December 20th, 2010
Dear Mother,
The reason I tried to take more money then in the account, because I tried to pay for my emergency room visit.........it was a $75.00 co-pay and I still didn't have enough money so I had to use some of my missionary funds "sigh". Looks like food will be in a shortage for the coming up weeks ‘til January. And, I had to buy Elder Jensen’s bike for about 50 something dollars. He just had me buy a sweatshirt for him and that was the payment so I’m sorry if it seems that I’m running thru the money. It’s going for righteous causes and I promise I’m not trying to waste it.
Hey just a heads up I will only be talking to you for like 2-3 minutes Christmas Eve just to say hey I’m calling at this time and then say nothing else. So that’s about all I know right now.
Hey mom, I will have longer than 30 minutes that’s for sure. Our mission president has said to make sure we call our parents, and if we can't talk to everyone, if we still have time then we can call brothers, sisters and grandparents. At this moment in time I know that we are at an hour. So, if some people can't get in on the Christmas call I will still be able to talk with them. Psssh, prepaid calling card I feel bad for Chase and Andrew. And I got some bills that I will be sending you guys. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to send them to the insurance or not, so I hope you know what to do with them.
December 13th, 2010
Hey Family,
Well the last couple of weeks have been crazy with 3 people, but after 2 years Elder Jensen has now gone home to Utah. I bought his bike from him we had a deal where I would buy him a sweater and he would give me the bike. So 50 dollars at Pac Sun and I got a brand new bike. It’s awesome, it’s a trek and it has a lot of fancy gadgets on it. But I’m gonna miss the guy. He was a good man, but he was really, really trunky the last couple of days he was here. When we were in a appointment he wouldn't say a word. He was just mute. We would ask him what was up and he would just say I’m going home in 2 days arrrrg!!! I kept telling him that nobody cared just focus on the work you are doing now, not what you will be doing when you get home but it only went so far. I think the work will start to pick back up with me and Elder Deardeuff. We both have a strong desire even though Elder Deardeuff has been really sick the last couple of weeks. We have to stay inside when that happens, so I get really bored after I study for about 4 extra hours I would work on the area book see who we could go see and all this stuff. I started going a little crazy towards the end of the day when I cleaned the whole apartment. I started scaring my companions, but, who knew that I would be so impatient for not doing any missionary work.
Elder Deardeuff is a pretty unique character, it will be a fun next 4 weeks, and a tough 4 weeks…. He is wickedly smart, and seems to know everything. Even when you think he doesn't know it, he does. I have this pocketbook dictionary, and I keep quizzing him on words but he knows them all. Well, at least most of them. I’ve gotten him with a couple of words. But, I’m glad to be the one in charge up here in Mishawaka. Whew I pretty much own this area. I know where everything is and I know everyone in the ward. A lot of the ward members feed us dinner, so we have tons of dinner appointments. The potentials and investigators and less actives all seem to know me already, so I still have a lot of work left to do here. I hope that I get to stay for another 3 months or so. I'd rather be here then in a place that was a small town and not a lot of people so I’m tracting the same streets twice. But other then that everything has been good in the mission field.
We have been doing service lately at the American Cancer Society which was a good choice to do service because all the people there love us missionaries. One of the people that work there came up to us and said alright what exactly do you do? That day we had the zone leaders with us so we had 5 people helping, so it was all 5 of us ganging up on this lady. But, she just kept asking more and more questions. She was surprised with all the answers that we had, so we would have a tag team. When we would answer a question, she would bring up something else. and then we would say alright Elder Cubit you got this one, and we all testified of everything that we taught her, and it was sweet. She felt the spirit, and she wants to know more. So, every time we do service, we teach her and that’s twice a week. So in the coming weeks we will try to invite her to church and see what she thinks.
Well mom and dad I think that I have discovered a new allergy since being out here in Indiana. I'll just say that I think this place is the cat capitol of the world. A couple of our investigators have tons of cats and I just start sneezing and runny nose when the cats come up to me. I’m not a big fan of cats so it goes well with each other.
There have been a lot of sweet people that we have run into that were on the potentials list for a long time and missionaries in the past couldn't get in contact with. We met with this lady last night and she started to get emotional and she said thanks for not giving up on me. I really need what you have, you seem so happy and I long for that happiness. I want to do whatever it takes to be as close as I can with God. It started bringing a tear to my eye to continue to see the difference that we can make in peoples lives as long as we are working as hard as we possibly can to find those that want our help.
Hey do you know the Robertson family from the ward we were in back in Oregon? There is an Elder Robertson that just got out here and he was in the Gladstone ward he grew up there his whole life. He knew Jacob Graham and the whole family and a bunch of other people so since I had no idea who he was, maybe you guys would.
So, about the diabetes control. Man it hasn't seemed to level off anywhere. I have been taking really good records and everything too. I've been checking it a lot to see if its stable and it differs on different days. The last two nights my blood sugar was 156 right before I went to bed, I hadn't had any Humalog for at least 4 hours, so I gave myself 17.5 units of Lantus and went to sleep. I didn't check at 2:30 like I have been but in the morning it was 179 so just from common sense I need for Lantus, right? But not too much, so, last night I raised it up to 19 units of Lantus my blood sugar was 170 right before bed. I took 1.5 units of Humalog and 19 of Lantus and I woke up at 2:30 to see where it was at and it was 98. So, it had been 4 hours since I have given myself any insulin and it should’ve stayed pretty stable so this morning it was 156 it increased more this time then 2 days ago even when I had more insulin. It’s been like this the last week since my seizure. I’m still working on balancing it out maybe you can give me some more advice mom. Have you heard of this thing called insulin stacking. This doctor that our mission presidents wife saw said that insulin (humalog) doesn't get out of your system until 4 hours after you have given it to yourself. I always thought it was 2 hours and from times past of recording my blood sugars that’s what it has always appeared like. But, I don’t know maybe you can figure something out for me right now. For Lantus I give 25 in the morning and as of last night, I don't know how much to give at night but 25 seems to work for me. And then, I was thinking of getting a diabetes bracelet for my necklace is so worn down I can barely read it so let me know what you think and get back to me.
There was this guy that heard my companions and I talk about diabetes when we ate at this restaurant and he came up to me. He was kinda scary and said “hey I have had 8 heart failure problems, I can't feel my hands or my feet, I can barely hear, and by this time next year I won't be able to hear, make sure you take really good care of yourself, take good care of yourself, take good care of yourself,” and he just kept repeating himself over and over again. It was really sad to meet him but it puts things in perspective for me.
Well, Christmas is next week. The mission president told us that we call on Christmas Eve and see when we should call you on Christmas Day. So I guess expect a short call from me Christmas Eve. I plan on sending a present out to you guys and letters to the family. Why hasn't anyone written me??? Besides you mom and dad you've been faithful. I just want to tell you guys that I love you so much. I’m so thankful for being out here on a mission and see more and more of the love that you both have for me. I'm sorry for how much of a punk I was back at home, how selfish and disrespectful I was at times. The importance of families and my testimony of them has greatly increased especially how it’s an eternal step to take to bring in the world God’s children through God’s power is how we got here. And, by that same power is how the family should be run. I’m grateful that that’s how it was focused on in our family and I’m sorry that I couldn't have given more service and shown my love for you guys then I have. But I know you know that I love you very much. I'm learning so much out here and its giving me a headache, since I can't remember everything. The church is true, God is our loving Eternal Father, Jesus Christ came to this earth to redeem us so that we could live with our Father again, and so that we could have eternal happiness. I hope that people in the world can focus on that in their lives. Focus on doing everything that God expects out of you so that you can be a better person then who you are. We should never be content with the person we are now, but we should never look down on ourselves either as long as we see where we need to go and we are taking steps in the right direction. Happiness comes in each step forward, sorrow and misery comes from each step backwards and from the things that keep us from moving us forward even when we think that we are happy with the lives we are living right now and we don't think that we are doing anything morally or spiritually wrong we need to look at our lives and begin to see ourselves from a perspective of eternity, and to not be continually blinded by this mortal state that we all live in.
I love everyone and I can't wait to talk to you at Christmas time.
Love your son forever,
Elder John Michael Moore
Merry Christmas.
December 6th, 2010
Hello Familia:
Well this will be a different email for a change, especially since I just talked to mom a couple of days ago, but it more or less felt like I was talking to “Doctor mom” then “Mom mom”, so that was the purpose of it all too. Well I’m sorry to have called you on such bad news, a seizure is definitely not the news you want to hear. I’ve been in contact with doctors all weekend and the mission president’s wife wants me to go down to Indy and get an appointment with a really good endo doctor. It’s still giving me grief, but I am bound and determined not to go home because of my diabetes. I can't go home so it’s pretty much just physically impossible for me to do so anyways.
But, I do have to tell you some stories about my ER experience. It was the first time that I've ridden in an ambulance I think. I don't really remember it all but I was trying to convert the paramedics. I shared the complete first vision while I was still blacking in and out so the only mistake I made was that I didn't ask for a return appointment. Hmmm, it was too bad, but my companions kept telling me that I was saying some pretty embarrassing things.
In the ER when I was blacking in and out I started mentioning this girl and how much I missed her and I was ranting off about her. I didn't believe them, I thought they were just trying to mess with me since I was so vulnerable, but it turns out that they told me who exactly the girl was, where she lived, how I knew her, and why I liked her so much. My face went red and I kinda got really mad because I didn't want to be thinking about no girl because I’m on my mission right now. This to me is my break from all of that, but I guess you can’t control what you say when your blood sugar is low, and you are out of it. But overall I’m doing better. I don't have a headache any more, the dent in the stove that I hit from the seizure isn't so bad, I just have to eventually get it under radar and its going to take a lot of measurements.
My companions, I am in a threesome right now until Elder Jensen goes for home next week, so, my new companion is Elder DearDeuff from Missouri. This kid is a genius, he graduated high school at 14 and has done college classes since, but didn't know what he wanted to do with life so he just has tons and tons of credit. He has pretty much every scripture memorized. He said when he got his IQ tested at age 17 it was 144, so I don't know sounds a little fishy but he is definitely up there in the ranks of smart people. It will be a treat to work with him, maybe I will learn something, ha ha.
Well this week was pretty much not to exciting except for that incident of diabetes. My studies have been going crazy though. I’m reading Jesus the Christ, while reading the gospels and the prophecies of Jesus Christ in the BOM and my mind is blown. It’s so crazy all the things you didn't know back home but when you actually study it gets you. I definitely don’t want to come back home and watch TV anymore since being out here. There is so much more things to fill with your time. One of the things right now I’m reading about is the need for a Redeemer. In Dr. Talmage’s book its pretty intense.
We are still trying to look for new people to teach in our area its been difficult since it is winter. You think people would get in the Christmas spirit and open more doors but the cold weather makes them say hey go back home and come out when it’s warmer. Haha I start laughing at the some people’s comments, but what are you going to do. All you have to do is put people in a situation where they have to hear the message of the restored gospel like in an ambulance and ER room, haha, but there are definitely better places to do it at.
If you all have any suggestions for me I would love to hear them. I'm not sure what you want to hear but I love ya all. Dad, congrats on winning first place in the tournament. See if you control yourself in the long run you will be blessed. That’s sweet to hear about Federer. Finally he gets something after this year.
Merry Christmas.
Love,
Elder Moore
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