TALK TO EVERYONE!

HEY!

Yep our companionship goal this week and next week was to, “Talk to Everyone!”  Because we are finding that it is actually working. We talk to literally everyone we see on the street, at the store in the hall, at the bathroom, and right before we meet with someone. We introduce ourselves and ask them if they are interested in hearing our message and get to know them. We are really starting to find people in our area. We will ask them where they stay, and if we find out they stay in our area we get SO EXCITED!!! So yeah, we are going to keep opening our mouths! It’s also pretty fun to get to meet such cool people and realize what life is like for the people here in Zambia and hear their different opinions and myths they have heard about our church! It’s been good!  

Also this week we had a zone activity. A combined zone activity. It was so fun! We played basketball and volleyball for three hours straight and we were all so sore afterwards but it was such a blast to have fun with the other missionaries and see how competitive volleyball can get haha. Basketball was the funniest thought because we have this elder in our mission that is pretty tall and when we were playing he would block every basket and hold the ball up in the air when we were tying to defend him! Our mission has some pretty awesome missionaries though, and the activity made me realize how grateful I am to serve with people from literally all over the world. They are just good people! 

Also this week I hit 8 months on mission!!! I can not believe that it is May and almost June and it’s just crazy to me. Things are going good over here in Woodlands and even though we had no new people at church this week we are still finding good people and I know they will eventually come! My companion and I’s favorite phrase of the week is "That’s mission life," cause when we have to eat noodles again for dinner because we don’t have time to cook, or when we meet a crazy Zambian who tells us his whole medical story when we contact him, or even the good times when we have a powerful lesson or find a really prepared person, we say that just to remind us that this is mission life and we are grateful for it! 

Oh also we got to help clean the chapel this week with these two lovely and awesome Relief Society sisters. They are some of the most hard working and wonderful women I’ve met here in Zambia and we love them so much! 

Anyways… 

Hope you all have a good week! 

with lots and lots of love,  Sister Moulton 

I'm a Mom Again!

Editors note- These are the pictures from last week that Harper was able to upload today: 

Now on to this weeks email!

Hello! this week was crazy. Lots of driving and sickness and good times and lessons learned haha. 

So on Wednesday I received the news that I would be training. So I’m an STL still and I’m training.... yeah . . .crazy but its good! My new companion (my second daughter) is Sister Tukuafu and she is so sweet and kind. She is also from Tonga and the whole training experience again is a little bit of a throw back for me. Its like a second chance for me to really improve and become better and do a better job. I’m grateful I get the opportunity too. President said I’ll only train for a month and then she will move areas but its still good! Her first day in the area we were supposed to go out to teach but I got really sick from the food we ate so we had to stay in. But the rest of the week was good! 

My favorite lesson we taught was when one of our investigators fell through. So we went down this one road we had been down lots of times and we find this guy sitting there and he looked so sad. We started talking to him and he told us we could share our message. But during the lesson we started talking about prayer and church and he said he hadn’t been to church in a long time and wanted to come this week cause he felt like he really needed to change. At the end of the lesson we invited him to close with a prayer and he said he wasn’t really sure how to pray. We taught him and helped him and he said a simple prayer. During the prayer I could feel that Heavenly Father was listening and after he looked so much happier. We went back later that week and he said he had been praying and that his bad dreams that he had been having had gone away and he just felt so much better! I am so grateful Heavenly Father puts people in our path that really do need our message. 

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about a talk our bishop gave last week. He talked about how “time is life." We are given this life to prepare to meet God and to learn and become better. Every moment we have we should use it! Especially on mission I’ve realized that time is so important. Time it flies, and so its up to me to use what I have and stay focused on the work! It’s really been neat to see even just this week. We fill our planner with people to see every hour and then if something happens we keep looking and trying to find people to teach. And when we keep going and don’t just stop and give up the people, they come. It’s definitely a miracle I’ve seen. I’m grateful for the time I have on mission to serve my Heavenly Father and meet more of his wonderful children! 

This week we went and visited James. We had invited him to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon, Alma 34. We went back and discussed with him and I had never realized how deep and meaningful that chapter is, my favorite ever! We talked with James about verse 41. Its says that,  “but that ye have patience and bear with those afflictions with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions." We talked about how we have to endure with patience and with hope in the end when there will be no afflictions. Hope is so important to help us get through hard times. There is so much to have hope for too! Good things are ahead if we hope and bear with patience. 

I hope you all had a good week and that this week will be great for you all as well! Hopefully we will meet some fun people this week I can talk about! 

with lots and lots of love,

Sister Moulton 

Is That Really a Monkey?

Editors Note: Harper was so sad she couldn't upload pictures this week but hopes her connection is better next week so she can send lots! I have included one from weeks ago that she didn't email out and one from our chat with her. Thanks for all of your love and support for Sister Moulton. 

Hello family and friends 

This week was pretty okay! First of all I got to talk to my family yesterday and it was so wonderful. I miss them so much but it was so good to see their faces. Happy Mothers day as well to the best mom I know who is constantly worrying about me and praying for me. I’m grateful for her and her love.

James was finally able to be confirmed this week! Yes it took a couple weeks. Reason being is that as soon as James was baptized he faced some personal issues and started getting peer pressured by his friends that didn’t support his baptism.  So we had to work through those with him. He talked with the bishop and this week he was able to be confirmed. He bore his testimony about the Book of Mormon and how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church. He is doing better and the friends he is making at church are having a good influence on him. Its true though about how much Satan tempts those just when they make a good choice. Right when we are on the path to eternal happiness Satan wants to stop us and prevent us from going forward just like he tried with James. Its up to us to be strong enough so that we can withstand those temptations and learn from them. I am grateful for the gift of the Holy Spirit that James received this week to help him as he continues to withstand those temptations. The Holy Spirit really is our guide and will be our constant companion when we choose to remain worthy of it. Satan is powerful, he is, but we are given everything we need to become strong against the temptations. 

Okay by far one of the highlights of my week is about my subject line. So we are in a new area right? So this area is super posh (rich). The people that stay on this one particular spot are mostly state house people that stay there and so the guards wont let us in to talk to them, but we decided to drive to this one part and get out and walk to talk to people. We are on this one road and I see something climb the fence of this super nice nice house and I like do a double take and then my comps says "Its a monkey!" I was like, "Are you sure that’s really a monkey?" I WAS SO IN SHOCK and then we kept walking towards the house and just saw a bunch of them. THEY WERE ALL OVER! Oh man it was so cool I think my companion thought I was crazy but I was so excited and took so many pics cause I SAW A MOENY IN MY AREA JUST ON THE ROADSIDE! Its like a stray dog but a monkey! And not just one but a bunch!!! SO COOL! 

Also we have been finding a lot. We are trying to find ALWAYS in all ways so if anyone has creative ideas for how to find people, let me know! Cause knocking gates isn’t going to work forever. This one day we found this compound with a bunch of smaller homes so we walk in and find out its like a police camp for their families. We ended up contacting three different women named Agnes in that area and then another Agnes on the way home! FOUR WOMEN NAMED AGNES IN ONE DAY. One of them has to be serious at least. 

Anyways that’s the week. Heavenly Father is continuing to show me and my companion miracles and I’m grateful He helps us. This work is definitely not easy but its so worth it when you have Him on your side. 

Hope you all have a good week! 

with lots and lots of love, 

Sister Moulton 

Just Gotta Have a Little More Faith

This week was all about faith. How important it is. Our president came to our district meeting this week-- which was nerve racking haha, but he came and taught us about how we need to have more faith in the goals we set and the things we do. We should always have the faith to baptize one every week. There are people prepared and we need to go and find them. We need to have faith in our investigators and plan ways to help them increase in faith too!  It really impacted my week. My new companion has a strong testimony of not giving up and increasing in faith because of her past area and the challenges she faced. So this week she was so motivating and we really tried to keep our faith up as we went finding and taught our investigators even when things got hard.  

There was even one day when our appointments were falling through and because my new comps and I don’t know the area, I had to be the one coming up with people to call. And at the end of the day, we looked back and found that we had taught so many people and had seen even some that we hadn’t seen in over a month but that somehow were available. I know Heavenly Father provided a way that day cause we didn’t lose our faith that we could find those people to teach. He always provides a way. It reminds me of a scripture in 1 Nephi 3 :7 "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." SO TRUE. If he really called me on a mission he will provide a way for me to do the work. It just takes my faith in him. 

Funny finding story. . .  so our area got changed again and now we are asked to focus on the more self reliant areas in what’s called IBEX and Kablonga. SO on Saturday we had exchanges again and we needed to find so we go and we knock on gates. Not a lot of people like to answer their gate haha. These gates are big --by the way. The whole house is hidden so they have to walk far to open it. There was this one gate that had a table with avocados on it for sale. We knew that if we knocked on the gate they would answer thinking we wanted avocados. (Fun fact-- its avocado season here and WOAH I’ve never seen such big avocados!) So we knock and they answer. They let us in to share a message and it turns out to be this older lady. She used tor rent the house behind hers to missionaries so she knew who we were.  She wasn’t really interested in hearing our message, just wanted to talk haha but we had a nice discussion about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ! Then at the end she said we could take a free avocado! AYE! So even though she told us she wasn’t really interested, at least we got an avocado. 

Oh. p.s. I LEARNED HOW TO DRIVE STICK THIS WEEK! My president told me to have the other sister teach me because eventually when I get transferred the other cars in the mission are manual. So today I went driving with Sister Heaton and BAM I only stalled a couple times and even drove home. Not a pro yet but I’m still so happy! Anyways I admire those of you that drive stick-- it takes a lot of brain power haha.

Anyways this week was good. We were able to see many people and this next week we have some good plans in place. Hope you all have a good week! 

with lots and lots of love,

Sister Moulton