October 6, 2014

Oct. 6, 2014

It is strange knowing that this is the last time I will send you an email as a missionary. Yesterday I felt quite weird about the fact that I had finished my mission, but today I woke up with a sense of accomplishment and I knew that I had finished the work I came here to do—almost finished, that is. Tonight we will hold one more baptismal meeting for C, D and K (granddaughter of M. L., who we baptized a couple of weeks ago). So thankfully, I still get to be a missionary for a little bit longer.

I caught all four regular conference sessions but missed the priesthood one because it was transmitted too late in the evening, and mission rules didn’t allow me to attend. But that is all right. Next time I’ll watch it in the conference center with the guys and eat pastrami burgers afterward, so I’m chill. It was fun watching Elder Godoy’s talk in Portuguese. I enjoyed it a lot because there was no translator swallowing words. (Once in a while I didn’t understand something that someone said because of a bad translation).

On Tuesday I went to the temple and met up with all of the guys from my group. That was fun, and it was great seeing everyone again (it had been a while since I’d seen some of them). On Thursday, Elder P. got super sick, so we took him to the hospital, and it turns out he has pneumonia. He has been recovering since then though, and there is no imminent danger. I didn’t exactly want to spend the last few days of my mission at the house, so we organized divisions with the young men so that I could keep working with one while the other took care of P. at home. It wasn’t exactly how I had planned to finish my last week as a missionary, but that’s okay. We got done what we needed to get done.

As for my own personal improvement, I know that I have made a lot of progress, but I’m still me—just a better me. Who knows, seeing as how I’ve been away from everything for so long, when I get home it might feel like (to quote Joe Walsh): “Everybody’s different but I haven’t changed.” Nerk.

I’m excited that the gramps are going to be there when I get home. My welcome home itinerary looks like fun, the most important thing being that I will be with my family. Hmm, this is going to be weird after two years.

Well, I don’t really know what else to say. This last week seems like a dream, and so do these last two years. But either way, I’m done, I did it, I accomplished what I set out to do, and now I’m coming home. I love you guys and I am excited to see you on Thursday.

To finish up, I will quote an Ozzy Osbourne song. Why Ozzy? Because the song fits perfectly, and I invite you to listen to it so that you know the tune. I think that you will like it. It is called “Mama, I’m Comin’ home.” I changed some of the lyrics to meet the occasion, but you will get the idea.

Times have changed and times are strange

Here I come but I ain’t the same

Mama I’m comin’ home

Time passed me by and now it seems

The entire thing was just a dream.

Mama I’m comin’ home.

It’s been so long since I’ve been there

That I don’t know what to say.

But there’s one thing I know for sure

That this time I will stay.

With a swollen heart and tear-filled eyes

I comprehend now how time flies.

Mama I’m comin’ home.

I hope you know, I love you so

When I see you there my tears will flow

Mama I’m comin’ home

Oh Mama, Mama, I’m coming home, I’m coming home

Mission accomplished. My adventure is coming to an end.

There and back again,

Elder Morris

September 30, 2014

Good morning,

As I said yesterday, I will be heading to the temple for the last time with the guys from my group so today will be my P day for the week. I hope that everyone had a good weekend and I hope that everyone is excited because Im coming home. nerk.

We had a good week last week and another baptism. I dont know if you remember J.T., my first baptism here. Well, a couple months back we baptized him and reactivated his family and a couple weeks ago they gave us a referal. We visited the family and met W., J., L. and We., we taught and prepared W. and baptized him Sunday. His parents fell in love with the church and with us and even served us dinner last night. We. is going to go to church this Sunday and probably be baptized next week and his parents, who arent legally married, are going to have to wait a month to be baptized, so I wont be here for the rest of the baptisms in this family but thats okay, I did my part and Im happy to see that they are embracing the gospel. 

I gave my ``farewell talk´´ here in Neópolis on Sunday, seeing as how next week is Conference I asked if I could speak a week early. I spoke about the principles of Zion and thanked everyone for the help and love that they gave me in this area. I usually am not much of a cryer when it comes to speaking in church but this time I couldnt help it. I love these people so much and so I ended up crying in front of everybody, but I wasnt the only one, as I looked out over the pulpit I saw that the Stake President, the B. family, J.T.'s  family, other recent converts and a whole bunch of other members were tearing up as well. There is something about this area and these people that has touched and changed my heart. I formed such a strong friendship with the people in this ward that it will be hard to let them go. But that is they way things are and Im just glad that I was able to be part of Ala Neópolis for these last three months. 

On Friday I was able to swing by my areas in Canoas. First I went to Rio Branco, said hi to the Elders, ate lunch with a family there and took a picture or two with a recent convert. Then I headed to Estância Velha, my first area. Another family gave us lunch there too (what can I say, they love me, nerk) and then we visited the D. family (that was sealed last month) and then ate dinner with the M.´s. We had a great time at their house and when we got there they were doing seminary so I got to see a lot of the people from the ward. We ended up missing the bus back so we crashed at the missionaries´ house there in Estância (where Elder R. is working, my former companion). We headed back the next morning. It was great to be back in my first area and say hi to some of the people. The talk we had with the D. family was great too. We talked about the plan of salvation, the sealing power and Gods plan for us. The family is doing well and have been going to the temple regularly, so they will be all right. 

To finish up and somewhat paraphrase the Barenaked Ladies:

It´s just one week and Ill be home

It´s been two years since I left out on my own

In just seven days Ill catch the plane

Ill be heading home to reap the R.M. fame...

Almost there,

Elder Morris

September 22, 2014

From two years to two weeks:

I woke up with a strange mix of feelings this morning that has continued with me until now. As I said earlier this morning, a couple buddies from my MTC group are here in my area passing the P-day with me, and seeing them again and receiving my official itinerary from the mission office left me thinking, “Has it really been two years? Was it really 22 months ago when I was with these guys in the MTC? Am I really finishing my mission? Where did the time go?”

Looking back over the last two years, I can say that I wasn’t perfect—in fact, far from it. But if I did reach perfection in one field of my life as a missionary, it would be the fact that I worked. I always worked. Even when things (for the lack of a better word) sucked, I worked. I take pride in that. I always gave it everything I had, and I am grateful for that. Now that I am here, “at the end of all things” (to quote the Lord of the Rings), I feel sad, but I live without regrets.

To answer Mom’s question, yes, there were days that lasted for ever. At the time it seemed like it would never end. But the years have flown by. I feel sad, actually. The love I have for the members and recent converts here is incredible, unmatched. As I have said, Neópolis has been my favorite area. Now that I can see the end, I realize that there really is no going back. After I catch that flight, I will never again be here as a missionary, and I will never again be able to do what I am doing now. I will never again feel the way that I do as an authorized representative of Jesus Christ, and honestly, I don’t know what to think.

Returning to the missionary work here, things are still going well. Sorry if I gave you the impression that the baptisms of C. and D. would be my last baptisms here; what I meant is that they would literally be my last baptisms here, seeing as how they will be baptized the day before I leave this area. We still have a few possibilities for baptisms over the next two weeks and, everything working out right, we should be able to baptize a couple of people this Sunday. Our baptism for this past Sunday fell through because the mother of the person we were going to baptize changed her mind and decided that her daughter should wait “for three or four more years to see if this is really what she wants.” Way to go. Oh well, unfortunately we can’t force parents to want their children to be blessed.

This week we were knocking doors, and we met a woman who is apparently married to an inactive member of the Church. We left a Book of Mormon with her and marked to go back. When we arrived at her house again, we met her husband, who when seeing us, smiled, invited us in and explained how he was so excited to see that his wife had met the missionaries and that she had received a Book of Mormon, “the best present anyone can get,” he said. He then started to teach his wife about the book and told her how she would be a great Relief Society president and a whole lot of other things that she didn’t understand. The point is, he is super excited for us to teach his wife, and apparently he had been wanting to become active again in the Church, but he just needed a little push. (Something somewhat tragic happened in his life a while back, which led him to start smoking, which led to embarrassment, which led to him going inactive). So, super missionaries away. Nerk. We are going to reactivate him, baptize his wife and, here in a year, seal them in the temple. That’s the plan anyway.

I am going to ask for permission from the president to go back to Canoas this Friday to visit my first and also my seventh areas. I will visit the family that was sealed a couple of weeks back and a few other people I baptized. The Motta family (the coolest family in Canoas) said they would make us a churrasco that night, so be jelly, be very jelly.

But that is about it for now, so I’m going to have to run. I love you all! In two weeks I am home.

Beijos,

Elder Morris

September 15, 2014

Interesting. Over the last few weeks and even months the only word in the English language that I found adequate to describe how it must feel completing an honorable full-time mission was glorious. The quote that you sent seems to describe the feeling perfectly.

[Here's the quote I sent him: "A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain" (from the book Unbroken.]

Speaking of finishing strong, we had two more baptisms on Sunday. We baptized a reference of the second counselor in the bishopric named M. and I., the grandmother of Ma., who we baptized about six weeks ago. M. is the mother and grandmother of many people, so we have a lot of potential to baptize futuristically there.

We started teaching M. about three weeks ago, and she is definitely someone who was prepared by God to be baptized. For her entire life she was searching for the truth. She went from church to church looking for it. She was Catholic, Jehovah’s witness, Evangelic, Adventista do Sétimo Dia and several others, but the first time she went to The Church of Jesus Christ, she “fell in love with it.” It was only a matter of how quickly we could teach her everything she wanted to know.

I., who’s 75, was Catholic since birth, but she has such a great love for Ma. and always wants to be with him that she decided to let us teach her, help her to stop smoking and be baptized. It took a little longer than we had hoped, but everything worked out in the end.

I’m happy to hear that the gramps from both sides with be coming up to visit in October. It will be great seeing them all again. I’m super excited to be home for the holidays this year. Just thinking ahead, my homecoming will be the 9th of October, my talk with be the 19th, fall break is in there somewhere, my birthday is the 27th, Rachel’s birthday is the 3rd of November, Thanksgiving and Michelle’s birthday follow, along with Christmas and New Year’s. Looks like we are going to party like its 1999.

Months and transfers back I was afraid that when I got to my last transfer that I would start to lose the focus, but thankfully the Lord has put me in a such a good area that, as Dad said, I’m too busy to get trunky. There are so many people here with baptismal potential that I don’t have time to waste. Also, the members here love us and are impressed with our work (before A. got here there were only lazy, slacker missionaries for a long time, so the ward didn’t have any baptisms), and all of them are starting to give us references (and extra food too, oh yeah). This area has turned out to be my favorite. I’ll never forget Neópolis.

It’s starting to get hot here, that is true. I’m grateful that I’ll be able to leave the heat of Brazil to go snowboarding in the snow of Utah. I think you all will recall that the summers here are absolutely miserable.

Well, that about does it for me this week. I’m almost there—24 days until I touchdown. Love you all!

Elder Morris

September 8, 2014

Good morning:

Things are going all right here in Neópolis. We are working hard, maintaining high goals and preparing several people for baptism, but it seems like the baptism is always just out of reach. Our baptism fell through yesterday because A., who we were going to baptize, went out of town for three days to visit her dying aunt in the hospital. Bummer for everybody. I honestly got kind of frustrated this week because I feel like I am doing everything I can to finish strong, but the blessings of the Lord are dodging me. Well, maybe I can’t say that. We had a pretty cool experience with a couple that we are preparing for baptism that I will share in a bit, but I still feel like I am being tested to the maximum. I’m so close, as everybody is telling me now, but four weeks is still four weeks, and it’s going to take everything I’ve got to finish strong, but I’ll figure it out.

So, we have been teaching a couple, C. and D., for three weeks. (I think I told you about them last week, how I felt inspired to knock a door but didn’t and then I contacted D., the person who lives at the house, on the street, etc.). Anyway, they aren’t legally married, so in order to marry them, we have to swim through the corruption of Brazilian politics, which included paying 200 bucks (which we got out of, thanks to an old Brazilian law and two years worth of mission experience) and waiting for 30 days in order to actually get married. I knew about the time period, which worried me because I only had about 30 days left as a missionary when I went to the town hall with them.

After we had done the initial paperwork, the woman at the desk said to us, “Okay, so we have two possible dates here, the 6th or the 9th of October.” My heart jumped and my mind raced. “What day was I going to leave again?” Then I remembered that I would head to Porto Alegre on the 7th, so I blurted out, “The 6th, the 6th will do.” So, on literally my last day of my mission, the 6th of October, we will marry them and I will participate in my last baptisms as a missionary in Brazil. Cool, huh?

So, for these last four weeks, my plans are to just endure to the end and finish strong. It’s tough sometimes, though, I will admit. It’s hard sometimes to stay focused and care about people who often rudely reject you. I know that the time will pass quickly, and I want to be able to say, like I can say up to this point, that I have given everything I’ve got. I liked the journal entry that Dad sent. It’s cool how I am now in his shoes 37 years later. 

Well, I love you all. Here in two weeks I will get the trunky email about my plane flight. You guys will too, so we will be able to start planning some things. I miss you! I’ll be home very, very soon.

Love,

Elder Morris

September 1, 2014

Sept. 1, 2014

“Happy Anniversary [Daddy], I’ve got you on my mind. Happy Anniversary [Mommy], I’ve got you on my mind.”

A little Little River Band for you. So I forgot to wish you a happy anniversary last week, so I’ll do it now. Happy Anniversary! I hope that you had a good day, a good dinner and that here in three weeks a good getaway.

So I’m down to my last companion, Elder P., from Terra do Fogo, Argentina. He has about five months on his mission, and he just got transferred out of a really crappy area where he didn’t have much success, so I’m hoping to get him a couple of baptisms while I’m here. Elder P. is from Ushuaia, where you, Dad, went to interview a couple of people and write some articles a few years back. If I am not mistaken, you wrote an article about a lighthouse and another about temple marriages. Elder P. kept the articles and has them with him to this day, and when he found out that it was my dad that wrote them, well, he thought that was kind of cool.

Elder A. was transferred to Passo Fundo, to the area that I guessed he would go to. He is a district leader there, which is cool and good for him, but I really am missing him. Elder P. is good and all, but Elder A. and I had a closeness that few of my other companions had. We got along perfectly and worked very well together. Elder P. is still kind of green, so I’m going to have to train him a bit, something that I didn’t have to do with Elder A.. Oh well, it’s my last transfer anyway, so I’ll try and help him out a bit.

On a sadder note, Thursday morning I got a call from a brother in my first area informing me that J., the son of that family that was sealed last week, had a heart attack and passed away. Brother M. invited me to attend the funeral, so we caught a bus and took the 40-minute trip from Neópolis to my first area, where we attended the funeral. Brother M., the guy who called me, spoke at the funeral and talked about missions, purpose and God’s timing. I had the opportunity to give the closing prayer, and afterward I spoke with the family for a bit and did my best to comfort them.

Walking back from the burial, Brother M. said, “Elder Morris, think on this, you came all the way from the United States to find, teach, baptize and seal this family. You saw and helped J's mission start and finish (he served faithfully in his priesthood calling passing the sacrament every Sunday in a wheel chair), you helped him fulfill his calling in life. Few people, few missionaries have the opportunity to do that.”

It was a sad day and it seems like death has a nag in following me around, but I find comfort in the fact that less than a week before his passing, J. was sealed for time and all eternity to his family, that he has only been “transferred” temporarily, and that soon he will be together with his family, perfected, for ever.

So we found this cool couple here, C. and D., that are super excited about the Church. We are going to marry them and then baptize them in a couple of weeks. They might end up being my last baptisms as a missionary. How we found them was pretty cool. One day we passed in front of their house and I felt like I should knock there, but we were in a hurry so we kept going. The next day I contacted D. on the street, and we went to visit them shortly thereafter. They went to church and started to read the Book of Mormon (C. already has read up to Alma), and they are both super excited about the Church. So it is plain to see that I still have work to do here. I’m going strong, but it is difficult. I’m almost done though and as President Wright likes to say to me, “Keep going, soon the mission will just be a memory.”

So that is about it for me. I love you all and I am super excited to be coming home. Be safe!

Love,

Elder Morris

August 25, 2014

“Somewhere out on that horizon, out beyond the neon lights, [I know I’m getting closer, and my home is in my sight].”

Okay, so I had to change the Eagles’ lyrics a little bit, but what do you want from me? I only have six weeks left.

We had a good final week of the transfer, but unfortunately we weren’t able to baptize the people we were planning on baptizing because they still have problems with coffee. But we will keep working with them. If we had baptized again, Elder A. and I would have had a transfer of excellence. Oh well.

The coolest thing that happened this week was the sealing that I went to. The D. family was a family that Elder W. and I baptized in my first area, a year and three months ago. I had never seen a sealing before, but it was the most satisfying thing I have ever done as a missionary. As I watched the family kneel around the altar and be sealed for time and eternity, all of the pain, frustration, exhaustion, and rejection of the mission that I have experienced over the last two years all faded away, and I knew that it had all been worth it. After they had been sealed, C. (the mother) came up to me, smiled and said, “Thank you for never giving up on us.” (The first couple of times that we visited them, she hid from us.) Then J. (the father) shook my had and said, “Remember, it was you and Elder W. who started it all. Thank you.” It was an incredible feeling, and it took a little while to fall asleep later that night because I was trying to comprehend the greatness of what had just happened.

Turns out, Elder A. is going to be transferred. He is going to go from junior companion to district leader. He is a fantastic missionary, so it didn’t come as a surprise to me. As for me, I’ll just stay here in Neópolis, but I won’t train. Only two elders came in this transfer, so only two elders out of about a 100 will train. Elder R. will be one of them, which is good because he wanted to train again.

This morning I awoke feeling a little different. I knew that I had just started my last transfer and I knew that I would finish my mission here. It’s weird to think about. No more transfers, no more new areas, no more leadership positions, no more companions, etc. After six weeks, that is it, no more. It was an exciting but also kind of sad feeling. I’m more than ready to go home, but I have grown to love my companions, the members and recent converts so much that I don’t really know how I will react when I no longer do what I am doing. But at the same time, it’s all right. I have done my part, and I have always given everything that I have, so I will be able to finish knowing that I gave my all.

I’ll try to take a couple of pictures like the ones requested, but this week I have a pretty cool set of pictures to send you. On Saturday, Elder A. and I hiked Mount Itacolomi and took some pretty sweet pics. See my other email.

So that is about it for this week. I’m “coming up around bend,” as CCR likes to say, and I’ll be home before I know it. Just lower the head and power through. Let’s see if I can get a few more baptisms out of it.

Love you!

Elder Morris