WEEK 5 ALREADY!!!

Well I cannot believe it's already week 5 of this transfer!!! We have transfer calls this Saturday and I'm praying really REALLY hard that I'll get to stay here in Branson with Sister Cryer!!! I love them both! However, I have known since before I came out that my last transfer was going to be a really special one. I know in particular my 18th month will be something to look out for. I just have been thinking about all the things I've experienced out here and I'm blown away. I'm SO scared to leave this place and to not be a missionary anymore but I know that Heavenly Father won't abandon me once I lose my nametag. Anyway, this week was GREAT! We had a bunch of fun stuff happen. First of all we had a mini zone conference where we got some council from President Shumway and we have a bunch of weekly goals that are going to stretch us for the next 10 weeks...the rest of their time here...I'll participate in 8 of those...eek! Also Sister Cryer and I had our musical devotional fireside this week with the YSA. We've been planning it since our first day here and it went SOOOOOOO good! We had 2 non-members and an inactive come and we showed "Because He Lives” after it, it was SO powerful! I LOVE MUSIC!!!!! We really had a great time. I'll try to send pictures next week. We ran outta time today cause we just vegged and wrote letters haha I LOVE days like that :)....please pray that well never mind just pray that I'll enjoy my last transfer :) I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!

SISTER MORENO

4/13/15

Well it's been quite the week! I'm still LOVING Branson and we're making progress with both our wards so that's good. :) We actually almost have a progressing investigator!! She just needs to come to church and then we'll be good haha. We went on exchanges with our sister training leaders this week and I went with a sister I came out with...Sister Ma'alona!! :) CRAZY!! We really haven't seen each other since like 3 months into our missions...mostly because I haven't really seen ANYONE my whole mission cause I've been in the boonies haha BUT it was really good to see her. We were reminiscing about the good ol' days in the MTC haha I remember being SO scared to go to the MTC and then I ended up LOVING it and making like a trillion lifelong friends so anyone who's worried, Sue?? ;) DON'T BE! I was also able to go on another exchange this week with...SISTER SHUMWAY!!! :) Sister Cryer had a baptism to go back to in her last area and Sister Shumway asked me if she could come on exchanges with me and so it worked out perfectly! We had a good time. We were focusing all week on having active member lessons because as a mission we struggle with 'finding' statistically that is. WHICH! That role happens to be the member's role... SO we've been working as a whole mission to improve our work with members. It's so simple really. When we were baptized actually LONG before that! Before we came to earth when we found out that we were going to have the gospel, we PROMISED our Heavenly Father and our friends and our families that we would share the gospel. ALL God's asked us, YOU to do is INVITE. THAT'S IT! Our job is to open up our eyeballs and see those people around us who don't have the gospel and say "hey! We’re having a dinner at my church this Wednesday. Would you like to come?" or "You look like you might be interested in indexing. I've had a great experience with it. Can I show you how to get started?" or "Ya know we've been friends for a long time and I don't know that I've ever really shared with you what my church believes but I'd like to have some of the missionaries from my church explain the basics to you. Would that be ok?" THAT'S IT! You have SO much to give and all you have to do is invite people. You're not called to teach, you're not called to entertain, none of that, JUST INVITE! I can testify that the work will NOT be stopped by any of our lack of effort but our progression and our opportunity to be trusted by the Lord will be directly influenced by the seriousness we have toward our covenant to share the gospel. I want to share an experience that Sister Shumway had the other day. She was at Sam's club and she was running late for her son's concert and she was literally running out the door and a man came to help her load her groceries in. She felt the spirit tell her that she needed to talk to this man but she had seconds before she had to leave. As she's chucking groceries in her car with the help of this man she asks" SO area you a religious man?" "Yes I am." "Do you have a church you go to?" "Yes I do" "Well hey! You should come to ours!" "I might just do that." "If you give me your name and number I'll send some missionaries your way to tell you more about it." "Ok.".....That man met up with the missionaries that night. He's getting baptized in 3 weeks. We do not have to worry about sounding eloquent or offending people or ANYTHING! The Lord can and will do his own work. You just open your mouth and invite and watch the miracles happen. There’s a family here in our mission who has helped with 100 baptisms...because they invited that's all they do. They have people over for dinner! It's simple and it's what the Lord expects from us. Please don't miss out on the miracles that the Lord wants you to be a part of. Remember who you are and what you promised and remember who those around you REALLY are. The prepared are IN YOUR LIFE. Maybe they're not your best friends! Maybe they're a guy at the grocery store but we can ALL do this work. Try carrying some "I'm a Mormon” cards with you or make it a goal to invite someone you know to dinner and allow the gospel to come up in your conversations. You just invite and the Lord will take care of it all. I love you! I want to be like this too! We can work together and as members and missionaries combine efforts, the hastening will happen in more than just our hometowns but they'll happen in our hearts. I challenge you all to pray for an easy missionary opportunity this week and then to open your mouth and invite! :)

 

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno

Hey There!

Ok SO I'm so sorry it's been a while since I've sent out a big email. Life has been crazy!! So I'm now in Branson Missouri aka the "garden of Eden" haha EVERYONE in the mission calls it that. There are SO many awesome things going on here! We actually shot gunned elders outta here and they left us nothing but 6 jars of peanut butter but after this past week we have 40 new potential investigators! So now we're just going to focus this next week on weeding out those who are actually potentials and those who aren't as prepared. Plus we have this competition going between the elders and sisters in our zone to see how many people can get the most active member lessons this week and then the most referrals next week and then like the most investigators and there's only 4 sisters in our zone...including me and my companion haha BUT we're still gonna cream them! :) Sister Cryer and I have led the zone in our goals for the past few weeks and now we're just gonna keep going. I love sister Cryer! She's such a hard worker and we get along really well. :) Also we've had dinner with ALL of the Mormon famous people here except the Duttons cause they're just coming home from Arizona but! They've called us and we're coming over soon. It's just crazy! All these people are so awesome! I just want them to adopt me! :) We can go to the shows with a progressing investigator SO in addition to having progressing investigators we'll get to have a concert haha. I don't know. I'm just really loving it here. It's SO fun to serve in the YSA too because they have SO many activities and they're PERFECT for finding! Missionary work has never been easier! :) We're also focusing a lot on the new video "Because He Lives". EVERYONE SHARE IT AND GET ON THE WEBSITE!! Heavenly Father truly is making sharing the gospel SO easy. WE just need to hop on board and get busy. I also LOVED conference SO much! One of my favorite talks was by one of the guys from the 70, the one about living the gospel being like a dance. We can all fake dancing for a while but until we FEEL AND HEAR the music we're never truly performers. Take the time "every day, every day, every day" as one of the 70 said to study the Book of Mormon and apply its teachings. "Do good things to do good things not to be recognized" and stand up for and strengthen your own marriage and family. Those are some of the things that stood out to me this weekend. We ALL have a responsibility and a privilege of standing up for and sharing the gospel. SHARE IT! LIVE IT! Reach out and accept the hand God offers to us at all times. I'm so thankful to have the gospel in my life. I love and sustain the prophet and apostles and I KNOW that their words come from a loving Heavenly Father who is trying to reach out to us. There is nowhere else in the world more fulfilling and more comforting than in the arms of the Savior's atonement. We access this by living his gospel to the fullest. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Let the message of Easter stay in your heart and mind everyday #because he lives! :)

Love you forever

Sister Moreno

Here's the first time me and sister Ratto saw each other in 9 months! We met at the exact same place as when I picked her up her first day :) Aww sentimental haha I love her!

And there's SUPER beautiful scenery here too

That's me taking a picture by the Hughes brothers car cause I didn't want to go fan girl over them and ask for a picture after dinner haha J

And THAT is a delicious chicken place we ate for dinner our first night :)

That’s me in my new Easter Dress by the beautiful red buds! I LOVE THEM!

Here's the first time me and sister Ratto saw each other in 9 months! We met at the exact same place as when I picked her up her first day :) Aww sentimental haha I love her!