Teaching a lesson...when along comes a donkey

Exchange with the AP's

GOOOOOODDDDD afternoon everyone!!! 

Hope everyone had a great week! Mine was pretty good..

Well let’s see... This week was slow but also fast. Seems like that every week.
Elder Kabwika now has his plane ticket and is getting eager to go. 4 weeks left for him. But he’s still working.

Okay on Wednesday we were able to go one exchange’s with our APs. It was great! We have some great guys as leaders in this mission! Well we were able to see Bro. Rockson and his wife. We re-extended a baptismal date to Rockson so he has the same one as the rest of his family. But it seems now he’s somehow not making time for us. He’s also looking for a job so it could be he’s a little busy. 

As I’m sitting here emailing, we just received a call from Sis. Divya. She told us that she wanted to put her baptismal date on 18th of Feb. She said things are all good now and she’s ready to be baptized so I’m interested to hear why she is ready all of the sudden. I’m happy for here though. 

We’re slowly building our teaching pool. We've contacted a few referrals this weekend from members and the referrals seem promising! At least 2 of them could be baptized by the end of February!

We had a Worldwide missionary broadcast this last week and it was sooo great to hear from some of the Apostles; Elders Cook, Bednar, and Anderson. 

A little uplifting thought from my personal study this week

As the youth theme for 2017 is Ask of God I felt this scripture found in the Book of Mormon fit perfectly.

    Mormon 9:21 

            Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.

As we know in James 1:5 if we lack wisdom we should ASK of God. This is a great promise here from a Book of Mormon Prophet…if we ask, in the name of Jesus Christ, it shall be granted unto us. But the key is BELIEVING, or having faith that we might receive an answer to our prayers! 

Alright where to begin...

Well some good news. We were able to meet Rickson’s family this week (not him). But we had to good lessons with his wife and kids and then Saturday we saw them at the end of our day and extended baptismal dates to all 4 of them. The wife and the 3 kids! Soo we'll be working with them to progress towards the 18th of Feb. It’s somehow Elder Kabwika’s goal to baptize the family before he leaves on the 28th of Feb. They're our main focus this transfer! A big family!!! He even has more kids at the boarding school so this would be a great gain in Heavenly Father’s Kingdom!

Divya isn’t progressing much anymore. She comes to church but doesn’t enjoy going to the Relief society class with "a bunch of old ladies" Her words, not mine! Ha ha

So we're working with her small small.

This coming week we'll be having a Zone training which we'll watch a broadcast from Salt lake City. It’s a missionary worldwide broadcast and apparently they'll be making some changes across the world for missionaries.

Not much more to say. Things are going swell!!

A little scripture thought this week. I was reading in the Book of Mormon this week and read

3 Nephi 30:2

  "Turn, all ye Gentiles, from your wicked ways; and repent of your evil doings, of your lyings and deceivings, and of your whoredoms, and of your secret abominations, and your idolatries, and of your murders, and your priestcrafts, and your envyings, and your strifes, and from all your wickedness and abominations, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, that ye may receive a remission of your sins, and be filled with the Holy Ghost, that ye may be numbered with my people who are of the house of Israel."

I think this is one of the more direct versus we find in the Book of Mormon. As we repent of our sins, be baptized in the name of Christ, we can receive forgiveness of our sins and receive the Holy Ghost. These are great instructions from the Lord. I know we aren’t perfect but we can all try! I hope we all can take advantage of the great and infinite atonement that our Savior, Jesus Christ made for us. Through this we might be forgiven of our sin and transgressions.

Love and miss y’all!

Have a great week

Elder Morris

 A dog named "Doctor"

 GHANA lightning 

 Mission Leadership Council

TMLC with Pres. & Sister Simpson

 Wiscombe, Paulsen, Morris, Kabwika (Housemates)

 Twinning is winning!

MTC group "reunion"

We've been able to find some new people to teach. Most of them stay with members or it’s a part member family...which I don’t know why we didn’t try to focus on them before because they all have fellow-shippers to help them progress in the gospel. duuuuuuhhhhhh!!!

Well not as bad as Elder Baileys story this week, but we also had lights off here in Ghana...sadly it happened in the middle of the night so no one could sleep because it was excruciatingly too hot!!

This week we will be having MLC (mission leadership council) again at president’s house. I'm really excited for this because we haven’t had it for a long time due to Christmas and New Year’s. 

Sunday at church I was asked to give a talk on home teaching. So I went back to read the conference talk from Elder Jeffery R. Holland and had some great inspirations to share during my talk. I've come to realize that Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching are a member’s only lifelong calling in the church, well, besides being parents! I’ve seen how important it is while being a missionary. It definitely has a different meaning to me now, and I know I have a responsibility to the families I will be assigned to in the future… to strengthen them in the gospel and look after their physical and spiritual needs in life. 

I was also asked to lead the Elder Quorum class. We had a discussion on the Prophet Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel and Jesus Christ. How grateful I am for a young boy who wanted to know the truth and sought our Heavenly Father in prayer without doubting. Who then received an answer which leads to the true church of Jesus Christ being restored back to the earth in its fullness!

I know the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is Christ’s true church here on earth with the authority of God. Jesus Christ lives and loves us all! 

I hope everyone has a great week! Keep smiling and find the positive in life, it makes it much easier to live!

With love

Elder Morris

What a week...Actually it was just like all the other ones haha 

Last week of transfer!! Again im sure ill stay in this area because my Companion goes home next month soo We've been soo tired this week, but still working. 

Update: We've been teaching this man, Bro Rockson. He has a great family that we've also been teaching. So we've been working with him for about 2 months now. On and off lessons. But he says hes really looking to change his life style. Hes has a problem with Alcohol, so this week in our lessons we taught the Word of Wisdom to him and have been helping him stop drinking. ITS SOO HARD!! i have no idea how to help him stop drinking except to teach him the importance of the commandment and the blessing that come along with it! I was amazed after the lesson and after testifying of the truthfulness of the word of wisdom and the blessing we promised him that he said he knows he needs to give up drinking and we should give him a few weeks and he'd give it up.
Soo the fights not done, we still have a long way to go in helping him progress towards baptism. 

It was awesome tho, He came to church on sunday and his family also..Well they actually showed up after church ended, but they still made it over to see bishop which we were happy about!

We're still trying to help Divya to get baptized. He problem is shes living with a guy and they arent legally married yet so either they need to split up and he need to move out or they get married.. Problem is she doesnt want to get married, but she enjoys his company. soo we've been helping her know how she can pray and seek the guidance of our Heavenly Father in what she should do.

I was able to share my testimony this week in Fast and Testimony meeting and i chose to use a scripture from The Book of Mormon, Ether 12:27 

 27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them theirweakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humblethemselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weakthings become strong unto them.

  We all have weaknesses, They come in different shapes and sizes. But why are they given to us..Because our purpose in life is to progress. So we are given weaknesses that we can grow. Both Physically and spiritually. And for us to overcome our weaknesses we must have 3 things line into place. WE must Come unto him! we have a strong desire to change or correct our weakness. 2. We must be humble and willing to do the will or the Lord. 3. We use the Atonement of Jesus Christ in helping us over come that weakness. okay 4 things..We have faith in him!! having faith that we can over come that weakness with the help of our Father in Heaven.

Strive each day of 2017 to progress. dont go backwards. Something that has helped me is "take it one day at a time" When you start looking forward in the future to much you'll get over excited and have a hard time focusing on the needs of NOW.. 

Hope everyone has a great week!!
With love

Elder Morris

1/2/2017

 HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!

What a great one! Just to make it clear, the firework picture isn’t us...it’s the neighbors! 

We had another slowish week with the festive season. Our struggle is to find new investigators...We were able to meet 2 new people who seemed interested. We sat down to learn with them and just went straight to the Restoration and testifying about Joseph smith and the First Vision! They both seemed to enjoy the lesson and said their eyes were somehow opened.

On to good news, Sis Felicia was Baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. They asked me to help take part in the Circle for Confirmation but it was all in Twi so I didn’t really understand. That’s alright, that why the spirit is there!!

Our new year’s was good! 

I was able to make some goals for 2017. Wow let’s say it again... 2017 so nice!

Well we hope to start a strong week of proselyting this week! We’re going to start working to visit more members in the ward to try to get more referrals. Hopefully it works.

Hope everyone has a great week!
With love,

Elder Morris