Elder Corbin Moore--Nov 21, 2011

Greetings to all from California. Well this week has been pretty good. They are having me not play sports for two weeks so that my finger can heal a little. Which is a bummer but what can you do. I just stand around and juggle the soccer ball, while everyone else plays sports. At least I have something to do. Well this week in the mission field we have done a lot of work with the Silva Family, they just came to California about 3 weeks ago. Well found out that they had been talking to the missionaries down in Mexico a little, and they want to learn more about the church. They all have baptismal dates, and we are working to have everyone go to chuch. It seems like is the overwhelming problem, down here with the latin culture, because everyone has to work on sundays. So that was our big focus for this past week was to get some people out to church. Two people from the Silva family showed up to church, the mother Gresilda, and one of her daughters Daisy. It was nice to have them come to sacrament meeting, and we have an appointment with them this week, so hopefully we will be able to get them all there. We were hoping that Veronica would also show up for church but she didn't. Elder Conlin and Elder Boyd went by her house on friday, but I wasn't there so im not really sure how that went. I was on exchanges with one of the other companionships in my district. Which was an interesting experience to be able to see missionary work from another perspective. Other than that we have been working with a lot of less active members, trying to get them back in the church.
Well we were challenged by our mission president to try and read the Book of Mormon before the new year is up, and to mark any references to the five things in the Gospel of Christ. So I took up the challenge on November the 9th, and I am currently in the 50th chapter of Alma. Im hoping to be able to finish it, within the next week, and then to begin it in Spanish. I think it would be awesome to have read it in both languages, in a matter of a little less than 2 months. Well hope that everyone is doing good there back home. The spanish is coming along just nicely, and im learning more and more every day. I am part of a new program that the church is implementing. They want the new missionaries ready to train someone in only 12 weeks, that is only two transfers, it should be an interesting task. Well until next week, have fun with all the snow.

Con Amor
Elder Moore

Elder Matthew Whittle--November 15, 2011

como estan todos?

I'm doing great right now. I can't believe another week has already flown by. Things are going great in Oceanside. We have a couple baptismal dates set, and we're working hard to help them make it. The hardest things here to get people to do is to stop drinking, and get them to come to church. So many of them have work on Sunday, and can't get it off, or find a new job. It's very difficult, but I know that if they will put their trust in the Lord, he will provide for them.
I don't know if I'll be able to see TJ because we might be having a thanksgiving dinner with a less active family or something, but if they're in oceanside they might see me walking/riding a bike around. I guess they could always call the mission office and see, but I kind of doubt it would be approved.
Maybe a couple more PMG would be good;) haha I was talking with my Zone Leaders when we were on exchanges and they said they want one too, but in english... so maybe two more in english. Thanks mom. I just got your package today but I haven't been able to open it up yet. We're always super busy, and barely have time to even keep our apartment cleaned up.
Hope Elder Terry's doing ok. I'm still praying for him. Maybe he's supposed to come to Carlsbad now;) haha that would be so cool. Tell him I love him, and to stay strong. The Lord knows what he's doing with him. Also tell Garret I'm so happy for him. He's making the best decision right now. He's going to make such an amazing missionary. He'll be able to relate to so many people in Argentina. I'm so excited for him.
We never were able to meet with the seventh day adventist. He never answered us, but maybe we'll see him on the street sometime again. The girl finally moved and got away from her bad family situation, but now she's not answering our calls. Hopefully we'll be able to get ahold of her soon.
The members here are great. They're aren't a lot in the Spanish ward, but it's starting to grow. We are starting to get more and more investigadors to come, and there were three baptisms last weekend in our district. Tell Miles good job for getting his Eagle. That's a big accomplishment.
Well everything is going great here. We have miracles cada dia. mi espanol esta progresando poco a poco tambien. Thanks for everything you do for me. Tell everyone hi and that I love them. Don't just follow Jesus Christ, Walk with him because when we walk with him we become his friend, and only a friend will care enough to save us. When people see you they should see Jesus Christ. Les amo!

Con amor
Elder Whittle

Elder Corbin Moore-- November 15, 2011

Well here I am once again writing to my beloved family and friends. I am sorry that I am one day late but I will try and explain why that is. So yesterday we were at the park playing ultimate frisbee just like any other day. I went to go catch the frisbee and slipped and landed on my hand, and felt this pain just shoot into my hand. I stood up and looked at my hand, and my left index finger looked pretty weird. From the joint above my knuckle and up my finger was 45 degrees to the left, and lying underneath my middle finger. I was completely in shock because I had never had something like that happen before. I didn't want to make a scene so I just grabbed my finger and yanked it back into place. I heard a big pop and just continued to play. Well after we were done we went hope and it was hurting a bit. A began to start swelling pretty bad. Which was weird for me because im not one to swell. So I had to call our area medical advisor to see what she thought. She said that she wanted me to go and get X-rays just to make sure it was all good. So she scheduled me an appointment for 3'oclock. Well Elder Boyd had a dental appointment at 2 so we had to figure out how to make that all work out. Luckly we found a member that could sit at elder Boyd's dental appointment for two hours while Elder Conlin and I drove to Downy for my doctors appointment. Turns out that I guess I dislocated my finger, or possibly sub-located it. So the doctor has me taping my two first fingers together (you should see me trying to type on the computer) and im just supposed to watch it. He said that it could stay swollen for up to six months, WOW. But I just have to keep moving it and such. Well that was the interesting part of my week. On the gospel side of things we are still working to find people to teach since we are new to our area. We have had a lot of people who seem interested in the gospel but the thing is that they all speak english and so we have to turn them over to the english elders, so the search is never-ending. We had to move Veronicas baptismal date back because she is not coming to church. Hopefully she will be able to make it this week. We have been teaching a lot of less active families and some part-member families as well. Overall we are just working to find and teach, but I will keep you posted on what happens in this next week.

Well I'd just like to say first HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Brayden, who is in Brasil. Hope you are having a great day and doing well. Sounds like everyone else is having a good time with their lives. A lot of work and a lot of school, for everyone. I would love to hear from everyone. Well I have got to go, hope you have a good week.

Con Amor,
Elder Moore

Everything.Happens.For.A.Reason
There.Is.No.Such.Thing.As.Coincidence

Elder Matthew Whittle--Nov 8, 201

Hola Madre!

We bought some traps already for the cockroaches so I think we'll be ok, and we're trying to put baking soda down in the cupboards too. I haven't received the package yet, but thanks for sending one! So guess who I saw today?....... Nona! I got to see her in the Temple. It was so good to see her. She has the sweetest spirit. I got to talk to her for about ten minutes or so, and then had to leave, but I'm sure I'll see her the next time we go.
It would be neat if you could send three of the mini preach my gospels en espanol para nosotros. The elders in my district want to have one. Thanks mom. I hope you're doing ok with dad being gone. Be safe. How are things going? Anything new? Did you finish the basement yet;) or did dad build a shop out back haha. Just kidding.
We have been having so many miracles again this week. The girl that we've been teaching, Luz, She found a new place to live, and things are going a little better now we hope. We we're walking through pazole three nights ago and we handed a pass along card to a lady on the phone, and left it at that because we didn't want to interupt her. Well the next night we had an impression to walk down that road so we did. There were some guys in a driveway fixing their car so we stopped to talk to them. They quickly told us they were busy, but then that same lady came walking out of the garage and said I'll talk to you guys. So we talked for about 20 minutes and she was the same lady we had passed the night before and given a card. We told about the restoration a little, and then she told us how she had been to a bunch of different churches, but never felt like any were right. Then She ended up asking us if we could come stop by sometime. It was amazing. We're going to start teaching her tomorrow hopefully.
We have another investigador. Her name is Carmen and she has her baptismal date but she works Sunday. She's been reading and praying a lot, and she's quit drinking. Last night we stopped by and read with her and her family. (Her family are all members). She ended up saying that she's never been happier and that she's going to church this Sunday no matter what. She's one of the sweetest ladies I've ever met.
Things are going incredible here in Oceanside. We are in the most ghetto part of our mission, but it's so much fun. A lot of humble people, and a lot of sad things that go on here. A lot of people have some hard things happening to them, but it's so amazing to be able to help them make a change and find true happiness.
Hope everything is going well at home. I love you all and want you to know that I know that Christ lives. He suffered and died for us because he loves us. The Lord puts people in our paths to prepare them to hear the word. Remember who you are because those people are watching and observing you. Vayan con Dios!

Love Elder Whittle

Elder Corbin Moore-- November 7, 2011

Hola. Hope everyone is having a good time back there in Utah. I heard that you guys had snow this passed week. Its so weird for me being here in California and not seeing the snow. I kinda miss it but oh well, life goes on. Well this past week has been crazy. There is a lot of work to be done in a new area like mine. Mom, you wanted to know about my area. Ok well you start at the pacific ocean and then make your way east, till you get to western, and then the southern and northern borders are redondo beach bl down to ripley, and then the northern border is Rosecrans. And that is my area may look like i small little area. But there are so many people in just this little place. We have been trying to do a lot of finding, because we don't have much previous work here in our area. So we do a lot of street contacting, and knocking doors. We are trying to get the members invovled as much as possible, so just getting referrals and trying to have them fellowship the investigators. We did find a lady this week, her name is Veronica, she has been investigating the church for like 15 years, and all the missionaries that have taught her in the past have been very pushy with her, and so that doesn't help our cause at all. So she is really up in arms when we talk to her about baptism, because of those past events. We have had to lessons with her, the first lesson we just got to know her a little more, and talked with her about eternal families, because thats what she wanted to talk about. She is pretty set on not setting a baptismal date, because she says that she is fine in the catholic chruch right now. But in our second lesson we talked alot about the great apostacy and the Book of Mormon. We asked her a bunch of questions, just to figure out where she was on understanding on our lesson. We commited her to read and to pray, and then after I just felt like I should give her a baptimal commitment and a date, even though she had shot down everyone else. She said that she would be baptized and we also set a date. Wow that was so amazing. Other than that we have been teaching a man named Pablo he really wants to learn about the gospel. We also have a date with him now. It was crazy this week also I met my first "bashers" on the street, we were walking and this two motorcycle guys were standing on the sidewalk with their bikes so we walked up to them and starting talking about missionaries and if they had ever talked with them before, we found out that one of them was a pastor and the other was a member of that same church, they just starting bashing and I can see how bad bashing drives the spirit away because I just wanted to explode, jajajaja. We tried to get out of there as soon as possible it wasn't a good situation. Elder Boyd and I went and did church round up yesterday, we walked over to this house to see if this lady was going to come to church. We open the gate and walked in, and this huge pitball came running at us, barking its head of. I just stood there hoping that it wasn't going to eat me, jajaja. He stopped right in front of us and just kept growling and barking, we tryed to get around but he wouldn't let us. So I just starting walking around him, and he got mad and tried to jump up on me, lucky the owner heard the noise and came outside to see what was going on. She calmed the dog down, and we were able to talk to her. Well we had the Turkey bowl today. Its a big flag football get-together. We played to of the other zones and it was intense. I dove into the grass and mud to catch the ball for a touchdown, bummer I didn't catch it. Well that has basically been my week here in the Centinela Zone.

How are things going on back home? What is Keyton and Bryson, up too? Dad I haven't been able to pull the bike out of the box yet because we have a car but i'll let you know soon enough. Sess and G, glad to hear that the floor is being fixed. Brayden, what is going on with you? Have you ever been DL, or ZL before? Adios,

Con Amor Elder Moore

Everything.Happens.For.A.Reason
There.Is.No.Such.Thing.As.Coincidence

Sister Alex Hartvigsen-- November 7, 2011

Hi everyone. I hope that you are all doing really well. This last week has been good. I am excited to work in this Spanish branch with Sister Nishiguchi. I was only in the area from about Thursday This last week we met with a recent convert. We read 3 Nephi 11 with her and her family. We met the a less active family and read with them Alma 32. We had a church tour with a couple of investigators and set a baptismal date with them for next month. Later one of them was sick and we went over with our ward mission leader and branch president so that she could recieve a blessing. She definately felt the Spirit and we talked about the Holy Ghost together. We are now working with them to get to church. We met with an investigator . We defined our purpose as missionaries. It soon became clear that she was more interested in Bible bashing with us so we decided that it would be best not to meet with her at this time.

I love you all
Have a great week
Love Alex

Elder Mattthew Whittle-- Nov. 1, 2011

Hopefully those of you who know spanish can enjoy part of this. LOL

Como les va?

Pienso que es mejor si escribo mi cartes juntos para ustedes. No tengo mucho tiempo enotonces que este carte esta para padre tambien. Well the work here is so much fun. We have so many miracles everyday that we almost feel like asking for less haha. It's hard to keep track of all of our potentials, but it's going great. Mi Espanol esta progresando rapidamente aqui en la calle. It's really fun. I love the Spanish culture down here. They are so humble and many are willing to listen. My companion and I talked the other night with some seven day adventists? One of them talked to me for about 20 minutes and then two others came up and started talking with Elder Kidd. They were totally trying to bash with us. I asked the guy if he believed that God loved him and if he could call another prophet today. He agreed and said yes. He kept trying to get me to bash, but I just kept saying hmm that's interesting. Then I complimented him on his knowledge of the Bible and his faith, and asked if we could come discuss more with him sometime about the Gospel. He was really nice all of the sudden and said o ya for sure. So I took down his information and number, and he wants to meet with us tomorrow. We'll see how it goes but it was a cool experience. I learned that Bible bashing doesn't do any good.
yo he tenido muchas milagros. I obviously can't write about all of them, but the other day there was a girl walking by our car just as we pulled over to the curb, and we have been trying to talk to everyone we see so we jumped out of the car, and got her attention. She suddenly asked us if we believe in witchcraft.... Kind of weird right. We said we guessed it could maybe be real, but the thing we do know is that we have something called the priesthood which is the power of God, and it's more powerful than any of that. She then told us her problems. More than we wanted to know. She has a very hard living condition and life. She's 19 years old. We asked if we could help her make changes in her life, and come over sometime. So we've taught her twice in the past week and the first time we ended up giving her a priesthood blessing, and she started crying and felt the spirit. Yesterday we taught her again and she set a batismal date. We didn't really even ask her. We talked about Baptism and she just said, I want to be baptized. I want to change, and never go back. It was really neat.
David has been busy lately with moving and work, but we're trying to get ahold of him to teach him more. The field is definitely white down here and ready to harvest. So many people that need the gospel. I love it down here! The people are so great, and most are pretty respectful to us and appreciate us. It's definitely the ghetto, but I love it. Our apartment is kind of run down but it's fun. We spend some of our time before bed hunting cocroaches in all the cabinets and trim. I think we've pretty much killed all of them with some potent cleaner we found under the cabinet haha. Good stuff. Tell everyone hello for me and that I love them and pray for them. Hope everything is going good. Pray for people to be able to share the gospel with and God will put people in your path. I know this is true. I get to experience it everyday and it is blessing my life in many ways.

Love Elder Whittle

-O and apparently I can pull off that I'm from spain. So far I've gotten two mexicanos creer que soy de espagne haha