Talihina-Week 9

Oh what a beautiful morning!!!! Oh what A BEAUTIFUL DAY!!! It has been so beautiful these past few days! It's about 62 degrees out right now and I’m LOVIN it! :) We have had a great week. Tuesday was a little rough. Sister Gee and I were missing the Vendels and Charleston pretty bad and we kind were in a funk all day and that was awful...longest day of my life. I've been really blessed to only have had a few of those days my whole mission, but truly they're a choice. I NEVER want to have another one of those days again! I was really feeling bad about my life cause I have had a few of those days on my mission but this morning during my personal study I really came to an understanding of exactly how the lord feels about those days. I was reading about patience haha and I read about the sons of Mosiah and how they had this really wicked past but after they repented they wanted to share the gospel with everyone and the Lord allowed them to. Then later when they had hard times the first thing he told them was to be comforted. And for the New Year’s we've been sharing D&C 6:33-37? And it's all about having faith in the lord and fearing not to do good. "Fear not little flock" is my FAVORITE part of those scriptures. The Savior and our Heavenly father don't ever want us to feel inadequate or unworthy. They LOVE us SO much! They' realize we're weak and they'll pick us up and guide us back to safety if we let them. The highlight of my studies this morning was reading the talk in January's ensign about the prodigal son. READ IT EVERYONE! It's SO good. It truly helped me realize just how much our Father in heaven loves us, even when we do mess up every once in a while. :) YAY for modern revaluation! I'm SO grateful for it. As for the rest of the week, it was great! The weekends are for sure the BEST! We get to go stay with the Cooks in the Veteran's colony and oh my goodness. Those grumpy old men are really loving us. It was the SWEETEST thing ever!! This week they sent out a message in their newsletter that said "We just wanted to recognize the Cooks' sister missionaries. They've done so much to help us lately and just so everyone knows, we've adopted them " :) ISN'T THAT SWEET??? :') Dah! Heavenly Father knows I have a soft spot for grandpas. THEN! At our colony breakfast on Saturday, George, one of the veteran's asked me if I'd still be around in the summer to help him with his garden cause I told him I can and whatnot and when I told him I was going home in June he got all teary eyed and said: "Really? I'm gonna miss you." ...wahhhh I hate loving people when I have to leave them haha!!!! He told me that we'd start the garden earlier than usual and that he'd send me some of them later :) HOW ADORABLE CAN HE GET??? Not to mention that Roger is ALWAYS taking care of us. He sends us texts to make sure we're safe and he is always trying to buy us food haha. AND! The veteran's asked us to perform some songs on the piano/violin (sis.gee plays violin) for Valentine’s Day haha! We got permission to do worldly songs :) It's gonna be a blast. ALSO! On Saturday night. There was a stake youth activity where they should "Meet the Mormons" and they were all told to invite their friends. Well we live like an hour and a half away from our stake center, Fort Smith, but we got permission to go to this because we've been working with one of our young women (who looks like case sometimes so much it freaks me out! I actually screamed at her in the car 'oh my goodness your face freaks me out" hahahah cause she looked JUST LIKE CASS!!) on teaching some of her friends and she invited one of them to go with us. We were able to talk a lot about the church and she had a bunch of questions after the movie so that was AWESOME!!! Youth are SO key! They're friends are just waiting to hear the gospel!!! And as far as our youth missionary challenge. Things are going great! The boys we just baptized are so fantastic. One of the things we challenged the youth to do this past week was to start gospel conversations using "Mormon" words. President Ingle shared a story his grandson had this past week. He was laying his head down on his desk and his teacher asked why he was so tired and he said it was cause he goes to early morning SEMINARY. His teacher asked what Seminary was and then invited him to stay after class to talk more. Well as it turns out his teacher was at a low point in his life and his 16 year old grandson asked if he'd like to learn more. His family invited him over to dinner to meet with the missionaries and after just 2 lessons he's excepted the invitation to be baptized.......WE DON'T KNOW WHO THE LORD IS PREPARING, BUT WE KNOW HE IS PREPARING THEM AND THAT WE'RE TO DO  OUR PART TO HELP HIS WORK ALONG. Just try it out. Instead of skipping over those words that are unfamiliar to people not of our faith USE them! Let a conversation form and then testify and invite. It's so simple and you'll be so blessed. Send me the experiences you have! Pray for those opportunities! :) I love LOVE this work and I can't wait to ...oh wait! I forgot! We're also teaching this fantastic lady named Connor and her sister Dolly. We've taught them twice now and they want to be baptized! They're reading the Book of Mormon and I LOVE THEM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH! They're a HUGE blessing! HUGE BLESSING! I just am blown away at those who are prepared. They're out there you guys. Just talk to them and invite them! I love you all so much! Have a great missionary week! :)

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno

Talihina-week 8

Well all is well in Tiny town USA! :) I had a whole list of stuff to talk about but of course I left it at home. The wonderful Ingles are letting us use their computers and washer and dryer so we don't have to pay like $20 to do our laundry. Plus we usually email at the church and it's currently leaking gas or something and we had to cancel the last hour of church cause kids in primary we're getting light headed haha...ya. We could've died but it's ok! :) The baptisms went SOOOOOO GREAT!!!! We had a GREAT turn out. THe whole primary room was stuffed full of people. And the boys were so nervous haha. One of them had to wear a shirt and suit pants cause we only had two suits big enough for them. It was a great though. When we went by there house the next day they each looked so different! It was AMAZING! Just like I talked about with Ila back in Berryville, how there was a physical difference in the way she looked, like brighter, the same happened with these boys. It just made me want to jump up and down for joy haha...actually I did a little and clapped my hands haha. I asked them how they felt and how they thought it went. Andrew told me: "Honestly, I feel completely different. I see everything differently and I don't know. I just feel happy." Eek! And then Georgie told me in not so many words cause he's kinda quiet that he's never been more happy in his life and that he's so excited for the temple trip we've got scheduled for next month!!!! DAHHHH!!!! THEY'RE JUST SO WONDERFUL!!!! Everett is the quietest of them all and he just said he felt happy haha but their mom told us later that they couldn't stop smiling and they loved it. :) I can't even tell you how great it feels to SEE the Lord's influence in their lives. We literally didn't do anything but witness the cleansing power of the priesthood and boy did that strengthen me and their nonmember father who has now talked about meeting with us! These kids just blow my mind. They've strengthened me so much and they're like my little brothers. I told them that too haha:) Their littlest sister Bella was trying to come home with us last night. She put on my name tag and grabbed her lunch bag, threw it over her shoulder and slipped on some high heel dress up shoes and told us she wanted to be a missionary too. :) ADORABLE! I took a picture. I'll try to connect it. But ya that was the BEST day ever. AND! Then we went to the Veteran's colony like we always do on fri/sat and they are really starting to love us haha. Those grumpy old men can't help but love us. One of them, the grumpiest of them all has taken quite a liking to me haha. I can tell this because he constantly teases me and he slipped like $60 into my purse!! I tried to give it back to him but he just told me I can't boss him around and that he wanted to donate to my cause haha. Oh goodness. We're gonna go heart attack his house or something cause we know he'll need something else to complain about ;) I love that guy. Anyway, we get to hang out with the Vendels today cause Saturday was her birthday and they're only like an hour and a half away from two of their daughters haha. SIster Gee is awesome! She's super quirky and adorable. She bought me THE CUTEST Lisa Frank stickers today cause I LOVE them and so obviously she's my favorite :) I hope all of you have a great week and you drive carefully in the snow!!! Mom! I want you to know I used every single pair of my fleece lined tights you sent me this week cause it's FREEZING!!!! It's SO cold here and so THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!!! Also, what are the gas prices like up there? The lowest one we've seen was $1.79 but it's sitting comfortably at about $1.85 everywhere!!! I can live with that! Tell Grandpa I said hi and that I miss him A LOT!!!

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno

 

 

Talihina Week 7

Happy NEW YEAR!!!!!!!! Woohoo!! Yay for 2015!!! I can hardly believe that the year I'd spend in full service to the Lord is over! I am blown away. BUT! I'm also SO excited for this next year and next transfer!!! :) I've got a great new companion named Sister Gee (with a guh)! She's fresh off her training in....CHARLESTON!!!! YAY!!!! It's like having a mini me haha. She's really cute and quirky. Everyone has asked her if she's 14 cause she looks super young! But it's been really good so far. We have a big desire to get to work and I'm excited to work hard, be obedient, and watch for the miracles. That's what President Shumway tells us to do. :) As for this week, we have some exciting things lined up....like THREE BAPTISMS!!!!!! AHHH!!! SO COOL!! :) Yes the part member family we've been teaching, the Greens, the boys are all getting baptized this Wednesday!!!! Andrew, Everett, and Georgie :) I'll take pics and send them next week. It's SO exciting! Plus we have two more investigators that want to get baptized. One is named Mark he's 14 and he's the greens' friend . We jsut have to get regular lessons set up with him...but we don't want to jsut baptize him, we want his whole family so they stick! SO! We're working on that. And the other is a friend of our recent convert, Mickey, her name is Caylla. The only problem with her is she works Sundays and hasn't been to church! We've been fasting and praying for her to get work off and she just talked ot her boss yesterday about getting Sundays off...he said he'd think about it...yay!! HOPEULLY! It'l be good :) AND! Mickey may be coming to Mountain home and apparently his ex-wife lives in JEROME!!!! WHAT????!!! YA! So I'll keep you posted but you may be having him over for dinner or something?? :) He's a little crazy and blunt but he's great! You'll get a taste of Talihina!!! Wouldn't that be AWESOME???!!! Such a small world :) Anyway, that's all I got. I plan on working the hardest I've ever worked in my life for the next 6 weeks. I want to be EXHAUSTED when I get off the plane and I want the Lord to be proud of the things I did with his sacred time. :) I love you all!!! Help the Missionaries by inviting them over for FHE and invite a friend who's a nonmember or a less active!!! It'll bless ALL involved :)

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno

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