Monday, November 28, 2011

Batismo da familia Rochedo

So to clarify once again. I DID have a worm, no I Don´t know what kind it was. I don´t know where it got started that it was a tape worm ( without any evidence I blame Shaun) but I´m fine now :) They took care of me just fine.
   So there really is only one thing to talk about this week. Well, maybe more. But of The most importance. The ENTIRE Rochedo family (except for the 3 year old, cause she is too young) was baptized and confirmed this last weekend!!! :) The baptismal service was WAY good, super strong spirit. One of the main focus´ they have is trying to establish a home and a family where love abides so Elder Wilcock (zone leader) and I sang love is spoken here. Bishop Marcos gave a good welcome and there was a lot of members there to greet them and help them feel welcome. Our biggest goal now is to integrate them with the ward, because someday us missionaries are going to leave (that day is coming next week for me probably) and they need to have a solid foundation with the members here and not just us. But they are very determined and good hearted people, I have a lot of hope and the members are really coming together to help them feel welcome.
As we walked back home with them, Catia started to show me places on the street where she used to ´live´and talked about her childhood. It really touched me and I saw the depth of character she, and the whole family possess. I just know that The Gospel, applied in their lives will bring all the things they are looking for and they will be a blessing to so many others as well.
  I could spend all day talking about them, but I am already almost running late. We have transfers again next week, pretty much I know for sure that I will not be in Simões Lopes after next week. It will be very strange to leave here.
At the begining of this transfer I expressed gratitude to The Lord and President Swenson that I was able to stay a little longer. President Swenson told me I had unfinished work here still. I laughed and asked him if he could tell me what it was, all he said was (go figure) ´The Lord will show it to you´  Well, I feel like I found what that work was. I felt like I was going to leave this area and I couldn´t look back and feel like I had made much of a difference, that there was something missing. I think The Rochedo family is at least part of the reason why The Lord saw fit to let me stay here just a little longer. It is a good thing His wisdom is a lot greater than mine. I feel ´at peace´ now. that sounds a little lame, but I do, I feel calm and I finally feel like I could leave Simões Lopes and look ahead with hope and faith.
  So, my time is super short. My spiritual thought for the week is. The glass really is, half full.
I love you, take care. Happy Holiday season. I am getting roasted in December. Love you
Seu Filho, Irmão, e amigo
Elder. David F. Morgan

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

I would say sorry, but I'm not

Óla familia e meus queridos amigos!
So, to clear things up. I basically had a constant stomach ache for about a week, and uh.. some unpleasant bathroom experiences. And after that I started trying different things to help myself out. Different types of tea etc. Plus people started telling me I used to be prettier and that it looked like I had thinned a little bit. So I decided to finally call our mission presidents wife and ask about it. She told me I had a worm. ( I named him Scott by the way) and ya, she told me what kind of medicine to buy. I don´t really know what type it was but he was a fighter, I took the medicine to kill him and he hung on for a few days, poor guy. But I´m better now, took another medicine for another type of critter a few days ago too, just to make sure. Feeling fine now, just trying to fatten up at this point :) I would say I´m sorry for sneaking that in there like I did in my last email, but I´m not.
   This week has had a whole lot of. This is so amazing I can´t believe how blessed we are!/ I am so dead tired I can´t hardly pick my feet up. We have a half hour to exercise every morning, I just did a lot of stretching this week, didn´t really have the energy to do anything else. I am getting more pumped up though, trying to get E. Palandi in on that too. We have a GREAT weekend planned!
  About a week ago we went to the chapel in Fragata (not our chapel, but its closer... so I don´t know why we don't have church there, but I´m not in charge) with the family of Igor and Katia. We taught them about The Plan of Salvation and how families can be sealed together eternally, after this life too if we live worthy, we then invited them to be baptized and they all accepted! Igor, Katia, their three kids, Ellen, Eric, and Tiago, plus Katia´s mother Loreci will all be baptized this Saturday! I wish you could all know this family personally, they are so special and have such great faith and trust in The Lord, it makes me re-evaluate my life and what I need to be better. Ha, Igor has never put on a tie in his life, and he went out and bought a white shirt and tie because he wanted to be dressed up for church, what a guy. I want to tell all the stories but there just isn´t enough time. Ask me about it someday, or I can show you my journal entries. Basically they were both kids of the street, and where everybody else ended up in drugs, they grew stronger and more humble and want to end the cycle of abuse and lack of love in their families. Really, I wish you could all meet them.
  Everything else I could say just seems really trivial. We have only known them for about three weeks now and we are already so close, they are very special people. 
  We had training w/ President Swenson this week, it was good, great man.
Elder Falcão is better now too, back to his very happy self. So our work is getting back in a good rhythm again.
Elder Palandi and I are still working hard, we are seeing a lot of miracles at work in our area, we will be having transfers again in two weeks (where does the time go) and since me odds of staying are about 1,000,000,000,000,000 to 1 It will be a real bummer to have to leave Simões Lopes. I am excited for what The Lord has in store for me though elsewhere. Well, that´s all for now.
Oh just one more thing, nobody is obligated, but since several people expressed a desire to send me packages for Christmas, If that is your desire, I suggest sending it like.... now. The mail service here is not the greatest (nor the worst, can´t complain) so it would be good to get that all set if that´s something you are interested, again. No Obligations, I am perfectly content.
Okay, rolling out, work to be done.
Love you all, spiritual thought for the week is ´just keep swimming´ it will all work out okay. Sometimes I have a hard time believing that, and work hard, but have fun doing it.
Much love,
Seu Filho, Irmão, e amigo
Elder David F Morgan

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Who can speak too much of the Lord? Also,the gospel should be fun and simple. 11/11/11

Oi!
So, from the fact that my email has an actual title this week, there have been a few things on my mind. I will start with the less serious as to end with some kind of spiritual thought.
Does anybody else realize the historical significance of what is going to happen this week?!?! I have honestly been waiting for this exact week for the majority of my life! This Friday it will be 11/11/11! and at 11:11 this Friday it will be... 11:11 on 11/11/11! I thought about trying to make eleven contacts in eleven minutes, having a moment of silence, eating eleven something I really like, we will see. But The truth is on this day, I am going to be doing exactly what I want to and that is, be in Brasil sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There will be some sort of... brincadera....nope, don´t know that word in English. 
SO, we realized our teaching was getting a little robotic, and we needed to simplify, simplify, simplify. True intelligence is to take a subject that is great and mysterious in itself, and expound upon it and unfold it until a child can understand it. (John Taylor, paraphrased... and not the John Taylor who lives in Medford that is The MAN, but the one who was a prophet of the LDS church in the 1800´s, also The MAN haha)
So, we decided to try something new. We simplified our lesson and we came up with a few object lessons to use to help people understand. We have found two that are particularly effective. One includes using a little plastic colored ball that comes apart. We use each part to represent a part of The Gospel, and to show particularly how prophets and authority from God to act in His name (priesthood) are particularly important and also unique to our message of The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It almost seemed a little ridiculous but it has been SO effective. We have been seeing much of the fruit of our labors this week finding new people who are prepared by The Lord to hear The Gospel, we used this method to explain and the amount of comprehension in those we are teaching has been amazing. Patricia, told us she had listened to the missionaries many years ago but didn´t really understand the message and gave up but that when we explained she really understood and by the end she was basically explaining to us about why the things we were teaching are important and make sense. This is just one example, we also have been showing people how to get a cooked egg into a water bottle with alcohol and a match and without hurting the egg or forcing it and how that represents baptism by water and The Holy Ghost.
Really living The Gospel should not only be rewarding, and bring peace and joy, but be FUN and enjoyable, and it REALLY is. I love it! It is also incredibly simple, if we focus on what is truly important and take time to open our hearts the beauty of The Gospel is the simplicity of it.
Finally, I have been once again struck with awe at the love of The Saviour Jesus Christ for us. The willingness to descend beneath all things, so suffer, shame, pain, and sorrow, for our sakes fills me with wonder. This Sunday morning I had some time to ponder and I couldn´t help but think of the Hymn. ´ I Stand All Amazed´ I think it gets the closest to summing up my sentiments.  I cannot say enough or sufficiently put into words the feelings in my heart that I have about the humility and love He demonstrated. I invite all to come unto Christ and to learn more of Him, His love, and His Restored Gospel here on the Earth.
Have a great week.
Elder David. F Morgan

Friday, November 4, 2011

I struggle to find titles to my emails

óla!
I think I should start bringing my journal with me on mondays when I go to write email, I don´t even remember what we did two or three days ago, it is just one solid space of time. I think I talk about that a lot, the missionary time warp. I want to send some pictures but Elder Palandi is using my camera and cord right now so maybe next week.
We are still working hard. We found a new family this week and I have a lot of hope for them, the father used to be a pastor, he was asking a lot of questions and also had some very good insights for us as well. I am REALLY praying hard to teach and baptise a family, especially here in Simões Lopes, the ward is definetely more like a branch that we are desperetaly trying to strengthen. I am really happy to be staying here, I am also thinking that I need to figure out what The Lord´s purpose in keeping me here is. I really hope and pray that with all of my faults and weaknessessessessess (HOW DO YOU SPELL THAT?!) I can be of service to the people, the ward, and The Lord and that I am making an actual contribution.
João Pessoa Missão pra Louie! Sweet! My district leader in the CTM and a few more members of my district went there, I will tell them to look Louie up when he gets there. It will be a great mission. SO PUMPED. I can´t believe so many of us are coming to Brasil. Grant is right, now Jared just needs to come haha.
Sorry I am running out of time and so I will have to keep this short.
We are really starting to teach a lot more here and it is slowly but surely that our area is progressing. I hate to say it but we are doing some damage clean up and now that we took care of that it is really starting to come along well.
The other Elders baptized this last week. Felipe. Ele é O Cara! I am sending a picture.
Ya, I got nothing more. We are going to make a sweet video this week to help less active member come back to church. Okay! gotta go, sorry.
Much love
Elder David F Morgan

p.s. scroll down for last weeks email as well. I missed posting it. so sorry.

WHAT! Transfers again?

So first things first. YYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! glad I got that out. That is for Louie and Shelby going to Brazil! (I can´t really say im suprised though) Ha funny is that I thought about Louie TODAY and wondered about where he would serve and when he would be getting his call. At this point it is pretty much a guess as to where in Brasil they will be heading to. I am trying to think of where his mission would be from where it was described. It Could be Vitoria or Salvador, maybe something else though. Let me know which mission por favor next weak, I would really like to know. Either way that are going to one of the best missions in the whole world. I am so stoaked to be speaking portuguese with my best buds when we are all back someday.
   So our new transfer of six weeks starts tomorrow. We were all anxiously awaiting our phone call today from the Zone Leaders about transfers. Pretty much everybody was already saying goodbye to me and I was ready to start packing my backs. Ha our bishops wife told me it was a pleasure to know me yesterday. Turns out that everybody here in Simões Lopos is stuck with me for at least another month and a half because I and everybody else in our apartment/district will be staying this transfer. YES! From all the New missionaires who assigned here in Pelotas the same time as me, I am the last of them to be staying in Pelotas, everybody else has been transferred, including some of the guys who got here after me. For the record, this transfer, FLEW by. I can´t actually believe that it is already transfers again. (I can´t believe the competition is finally here) We all worked really hard and time just shot past.
  We taught a lot this week and we have been finding more people to teach, the other companionship (forgot that word in english for a moment) baptized this last week too. A teenager named Felipe, who is a stud and a half. Love him, we found his brother Ivan forever ago who was baptized 12 years ago and long since stopped going, he has been coming back to church and they started teaching his whole family and are really accepting and have a lot of faith, plus they are just great people and a lot of fun to be with.
   By the way, I had a realization this week about why so many men within the church are bald. It is because they served missions. You spend every moment working and sweating and worrying about someone you are teaching, how you can help and what they need. It is exaughsting, but so great! So I will be returning in two years with white hair and a receeding(however you spell that) hairline.
   But I did have another actually spiritual revelation about hope and faith. I always had trouble figuring out which comes first. It is hope, but hope is also the biproduct of faith, but it is a different kind of hope, let me explain:
With hope there is hope that has a hint of uncertainty within it, as in I hope it doesn´t rain today, or I hope lunch is good. BUT there is also that hope that comes from knowledge, a ray of light in the darkness, it is a quite assurance, a knowing that everything will turn out right. SO!
Our hope(type 1) that there is something more, something better, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and restored His church through living prophets causes us to ´experiment upon the word´(see Alma 32) the moment we begin to do this our hope becomes faith, and our faith it WILL grow if we continue to exercise it and come to know The Savior. So, when we have faith in the Savior and REALLY know him, we have hope(type 2) a quiet (or not so quiet in my case) assurance that everything will turn out alright, that he really did overcome death and sin and that through him, we can be saved and hope for a better life with peace and happiness in THIS life as well.
It makes more sense in Portuguese and with the SWEET diagram I made, but I hope you get it. I have been struggling over that one for a while now and I got WAY exciting when it finally clicked. I also have a sweet anology with being a missionary and knowing if lunch is going to be good or not that REALLY is a good comparison, but I won´t get into that.
WOW I just looked at how much time I used up, it passes so fast, DON´T WASTE IT.
  I really like Taylors insights on Patience and Tolerance, thank you for sending me his letters, please continue to do so, they actually really inspire me to be better and have helped me a lot as a missionary this transfer, I hope he is doing well. Can I get his email so that I can write to hime please?
So this week was a LITTLE rough, but it isnt the worst that there could be. Elder Palandi just got a little down because we worked SO hard this transfer and we really don´t have much to show for it in what we call (results) but I know i grew immensly and I have never felt happy happier as a missionary than when I have this transfer. I feel that The Lord is also trying us, to see if even when we are not blessed the way we think we should (which happens a lot by the way, but He knows a lot better than we do what we need) He wants to see if we will keep going, keep pushing, just because, it´s the right thing to do and we love Him.
I have a lot more to write, but I will stop now. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers on my behalf.
Com Grande Amor, Seu Filho, Irmão, e Amigo.
Elder David F Morgan