Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Amber's News 3/29/2010

Hola papa, Como esta (how are you) I hope things at work are going well for you. So I have a pretty sweet tan right now yeah because the sleeves of my shirts are three fourths length only one fourth of my arms are tan. I'm not home sick any more that is pretty great and the Spanish is coming more and more everyday I still have a ways to go but it's starting to come finally. Well I had a yolky egg yesterday it was awesome! It was a little piece of home it was in a members house Hermana Biar said they don't cook eggs any other way and I knew then that Chile and I were meant to be. The fruit here is really good too. We work really hard every day I´m just burnt out in the end and when my head hits the pillow I'm gone. But I'm having fun with Hermana Bair. She has taught me a lot. I think we have some similar characteristics so that's good. She's the one they send in for special transfers and what not so it's good. When she comes home in december she will go to Provo so I told her yall will cook her a meal and she could have a potter thon with Whit. ( a movie night watching Harry Potter movies) The people here are really great I love them all. It's been fun working with them and when I understand more it will be even more better. I don't think that sentence was correct but I don't know Spanish or English right now. Its all Spanglish. I fear that in a few months I won't even be able to communicate with yall lol. Tell everyone hi for me. I like what you said last week about the book of mormon its true it is our guide for this life I love the book of mormon it's my favorite there is really nothing better. I love the promise in the beginning that says when a person reads it they will come closer to God more than any other book. Well daddy I love you and hope you are doing great. Love your favorite Hermana Moss
Mom,
We are working hard we have a great family Teresa, Christian, Fernanda and Jeramia. They are great we are working with them only Tresesa has a baptismal date right now. My favorite thing that happened this week was when we had a contact and at first she said no that we couldn't teach her but then I gave her a pamphlet about families and then she told Hermana Bair that one of her daughters had died a while ago so now we have an appointment with her. Honestly I didn't know what was going on I just felt like I should give her this pamphlet so I did and after Hermana Bair told me what happened it was pretty good. Here it's pretty warm during the day and really cold at night but I'm not dyeing so it's good! Everyday my spanish gets a little better. Understanding people is hard but with time I will get it. Baby steps to a package huh ok but seriously a brownie when you do send one ok oh and Hermana Bair wanted money for clothes lol lol the worst with Spanish and English is when you don't know how to say it in spanish and your forget what you want to say in English. Oh Hermana Bair is the bomb, I pray for more time with her seriously. She is who they send for special transfers. She's great I have learned so much from her. She is from LA and her mom is Latino but she didn't speak Spanish before. She has nine months in the mish and finishes in December. I emailed Cody last week but it looks like it came back. I heard there was another baby quake here last night but lol I was a sleep. I love you kisses and hugs Hermana Moss I´m looking forward to the easter card. Oh I feel really bad because I haven't been able to write Chandler since I got here I don't have stamps and Hermana Bair doesn't know where to get them so... yeah... I don't know.
Well love, Hermana Moss.

Cody's news 3/28/2010

Dear Mother,
On Tuesday I got my new companion his name is Elder Bordolli and yes he is another Argentinean, but this time the 2 other Gringos that I was living with moved out of the house. Now it is just me and him solo. So my spanish should be improving alot more because I am forced to speak it just about all day long (except when I am teaching Martin the Swede). I hope that everything is good there because things are great here my new companion and I have have a goal for the month of April to baptized 6 people and we have the 6 people in a list already and so that is what we are working for right now some of the people have a few problems that we need to find a way to resolve. One lady is living with some guy and she wants to get baptized but she doesn't want to kick the guy out of the house or something like that That is what we are working for right now. But things are great here. It sounds like Amber is home sick and she has not felt any aftershocks how sad I had hoped that she would be able to relate to me on how it feels to be in a earthquake but what ever. Last night at about 4 in the morning we had another aftershock but it wasn't anything too big it started and I was waiting for it to get worse before I jumped out of my bed but it didn't so I went back to sleep. When we had the earthquake we had like a bazillion missionaries and members run out in the street in just their garments. Oh ya I saw the photo I don't know how to describe my face maybe it was just walking in the rain and the sun was out, but now I am like "UTAH" famous and the photo is on LDS newsroom so also "church" famous. ya in Talca it was like the earth was boiling that is the best way I can describe it.
Well I love you,
Cody

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Cody's news 3/22/2010

Hey!!!! Momma

This week went soo FAST!!! We had a family night in the church on friday and We had 15 investigators show up, and this week we had 4 confirmations in the church, my companion is heading South tommorow for transfers and my new companion is another Argentinan so we will see how it goes. Ya mothers day is getting close! so watchout! I don't think that you will need to get me a calling card so we should be just fine on that. Why has Amber not been emailing me? I mean once she got to chile it was like I wasn't even important anymore. Well things are good and delicous here and I will get my new companion tommorow and then we will get to work alright, I was supposed to go to Constitution but for some reason they changed it last minute and I am here now so I guess that is just the way it is.

Love you!!




--
Elder Cody Moss

Amber's news 3/22/2010

Hola mama! si a calling card would be great also if you have room a big fat irresistable brownie I'm seriously dieing I havn't had chocolate since I arrived. They have flan gross no me gusta well its ok I guess theres not much flavor or anything its kinda like pudding I don't know they probably had it in cancun. I think the week went by pretty fast. Its hard work here. Hermana Bair is great she helps me alot con my pronuciation y con words is hard not knowing what people are saying and not being able to speak much but the language is coming little by little. The highlight of the week was when we had this contact that I asked her what things she was worried about in life and she said the terrimotos so we talked a little bit about the plan and we have an apointment for this next week. I´m excited to talk with her again. And we have a family that is pretty interested. No we havn't had any after shocks where I´m at. There is no damage here in Cintinario. We are like a hour and half from Santiago the only damage I have seen was by la casa del presidente this huge building was tilting I don't know how it didn't fall over they are working on straiting it right now. You have been sad huh? Well frankly I have been home sick. But I hope it's like the homesickness I had in the MTC becuase that only lasted for 2 weeks and then after that I was fine. Its hard right now but I will get through it especially when I can understand and actually teach people. lol my apartment well lets just say all of my other apartments were really nice and big. Seriously your pantry is bigger than our kitchen. I miss carpet no one here has carpet. Especially in our apartment. It is only lanolium so my feet are always dirty. Tell whitney that song she likes is on right now "somebody call 911 shorty fire burnin" well it is on in the place we are in. I´m having problems changing my email so idk. I'll figure it out. Spanish is slowly coming. Yesterday I think I understood quiet a bit. But speaking, ah its getting a little bit better. Hermana Bair is great we are good friends and she helps me a lot. I have been blessed with a good comp which is good cuz its hard here but with time I will know what to do and I will understand people and will be able to speak.
Well I love you hmn Moss

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Cody's news 3/15/2010

Hello Everyone,
(Ryan asked about some earthquakes that had happened during the week.) Ya the earthquakes happened and nothing happened my companion and I were walking in the street and the ground began to shake and so we walked into a small area where nothing would fall on us. And we watched all the telephone poles and the houses shake that was interesting and I wanted to get it on video but I didn't have my camera, so we are doing proselyting work and service work to. The other day we went to "a roof for chile" and we helped make houses so that was good. We had our three baptisms and that went all fine and dandy but we didn't have hot water because they shut the gas from the city off after the earthquake. This week went by fast also, I rarely see my mission president because there is about a 4 hour drive from Talca to Concepcion so he rarely comes out here. We just e-mail him each week. Did you know that we don't even hand out Books of Mormon? We pass out the pass alongs for the Book of Mormon but not the actual book because we don't get them all the time so we give them to people that we teach but not to people in the street. Ok so here are 2 experiences for you that acutally happed this last week. So there is this guy named martin that I am teaching he is from Sweden but he speaks English and Swedish (his wife is Chilean and she speaks English, Spanish and Swedish) so we went to his mother inlaws house to paint a room for service (Martin was working on his computer) so we paint and we didn't get to finish because we had to go to lunch so we go to lunch and we change our clothes and go back the mother inlaw invites us in and tells us to go to the room that we had been painting so we go and there is Martin in just his briefs painting the room nothing else on and his wife Claudia is like here Elder Moss take a seat and talk to Martin so his wife gives me a seat in the room with Martin (while he is in just his briefs and painting) to talk more with Martin about the church so that was a little odd but that is what happened. The other expierience is we went to the house of Claudia Rojas (diffrent Claudia from before, this Claudia just got baptized on Sunday) I was on a exchange for a day with an Elder from Peru and we were teaching Claudia about the holy Ghost well we are teaching and all that and her dad walks into the room (he is pentecostal) and he just starts going off on us and he tells us to just open up the scriptures randomly and read what comes out because God will gide it to what you will teach or something like that and he just keeps going off and talking and talking and talking so we couldn't really teach Claudia . Finally when we left Claudia came with us and asked us when we could come again and so we set up our next appointment with her and I looked at her and she looked really sad so I asked her if she was alright and she was like " Oh elder I am just so sad with my husband committing suicide and every day I wonder what is the purpose of me living" so I told her "Claudia you have your daughter right now to live for, you have her" then I asked if it was alright if we read a scripture so I pulled out the Book of Mormon right there in the middle of the road and I had her read Alma 7:11-12 where it talks about the atonement and after she read it she said " Elder I feel strange, I feel calm" and so I was able to tell her that, that was the Holy Ghost, and she began to cry. It is interesting that I was able to teach her alot better about what the Holy Ghost is right there in the street, than if we had sat her down and tried teaching about the Holy Ghost with out having her dad try and fight with us. A normal day for me in the mission is at 7 I wake up and from 7-7:30 have excercises from 7:30-8:30 get ready for the day 8:30-9:30 personal study 9:30-10:30 companion study and the last half and hour language study after that we leave and sometimes we will do contacts in the street or we will confirm appointments later on in the day or even teach until 1:30 then we eat lunch for an hour and from 2:30-3:30 we have an hour to get ready for the day and from 3:30-10 we are working the whole time at 10 we return home and plan for a half an hour and then we have a half and hour to get ready for bed. That is a typical day. well the time difference was 4 hours but I dont think we changed our time so now it is I think 3 or 5 depending on which way you went.
Love You,Elder Cody Moss

Amber's News 3/15/2010

Hola Mama,
Chile is great I really like it here. The culture is super chil. And the food wow its amazing! I really like it. The best part is its pretty healthy too. One thing that I really like about the culture is when you meet or say good by to people you give them a kiss on the cheek and a hug. I don't know why but I really like it and they have this kind of chilean smell that I like lol (their skin). It's really different being here for me si Hermana Bair mi companera says it's not much different from where she lived LA. But yeah seeing griffity and large buildings is really different for me but I like it and it's not humid here which I'm so glad because when we stopped in peru I thought I would die! But it's pretty warm here but I don't feel like death. The nights get pretty cold though. I think it feels good. I´m in los Andes which is two hours from Santiago. The people here are so nice. Yeah the earthquakes whoa its was really weird my companion said what we felt was like a 3 or 4 we were in our casa studing nothing fell over or anything but it scared me. Its hard to explane like the whole house was moving back and forth. It reminded me of like the star tours ride at disney land but not so strong and its your house that is moving. When I first got to Santiago I was really sensitive to the temblors I guess small quakes are happing all the time. But the people here are used to them and don't feel it. But in the Presidents house every time I stood up I felt dizzy and like I was falling it was weird becuase only Hermana Grey and I noticed it. No one else did because they are used to it. Well missionary work is really hard but it is good. Its hard to understand people here because they leave out syllables and talk weird I can for the most part understand my companion but other people only parts of what they say. Yeah Hermana Bair is awesome she has been helping me a lot with spanish and everything. People here have really small houses. A bunch I have been in the family room and the kitchen are together and its probalby the same size as my room at home. Our ward is super small maybe 25 people so it is really different but were going to change that. We do a lot of walking. It's hard right now because I don't understand much of what is going on so most of the day is for me is understanding a few words or senteces here or there but with time it will change just like the MTC. MTC was really hard at first but after awhile my spanish was fine. So I'm just working hard on learning and teaching the people. The chilean people are really hard workers they are always sweeping or spraying off their front place. The kids just started school agian and they all wear uniforms it's interesting. I love the members they are great. You would like the salads here mom one was cut up tomatoes with onions in it and parsley I think that was all they dished me up a ton but it was good. Oh except that day someone else fed us so I was so full I wanted vomitar (to vomit) Ah it's super sad about the culture though becuase they have boyfriends/girlfriends really early and a lot have kids at 16 Hermana Bair said some 14-15. Not many are modest here either. I love the people though they are great. Sounds like you all are doing good. What more hmm..... the flight, it was just weird I think because I was so tired we didn't get much sleep because we left 3 am on Monday and got here 3 am Tuesday. But it was like 7 here. By the time we got to the Presidents 9 so then we still had a whole day where we went tracking and what not. Oh we don't actually knock doors because everyones house has a fence so you stand at the front of the fence and say halo and then people come out. It's interesting. Yeah President Dickerson was the best. Thanks for the update about my districkt they were the best. Yeah elder roth is here in santiago and elder break went to Antofagasta.
well i love you all and will write again next time. The quakes were just babys so dont worry i´m fine. I feel really safe here the people are so nice and like us. I´m so white though lol. One person asked me if my hair was blonde because no white people have this dark of hair, there are people with darker skin than me with a lighter color of hair. I don't think I look chilean my hmna said she though I look Argentinean. Love Hmna Moss

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Amber's news 3\8\2010

Amber left the MTC for Chile on Monday. We were able to talk to her at the airport. She sounded good and was doing great. Amber was excited to get to work. We recieved a nice e-mail from her mission president. President and Sister May. It had a nice photo of her and them. She looked so happy. In the e-mail they said "Sister May and I will treat her as our own daughter." What a nice thing to tell her parents. Although everyone that knows her loves her.:) They also included a hand writen note from her (They had scanded it in) She says:
Hola Family,
Hey I made it to the mission home. Santiago looks like a great place. I'm excited to go out and serve. On the plane ride here I got to talk to a man that was from Chile but had been working in the US for the last few years. We talked in english but it was realy good because I told him about Joseph Smith and the first Vision and also talked about the Book of Mormon with him. I gave him a pass along card and told him he could call and get a free Book of Mormon. He seemed pretty interested and I think he might call. He said he was Roman Catholic but felt there were a lot of things missing.
I love you all Hermana Moss

Cody's News 3/8/2010

Well things are good here we have had to delay our 3 baptisms for 2 weeks now but I am sure that this week they are going to happen so that will be good. I do know Elder Roberts he is in my zone, it is crazy what happened to his area like they have a guy from their ward living in their apartment now because his house got destroyed and like 11 people died on his same street. We did some service at his house by clearing out a bunch of rubble to where he could walk in and then we took a bunch of stuff out. This week we went to a city called Constitution (it is about 1 hour away from Talca going towards the Ocean)which was destroyed by the earthquake and then by a tsunami. When I was there, there actually was a tsunami warning so we ran for our lives and there were people crashing in their cars and people crying and all the works going on during the warning well it turns out that the warning was false so now when I talk with people I say I have lived thru a earthquake and a fake tsunami. I live with another companionship and both of them are from Utah and my comapnion is from Argentina. When the aftershocks go off people just about die but I am like it is just a little shake relax I was talking with some members and they said that they had not been able to sleep for about 2 or three days because of the aftershocks but I have been sleeping just fine so I am not sure what their problems is. Hey love you talk to you next week

Wow I can't belive that Amber has to go to Peru.I went from LA strait to Santiago. You should see how fast Peruvians run when there is a aftershock they get so scared. Things are good the food prices really went up for about 2 or three days but after that everything went back to normal a lot of the stores and stuff are open. We started to get back to normal misisonary stuff this week but the thing is that we always have people that ask us for service or for some help so it takes a while. All the members in our ward are fine we actually have a bunch of members but our average attendance is about 70 people or so. So there is alot of inactive work but we are really focused on baptising more people and the ward should be taking care of the new converts with the old ones too that don't come anymore and ya we do visit inacitves to every day we plan on how many lessons we will do with recent converts and inactives so that is all good
Love Cody,

Friday, March 5, 2010

A cute little exchange 3/4/2010

Cody to Amber 3/2/2010
Hey,
Well I am sorry that you don't get to live in Chile for another week or more
depending on the situation but all is well I am a live and eating and
sleeping and not really teaching all that much right now because of the
Teremoto so don't worry about me. When you get here they might just send you
to a different mission first if it is too bad but I don't think that Santiago
is too damaged I know that it has like all the roads ripped up and
there are about 2 or 3 feet of differnece on the 2 sides but that is all.
Love,
Elder Cody Moss

Amber to Cody 3/4/2010
Hey Cody buddy,
I'm so glad you are doing well. I was worried about you. But I'm so glad you are all right. I love you so much! I'm excited to come to Chile yeah I think people maybe alot more receptive to the message. Hey I got you a book that explains the grammer really really easily it has helped me so much. When I get to chile I will send it to you k. It's the new spanish book that give here at the MTC and its way better than the old one. Well I love and hope you are doing well I know God will guide and protect you.
Love,
Ambo (Amber in spanish!)

Amber's News 3/4/2010

Hey family,
It was really good to talk to you today. I'm getting really excited for chile thanks for the notes. Well our district had been praying that the people in Chile would be prepared to hear our message. I think our prayers were answered :) I'm so glad Cody is ok I was really worried about him but I prayed and I felt that he was all right and he was. I'm excited to talk to ya'll on Monday thats going to be fun and I get to talk twice now yeah! Things here have been pretty crazy but that's alright. I'm just working hard on the language and working on how to focus on peoples needs when we are teaching them. I really like the scriptures in Spanish well what I can understand some times they have better meanings that make a little more sense. We are working hard. I'm super exctied and I'm excited to help everyone. Mom I bet this has been a little hard for you to have Cody there and me going there too but its going to be good we are going to be able to help alot of people. Dad it was really fun that you were home it was like our lunches again! I really love you all. Not much else has been happening just trying to figure out the grammer and speak as much as we can. Speaking more has helped alot. I love you all and will talk to you on Monday when I get to LA. Elder Roth has my travel plans right now so I don't remember the times well I'm going to email cody.
Love Amber

(She refers to talking to us in this e-mail she called Thursday afternoon to for 5 mins to give us her travel plans. Ryan just happened to be home for lunch:) )

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Cody's News 3/2/2010

Hey momma,
I just had some lunch and am sending you some mail. So where I am at in Talca things are good. We have electricity and some water that flows, and we were able to buy some food yesterday. I was talking to an Elder in my zone that was in the part of the city more affected and he said that he saw around 6 dead people while he was helping out. I wrote down some stuff that happened but I need to write down some more things. The best way I can describe a 8.8 earthquake is that it is like the earth is boiling underneath you or that is how it felt for me when I was in my bed. Because I didn't leave my bed when it happened. I was in my bed and it started I left my bed for a second because I wasn't sure if the bed of my companion was going to fall on me but after about 10 seconds of that I was back in my bed. But things are pretty bad here I went into the central part of the city and tons of buildings have just fallen apart. My companion said that he saw people burying people in the street but I didn't see because we were riding in the back of this truck kind of like a moving truck some thing like that and we went through part of the city that was just toast. When the earthquake woke me up I was like "crap, a earthquake you have got to be kidding." then my mind flashed to a video clip of a earthquake in Japan that I saw about some guy in a office during a earthquake. After the 2 minutes of earthquake I finally got out of bed with my companion and the other 2 elders that we live with and after about 10 minutes the Bishop showed up and asked us to go around to some houses in the ward and check how things were. So we did that and every one was fine. Now we have just been surviving. We went to the supermarket on Saturday to see if we could get some food because we had none but people had begun to rob the store so the police shut it down. Yesterday we went to buy some food and the police were there but they had a line set up to wait to get into the store only a certain amount of people could be inside all at once so when one left one could go in. So we bought some food and we have some bottled water. Oh when we went into the central part of the city people had broken into a pharmacy and they were stealing things so we took our tags off because we didn't want people to think that we had tons of money and have some one rob us. These are a few things that have happened and I have some pictures of damage of what happened maybe you can sell them to the news or something so you will not always have to see the same photos. I have been thinking alot about my patriarticle blessing the past few days because it said that my mission would prepare me for the rest of my life, so right now I am wondering what the future will hold and if God sent me here for this earthquake or what am I supposed to be learning from this. Oh you could put those picture on my blog I think we are going to come back for more email after lunch and I will have my camera then
Love you and stay safe
Cody
Sorry, I never received any photos if and when I do, I will post them:)