6 month mark!

Greetings once again from Chino, CA!  The work continues to go well here and I feel incredibly blessed and humbled to be a missionary for our Savior's church.  What a wonderful opportunity it is to preach the gospel and cry repentance all day long!  What a terrible feeling it is when 95% of people reject you!  But what an even more wonderful feeling it is when you teach the 5% that accept you and share with them the blessings of the restored gospel!  It's a give and take sort of life out here, haha.  We make the best of it though.

This week I officially hit the six month mark on my mission.  Crazy!  I can't believe that I'm already a quarter of the way done!  It's gone by so fast.  I can't vouch and say that this is the best two years of my life quite yet, because I haven't finished the whole two years, but I can without a doubt say that these past six months have been the ABSOLUTE best of my life.  A complete vacation from all worldly cares and a time to serve the Lord with all my might, mind, and strength.  Who could ask for more?

Anyways, since I turned six months it's customary to burn a tie.  So on Valentine's Day Elder Wagstaff and I were getting ready to do that in the evening.  As we were walking to an appointment we found a box that said, "Free Stuff" on the corner of a street.  We were intrigued so we looked through it and found a whole treasure trove of useless junk, but among it was a Twilight book.  Elder Wagstaff remarked, "Good kindling for your tie."  It was at that moment that I realized I had never lit a book on fire before.  Why not try it now?  So we took the book, doused it in rubbing alcohol when we got home, through it in a wheelbarrow to keep the fire from spreading, and lit it on fire.  It was awesome.  It did indeed make good kindling for my tie.

Elder Wagstaff and I have continued our walking efforts.  We've ditched the bikes and are on foot from now on. #bikestrike2014 We're calling it "Walkupy Chino."  Get it?  Like, Occupy Wall Street?  I thought it was pretty clever.  The other bike area in the zone has also joined the bike strike!  Soon we'll have the whole mission on foot!  It'll be great.

Speaking of the zone, I love my zone.  The elders and sisters I've met here have become some of my best friends that I've ever had.  It'll be sad to see some of us transferred away but I enjoy the moments we have together right now.  I think that's been one of the greatest parts of my mission, the friendships I've made.  Whether they be with members, missionaries, or non-members, I've made some great friends out here, people who I'll remember for the rest of my life.

We're emailing on Tuesday today because the library was closed so we just got out of district meeting.  I love district meeting.  It's a great time to be strengthened and uplifted by all the other missionaries in the district.  Today we had a great training from one of the Sister Trainer Leaders on extending commitments and how Captain Moroni did the same when he raised the Title of Liberty in the Book of Mormon.  It was great and I took a lot away from it, but what I took away the most is that if I want people to keep commitments I should tear my clothes off and write things on them, like Captain Moroni.  I'm not sure if that was her point, but I'm going with it.

One of the new investigators we found this week is the daughter of a less-active member of the ward.  We had a great lesson with her Sunday evening and she asked lots of great questions.  We're really excited about being able to work with her more.

I went on exchanges with my district leader this week into his area, which was awesome.  I learned a lot and had a great day.  One thing we were working on was talking with everyone we saw.  As missionaries we're constantly told that we absolutely HAVE to talk with EVERYONE that we see.  This is within reason, of course.  I'm not jumping in front of cars because I saw someone on the passenger side, haha.  Well, on exchanges we saw a man and his wife and his two girls.  We went up and just asked a casual question to get the conversation started but it kinda fizzled out and didn't go anywhere.   We started walking away and I thought, "Y'know, that man could be sealed with his wife and kids forever in the Celestial Kingdom of God if I would just go and talk to him."  So I turned around and began to bear my testimony of eternal families to him.  Nothing came out of it, we gave him a card and left, but I'll be darned if I'm going to let his salvation be jeopardized because of my unwillingness to act.

That's about all I can think of for now.  Thanks for all the support from back home!  I love receiving all of your letters and I'm sorry that I don't have time to respond to every single one of them.  Just know that I do appreciate them and love the support!

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

Hoofing it--remember, Carter is sarcastic….

Greetings from Chino, CA!  I hear that Vancouver is all snowed in.  Crazy!  Stinks for you guys because it's 70 degrees down here!  Man, I love California.

This week has been pretty dang good.  We've been working hard and have seen a lot of success this week.  The Walnut Park area continues to lead our zone in numbers and we feel incredibly blessed for it.

This week I finally got fed up with my bike.  For some reason I've just been dreading getting on that thing and going out and working.  So I finally told Elder Wagstaff, "Screw it, we're walking from now on."  I figure if all the missionaries in Brazil can do it then why can't we?  So we've been on foot for the past couple of days.  It's nice, our area's one of the smallest in the mission.  Walking is a lot more relaxing and Elder Wagstaff and I have some good conversations while we're out and about.  As dumb as this might sound, there's something empowering about walking.  I feel like the first missionaries of the church, boldly setting out on foot to invite all to learn of the Restoration of Christ's church.  Nothing can stop me now!

I have fantastic news!  My first ever investigator and the woman who I taught my first ever lesson to, S. of Apple Valley, is getting baptized!  She had been investigating for a little over a year and she finally committed to a baptismal date of March 1st.  I'm so excited!  That also means that I will get to go to her baptism!  I will make my triumphant return to the land of my metaphorical birth, the desert paradise of Apple Valley.  "And we hear the desert singing, Elder Morgan, Elder Morgan, Elder Morgan!  Hills and vales and mountains ringing, Elder Morgan, Elder Morgan, Elder Morgan!"  I think I'll enter the baptism whilst being carried on a throne with "Prince Ali" from Aladdin playing in the background.  It'll be fantastic.

We found out that one of the investigators we've been working really hard with, C, may be moving to Los Angeles with her mom.  It's bittersweet because we know that things will be better for her there but it'll be the end of our teaching her.  She's still not certain but it's a possibility.  She still wants to meet with missionaries though so we'll be getting her new address and sending her information out to whoever covers her new area.  The silver lining is that we are now teaching her boyfriend, Francisco, and he seems to be taking well to our message.  It's awesome.

We had dinner with one of the less-active, part-member families of the ward again, the M's.  Bro. M is the only member of the family and we had a great conversation with them about the church.  We're now teaching his Catholic wife and his children and it's been going really well.  We had a lesson late Sunday evening and they asked really good questions and seem eager to learn.  I'm optimistic about their case.

The work continues to go well.  I continue to teach and testify, promise and prophesy, and do other such things that the Lord's anointed should be doing.  Thank you for all of your support and prayers.

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

"The White Night Knocker"

Greetings from Chino, CA!  Y'know, when I thought about California winter and fall I thought it would look kind of like our seasons back home, just a lot warmer.  I was wrong.  In fact, I don't think fall even happened down here and I'll be darned if you can call this winter.  The leaves are still all on the trees and it's about eighty degrees.  I'm not complaining though, haha.  It certainly makes biking a lot easier.  Also, since I was initially called to Brazil I pretty much only have ten white short sleeve shirts.  I certainly appreciate this California weather.

We continue to make good progress with the investigators that we have.  We've been teaching a lot and are looking at some baptisms during this transfer!  We're really excited!

Our ward had a dinner auction the other night to raise money for the youth and their camps.  We were invited to go but the entry price was $5.  As missionaries we really don't have that much money and so we were a little wary to spend $5 on a taco salad dinner.  When we walked up to the pulpit where they were collecting money I pulled off my name tag and placed it on the pulpit and said, "Put it on the card."  I then also told them that charging us entry would guarantee them an automatic place in the terrestial kingdom.  They didn't have a problem letting us through, haha.

So, this story happened a while ago but I haven't had time to tell it until now.  I think it must've been three weeks ago or so.  It was about 10:00 PM so Elder Wagstaff and I had finished the work for the day.  We were sitting in Bert's living room watching some church movies on his TV.  While we were watching I heard someone knock on our window three times.  I turned to look over and I SWEAR that I saw someone in a white shirt walking away.  Well, understandably this freaks us out.  Not knowing what to do we drew upon the vast knowledge of self defense that lies in our young Mormon brains and thought, "Hey!  Remember Tangled?  That frying pan they used seem to make a pretty good weapon."  So we went to the cupboards and grabbed two frying pans and patrolled the house looking for the mysterious assailant.  Bert got up and helped us but none of us were able to find him.  So Elder Wagstaff and I retired to our beds, laid the frying pans on the night tables besides us, and practiced some quick drills of waking up, getting out of bed, grabbing our flashlights and frying pans, and smacking someone over the head.  As we went to go to sleep I could have sworn that we heard someone walking around the outside of our house.  Freaked out, Elder Wagstaff suggests we call the police, if anything just so they can check it out and we can get some decent sleep.  So we did and they came.  They didn't find anything, but I'm convinced that the murderer was just REALLY good at hiding.  We went to sleep that night but ever since then we've been on high alert.  We call him the "White Night Knocker" and carefully watch for him.  It's now not an unusual occurrence for there to be a strange noise in the house and for Elder Wagstaff and I to come running into the kitchen with frying pans shouting, "Where's the White Night Knocker?"  For those of you that are thinking the shouting's excessive, don't worry.  We only shout cause Bert has, like, 10% hearing so we have to shout everything at him.

That's about it for this week.  We continue to move forward in the work.  It's good stuff out here and I'm glad I made the decision to serve a mission.

Your friend,
Elder Carter David Morgan

Just to make sure--you all get Carter's being sarcastic right?

Hello again from Chino, CA!  The mission continues to be great and I continue to be the most handsome, successful, talented, and humble missionary in the mission field.  Some days it's a burden to be this good but I bear it with ease.

This week was another good week.  We received a referral from the Armenian elders (Apparently we have missionaries that speak Armenian.  Who knew?) in the mission next door for a new investigator.  His name is A and he's awesome.  He understands English really well but he has a limited vocabulary, especially when it comes to Gospel terms.  So we're now tag team teaching him with the Armenian elders since he lives in our boundaries and there's no Armenian ward nearby.  We teach him the missionary lessons and the Armenian elders read the Book of Mormon with him.  Apparently he reads it in Turkish, they read it in Armenian, and then they discuss it in English.  It's quite the process, haha.  It was hard to explain that in ward council.

Transfer doctrine came this Saturday.  Elder Wagstaff and I will be staying in Walnut Park for another transfer.  I'm excited about that.  There's nine companionships in the zone and we were one of the three that didn't get touched by transfers this time around.  There were a lot of change ups in the zone and mission this transfer so everyone was kind of freaking out, haha.  A lot of people down here in Chino were going up to the desert for the first time and were really worried about it.  I talked to a lot of them about the desert and what it was like and told them that they'd love it.  Seriously, the desert's awesome.

I had Chick-Fil-A for the first time this week!  It was delicious!  I mean, seriously, why is this not in Washington?  And the service was so fast!  I was thoroughly impressed.  In fact, just typing it makes me want it again.  Maybe I'll hit it up after lunch...

I had an interesting opportunity this week.  There's a large Christian church next to our ward building that a lot of people go to.  Apparently there's a bit of anti-Mormon tendencies there so the relationship between their members and ours is a little sour.  Anyways, I've always been interested in what they preach because it's such a fixture in our area.  Well, this week we actually met a guy who's a member of Calvary Chapel and we made a deal with him that we'd go to his church if he went to ours.  So this past Wednesday we found ourselves at the evening service of Calvary Chapel.  It was quite the experience.  Allow me to explain.

First off, I have never been to another church service besides my own.  I have nothing against it, it's just that typically the local times of services in Vancouver conflicted with my regular Sunday meetings and I would've rather attended my own church.  So all I've ever really known is an LDS church service.  So a different church was quite the experience.  For starters, the grounds of Calvary Chapel are HUGE.  I felt more like I was at a school then a church.  Their chapels are more like auditoriums and they had a gift shop and a coffee shop next to them.  I'm not judging, to each their own, it was just different for this poor little Mormon boy, haha.  The members of the church were very nice to us as we entered.  We were greeted, they shook our hands, smiled, and pointed us to an open seat.  We felt very welcome.  The only thing was that we stuck out like sore thumbs in the service as the only people in white shirts and ties, haha.  The rest were dressed in casual street clothes.  The service began with some Christian rock which was tasteful but a little different from the organ music and hymns that I'm used to.  After the music there were some casual prayers, we greeted those on our left and right, and we heard the sermon from the minister.  He gave a good sermon with only one anti-Mormon comment.  I was impressed.  I swear he looked right at me as he said it though, haha.  The sermon was on keeping a perspective on God amidst the travails of daily life.  He knew his bible very well and I definitely learned from him.

Here was the strange thing, though.  As I sat and listened to the minister preach for an hour, the Spirit bore witness of his message.  Mormon's don't have a monopoly on the Spirit.  The Spirit's job is to testify of truth no matter what source it comes from.  But as he spoke it was the opposite of listening to a missionary or a bishop speak.  His words didn't have any authority.  I was reminded of the fifth Article of Faith (bear with me, I'm quoting from Primary memory) which states, "We believe that a man must be called of God and set apart by the laying on of hands to preach the gospel and administer the ordinances thereof."  Even though this man was very smart and educated, it was apparent to me that he had not been called of God or set apart to preach the gospel.  Us as missionaries have.  We have the authority to preach because a prophet of God has called us to.  It's the reason that the church's missionary effort is so successful.  Not because we're super persuasive, that minister was much more persuasive than I, but because the Spirit gives authority to our words and people recognize that we are ministers of our Heavenly Father.  Going to another church made me appreciate the blessing of having our Savior's true church on the earth where we can be taught by those called of God and feel His spirit in His house.  What a blessing it is to know this truth!

I'm excited for the upcoming transfer.  What exciting adventures await me in these next six weeks?  Who knows?  Only time will tell!

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

"Who Doesn't Like a Story Where a Missionary Chops a Bunch of Arms Off?"

Greetings once again from Chino, CA!  This is a note to all other missionaries in the world: I'm sorry.  I'm truly sorry for you.  In fact, I feel bad for you.  Why do I feel bad for you?  Because you don't get to serve in Chino.  And moreover, you don't get to serve in the Walnut Park area.  That privilege is reserved to only a special few missionaries and I'm lucky enough to be one of them.  My working theory for why I've been given this privilege is that I'm exceedingly righteous.  And I'm humble too.  I'm the most humble guy I know.  Just ask me about how humble I am.

This week has been great!  Elder Wagstaff and I continue to step up the finding effort and it's been paying off.  We started off this transfer with one investigator and we just found out that now we have more investigators than the rest of the Chino stake COMBINED.  That's crazy!  The Lord has truly been blessing us in our finding efforts.

We've been having a lot of luck with the part-member families in the ward.  A lot of the non-members in the family are interested in learning more about what the Mormon church is all about.  It was funny, this week we had a dinner with a part-member family.  I swear this family came straight from out of a sitcom.  The ten year-old girl talks like she's sixteen, the six year-old girl talks like she's ten.  It's hilarious.  When we went to dinner we wanted to see if they were interested in learning more about the church but right as we sat down to eat the ten year-old, K, looked me straight in the eye and said, "I'm interested in being baptized into the Mormon church."  I was a little dumbfounded, haha.  "Um, yeah.  We can help you with that!"

One of the other new investigators we found this week is T.  He was a referral from a member who lives in Irvine.  Tony is a sixty year-old Chinese man from Taiwan who grew up Buddhist his whole life.  He really respects the member friend who referred us and he also really respects the church.  He wants to learn more about it.  The things is, having grown up Buddhist his whole life, he knows next to nothing about Christianity.  In his words, "I don't know who Jesus Christ is.  I don't know what makes him so great.  I don't know why people worship him."  It's crazy meeting and teaching a man who has absolutely no idea who Jesus Christ is.  But T's awesome.  He's super solid and trustworthy and he's a great student.  He said the prayer at the end of our first lesson and it was a fantastic prayer.  There weren't any of the typical LDS cultural formalities that usually sneak into prayers.  When he prayed there was no question that he was talking directly to God.  If I didn't know any better I would've assumed that Heavenly Father was sitting right in front of him, listening to his prayer.  It was amazing.  I hope to one day pray as well as T.  He also came to church this Sunday, which was exciting!  It's always a great feeling when an investigator comes to church.

This week we also taught some middle school kids about the Book of Mormon.  We met them outside a Stater Bros. and asked them if they had ever heard of the Book of Mormon.  When they said they hadn't Elder Wagstaff and I acted like we couldn't believe they had never heard it and offered to sit down with them and read a chapter.  They accepted and we shared the story of Ammon with them, because who doesn't like a story where a missionary chops off a bunch of arms?

The member we live with, B, is serving a mission for the family history department of the church.  He has to use Skype a lot for it.  The problem is that he's so old we're pretty sure that he had his midlife crisis during the Renaissance.  So when he accidentally logged out of Skype and didn't remember his password, email, or username the house kinda went into chaos.  For about a week we were playing constant tech support trying to figure out some way to get him back into Skype.  Well this week, after strenuous study and skillful tactics, I managed to get him back into Skype!  I am the hero of the house!  I then typed up instructions on how to get back into Skype if he ever logs himself out and hung them up on his wall.  I've also been trying to convince him to buy me an iPhone so the final step of the instructions is, "Remember how much you love Elder Morgan and start saving up for his iPhone."  I've finally got him to agree that he'll buy me an iPhone after my mission if I personally come down to Chino to get it.  Uh, Chino's about twenty minutes from Disneyland, B.  I'm sure I'll be down here again soon.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.  The work is true and it's going great.  We continue to press forward and do our best to serve the Lord.  I hope all is going well for you back home, because it's certainly going well for me.

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

Better late than never...

Greetings and happy holidays from Chino, CA!  My week's been thrown off because our P-Day was moved to Friday so I wasn't able to email this past Monday.  Rest-assured I am doing great and am loving it out here!  The holidays were absolutely fantastic!  It was great to be able to talk with my family over Skype and to spend the day remembering our savior, Jesus Christ.  What a great way to celebrate His birth!

Our P-Day was moved because today we had the opportunity to go to the temple.  What a wonderful blessing it is to worship our God in His holy house.  The Spirit that can be felt in the temple can't be felt anywhere else and it was great to commune with our Heavenly Father in such a sacred setting.  It was amazing to be able to receive some personal revelation on how the Work is to be conducted in this area of His vineyard.

Speaking of the work, it's going great!  It's been an interesting experience settling into a new area without any knowledge of what's been happening but I've finally settled into the swing of things.  The Lord has truly blessed us as we've worked this week.  I'll be honest, there were days when I didn't want to go out and proselyte but we pushed past it and the Lord has rewarded us handsomely for our determination.

We had set a goal for a certain amount of new investigators at the beginning of this week and I felt confident that we could achieve it.  I had felt the Spirit confirm to me that if we worked hard the Lord would lead us to the amount of investigators we had set a goal for.  At district meeting we were discussing with the other missionaries in my district what our district new investigator goal for the week should be.  While discussing I put forward that Elder Wagstaff and I would have X investigators by the end of the week.  The district felt it was a little ambitious and asked us if we were sure and tried to persuade us to drop it a little bit.  I felt confident that the goal was right and that Heavenly Father would help us meet it.  I am pleased to amount that after a full week of hard work we have found, through the Lord's blessing and guidance, DOUBLE the amount of new investigators then we had planned to.  How great is our God that he would answer our prayers!

This week has been a week of miracles.  We have seen the Lord's hand in this work in a very real way.   Our teaching pool has increased dramatically and we're finding ourselves busier than ever!  I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve here in Chino, CA.  

I wish I could write more and tell about some of the stories with these new investigators, but I can't at the moment.  Due to our temple trip I have limited time to email.  I'm so grateful to be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I know this is God's work and I feel incredibly blessed that he has allowed me to be a part of it.

Your friend,
Elder Carter David Morgan

"I finally have pets!"

Greetings from Chino, CA!  It's a balmy 65 degrees here and I am loving it!  It's funny, back home I almost never wore short sleeved white shirts but now it's all I wear!  I swore that I'd never be the kind of guy that wears something in his front shirt pocket but I guess times change.  Now I've got a planner, mechanical pencil, white handbook of missionary rules, and pass-along cards all stuffed in there with a name tag on front.  Aren't I cool?

This week has been a little hectic with the transfer that just happened.  Chino is a LOT different from Apple Valley.  The population is a lot more dense so as a result I'm serving in one of the smallest areas in the mission.  Also, the best part about my new area?  It's all SLIGHTLY downhill.  Just slightly enough so that you don't notice it going up, but slightly enough so you don't have to pedal going down.  It feels like I'm on a Disneyland ride!  It's fitting, because apparently Disneyland is only about twenty minutes away from here.  I keep trying to convince the member we live with to take us, but he won't have it.

That actually brings me to my next point.  It's quite the difference going from living in the world's smallest apartment to living with a member.  His name is Bert, or as he's affectionately called around here, "The Crazy Old Man."  And it's true.  He's a crazy old man.  He's awesome, though.  I think he's my new best friend.  I also live with four pets!  And if you didn't know any better you'd think that they own the house.  There's two chihuahuas, Leo and Pixie, and then two parrots, Fred and Niki.  I hate Fred.  Every morning right before I wake up he screeches his head off.  The rest of the pets and I have a pretty good relationship, but Fred and I are working out our differences.

This week has been a lot of getting acquainted with the ward and with the area.  Lots of visits, lots of biking, lots of exploring, things of that nature.  I've met a lot of good people and will report on them later when I get to know them better.  For right now it's kind of a hectic day and my brain is too scattered to think of anything else to write.  I hope you all have a good week and enjoy Christmas!  What a wonderful time to reflect on the Savior's birth and His impact in our life.  I was telling my last companion in my last area once about my feelings for the Savior.  I said, "Now, this is probably really obvious but I sincerely mean it.  I feel bad for people who don't know about Jesus Christ or don't understand their relationship with him."  And of course that's really obvious, but it's true.  If only more people understood what the Savior did for them, His love for them, and how He can help them.  While I don't understand it fully, I do understand a little better than others in the world.  That's one of the reasons why I'm out here serving a mission, to help others understand that even in their darkest moments they'll always have a friend.  I know that's true and one day the whole world will know it as well.

Merry Christmas!
Elder Carter David Morgan