Merry Christmas

Hello everyone!

I don't have much time today so this will be pretty short. I hope you all had an awesome Christmas! I loved getting to see my parents and Mike and Megan on skype! Hopefully I'll get to see a few more of you next time! Christmas here was so crazy and busy! We tried to make it to every less active and members house that we possibly could and saw a few of our investigators as well. I'm pretty sure that just about every house that we stopped at had something for us to eat or take home to eat later. I hope I never have to eat that much food again in my life. Being a missionary puts a whole new spin on Christmas. I got to focus on Christ and all that he has done for each and every one of us! I pray that you all to feel the spirit of Christmas as we celebrated our saviors birth this year!

I love and miss you all,

Elder Morgan

 

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

 

Hello Everyone! and Merry Christmas!

Sorry I am on a day late, we were just insanely busy yesterday and didn't get any time to email!

This week has been pretty awesome! We have mostly been sharing the story of Christ's birth with everyone that will listen to us. It has been an awesome experience and I have been able to feel the true spirit of Christmas as we have been sharing it with others. Being on a mission has definitely made me think a lot differently about Christmas. I am able to focus on the birth of our Savior and what a gift he is to each and every one of us!

For all of you that thought it would be super cold up here.....it so far hasn't been cold what so ever! There has just been lots and lots of rain, and we have gotten very very wet. The other day was one of the nicer days that we have had so we thought that we would try walking around in our area instead of using our car. We came out of one of our investigators homes and it was down pouring! On our walk back to our apartment my companion was talking about how his companion last year would drive through puddles and spray people as they were walking. Not 10 seconds after telling his story, a HUGE dually truck....with a trailer....drove by and covered us with a good 8 foot wall of muddy salty water!  We were soaked to the bone! I couldn't help but laugh hysterically because of the timing of his story.

I hope you all have an amazing Christmas and I can't wait to see some of you when I get to skype home! I love you all and I hope you get the chance to share the Christmas spirit with someone!

Love Elder Morgan

Service With a Shovel and a Smile

Hello Everyone!

My companion and I had an awesome week this week! I am still a little sore from all of the shoveling that we did this week, but we saw so many blessings from doing it! We had lessons with people that have never let us in before and we were able to get in a couple extra lessons with the ones that we have been teaching!

I thought that I would miss out on all of the Christmas stuff that we usually do at home but, I was wrong. The Dupont family is taking us with them today to go out and cut down a Christmas tree with them today! The ward here is awesome and they are taking very good care of us for Christmas this year!

We had a Zone Conference this week and it was pretty much how we can be instruments in the hands of the Lord and how we can be the instruments that he wants us to be, not the ones that we want to be. They gave us about 20 minutes to find a quiet room and read our patriarchal blessings and to really look for strengths that we have been given. It was the 1st time that I have really gotten to pray about and read just my blessing.  There are so many things that I have been missing! It is so humbling to see what the Lord see's not only in me but in all of us, and what potential we can truly reach when we WILLINGLY  heed to the promptings of the spirit and become the instrument that he needs us to be!

I hope that everything is going good at home! I love and miss you all and hope you all have an amazing Christmas!

Love Elder Morgan

When in Rome...Enjoy the Snow!

We had transfer calls on Saturday and I get to stay in Rome for at least another 6 weeks! That means that I actually get to start opening packages that I have gotten haha. New York is teaching me a lot!.....especially how important it is to be clean, some of you would die if you saw how much junk people hold on to! It is definitely a humbling experience and a good way to share the talents that I have been given. We are supposed to get our 1st big snow storm tomorrow, they are saying that we could get up to 2 feet! I am hoping that it is going to snow so much that our mission pres will have to let us drive snow mobiles! I'll have to keep my fingers crossed for that one. We have had a lot of people ask for blessings this week because of surgeries that they are going to be having. I love giving blessings! I know that that the words that are said do not come from me but from the power of the Holy Ghost!

Couldn't wait for Christmas...

There have been a lot of things happening in our ward. To start, we have had two funerals in the past two weeks, both from the same family, a mother and a daughter. It has made me think a lot about the ones that we have lost in our family. I am so grateful that we have been given the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation and that we will be able to live through eternity with our families. I am pretty sure that the Plan of Salvation has become my favorite lesson to teach.

We also had a "come to the manger" activity. Everyone in the ward brings all of their nativity sets and puts them in the cultural hall. They have it like an open house for everyone to come and see all of the different nativities. Not too many people came threw to look at them. It was set up from 10 to 5 and only about 20 people came through. It was still fun though.

Well, that is it for this week. I hope that you are all doing well. I can't wait to talk to and see some of you on Christmas! I love and miss you all!

 

We stole the sisters windshield wipers :) we were going to give them back the next day but it started to snow really hard like an hour later so we took them back haha

Elder Morgan

Lesson on Gratitude

Hey everyone! This week flew by! I can't believe that there is only one week left in this transfer! I don't know where all of the time goes! The main event this week was Thanksgiving! 1st to start the day off we got to go and play in a turkey bowl down at the stake center in Utica.....I thought that the 8 inches of snow that we got that night would put a damper on things but it didn't! It was so much fun! Then we had our normal district meeting after.....oh also forgot to mention that I had to try and starve myself of breakfast and lunch so I could pack down 2 Thanksgiving dinners! The first dinner that we went to was with Brother Withey, He is an older man in our ward and he lives by himself. It was nice to be able to share some of the day with him so he didn't have to be by himself on Thanksgiving. After attempting to portion my food, which didn't work out to good, we headed over to one of our investigators, Chuck. He wanted us to come over an hour or so before dinner was ready so we could read and talk about the Book Of Mormon with him. It is so awesome to see how much he has changed in the last 4 months and how much he has progressed! After we read with him it had been about 2 hours since our last meal ended and I still felt like the button on my pants was going to shoot across the room. I was shammed into putting heaping amounts of food on to my plate, and somehow was able to cram down another dinner. Even though I was not around family, Thanksgiving ended up being pretty dang good.
 

I also was asked to give a talk in church on Sunday. I was asked to speak on how my gratitude had changed since coming on a mission. I had to narrow it down to a few things otherwise I think I could have taken up the whole hour! I got it down to 4 things; family ( I even said I was grateful for brothers and sisters), priesthood blessing, the Gospel, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Being asked to prepare a talk on gratitude could not have come at a more perfect time. As I am sure that mom has told every single person on the planet by now, I had a few rough days last week with what is going on with dad. Preparing a talk on gratitude, especially gratitude for the Atonement, really helped bring an over whelming feeling of comfort and peace. It helped me remember that I have someone that knows exactly what I am feeling, and knows exactly what I need to get through it. I don't think that it was a coincidence that I was asked to talk on gratitude this week.

I got the Christmas countdown package the other day....it took everything I had not to tear everything open the second I got it. Thank you Mom for sending it and thank you Shalise for helping her!

I love and miss you all! Can't wait to talk to some of you on Christmas!

Elder Morgan