Sounds to me like you're doing everything perfectly, Pamela. Why would you cut the leaves in half? They will help keep the plant alive while it makes roots.
Mold in the soil won't generally hurt anything, it's just a bit unsightly. There's mold everywhere and plants deal with it just fine all the time.
Good air circulation takes care of a lot of that but you still have to water the plants enough, so don't worry about the mold. (I sometimes take a little plastic fork (you know, disposable cutlery) and just gently scratch the soil surface to disturb the mold a bit if it's getting ugly. Or you can just lift it off sometimes, wrap in a paper towel and throw, or pitch it out into the garden.
