Buenas Tardes

 Another week in Paradise, your boys are down here grinding. I have been sweating through my suit coat but we are loving life. We had a baptismal service almost get cancelled because a cow attacked a neighbor and we sent out a fleet of mototaxis to bring my new best friend, DON PACO, to church. He's 84 and a complete baller. But we saw some real miracles this week too. No vegetables for lunch, not a whole bunch of rain, and a bunch of trips to other areas. All in all it was a good time. We led some goats through the streets, we were gifted bananas by sweet old ladies, and I gave a talk in church because no one showed up. But it was a good time and we are getting hyped for this next month.

Funniest experience of this week would just be the way people pray here. A lot of times they start with, ´´Buenas Tardes Dios´´ or use different nicknames they have for God. It's quite the experience to hear the different ways to pray. I get asked a lot to pray in English and that's pretty fun too. Although I always end up slipping into Spanish because I've been here for a minute now and I'm forgetting English. We had a lot of prayers answered this week tho and really got a testimony of the power of prayer.

Hope everyone has a great week
SaluuuElder Moulton

No Pierda La Fe

Well another week in paradise, everything is cooking here in Apopa. You know its a good week when you don't eat soap not even once. Probably the first time in the mission that's happened. On the real tho, pretty good times here. Rosa was baptized this Tuesday and it was just an amazing experience. She was so happy and animated and the coolest part was that after seeing the change in his mom, her son Erick has decided to start talking to us and learning more. 

As we say here everything is poco a poco but its awesome to see these miracles. We also had a crazy big activity in the ward where I struggled mightily to explain the game ¨signs¨ to 60 people in Spanish. It ended up working out alright and we had a good time. And while these were all great times, I would have to say that what went down this Saturday will probably stand as my highlight for quite sometime. 

A long time ago, when I was in a little town called Cojutepeque, your favorite missionary Elder Moulton, being the Elder Moulton you all know and love, lost the keys to the house in a bus. Long story short, after months of using sticks, wire, and whatever else on hand to get in, they finally had the chance to change the locks. And I got to pay for it. Usually in the mission, we can't go back to other areas to baptize old friends or visit anyone. But because of the key situation, we found ourselves in Cojutepeque this weekend, which was timed perfectly with the baptism of Carmen Beltran. I don't know if anyone remember the Beltran family but they were a family we were teaching back in the day that mean a lot to me. Its a big family and while I was in Cojutepeque we were able to see a lot of them get baptized but Carmen never decided to make the choice. And to be honest it would've been easy to say that she wouldn't make the choice in the near future. But this weekend I had the chance to go back for the baptism of her and her husband. We spent hours and days, riding in the back of a pickup through the jungle to teach these people and when I left I thought I would never see them again. I didn't know if the rest of the family would ever come to Christ.
 



The point is DON'T LOSE THE FAITH. Going back and seeing the Beltran family, almost 100% complete and happy, it made me realize that God really does have His plans. And he puts them in action. so DON'T LOSE THE FAITH. Rosa told us her son would never like to come to church or talk about God, but God touched his heart and she didn't lose the faith. Carmen was baptized months after her family, when all of us thought there was no hope but we didn't lose the faith. All of this is just my fancy way of saying, don't stop grinding. Because God is going to make the good things happen, we just gotta trust and work to do our part.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Saluuu

Elder Moulton

La Vida Es Una Carretera

Well another week in paradise, although the time is short today so Ima give you the low down in bullet points:

-We had transfers and I stayed here in Apopa.

-My companion, the wonderful Elder Herrera, left for a new area but also bought me a hammock before he left (bless his heart).

-My new companion, Elder Jimenez, is a friend from the mission who is a complete stud. He is from Honduras.

-We had a multitude of amazing experiences this week but the best was when Rosa told us she wanted to get baptized Tuesday at 4. And even tho it was weirdly specific we were cool with it and its awesome that we are gonna get the chance to see her take this step.

-DENNIS AND CAROLINA ARE GETTING MARRIED!!! And they told me I couldn't tell anyone but I don't think anyone there knows them so there ya go.

-Really just an awesome week, saw a lot of miracles and excited to grind here with Elder Jimenez.

Just to close out, I was reading this week in the Book of Mormon and at one part is says that the people didn't recognize Jesus when he was there with them. And I started to wonder if I too would recognize Jesus if he was here in front of me. In Alma chapter 5 it says that Christ is calling us but the question is if we will recognize the call.

As I went throughout the week, I focused on learning to recognize my Savior and it really changed the way I saw things. Look for the good and you'll find it as my mom always says. Look and listen for Christ and you'll find Him.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Saluuuu

Elder Moulton

"Deja Que el Espiritu"

Well another week flew bye in paradise, things are still cooking down here. We only got stuck in a rainstorm once but we covered our backpacks with trash bags and hit the streets. I'm going to have to keep it short this week because we don't have a whole lotta time, but this week was FULL of miracles. First off, and prolly the biggest, EDWIN WAS BAPTIZED!!! 

A few weeks back, my companion and I decided to go visit a member who hadn't come to church in years in a new area where we'd never been before. After wandering around lost for an hour and a half we found out that she had passed away but we ended up finding her daughter who told us to visit her nephew and long story short, within a week we met Edwin. He's 19 and just a complete stud. But when we found him he was really struggling with some bad influences in his life. Edwin left everything behind and in less than a month has changed basically 100%. After his baptism he went with us to meet people in the park and shared his testimony with a man who was struggling to express his pain and grief. With awe we watched as he testified of the truth of the Book of Mormon and invited this man to change his life. Seeing the change in Edwin and the power in his words just about brought tears to my eyes. 

The Spirit really hit us hard this week. There were 4 different times when we were walking down a street and suddenly we just had the thought pop into our head to visit a person or head down a certain area where we weren't planning on going. In the end, we found a mom and son who hadn't let us in for almost 2 months who invited us in with tears in their eyes, the sister of Eva (who was baptized just a couple months ago) who needed an answer from God, and a family that hadn't been to church in years, looking for the the way back. The point is the Spirit guides and we really felt it this week. Also we had a really fun zone activity where every companionship drew a part of the plan of salvation and we had a huge map in the central park.



 It was way fun and we met a bunch of people (shout out to the missionary who gave us the idea, you know who you are). Hope everyone has a killer week, thanks for all the love!

Saluuuuu

Elder Moulton

Una Semana Mas

Hey! Hope everyone had a great week. Everything is going well down here in paradise. Started off the week carrying an elder with a broken foot through the streets of Apopa through the pouring rain. Had to leave a lesson we were teaching because a dude came into the house and started spraying smoke all over to kill the mosquitoes. I finally installed the mosquito net over my bed. We discovered tamalpusas (½ tamale ½ pupusa). All in all it was a good solid week. A friend of mine in our ward got his mission call and he is going to Ecuador. I am super pumped for him because he has been trying to serve a mission for years. 

The highlights of the week would definitely be Kevin and Laura. Kevin is a little boy we have been teaching for awhile. He recently turned 8 and decided to be baptized. He is an awesome little kid and a great example for his family. 

Sunday before church Laura was finally able to be baptized. We had to postpone it because of some deaths in her family and some crazy stuff,  so it was awesome to finally be able to share that moment with her. 

We have a friend here that we have been teaching for a long time. He has never been able to be baptized because he isn’t married to the person he is living with. But the person he is living with is a member of the church that hasn’t gone to church in a long time. A lot happened with this little family. A long story short, she decided to leave her job, her house, and him to be able to go back to church. She is changing all of her life to come back to what she knows is true. Just thinking about her and Laura and a lot of these people we are teaching, there are people who sacrifice so much to be able to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not always easy to do the right thing no matter where you live or what your life is like. But seeing the example of these people, who are willing to change everything can really put things in perspective. 

Hope everyone has a great week. 

Salud

Elder Moulton