Week 37: Goals and Miracles

April 24, 2017

  Well this week was just fantastic! I learned a lot and we got to do some extra service for Earth Day so that was really fun! I was also able to see some miracles this week, it was a great time.

   So started off the week with exchanges to La Junta. I went with Elder Nelson to La Junta and had a really good day there. Elder Nelson is hilarious and we get along really well so that made it all the more fun. It was really cool because we set a goal at the beginning of the exchanges to find 3 new people that were interested in the gospel. By the end of the day the Lord had led us to the 3 new people which was really good because La Junta has been struggling with finding people to teach! 

   Super funny though because the last person we found was this lady that had a lot of energy. She said that she had seen us walking on the street that day and had prayed that she could learn about what the Mormons believe and then we showed up at her door, way cool! But she said she could read really fast and offered to read the whole Book of Mormon in 2 hours if we wanted to stay and then talk about it haha unfortunately we had to run. About an hour and a half later she called and was freaking out because she said she had read the whole Book of Mormon and was starting to think that the Mormons were right hahaha. So that was pretty cool.

    Another really cool miracle that happened was that the Saunders came back to church! At the beginning of last transfer they had told us not to come by any more because they had found another church which was sad. They are recent converts of several months. But a week ago we were prompted and went and stopped by to see how they were doing, they were doing good. But this week the called and said that they had some questions so we went over and they decided by the end of the visit that they need to come back to church, so cool! They were going to come yesterday but were sick! I am excited to see them at church again.

   Another fun thing that happened was being able to do service on Earth Day. The Parks and Rec of Pueblo had a big project going that was planting trees! We went with some other missionaries and planted 171 trees with other people from the community. 

    This week we got a referral for a man named Alvin, he is great! He was taught by missionaries a while ago and reached out again and his friend who is a member gave us his number. He is just a great guy and committed to be baptized when he finds out what we are teaching is true for himself, cool stuff. 

  It was a great week though, very thankful to be out here serving the Lord and spreading the good news! It is such a great work. Love everyone!

Also i have found my new favorite hobby, gardening! Some lady gave us some seeds and I got some dirt and planted them and it is awesome! And then today at dollar tree, they had a bunch of gardening stuff so i got another pot and some cool flowers to plant, I'm pretty excited about it all!

Mid Week Pictures - Easter Banquet

April 19, 2017

We got this from Facebook:

Here are some pictures my Elder emailed this week. I hope some of you can see your missionary. They had an Easter banquet that they helped at. It was a multi faith event for the homeless. My Elder is in the big blue glasses. --Becky Sudweeks

Week 36: The God of Last Minute Miracles

April 17, 2017

This week was great! I just love serving here in Colorado! We did a couple exchanges this week and had fun teaching all of the people here in Pueblo. 

Started off the week with exchanges with Westcliffe and that was great. Elder Boyd came up here to Pueblo with me. Elder Boyd is one of the funniest guys I've met so that made it really fun. 

Exchanges with Elder Pexton

Later in the week we went on exchanges with the Assistants to the President and that was awesome. I went with Elder Pexton to the Fountain stake. Elder Pexton is a great missionary. It was so cool because we set some goals in faith at the beginning of the day and saw some cool miracles come from that. We set a goal to find 2 people that were prepared and interested in our message and we found 1 person when we were tracting before dinner. Thinking we hadn't reached that goal, we were just going to drive back down to Pueblo after dinner but decided to try a little bit longer. We went knocking on doors for about 20 minutes before we had to leave and had found no one. While we were walking back to the car we saw a family getting out of their car and we talked to the Dad who ended up inviting us back! It was cool to see that the Lord helps us reach the goals that we set prayerfully if we have faith. He is a God of last minute miracles. 

John is also just doing great! We taught him about temples yesterday and it went so well, he is just so solid. He is still planning on being baptized and I am excited for him. 

John

Also funny side note: All the natives of Pueblo don't know how to pronounce Pueblo, they all say Pieblo or Piebla or Piebol, super weird. Apparently Pueblo is famous for its green chile and sloppers which are like hamburgers in a bowl in green chile soup, they are pretty good. 

Easter was wonderful as well. It was a pretty normal Sunday but the services were awesome. We had some amazing musical numbers and it was just good to be able to celebrate Christ's life, death and resurrection while on my mission. I have such a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ and his life as I have served him in Colorado. He really is the light of the world. 

Anyways I hope that everyone will have a fantastic week! I love you all

Love,

Elder Morgan

Zone Leader Training

The note Jonah wrote to his mail carrier

Week 35: Training, training and more training.

April 10, 2017

This week was so great! It was really fun and busy, perfect combo. We had MLC, Stake Coordination, and Zone training, along with exchanges and some weird weather. 

It was funny because we started out the week with snow! It has been all warm weather up until that one morning and then we got like 4-5 inches of snow. But it was all gone by that evening and back up to the 80's through the rest of the week. Colorado's weather is so strange. 

MLC (Missionary Leadership Council) was also great. I always look forward to that meeting. It is the meeting that the Zone Leaders, Assistants and the Mission President and his wife attend. We talk about how the mission can improve and do about 5 hours of training that we take back to our zones. We also get fed breakfast and lunch so that is awesome. After MLC, we switched out our car. They sell the trucks when they get to 60000 miles and we got a brand new Tacoma, it is pretty dang nice. 

Sweet ride!

We had Zone Training the following Friday and it went really well. Elder Garton and I were struggling at first to plan an awesome Zone Training but the 10 minutes before we had to go to bed the night before Zone Training, we had a ton of inspiration. We started it off with a doctrine portion on how we can enjoy our missions more and then did a bunch of training. We then had set up this sweet obstacle course the morning of and had one of the missionaries in the companionship blind fold themselves and the other had to guide them through the course to build companionship unity. It was really fun and turned out to be a very uplifting Zone Training. 

Ending the week, we did exchanges with the Elders in Walsenburg. Elder Stark came up to Pueblo with me and we had a great day. We get along really well, so that made it fun. It was cool because we were able to find 2 people in a row that were interested in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! 

John is doing so well! He came to church yesterday and loved it! He is in Jacob now and loves the Book of Mormon. He has some pretty serious marital problems so he said the BOM was getting him through it. At church he told everyone that it was helping him so much! He is still [planning on being baptized on the 29th. 

Well this was a great week. I love serving out here, is the Lord's work and I am honored to be a representative of him for this time that I have. 

Elder Morgan

A snake....wow

A dog they "brought home"

Week 34: Conference Weekend!

April 3, 2017


Well this week was just peachy! It was a great start to a new transfer and I was able to feel the spirit and grow a lot! Conference was also great, I am excited to go over them again.

This week we were able to continue teaching the new member lessons to the man who was in prison and then was baptized. he is so awesome and a life long friend! he told us a bit more about his life and it was amazing o hear the amazing change he has made, can't even imagine what he was like before because he is such a nice guy now but that is what Jesus Christ can do to people. he said he might write an article of his conversion story and submit it to the Ensign, that would be so cool!

Also I forgot to write about this but a couple weeks ago we were able to go out withone of the priests and it was so cool. His name is Andrew and he's a senior and super scared to go on a mission. He didn't feel like he would be able to do it but after going out with us for a few hours, he totally changed. It was so neat to be able to see someone change so quickly from "I won't be able to serve a mission" to " I can totally do this!" I am excited for him and we are going to keep taking him out with us. Andrew is going to start his mission application papers pretty soon and he will be an awesome missionary! 

We were able to teach one of the 8 year old in the ward all the lessons before he was baptized this week and that was nice. It makes me realize that we are so lucky to know the answers to questions like "Where did I come from and why am I here and where will I go?" Answers we know at such a young age while some very experienced people still wonder about. 

Conference was also great! We were able to watch it at the church building and at some members homes. It was nice to have that spiritual boost. I think this was one of the most spiritual weeks of my mission. The Lord definitely showed me a lot of my weaknesses, which is awesome because that means he loves me and I'm growing closer to him! But it was refreshing to feel what Christ can do to change us if we are willing. 

We already have a super busy next week planned out so I am excited, this transfer is going to fly by! Anyways I hope everyone is doing well and will reread the conference talks!

Love,

Elder Morgan