"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

Elder Morgan--the Magical Elf

Greetings from Chino, CA!  "What?"  Says the confused reader, "I thought he was in Apple Valley, CA?  How can this be?  Is my whole life a lie?"  Well, confused yet dear reader, you can be reassured that your whole life is definitely NOT a lie!  Well, maybe some of it.  You could've been adopted and your parents never told you.  But luckily all your dealings with me are the whole truth!  I've been transferred!  I've left the Ranchos ward in the Apple Valley Stake and I've gone to the Walnut Park ward in the Chino stake.  This is my first day in the area and I haven't had too much time to get myself acquainted with everything, but I'm looking forward to this incredible opportunity. 

 

The Rancho Cucamonga mission is divided into two geographical areas:  The valley and the desert.  The valley looks like everything you think Southern California would look like.  Palm trees, grass, houses that are all some various shade of burgundy or brown, you name it.  The desert looks like everything you associate with the word "desert."  Dirt yards, cacti, tumbleweeds, things of that nature.  I've made it out of the desert and I'm now serving in the Valley.  It's funny, I went from one corner of the mission to the other corner.  It's a lot warmer down here.  I think it was 50 degrees in Apple Valley and its 75 degrees here.  I'm in paradise!

 

In all seriousness though, it was really hard to leave the Ranchos ward.  I love the good people of that ward.  Great things are happening there and they will continue to happen.  It was funny, saying goodbye to the Ranchos ward was almost as hard as saying goodbye to Vancouver!  It's amazing how attached you can get to a people when you serve them with all your heart, might, mind, and strength.

 

The last thing I got to do with the Ranchos ward was attend their ward Christmas party.  I wore an elf hat with elf ears, served food, and helped hand out Santa's goodie bags while kids were sitting on his lap.  It was a good way to end my stay in Ranchos.  I'll always remember that ward and all that they did for me.

 

I'd love to write more but I really don't have much to say.  I'm a little overwhelmed at the huge change that has taken place in my life!  I'm excited for this new opportunity.  It's a completely different world in the valley.  I have no idea what these next six weeks hold for me but I know that if I work hard and follow the Spirit that we'll have great success in this area.  I can already feel myself getting consumed in the work!  It'll be a great experience here, I know it.

 

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan

"Like kissing a cactus"

Seasons greetings from Apple Valley, CA!  The Thanksgiving week was fun and we were able to have a great dinner with some members in our ward and some other missionaries.  I'm grateful for how kind and caring the members of the Ranchos ward are.  They make sure that we're well taken care of as missionaries.

This week I had my first baptism!  While that sounds exciting, it's actually kind of cheating, haha.  There was a boy whose dad, who's a member, wanted him to hear all the discussions before baptism.  Well, they put the baptism off for a while so by the time we finished teaching him he had turned nine, making him a convert baptism and our responsibility, haha.  It was fun, though.  He had little to no knowledge about the gospel before we began teaching him.  By the end he had a good knowledge and understanding of a lot of gospel principles.  However, because he was technically a convert baptism he had to be interviewed by our zone leader, Elder M.  Now, the convert interview isn't designed for 9 year-old children.  Apparently, here are some highlights from his interview, according to Elder M:

Right at the beginning of the interview- 

Nick: "So, Minecraft."  He then talked about Minecraft for about twenty minutes.

Concerning the Spirit-

M: "So, when we talk about church how do you feel?"
Nate: "I feel weird."

M: "... Good weird?"
Nate: "No.  Like, weird weird.  Like kissing a cactus."

Concerning the Law of Chastity

Nick: "I don't think I'll ever get married.  Or if I do it'll be in about 400 or 1000 years.  But by then I'd be like 100 years old!"

That's one for the history books right there.  His baptism was Saturday which was very nice.  It may seem lame to take part in what was essentially a child of record baptism as a missionary, but I felt the Spirit at his baptismal interview.  The gospel isn't reinforced very strongly in the home so it was nice to provide some basic information.  Plus, before our teaching he wouldn't pray out loud and now he offers to say the prayer at every lesson.  Progress!  Also, the day after his baptism he gave his first talk in primary.  It felt good to help someone, even if he was nine, in his spiritual progression.

We had an excellent lesson with one of our investigators, S.  She's working really hard on gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon and is making some good progress.  The testimony was really strong in our lesson as we read Alma 32.  Alma talks about how you can know if something is true by if the seed is good and if it grows.  

As I think about my mission it seems weird that just about 4 months ago I didn't know any of these people who have become some of my best friends.   I didn't know any of my zone, I didn't know my ward, I didn't know my investigators, and yet now they're my whole life.  What's even weirder to think is that some of the elders in my zone and I studied on the same floor and slept in the same building at the MTC and we didn't know each other till we got to the field.  The mission can be hard at times and sometimes I'm confused about why I'm here in California and not in Brazil, but the people I've met are a huge testament that I'm doing the right thing in the right place.  The church is true, the book is blue, and I know that the work I'm doing is the greatest in the whole world.

Your friend,

Elder Carter David Morgan