Week 30 - And another week....And a transfer

Family,

 I love love love love love you all!

This week was a good one. We had great success with some of our investigators and found some new people.

We have one investigator who is super cool. She’s now been to church 3 times in a row and she is trying to quit smoking. In this week she went from smoking 10 cigarettes a day down to 1 per day. This week we’re hoping she stops all together and then we can baptize her next week.

Welp, Elder Segundo will actually have to do all that I just said because I got transferred! I went around yesterday to say goodbye to all the members and converts and investigators. It was super sad actually. When we stopped by to tell Patricia, Janet, and Josilyn, Patricia and Janet were crying. I’m really going to miss being with them, but I know that The Lord needs me where I am.

This morning I packed up all my stuff and headed off to a chapel where I was to receive my new companion and everything. They didn’t tell me anything before hand. When I arrived we sat with all the Elders and the transfers began! After a while they called this one Elder’s name, then they said, “Your companion will be Elder Morgan” I looked up at who it was and I was super surprised to see this tall white kid that has the same time in the mission as me. Then the President said, “Elder Morgan will be the new district leader.” What the.... I almost sat down again thinking that there must be another Elder Morgan. 2 white kids with the same time in the mission and one of them called as the district leader.... That’s pretty rare. After we hugged, President Carreon said, “Obviously a lot of inspiration went into this companionship.”

So.... Here I am in the ward Casablanca which is right next to my old ward  Matamoros. We’re actually emailing from a place where we used to email in Matamoros. Elder Smalley seems like a super missionary. I’m really excited.

Anyways, that’s about it!

Elder Segundo stayed back in Terrazas 2 and finished his training last week. He’s going to be a great missionary and none of the thanks goes to me. He practically came pre-trained and learned much from The Lord.

This week we actually went to a conference where President Carreon spoke. He spoke to us on The Doctrine of Christ. The Doctrine of Christ, or Gospel, is the plan that our Heavenly Father has given us in order to be able to lift ourselves from this fallen state of humanity. When Adam and Eve partook of the Forbidden Fruit, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden and became mortals, subject to 2 types of death, the spiritual death or sin, and the physical death. We all are in this fallen state and separated from our Heavenly Father because of it. However, he has lovingly provided us with a way to be redeemed from this fall. We can imagine that what separates us between God is a trench. To cross this trench, God sent Christ. He has made this bridge to cross this trench through His Atonement. However, if we don’t start walking, we’ll never be able to cross over. This process of Spiritual Walking is the Gospel. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Reception of the Holy Ghost, and Endurance till the end. If we do these things, we will live with God again. No question about it. I testify of this great Gospel that we have. Now all we have to do is walk. So, I exhort you all to WALK!

Everyone have a great week.

Love you all,

Elder Morgan

Week 29 - Another week - more learning

Hey there Family!

Tijuana Temple

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!

So, this week. Welp, this week I basically changed my strategy on how to find and teach people. I’ve started working on contacting more people and teaching simpler and clearer lessons. I don’t know what happened, but somewhere in the midst of me getting more comfortable speaking Spanish I started to spend a lot of time explaining. But what I found was that when we explain a lot, they don’t understand very much. It’s better that we share only a little bit, and share it very simply so that they can take away a key part. With this new strategy to teach, I’ve also found that we can find which people are prepared and which people are not. We’re here to teach those that are prepared to receive the Gospel. It’s best if we set out a large net and keep the good fish than to set out a small net trying to turn bad fish into good fish. Some people will just never accept the Gospel. It’s a sad truth that I’ve realized here. 

We’ve seen some real advances in our investigators this week. Mateo is the soon-to-be husband of Janet (who we baptized last month). He doesn’t really have any of a religious background, but is a super nice guy. Real hard worker too. He’s worked most of his life in the US in the fields. This week at church he told us, “It feels like every time I go to church I have more of a desire to learn and keep the commandments of God”! Woot! He’s pretty cool.

We also have another investigator Rosa and her granddaughter Jessica who have gone to church 2 and 3 times respectively now! They’re doing really good and trying to work towards baptism.

It’s sort of sad because I think I’ll be leaving this coming transfer. Elder Segundo will finish up his training this week and chances are that one of us is out of here. I’ve really enjoyed the ward and members here, even though we haven’t seen much success in baptisms. I’ve been really blessed to be in this ward and with this opportunity. I feel that right now I’m right on the edge of figuring out how I can best serve The Lord. Of course, we’ll always have room for improvement. 

Elders Wood and Morgan at the Chinese buffet

Today was great. The Stake President here took all of the 30 missionaries in the stake over to a Chinese buffet that overlooks the construction site of the temple. The temple looks so awesome! The food was good too. It was great to be all together as missionaries and see the great Elders and Sisters of Israel. He also made all of us “Florido Stake” t-shirts with our names on it. The only problem was that Elder Huld’s name wasn’t on it, and mine was on there twice! haha. We’re just going to Sharpie Elder Huld’s name on there. 

Anyways, this week I really focused on the Gospel. The Gospel is God’s plan for us to overcome the effects of The Fall and live with Him again. This Gospel has been lost and restored through the ages and was restored by God through His servant Joseph Smith. With the restoration of the Gospel (and we know it’s still going on according to Elder Uchtdorf) all the blessings that come along with it have been restored. This is our purpose. Help people receive the blessings of the Restored Gospel. i.e. Salvation, Eternal families, etc. I know that this Gospel was restored and that we have a modern day prophet. 

I love you all. Please share the Gospel with everyone!!!

Elder Morgan

Week 28 - Great week

Welp....

Love you all sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!

This week was pretty great for me.

We started out the week doing some exchanges. I was over with our District Leader Elder Huld (Also from Washington) in his area. I learned some good stuff. He also taught me that we can still have some fun here. First, while I was showering, he dumped a bucket of cold water in my shower. Haha The water from the shower was cold anyways so it wasn’t really any different. Then, while I was in the bathroom, he threw in a “stink bomb” that he bought from a small store here. It exploded and smelled really bad. haha. It was pretty unexpected. 

We also had a Multi-Zone Conference this week with the Mission President. We learned a lot about how we can be more loving and how we can work with the members. We did a small practice at that conference with some real members that some of the missionaries had brought. We were given the task to teach a heavy smoker the word of wisdom. This lady that we had did not go easy on us at all. She gave us every challenge she could throw at us. At one point she told me, “Then what you’re telling me is that all I have to do is quit smoking today and I will never have those temptations again?” I felt prompted to tell her this, “As representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ, We PROMISE you that you will never have this temptation again.”(Pretty bold words that came out of my mouth) She then began to cry and stopped the practice. She told us, “Twenty years ago, I was in the same situation as this practice, and I can bear my testimony that the day I started living the Word of Wisdom, I never once had a temptation.” Pretty powerful Spirit that we all felt.

The conference got us super pumped up and we decided to set out on Saturday to work really hard. In the morning I prayed very specifically that we would be able to teach 12 lessons in that day. 12 lessons is quite a few for one day of missionary work considering we’re on foot too! Well, we worked hard and ran a few times, but at 8:59 at night we arrived home having completed 12 lessons. I know that if we pray with faith and with the intention to work as hard as we can on our own part, God will provide the way to accomplish even seemingly impossible tasks.

We also had a great Sunday! We went to church and had 7 investigators! The best we’ve had here in this ward. It’s still not very many, but it’s an improvement! Thanks for all the prayers. We also had a great Ward Council. Normally these meetings are a wreck, but this week we took control of the situation and taught directly out of the 2014 Mexico Area Plan to try and reorganize the way we conduct these meetings. It actually worked really well and I think that this will make  us much more efficient in this aspect of the work.

Today was P'day! Today we climbed this super tall hill with all of the District! It was super fun and then we went to a Chinese Buffet. For some reason, the Mexicans are obsessed with Chinese food. I almost ate an octopus tentacle, but then I thought.... better not.... If you want to see pictures, you can probably stalk the blogs of Sister Lance and Elder Ivings. We took some sweet pictures, but I didn’t bring my camera.

Anyways, that’s basically all of it this week.

I have come to gain a very powerful testimony of prayer. It’s the way that we can literally COMMUNICATE with our Father. He loves us and wants to bless us. if we are obedient, pray, and have faith, he will provide us with all we need! 

Love you all so much! Look for the people around you that need the Gospel and invite them to learn more! You might be the only person in this world that can help them return to live with their Father in Heaven and families! 

Love,

Elder Morgan

Week 27 - It's Hot!!!

Welp. Hello again my family!

A picture of the dinner of Elder Segundo and I. I made a classic American grilled cheese and he made a classic Mexican quesadilla. I thought it was funny. 

Love you all to the moon and back and then back to the moon so that we can stay there and live on the moon.....

A picture of the cockroach I killed at 2 in the morning today. I woke up in a fright because I felt it crawling up my leg and so I set off on a cockroach hunt with my flashlight and can of raid. I finally found the nasty thing after 10 minutes of silent hunting. Elder Segundo woke up to the sound of Raid being sprayed next to his ear! HAHA

This was a roller coaster.

First off, we had our Zone meeting this week and the Zone Leaders really concentrated on how we need to love our investigators and do this whole mission out of love. It was what I needed because I realized that I had started to get trapped in the very thing I set out not to get trapped in! The number’s game. I started worrying about the numbers!!!!! What was I thinking? It really helped me out this week to improve my teaching. I now feel like I’m teaching how I should! 

It got HOT this week! About 100 degrees here. That’s not the most comfortable temperature in a white shirt and tie walking miles every day. But everyone says that’s nothing because here in the mission in Mexicali it gets up to 125!!!! The hottest place in the world! Second only to the Sahara Desert. I can’t wait to get sent there!

We had a great experience this week. The other set of Elders in our ward had a baptism and we had 6 investigators of our own in attendance! One of them came up to us after the baptism crying telling us how she felt something really powerful in her heart! The Spirit testifies of truth!

The only bummer is that of all the investigators that showed up to the baptism.... none of them went to church!! Argh! Nobody wants to go to church here. Oh well. We keep going forward!

This week we also learned of a few houses that burned down near our house. So, today we got up and went to go do some service over there for a few hours. It was a great project and we got a lot of work down. The crazy thing is that we never even met the owners, we just showed up with the Elder’s Quorum and started working without their knowledge. Haha I hope they will be happily surprised.

Service Project

Service Project

Service Project

Service Project

Service Project

Service Project

I know that this work is real. I know that more than anything we need to remember that these people are our brother’s and sister’s and that without our help, they can’t live with God again. They can’t live with their families and they can’t have the happiness that we have. I know that God looks at our desires and our efforts, not at the results. I love this work and will serve The Lord throughout all eternity. 

Elder Huld getting a hair cut!

Love you all! Stay safe and keep up the work!

Elder Morgan