Out of Time!

Well, sorry I just don´t have time to write.

I love you all, and it was GREAT to talk to you, even though I felt a bit awkward on cam, and i didint have any idea what to talk about. We are working WAY hard and I am so super happy. Elder Ewer is basically the best comp EVER!

Please pray for the following people: Iago, Carlos e Edna, Mattues e Rejane, Eliane, e Luis Fernando. All people VERY close to being baptized, but there is something in the way.

We had neat experiences this week, and lots of trials too, but we aren´t getting down for when we are in The Lord´s service, we have the right to His help.

 

Lots and lots of loves!

 

Happy New YEAR!

 

Elder David f Morgan

That's....unbelievabllleee

Óla! So we had a WAY good week. But first off. Elder Ewer is freaking me out a bit. We have the same first name, are from the same state, have the same food intolerances, often time speak the same words at the same time, and he has seen What´s up Doc? ! They love that movie in his family, as well as Swiss Family Robinson! So now when we talk to people on the street I am gonna tell him " Use your charm"

 

Tuesday we got up way early and went to a meeting with Elder Godoy, ( he keeps showing up on my mission) It was great! He talked with us about possibilites for why our mission isn´t baptizing as much as it used to and what could be keeping us from having sucess and having miracles happen in our lives and missions. It is true that what we are doing we are doing good, we just need to be doing more of it. I include myself in that. Our zone is finally shaking off the dust and is getting rolling, it has been no small task, but with Elder Ewer here and some of the new missionaries we got in this last transfer I am really hope filled for the end of this month and also for January, ( a particularly special month for me :p ) Also, IT IS SOOOOO HOT HERE!!!! 

 

In our own area we have already seen miracles. We found a great new couple last week that have a great desire to change their lives. They were living where there was people getting killed every day, he lost his work because of drugs and the family was getting torn apart, so he went to a kind of rehabilitation farm for a few months, and they moved way far away from where they were and they want to start a new life. We have taught them how baptism is a new birth and that a family is most likely to be sucessful based on restored gospel principals. Anyways, they went to church on Sunday and accepted baptism as well, but they will need to be married first so that is our first hurtle. Matteus and Rejane are there names.

 

Plus we had a WAY neat experience last week. We were walking to a lower part of our area, but we were walking right in the sun, so I suggested that we change our route to escape the heat, plus more people walk in the shade so we can stop and talk to them, when we cut to the other road, we stopped and felt that we should not on a certain house that we passed, so we did. It was a little old lady and we offered to show here the filmJoy to the World, when she found out it was free she let us in haha. She also has an adult son who lives at home. They felt The Spirit for sure when the film was playing and he shared with us that he has so many questions that he wants answered and has never found the answer anywhere he has gone, offered to share our message with him another day to see if it would respond to the questions he has. In our lesson yesterday, he was at the edge of his seat, and was really reluctant to let us go, The Spirit was strong but there was an obvious excitement as well a moment of " aha! Finaly!" He was touched by the doctrines of The Plan of Salvation and is anxious for us to come back, and readily accepted baptism. What a great blessing and a miracle to be an instrument in the hands of The Lord.

 

Right so my email time is coming up. Uh, I am going to use the internet here about 5 oclock my time here. Is that okay? If not, well, sorry haha its gonna have to do ha. I don´t know exactly what time that is there. I will be using skype and I will figure our my skype account. It honsetly scares me a bit the idea of my last Christmas call, and talking to family, it is a weird sensation, but It was be very great I am sure. Lots of loves! Até amanhã! Feliz Natal também! Man I didn´t even get to write anything about the importance of the season. Maybe next week. Just remember that Christ is the (with all respect) Birthday Boy. What are is giong to be your present to Him?

 

 Com Amor

 

Elder David F Morgan

Good GOOD week

Óla! 

Wow, what a nice week. So Elder Ewer is SUCH a good companion. I am glad that I have always gotten along well with my comps, there were one or two that wore more difficult, but even then it wasn´t hard, and they have all been good workers. But seriously, Elder Ewer is from Oregon, is a REALLY hard worker, kind of nerdy, and reminds me a bunch of Grant  (but not too much cause Grant is one of a kind awesome!) 

We had a few days (Monday and Tuesday) that we were in transfers so it was pretty hard to get work done in our area, but he showed up with a much of excitement to get out there and do the work, The Lord blessed us a lot, and we had a great week. 

Tuesday during transfers I was with Elder Peters from a near by area. We were in my area but I felt inspired to go to his area and see if we could get some investigators for him and his new companion Elder Del Pino before he arrived. ( Also, LOVE Elder Del Pino, I was his ZL when he started the mission, great guy, and from Chile) We only had about two or three hours of work but we managed to talk to lots of people, I got to know Elder Peters, and what was going on in the district, and also we marced two baptisms! 

This week we planned a lot of new ideas for finding new people,and one of those was to offer to show the Christmas DVD Mundo Feliz, which we felt was particulary inspired as we planned. ( dunno how it is in english... oh I think it is Joy to The World, haha I was gonna write. Happy World) It is a new approach and has been kind of find to find ways to use the Church films to teach people. 

Yesterday we were walking to go to another part of our area, and we were walking in the VERY hot sun, and so I suggested we cut through another road to be walking in the shade, when we got on the new road, we passed a house and I felt prompted to stop and knock there. A little old lady opened the door and we offered to show here the short film, when we explained it was free she let us in haha. Then here son showed up and we all watched. He explained that he has always looked for lots of answers to questions he has and he has never found the answers ( questions of the soul!) and we asked if we could come back another day and see if we could try our hand at answering his questions. We are going back Friday. During the film, I felt The Spirit really strong when it was showing some of the events of The Saviors life and how he served people, I wondered what it would have been like to personally know Him, and I felt His love so strong. I looked around and asked to myself. " Man, are they feeling this too?" I had hoped so, our short discussion afterwards confirmed that they had. I am excited to get back there on friday. 

Luis is going home for a few weeks, and we are praying he has some experiences there that will help him have the desire to be baptized when he comes home. Iago´s mom still isn´t allowing him to be baptized, but he is also going strong. We found some families this week and new people that we have a lot of hope for. 

Ya, my time is running out. So Also. Uh Christmas. I will use Skype. Send my my info again about the account, cause I forgot. Send me a time better for you too. I will have  a moment to check email during the week and we can coordinate. I am excited, but it also freaks me out a lot. Loves

Elder David F Morgan

So glad this week is over!

Óla!

Wow, I was sooo excited to see my new lil niece Scarlet! Glad to hear that she and Krista are doing good! Last week I went to the computer way excited but she hadn´t been born yet, this week, we had such a crazy week that when I went to go check email, I had totally forgotten that I was waiting for a new niece/nephew. I think she has more of Kenny´s face, but we´ll see when she gets older :P Congrats Krista and Kenny, way happy for you guys, and I can´t wait to meet her, and ALL of my new nieces!

Okay, we have got to grab a bus to Porto Alegre today, so I don´t have a lot of time... sorry!

 

The week started off relatively good, we found a few people to teach, and we also taught with a few members too, it was looking like it was going to be one of our best work weeks yet (here). But, honestly, this was one of the saddest and most frustrating weeks I have had so far.

 

Friday we got a call from the missionaries in Simões Lopes, Elder Eduardo had disappeared. They had come home after lunch and when nobody was looking (for reasons that shouldn´t have happened) he took off without anybody noticing. We flew over there and started to look for him, we went to the bus station, looked through his stuff to find clues to where he would have gone, called people, talked to EVERYONE. After awhile he went to a members house and called from there. Looks like he just didn´t have the desire to be a missionary anymore. Needless to say I was crushed. Elder Eduardo was one of the best missionaries I had ever worked with and without a doubt the best District Leader I have ever had too. When he got in the area there was nothing, and in a few short weeks Simões was the best area in our zone again, I went on a division wiht him last week and was really edified. I was going to hang on to him for as a long as a could, but then i was going to recommend him as a zone leader. It was a real tragedy. Elder de Almeida rode of to Porto Alegre with him ( it is about 3 1/2 hours from here) on Friday for him to be sent home. For sure the saddest thing that has ever happened in my zone...

 

That was the sad part, the frustrating part happened yesterday. But I don´t really want to go into details there.

 

Iago, is ready to be baptized, so next weekend it will probably happen, i am way excited for him. He is a WAY special kid, and it looks like he will have lots of other friends to invite, the young men's group is going to love us, and we are going to try and to teach the families of all of these guys!

Luis Fernando, is just a dry member (hasn´t been baptized) He is living the commandments, going to church EVERY Sunday, on his own will, has a testimony of the truthfulness of The Restored Gospel. Needless to say, it is a blessing to teach him. Ha, the frustrating part of our week was that he should be getting baptized, and wants to, but for some other reasons, it is taking awhile. (nothing to do with him, and none of the frustration is directed at him.)

 

This week is looking like it should be great, and I am excited for Zone Council to be able to learn something and be lifted up again and receive revelation. President Castro is always amazing.

 

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers, especially in behalf of our success here. When we got here the zone was way down, but it is way better now, there is still lots of room to improve, but it is something we can work with now, and is being a force for good to happen.

 

All of my love.

It´s begining to look a lot like Christmas... :)

Elder David F Morgan

OLA!

Óla! 
Well, this was actually kind of a tough, but good week at the same time. Once again, the difficult part is remembering what we did. 
We went on a division with the members for the first time in a long time. It was actually really good too. Just two hours, but both groups taught, and found someone new to teach, we were needing that little boost in our area. Elder de Almeida, contacted a family we had talked to on the street. Only teenage kids were home, but one started crying during the lessons and said they she was feeling so good inside ( uh The Spirit :) ) She showed the Book of Mormon to her parents and they said they wanted to read it too, and her brother has lots of questions about The Plan of Salvation, what a blessing! Also, one of our district Leaders accidently wandered into our area (he is new there, and didn´t know the boundery and his comp is a green american) so they ended up teaching a couple and commited them both to be baptized for us : ) 
Iago is doing good. It is just slow, because we can almost never meet with his mom that needs to know a little more about the church and be more involved so he can be baptized. He really wants to and is a great kid, a real example. He drink lots and lots of coffee so we are going to have to work with him on that, but he spends a lot of time in his member friends house and so they will help support him I am sure. 
Thursday I went back to Simões Lopes! Woohoo! I went with the District Leade, Elder Eduardo there our first lesson there we brought a member with us to teach, special thing was that this member is somebody i taught and invited to be baptized with Elder Palandi a year ago. Patricia. it was so special to see her again and see that she is well. I really liked being there with them too, I miss living in a house with four missionarys, it takes a little bit of the stress off at the end of the day and no mattter how much you love your companion, having the same guy in our face for 24 hours a day even when you go home can be tough on anybody, having four in a house works to shake it up a bit. 
It was fun to eat lunch with a really dear family from the ward too, and to relive some memories. I love being in Pelotas again. 
Friday and saturday were rough. Just knocing on doors... aaaallll day, nobody wanted to hear us. We are working with the members to try and find some people to teach as well. 
Luis Fernando is going strong at church, he could easily be baptized at any moment. We talked to him about tithing, chastity, keeping The Sabbath day holy, at at once, because he already understands and keeps them, it was basically a formality and to clear up any questions he might have, I just wish we could teach him more than just once a week. 
Our zone is getting better little by little, almost unoticable progress every week, but summed up it is easy to see the difference, but itis still very far from where we want to be. We need to cultivate a spirit of success and unity in our zone, and work work and more work. December is looking very very promising. We are doing what we call.. Natal Branco (White Christmas), one day for ALL of decembers baptisms (thus the white part) a giant baptismal service, I am excited:) 
Okay, that´s all for me folks. Man I was REALLY expecting a new Nephew or Neice this week, now I am gonna have to wait a whole nother week. Good luck, Prayin for ya. 

Elder David F Morgan
BTW´s The Sciptures are sooooo true. 

What A Long Week

Óla! 

Wow, this week was SOOOO long. 

So we had Zone Leaders Council this week (after this transfer I will have passed exactly half of my time as a missionary serving as a Zone Leader) Zone Council seemed to go by really fast, we now meet at President´s home, so it´s really fun. We went and stayed in Agronomia for the night and it was fun to go and see some people that I knew, it was a bummer not to get to see everyone, but next month I will go and visit them. Ha but I loved swapping some stories with the members. 

Man, President Castro is just so... awesome! It is interesting how he takes such basic principles of the gospel and makes them profound, he loves talking to us about faith, and I can feel that my faith is growing. 

We tried to make the best of our bus ride home and plan our training we would present to the zone on Thursday, ha ya right, I am weak as a passenger on a bus, I slept the whole way back. 

We spent the week running from one meeting to the next it seemed. We also had another church activity on Friday, Elder de Almeida and I provided the music again of course, man I hope someone took pictures, cause I forgot... again. Woops. The stake President said we sounded like an original CD, so that was cool, maybe after the mission we will form a group and get famous. :P I remember to have bailed out on a lot of ward activies when I was younger, not gonna do that anymore, it is so important to have a good turnout so the members can get to know visitors and that the ward is excited and warm. So ya, go to your church social activites. 

We didn´t get to teach that much this week sadly, but Luis Fernando came to church again this week, he actually beat us there, and also a youngster named Iago came as well. Luis went to a single adult activity that night too and had a way good time, the members are doing a good job taking care of him and making him feel welcome. 

We are kind of stuck in our area right now and we have started teaching the members and trying to inspire them to invite their friends to meet with us and here the message of The Restored Gospel.

Trying to remember this weeks events... 

That is about all I can think of at the moment. We just ran the whole week long. It is hot here now, except for today, it´s raining. 

Also, soccer and basketball got pulled for missionaries here, to many were getting hurt and having to stay at home. Dangit. I liked to play. It is cool to be here in downtown cause we have museums and things we can visit on p day easily. Love it! 

OKAY, times up. I love you all very very much. I am sorry my emails aren´t that interesting lately. But I will try to write " a good one" next week. Do you believe that it took me more than a year to finaly figure out how to use the quotation marks on a brazilian keyboard? Well. All of my love

Elder David F Morgan

Week Of Really Weird Stuff

Óla Famíla!

So this was a week where just weird stuff happened, it is all in my journal, but I can´t remember it off the top of my head.

There was an odd band of German imigrants in liderhosen (dunno how to spell that) walking around, we contacted a politician on the street. Uhh and also, so a member from another ward came up to us, told us he had nothing to do and offered to work with us, so we accepted. we went knocking because it was that day that everything had fallen through. First door... lady in a little red.... "thing" answered.. I thought, " well, it must be date night" so instead of trying to teach a lesson we just asked if she would like to hear a message another day. We were then informed that in that house... EVERY night was date night... with more than one person..... So ya, we just said goodnight and left. Awkward...

Okay, gettig to the important stuff.

Luis Fernando went to church again this week. He had been up until three in the morning and still made the sacrifice to go to church, when we called him the night before he was already ready and said " well ya of course I´m going to church tomorrow"

It has just been hard to meet with him regularly because of his college schedule.

We managed to teach a guy named Rudiele again too (totally a girls name here, but that´s alright, he is cool) Our first lesson with him was AWESOME! and then we tried and tried and tried to meet with him again, and he was never home. We happened to be close by on Friday and we felt impressed to stop our plans and go teach him. He was at home! We taught about The Restoration (last time was Plan of Salvation) and he really understands well, and asks lots of questions, it is just a joy to teach him. We marked his baptism for the begining of December, lots of room, he studies, plays on a local semi-pro soccer team (that I am a fan of) so it will probably be pretty difficult to find him at home, but we won´t give up.

Our area is coming along well, and the zone too, it was in a rut when we got here, ha and frankly, it still is, but there has been good progress.

Also, when at the Stake Presidents house, he turned on the TV to show us New York, I saw somebody, and said. " Hey that looks like my sister Bri, wait! she lives in New York!" I don´t think it was actually her, but looked a lot like it. Dad gave me and update, I supposed, that if something had happened, that I would have been notified anyways, but I was a lil' worried about ya for a moment.

On Friday it was Day of Dead here. Kind of a funny holiday.

MUITO AMOR!

Elder David F Morgan

I can never think of good titles for my email

Óla família!

So ya, life is good.

Honestly, I am SOOOO tired this week. We need to clean our house still today too. We had a great begining to the week. We talked to so many people, we taught a lot and it was just way good. After about Wednesday though, things started falling through and we didn´t have any more lessons. The problem is we are teaching people only on a weekly basis instead of short, but various visits in the week. Luis Fernando went to church yesterday! Woohoo! He seemed to really like it, and there was lots of people at church that day too, the talks and discussions were perfect as well, I was really pleased.

Last night we were going to teach Luis Fernando, but there was some members who were going to teach with us, and he didn´t have much room at his apartment, so we went and had a lesson in the park about The Plan of Salvation. He is really intelligent and understands well all of the concepts that we talk about. Honestly, he is a little weird, does Calculus, just for fun, haha but a great guy. There is another young man, about 14 years old, who has been coming to church too that we started to teach, Iago, who is really great, it is just being difficult to meet with him. He started praying, after having gone to church without anybody having invited him.

We had a ward activity on Saturday, where we got together and went in families to go and distribute friendship cards in the neighborhood around the Chapel. It was fun to see everybody get so excited about missionary work and everyone who participated enjoyed it.

Today I got permission to go and pay a visit in Simões Lopes :) I visted Cátia, ( Igor wasn´t there, and has been having some problems, I don´t remember if I mentioned that they seperated) and it was so great to see how The Lord had blessed her and there family for being faithful and obeying the commandments. She is working, studying, taking care of three children, is very very poor, but still finds time to smile, hold family night, and serve faithfully in the ward. It was so great, you can really just see a light in her eyes as she and her mother, who haha was CRAZY before, as they have been changed by The Atonement of Christ. They used to fight, hardly speak during the day, etc. Now they are the best of friends, hugging and laughing, and living a simple, but happy life. I felt so pleased to see them.

So, I stayed here with Elder de Almeida for one more transfer, it has been good. The transfer was CRAZY, Presidente Castro told us to forget logic, because it doesn´t exist anymore in our mission.

We did a baptismal interview this week too, in Gotuzzo, with two Elders. A young woman ( ha 28 years old) who has been ready for baptism for quite awhile, but was never baptized, because she said she still didn´t have a testemony. One day her friend was saying how she condemed The Book of Mormon, and then Ana Claudia ( the girl who will be baptized this friday) bore her testimony of The Book of Mormon and The Bible together, and then realized she did know The Gospel was true, and decided to take the step to be baptized, her friend wants to watch her baptism.

Well, that is all I have time for. I can´t wait for Krista to have her baby. I can´t believe how many neices and maybe nephew I will have to get to know when I am home. The months are passing very quickly. I thought that I might train a new missionary or have another calling in the mission here soon, but I was told today that it isn´t likely that I will be released as a zone leader any time soon, we´ll see.

That´s all. LOTS and LOTS of love.

Elder David F Morgan

I think I can, I think I can....

Óla!

WOW!

I didn´t see the time flying by and I have almost NO TIME!

Sorry.

We had a good week. Really hard actually, it seemed like nobody was home at all or just gave us excuses to not hear, but we just kept going, knocking on doors, asking for referals, talking to people in the street, smiling. It was a good week. We really worked hard. I just felt good all over. Seriously, I feel sooo happy.

Thursday we had a zone conference w/ the zones on the bottom half of our mission, and it was really uplifting. We talked about sanctifying ourselves to be instruments in The Lord´s hands. Also, Sister Castro talked to us about having good... Animation... cheer, excitement. Whatever the word is in english (by the way, Grant´s English is so wretched! Reading his emails is so fuuny, even I´m not THAT bad, I can usually catch myself, he just lets it all loose hahaha, Love that kid :) ) Anyways, coming back. She read to us O Trenzinho que podia. ´The lil´engine that could´ It was... cute, but also very spiritual as she read to us from her mission journal and talked to us about how to stay positive and happy, and full of faith.

running over time AHH!

Yesterday, after nobody being home all week, we managed to teach a college student here, Luis Fernando, that was really interested and engaged, I love when I don´t feel just like a mouth, but that our lesson is a discussion. He accepted to prepare himself for baptisms, and was really grateful for our visit. I felt so grateful that The Lord had blessed us for not giving up, or getting discouraged during the week.

The month/transfer has flown by. Elder de Almeida is awesome! We haven´t had as much success as we would like right away, but I feel good about or efforts.

Okay, gotta go. Time is up,

Lots of love

Elder David F Morgan

Without A Title...

Óla!

Well, what can I say about this week?

It was actually pretty normal. We gave a training for the zone on Wednesday. We talked to them about the importance of always seeking new people to teach, even when we have a great teaching pool, because you never know when everyone will fall through, and it is important to be finding, while we teach and baptize, all at the same time. We also trained about how to cease teaching investigators who are not progressing ( a challenge we are having in the zone, eternal investigators) Our purpose is to invite people, and in the most loving way possible, show them that repentance and convenents are the only way to follow The Savior, if they don´t want to do so, we need to continue to seek others who are ´kept from the truth because they know not where to find it´ and who will accept those invitations. We also made some fun videos to inspire and excite them. I feel like it went well, in our weekly report yesterday the whole zone had done much better.

I honestly was a little bummed with myself this week, even though our work got better, I feel like I could have done better. We didn´t plan very well, and it seemed like everything fell through this week, so we did a lot of unproductive walking, which is not my favorite activity. I don´t really like going home feeling defeated, but seeing that the whole zone did better this week, picked me up a bit.

On a fun note. We moved our study desks into the "living room" of our apartment and found out that the accustics there are SOOO good. So now we have started to sing hymns before our study, and sometimes at night.

We have zone conference this week and I am hoping to receive some personal revelation to have a little bit of direction in our area. We are working hard, but without many results so we are needing to change our strategy I guess. We started talking to people about geneology, something that I have never tried before, we are going to find out what is the schedule of the family history center and make some flyers we can give to people. It was fun to share with Elder de Almeida some stories that I remembered reading from our family history.

I feel this odd desire to always be smiling lately. I feel like a goof walking down the street trying to wipe the grin off my face. Even when something cruddy happens, I have this perma-grin on, or at lest the desire to.. it is weird.

Anyways. I am trying to think of a spiritual thought, but I feel like I am repeating myself a lot. I was reading in Mosias today, I could see that sometimes The Lord see´s fit to try our faith and patience, as Elder Anderson said, with faith, comes the tests of our faith, which bring more faith. I think the best way to endure it well, is to seek out our blessings, and be drenched in gratitude to The Lord. We are going through a trial of faith in our area right now, but we are trying to endure it well, and we may even try to literally count our many blessings :)

I love you. I try to remember to pray for you, but there is a lot to think about here :p

Elder David F Morgan

My Mind Is Fried

Óla!

I swear, listening to training, and having meetings and conferences is the most tiring thing in the world! On monday we took a bus to Porto Alegre, and got there late. We had zone leaders council at Pres. Castro´s house (sweet right?) that took most the of day, and then we hopped on the bus and went back to Pelotas (three and a half hour bus ride, so not TOO bad). Wednesday afternoon we had specialized training w/ Pres Castro and the assistants and at about 6:30 we went on splits with them and managed to get a little bit of work done, but sadly not much. Thursday we had breakfast as a zone and interviews w/ Pres Castro, but the time went by and so Elder de Almeida and I weren´t interviewed. No probs, because we have zone conference in a few weeks so we will do it then.. I think. O ALSO, ´we´ ( not I) lost our cell phone on the bus coming into Pelotas woohoo! Friday we had a meeting with the Bishopric, and afterwards our ward mission leader, Madger. Then of course summing up in the awesome sessions of General Conference on saturday and sunday. My mind is so fried that I haven´t been making it to 10:30, after planning our day, I get ready for bed, pray , and sleep, the extra half hour is SO precious.

So just because it NEEDS to be said. Let us all agree that President Uchtdorf, is still, The Man. I love that he always seems to talk about, slowing it down, finding joy in the journey, what is really important in life etc. We are going to adapt his talk to the mission in our training on wednesday. Just a quote from what he said I want to share. ( I heard it in portuguese so if it comes out a little different, bare with me.) ´ Many of the regrets of tomorrow, can be avoided, if we choose to follow The Savior Jesus Christ, today.´ We are going to ask the missionaries what kind of regrets are possible to have at the end of a mission looking back and what kind of action we can take today, to avoid those regrets and find joy in the journey of our missions.

Elder Hollands talk was way good, he had given a talk similar in the MTC and it was transmitted to us in SÃO Paulo when I was there.

Ha, funny story. Elder de Almeida and I showed up after the special missionary announcement. So when all of the speakers wer mentioning what a historic moment it was and how grateful they are (yet never mentioning what was actually announced) I was freaking out wanting to know what it was, lessons learned, show up early! It was Elder Nelson that bailed us out and acutally said what changed. So yup, Elder´s can go with 18 years now and the Sisters with 19. That should increase drastically the amount of missionaries in the world (one would hope) and I hope it gets many other yound men preparing sooner. Ha, about the sisters. All the Elder feel shafted, haha all the girls that would be in our in our dating group when we go home ( aka 19-20 year olds) will now be married or on missions, so we got the short end of the stick ha.

President Monson and Pres Eyering both talked about what has really been on my mind lately (suprise) Knowing the will of The Lord, and acting on spiritual promptings to fufill that will and be of service to others. I personally, don´t know how we are going to help our area or our zone to grow and get out of the rut that it is in right now, but The Lords knows, so it is essential that we know His will and do it. It is also an excellent recipe for happiness. :)

Sadly, or teaching this week was a bust. We left in between sessions of conference and tried to get some work done, but nobody wanted to hear us this week it seemed like, and every plan we had fell through. I don´t like getting to that moment where I think ´well, what do we do now?´ Days, like that, you just throw a smile on, give your comp a hug, and buy something you really like to eat at the end of the day. :p

Wow, I´m hungry.

Our training w/ Pres. Castro was also very inspiring, we talked about asking inspired questions to our investigators, and how The Savior also asked questions that really changed people.

Okay, time is coming up.

I love you all very much. I love this work too. Make others feel important and loved this week.

Elder David F Morgan

Mini Miracles Again!

Óla!

So now that our house is clean and neat our work was very good this week :p

Our first task has been to build some sort of a teaching group, nothing happens in missionary work until you find somebody to teach. We started the week in fasting and asked The Lord to send us to people prepared to hear our message and promised that we would do our best to find these people, The Lord is too good to us. We started looking up all the contacts that we have in the area book, and asking all the members for referals, marking appointments with people on the street etc. It is neat how The Lord guides us, almost without us knowing. One night we were just about to leave a certain area, and we just decided to go after a few more adresses right where we had just passed, one of the these was Rudiele. He is 18, and is pro Soccer player here in Pelotas. ( a B team, but hey, it´s my team too.) We felt that we should talk to him about The Plan of Salvation, and he had lots of questions and we talked, and he really paid attention, and The Spirit was really strong. We invited him to pray to confirm in his heart that everything we had taught him was true, which he accepted and we also invited him to be baptized, which he also accepted! It might be a little tricky at first, cause of his game schedule, but there has got to be a way I´m sure. We went home really happy that night.

Also, who would have thought that two missionaries rocking out ´Johnny B Goode´ could be so inspired to help unite a ward? Elder de Almeida had planned a ´time tunnel´ activity ( oldies music, dance etc.) before I got here and we were REALLY praying that is went right, to try to gain some confidence with the members and leadership, and to just unite everyone and have a good time. It was a HIT! We sang, I played Great Balls of Fire of course, and then we both ripped up an awesome Johnny B Goode. Some other members presented dance and songs, and it was just an all around good time. Sunday all the members were still talking about it, and the bishop was very pleased, he had told us that he wanted to get the ward excited, but he is a very calm man and that is not really his strong point, and that the previous Elders had always done lots of ward activites and that seemed to help. So at least the members here really like the missionaries now. :) Like I had said too, Elder de Almeida reminds me A LOT of Shaun, so goofing off and singing with him felt natural and we had a great time too.

Sunday we didn´t have any investigators at church again :( we are hoping/praying that we can bring somebody to General Conference this weekend. I LOVE General Conference!

Well, we are going to travel to Porto Alegre today, zone council tomorrow. This time it will be in the mission home, so after a year and six months almost, I will finally go there. Woohoo! But it means that p day will be spent on a bus ha. Letter time, I am behind. ALSO! reminds me, the mail company is on strike, its been awhile now, and so if you sent a letter, I won´t be getting it for a while. The bank workers are all on strike too.

Okay, gonna run now.

I love ya, please pray for us,pray for the missionaries in our zone, and pray for our investigators please.

Seriously, I love you all.

Elder David F Morgan

De Volta Para Pelotas

Óla!

I think beyond being a missionary and zone leader I have another calling: clean the apartment after messy/dirty missionarys. When I walked into our apartment on tuesday night, I informed Elder de Almeida that we would not be leaving the next day, because I don´t even think Satan would want to be in our apartment, much less the Holy Ghost, and we are in great need of The Lord´s guidance. So the next day after lunch, we bought some cleaning equipment and went to work. We managed to clean the bathroom and most of the kitchen, but there was still a lot of a mess. I think I am paying for the hastle and mess the I used to leave at home hehehe :) So now our apartment is slightly messy, but at least clean.

I was worried about what would happen when we got to Pelotas, because we got on the bus in a hurry, the secretaries didn´t know up with our tickets and the bus was leaving, then we found out they hadn´t bought enough, so we were scrambling. We didn´t have a phone on the bus to call ahead to Pelotas to see if someone would be waiting for us there. Luckily they were and it all turned out alright.

For now we don´t have a real teaching group, we are basically opening up the area here, but at least E. Almeida knows the area a bit and the members, he has only six weeks here. We went around getting to know the members, leaving a missionary message with them, and asking for referals, we managed to get a few that look promissing. This is my first time working in a down town area, lots of buildings, stores, and apartments, so I am a little bit a a loss of how to conitnue with the work, but I feel that working with members, and former investigators will give us much sucess.

It was fun to see some people from Simões at the chapel, but on sunday we were in a rush as we left and so I didn´t get to say hi to everyone. I hope to be able to next week.

Wow, I almost just lost this whole email and I am already in a rush. I love that google saves the email along the way. Just saying.

For now that is all. It will be challenging, but I am sure with The Lord´s help we will be able to do great good here.

Elder de Almeida, (new companion, from São Paulo) is way great, I already like him a bunch. We didn´t really have that kind of awkward getting to know you phase, it seems like we have already been buddies for a while. He reminds me of Shaun a lot ha. Oh and it is his birthday today. :) 20 years old.

Please send us your thoughts and prayers, we are needing them.

I hope all is well back home. I try to remember to pray for you all :P but sometimes my mind is so fried at night that even a simple prayer is a real struggle, I am still sleeping like a rock at night. Lots of love to you all.

Elder David F Morgan

I Never Imagined....

Oi!

Well, I would have never imaged, but I got transfered. :( I am Really sad because I won´t be here for Alex and Adriana´s baptism, or Fran´s. I could have sworn I was going to be released as a zone leader and train a new missionary, or that I would be here for another transfer w/ Elder Alencar. Anyways, I am being transfered back to...... Pelotas! The city where I started my mission, I will be ten minutes away from Simões Lopes where I started. I would have never imaged. Except for this morning during exercising, It suddenly came to my mind that I was going there, and then the assistents called and told me where I would be going. So weird, exciting, and very sad to be leaving... again.

So! JORGE and VÍTOR were baptized and confirmed! Due to some happenings in Jorges past, it was necessary to have our first counselor from the mission, Pres. Yamasaki interview him for baptism, and it was very special. The baptisms looked like it might be a small turn out and a little rough, our ward mission leader had to go to the hopsital with his step son, it was raining like crazy, but lots of members came to support them, we asked people on the spot to help out in certain things and it was actually REALLY spiritual He is very happy, he knows that this is the best place for him to raise his sons.

It is basically a river on the street outside, so Alex couldn´t come to church, there is now way he could got off that giant hill in that kind of weather, next week I hope we can get a ride figured out for them.

We managed to contact a lot of referals this week. I never passed in an area where I had SO much success than here with E. Alencar, (another reason why I am sad to leave) We are working side by side with the members and they are really trying to help us, and we are obviously receiving The Lord´s blessings for that. I am very please. There were 7 people baptized in our zone this week, with more coming. It is so great to see so many people repenting, and so many missionaries working hard to help these people. We have a goal of 17 baptisms in our zone for this month, and I really believe that it will happen. There is a real attitude of faith and success in the mission.

Okay, I am going to be saying goodbye to everyone tonight, so I am going to go.

I know that The Lord hears and answers our prayers, and that we can be an instrument in His hands if we let Him, and there is nothing that brings more happiness.

Elder David F Morgan

Lots happened in the week

Óla!

Soooo much happened this week.

Tuesday we had zone leaders council. It was really spiritual and fun, we talked about the importance of our purpose as missionaries and speaking with everyone. I have been trying to get better at that, talking to people on the bus, at the bus stop, store, etc. It is fun to have meetings cause you leave with so much excitement and go talking to everyone.

On Wednesday we prepared a training that we were going to give to our zone that was in Elder Alencar´s words ´Jedi´´ Later that day, we had the experience of getting assalted on the street. It was actually really tranquil, not how I would imagine being assalted, we shook their hands and invited them to church afterwards haha. Then we left and they (there were two) started following us, so we picked up the speed and turned onto a road and waited out in a members house for a bit. They only took 9-11 Reais that I had, So it was fine.

We had our zone training meeting on Wednesday and we really felt like it went well, it was also about always fufilling our purpose and inviting everyone to come unto Christ, so our getting assalted and inviting them to church still was a kind of comical but good example ha. We went on splits with Elder Gull and Elder Soares, to do a baptismal interview in their area. It was on a holday, the independence of Brasil. 7 de Setembro. We taught so much and I got home dead that day.

We remarked Jorges baptism for this coming Saturday becaue he is REALLY progressing well and feel like he is ready.

Alex is already walking around with crutches and he said he is training so that he can go to church this sunday. I already love him and Adriana, we are going to teach them tonight and I am SOOO excited!

Sorry this has got to be short, we only have one computer and E Alencar still needs to write.

Also, we need to move from our house and have about two weeks to find a place in our area and arent having much luck, please pray for us to find a new place to live.

Lots of love.

Elder David F Morgan

 

 

Just Because I Have More Time Now:

 

Óla.

So we managed to get a little bit more time.

I think I already summed up most of the week but just another strange/ sad experience. We were walking home last night after visiting Alex and Adriana, they live way far away and it was pouring down rain. Coming up close to our house somebody called out to us that we didn´t recognize. As he came closer and presented himself I recognized it as Lucas, a guy we had contacted on the street the other day, marked a visit with him and when we went there he wasn´t home. He looked pretty beat up and his cheek was all swollen and had a black eye. He told us he had been on the street for four days, because his cousins roughed him up and expulsed him out of the house. I happend to have some bread and some crackers with me that a member, and Adriana had given us, so we gave it to him. He then went on his way, but we called him back and told him to come with us. We have rules about having people in our house, so we told him to wait at the gate and we would be right back. We got together some water, and a way warm blanket, and a change of clothes ready for him and brought it to him, asked him if he had somewhere dry to go and he said he did. It was so sad to see. Clearly I don´t know the whole story but it just reminded me why I´m doing what I´m doing, there is so much sadness in the world and bad things; only The Gospel, when lived to it´s fulness has the power to change that. I am sure of that. So a little bit at a time, we are trying to make a difference.

Just that.

Lots of love. Please remember to serve one another, and forgive others their trespasses.

Elder David F Morgan

Semena

Óla!
So we had a good, but also very slow week. Elder Alencar has been having problems with his lungs still and just now got some medicine, the medicine about knocked him over and he was falling over on the street, so we had to bunk at home for the day. We asked Sister Castro if there is a funeral plan for missionaries ha, because we´re not sure if he will make it the whole two years, he also busted his ankle pretty bad on Saturday and was told to go home and put it up. It seriously swelled up quite a bit and was purple. So we studied a lot, updated our area book better, and printed off a giant map of our area and put it together to try and stay somewhat productive.
Our zone really took off this week. Lots of baptisms being marked and miracles happening. We have a goal in the mission of 100 baptisms this month and everybody is really excited to work our hardest to make that happen. We have a goal of 17 in our zone.
We got to go the temple this Tuesday. It was so special to finally go again, after more than a year! Bishop da Cruz from Agronomia was there too and so that was special, it was really great to see them again! (him and his wife) I really tried to recieve inspiration and also just feel the calm that there is in the temple. The temple is the same model as the Medford Temple and so it almost felt like bein' home. It hit me that The Celestial Kingdom will probably feel the same way, just like going home.


Alex (who broke his leg last week) is finally home. We went to go visit him yesterday, we about fell over on the floor laughing, so he is in good spirits, he has sworn off the motorcycle forever though, said he was going to by a pony with three good legs and one gimpy one, and if it gets over 30 Kilometers per hour, he is gonna give it a smack on the ear. He has lots of time now to read and we are gonna leave him some church films and magazines etc. But there was a serious moment too when he expressed to us how much he thought about his life and that he as swapped bullets with people before, but never felt so afraid to die, and he took a good look inside. He REALLY is more intereseted in having his family forever now. The Lord works in mysterious ways.


We have been teaching a man and his sons named Jorge, and his kids are Vitor and Igor, they are progressing SOO well, has gone to church twice already, threw out his coffee, and hasn´t been smoking, and is praying everyday. He doesn´t read so well so his sister helps him to read the scriptures. He is simple and not very learned, but he wants to change his life and be happy, and so he is humble enough for The Lord to be able to do that in his life.


I had a really neat experience this week too. I bought the movie ´On the Lord´s Errand´ the film about the Prophet Thomas S. Monson's life, and in the end he says something like this "I know no sweeter experience than to feel a prompting and act on it, and then later find out it was the answer to someones prayer or need." I thought about that and the next morning I prayed to be the answer to someones prayer. At our District meeting that day, I saw one of our Elder´s who is training and will be ending his mission here soon, I felt like I should talk to him and just called him over and I asked him how he was etc. He has had a hard time staying focues and is wanting to finish his mission well, but it is being pretty hard. I listened to him and gave a few ideas and I just talked it out and offered to pray or fast with him, and we could give him a blessing. Later that night on the phone I experienced that sweet feeling that President Monson described, as Elder Geovoni told me that the things I had said was what he needed to hear and that he will be able to put it in practice, he had mentioned earlier that he had been praying a lot about that. It was indeed a sweet experience, and I hope to have more of them.


That is all I´ve got time for now. I hope that all is well. Remember that miracles really do happen. :)
All of my love
Elder David F Morgan

What a great week

Óla!
Well, we had a different week.
On Tuesday after the wedding we went to the public health post because Elder Alencar was feeling really bad, there wasn´t going to be any space to attend us, and we didn´t want to past the whole night there so we just went home and slept, we left early on Wednesday to go to the hospital, the hospital was also ultra full so we had to head to a different place across town. We spent about 6 and a half hours there, it seemed like everybody in Porto Alegre got sick at the same time. I had the chance to talk to a man about The Book of Mormon in the waiting room and gave him a copy, he was really interested and I gave him the Assistants number to call and find the area that would be where his house is. Turns out that Elder Alencar was having reactions to his untreated Athsma (how do you spell that?)
I went on companionship exchanges with Elder Gull again, but this time I went to his area. Amazingly enough, this is my 5th transfer as a zone leader and this was the first time I left my area when going on exchanges. It was good, we taught a members Grandma about The Restoration, and she understood, it was a lesson where The Spirit really guided us and was strong. She had some ideas about religion and about the prophet Joseph Smith that she didn´t understand/believe in, and it was a neat experience of letting The Lord take over and He just used us to explain. We also found another guy who has been taught and goes to church has never prayed to know if what he was taught is true, so we challenged him to do so and he accepted.
It was nice to talk to Elder Gull, and I can tell he enjoys it, ha, I remember what it was like to feel trapped in a wall of portuguese. If he was my companion, I would probably mostly speak portuguese with him, but since we are on exhanges I tried to give him a nice break, but also explain things that he didn´t understand.
We ate pizza, and we bought stuff to make chocolate peanut butter milkshakes, but we didn´t have time to make it, so Elder Soares got a nice suprise when he got back.
Josiane was baptized on Saturday, and it was just really neat, it was at a hard time to have people there in the middle of the day, but there was a suprisingly good turnout and a very sweet spirit. Yesterday at church she mentioned an experience where some people came over to her house wanting to aruge with her etc, and she was feeling really angry (the class was about charity and love) and she mentioned that she became really angry but then decided to say a prayer, and an amazing relief came over her. I don´t know why but it just touched me and made me very happy to know she was putting the principles of The Gospel in practice in her life.
Lastly, I taught the primary ´the wise man built his house upon the rock´´ (primary hymn) in English and two daughters from a family that we are good friends with came up to me yesterday (two weeks later) to thank me and to tell me they can sing the whole song now. Ha, also dunno why, but it was a neat moment, and it is nice to be thanked.
Wrapping up, we are needing to step it up a bit still here, we have some great new people and we are going to pass the whole week just looking for new people to teach. We have a lot of member referals to contact.
I can NOT believe that Shaun, is at college, and I won´t even talk too much about it because it will really really really really really really really really really really freak me out!!!!

Gotta roll.
All my love, thanks for your prayers, ha I could use them.
Elder David Fransico (new knick name in the mission) Morgan

Hospital and Baptism

Óla!
Well, we had a different week.
On Tuesday after the wedding we went to the public health post because Elder Alencar was feeling really bad, there wasn´t going to be any space to attend us, and we didn´t want to past the whole night there so we just went home and slept, we left early on Wednesday to go to the hospital, the hospital was also ultra full so we had to head to a different place across town. We spent about 6 and a half hours there, it seemed like everybody in Porto Alegre got sick at the same time. I had the chance to talk to a man about The Book of Mormon in the waiting room and gave him a copy, he was really interested and I gave him the Assistants number to call and find the area that would be where his house is. Turns out that Elder Alencar was having reactions to his untreated Athsma (how do you spell that?)
I went on companionship exchanges with Elder Gull again, but this time I went to his area. Amazingly enough, this is my 5th transfer as a zone leader and this was the first time I left my area when going on exchanges. It was good, we taught a members Grandma about The Restoration, and she understood, it was a lesson where The Spirit really guided us and was strong. She had some ideas about religion and about the prophet Joseph Smith that she didn´t understand/believe in, and it was a neat experience of letting The Lord take over and He just used us to explain. We also found another guy who has been taught and goes to church has never prayed to know if what he was taught is true, so we challenged him to do so and he accepted.
It was nice to talk to Elder Gull, and I can tell he enjoys it, ha, I remember what it was like to feel trapped in a wall of portuguese. If he was my companion, I would probably mostly speak portuguese with him, but since we are on exhanges I tried to give him a nice break, but also explain things that he didn´t understand.
We ate pizza, and we bought stuff to make chocolate peanut butter milkshakes, but we didn´t have time to make it, so Elder Soares got a nice suprise when he got back.
Josiane was baptized on Saturday, and it was just really neat, it was at a hard time to have people there in the middle of the day, but there was a suprisingly good turnout and a very sweet spirit. Yesterday at church she mentioned an experience where some people came over to her house wanting to aruge with her etc, and she was feeling really angry (the class was about charity and love) and she mentioned that she became really angry but then decided to say a prayer, and an amazing relief came over her. I don´t know why but it just touched me and made me very happy to know she was putting the principles of The Gospel in practice in her life.
Lastly, I taught the primary ´the wise man built his house upon the rock´´ (primary hymn) in English and two daughters from a family that we are good friends with came up to me yesterday (two weeks later) to thank me and to tell me they can sing the whole song now. Ha, also dunno why, but it was a neat moment, and it is nice to be thanked.
Wrapping up, we are needing to step it up a bit still here, we have some great new people and we are going to pass the whole week just looking for new people to teach. We have a lot of member referals to contact.
I can NOT believe that Shaun, is at college, and I won´t even talk too much about it because it will really really really really really really really really really really freak me out!!!!

Gotta roll.
All my love, thanks for your prayers, ha I could use them.
Elder David Fransico (new knick name in the mission) Morgan

This weeks big letter

Óla!
Yay, I actually have time to write today. :)
This whole week was super weird, we baptized on Monday night which just threw my whole internal sense of time and what day it is off. Ione is a lady that I met a few weeks ago. She had been investigating the church for who knows how long now. Her son is a member and served a mission in Vitoria. She always wanted to be baptized but was afraid of the commitment and also was not able to keep a few of the Lord´s commandments. We started working with her, and her son, Eleandro helped so much, and she was able to find the courage to do commit to be baptized and realize that baptism is not to condemn but to save. She has made some changes in her life and now after more that 20 years of church attendance and everything, she was baptized, and then confirmed yesterday :)
We are having a lot of success working with the members here, receiving referals of people we can teach and working with the members to teach these people and get them to church. One such is Rogerio that we taught last night, he works as a salesman here and really wants to change his life and his family, a member that he sells to talked to him about The Gospel and the family and we taught the whole family last night, that was really great and will be coming to church on Sunday :) Tip for ALL members of the church, talk to your friends about The Gospel and invite them to meet with the missionaires :)
We have a wedding to go to today as well :) We have been teaching Josiane since I got here, and a little before too. She is living with a less active member of the church, Jeferson, they are going to get married today so that she can be baptized this Saturday and he is going to be coming to church! They are reallly excited and great people. She has made a lot of sacrifices to be able to be baptized.
Also, we helped the youth prepare to sing ´Que manhã maravilhosa´ (Joseph Smith´s First Prayer´) translated it is , ´What a wonderful Morning´ for the Fathers day presentation yesterday. It was SOOOOO good, on our first practice I thought that we would just have to pray a lot during the song; but with practice and tips it turned out REALLY great. Also, two of the young men in the ward invited their parents to come,and we talked to them before the meeting, they are really interested in knowing more about the church and have seen the positive influence it has had on their son's life and we are going to have a family night with them and another family in the ward this week! Alex and Adriane are their names.
  I can´t believe that Shaun is going off to college this next week. Where does the time go? The Morgan´s will be empty nesters, sitting alone at the church bench, and no more Morgans are at South Medford High School.
Well, I hope you all are doing great, enjoying life and happy.
I love you very very much
Elder David F Morgan

Short on time

Óla!
Ya, there is no time again to write, also the backspace on this keyboard is in the wrong place and it is REALLY throwing me off.
Summing up (sorry)
Maicon was baptized on Saturday. We spent all day there fiddling with the heater that literally caught fire at the last baptism trying to get the water warm. At the last minute the person who was supossed to pick up Maicon couldn´t, and it was stressful. But when Maicon showed up that baptismal went really well. He gave Brother Lima a big hug after the ordinance was finished and we sang all together to try and keep The Spirit while they were changing clothes.
Maicon bore his testimony afterwards as well (never seen that before) he was really converted and it was very powerful. We never got a Book of Mormon in braile for him, but we are working on geting materials, until now he just listens to it.
He received the Aaronic preisthood yesterday after his confirmation and the ward is really embracing him.
Silvana didn´t manage to leave the cigarettes, her son went to the hospital and when she was way stressed she smoked a few, but she has progressed SOOO much in these last few weeks, I am 100% sure that she will be baptized soon.
Also, we had a miracle, Ione, a guy in the wards mom, has been investigating the church for who knows how many years now, and we have been teaching her. A few days ago we got a text from her son telling us to go to a member's house and they were going to meet us there. She really wants to be baptized and we prayed with her, went over the baptismal interview questions, she went to church this Sunday and is really excited to take this really important step. What a miracle. She wants to be a good example for her children who are less active and she is wants to do what is right. The Lord is blessing us so much.
There will be transfers again this next week, but it would be a big suprise if I left. Honestly, I am still adapting to the ward and the area, it is being a little rough.
I stopped puking, now Elder Alencar is a mess. Bummer.
Hey, times up. I love you all very much. Thank you for your prayers.


Elder David F Morgan

Last week of President Swenson

So I have more time that I thought and I have another topic to talk about.
This is the last week of President and Sister Swenson here in our mission. I am so sad to see them go. They came to OUR ward here yesterday to give their last talks here as President of the mission POA south. They taught me so many things and everytime I talk to them I want to be a better person and a better missionary.
Our new President, President and Sister Castro will be here on Saturday. We are having a zone conference with them this week or next so we should be getting to know them pretty soon. I am sure they will also be great, but making the change with be weird. It is hard to imagine anybody else in President or Sister Swensons place, they are so loving and dedicated. Everytime we have a conference, you can´t run away, they WILL find you, and WILL hug you. I have tried to escape it before, just to see if they would notice, yup, they did.
Wow. there really aren´t even enough words to express how great they are. Love them so much and they will be missed. Wow, this is the hardest part about writing, trying to explain all the feelings that are inside of me. Just love, that´s all I can use to describe it.

Ya, I puked

Óla
SOOOOOOOOOOOO little time.
We had a way good week. Summing up.
Maicon will be baptized on Saturday, is progressing very well, he loves his coffee but is willing to give it up because he wants to do what is right, and was tickled when we explained about the plan of salvation, he understood very well. ( like I said, he is SUPER smart) Please continue praying for him.

Silvana, has gone a few days without smoking and is really progressing, PLEASE continue to keep her in your prayers, so she can resist the temptation and progress to being baptized. She is really determined but lives where she is surrounded by others who smoke and so it is hard.

I had a special suprise this week. I got a call from Elder Amaral, a lady I had been teaching in Agronomia, Conceiçâo, was going to be baptized, and I got permission from Pres. Castro to go, I also ended up being the one to perform the baptism. It was really special and fun to go back and see everyone that I didn´t get to say good bye to in Conceiçâo before I left so it was really great. Very strong spirit.
So just to finish up, I have been a little sick this past week. Lots of stomach problems, when we were coming home from the baptism yesterday it was crowded, and I had already been on the bus for a while, I was already pretty sick and ha. one bus stop before ours I told Elder Alencar we were going to have to get off the bus in a hurry. Ya, I got up and puked.. a lot. So after a year and three months I have finally puked on my mission.. hooray! :P E. Alencar called Sister Castro and when she found out how long I have been feeling sick she got on my case a little bit ha. Anyways, I am feeling better now.
Well folks, that is all I have time for.
All of my love to ya
Elder David F Morgan

Sem Assunto

Óla!
So, once again I will be starting my email like this: Wow, I´m tired, haha just getting that out of the way.


We had a week that was not EXCELLENTE but had some good parts!
We started teaching a guy named Maicon, He is 23 years old, very intelligent, and interestingly.. blind. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted to prepare himself for baptism and to learn more. He came to church on Sunday and really liked it a lot. He lives really close to a recent convert named Carol so he went with her and she has been there to answer questions for him and everything. We are working on getting a copy of The Book of Mormon ( or O Livro de Mórmon) in audio or brail for him. We found one in brail, but it was english, why? I don´t know. He is way nice and pays attention to EVERYTHING, he told me it is easy to pick me out because of my accent, I am the gringo haha. But my accent is getting better, there is some people who haven´t believed me when I said I was north american, they think I am from Santa Catarina or something like that. Anyways he went to church fasting and has a lot of curiosity to know more, and we have lots of hopes for me, please keep him in your prayers, we hope for him to be baptized at the end of this month.


We are also teaching a lady named Silvana, her son is already a member of the church and she is very interested, wants to be baptzed, but is just having some problems giving up her smokes. We are making goals and helping her with that, we even thought of using this as a way to find people to teach, offer classes about how to quit smoking, you would be suprised at how much of that we do as missionaries. She is way funny, we and another member gave her a blessing this last week, and she lives way close to the relief society president that helps her a lot.


Also, on Friday all of our lights went out, (Elder Alencar was taking a shower and it went cold on him hehe) we passed the weekend just using candles because we couldn´t get an electrition... electrician... how do you spell that? In portuguese it´s eletricista. Anyways he was only able to come today, so we have power again.


We have been receiving a lot of member referals lately, almost too many for us to keep up with, but President Castro has really been stressing that we work with members and priesthood leaders, we managed to meet some of these referals and a few are GOLDEN, we just need to start teaching them now. We were going to have a family night yesterday with a couple in the ward and another young couple, but at the last minute they had to cancel.. bummer. Please pray for us to have success with this, and that these people with be able to meet with us and open to The Gospel.


We have been walking ALOT, our area is like a giant bowl, and we live in the middle, but anywhere else we want to go is up up up. It is good though. We also had interviews with the rest of the zone this last Friday, President Castro talked with Elder Alencar and I at the end to talk about our zone and what we could do. Again, already love that man. It seems weird to think he has only been here three weeks.


We used the frisbee today, playing soccer, and frisbee etc. It was way fun, just WAY too many people.


OH!!! I learned how to solve a rubiks cube this week too!


In closing, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of gossip this week. It really isn´t necessary. I don´t know if it is a hymn or just a song, but it was sung at General Conference, titled. ´Let us all speak kind words to each other´ I would add, to and about each other. Let us see others as The Savior sees us and speak kindly to others. Just something I have been thinking about recently. All of my love!


Elder David F. Morgan

Sem Assunto

Óla!
So, once again I will be starting my email like this: Wow, I´m tired, haha just getting that out of the way.


We had a week that was not EXCELLENTE but had some good parts!
We started teaching a guy named Maicon, He is 23 years old, very intelligent, and interestingly.. blind. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted to prepare himself for baptism and to learn more. He came to church on Sunday and really liked it a lot. He lives really close to a recent convert named Carol so he went with her and she has been there to answer questions for him and everything. We are working on getting a copy of The Book of Mormon ( or O Livro de Mórmon) in audio or brail for him. We found one in brail, but it was english, why? I don´t know. He is way nice and pays attention to EVERYTHING, he told me it is easy to pick me out because of my accent, I am the gringo haha. But my accent is getting better, there is some people who haven´t believed me when I said I was north american, they think I am from Santa Catarina or something like that. Anyways he went to church fasting and has a lot of curiosity to know more, and we have lots of hopes for me, please keep him in your prayers, we hope for him to be baptized at the end of this month.


We are also teaching a lady named Silvana, her son is already a member of the church and she is very interested, wants to be baptzed, but is just having some problems giving up her smokes. We are making goals and helping her with that, we even thought of using this as a way to find people to teach, offer classes about how to quit smoking, you would be suprised at how much of that we do as missionaries. She is way funny, we and another member gave her a blessing this last week, and she lives way close to the relief society president that helps her a lot.


Also, on Friday all of our lights went out, (Elder Alencar was taking a shower and it went cold on him hehe) we passed the weekend just using candles because we couldn´t get an electrition... electrician... how do you spell that? In portuguese it´s eletricista. Anyways he was only able to come today, so we have power again.


We have been receiving a lot of member referals lately, almost too many for us to keep up with, but President Castro has really been stressing that we work with members and priesthood leaders, we managed to meet some of these referals and a few are GOLDEN, we just need to start teaching them now. We were going to have a family night yesterday with a couple in the ward and another young couple, but at the last minute they had to cancel.. bummer. Please pray for us to have success with this, and that these people with be able to meet with us and open to The Gospel.


We have been walking ALOT, our area is like a giant bowl, and we live in the middle, but anywhere else we want to go is up up up. It is good though. We also had interviews with the rest of the zone this last Friday, President Castro talked with Elder Alencar and I at the end to talk about our zone and what we could do. Again, already love that man. It seems weird to think he has only been here three weeks.


We used the frisbee today, playing soccer, and frisbee etc. It was way fun, just WAY too many people.


OH!!! I learned how to solve a rubiks cube this week too!


In closing, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of gossip this week. It really isn´t necessary. I don´t know if it is a hymn or just a song, but it was sung at General Conference, titled. ´Let us all speak kind words to each other´ I would add, to and about each other. Let us see others as The Savior sees us and speak kindly to others. Just something I have been thinking about recently. All of my love!


Elder David F. Morgan

A fast one

Óla
So this is going to be VERY quick.
We had Zone Leaders Council on Tuesday. 4 1/2 hours of training and then interviews. BTWS our new President, President Castro is... AWESOME! Already love him to death. We talked about working with the members and we practiced asking and following up with referals. My interview was really good.
Cool Experience!:
When we were in the mission office a lady came in, she told us she was looking to find out more about the church and about the missionaries. Why we do what we do. No better time to show up, or place to go. Mission Leadership and a new mission President, we started sharing experiences with her and explaining things for her.
It was really neat, she told us that she wanted to know more because she said ´sometimes people are downright rude to you guys, and it doesnt faze you, you just keep smiling and talk to more people´ she couldn´t understand it and she talked about the warmth she feels when she talks with the missionaries etc. We told her about The Spirit, and we do this only for love of God and our brothers and sisters. She accepted us meeting with her (lives in the assitants area) and in weekly report today, Elder Tolentino (assitant) told me she went to church, and wants to be baptized! Miracles Happen!
Our goal as a mission this month is 100 people baptized, and we are really working hard to help people make until baptism and continued activity in the church. We are doing this by working really closely w/ the members and priesthood leaders of the church. I am really praying for this miracle in the ´whole entire´ mission. haha
We also had Zone Conference on Tuesday. We met Sister Castro (from Urugay) her accent is really a mix of Spanish and Portuguese but we understand everything she says. They also have 3 kids with them here. The whole family is really great.
We had a tiring week, I hope to see lots of fruit from this work and training.
Thats all I have time for.
I love you, and thank you for your thoughts and prayers on my behalf.
Elder D. F. Morgan

new transfer, area, and president

Wow, I just lost what was quite a sizable email, and all of my attempts to recover it have been futile. Prepare yourselves for the revised version cause I am too lazy to write it out again, I have been cleaning ALL day. 

Óla!
So yup, I got transfered. I am in Medianeira ( Zone Porto Alegre) w/ my new companion Elder Alencar from Fortaleza, Ceará (up north... which is still south for you ha. ) He is way cool, I already like him. I would say he is excited or upbeat.. but I think he passes either one of those two words... maybe hyper-active would be more accurate. He plays guitar and sings though, so that it fun ha. So far, really like him. I miss Elder Amaral soooo much though, I love him a lot, I was really looking forward to another transfer with him. (Still slightly upset about being transfered, but trying to mantain a submissive humility in compliance w/ The Lords´will :P ) It was really hard to say good bye to everyone in Agronomia though, I will miss them a lot, I can although already see some of The Lords´ wisdom in transfering me.

By the way, advice for future missionaries. When you are transfered. PLEASE leave the apartment at least semi-clean for the next guy. All I am going to say about that.

Sad news: President and Sister Swenson left for home on Saturday.. :(
Happy news: President and Sister Castro and family showed up on Saturday. (still haven´t met them)
We have zone council tomorrow followed by interviews w/ all the ZL´s tomorrow so we will know who they are finally , plus on Wednesday we have zone conference, again followed by interviews. We will be leaving last becaue we live the closest, so anybody who has to transfer will be interviewed and leave first. It might be a long two days, I am really excited though.
By the way, my English has gotten way better, SO much easier to switch back and forth now.

Sounds like you are having a bumper crop of fruit back home, I love telling people the variaties of fruit in our yard, things like raspberries and blackberries and cherries are rare and expensive here. But we run a little short on guava and mango in the states, and also, bananas are WAY better here.

We have a few investgators here already and they are progressing well, but our teaching pool is really small, we are working on doing some activities to excite the ward a bit and work with member referals. ( I challenge ALL of you who read this to think of somebody that you could refer the missionaries to pass this referal to them, or better, talk with your friend and invite them, and then invite the missionaries, helps SOOO much, or if you would like to hear the missionaries, talk to you closest LDS friend and they can help you out.)

So that is the more or less resumed email, that still turned out to be a good length really. I love you all, hope all is well. Thank you for all your prayers on my behalf.

Elder David F Morgan

Activity! Divisions! and....ya...Transfers...

Óla!
Well, to be honest, I am completely revolted at the moment. I got transfered. But more on that later.

Well, we have been trying to do something new and different around here, to try and have some different results and not get stuck in the same routine, there are many ways to find people to teach and to share the gospel.
This week we turned the cultural hall into.... The Sacred Grove. (would you believe that in the rush of the moment I forgot to take a picture... AHHH!!!!) but it was way cool, except that we didn´t have the results that we wanted (we told the members they had to invite a friend or less active member of the church, they didn´t listen) It was way cool though, we gave a part to each member to read a bit of the first lesson and then Bishop Eduardo explained about Joseph Smith and The First Vision while I was giving a little piano in the background. We had a choir too and basically it was a different way of presenting it, for a full explanation, wait another ten months until I get home. AH ten months?!?!?! WHAT?!?! way too fast.
We didn´t get to teach much because we were preparing for this activity and banking on having a lot of referals and new investigators, didn´t happen, so Elder Amaral and I went on splits with some young men in the ward for the last two days to try and find lots of new people, we did alright. Me and Nathan found a really great couple last night that are REALLY interested and way great. I hope Elder Amaral and Elder Arnow have lots of success with them. With that said. I got transfered.
So I wasn´t really worried about trasnfers, and every time that I stay really traquil about transfers, I get transfered, so I knew that I was going. I am really bummed. This last month and a half with Elder Amaral went by soooo fast and it seems like yesterday that I got here. Time as a missionary is going by way fast. I can´t even express how sad I am to be leaving, I want to stay soo bad. I love the ward and the people here a bunch. It seems like everywhere I go that my love just explodes, and I know I will love the people in Medianeira (new area) just as much too, but it is really hard to say good bye here too, especially on such short notice, I know I won´t get to say goodbye to everyone. Wow, I am really excited to show you all my pictures of the people here and tell you all about them, they are so wonderful. Wish you could all get to know them.
We are also in the middle of an adventure, because we had to have a medical consult for Elder Amaral today, he has something under his arm, that I won´t even guess how to say in english, that they probably have to cut him. So we are transfering, doing minor sugery, and also our zone got enveloped by another zone here in the mission so now they have lots of other missionaries to take care of. My new zone is going to be pretty small, so it should be pretty nice, I think just 10 other missionaries or something like that. not the twenty that Elder Amaral is going to stay with. It seems a little cruel, Elder Amaral is so great and I was so excited to be with him and I am already getting transfered. Anyways, enough about that. Pretty much love him and this place, that´s all I gotta say about that.
It sounded really fun with the whole family together, I liked the picture everybody is really looking good, I don´t know why you did a picture of mine to chop up and put in there haha, I am the only ugly one in the picture. (something about Brasil, they are a lot more blunt, but not blunt, there are just less words to decribe things, so you call people ugly, or fat, or poor. it is kind of funny, you can´t really beat around the bush)
But in the other words, the picture was lovely, I will send you a better picture that gets my good side ha so you can photo shop me in from now on.
Okay, gonna run. Love ya
Seu Filho, Irmão, e Amigo
Elder David F Morgan