In The beginning

Farewell May 27th, 9 am with lots of family for dinner afterwords. Then cousin Lexi Moser took some family photos.

June 4, 2018  

Brad was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ at 7:30 pm, Monday evening. We met with President Goodwin, who after setting him apart in a very touching and uncharacteristically robust blessing, proclaimed, "I don't know who is sitting in this chair...but I am impressed."

JUNE 5, 2018

We left home at 5:30 am and headed for the Idaho Falls airport. Porter Williams joined us as a good friend of Brad's. We realized as we approached Idaho Falls that Brad had left his flight itinerary on the kitchen counter. We turned around and headed back to Blackfoot while calling the Despain's (whose lights were on at 5:30 am). President Scott Despain graciously ran to our home, retrieved the envelope, and met us at the Rose exit, saving us at least 20 minutes travel time. Then we were really on our way. 

Brad went "beyond the rope" at 7:15 am, flight leaving at 7:30 am. Until we meet! We love you!! Hurrah for Israel!

JUNE 6, 2018

We arrived in Johannesburg about an hour and a half ago. The flight actually turned out to be 15 hours instead of 13, and we were also told that on the way back it will be 17 hours due to wind resistance.

If there is ever a flight that makes you question your existence, it is the flight from Atlanta to South Africa. We flew in a 777 and there were around 540 seats total. The air hosts and hostesses were total gems, and they stayed awake the whole time! They took care of everything we needed, including drinks, blankets and meals. the meals were actually kinda gross, but the names they used on the menus made us feel like we were living in first class. 

There are around 17 of us missionaries total that flew together. It's kinda funny, the missionary that I met up with in Idaho Falls (Elder Johnson) got on a different flight that  took him to Colorado and our connecting flight didn't meet up until Atlanta. All of the missionaries are from the west, so Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Alaska. All cool dudes! And most of us have been graduated for a year at least.

In Atlanta we had our dinners paid for by this man from Ghana who works for the church to find new temple grounds and set up press conferences. He's probably one of the coolest people that I've met. He had dinner with us and we sat next to a man who was a Jewish catholic and just came back from Colombia as part of an organization of Jews that are coming to know Christ. He then gave us a prayer in Hebrew and it was really neat o.

This computer that I'm using in the MTC is a real pain. If i so much as look at the mouse pad it will redirect my cursor and start writing in a random spot, so I apologize if anything in this is out of the ordinary.

Right now the temperature in Johannesburg is soothing. Nice and cool, just the way I like it. 

The MTC presidents name is President Bester, and his wife and another gentelman names Elder Pienaar are his helpers. I was the first to be interviewed, and now we are all in a big room writing to our families and doing some medical paper stuff....?

Also, tonight I am in a room by myself #foreveralone

Hope everyone is doing well at home! Even though its only been a day... or something like that. How is everyone holding up?

love Ya'll!

-Elder Moser

JUNE 12, 2018

Okay. I'm counting on you to send this email to the people who wanted it. I don't have any of their emails haha, and I only have 10 minutes to write, so I'm gonna type like the wind.

The MTC is so small! It can only hold around 48 people in it. In the MTC there is around 30 missionaries. 18 are white, 8 are from Brazil ( I room with 4 of them) 1 is from Angola, and 1 is from Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe elder is my companion, Elder Foto, and he is cool. He is teaching his language, Shona. It is so hard! I'm am also learning Portuguese from my Brazilian elders. They are all really fun, but they sometimes have problems with mission rules.

The food is good here in the MTC, and a lot of it is similar to what we would eat, except the sausage is more "real", the bread is more dry, and the apple juice, at least I'm convinced, is just melted apple candy. Supper fake but good nonetheless. The food they serve in the MtC is never the same. I had pop yesterday and I was probably the only missionary who actually enjoyed it. It's like grits with pieces of corn in it. The sausage they serve is the only thing I'm not a fan of. Super dry, and in some sort of skin?

The MTC is so wonderful. the spirit is so strong and I am learning so much! Every day is super busy and it is really difficult to keep up on my studies, but I am doing it to the best of my ability.   

The mission President is President Bester, and his counselor is President Pienaar. Both are from SA, and have very thick accents and really contradict each other in personality. Bester is really relaxed and Pienaar Is VERY high energy. 

I love it here and feel the spirit so strong! I have to go, so I will write more next week if I can. 

Love you all! I'm getting really fat hehe

-Elder Moser