"I get to be a superhero!"

Greetings from the lovely paradise of Apple Valley, CA!  We had a week of adventure and intrigue!  Not really, although that is how I described it in Ward Missionary Correlation.  In all seriousness though, things have been really good this week!  We had a lot of great opportunities and our work continues to accelerate.

This week I hit my three month mark!  It seems so strange that I've already been out working and serving the Lord for three straight months.  It's been the most rewarding time of my life and while it has been difficult at times I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

We had a great lesson with one of our investigators this week.  She's working on gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon and in the past we would read it with her and review the reading she did in her spare time, starting from the 1st chapter of 1st Nephi and just going from chapter to chapter.  We came to the conclusion that in order for her to gain a testimony she needed to read the more spiritual chapters of the Book of Mormon and gain a testimony of what it teaches, rather than the historical events of the Book of Mormon.  We left 2nd Nephi 31, where Nephi plainly sets forth the Doctrine of Christ, with her and planned on reading 3rd Nephi 11, where the resurrected Savior appears to the Nephites in America, when we returned.  She LOVED 2nd Nephi 31 and ended up marking a ton of the chapter.  We read 3rd Nephi 11 with her and she really enjoyed it.  After we had read it she confided in us that she had already read the chapter the previous week!  That was a big step for her because before she's been troubled with reading the Book of Mormon.  As she put it, "I'm starting to gain a relationship with my Book of Mormon."  We are very pleased with the progression she's making.  After the reading we had an impromptu testimony meeting about the trials in our life and how they've strengthened us.  The Spirit was very strong throughout the whole lesson.

Speaking of the Spirit, this week we had a very interesting encounter with some new investigators.  They were interested in learning some more and warned us that they really liked to argue.  We told them that we weren't there to argue but to teach and they agreed to let us come back in a few days.  When we got there we started to teach and they were very argumentative throughout the whole time.  We finally got to the introduction of the Book of Mormon and we offered it to one of them, Jay, and he refused to even touch it.  We kept telling them that they would have to read it and pray in order to find out if our message was true but he wouldn't have it.  It came to the point where I was so fed up with them that I just started bearing straight testimony to them about the truth of the Book of Mormon.  I don't think what I said was particularly profound, but the Spirit was there and backed up and bore testimony of what I spoke.  After the lesson my companion told me it was the most powerful testimony he had ever heard.  When I finished speaking, these three incredibly argumentative men sat in stunned silence, just looking at us.  We said a closing prayer and left off on good terms with them.  In fact, they offered their protective services to us and said to give us a call if we ever get into trouble.  As we left, Jay, who before would not even TOUCH the Book of Mormon, ran after us before we could leave.  He walked up to us and in a hushed voice he said, "I just have one more question.  Do I have to believe in the Book of Mormon to go to heaven?"  This man, who before wouldn't even give the Book of Mormon any consideration, was now concerned how this book related to his eternal salvation.  In that moment the Spirit had testified with absolute certainty to his soul that the Book of Mormon was true and now he wanted to know if he had to act on it to be saved.  We told him that it wasn't about the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith or anything like that, it was about Jesus Christ.  The way to obtain the highest degree of glory in heaven is to be baptized by someone who holds Jesus Christ's authority and the Book of Mormon is how we can know if that authority resides in this church.  He thanked us for our time and we left on our way.  It was an experience I don't think I'll ever forget.

We had the opportunity to visit a less-active member of the ward in the hospital this week.  She struggles with respiratory issues and was very glad to see us.  She kept telling us that she wasn't ready to die.  She asked me to give her a blessing and the Spirit was very strong throughout.  It was a very humbling experience.  

When confronted with this woman who was worried about dying, it made me think how interesting the mission is.  I feel like I'm more acquainted with the world than a lot of people that I know but I'm also completely protected from it.  I've seen people in crippling poverty, I've seen those still clinging onto life and not ready to die, I've sat down and talked to those struggling with addictions to highly illegal drugs, I've met a man who  changed his entire life because of a heart attack and one scripture verse, I've become friends with one of the most wonderful men in the world who converted to the Gospel when he found an LDS quad in his jail cell and read the whole thing, I've met self-made millionaires, and I've met much more people than I could ever describe in a single email.  What a wonderful opportunity to associate with all kinds of people in the world but to not have to worry about becoming worldly.  It really gives you an insight to how Christ must have felt when ministering to the people of Jerusalem.   

We taught a lesson to one of our newish investigators who already has a baptismal date the other day.  She just told us over and over again that she gets such a good feeling when we go into her house.  She called us her sons and was so grateful for us teaching her.  We're really excited for her baptism and so is she.

In other non-work related notes, this week we've come into the possession of a deep fryer for our apartment.  We've already made fried chicken, french fries, and our own potato chips.  Up next?  Deep fried Oreos tonight.  Oh yeah.  I guess that's what you get when you serve in the States, haha.

Well, that's about it for this week.  I'm excited for the upcoming week.  It's always a great feeling when you have a fresh week lying in front of you, full of potential and opportunities.  I was thinking this week that for two years my job is to LITERALLY save the world.  How cool is that?  Why would I ever want to trade this for anything else?  Not everyone gets the chance to be a superhero, but fortunately I've been blessed with that opportunity.  However, my costume isn't as cool as other superheroes, it's pretty much just a white shirt, tie, and a spiffy name tag.  That won't stop me, however!  It reminds me of the lyrics to a song from a popular music group among the missionaries out here:

"So here I go,

To save the world,

I'll be so strong,

Yet still miss girls."

Ate logo,

Elder Carter David Morgan

"And the little children shall lead them..."

It's me again, emailing from the... interestingly landscaped Apple Valley, CA!  It's been quite a week and the missionary adventures continue to roll forward.  This week we had the opportunity to hear from Elder Lynn G. Robins, a member of the first Quorum of the 70.  He was a fantastic speaker and he gave the missionaries tons of advice.  He spoke once at a zone conference for all the missionaries in Apple Valley and Victorville and then he did a special fireside that was only for missionaries, recent converts, and investigators.  It was a fantastic fireside.  One of my favorite quotes from his talk was "You don't have to eat the whole pizza to know it tastes good."  He was talking about the Book of Mormon and how sometimes there's a prevailing attitude of "I like the Book of Mormon, I believe it's true, and I feel the spirit when I read it, but I want to read the whole thing two or three times before I'm baptized."  We read in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament to "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.  Ye shall know them by their fruits."  The message of the Restoration of the Gospel, the truth that God has once again called a prophet and still speaks to his children, can be difficult to believe, especially if the concept is of a foreign nature.  That's why in these Latter-Days the Lord has brought forth the Book of Mormon to prove that  "God does ^binspire men and call them to his ^choly work in thisage and generation, as well as in generations of old;"
What a wonderful fruit the Lord has given us to bring us to a knowledge of the truth.  I know the power of the Book of Mormon and the essential role it plays in conversion.

 

Speaking again of Elder Robins, he told us missionaries some fun facts that he learned from President Packer.  When the Quorum of the 12 Apostles and the First Presidency make a decisions, they all study it out together and then vote.  If the decision is not unanimous, they then study it some more until they can come to a unanimous vote.  President Packer said in his 40 years as an apostle there have only been two decisions that were immediately unanimous and did not require any discussion.  The first was the decision to change the name of "Genealogy" to "Family History."  The second was the decision to add the subtitle to the Book of Mormon "Another Testament of Jesus Christ."  I thought those were pretty interesting.

 

So, before I relate what else has happened, I thought it would be relevant to include a special promise that was given to me in my setting apart as a missionary.  When the Stake President, President Nashiff, laid his hands on my head and gave me a blessing, he gave me a specific promise that I "would teach children first and their parents would come to a knowledge of the truth through them."  Even though I've only been out in the field for about a month, I'm already starting to see the fulfillment of this prophecy.  Here's how it happened:

One day while biking to a teaching appointment about two weeks ago we ran into a group of about 9 middle schoolers.  We talked to them for a bit and they responded about as naturally as any 14 year-old would when approached by two white guys in suits.  They were not very receptive.  We gave them all Mormon.org cards and asked them if they knew anyone else that would be interested in our message.  One of the boys gave us the name of a 17 year-old girl and her family that live across the street as a joke, because he has a crush on her.  Well, the joke was on him because as missionaries we don't care how, who, or why we get a referral, we will contact that person.

 

Fast forward to this past Thursday.  We finally had time to go contact this referral that lived at a little block of apartments.  We ride up to the entrance and lo and behold, eight children between the ages of 6 and 12 come running up to us and asking us questions.  They asked about our bikes, who we were, why we're here, why we both have the same first name (Elder), if we were brothers, and what do we do.  Now, I remembered the words of my blessing and recognized this as a great opportunity to share the gospel.  We showed them some of the pass along cards we have with pictures of Christ on them and they went nuts.  They wanted all the free stuff they could get, haha.  They started jumping up and down and practically were begging us to teach them "church lessons."  So we set up a return appointment the next day to teach them outside their apartments in their little dirt yard.  That's when we began to prepare to teach the "Sermon in the Dirt."

 

We came back the next day and found all the children eagerly waiting outside to hear from the missionaries.  We gathered them around in a circle and taught them the about the Restoration.  One of the kid's older sister, Nicole, a 17 year-old, wanted to hear the lesson as well.  They were initially talkative and jabbery while we were teaching until we related to them the story of the First Vision and the Book of Mormon.  They were amazed by this story and so was Nicole.  She was craning her neck to look at the picture of the First Vision and she was listening intently.  We pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon and they all asked if they could borrow it.  I said, "I'll do you one better.  You can KEEP this book.  It's yours forever."  We gave them each a copy of the Book of Mormon and they all promised to read.  They wanted us to come back and teach them the next day!  So we did.

 

After we left, though, we decided that we couldn't keep teaching the kids as just kids.  They need their parents.  They can't act without them at this age.  So we drafted up a letter to give to the parents letting them know that we'd love to keep teaching them but that we need to split up the group and teach them in their families.  The kids were pretty disappointed about that, but we did manage to get a return appointment with Nicole's Family.

 

One of the boys in the group, Johnny, told us when we got back that he had read all the way to 1st Nephi Chapter 7.  We figured he was just trying to impress us and probably hadn't read that far, but then he said that it mentioned Abraham, which is the name of one of his friends, and Isaac, which is the name of his brother.  We were amazed because that's a reference from 1st Nephi 6:4, proving that he actually read all of it.  We were very excited for him.

 

So that was my adventure in teaching the children this week.  But the small children hilarity doesn't end there!  The Ranchos ward had their primary program this week, which is always hilarious.  Our investigator's daughter, Ella, who is four, was very excited to say her part.  She's been practicing her part for weeks.  Her part is: "Heavenly Father wants me to be married in the temple someday.  I want to be with my family forever.  I love my family."  She got up to the microphone and practically screamed into it her part.  She said it perfectly!  "Heavenly Father wants me to be married in the temple someday.  I want to be with my family forever.  I love my family."  ... Then at the end she added, "And I love purple pansies."  The problem was, do to her practically eating the microphone, the impromptu line came across as, "And I love purple PANTIES."  Oh man, the whole ward lost it.  The primary program came to a screeching halt for about two minutes because everyone in the ward was busting up.  It was a truly fantastic moment.

 

I have to sign off for now, but let me just say that the work here is real.  I know the gospel is true, and I too love purple pansies.

 

I will again leave you with a lyric from Sons of Provo.  This song is about a newly engaged couple and their young love:

"You make me feel so handsome

Like a shining dark stallion

I love the way you wear

Your Young Women's Medallion

I love you girl

But I hope you comprehend

This body is a temple

Buy you don't got no recommend."

 

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

First Letter Home!!

Greetings from the MTC!

I'm doing great here!  The Spirit is incredibly strong and everyday I can feel my testimony grow and my relationship with our Heavenly Father and Christ deepen.  It's like living in a temple, except you get to laugh way too loud with your district.  It's such an amazing experience here and I'm so glad that I chose to serve a mission.  While it's been hard (some days harder than others), it's been the most amazing experience of my life and I'm excited to share the Gospel with the people of Brazil and probably Pocatello, Idaho because we're almost certain we won't get our visas in time.

I mentioned my district earlier and let me say that they're fantastic!  My district consists of Elders Steiner, Carter (I know, right?), and Thomas who are all from the South, and myself, Elder Grondel (our district leader), and Elder McCrea, who are all from the Northwest.  Elder Thomas is my companion and he's a big football player from Tennessee.  Needless to say we aren't exactly the same.  He's got a strong testimony though and he's great to plan a lesson with.  Our district also has four sisters!  They're Sisters Culp, Wood, Skidmore, and Araujo.  I've included pictures of them all in this letter.  I'm so glad that more women have decided to serve missions because the sisters in our district are such a blessing and they inspire us to be our best.  Everyone in our district has an incredibly strong testimony and it's an amazing opportunity to help each other strengthen and grow everyday.

We've been learning Portuguese from day 1 and I'm picking it up really quickly.  My district calls me the "all star" and I've been helping the rest of the missionaries learn it.  I'm learning so much quicker than I did Spanish in school.  We've only been learning for six days and we've already taught three 30 minute lessons in ONLY PORTUGUESE to an actor/investigator.  It's been really difficult because my companion still struggles a bit with the language and none of us can understand what the investigator is saying back to us, but we've had a lot of great moments where we've felt the direction of the Spirit.  I can already pray fluently in Portuguese and it's been a real spiritual strengthener to speak to Heavenly Father in the language of my mission.

We went on a walk around the temple grounds the other day and on route there was a protester with a big cross who was shouting about how he was going "to teach us the power of the cross."  It was my first experience with a real Anti-Mormon protester so it was pretty interesting.

We're on some weird old person schedule here at the MTC.  Since my whole branch is full of visa waiters we have to get up at 6:00 AM, eat breakfast at 6:30 AM, eat Lunch at 11:00 AM, and eat dinner at 4:00 PM.  Bedtime is at 10:30 PM.  Needless to say we get pretty hungry by then and our district has taken all the food from departing missionaries that we can get. 

If any of you are wondering, I've gotten "Elder Lautner" way too many times.  Also, everyone here thinks they're the first person to tell me that I look like Taylor Lautner.  Oh well.  I guess there are a lot worse people to look like in life.  Maybe I can convert some people in my mission due to my vague resemblance.

I know it's only my first week here, but I love the MTC and I don't want to be one of those missionaries who always talks about "just getting out into the field."  This is the only time in my whole mission that I have to focus on my training and my training alone.  I'm excited to be a missionary and a personal representative of Jesus Christ and I'm doing all that I can to give these two years to Him.  I have a testimony of this Gospel and I know that I'm doing the right thing.  I miss you all, but I don't miss you enough to want to go home because what I'm doing here is important.  Eu tenho um testemunho de Jesus Cristo e Seu evanglho.  Eu sei que o igreja e verdadeiro.

From,

Elder Carter Morgan

One Week To Go

Today marks one week to go until Carter leaves on his mission to Brazil!  He will be flying out Wednesday, Aug. 14th to the Provo MTC for 9 weeks or until his visa arrives.  For anyone interested, Carter will be speaking in our ward this coming Sunday at 9:00 am at the Hearthwood Building--any and all are welcome.

With the church's encouragement we look forward to sharing Carter's letters, pictures and testimony with all of our friends and family here on his blog.  Exciting times ahead!