December 17th email - "And Jesus Wept"

Dear Family,

  How are you?! I guess you know by now that I arrived safely in Washington. Hopefully you got my letter already but if not I made it here safely! We got here and spent the first night in the mission home which was really nice. My mission president and his wife are really nice and I am excited to learn from them. My companion's name is Sister Alard. She is from Provo, Utah and reminds me a lot of Nikki Nelson. She is a really hard-working missionary. Her dad is Cuban and she minored in Spanish at BYU so her spanish is really really good. My spanish on the other hand is not so good. I hope that I am able to learn from her rather than using her spanish as a crutch. She is really patient though which I appreciate.

  These past few days have taught me that I still have quite a bit to learn about being patient with myself. I have realized how inadequate my spanish is since coming here. I wanted so badly to get here and be able to understand what people were saying. I wanted to be able to express my concern for them but I felt like I was unable to even communicate in a small way. We even taught a lesson on Saturday night in english and I felt like I was struggling, even in my native tongue, to connect with what I was saying and for the spirit to be present. That made me really sad because I love this gospel and it has meant everything to me in my life but as I was saying those words I felt phony and uncomfortable. Saturday night we had our ward Christmas Party. I have always been a really outgoing person but I found myself feeling really awkward and unable to communicate. I tried to help where I could at the party but I felt really disconnected. Sunday I became really frustrated at church because I couldn't understand much of what was being said and I felt like I needed some kind of spiritual upliftment and I wasn't receiving it because I couldn't understand what was being said. During sacrament meeting we sang the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" and I just broke down crying. I felt terrible that I was crying and was honestly really prideful about the whole thing. After church Hermana Alard asked me what was going on. As I expressed my concerns to her she pointed out that I had helped out at the Christmas party. I told her that I felt like that was all I could do. She then said that in the scriptures we don't know a lot about what the Savior said but we do know what he did. He served people. I realized then that I need to stop worrying so much about me and instead seek to serve everywhere I go. Through serving the people I interact with they will be able to feel the love that I am unable to convey through my words.
    This morning I read a couple of talks during personal study. One was Sister Reeves' talk from the Relief Society session of General Conference. In it she told the story of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. She talks about how perhaps the most compassionate sentence in all of scripture is "And Jesus wept." I realized that it was okay for me to cry yesterday and that I was being really hard on myself because I want to be a good missionary. I imagine that if Jesus had been here He would have cried with me because He loves me. He wouldn't have belittled my feelings of inadequacies because He has felt the ache that I feel in my heart and He knows what it feels like. He wants me to be a good missionary too but He knows that I can't do it alone and when I try to do it alone instead of turning to Him when He has already suffered for my feelings of inadequacies it hurts Him. Hermana Alard also gave me a talk about the enabling power of the atonement. As I read that talk I realized that this is something that I am completely unable to do on my own but if I will turn to my Heavenly Father and my Savior I will be able to have the strength to do what I was called to do. I cannot do this alone but if I will rely on the Atonement then I will be able to do anything that my Heavenly Father needs me to do. This experience will change me for the rest of my life as I will learn that I can do hard things and that my weaknesses can become strengths.
     Doris and Rosa, who are a mother and daughter that have a baptismal date for the end of this month, were sick this week and I have been unable to teach them a real lesson yet but I am looking forward to that. We were able to stop by a family's home on Friday and invited them to the Christmas party. Apparently there had been a misunderstanding in the past with some sisters in the past but they seemed really happy that we came by and came to the Christmas party the next night. I think they could be incredible members. We have taught some good lessons and I am excited to see what happens in the future with our investigators! We found a few new people that seem like really great prospects. Another thing that is neat is a lot of the hispanic people here have kids that speak english. The sisters have been teaching a less-active lady's daughters and I have met them but have not had a chance to teach them yet. I love working with teenagers so I'm hoping that I can help them. We are also teaching a Cuban family who has a 15 year old son that is a stud. I think the saddest thing to me so far is seeing the environment that kids are raised in. It has made me so incredibly grateful though for the home that I was raised in and for the love that exists in our family.
     I received three packages in three days when I got here which was so nice! Mama, thank you so much for the skirt! I loved it! Tell Barbara that I said thank you for the treats! They were delicious and tasted like a little piece of home! Lynette sent me a package with 12 Days of Christmas (I knew I was nice to her when she was on bedrest for a reason :) and it has been so fun to open the gifts but I have enjoyed even more reading the talks she attached! It is the perfect missionary package! Kim Pearson and Goldsboro's YW sent me a package with gifts wrapped and scriptures attached for me to guess what was inside! That has been really fun! And the tissues came in handy when we ran out of toilet paper on Sunday! I have loved hearing from everyone here and your notes mean more to me than you know!

I LOVE YOU!

-Hermana Jones

SKYPE INFO- I will be able to skype on Christmas Day. I will be on at 12 your time, 9 my time! I look forward to talking to you then! My skype name will be hdz_kj If I am not online and we have problems connecting our cell phone number is 509-308-7179. I love you! See you then!

December 6th email - Giving All

Dear Family, 
   I love you all so much! I'm so grateful for the opportunity to read every thing that is going on there at home! How are you? I'm glad Mama, Natalie and Julia are starting to feel better! I hope that no one else gets sick! This week has been really really good. I can hardly believe my time in the MTC is drawing to a close. When I first got here I felt like I would be here forever but here I am and it's over! I can honestly say though that I have appreciated this experience. I have tried not to take it for granted and I have loved it. The MTC food is starting to get to me though so I'm taking that as a sign that it's time to go. 
   This week we had a bit of a miracle this week. My companion has been really struggling with her asthma. Friday morning she had an asthma attack and I could tell it was worse than it had been before. She was gasping for breath and I started to get really scared. She later told me that normally in this situation she would've had to go to the emergency room. I asked her if she wanted a blessing and she nodded her head. I asked a teacher to get someone to help him give her a blessing. As soon as the elders laid their hands on her head to anoint her she started breathing easier. It was amazing! She hasn't had problems since. 
   On Tuesday we had a devotional with Elder David Evans of the Seventy. It was really good and addressed every concern I had about going into the field. The funny thing is he really talked about how hard missions are but I felt so much better afterward! I think one reason for that is that the whole time he talked I could only think about how grateful I am for a 19 year old boy that got on an airplane to go and share what he believed when he was scared to order his own pizza...who stuck it out even when he was homesick and who let his mission change him and in turn change my life forever. Yes...Daddy I'm talking about you. In our district review that is what stuck out to me from the devotional is just how I kept thinking about you getting on that plane and being so scared and yet you did it. Brother Doman asked me afterward if you knew how I felt about your mission and said that if you had been there to hear me talk about it, it would be the kind of thing that would make your entire life so I knew I had to share it with you. 
   I have been thinking a lot lately about my mission and how before I left I didn't want my mission to change me (I don't know how I was thinking I would come back the same but for some strange reason I did). I still don't want to come home weird but I want to come home so much better than I was before. I have been thinking about the natural man and how he or she is an enemy to God and how this is like a rehab center for me to overcome the natural man and instead to be filled with Charity because without Charity we cannot return to live with Heavenly Father. This week I read a talk by a mission president called "The Fourth Missionary." He talks about 4 different types of missionaries and the fourth is one who totally and unconditionally surrenders himself to the Lord. The talk says he "gives himself. He gives his will to the Lord. He surrenders all of his desires, his dreams, his wishes to the Lord." I think that has been kind of hard for me to do but this mission experience should, if done correctly, should change my life forever. I will forever be a product of this experience if I give everything I have to Him. 
     In the talk he says "Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis the Lord says to us: "Give me all. I don't want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work: I want You. All of you. I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man but to kill it. No half-measures will do. I don't want to only prune a branch here and another there; rather, I want the whole tree out. Hand it all over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them all over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart." 
     And so I want to come home with His heart. I don't want to be weird but I want to be changed. 
     Our Elder Evan's wife Mary told about their family's leaving to serve as mission president's in Japan. Their youngest son was 7 years old and as they sat on the plane he wanted to write his best friend Dane a letter. He wrote "Dear Dane, I am leaving on my mission. The Lord has called us to serve. It will not be easy but God will help us." She said she watched as little tears fell onto the sheet of paper but that this little 7 year old's courage to serve the Lord gave her the courage that she needed as a nervous mother taking 4 kids to a place she didn't know. I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve. I know that it won't be easy but God has called me to do this and He will not let me fail. He will help me every step of the way as I give everything that I have to Him. 

I love you all! 
-Morgan



P.S.Enjoy the pictures! 
The second is our ready for bed in our rival pajamas pics.
The third is us with Elder Dew (Sheri's nephew) who we loved! He left this week.