HEYYYY - January 26, 2015

Thug life with Sister Tu'Akalau

Morgan's dream license plate - it'll get you singing!!

This week was a good one! We worked hard. Again. We work hard a lot....but it's ok. Working hard is funnnnnnnn.

So a few weeks ago, my companion was on the phone leaving a message. As she was closing, she just went into autopilot, and said, "In the name of Jes............bye." I laughed so hard. Now my companion and I both have said embarrassing things that have to do with praying on the phone. 

Something way cool happened this week. So, Johanna and Kaiden's mom isn't a member. And she had a decision to make this week. So we asked her to pray. And she did! It was awesome. It's so cool to see people progress like that. 

So, I found one of my favorite scriptures today. I've been thinking a lot about why I went on a mission and why I'm here. And SWarren had me read this. It's in D&C 6:3. I think it sums up why I'm here and what I'm doing and stuff like that. I'm here because I want to become a better person. And I want to change. And I want to gain my salvation. And one way I can do that is by serving. I'm not saying that everyone has to serve missions to gain salvation, but...it's definitely helping me. That's for sure. 

 3 Behold, the field is white already to harvest; therefore, whoso desireth to reap, let him thrust in his sickle with his might, and reap while the day lasts, that he may treasure up for his soul everlasting salvation in the kingdom of God.

Anyway. On Saturday, we went to a sealing of a family SWarren had taught in her last area. They were super cute and old and it was so cool to see. I can't wait till I get sealed one day. Which is weird. Because I've always wanted to, but I never really made it a solid goal for myself. Missions do weird things to me. Good things. :)

I love being here. Even though it's hard, it is so worth it. When I see the people I've grown to love and teach and stuff, I light up. It's crazy. I love my mission. It literally means everything to me. Everything I did in my pre-mission life is either completely more important or infinitely less important now. It's amazing. I love it. I love you guys.

Love,
Morgan

Week of 10 Billion Miracles - January 19, 2015

By the way, Morgan never exaggerates.  She doesn't even know how to pronounce hyperbole.

I kid you not, we had roughly 10 billion miracles happen this week, it was crazy awesome!

So, there are roughly three things that keep me up at night. One, our recent converts. Two, I can't remember what. Three, the YSA ward we cover. I want investigators in that ward! Yesterday, we got a text from our ward mission leader saying that we had a potential investigator at church and we needed to get there soon. So, we did. This guy is golden. He was in elder's quorum and said that he was thinking about joining the church. Obviously, we were super stoked about that! We set up a time to teach him, and we set a date for him to work towards getting baptized! I walked away and asked my companion, "What the heck just happened?" Seriously, that was amazing! Things like this only happen when you're a missionary, I kid you not.

We spoke in church yesterday. I talked about President Monson's talk called "Charity Never Faileth." It was a legit talk and I loved being able to speak about it. 

So, Yvonne, our investigator with a baptism date, is doing so well! She has a countdown calender to her baptism on the 31st. We briefly talked about a program for her baptism last week, and came back last Tuesday and she had the whole thing planned out already! She said she knows what we're talking about is true because she gets really warm fuzzy feelings when we're over, when she reads the book of Mormon, etc. It's pretty awesome!

Something also really cool that happened yesterday was that we visited a nonmember named Shirley. We were driving down 109th (main street in Ucon) and we had a prompting to go stop by her house. We didn't know why, because we know Shirley wasn't interested. She's older, and she's been through the missionary lessons before. But, we turned around and stopped by. She let us in, asked a question about the Bible (she reads every day), and we got to talking about the Book of Mormon and stuff. She said she didn't believe it. She also said that the night before, she felt like she wasn't filling her potential on earth and was praying to find answers about what she should do. We straight up testified about the BofM and, even after she had said that she would never read it, she said she might! Man. That lesson was so so so soooooosososososo awesome. She's searching, and she didn't even know it! It's lessons like that that you live for as a missionary. It's good stuff.

I love it here. I'm learning so much. SWarren told me that I'm a completely different person than I was six weeks ago. This is seriously the best decision I've ever made in my life.

Love you!

This Weeeeek - January 12, 2015

Another week down!

Transfer calls came and I'm staying in Ucon. I got made a senior companion, and I'm not really entirely sure what that entails. But. Six months in Ucon!

So, here's a story for you. I was sitting in church yesterday, and a little boy was looking at me. So I flashed a peace sign at him. Then, he flashed a peace sign. Then, I flashed some random hand signs. He kept copying me. Then, his mom kind of gave him a look, and he turned around. So, that's the story of me flashing gang signs at little kids at church. Ha.

A lot of really cool things happened this week. On Tuesday, we were eating dinner with a recent convert of two years. She and her husband just got sealed in the temple (which is pretty cool!). One of their daughters had a friend over, and she isn't a member. She's been going to Activity Days pretty regularly and coming to church with them. We asked this girl if she wanted to learn more about the church and she said yes! We went over to her house later and talked to her grandparents (who are inactive) and her grandpa said that he encourages learning about the church! That was way cool. We'll start teaching her this week.

Another awesome thing was that we set a baptism date with one of our investigators, Yvonne. She's a 9 year old girl that we found. She is AWESOME. We set the date for January 31, and when she went to church this Sunday, she told everyone she's getting baptized. She's the coolest 9 year old I've ever met! We're really excited for her. More importantly, she's really excited. Yvonne is the best

If everything works out, we'll have seven baptisms this transfer. We've been doing a lot of work, and I'm exhausted all the time. It's good to be exhausted, though. It means I'm actually doing work. 

That's really it to report. I love you all!

Rigby Zone

Sisters Grey, Smith, & Blankenship

Tag!!  You're IT!!

2015 - January 5, 2015

This entire year will be spent as a missionary. Crazy stuff. 

But, we had a really good New years eve and new years day here! We had an all day P-day NYD and from 6-9 off on NYE. So, we met at a church building in Menan and watched a movie and played Murder in the Dark (basically like Werewolves) and watched....THE LEGO MOVIE. Best movie ever. Everyone in the zone quotes it now. But, the game was really fun. You could tell it was getting late, people were tired, and we needed to go home because the last game we played, everyone was yelling, getting mad, etc. It's ok, though. We had so much fun.

We were super low on miles towards the end of the month, so we had to walk around a lot. On new years eve, we parked our car at a members house and knocked doors for like, 4 hours. It was not my favorite....but it was really cool when we were going in a house to see Uncle Jim and Jimmy coming up to the porch! i wasn't expecting that. 

I'm kind of glad the holidays are over now. We haven't taught that many lessons and haven't done as much because of the holidays. It's good to be back in the swing of things.

Transfer calls are this week! I've been in ucon for nearly 4.5 months. I might be transferred...i don't really know at this point. No one ever really knows. We'll see what happens and you'll know next week!

Last night was a bit crazy. Our two recent converts hadn't been confirmed yet because the Ucon building heater was broken and church at that building was cancelled. But, we got a call from the AP's at around 5 and they asked us to do the confirmation that night at their home. What. So we made some calls, scrambled a bit, and they were able to be confirmed that night at their home. It was so crazy how that was able to happen.

That's about it that happened this week. Have a good week!

It has been VERY cold this past week!! 

Just the sisters on Christmas - and Morgan is wearing a Blink 182 t-shirt.  How Morgan of her.

This is an addendum from Morgan's Mom:  On New Year's Eve, Morgan's Aunt Sara and I were texting and she mentioned that her husband Jim and son Jim were driving past Ucon.  Jim Jr. is a student at BYU-I and the Jims had driven out there.  They were currently on their way from Rexburg to Payette to see Jim's Mom/Grandma (should that be Jims'?).  They said they were going to look for Morgan.  I told Sara to tell them that she would be driving a burgundy Subaru.  THEY FOUND IT.  Next, they found her!!!  Happy New Year!!