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!!

Christmas! - December 29, 2014

This week was christmas! It was an awesome week. We had a lot of great things happen. 

First, I should let you know...I drove into a ditch this week. On accident. We missed the turn to a lesson's house, and we were just going to turn around...and I forgot there was a ditch right there. So I drove into it. We were stuck. Not fun at all. But, not a minute later, a member drove past and had chains in his truck so he pulled us out. But, the lady who's house we were in front of got scared and called the police on us because she thought we were scary and were going to rob her. So, I drive in to a ditch, and had the police called on me. All in 15 minutes. Oops.

Driving in ditches, cops being called.

We had a baptism on Saturday! We've been teaching Johanna and Kaiden since early October and it was so so so awesome to see them be baptized. They were really excited. They would remember so much of what we taught them, it was awesome. Like, we asked them this past week why church was so important, and they said to take the bread and water. We taught that like, months ago. It's just so amazing to see someone you taught all the way get baptized. During one lesson this week, Kaiden said to his friend, "You really need to come listen to this, they're teaching some really good things about God." Dang. That was cool. I've never had people say that about us before.

In the Zone on Christmas

Christmas and Christmas Eve was fun. On Christmas eve, we went caroling with our zone in Rigby. It was so nice to go and spread happiness that way. It was freezing, but we had a lot of fun. On Christmas, we had two dinners we went to, and then we had a zone get together that night. We watched real movies again! We watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Maleficent. We just laughed and joked the entire time. After, we had a big snowball fight. I like snowball fights. 

It's been snowing like crazy this week. I LOVE IT. My companion, not so much. Haha. It's all good. I love my companion, though. Sister Warren is so awesome. She's a hard worker and we get along really, really well. 

Anyway, have an awesome week! Love you!

Angry Eyes - December 22, 2014

Yes, we are bad parents!!!  We were driving all day on Sunday which is our "email" day and didn't email Morgan.  I could have easily dictated an email in the car - heaven knows I had time - but it slipped my mind.  We feel so bad.  Poor baby Morgan...  However, we were definitely thinking of her as we had taken Sister Potatohead to the Mall of America for pictures with her sisters!!  And Sister Potatohead is with us in Detroit for the Christmas Holiday!!

Due to the fact that I received NO EMAILS FROM ANY OF YOU THIS WEEK, I have angry eyes.

Ok, now I'm over it.

We had such a great week! Holy cow. We taught a bunch of lessons, we watched He is The Gift a total of 15 times, and we did a lot of work. It was great.

Here is something fun that happened. I'm pretty sure I can never ever everrrrrr ever eat milk products again. Every time I drink milk or (now) eat ice cream, I get sick. This happened on Friday. I was at dinner, and ate like, two bites of ice cream and I got sick. Good gracious. I was in bed all afternoon on Saturday. But, I decided to go out in the evening, and we ended up teaching three lessons that day! It was awesome. I loved it.

On Sunday, we took one of our recent converts to a music fireside in Rexburg. The missionaries up in Rexburg hosted it. It was soooo so so good. I'm so glad we were able to bring Nick and his two kids with us. Nick is probably one of my favorite people that I've met here.

We got to go to the temple this week! Sister Warren and I went with the Landons, We went to Idaho Falls and had such a good time. 

This email is also kind of short because I forgot my planner at home so I forgot most of the things I had written down to send to you. Sorryyyyyyy. 

Sister Warren is an awesome companion. She's so nice and is always concerned about me. I love her a ton and I'm so grateful we are companions.

Anyway, that's pretty much all I remember...

Talk to you thursday! If you get a random text or call from a 208 number, its the member who's house we're skyping with. So, just be by your phones this week. It will probably be sometime in the afternoon. What's your skype name, just to be sure?
Have a good week!

Morgan, Sister Flores, and Elder Fontes all wearing polka dots

Busiest Week of my Life - December 15, 2014

Seriously. This week was so dang busy, it's not even funny! I was so tired yesterday. I fell asleep during one of the sacrament meetings we went to. Bad, I know. But. I was so sleepy I just couldn't stop it. We taught 20 lessons this week. Good grief.

Anyway.

Sister Warren and I have been tearing it up out here. Seriously. We found 8 new investigators. EIGHT. That is unheard of! I don't even know what we were doing differently, that's the crazy part. Anyway. 

One really cool lesson was with our investigator, Brooklyn. Sister Warren and I were on splits because we had another lesson at that time, so I went to Brooklyn's. Now. I love that kid. She's 11 years old and is the bomb. Her mom is less active, and she's super nice, too. Anyway, I went over there with the ward relief society president, and I started off teaching the restoration. I taught the first 1/2 of it, and then I pulled out a Book of Mormon and started teaching about it. Cool story, I can't even remember what I said about it. But I know I said that it was true, I knew it was true, and that she could learn so much about it. After that, I looked at her mom, and she was crying. Man. That was so amazing. It was a great experience to be able to have.

I got to see Roz this week too! It was so weird though, realizing how much of a bubble I'm in. I literally have no idea what's going on in the real world, it's kind of funny. But it was great to be able to see her and her friends. We went to this little taco/Mexican food place in Rigby. Pretty cool!

I'm playing violin in church next Sunday. And singing. I'm kind of...improving [improvising ?] over a song. They just handed me some music for the song they're singing and said, Can you play this? Hmm...ok. Another lady and I are playing and people have said it sounds really good..even though I'm just kind of improving on the spot. I'm also singing in the other song. I was there during a practice, and noticed all their tenors are 12 year old boys. So I told the choir director that I can sing tenor, too. She got really excited and asked me if I would do so. So, I'll report next week on how that went.

Yes, I did get the Christmas package! It's under our "tree." Haha. At first, we drew a tree on a piece of paper and taped it up, but then a lady we visit often made us a tree out of construction paper and tinsel. It's awesome and I love it.

The Christmas Tree

Anyway. We're keeping busy and teaching a lot. We have solid baptism dates for December, January, and February. All of them are 10 year olds...but. I think It's awesome. 

Splits with Sister Grey

Sister Jedis - with Sister Dearden

Sister Jones' last night

Sisters Dearden and Hancock were transferred out of Morgan's zone...

A little late, but still relevant.

December - December 8, 2014

It's four months until my birthday. Just so you know. 

My week went pretty well! It was interesting. That's for sure. Yeah. 

Anyway.

I hung out with different companionships in Rigby the first part of the week. On Wednesday, we drove up to Rexburg and got my new companion. Sister Warren is from California, has been out 10.5 months, and is a freaking hard worker. Good grief. I'm trying to catch up with her, and it's hard, but I'm learning. 

It isn't. Oh man. I was feeling pretty gross on Friday. My insides wanted to be on my outsides. Oh well. You learn and you grow.I learned that egg nog is bad for me. So remember how I'm allergic to milk? Whenever I drink milk, i feel gross. But, I thought egg nog was fine. 

I also learned this week that priesthood blessings are the best. I was getting stressed out progressively during the week...and then I got a blessing on Saturday, and I felt 100 times better. It was pretty cool! They're great. 

Hmm. We've just hit the ground this week. Literally. We're walking all around neighborhoods trying to find people to teach. Finding isn't my favorite.... but...you can't teach without finding people first. So there's that. 

We had a lesson with our Filipina investigator, Adela. I can't remember if I told you about her. But. She doesn't really speak English, so her daughter translates for her. Holy cow. That lesson was awesome! She knows the church is true, and she looooooves the Book of Mormon. Like, a lot. But, she won't be baptized yet because she doesn't understand the difference between the LDS church and the Catholic church. So, we'll explain that next lesson. She is so awesome. I love Adela so much.

That's pretty much it. I love all of you and I hope you have a good week!

Love, Morgan

Sister Sith

Rigby Zone in da HOUSE!!