nate morris west indies mission

June 23, 2010

Bonjour!

Decided the other day that in the summer after I go home, I’m gonna learn Spanish and French.

Anyways. This past week was stressful. Very... very... stressful. Oh well. Baptizing this Saturday definitely helps. Keisha is getting baptized! She is way excited. Last night she read 7 chapters of 1st Nephi and is loving every second of it. She said her favorite part of the Book of Mormon is that it's teaching her to stick to what she knows to be true, and to have faith in it. She's progressing well. We've taught her everything so tomorrow is her interview, then Saturday morning at the Port of Spain chapel she'll be baptized! We printed out invitations for church and she invited all her friends, her fiancé, and her family. She's learning way fast.

Dareem.... fell through. We couldn't meet with him last week until Friday and I learned the hard way about how quickly Satan moves in on investigators. Dareem on Friday told us that the Book of Mormon is a "good book." He said that this faith is not his faith that he'll choose. We asked him "what about the Book of Mormon? You told us you knew it was true". He kinda shrugged it off but I feel so bad for him. Maybe he'll be prepared a next time. But that's why daily contact is so necessary. Because we couldn't meet with him his testimony got too weak. He'll definitely have another chance though. Marcia is kind of the same story. She has been too busy with work and we haven't been able to meet with her since last week. Didn't come to church so we'll try to meet with her again and help her come but we'll see what we can do.

One of the members out here, Brother Malcolm, took us out Sunday to teach some of the people he's been working on. Don't know if they'll progress but we're seeing them again this week. It was cool though. Brother Malcolm has been a member a long time so he knows what's up. He has been doing his own missionary work. He's like 55 or 60 but he's way cool.

Saturday night we had another episode of Nuggle Radio. Haha it was a blast again. This time we made a top-10 of different "Shame-pain" moments. Where you do something which immediately brings you a sense of shame and pain inside. The failed girl maneuver, when people find out you back-talked them (the back-talk blowup), mistakes in gender, being overly sarcastic and hitting a soft spot, etc. This time we had Elder Ackerman be the producer and he watched over the phones. People made a beeping noise and then he'd say "caller you're on the air" and then they'd start talking. Haha we'd ask for callers with stories about each of the 10 shame pains. Definitely was a blast. Our whole zone was on and a couple from Trinidad central and south zones. About 14-16 listeners. Haha definitely has unified our zone. Helps bring a little comic-relief to help me with stress haha. I'm afraid my hairline's receding!

Things are going good, I am pretty sure I’ll be transferred in 2 weeks. I have been here for 6 months almost. That's a pretty long time if you ask me. Could be Barbados. Everyone's gunning for that cause it's the new island coming into the mission. People are way excited. I had to call the couple on the island for office stuff and while I was doing that I asked if they knew Billy Oden, cause he's in the Puerto Rico East Mission. They said "Yes!! We love Elder Oden!! He was here last transfer!! They talked all about him for like 5 minutes." I told her to give him a call and tell him Elder Morris says hey from the West Indies Mission. Haha it was pretty cool. I'd love to serve in the same area as him! Way cool.

Well, I gotta get going. We have correlation tonight then an FHE with Keisha. We're going over the baptismal interview questions before her interview tomorrow. It'll be good. It was good to hear about all the stuff you've been up to!! I love ya much.

Elder Morris




June 30, 2010

I wish I had more time to write but I don't!

Anyways this past week was sweet. I don't have the picture of the baptism to show you but we baptized Keisha on Saturday! She was way ready, passed her interviews, and is going to be a sweet member of the church. She bore her testimony at the baptism and knows D sure that it is true.

One of the missionaries in the zone has been very ill and so we've been making a lot of hospital runs and airport runs so that's kept us busy. Transfers are next week and I know where I'm going, along with everybody else, but nobody else knows yet in the mission. I'm staying in the office, again, with Elder Miles. I was pretty surprised but the AP's said that president doesn't want to move me out yet. Dang I’ve been in San Juan for 6 months! I guess I’ll be here for another 1 1/2. No problem though. I'll do what I gotta do. My desire/motivation is getting back up to where it needs to be. I woke up this morning and I felt great. I worked out, cleaned up my room and desk, had a sweet personal study on 2 Ne 26 and 27. So now I’m feeling pretty good about things. The situation hasn't changed, but I feel like a lot of the weight has been lifted a little bit off my shoulders.

Barbados is now part of the mission. The missionaries there right now are just waiting for the new ones to come in. There’s 2 now, waiting for the 6 more that'll be there. They hadn't heard from anyone in the mission and so were a bit confused in what was going on. Elder Wheeler in the office called them today and talked to them. Barbados would be a cool place to serve.

Other news, Nuggle Radio was not as good this week. At 10 I had to drive to Sangre Grande which is about an hour away and my phone died halfway there. So Elder Lang had no co-host. Our ratings dropped but it'll be back up to par this next week.

I gotta go but more next week! Things are going great. Thanks for all your words of encouragement and love.

Love,
Elder Morris