Family Letter

Dear family and friends.

Well, the end of one year on our mission!  Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of being in Miskolc!  We have been asked to extend our mission for another month and a half, so we won’t be coming home until around August 20^th.  We know that this next 8 months will go very quickly due to the work that we have started and the work that we need to do to prepare for the couple that will replace us. 

            First an update as to what has happened the past three weeks!  It started Monday December 11, 2017.  We decided that it was time to start to pack to go back to Arizona.  We got everything packed and loaded in the car and took off around 2:30 pm Monday afternoon for the airport hotel.  After checking in we went to our room and signed into the hotel’s Internet.  The first message that appeared was “Your flight has been cancelled!”  We then got a message that within 2 to 3 hours we would get our new travel plans.  (What we didn’t know is that if you use a discount online service, we have to find another flight!)  We stayed up until after midnight trying to get KLM to answer emails, tweets, phone calls, hoping that the new schedule would come.

            I woke up about 6:30 am, decided to go to the airport to be there when the KLM office opened at 8:00 am.  The smartest thing I did was to pack everything I had, just in case we had to leave in a rush.  I got the shuttle over to the airport and was third in line when the office opened.  They were surprised that I was not informed that we had been assigned a flight with Delta that left at 10:30 am.  I called your mom and told her to shower and get ready very fast.  I took a taxi back to the hotel, ran upstairs and got all of our stuff to get on to the van.  I did not have time to shower!

            The flight to Amsterdam, then on to Denver was not bad.  But the 2.5 hours of waiting in Denver then to be the last two seats on the plane in the very bad very little leg room part of the plane was 2 hours of pure torture.

            As we came down the walk way into the airport, we saw Ryan going back and forth.  We then saw Kate, bent over backwards looking at us upside down!  Only Miss Kate!  It was good to see Mike, Marnee and the kids.  Then off to Anne and Dee’s.

            With little sleep and errands to run and kids to taxi, I had an impression to get as much of my to do list done the first day as possible.  A trip to Scottrade, to Chase Bank, to the ENT doctor for my ear, all in time to pick Avery up at school!

            We didn’t realize at the time, but TJ’s cough was a foreboding sign.  Yes, both of us came down with the flu!  For over a week in Scottsdale and two week in Hungary, we have been fighting the symptoms of the flu and bad coughs!  John Shaw got us flu medicine, just before all of CVS in the valley ran out of it!  I, then went to CVS’s urgent care, took a 4 hour wait the day before we left to go back to Hungary to make sure that flying was going to be O.K.  I was given antibiotics to combat a bug I had.

            The trip back to Hungary was a lot less eventful, other than the fact that the flight got cancelled and we had to rebook at the last minute.  The good news, the total trip time on the new flight was about 3 hours shorter!  But about 10 miles away from Miskolc, I really got drowsy and am thankful for the new alarm on the car that tells you that you have gone into another lane of traffic! 

            Home (Hungary) has been spent mostly in bed and coughing!  We were still so sick that we didn’t go to church last week.  New Year’s eve, we were wide awake at midnight, due to the war going on outside. (Starting at about 8pm the firecrackers and fireworks sounded as if cannons from an army were going off.)  There were so much of this that the air smelled of gun powder and the sky was foggy mainly due to the smoke from the fireworks.

            New Year’s Day, we took two of the Elders out of a falu (small village) for them to teach a young family.  The father works in Germany a month at a time.  The good news is that they live only two blocks from the train station and can get to Miskolc very quickly and not too expensive to go to church.  We stayed in the car and read from the Hungarian Book of Mormon, we didn’t want to go in and get everyone sick.  Later, we learned that we should have gone in, they got sick anyway! 

            The next day was transfer day.  We lost Elder Lowe (pronouced la owl) from Seattle Washington.  He probably has the best Hungarian in the mission.  He is the new AP in the mission home.  Elder Graham from Utah got transferred to Budapest to be a new zone leader.  So this week was getting acquainted with two new elders, Elder Terry from Arm (Orem) Utah and Elder Cushing from southeast Kansas.  Elder Cushing is a cadet from West Point, you wouldn’t want him anywhere else with that name!

            We got the missionaries to commit to focus on young men and young families in their efforts.  And it has already paid off in finding new investigators.  With the steady brain drain to Germany, Britain and America, the church is hurting big time for priesthood holders.

            Someone asked me in Scottsdale what the church members were like in Hungary.  I said here is a quick description of the members of the church here:

1.         Many people only stay for Sacrament Meeting.

2.         Many people only come once or twice a month.

3.         Home teaching and visiting teaching is a major problem.

4.         Visiting the sick members of the church is a problem.

5.         Helping those in need is a problem.

6.         The lessons being taught are not very good because the teacher starts to prepare the lesson during Sacrament meeting.

7.         Very few will help the missionaries.

8.         Very few will help with church activities and parties.

            The man I was talking to stopped me.  He said, “Jon, you misunderstood what I asked, I wanted you to tell me about how the members of the church were in Hungary, not here in Scottsdale!”

            So people are the same all over the world!  President Monson, what a sweet man, was the prime example of filling one’s life in the work of the Lord.  Always worrying about the poor, the sick, the needy.  Always stopping off at a hospital or a care facility or a home to visit someone who needed to know that they were loved and that someone knew they were alive.  How long of a reception line do you think he had when he awoke in Paradise?  Think of the thousands and thousands of people whom he touched.  Think of those who wondered if they were worth anything and then have the prophet of God walk into their room and say, “Hi, could I please visit with you?”  Alma 5:14 “And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?”  Thomas S Monson was the epitome of such a person.

            You ask what your mom and I are doing in Hungary.  Simply trying to be 1/1000th of the person that Thomas S. Monson was.  If we succeed, we will have reached many people who wonder every day, “Does anyone know I am here?”  We have come to realize that the truly lonely and needy are not the ones begging on the streets.  It is the destitute trying to pay the bills, make sure that heat in coming in the house, worrying about food for their children.  They are the silent ones.  The problem, they are the hardest to find.  But those are the ones that Thomas S. Monson was able to find.  Those are the ones that we are attempting to find.  Are we having success, absolutely.  We have been called of God to be the face of Jesus Christ in helping the poor and the needy.  We have been directed in miraculous ways to find those that need help.  It is not Jane and Jon Moser being successful.  We would have failed the first month a year ago if it was left to us.  With the Lords guidance and direction, all success we have had and that we will have is because of Him whom we love, honor, cherish, obey and serve. 

            We thank God for sending us Thomas S. Monson to set an example how we all should deal with those in need.  How we should treat all people, with kindness and respect.  May we never lose the memories of Thomas S. Monson.  May we always try to emulate his example of showing love to all people.  If we do, we are only in the service of our God and what could be more rewarding than serving the Master?

Mom and Dad