11-14-2016

Hi family!

Haha, first things first... I GOT THE CHRISTMAS PACKAGE A MONTH EARLY WOOOOOOO. I had Christmas early this year ;) It was super awesome and I was quite frankly taken back by the whole 5 pounds of Good and Plenty!!! I suppose it wasn't too much of a "sin" to open the package way early because here in the Philippines they totally start Christmas in September! That AND I hit my one year mark this week... so it has been a time of celebration :D Honestly it's kind of crazy that time has flown SO fast, in fact I'm coming down the mountain... though it still feels uphill because we work and work every single day!

Anyways, it sounds like it's been an up and down week at home, but that's all okay. Even though I'm here we still heard all about the results of the election that Donald Trump has been elected President. (A member who is kind of crazy thinks that it is a sign of the second coming because of something about the sound of TRUMPets in the Bible.... like in Revelations) But anyway, I'm not going to say too much about that... because I'm a missionary ;) However... I don't quite know what is going to happen. We totally heard about the riots too. Crazy People.

Anywayyyyys,

           There is some SUPER cool news this week, President D has called for a Mission-wide conference this coming Thursday. (We think that there is going to be news coming about the Urdaneta temple.) And this is what they have up as our Mission News this week...

We are honored to have Elder Quentin L. Cook, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, visit the Philippines. He will be accompanied by Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Presidency of the Seventy, Bishop W. Christopher Waddell of the Presiding Bishopric, Elder Shayne M. Bowen of the Seventy and the Philippines Area President, and Brother Daniel Almeida the Area Director for Temporal Affairs.

So I think it's going to be a pretty awesome week... especially since we'll get to meet and shake hands with each of them! :D

And considering that this has been my week of the whole ONE YEAR MARK...I think that this week has for me been a time of self reflection and really an opportunity to set more personal goals. In case you don't know quite yet, I hit that 'one year mark' just last Friday... and for me it really opened my eyes more and helped me to "see the big picture" so to speak. I realized that there is only a year left of my full time service here in the Philippines and that I should make the best of it that I possibly can.
In light of my recent calling to Zone Leader, I've grown comfortably into the responsibilities and the occasional rigors of the work. As I have been realizing... the successful missionary doesn't always come when they have a TON of lessons and all that, but most of it comes from personal commitment. That's really the aim and goal and hope of what I am doing here... I want to keep BEING a missionary until the end of my time here. And then the results will follow behind.
We are kind of bummed about our investigators not coming to church... because we were SURE of at least 4. One of them is Tatay T and he is supposed to be baptized like this coming week... but it's going to be pushed back to December because he didn't come to church :P And the same goes to another one of our investigators, A.

There is a field here that is white and ready to be harvest... but for some reason it feels like the wheat is just trying to keep itself in the ground xD It's still a whole lot of fun, and I can expect more happy things to keep coming!

I can't wait to email next week and let y'all know about what it was like to meet Quentin L. Cook ;) Love you guys so much!!! Keep on hanging in there :D

~Elder Morris

ps- We went to a part of our area called Tucok. And it's literally this island that is completely covered with like these small homes! We had to take some sort of boat that was built out of ply wood and had a small motor. It was pretty awesome and I'll never forget that experience!

pss- I also don't know if I told you about this, but I totally pulled a Dan Jones on All Saints Day and shared the Plan of Salvation while standing on this big granite coffin.... it was pretty awesome. I'll show y'all the video in a year.

Psss- We totally wore sandals on sunday because an investigator uses the excuse that he can't come to church because he "doesnt have shoes" so told him that we would wear sandals with him... so we did..... BUT HE DIDN'T COME ANYWAY.

pssss- okay, I'm done with the Ps's

OH MY GOSH. I think it would be so awesome to have that "buh GOK" picture on a shirt because that is just too great of a picture!!! It sounds like it was really a great week for you guys! HAPPY HALLOWEEN.... I reach my 1 year mark on Friday! It makes me feel like some old man missionary to be so far in my mission! xD It's so fun to hear about all the adventures that you had this week with the farm work and the strange collection of all the different animals (the alpacas... chickens... sheep... dog... more sheep...etc...etc...etc...) I hope that the election somehow end up going well, but I honestly don't know what;s going to happen. For something that I've been guessing, I more or less feel like they are going to manage to elect the worst possible person they can :P Let's just be honest, that's more or less how the worlds values are going.... right down the CR. (Here in the Philippines we don't call it the "bathroom", we call it the CR.... the comfort room) 

This week has been pretty fun though a pain in the butt at some parts, like when someone stops wanting to listen to this message or literally interrupts us in the middle of a lesson with "I have somewhere to go" (but totally doesn't) but those are kind of stories for other days, I'm focusing on the best parts of this week!! :D It's been a really fun time to teach and keep trying to find people. In fact, one of the big things I've learned this week is how important it is to just talk to everyone about the gospel, because last last week we met this old 76 year old man by OYM literally he stopped by us as we were talking to someone else and he was carrying a bucket of water. But we talked to this old man and it turns out that his deceased brother is actually one of the old bishops here!! We've been teaching him almost daily because he is really progressing and will be baptized this coming November 26! It's just so cool... what I learned is that us as missionaries cannot judge who is going to be ready for this message and who is not! I think that goes for everyone, we never really know who the Lord is preparing to receive this message. Because at the start, this Tatay didn't really strike me as someone ready for the gospel! But what we soon learned is that he is AWESOME I mean this old guy is just super funny, he looks like he falls asleep in the lesson but is actually just pondering what we are saying... I mean really sometimes it looks he is sleeping! But he comes to church every Sunday :)P He doesn't have anywhere to go because he is a caretaker of someones home who lives in another country... so he spends a lot of his time actually reading the BOM!

I realized something too... a lot of people here are actually really good at English, in fact most of the members here can speak it without too much problem... still mostly Tagalog, but it's like Taglish xD That's actually what I'm becoming really fluent in, Taglish because that's actually what a lot of people use here! Now of course in the lessons we just use all Tagalog... but conversational is just fine if it's Taglish (as long as they aren't like difficult English words) But anyway, It's been really fun here in Dagupan. It IS known as "The Promised Land" because we get fed or eat out a LOT... as in we have only eaten maybe 3 or 4 meals at the apartment in the last week! It's pretty great, I'm afraid though of getting like super fat out here.. .#Gonna start exercising #Skadoosh #Learning to live with lardy lumps. (Haha, that last one was a little gross xD)
Anyways, It has also been a really humbling week for me as I continued to settle into the responsibilities that I now have as a Zone Leader in Dagupan Zone. One of my main responsibilities is just to be a good example and then the second one is reimbursing missionaries for basically anything they need... it's way crazy. I've also been pondering on how I can follow the idea of Elder C in redoubling my efforts, which is helping me to continue to grow! I find that when we imagine the temple in the lesson, there seems to be an immediate jump in the spirit and openness of the investigator! The redoubling of effort is something that Elder C came up with as he read in.. DC127:4 I think. It was actually really good! So that is something that I"m working on doing here! But overall, it's been a great week and we are still continuing to try harder every day :) I am actually super Tranky right now... (tranky... a missionary term meaning like thinking about home and stuff) because this Friday is ONE YEAR on my mission. I simple CANNOT believe just how fast time has been flying, and I'm afraid to say that I think I'll be home before I know it!

Thanks again for your emails! I totally gotta go now... time to buy grocery (which reminds me... I bought this hand alcohol (because we don't use hand sanitizer...) and it smells like... TRUCK STATION BATHROOM... like that kind of Lysol smell, or that like... bathroom air freshener. It's such a gross smell xD Anyway, you guys take care, I can't wait to 'hopefully' SKYPE this next month! It's SO CRAZY how fast time has been flying out here! Love you guys so much! 

~Elder Dobby Morris (Sorry, I meant to type just Morris... I don't know where Dobby came from)

Ps- No pics... :( I totally forgot my SDcard-USB converter back at the apartment :P