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
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