nate morris west indies mission

May 19, 2010



Hey everyone-

I have some news for everyone. I will..... be in the office next transfer with Elder Miles. Again. Big change huh? Haha. I've known transfers the past 2 weeks but I was just waiting till I knew for sure. I don't know what to think. Elder Scott said that President has been happy with how I've been doing in the office and how things are getting done. I thought I'd be outta here, but I guess the Lord has other plans. It has been very hard doing everything in the companionship, doing all of the teaching, planning, studying, etc. It gets to a point where you can do it for a certain amount of time but after awhile you become so dang exhausted. I was at this point on Sunday when Elder Scott noticed while we were at Dorris and Rita's so we had a great talk about responsibilities and relying on the Savior to take the burdens off. I realized I need to keep going, keep working hard, and open my heart up to my Heavenly Father more often. Elder Scott is a great friend. Too bad, next transfer he is going to St. Vincent to train for his final transfer. I'm gonna miss him a lot.

This new family that the AP's found, Zarina and her family, all came to church on Sunday. They liked it so much that they said they're going to keep coming every week. We haven't been able to teach them since church because when we tried to set a baptismal date with them they wanted to wait until they came to church so we're going actually today in about an hour to do that. I'll let you know how it goes. It was a great day at church. President Gamiette and his family, I don't know if I told you, go to my ward and he spoke in church about the temple and putting on the armor of God. It was sweet. He then took over and taught most of the lesson in Gospel Principles which was sweet, then he helped out a lot in the lesson in Priesthood as well. All in all, our investigators learned tons, and I was edified as well which is pretty difficult cause usually a lot of things go wrong at church. Haha.

We took Bro. Malcolm Phillips with us teaching yesterday. He took us to a less active (kind) names Bro. Reefer. He suffered from a stroke a number of years ago so he usually isn't able to attend church. He LOVES the Book of Mormon. He is reading it all of the time. He has a huge print one and it's very broken in if you know what I mean. He reads it all of the time, and is at Ether right now reading about the Jaredites. He was telling us all about it. Great example of humility and love for the Lord. If only the members here could see his example. He is coming to church tomorrow and I haven't seen him there before because it takes him like 5 hours to get ready due to his lack of ability to even get dressed. He is a great person though. Committed. I learned a lot from him.

Monday was definitely a SWEET p-day. We went GOLFING!!! Way fun. Played 9 holes on a not so nice course in Chaguaramas. 100 TT each so about 16 US including club rental. It was me, Elder Lang, Elder Olsen, Elder Ackerman, and Elder Wiederhold. We had a great time and I loved it. We'll be going again in the very near future. I won! I got 61 on a par of 33. Boo-yeah. My best was a bogey on a par-4. Haha. We all had golfer names. Mine was Derek Eagle. Lang was David Bogie (from David Bowie). There was Chip Sullivan, Austin Fairway, and Burke Cartman. We had a blast. While we were finishing the 9th hole, we saw a grey wall in the sky coming very fast towards us. Probably the most water I've ever seen in the sky. Ever. I hit in my triple bogey, then we ran into the clubhouse. Right when we jumped in it started to POUR. I've never seen such a torrent of water as that in my life. Elder Olsen and Elder Lang were off in the distance golfing through it. It had been raining a ton throughout our round so we were all soaked but they got the worst of it. Way fun though. We were shivering on the way home.

We went to this guy last night, Michael, and when we found his house we were stunned. He lives in the richest neighborhood I've ever seen in my life. No joke, one o the houses looked like one of our temples. Too bad that wasn't his house. He lived in an ordinary house next door but wow I gotta take a picture and show you. I've never seen anything like it. Maybe I'm just not used to big houses anymore.

Anyways things are going alright. My studies have been fantastic lately. I've learned a lot about the atonement and my teaching is improving a lot. I hope you all know how much I love this gospel. How much it can change people. I love the Lord and all he has done for me. I know with all my heart that the Book of Mormon is true and I love it with all my heart. I know that through Jesus Christ we can live with our Heavenly Father again. Not many in the world realize how serious that is. We need to be completely clean. How grateful I am that the keys of the kingdom of heaven have been restored on the earth again through the Prophet Joseph Smith so we can enter in through the gate and endure faithfully so we can live with Him again. I love this gospel!

Much love,
Elder Morris

PS: Dad, thanks for all your kind words. That'd be cool for you to send a letter to Amos but I don't have his right address. I should have it soon. Next week I'll give you some addresses of people you should write. I think it's a great idea.

PPSS: Mom!

To answer your questions, the mission blog is about to be taken over by, you guessed it, the office elders. Sister Gamiette and I are going to fix it up Friday morning. Haha. It's gonna be fun. 40days to Zion is a tool just used by this mission, and only by the missionaries. So Elder Vaea was the one who wrote the comment about how Sharon is excited about the temple and the Book of Mormon. It's a tool to help us keep track of recent converts and to help us know what we still have to teach, what we need to do to help them stay active. It really works. Way cool program.

I think it's funny you talked to Bishop Lang about Elder Lang. We're way good friends out here. Way cool guy. By the way, yes I am still writing in my journal. I try to do every night.