JOY no matter our circumstance

HAPPY OCTOBER!!!! 

I hope everyone had a good week!! Mine was pretty good!

Here’s what happened

Well let’s see where to start. Okay story..

We have a young man in the ward named Kingsly. He 13 years old but he loves to come and help us teach. He’s also a great translator for us.
So we brought him along to a lesson. It was to teach a lady we had just met 1 day earlier. But the first time we met her she had a lot of questions about the church and about things we do in the church. "Why don’t y’all dance and play drum…Why don’t you pay collection…Do you believe in tongues?

We get these types of questions all the time here in Ghana and I didn’t really know how to answer all of them when I first arrived. I knew the answer but I couldn’t really put it in a correct sentence. So when we arrived with Kingsly she started asking him all these same questions she had asked us before to see if he would say something different. She was trying to confound him.

I was very surprised when Kingsly started to give answers to her....and it was the same answers we had given her a day earlier. It was such a testimony to me that the Church of Jesus Christ is a church of learning!

Story number 2...
We planned to meet this man, Bro Emma after the first session of conference on Sunday to teach him in preparation for his baptism. Emma is around 26 years old.

During the break, we grabbed some chairs to set up outside the chapel to have a lesson. As we did so some of the young men started to follow us and brought their own chairs so they could join us in this lesson. These young men ranged from ages 13 to 16.
We began teaching Bro. Emma the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We came to the topic of baptism. Bro. Emma joked the whole time telling the small boys that he was going to ask them questions and they would HAVE to answer. So he picked this small boy, Spencer. He’s 13. He said “Jr Pastor (nickname) what if I was already baptized in my former church?? Would I have to also be baptized in as a latter day saint as well?? This young boy replied..."let me answer that for you, YES you would because we believe that the Priesthood authority is found only in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints as it was given to the Prophet Joseph Smith during the restoration of the Gospel. And not in your former church so that’s why you have to be baptized!"

At first I was kind of worried about how strong-bold the small boy’s answer was towards Bro Emma. But afterwards Bro. Emma had a big smile on his face and kept saying "Amen little pastor, Amen!!"

It was so great to be able to see such a young youth testify boldly to investigators of the church of what we believe to be true. And to see him stand up for that belief!

General Conference was also great watch. I loved the talk about having JOY no matter what we might be going through! Peace or trials…it doesn't matter, we can CHOOSE to always have joy, if we have a positive outlook on things!

This coming week I will attend my first Missionary Leadership Council meeting (MLC).

This will also be my first time going to the mission home. It will be good.

Everything is going great!! 

There are only 2 more months to finish any goals you had for this last year! My goal is finishing the Book of Mormon before Jan 1st. Who will join me?? We've been promised that it will build us spiritually and help us grow closer to our Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ!

Have a great week and keep smiling,

Elder Morris