happy birthday to me! Tomorrow!

Hey everybody! We finally finished the last week of August and now we're in September! I can't think of a better way to start off September than with my birthday! Since it's tomorrow, me and my companion are going to chow down on some pie and donuts (pics next week)

This week, was.....actually really hard for us. A lot of appointments were falling through, and people didn't want to talk to us either. Also, people were giving us false addresses to their homes. That annoyed me a lot, if you don't want to listen to us...just say no man. Oh well, gotta keep going forward. Luckily, the emails I get from you guys are awesome, it helps a lot. Thanks!

We've been visiting with some cool people, we were able to visit with our investigator Javier. He came to church with us again, we were really happy. We started talking to another investigator as well this week, he's somewhat new, his name's Wilbert. Wilbert's a cool guy, he knows some missionaries that served here like 2 years ago, and sadly he lost contact with them ever since. Luckily we came around and now we're teaching him. We're going to see where this goes, we have high hopes!

So, today we had the opportunity to lend a hand (or 4) to our neighbor member friend, Bro. Manzo. He needed some help painting the inside of his house and he asked us to help. We of course accepted the invitation. We painted a good portion of the walls, but we ran out of paint before painting the entire interior. I think we're going to help him again in the future, once he buys more paint.

We (by we I mean my companion) helped out another member by cleaning some computer systems so that she could put up a cyber center. Simple, but it helped a lot. She gave us some good food afterwards! Always worth serving others!

Great news! These next couple of weeks are going to be interesting. Next sunday is stake conference here, I have no idea what's going to happen. Then the following sunday is the rededication of the Mexico City temple! We're able to watch the broadcast and I'm actually excited for it! 

That's really it for this week, nothing too special. I hope that this week will be a lot better than the last.

Until next week!

Elder Morrison

P.S

With the photo of the mango with the face, a member gave us mangos and it looked like they had little noses, so we drew faces on them! It was really funny haha!

P.S.S

I need new shoes :P

We came, we saw, we BAPTIZED!

Hey everybody! Another week done in August, almost done in this heat! Just another month, and it'll start going down, according to the locals :D

This week was a great one, nothing really special for half of the week, just working. We did find some new people these past couple of days. 

One guy we met, whose name is Javier, is an interesting man. He's from Guatemala and he moved here to live better pretty much. He's sketchy looking, I'll admit, but he's actually really friendly and he's a good guy. He works a lot in the afternoon, so we visit him in the midday, at like 11. He did come to church with usthis sunday, we're really happy about that haha. We're going to visit him some more this week and see how he progresses. 

Unfortunately, our other investigators didn't come to church, so we're going to visit them and yell at them...naw just kidding, we still love them. 

We had a surprise zone conference this last friday, where our mission president talked to us about the second coming and how we should be prepared and how we need to help everyone else be prepared. And his wife talked to us about who we should apply the gospel in our lives as much as we teach other people to apply it to theirs. So....yeah it was a bit interesting.

This saturday we had BAPTISMS!!!! WOO!!!! Our two amazing investigators, Chuyita and Monica, got baptized! As well as two other women from another ward! It was an awesome experience for them, and for me as well! Mainly because they wanted me to baptize them! I'm really grateful for that, and the fact that I didn't mess up the prayer in the middle of the ordinance haha.

So....my birthday is in a week! I'm going to be 19! That's really weird because I haven't been paying attention to my birthday as much as I have in the past, it feels a bit odd to be 19, in a week. Just another year I guess :P

That's it for this week, some fun things happening, and it's still hot, although it rained a couple times this week.

Here's to another week! Bye!

P.S

So there's this window in our house that leads to another room that we have no access to, there's iron bars guarding the inside. I was able to pull out a pillow and a blanket, and the blanket has pink horses on it. Sweet, I'm going to wash it and use it!

 

Ayyyyyy everybody!

Ayyyyyy everybody, another week done in the mission and some fun stuff happened...i think!

This week wasn't too exciting, a lot of work done, and still a lot of work to be done. We had to abandon some investigadors this week because they weren't progressing. It was sad, but I guess it's just not their time to receive the gospel. That's something that I've learned out here, that everybody deserves the blessings of the gospel, but not all at the same time.

We do have 2 new investigadors that have great potential to be baptized. Their name's are Manuel and Fernanda. They have 2 kids and are really nice. They enjoy talking to us, and learning about the gospel. We've had some good lessons with them and they have a baptismal date for September 19th. Sadly they didn't come to church this week, but we're still going to visit with them and see how they progress. Manuel works in a taco place, so my companion and I are thinking of paying a visit to his taco place and eating some delicious tacos. Yummmmmmm. 

Our two awesome investigators, Chuyita and Monica, came home from Mochis yesterday! This week we're going to teach them every day so that they can be baptized this saturday! We know we can do it, it's easy enough! They're still want to get baptized, thankfully. Some members helped them out last night, because on their way home, their tire exploded and they were stranded on the side of the road. Gratefully, all is well, and we're going to have a family home evening with them tonight. I'm so excited for saturday! We're going to have baptisms!

It's still hot, and it's going to be this way for about a month or two. It's nothing that I can't handle, even though I got seriously dehydrated..twice. I'm fine now, and I'm going to be extra careful now! I drink lots of water, and thankfully everybody offers us a glass of water, and we always gladly accept the invitation.

Today was fun, it wasn't too hot in the morning but it gradually got hot aroundnoon, typical. Today, we did some yard work in front of our house, we had a little forest before. Now it's clean, more or less. It looks a lot better. We tried to get haircuts in the morning too, but every haircut place was closed, so we decided to go to Dairy Queen! ICE CREAM!!!!!! It was extra special for my companion, because he's never been to Dairy Queen. It doesn't exist in Ecuador. He was so surprised when he turned his blizzard upside down and saw that it didn't spill. It was awesome hahaha. After eating ice cream, we went to a market called Soriana, I call it Mexican Walmart, because it's just like a Walmart or Smith's. We bought some things for the house, like trash bags and dish soap, some food for the week, and we went home. Then we got some haircuts! Fun! 

So, that's this week, we're going to see what happens this upcoming week. We do have some baptisms planned for this saturday, 2 from us, 1 from a companionship in our district, and 1 from another. That's great!!! It's going to be a fun week, I know it!

Love

Elder Morrison

Weekly update from ItsReallyHotHere, Sonora, Mexico

Hey! Another week done, first week of this transfer! It was a good week with my new companion Elder Coello from Ecuador! It was an interesting week!

First off, it rained! Like twice! The first time it rained we were walking towards our lunch appointment with a member and it was really cloudy, and we were hearing thunder off in the distance. Then it started to drizzle a little bit, it started picking up gradually. My companion then tells me that he 'sees' the rain coming towards us like a wall right in front of us. I'm looking everywhere and I don't see anything. I then ask him, what rain? I don't see anything! And I kid you not, exactly right after I said that....BOOM!!! It started pouring!!! The cold rain started to pound us and in a matter of seconds we were soaked! The sad part was that we were still far away from our lunch appointment! So, we decided to tough it out and continue walking like MEN! We were soaking wet, our shoes were heavy from filling up with water. We finally get to the member's house and we were able to dry off there for the most part, we took off our shoes and socks so that they could dry while we were eating. I attached some pictures of us after we arrived at the member's house and some pictures after the rain stopped.

So yeah, that happened!

Another cool thing that happened was a stake activity on saturday! This saturday there was an activity that all the youth in the stake here participated in. It was like a mini-MTC type activity. What happened was we first had a little devotional in our chapel, then they assigned a little group of youth to join us as we went and worked in the field, visiting people. The church leaders gave us a list of less actives for us to visit, and we were able to visit our investigators as well. We went out and did that for about 2 hours, then we returned to the chapel to eat lunch and share experiences, then we went out and did it again for a couple hours, then returned again and we finished the activity with some testimonies shared by some youth, and some missionaries, and some messages shared by church leaders. It was a fun experience, the youth here are really cool, and really encouraged to go on a mission! 

We did have a zone conference this friday, it was fun, it was in a different chapel this time. It went normal, there was messages shared about how we should retain our faith even though sometimes we don't meet our goals, our we don't have us much success as we hoped. Another one was how we need to show our love for the Savior by working hard always. I enjoyed the messages and seeing my other missionary friends. 

There's a lot of new faces here in the mission, almost every missionary that I talk to is training a new missionary. Today I met a missionary that recently got to the field that's actually from Highland! He went to Lone Peak, the high school that I went to! His name is Elder Loveland, and it was really cool to see someone from my hometown!

Today was a fun day, we first studied in the morning, then we dropped off our clothes with a member that washes our clothes for us, then we went to the mission offices to get a package that was just waiting for me! We get to the office and I ask for my package and I get it! I was so happy haha. After that, we went to what's called El Centro, which is a place with a TON of stores, each store selling something different. It's huge and it's awesome. We went there afterwards to go shopping! There in Centro, we visited some stores to buy some ties, an idea from my companion haha. I ended buying 9 ties, all costing about $25, or 400 pesos, which is actually really good. One of the ties that I bought was 3 pesos, that really surprised my companion and I!

So yeah, those are some of the things that happened this week, and for my spanish friends: Lo siento por escribirles en inglés y espero que puedan traducir esta carta en español, si no, pues digame y voy a escribir la carta en español, o la mayoría de la carta :P

Adios! Bye! Love you all! Les amo!

Elder Morrison

Coming up on 7 months!

Last week of this transfer! And here's to another one! This friday I'm going to complete 7 months in the mission! Time is really flying by, which is great I guess haha.

Not much happened this week, we just worked, luckily I didn't get sick again, I've been drinking tons and tons of water! I've been sweating most of that water, so it's all good haha.

We actually went to the hospital a couple of times this week, because of the problems that my companion has in his stomach. We first went and they couldn't do tests on him because the doctor was busy, he was operating on someone at that time, so we decided to come back the next day. The next day, they x-rayed him to see what he had. The results showed up with nothing, but he did other tests and thoses tests will tell if he has something wrong.

We also had a meeting on wednesday with the mission president and his wife, with other district leaders. The mission president talked to us, the mission president's wife as well, and the president's assistants spoke to us also. It wasn't too bad, I learned a few things that I didn't know before. 

After that meeting we talked to the mission president, and his wife, about how we didn't have chairs in our house and they told us that there was two chairs waiting for us in the mission home. So, the mission president (Hermana Munive) took us to the mission home, we picked up the chairs, and she took us back to our area. So, now we have chairs! I'm so happy!

This saturday there was a baptism of a little girl in the ward, it was really nice. Her older brother, who is like 16 or 17 but looks 19 baptized her, it was cool. There was some problems with the bautismal font. First of all, nobody came and filled it before the baptism, so the sister missionaries came and saw that, and they started the water. Then, another problem was that the water was draining out all the water that was coming in. So we had to figure out how to shut off the drain so the font could fill up. We eventually got everything to work and we were able to have the baptism. All good here in Ciudad Obregon.

This sunday was a bit different. After the church service in our ward, some sister missionaries of a different ward came to my companion and they asked him to write in their journals. We sat in the sacrament hall as he wrote in their journals. And one thing led to another, we ended up attending the sacrament meeting of their ward! We went to two sacrament meetings! It's not a bad thing right? We actually bore our testimonies in their sacrament meeting it was awesome haha.

Ah! So it turns out I'm staying in the same area for another transfer! My companion, Elder Yat Caal, although only being here for one transfer, left for another area today. And I got a new companion, Elder Coello. He's from Ecuador and he's only been out here for like 2 months longer than I have. He's really cool, I knew him a bit before this transfer, and well, I guess I'm going to know him a lot better. I feel like we're going to get along great and we're gonna do work!

So that's what happened this week, it was fun as you can see :)

Here's to another week! Until next monday!

Elder Morrison

A great week! Sort of.

hey! another week in this transfer, one more left! this week was a little bit interesting for a reason. tuesday with our district meeting was fun, everything was normal. district meeting, then we went back to work for the day.

Wednesday is when it happened. i got dehydrated again, my head hurt like crazy and my stomach was hurting a lot as well. I tried to work for most of the day that day, but at around 7 i couldn't focus and then I decided to tell my companion that maybe I should call it a day. The whole day he was asking me if i was okay, I tried to keep pushing forward, but sometimes you have to call it quits in order to preserve your health, for lack of simpler words.

So what happened these past couple of days was pure resting, I stayed in the house for thursday, friday, and saturday. On thursday, a member stayed with me for most of the day as my companion worked with another member. On friday I stayed at a member's house for the entire day, that was great.  On saturday, another elder from a trio companionship came and we did divisions between us 3 and another member. He stayed with me in the morning, then after lunch we changed and the member stayed with me, up until 5, then we all went to help clean the chapel.

On sunday, it was interesting. I went to church, and we had meetings the entire day. After lunch, we went to the chapel for a meeting with all the district leaders, then after that ended we went to a meeting with the ward leaders and after that we went home, so I wasn't under the sun for too much on sunday. 

this week I wasn't able to work much, and that made me sad a little bit, but now I'm feeling better and I'm ready to get back to work this coming week. Yay! i'm now starting to realize that I need water a LOT.

Also, this week I said goodbye to some elders and a sister missionary that are leaving after this week. They've finally finished their missions and they're going home.

That's everything for this week, nothing too exciting I guess, I hope I have something great next week!

Love you!

Elder Morrison

Oh! I forgot about today! Today my companion had to go to Guaymas again, so I stayed here with another elder, whose companion also went to guaymas.

We didn't do much, we studied for a little bit, we ate some pizza and watched some church movies until our companions came back. i was studying and I saw some glasses of the elder's companion, I decided to try them on and study with them. it was weird, as I wore them everything was fine, and I take them off....and everything's blurry for like 3 seconds. It was like my eyes got used to the glasses then they had to get used to normal vision, I thought it was cool.

also! I recieved personal revelation this week, concerning my journal. I now "write" in my journal by taking videos of myself, where i say what happened that day. It's so much easier than writing in an actual journal!!!

just thought it was something worth sharing, have a good week! Until next monday!

Love,

Elder Morrison

Hey another week of July finished! (with pictures!)

Hey another week of July finished! 2 more and we'll be done with July, time really is flying down here in hot Mexico. The heat is continuing to rise and I'm going to get the full blast pretty soon in August. Right now, I'm preparing myself by drinking tons of water haha.

Some good things happened this week, and some...not so good things happened as well. First thing that happened was good. I had the fun chance to go play football (soccer) with some other missionaries and some members, it was really fun! Mexicans sure love their soccer haha. It was extra fun getting fried under the Sonora sun, but it was worth it!

This last tuesday, I ate something that's called Ceviche, it's seafood with vegetables all in a tomato sauce. It's good, but we've been warned that it could make us sick. We ate ceviche with a member, there was 8 of us missionaries and we ate with the members that served us ceviche. Everybody else was fine, but not me. The next day I got sick, I also managed to get dehydrated. I felt so terrible. I had a fever of 104.1 and I had 0 energy and I looked terrible. So, I went to the hospital! Fun! They stuck a needle in me and injected me with something called Suero, which was a liquid that rehydrated me. This happened at like 8:00 at night and we got home at around 11:30. It was an amazing experience as you can tell. Lesson learned, drink water!!!!!

Something else worth mentioning this week was that I ate some amazing shrimp! 

I don't know why I find it amazing, but yeah. We ate with other members that are super amazing! They help us a ton in the missionary work, they give us rides to wherever we need to go and they join us in lessons as well. I love shrimp! I've been eating a lot of food that I've either never tried before or never heard of, that's something that I'm loving about the mission!

As for my investigators, they're coming along great. Some investigators that are really progressing well are Chuyita and Monica, they're so great! They're super friendly, they love going to church and they read the Book of Mormon every day and they're able to see the effects of the Gospel in their lives. I'm so certain that they're going to get baptized in a couple weeks, I know it! We actually tried to help them this last saturday with their tire. They have a truck with a flat tire and it really doesn't want to move. We tried with all our heart, might, mind and strength to change it, but the bolts didn't want to move at all. Oh well, we're going to figure something else.

We have other investigators, but we barely met them and we're still getting to know them. Fun thing! With our recent convert Ramón, we've taken him in as our "trainee", he's been accompanying us this week, to help him prepare himself for when he goes on his mission. It's like a mini-training. It's awesome!

There's some fun events upcoming this week, I don't really remember what they are, but I'll find out and tell you later!

Here's to another week!

Elder Morrison

I look like crap in one of these pictures because I was still recovering from getting dehydrated last wednesday :P