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