators. PLUS! We have 3 boys from a part member family who will be getting baptized the 7th of January! Andrew, one of the boys said after his interview "that was easier than I thought it would be" haha! I guess we did our job :) They are all so great. They're names are Andrew (16), Everett (13), and Georgie (15). Their 8 yr old sister got baptized this week and asked me to speak at her baptism. That’s my 3rd talk at a baptism this transfer! Woot haha. I'm so looking forward to the 7th! I'll take pictures :) Anyway, I'll be staying here in Talihina and getting Sister Gee from Charleston!! What?! We're like sisters haha. She's just finishing her training so I'll have another new one and I am looking forward to her insights. She’s a hard worker I hear and so I can't wait for the miracles :) I LOVED talking to you guys on Thursday. I'm seriously SO blessed to have such great family and best friends. :) I love you all SO much! SEND ME IDEAS OF HOW TO FILL OPEN TIME AS YOU HAVE THEM!!! :) The 12 days of Christmas things were awesome mom! Thank you! :)

 

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno

Talihina-Week 4

Happy Choctaw Day everyone!!! It's true! TODAY of all days is Choctaw day. GO OUT AND CELEBRATE! But by all means don't try to get any errands done or any prescriptions filled haha....found that out the hard way. When your whole town is Choctaw they will not be found anywhere but home or parties. But alas! This week has been great! One of my investigators in Henryetta, Brian, GOT BAPTIZED AND I WAS ABLE TO GO BACK!!!!!! :D It was SO awesome. He asked me earlier in the week if I'd speak at his baptism on ...baptism haha and then wonderful Brother Baxter (henryetta ward mission leader) and Terryn (his niece) drove an hour and 45 minutes to come get me just to turn around and drive back to Henryetta, then drive me home then drive back to Henryetta AGAIN...HE IS FANTASTIC AND I LOVE HIM A LOT! :) It was so good to see Sister Fleck and our apartment again haha...which it turns out I left a TON of stuff and they had a bag waiting for me :) I really gotta downsize. I'll attach pictures but I was able to see the Flowers again and Dalton Baptized Brian and then I got to see Sister Alward and Sister Hanson..SO fun! After that Sister Burrows and I went to a Christmas party at the Veteran's colony in which we had a "dirty santa" game...I don't know WHY they call it that...it's a white elephant game thing...super uncomfortable name for it haha ANYWAY! It was fun. Sister Burrows brought a big bag of rolos and I wrapped a "Finding faith in Christ" dvd and popcorn tehe...IT WAS TERRIFYING! All of these old guys are grumpy and set in their ways and have different views on religion but I couldn't pass up the opportunity and in fact...it would have been wrong if I had passed it up SO!....My gift was literally the LAST one to be opened...I was FREAKING out because there was a whole big hall full of people watching as the guy called opened up my present...when he opened it up he looked right over at us and sighed. He said "really?" AHHH! Terrifying! He held it up and everyone laughed because he is an ATHEIST and very open about it to EVERYONE haha I could have died. BUT! His wife is a lady we're trying to work with and He came up to me later and told me that he actually had a sister that would appreciate it so....who knows haha. Gosh, those moments that define us haha they don't come easily all the time. Anyway, we also got to go see a stake performance of The Messiah yesterday! The Shaws drove us... SO fun! Haha I love them. :) We sang the whole way and guess who I saw at the performance???LIKE ALL OF GREENWOOD WARD!!! It was AWESOME!!!! I was running around hugging everyone! :) It was literally like a family reunion. AND! Some of those people I saw were the Palmer boys! I LOVE the Palmers and I hadn't seen them in almost a YEAR! They tried to give me a hug haha and so did BROTHER VENDEL...and so did Brother Goldsmith (my old mission leader :))  haha I had to remind them I'm STILL a missionary :) It was a BLAST! And this coming week we're having our Christmas party/nativity! We've invited like the whole town so hopefully they show up! I'll be singing "oh little town of Bethlehem" and this kid named Grant will be accompanying me on the guitar! :) PLUS The shaws and sister burrows and I will be playing hand bells for away in a manger :) I'm going to have a family hand bell choir when I grow up haha. I'll try to attach pictures. But don't forget the reason we celebrate this holiday. It's such a special time of year and the Christmas spirit, which is Christ's spirit, really radiates and touches all hearts. It provides SO many opportunities to share what you know and share Christ. He IS the Gift. I'm so grateful for my relationship with Christ. I have truly come to know him as I've turned to him for guidance and as I've seen and felt his influence in the lives of those I teach. I'm grateful for the Christmas season and the special spirit that comes into my heart AND I know that we can have that spirit with us ALL year long as we strive to BECOME like the Savior. If our hearts are turned to him and our hearts become like his heart...of course we'll feel his presence. :) 

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno

 

 

Talihina-Week 3

Oh boy what a week! It has been amazing!! We have permission to stay at some members home who live in Wilburton. SO FUN! They have a little barn that they've turned into a bunk house and it felt like we were at girls camp! :) They took us around to meet all of their friends and neighbors...aka best member missionaries ever! :) AND! We were invited back to like 3 people's house then today Sister Cook told us she got a call from one of the guys there asking if we were still around cause he wants to teach us how to leatherwork! :) YAY! Fun missionary work haha. THen! Today we were at the laundry mat and there was a man in there. We ran our laundry out to the car and then I turned to SIster burrows and we went back in to give him a "he is the gift" card and he told us that he was so glad we did! "I have a best friend in Colorado that is lds and I moved down here before I could finish the teachings they had. I've been looking for mormons all over but they're hard to find down here! I'm so glad you came back in!"...AMAZING. Once again I'm shown that if we give even just a little bit of effort, the Lord blesses us. It's so amazing! :) PLUS! On Thursday we were planning and we got this call from a lady we met randomly at the thrift store our first day here and we told her we help with family history. WELL! She called us to come help her and she told us she'd been looking for her great grandpa for 5 years and she wasn't sure if we could help but! We had prayed that we would be able to...not only did we find her great grandpa...but we found his wife and her parents....AMAZING. The miracles flood us as we turn to the Lord for help. What an incredible time of year. I love it with my whole heart because I'm reminded of the true gift of Christmas...our Savior. And for him I will be eternally grateful. I know that as I strive to BECOME like him, I will really learn what it means to use our Father's gift to us. I love this time of year and I hope and pray that you each use this season to give of yourselves and to take the time to bless those around you. Share THE GIFT, the Savior. :)

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno

12/1/14- Talihina week 2

12/1/14

One full week in Talihina America, accomplished! That's what EVERYONE and their dog refers to Talihina as: "Well, here in Talihinamerica"..."Welcome to Talihinamerica"..."Here in our part of the world, Talihinamerica"...hahah it's hilarious!  It doesn't matter what state we're in "Merica! Huh!" :) Anyway, both Sister Burrows and I feel like we've been here for 3 years but alas! It's only been a week haha. :) But it's going pretty well. We're still trying to meet all of the members here and our area is the biggest in the WHOLE MISSION it's like 40 by 80 miles...ya it's HUGE. But our plan is to teach and strengthen the members and then they'll feel the spirit strengthen them to do missionary work and the investigators will come. Plus! We as a mission are being monitored or something like that with this new tool the church has put out. It's a Christmas video called “He is the Gift" Look it up on christmas.mormon.org and share it with your friends. There's pass-along cards in the December Ensign for it. I challenge all of you (mom, Cass, Kent, everyone else who reads this) to really pray about who you could give that card to and invite to watch a nice Christmas video that puts Christ right back in the center of the season and then give it to them. I PROMISE you that there's someone in each of your lives that needs that video and YOU have the privilege of helping them. Please do it and then tell me how it goes. I might forget to remind you or follow up just cause life is crazy so I'm puttin each of you personally responsible to report back how it goes. Mom, you remind the slackers ;) Love you all! So ya, the church will be collecting the number of referrals and new investigators we get from sharing this video. So! Everyone share it! There's this kid in our branch, Grant. He's like 11 years old and he took 10 cards to pass out to his friends at school and he gave us a referral to go see one of his friends. He's on FIRE! He's such a good example to me. I wish I had been more like that as a kid, but! NO time like the present! We're on borrowed time here :) Anyway, how was Thanksgiving and Christmas in the nighttime sky????!!! I was so sad to miss that this year but I guess one year out of like 15 isn't too much to ask for :) My Thanksgiving was great! We spent the WHOLE day with the awesome Shaw family. Seriously, they're the best. It was a non-proselyting day so we got to chill out and play board games and stuff. Me and Sister Burrows tried to teach them how to play spoons but when I shared a story of when we were playing ultimate spoons at Korry's house and broke the banister they weren't too excited haha so we sat around swappin missionary stories and it was AWESOME. I can't wait to be able to do that with my future family someday. Gather all my kids in and hear them talk about their missions and be able to talk about mine. :) It's gonna be great :) Also, I kinda got super sick to my stomach because yet again, I ate something I shouldn't have. We're pretty sure it's a combination of dairy and gluten intolerance....fun. I have been off of both since then and I'm definitely improving. I was down for a couple of days but all is well now.  I just miss ice cream haha! Anyhoo, as I sat in sacrament this Sunday I was remembering the scene from the movie "Finding Faith in Christ" (so good, everyone should watch it) where Christ is walking down the road and he helps an old man pick up his bread that he dropped. Then the old man gives him a piece of the dirty bread and the Savior just wipes it off continues on and eats the bread. That is how I want to be. I want to be SO aware and humble and grateful. I can tell you, my testimony and my faith in the Savior have grown DRAMATICALLY over these past 11 months. Every time I notice a tender mercy, every time I partake of the sacrament, and every time I take the time to see the Lord in my life, I am reminded of the Savior's absolute ability and desire to take us as we are right now and make us better by following him. I've always know that God was real and that He loves me. I am his daughter. However, my relationship with Christ, his son was severely lacking. Now as I've TRIED, just tried to do his will, he makes up for my weaknesses. HE can "do his own work". I’m just grateful he lets me be a part of it. It's a HUGE blessing. Also, this Saturday is the 1st presidency Christmas Devotional! Don’t forget to watch it and bring a friend!!!  I'm SO excited for Christmas. We're trying to plan a nativity play for the branch to put on for the community! It's should be really good! I LOVE this work and I hope I've done my job so far. Oh! AND! Brian (investigator in henryetta) should be getting baptized this Saturday!!!! Hopefully Sister Alward will come get me!!! There are so many amazing people down here. I am truly blessed to know them :) I love you all!! 

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno