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.
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