nate morris west indies mission

i have been HORRIBLE at keeping up this blog. sorry! here are the last several letters from Nate.

9/20/10
Hey Family!

This week was pretty great. We're still working with Bazil. Hopefully should be ready for baptism this weekend. We've been teaching him every day and he came to church and he has the desire, but I don't know if the testimony is 100 percent there. We taught him at the church with a member this past week and we watched Finding Faith in Christ with him then bore testimonies on the Savior and the Atonement. It was a great lesson, the spirit was felt and I think it helped him realize the seriousness of the gospel. Sometimes people, especially here, think religion is just for looks. They seriously do believe in God, and Christ, but the common belief is that it's "all one God" and that religion doesn't matter, cause in the end we'll all be saved. All you have to do is believe in Christ. The 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency here said it perfectly. "There's a bar on every corner in Barbados, and for every bar, there's a church right next door." No exaggeration really. There's 2 bars across the street from our church and a church right next to them. It's pretty sad. Mom you were talking about how Vegas is just a sad place with all the wickedness it has. That's just how the world is i've seen. Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados, all the same really. Hearts set upon the vain things of this world. It's hard to break people of their traditions.

That's why we need the spirit in our work.. We had a cool experience this past week teaching a lady we tracted into. We were just listening, teaching to whatever she needed, trying our hardest to listen and let the spirit guide our thoughts and words. Near the end of the lesson it felt like we were just talking. Like we weren't really helping her understand. But after testifying of the restoration and inviting her to be baptized, her accepting, then inviting her to say a kneeling prayer, she told Heavenly Father that she's never felt like this in her life. That she knew our message was true, and that she has the desire to be baptized. It was amazing. The whole time the spirit had been working in her. We were just messengers. What we said didn't really matter, but what she felt from the Spirit is what really mattered. It was great.

Didn't do anything this morning for P-day. Just relaxed, wrote letters, cleaned the apartment. President and the AP's are here for a leadership training meeting with like 25 other missionaries in the island zones. Having meetings this week. I get to see a lot of old friends. Elder Noah is going home next week and I really hope we get to go on splits one of these nights that they are here.

I'm doing just great though, no problems in my neck of the woods. We're working our hardest. I can assure you of that. We're not seeing tons of success but I gotta remember that it took 14 years for the Sons of Mosiah to have their success. Haha. I do love the work and I'm happy to be in this paradise of Barbados, no matter what riff raff comes along with it.

I love ya-

Elder Morris

Pictures included. 2 from the caves last week, 1 of the church, 1 of me, and one of the apartment building.







9/27/10
Can't believe this'll be the 3rd general conference of my mission this weekend.

Of course I'm stoked for it.. President Eyring's my main man. Get the popcorn folks!!

This past week was just great. We had a lot of fun working hard this week. On Monday we got a call from a lady, Sherneal, who just said "hey I got this number from a friend and I need to talk to someone about God. Do you talk to people?" I said yes and she wanted to meet with us as soon as possible. The next morning she was at the church. Her friend is a member who had already taught her the restoration and given her a book of mormon. She had already read Moroni Chapter 10. We retaught the restoration. she is going through a lot right now and Her family does not want her to meet with us but she said she needs to talk with people about God and religion. She is awesome. She read a lot and had lots of questions each time we taught. She is excited and is preparing for baptism on the 16th of October. We met with her a few more times during the week and came to church. She's about 23 or 24 and has a kid and so when she got to church the young single adult sisters in the branch just flocked to her. Made friends with her, talked with her, and are coming with her to conference this next weekend. General Conference is only shown at the branch in the Christ's Church parish so all of us will be going there.

We've also been teaching this guy, Forde. He is an interesting man for sure. He knows so much about the bible and funny enough has the same beliefs as we do about everything. He always says after we teach him "you know, no other church teaches what we're talking about right?" We're like "yeah we know." He calls himself the professor and says that we are the students but I can tell that he notices something different about us. He is a great guy. he's coming to conference this weekend, all 5 sessions. And he said that if he does find out that this is the truth, he will be baptized. We'll see how it goes!

Being in black rock we have some interesting experiences. Wednesday was an interesting one for sure. We were going up to teach a family and one of our investigators, Anand, stumbled upon us on the side of the road. He was very, very, drunk. He was smoking and burning himself with a cigarette. He's a 19 year old indian from Guyana and his girlfriend had just broken up with him. His girlfriend was the daughter of the family we're teaching, she's 14.... yeah I know. Weird. Illegal in most countries.. But we sent him home, got rid of the cigarettes and he came to church on Sunday. Just a weird experience. He kept on saying stuff like "Man, she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, man!" "She didn't know what true love was, man" As he fought through his drunken tears. It was sad, but a little humorous. Interesting people in the west indies that's for sure.

We had a lot of good successes this past week and I am really starting to like this area, even with all the quirks that come along with it. This past week we actually got transfer calls. I should have told you transfers were coming up. I'm staying here in black rock with a missionary named Elder Lubberink. He's from the Netherlands I think and has been serving in Suriname. He used to be a professional ballroom dancer and is actually a really cool guy. I've met him in Trinidad a couple times and he is pretty cool. Elder Hoepel sadly enough is leaving and is going to Suriname to serve. He actually is serving in the city right next to where his family lives.. That's definitely going to be a trial for him, since he'll see his mom all day saturday and all day sunday at general conference. Haha. I've had a blast with Elder Hoepel. He always talks about how in 10 years he's going to come and visit Utah and give my wife a big hug. I'm gonna miss him.

This morning for P-day we went to Bathsheba. A surfing beach here. It was amazing. We gathered coconuts and broke them open, drank the water and ate the coconut itself. That was a lot of fun and we took some great pictures. A few are included.

The work is progressing here and we're seeing great things happen. I love you all and I am grateful for this blessing I've been given to serve in this beautiful part of the world.

Elder Morris

PS: Mom- Tell Bev to send Matt's email to me. I'd love to hear updates of him. I like to see what's goin on with Ryan too.








10/4/10
News!

I"m not with Elder Lubberink. I"m with Elder Hoepel still! There was an emergency transfer so he's still with me. NEver left. So yeah he's my companion for the next 6 weeks! I'm grateful. He's way fun.

I'm a big fan of general conference. If i had facebook i'd click "become a fan."

Loved ALL of it. President Uchtdorf's jokes, Elder Holland's talk, and my main man President Eyring gave some amazing talks as well. Elder Nelson's talk on missionaries was great. It was fun to be able to stand up when he invited all the full time missionaries to. I loved all of conference, took many notes, and now wish i had all the audio files on my ipod so i could listen again and again. I learned a ton. When I saw Elder Ballard's talk i laughed thinking that dad is probably just way happy that he's talking about fly fishing. Reminded me of one of your Lead the Way's, Dad. The one about matching the hatch. Kudos.

This past week was pretty good. We had a funny experience on Friday. We had an appointment in Speightstown which is like 45 minutes bus ride away. He sounded very cool and so we were excited to go. We go there suffering through a smelly packed bus ride and loud dancehall music then find he wasn't there. didn't answer his phone and was nowhere to be found. We called him before we left and he said we could come and he'd be there. Oh well. We were walking around and found a lady that had been taught by missionaries like 30 years ago. We were helping her shave off palm leaves to make brooms and her friend walks by and says, hey, the mormons used to teach me like 24 years ago in St. Vincent. We invited both of them to learn more and bore our testimonies and they both weren't very interested but they were very friendly and I thought it was just cool how we were in the right place at the right time.

Bazil came to conference and when we asked him how it was he said "it was ok." We tried to get him to tell us what he learned and he didn't answer us. We're pretty sure he isn't 100 percent there mentally. We're praying and trying to figure out what to do but no answer yet. We'll keep trying.

Sherneal and Mr. Forde didn't come. Sherneal is still doing good but we're not going to teach Mr. Forde anymore. He doesn't think we can offer him anything more than what he knows. Well see how it goes when we teach a drop lesson to him.

We found some cool people this week but i don't like talking about them before we really know if they're going anywhere. We really have to filter so many people. We'll get like 10 new people a week but only 1 or 2 really go anywhere. I really have to improve.

Mom- You asked about what we could plan when I'm going home. I need to talk about it with Elder Prince but his mom and fam is coming to pick him up and if we somehow worked something out where we could do it together would be fantastic. Just an idea. I will think about it more this week and let you know next week what i think.

Loved how Conference talked a lot about building yourself up and making sure that your foundation is there. Doing all the basics and being 100 percent obedient like Elder Kearon talked about. (loved that talk). I'll keep trying. I'm privileged and blessed to be here and I'm grateful for the things I've learned and all that you do back home.

I love ya-

Elder Morris

10/11/10
Hello!

District Conference was this past weekend. It was great to see President Gamiette again. Haven't seen him in 2 months. It's so weird not being around him all the time. I definitely took that for granted. He taught great. The priesthood session, we were invited to, he told everybody simply: "I do not have an agenda. No planned talk. So, what questions do you have?" After a few minutes of getting everyone comfortable they started to ask questions. President, with the spirit as his companion, then was able to answer all of their questions in a masterful way and teaching the things that the leaders here really did need to know. It was awesome. It all went perfect. Haha. Sunday session the district presidency was released and a new one called. Not much was happening with the old one and President made a quick move to get things going here in Barbados. The new one is way good.

Our week was alright. A lot of our investigators are not progressing really... We got this guy Troy who has been in prison, loves looking for fast money, and has absolutely nothing right now. The first lesson was cool. the second lesson was alright, then the third lesson we realized after he kept on talking about how he's waiting for a miracle and waiting for someone to reach down and pick him up in the form of money. We had the realization that he somehow thinks that the church can just give him a bunch of money and send him to the states. we put things pretty simply and taught him some o fthe commandments to see if he is willing to do the work to become a part of God's fold. We'll see how it goes. It was pretty funny though. Forde was dropped yesterday. We asked him if he'd prayed about the book of mormon like he said he would and he said "I don't have to pray. God has given me a brain and reasoning powers. I already know the book of mormon is true because it agrees with the Bible 100 percent. I will NOT pray about it!" His pride is robbing him of his faith, really. He is a cool guy but we aren't going back for awhile.. If he comes to church, and wants us to come back we'll start again i guess.

I'm getting better at cooking. Haha Sunday I cooked some chicken tenders up, fried them in oil with tons of really good seasoning. Then I had penne pasta and tomato sauce. Yeah it's easy but it's better than eating fast food, mac and cheese, tuna fish sandwiches, or spaghetti. I really like to eat quick and get like a half hour extra to study the book of mormon instead of taking 45 minutes just to cook. This week i'm giong to try to cook curry shrimp and rice. I'll let you know how it goes.

This week is going to be a really good one. I'm excited to find a lot of new people this week. I love this work. I'm growing all the time, not really physically. Technically i'm shrinking. Losing a lot of weight. Which is good. Using the perfect pushup too which is awesome. Haha.

Mom, don't worry about the length of your emails. I love long emails! Haha and Dad, thanks for the picture. Pretty funny to see me like... 10 years ago.

I love ya all, don't worry about me, things are going fine.

Love, Elder Morris

PS: I was thinking about it more, Mom, and if it's possible to work something out with Elder Prince and his family I think it'd be fun if you came down. But either way is fine with me. Money is tight lately and it's totally fine if you don't come and pick me up. I'd be fine either way.

What do you think?

10/18/10
Heelloooooooo! La la la.... I can't spell Sienfield? Dang i've been away for awhile...

Anyways... this week was pretty good. We got to clean up the yard of a cool member family, the Miller's. It took 3 hours Thursday morning and Friday morning as well. My back still hurts. We killed 5 huge centipedes and their yard has never looked better. Haha it was way fun. I miss doing service. There was a lot we could help with in Guyana but lately nobody likes accepting help from you. I didn't take any pictures but Elder Hoepel and I had a blast.

We found a lot of new people this week but really in weird situations and ones that aren't going to progress too quick if at all. One such person, his name being Paul, call name being "Turkey", was rather ridiculous. He was proud to tell us he has 3 kids, the oldest being 20, and with three different moms, and has a different girlfriend right now. Also he was happy to pull out his marijuana stash and roll some up and while offering us, giving it to his friend who began to smoke it. We left but he wants us to come back... The west indies is definitely an interesting place.

We have zone conference tomorrow which i'm way excited for. I am extremely excited to have an interview with President Gamiette. I haven't had one for a long time with him with the new schedule. I feel like i've never done better in my mission than i am doing right now, but i still feel like i'm not at all as good as I could be. It seems to be an ongoing battle. You'll improve in one area you were struggling in then as soon as you climb that mountain you'll soon realize that there's an even larger mountain to climb just ahead. There's so much to improve on. Yet so little time to do it in. Only 2 hours to study during the morning and it doesn't feel like it's enough sometimes. How did I manage when I was home and it was hard for me to even read a little bit a day? I'm just grateful for the things i've learned and can hopefully continue to do when I get home. I love this work so much and while i may look back and see things i should have done better, regrets you could say of not doing my best at a specific time, but then I have over 7 months left where I can pick it up and do my best. Personal progression really is amplified in this short time i'm out here. I'm so grateful for the choice i made to come. I wish every one could go on a mission.

Our main investigator Sherneal is doing great. She is reading and praying and has a testimony of the BOM and Joseph Smith but the only thing that's holding her back from even accepting a baptismal date is baptisms for the dead. She's worried about it and doesn't want to set a baptism date until she knows it's true. so that's what we'll focus on this week. Elder Hoepel always encourages me. I was downhearted about it. That she wasn't doing as good as she really could be but he just says, "Don't you know we're doing God's work? We're led by the spirit. We're doing the best that we can. Whatever happens it's what is supposed to happen." Elder Hoepel is right and I need to TRUST in that more often. I love Presidnet Eyring's talk on trust. We can all learn to trust in God more. I sure need to. Things are going well here in Barbados. My curry beef and rice turned out great and was very tasty. I am making more this week :D. Rita from trinidad told me how to make it and is sending me roti with the AP's this week when they come for zone conference. Haha. I love this place. Nothing like the West Indies!

I love ya all!

Elder Morris

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Elder Nathan Morris

Apartment 6 Eagle Towers

Washington Avenue
Black Rock, St. Michael
Barbados, West Indies