Baptisms!

Quick email this week!

Cleria got baptized!  It was awesome!  Tons of people were there!

Ana´s getting baptized this week as well!  It´ll be awesome too!

The work is true!

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

"Out of the mouths of babes..."

Greetings from São Paulo, Brasil!  The work continues to go great here and we´re getting some great stuff done with our current investigators.  Ana continues to progress well and her three year-old son João Carlos is absolutely hilarious and terrible.  He likes to scream stuff in sacrament meeting.  Here´s some of my favorites from this week:

"My cookie is good!  My cookie is good!

"So much darkness, so much animals!"

"I´m Iron Man!  I´m Captain America!  I´m the Hulk!"

He keeps us laughing, haha.

We´re also all set to have a baptism this week, which´ll be awesome.  In the mean time we´re looking for more people to teach, which is always an adventure.

In ward council yesterday our bishop was worried that the ward would wind up buying too much food for the next activity and that it would go to waste.  It was then that our slightly crazy Young Men´s President promised the bishop that if she saw anyone wasting corn or making a mess at the next ward activity that he´d give them a swift kick in the rear.  Ah, ward council.

That´s about it for this week!  Make sure to share the gospel with your friends!  It´ll bless their lives for sure!

Your friend,
Elder Carter David Morgan

Catching up--and winding down!

I've been slacking on posting Carter's letters so here is catch up--with his most recent first:

Apri. 21, 2015

What a great week!  We´re talking baptisms, baby!  Our investigator Adriana was baptized!  It was pretty sick!  We´re working on getting her to the temple soon!

We met a super sick guy yesterday!  He had a ton of respect for us and was confused about why there are so many churches in the world.  We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was so happy because he said it was the first time he´s ever received a gift in the name of God for free.

We went to the Central Park of São Paulo today, which was super fun.  I showing up all these Brazilians with my mad frisbee skills.  They insist it´s a game for dogs, but I also insist that soccer is just the lamer version of foosball.

Running out of time this week!  That´s about it!

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

                                            "Me lamenting missing the premiere of the Avengers 2 this week. :("

"Photo of the baptism with Irmã Antonia, who fellowshipped Adriana, and our ward mission leader, Bruno."

This is truly a photo to be remembered.  Before I left for Brazil the Abitos and I went to Chick-Fil-A and they slipped a packet of Chick-Fil-A sauce in my bag without me knowing.  Fun fact: Chick-Fil-A sauce doesn´t go bad after six months.  Truly delicious.

"I made friends with a street dog while out working.  He followed me for a bit and I let me pet him."

April 13, 2015

Greetings from São Paulo, Brasil!  Exciting news!  Out of the nine missions in São Paulo, our mission, Brasil São Paulo Oeste, was chosen to attend a special meeting with Elder Christofferson at the Brasil MTC!  How crazy is that!  This either means we did something really right or something really wrong!  It´ll happen in May and he´ll be the THIRD apostle that I´ll have met on my mission!  That´s pretty sick!

Our investigator, Adriana, is all set to be baptized this week!  She´s really liking what she´s learning and she´s keeping all her commitments.  Those are the best kinds of investigators, the ones where there´s no hair pulling and begging, they just keep the commitments, haha.  She´s a little nervous, but excited too!

We also found another family this week and they´re super excited to be baptized too.  We asked them at their doorstep if we could share a message with them and they let us in without hesitation.  We talked a bit about faith in Jesus Christ and baptism and the mom accepted the invitation to be baptized immediately.  Her friend, however, responded that she was happy with her Catholic faith and didn´t want to change.  We were about to let it drop there but we felt inspired to ask her if she had been praying a lot lately.  She said she´d been praying more than she ever had in her life.  We asked her if she was asking God for guidance and she said she was.  We told her that God had answered her prayer and that she could know for herself if she acted.  Well, she prayed the next night, accepted a baptismal date, and everyone went to church this Sunday!

We had the opportunity to teach the Primary children about the First Vision this Sunday.  Man, those kids are nuts.  Someone of my favorite moments:

Teacher: "Who knows who Joseph Smith is?"
Kids: "Me! Me! Me! Meeeee!

Teacher: "Just raise your hand, don´t shout 'me!'"

Despite this warning, this happened about eighty more times, haha.

Teacher: "Joseph Smith had a book he read to learn about God..."

Kids: "THE BOOK OF MORMON!  THE BOOK OF MORMON!"

Us: "The Book of Mormon wasn´t translated yet..."

Teacher: "Who knows the scripture James 1:5?"

Half the kids raise their hands, including a three year-old.

Teacher, a little surprised to the three year-old: "Rafael, you know it?"
Rafael: "Know what?"

Teacher: "The scripture."
Rafael: "What scripture?"

Haha, it was pretty hilarious.  I told the teacher afterwards that about twelve years ago I was exactly like those kids in Primary and that now in three months I will have successfully completed a full-time mission.  I told her not to lose hope, haha.

That´s about it for the week!  Thanks for the prayers!

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

-Primary

-Adriana will be baptized

-New family

"Me gesturing to the glory that is Brasil."

"Me, my comp, and Elder Acuna with pizza."

April 6, 2015

Greetings from São Paulo, Brasil!  Things go well in our constant fight to bring light to the people who need it here and we´re seeing some good success!

The family we´ve been teaching for a while continues to make good progress and absolutely love what they´re learning.  I´ve never seen three people so focused on a lesson before.  When we were explaining the Plan of Salvation to them they were so captivated that they all refused to answer the door when someone knocked!  No one wanted to leave the lesson, haha!  They´re ready to be baptized, they´re just working through some relationship issues before they seal the deal and get married, which is a pre-requisite to baptism.

We have another investigator who´s preparing to be baptized as well.  She´s quite timid but enjoys what she´s learning.  We had told her that we´d swing by her house at 12:30 to bring her to General Conference this Sunday. Well, due to some extenuating circumstances, we weren´t able to make it there until 1:00.  I was sure that she would have left at that point, but she was sitting loyaly by the door with her daughter and Book of Mormon in hand.  We´re excited for her!

Wasn´t General Conference awesome?!  I´ve downloaded the talks and I´m excited to hear them in English.  I was able to understand the Portuguese just fine, but it´s great to hear the emotion of the apostles´ voices.

Though there are some today that feel that the prophets and apostles don´t have our best interests at heart, I assure you that they do.  They are guided by God and will not lead us astray.  Indeed, it is not in the program.

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

Mar 30, 2015

Greetings from São Paulo, Brasil!  Things are going well here in the Alvorada ward adn we´re seeing some great stuff get done.

Our ward mission leader introduced us to his friend who had investigated the church a few years ago.  This week he started re-investigating and wants to start working towards getting baptized!  He´s a little worried about some of the commandments, but we had a good lesson with him and he seemed better after that.

We found a woman named Adriana this week by talking to her in her doorway.  She responded really well to the message of the Restoration and accepted a baptismal date!  She said she had always wondered which church she should join and why there were so many but she says that our message answered those questions.

I did an exchange with some other elders in the district and EVERYTHING fell through.  Like, literally everything.  We walked A LOT that day, haha.  I think all in all we ended up sharing a Gospel principle with 89 people that day, which was pretty nuts.  It was good fun, though.

It´s simple, but reading the scriptures daily, praying daily, and going to church every week will prevent about 95% of the problems common to humanity.  I´ve seen testimonies of that DAILY while on my mission.  Make sure to do the small and simple things to stay close to Jesus Christ!

Your friend,
Elder Carter David Morgan

New Area!

Greetings from São Paulo, Brasil!  It was a great week this week getting to know the new area!  It´s a lot different from my old area, but it´s really good!  It´s a lot poorer but the people are really humble and ready to listen?

So, what are two of the best things in a mission?  Going back to an old area to visit, and a baptism.  What´s even better?  Doing both at the same time!  Yesterday I got to go back to Novo Osasco and watch Pedro´s baptism!  Pedro´s such a stud with a super strong testimony.  He gave up a lot to join the church and I´m sure that if the ward takes good care of him that he´ll stay firm in the faith.

We´re teaching a lot of good families here!  The only problem is that that none of them are married legally so we´ve got to get on that.  They all really want to be baptized and are coming to church, they just can´t be baptized until they get married.  Once they get married it´ll be super sick!

We live in a bit of a nicer house here.  It´s not on the fifth floor of an apartment building without an elevator like the last one, so that´s something.  We also don´t live with another companionship so that gives us a little bit of breathing room.

That´s about it for the week!  Things are going good and we´re excited to be working down here!  Wish me and my companion, Elder Chayson, luck!

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

"Lemme Break it Down For Ya"

Greetings from Osasco, SP!  This week has been a week of miracles as Elder Da Silva and I have been doing our best to give our all!  Lemme break it down for ya.

So, last week I talked about our drunk investigator, Pedro, that went to church when he was a little less than sober.  Well, this week we went back to visit him and he was anxiously awaiting us.  He´s really interested in the church and likes what he´s learning.  He even said he´s losing the desire to stop drinking!  The mission´s been focusing a lot on baptizing those who are "self-sufficient" in the sense that the members don´t need to constantly bring them to church.  We talked about this with Pedro and told him that this week he´d have to get to church on his own, even though the church is in downtown Osasco, a couple of miles away.  We also did this to see how committed he was and to know if it was productive to contine teaching him.  He agreed and as we started to teach him we notice that he was super determined to understand and get himself to church, to the point that he started brainstorming which of his neighbors he could ask for a ride.  Seeing his real intent, we told him not to worry and that we´d get him a ride this week.  He stopped for a bit and then told us "No.  I don´t need a ride.  This week I´ll go to church alone to show my faith.  This week I´ll got to church by my faith."  We were pretty shocked at that!  Fast-forward to Sunday and ten minutes after the meeting starts he´s still not there.  Twenty and nothing.  Figuring he must have gotten drunk or something we kinda lost hope.  That´s when I left for the hall one last time just to see if he was, hopefully, there.  Lo and behold, standing in the middle of the hall in a dirty white shirt and plaid dress pants was our good friend Pedro.  He had a great time at church for the second time and when we tried to get a ride for him to get back home he turned it down and said that he had to "get to know the route."  I think he´ll be coming for a long time, haha.  He´s also set to be baptized in a few weeks!

We also found a great family!  This woman told us that even though she´s been attending her church for 11 years, she´s never felt the urge to be baptized.  When we presented the message of the Restoration she agreed to pray and if she receives an answer to be baptized too!  Ah yeah!

That´s about it!  Thanks for everything!

Your friend,
Elder Carter David Morgan

"The bookmark we made--we were unusually proud of it"

"Elder Barton and I ordered "American" pizza.  It came with scrambled eggs on top..."

Short and Sweet This Week

Greetings from Osasco, SP!  Things are going well here as we continue our endeavors to preach the gospel!  I don´t have a ton of time this week, so here are the highlights.

We started teaching this awesome part-member family!  The wife goes to church pretty actively but the husband´s not baptized.  We´re going to do a family home evening with them tonight!

Our super solid investigator, Erik, was called by God to gather Israel.  Okay, not really, but he did tell us that he received revelation from God to unite our church, the Catholic Church, and the Congregação Cristão do Brasil into one big church.  I´m sad that we can´t help him into this worthy task.

Things are going well with the new comp.  Elder Da Silva rules!

Thanks for all the prayers!

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

Unusual Happenings at EHS

Greetings from Osasco, SP!  Transfers are upon us and Elder Guamangallo will be leaving the area for bigger adventures and greener pastures.  I, however, will stay here with our appropriately sized adventures and nice-shade-of-green-not-too-green pastures.  My new companion will be Elder Da Silva, a Brazilian, so I´m pretty psyched about that.

We had an AWESOME contact this week!  We were walking down the street and we saw a woman walking briskly in our direction.  Sometimes if people are walking too fast I don´t like to stop them because they might be in a big rush or going for a run, and since I used to run a bit back home I know it´s annoying to be stopped.  But we decided to stop her anyway and we met a great woman!  In our little conversation that we had on the street she told us that the moment she saw us she thought, "If those two young men stop me then it´ll be a sign from God."  She was so receptive to our message that she agreed to be baptized right in the middle of the contact!  We´re going to work with her a lot this week and hope things pan out, seeing as she has a smoking and drinking problem.

A member brought a new family to church this week!  Luckily they live in our area so we´ll start teaching them soon.  They´re a young couple with a young child and they´ve been thinking about getting baptized in a church.  We´re hoping to make some good progress with them too!

We teach a recent convert here in the ward named Luzia.  She´s older and was born blind.  She is also the nicest woman on the planet.  She´s so sincere and since she can´t do much for us she tries to do little things to show her appreciation.  For example, we mentioned our birthdays once to her three months ago and she memorized them and remembers them to this day.  She told us that she´ll never forget them.  The pure love of Christ just radiates from her.

The youth of the church here in Brazil are downright punks!  Not really, but I´ve struck up some pretty good friendships with most of them so we like to joke around.  I sat down in Priesthood this Sunday and one of them tapped me on the shoulder and said that I was in the wrong class and that the young women were meeting down the hall.  Downright punks, I say!  In return, I usually just tell them that I´m superior because I come from the best country on Earth.  I also refer to one of them, Junior, as my "irmão preto," which just means "black brother."  In return, I am his "irmão branco" or "white brother."

As I´ve heard of some unusual happenings at my old school, Evergreen High School, let´s all remember to follow the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and show mercy for those in unfortunate circumstances and not judge them in an unrighteous way.  At the same time, let´s remember that we can NEVER condone sin and must support the just punishments for certain actions.  While it´s difficult to seperate the sin from the sinner, I believe that this ability is one of the highest marks of a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan