10-3-2016

HELLO PO!!! Ito si Elder Morris.... hindi ako gagamit ng Tagalog ngayon. What people say here when you speak a language they don't understand it "nosebleed". So they always laugh and try to speak English to me and then call it nosebleed xD Anyways, it sounds like a super amazing week for you guys! What an awesome opportunity for you guys to be able to go to Gettysburg and to also be able to go to New York! It's really interesting that you talk about America being the promised land... it reminds me this last week when we were teaching pastor E and he asked us how America could be the promised land if the promised land is in the Middle East. That land was promised to Moses and for Israel. Anyways, it sounds like it has been a really awesome week for you guys!

It's been a pretty great week for me as well! I'll have been here in Tayug for 6 months at the end of this transfer... so like October 20somthing. It just blows my mind as to how fast time has been flying by! This week I really learned a lot about this work and then the things that I can and need to still improve in myself.

I think one of the biggest things that happened this week is that I attended my first DLC (District Leader Council) and learned more about my responsibilities as a District Leader. It's actually a super fun calling because it has been giving me a greater opportunity to grow closer to the missionaries in my district. They are super cool!! 

OH, and J totally passed his baptismal interview!!!!!! He's going to be baptized this coming weekend. It's been such an awesome time teaching him... I found that it's people like that (the receptive ones) who just happen to make this whole entire mission worth it. I've started to realize that it is so fun to get to know people...!

Remember that Pastor that I've been telling y'all about? Yeah... he totally came to church again and this time brought his son and one of the youth from his unit! It was pretty awesome, to be honest I got surprised at the fact that they actually were really nice and open to the church! It was a really good Sacrament meeting  because obviously it was fast Sunday and the members gave some really powerful testimonies :) Haha, wouldn't it just be so awesome if we somehow managed to convert a whole church?! xD We feel like he knows that this message is true but wants to be 100% sure before he can act on anything... I mean let's be honest! If he decided to accept our message... he would forfeit his title as pastor, his money from the church, his house... basically everything!! But I do suppose that if someone has deep enough faith, that sort of sacrifice isn't a problem at all!

Ummmmm..... what else? Other than that it's just been a pretty crazy week and we've been trying to teach like crazy xD I think that part of the reason is that we got the news that the Urdaneta temple site has been chosen!!!! They will hopefully in the next few months have the groundbreaking ceremony! :D The work is really progressing!!!

Anyway, a quick update as to where I am... in a computer shop where there are a LOT of students who are playing computer games and not using any headphones... so it's super lound and kinda hard to think... oh well :)P I'll endure. IT"S SO LOUD xD

That's been MY week... and I'm proud to say that it's been great :) Sorry that this is so short, I don't really have too much time and I feel like my head is going to explode if I am here for about 10 more minutes!!!!!

Bye bye! (that's something that one totally says to kids before leaving) I love you guys so much!

~Elder Morris

ps- That family is the C family, they aren't members... but investigators who are really nice to us. Sister C is pregnant and due any day now! It was a super fun lesson and we shared about two words: Follow Me.

 At around the same place, I saw the most beautiful thing I've seen here yet!!!

I figure you guys would LOVE that goat because whenever I walk up to him, he literally turns his whole head sideways and looks at me... it's so cute!!!!!!!

And finally, they finally finished painting the awesome castle here in Tayug!!! :D :D :D


Ps- Mommy.... Elder L saw the pictures and asked if Dexter was your husband xD You look very young apparently! #younggrandmother #babyfacesforlife




Hi!.. it sounds like a crazy but AWESOME WEEK!!! That Barbarian Party sounds SO AWESOME... though I'm not sure you can really call it that unless all of you ate with your bear hands >:) That's what I want to do when I get home... one night Imma buy rice and cook Adobo... then we all gonna eat like Filipinos!!! Anways, It's so fun to hear about the stuff that happened this week! What a wonderful opportunity you have to go on the Tour and that sounds so fun! :) This is also gonna be a pretty short email because we gots a lotta stuff to do today and I'm almost out of time...

  I have to say first though... this week has been just INSANE and we hadsomeof our work taken out. So this last Tuesday Elder A got a really bad toothache and so we obviously went to the dentist. Long story short... Elder A got one of his molars removed. That got our work cut down by some two days because we got told that he shouldn't be doing a ton of work...so that was interesting. And then I got sick yesterday with some fever and aching body so I couldn't exactly work very hard. (Haha, I'm all okay now...)

  Anyway, I have a pretty awesome story I want to tell... first is about one of our investigators... or should I say the pastor of Seventhday Adventists! (His name is E...totally sounds like a drug... it's a mix of his parents names and his siblings.) Anyway, we went back to teach him and I felt pretty much overwhelmed! Here I am with my companion, two guys who havent really studied deeply in the Bible or gone to some scripture school... sitting with a pastor of many years who has studied deeply in the Bible. And he had a LOT of questions...! It wasn't too bad though because we had a member with us who knows how to discuss those questions (because he was training to be a pastor before he became a member). he was a really nice guy actually... it only felt like a debate when he started talking about the statement of Joseph Smith that the Book of Mormon is the most correct book. (because in his view... if the BOM was right... the Bible was wrong) Anyways, we got the sorted out....

            AND HE CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY.

  This Pastor came to church with us and actually enjoyed it! It was actually one of the coolest experiences ever... he then told us that next week he'll try to come again and bring the youth of his church so that they could listen to our beliefs! (I don't know if he would ever change his religion... but it was a really neat opportunity to teach and try to help answer his questions)

   We will hopefully also have a baptismal interview for one our investigators this weekend, his name is J and he's like 16 years old. It's also been really a great time to teach him... J was taught by other missionaries some 7 years ago but wasn't baptized because his father really was against the church. About last year his father died and his mother is incredibly supportive of his choices... so about 6 weeks ago they were actually referred to us through a member, and now he's progressed to the point of baptism. His time is coming up on October 8th... so we'll see about his interview :)

Other than all that, it's just been another week in paradise! The mission life is the best :)

INGAT KAYO!!!! Take care y'all!!!! I love you guys so much :)

~Elder Morris

9-12-2016

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS COMPUTER IS SO SLOW. I don't think I'm going to be able to send my pictures this week... I mean I have so many that I want to send. But I don't know if it's going to be able to send... so we'll see.

Anyways, it sounds like life back home is still doing really well... I loved to hear about how it's like having school starting again... I hope that things will keep going pretty well with that and all of the awesomeness with animals and stuff! I was super shocked this week when I had gotten the birthday package literally on Tuesday, so like 3 days after my birthday... it was some awesome timing!! I LOVED the things that you sent, probably the one favorite is that ugly face xD That and the sunflower seeds literally made my whole week so incredibly happy! :) I'm so happy to hear that life is going well back home, and hopefully the sheep will stop managing to get themselves killed... there is a reason why Jesus is our shepherd... because without him we all go and do stupid things that can end up getting us killed spiritually!

Mommy, that was actually a pretty neat analogy about missionary work and running and it totally makes sense! The results are almost never seen immediately, but as soon as you can start seeing the results, it makes literally ALL of it worth it... even though sometimes we get tired or don't always want to do it! So that was pretty cool :)

By the way, those pictures are literally the BEST. It makes me smile to just imagine how life is going for you guys back home!

Anyways though, I don't have too much time left, so I'm going to try to make this quick :)P Well, we took a lot of pictures, hopefully I'll be able to send some of them to you, but this computer is super slow... if it doesn't work this week, I'll just do that next week. But first things first, last Monday to celebrate my birthday we went with the two coolest members to SKY PLAZA! It was Tatay P and Tatay D, they are super cool... so we went there and had a pretty awesome time! It was such a beautiful view and and even more beautiful statue of Jesus Christ. We got pretty lucky though because when we got to the top we realized how quickly some heavy rain was coming so we literally booked it down the mountain. We made it to the trike just in time... literally we got into the trike and it rained super heavy. I was on the back and actually got super soaked, but it was all good and fun! :)

Something that Elder A and I have been doing a lot more is jogging and exercise because lets be honest, I was getting quite the rice gut... but it's getting better now :)P

Anyways though, this last weekend we had our Stake Conference, which was a really spiritual moment and I really learned a lot from all that happened and the talks. We even had one of our investigators make it and attended, which was super neat because Rosales is like 45 minutes away from us.

It's been such a fun week and we've really been working hard in teaching people and striving to help them to come closer to Christ, which has been a lot of work. But it's starting to really be worth it. I think that one of the best blessings so far from this work and being able to here in the Philippines is that I really get to know and love people! So many people here in my area are so humble and listen very well... it's so wonderful to get to know people!

 That's something that I really discovered has changed a lot in me in the last 10 months of my mission, that I've become much more open to people... haha, it's super fun! I've met some of the coolest people since coming here on my mission!

 Totes reminded me to say that my Zone Leader is from New Zealand and I was talking with him the other day when for some reason Lord of the Rings came up and I totally discovered that he lives like 10 minutes away from Hobbitton. You guys would love talking to him so much... I mean it was super cool, his FAVORITE authors are JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis... so that was super cool. The only thing he really is missing is a strong American accent and patriotism... but other than that, he's super chill! I feel kind bad though haahah, because I got distracted from the work for like 20 minutes talking about how awesome Lord of the Rings is and the books!

Anyways, that's my week is was super awesome! And I feel that this upcoming week is going to be just as great :) Though I may end up transferring... I don't quite know yet xD But it's been such a fun time here in Tayug and I've really grown so much spiritually (and physically... haha). I can't believe that I'm now 10 months into my mission.... what the heck?! I'm coming up on 1 year. I would never had expected this to fly by so fast!!

Yup, take caare y'all! I lvoe you guys so much and am keeping you in my prayers :)

~Elder Morris

Ps- my other pictures all got deleted (so I bought a new sd card while my pictures are being restored) so can you do me a favor and send me all the pictures I send you from my baptisms... because I'm wanting to print them off and glue them into my journal so I can have remembrance!

9-5-2016

Dear Family,
Haha, you know I didn't quite realize how much I changed until you sent me those pre-mission pictures to me. I look pretty old now xP A lot of people we meet guess that I'm like 25 or 26 and then are totally shocked when I tell them that I'm 18 (now 19!!!! :D)

Thanks so much for the birthday wishes, it made me really happy because frankly I got a little homesick in realizing that this is really my first birthday away from home!! So that was crazy, but I really appreciated it :) If you wanna know my weird birthday food, it's the ice cream here... people have a lot of different tastes here. I've eaten this icecream that was some sort of weird flavor with pieces of cheese in it xD But it was fun celebrating it a little earlier with the Elders in my Zone (there are only 10 of us... and all Elders)

          Oh, I don't think I've ever felt more sad for the death of a sheep than for Figwit. HE. WAS. THE. BEST. SHEEP. IN. THE. WORLD..... so Imma miss him, but I'm happy that you guys were able to use his body in the best way possible and then that you got a good laugh about him and I both having rice guts. Which totally reminded me that that is what I'm going to eat for the first week after I get home from my mission... or I think I would die. Rice is one of my favorite foods now xD

Anyways though, this week was cool... 

So with this to start, I think that I'm going to straight up say that my worst nightmare and that it has come to light here in the Philippines.

For anyone that would really know me, I'm not exactly someone who likes to start celebrating Christmas until at LEAST December first. I don't know why, I just don't really like the whole Christmas music and trees while the holiday is still so far away.

 (Now remembering Christ is something that we should be doing all year around anyway ;) I just mean the celebration with the music, lights, etc)

But anyway, in case you want to learn of a pretty interesting cultural fact here in the Philippines is that the Christmas season starts when the months end in -BER. Which means... it's starting... I'm starting to hear Christmas music and seeing decorations for Christmas NOW... in SEPTEMBER.   I mean I wanted a least a day to somewhat celebrate my birthday, but the season has started... 110 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Anyways though, that was my "worst nightmare" but other than that this week was pretty awesome! We had a really fun time in trying to teach and do all this work. Though it almost feels like we didn't seen any fruit this week because on Sunday it rained a little and so no investigators came to church and a lot of the members stayed home because of the "rain". But I guess there is always next week!

Other than that though, we've been working pretty hard here in trying to find new people to teach, which means we've been doing a lot of talking to people and having some pretty interesting experiences... I didn't know that there were so many different people in this world!

Like one example, we had a pretty awesome conversation with this one guy about how he 'used to come to our church' and how he really desired to go back one day but they immediately asked for money (which we gave him some... I mean it would have been pretty rude to do that to this guy who we literally just talked like 5 minutes to and seemed really genuine), he then lost interest, and left before we could even ask him where he lived.

Or the other time this week when we stopped to talk to someone once, they literally didn't give us any attention and walked away... literally ignored us. So being a missionary is pretty fun and we get a lot of awesome stories!

Finally, today should be pretty fun... we're going to hopefully be able to go to what they call Sky Plaza (which has this really big statue of Jesus Christ...... or a miniature of that huge statue of Jesus Christ somewhere in South America) but that should be super cool... and then there is this really beautiful waterfall nearby which we'll hopefully be able to walk to, but we'll see. And if I do get to, then there should be some pretty awesome pictures next week :)

   It really touched me about that story with Bro. and Sis. M.... but I don't think of it as sad. Because being married in the temple means that they only have the veil between them and will be together again one day. I think that that sort of hope from the gospel is one of the greatest parts of this message... that families CAN be together forever. 

Anyway though. Hope y'all have an awesome week and fun time preparing for Christmas >:) Love you guys so much, and I hope that this week works out better than last week :)

~Elder Morris

Ps- OH. Totally had an awesome time this week at the A family home. (Their oldest son is our new Branch mission Leader) and I got to use this big piece of wood to knock down coconuts. We then had a super delicious drink later :D

 

 

8-29-2016

Hi family!

Haha, it sounds like a LOT has happened back home over this past week! I hope that when everything was said and done... that it was a good week :) It's so awesome that you found this international market near to Sharp Shopper. I don't know this one recipe but it's super good, what it's called is ADOBO. You should look it up on the internet for a recipe (even better when it has pineapple chunks) and you use chicken meat. So for those foods you eat it with rice, I usually put it all on top of the rice and eat it.. super good!! I remember when we would just use soy sauce on the rice, I told a Filipino that and they were so shocked. Eating meat or things like adobo with it are super good. 

Ill look for other foods that you guys need to try ;) Like yes... the chicken feet!!!

 It's super sad that a bunch of the food storage got ruined by those moth maggots... I wonder if there would be a type of storage that would keep stuff like that from happening!!

It's really interesting what you said about what sin does to us, I know that you know this... but it's interesting to me how sin starts as a seed... like faith, and if we allow it to be nourished, it gets worse and bigger. But anyway, I'm just so grateful for repentance and the Atonement :)

Wow, it has been a crazy week! Too bad I don't have too much time to be able to email and tell everybody about it xD

 The biggest news is that we did in fact have three baptisms on Saturday for C, P, and I... I feel like they were really ready, despite how quiet they can be in the lessons. Their family are less active members and have started to come back since we began teaching them, so I feel like they are becoming a key for helping reactivate their families and other members that live in Santo Domingo!

    We also worked a lot this week in the bayan (town) Natividad. (So in our area we have 3 "towns" which are pretty big.... San Nicolas, Natividad, and Tayug.) and that was actually really fun! However the people that we taught either had a legit excuse or weren't really interested this Sunday and we weren't quite able to start having church there. So what we're going to do is try to work there for 2 more weeks and help the investigators progress and try again to start having a church service there in Natividad! I think that could really work :)

     There was one family that we met who were very receptive and open to us, and the Nanay or Mother told us basically why they were so kind to the missionaries and how she felt on the first visit.

             She talked about how missionaries from other churches would come to their home and be kind of serious and how she didn't really like that, because it was kind of uncomfortable... but feel really good with us. So they were taught a LONG time ago like in 1991 and the only thing that she could remember about the visits is how nicely she was taught and how the missionaries were "always smiling". And it did occur to me that people will often remember better how they were treated rather than what they were taught! So we found a family that I feel has a lot of potential, and is really investigating this now :D

        Ummmmm... I think that the pictures pretty much describe the rest of my week :)

Aight... take care y'all!!! :D I love you guys so much!

~Elder Morris

ps- YOU MENTIONED STRITES DONUTS...... it made me crave donuts so bad, I mean you don't even understand.

                                          I miss strites...  XD XD

ps- note the wrong spelling of "changed" in the 'ages of churches' picture under the first one. ;) That was in Natividad at a Catholic church. There are SO many of those here, and a LOT of Iglesia ni Cristo!

PSSS- I totally bought a hammock for like 200 pesos (about 5$) and hung it outside our apartment... it's a pretty awesome place to call my districk at night xD