HEY YALL!!! 

Sorry I wasn't able to cafe last week! No internet.

Well I'm in my last "dying" area called Asuom. Actually we haven't moved out there yet so we take a 1 hr taxi ride there and back each day and it's very exhausting. Mostly because we have to smash 6-8 people in a 5 man taxi which is not comfortable at allll!!!

My companion is Elder Msomi from South Africa. 

Asuom is a small branch. President simpson sees it becoming a ward in the next few months. We have much work to do out there tho. Starting with the branch and its members. We worship in a small Rented building. The chapel(sacrament hall) is just as big as the Piano and old computer room together. Not big at all!!

We will be moving in this coming friday! YAY no more traveling during the day! 

Yes we do have a senior couple out here. They stay in Abomosu. This is actually their 3rd mission in Abomosu! They're very experienced out in the bush!

After moving in to Asuom, we're planning to hit the farms with members to get our trust level up. It will help us build our relationship with them. We'll have 2 other elders in our apartment as well.

 I don't have much time but just know that I'm prayin for y'all!! If I don't respond back either I don't have time or we don't have internet! I won't be able to send pics anymore for the next 4 months so sorry these emails will be a little boring!

Just know that I love y'all! I'm cheering for ya! Also please pray for me! I need some extra strength right now. I'm a little under the weather. *head cold!

Have a great week,

Love,

Elder Morris

NO EMAIL THIS WEEK

*This is the first week in 21 months that we didn't receive a weekly email from Garrett! No worries, he's in the bush so that is to be expected. I think it will make our reunion that much sweeter! 

Here's a youtube video of Garrett's current area, Asuom.

 

Last Week in Ofankor

I hope everyone is doing well!! Look at all that beautiful American food!! Just to let y’all know my stomach hurt sooo bad for the next 2 days after chopping that food!! KFC+Pizza Hut=an upset stomach! Thanks to Elder Aiono who paid for it all!!!

Well here’s the transfer news...I’ll be leaving to my last area tomorrow. It’s called Asoum. It’s the deep deep bush. They ask that I continue to be a Zone leader but now to a new zone out there! I’m kind of excited now that I know what I’m doing. I’ll be with an Elder from South Africa. Idk how to spell his name so I won’t try till next week but when I talked to him on the phone he said. "I’ll probably be the closest to an American comp that you'll ever have on mission" ha ha  I think I’ll have to agree with that. Up until now I’ve had all African Companions. But that’s not a bad thing as I’ve felt I have had a full mission experience! And I’ll have to say I think the Lord prepared me to be with all African Comps! Shout out to my #Teamlightskin haha 

This week was a great one!! It went super-fast! I think because we had a lot of things to look forward to this week! Friday we were very lucky to attend the temple! Cool experience actually, we walked into the front gate of the compound going to the Area Office and temple site. As we were walking over to the Distribution Center, right before walking in, we crossed paths with our Area Seventy President, Elder Vincent. He was going to the Area Office as well. He greeted all of us and later that day we also met his wife. I just thought it was cool that I was able to greet a General Authority who was just in the same room as the Prophet not so long ago!

Another great experience this week was actually in church. First, we had some investigators that we've been teaching, dating back to the time Elder Kabwika was here, come to church for the first time. It was great to see!! A step of faith! I had another investigator, Kofi (8 years old, Sis Doras son) sitting next to me in sacrament meeting. While they were passing the sacrament I just closed my eyes, as a normal thing I do during the sacrament service. While I closed my eyes, Kofi started tapping me on the shoulder. I look up and he says "Why are you closing your eyes??"  Even though we should have the upmost respect during the Administration of the sacrament, I felt like it was a great teaching moment!

I pulled out an April Liahona magazine that I had with me and opened to the picture of Jesus Christ. I said “When I close my eyes I think about the Atonement Christ made" He responded "you mean the sacrifice" I said "Yes, I think about when He suffered in the Garden and died on the cross for me…When we partake of the sacrament we think of Jesus Christ."

After saying this I closed my eyes and waited for a few seconds. I then opened to see what Kofi would be doing and looked at him looking at my companion whose eyes were also closed. Immediately I saw Kofi fold his arms and close his eyes. He recognized by our example and decided to follow. As I thought about this experience this week and about the coming of Easter Sunday, I reflected how I’ve also learned through serving a mission, that CHRIST is our example! As we think of Him and His actions, as WE become as little children, we can decide to do the things that our Savior, Jesus Christ has done…forgive others, serve, bring healing to broken hearts, care for the poor and needy, just to name a few. He is the PERFECT EXAMPLE and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to repent and become better as He is. I’m sooo grateful for His atoning sacrifice. I’m grateful he suffered and bled from every pore; died on the cross, and died for us. I’m grateful for all of this so that He would know how to succor me when I fall. I know He'll do the same for you if you allow him to!

For the rest of this week it'll be pretty busy! Tomorrow I travel to Abomesu and stay there until they get us an apartment in our area. Wednesday we have to come back down to Accra for MLC. We'll get to sleep over at President house!! Yippe!!! And then the next adventure begins in the bush!!!!! 

Thanks for the support y’all! Hope y’all have a great week!  Can’t wait to send you my bush pictures next week! Ha ha ha
Love y’all,
Elder Morris

Lunch with the A.P.'s

Shield of FAITH

Sword of Truth

Dirty water filter vs. clean water filter 

HEY YALL!!!

Hope everyone had a great week!! Mine had a slow start but it ended really great with the opportunity to watch General Conference. It means so much more to me now that I’ve grown up. Before I just kind of took conference as a time to draw pictures and eat as much food as I’d like for 10 hours on the weekend twice a year...but now I’d say it bring great spiritual strength and a boost. It was amazing to hear inspired talks from our beloved Prophet and Apostles. It was truly great!

We have a number of people we are preparing for baptism this coming 16th of April. Easter Sunday! Sadly transfers are next week and I have no doubt that I’ll leave this time. I’ve been in Ofankor for 7 months. Oh by the way, today just so happens to be my 19th month mark...Holy Cow...Time is flying by!

Well this is the last week of transfer and assuming I’m leaving, so I’ll have to show Elder Dini all the member’s houses that I know. Here in Ghana it’s kind of difficult to locate members’ homes unless they show you themselves because there's not really house numbers. So they just tell you a general area and hope that you’ll find them. 

Oh and just a little something extra for this week. Nothing to special but I heard from former "Elder" Kabwika and he said he’s coming back to Ghana to do the Pathway program and after a year he'll transfer to BYU Idaho. So Mom…you'll actually get to meet one of my African companions someday!!! PRETTY COOL HUH?!

Thanks for all the support! You're all in my prayers!
love y’all
Elder Morris

Well Hope everyone had a great week!

Again, not much to report in the area.

We were able to do some contacting again and were able to get 4 more new investigators. The teaching pool is slowly picking up.

With the Investigators we're teaching now we have about 6 with baptismal dates. Sister Dora and her son were planning to be baptized on the 9th of April but sadly Sister Dora has only been to church one time. She’s actually pregnant and is always feeling sick so she has a good excuse.

We started teaching these two Nigerian brothers that showed up to church one day and wanted to start learning. They're doing well. They said in our first lesson that they already believe the church is true. Nevertheless, we still need them to pray to receive the sure answer from our Heavenly Father!

Just a little spiritual thought this week. We were sitting in the chapel on Saturday afternoon with some of the youth and we started asking each other questions. When it was one of the youths turn to ask me a question I was supersized by what she asked. "What does the Atonement mean to you?"

To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever asked myself this question. But I quickly responded, "It means EVERYTHING to me! And I try to use it every day!". I then realized how great my mission has been to me. 2 years of growing. I’d say 90% Spiritually and 10% physically (I’ve chopped fried rice every day for the last 7 months...)😶

But seriously, if you were to ask me when I was home, before my mission what the Atonement of Jesus Christ means to me, I’d hesitate and have to think about it. I would try to see where I could apply it or even what it actually means. But now I see. Life isn’t about being perfect, but life is about preparing to become perfect. In order to do that, we need to use the Infinite Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. We need to be cleansed of our sins. We do this by BUILDING our faith in Christ, repent of our sins each day, partake of the Sacrament each Sunday to renew our Covenants made at baptism. As I do this I receive the SPIRIT once again in my life and continue practicing perfection. 

How grateful I am for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know I’m not perfect...only one of Gods children was. That child, even the Son of God, Jesus Christ, made it possible for us to become as He is, one day. 

Thanks for all the support y’all give me! I appreciate it each week!
Y’all are in my prayers. Have a great week!
With love,

Elder Morris

 Flower Tie group

HEY YALL!!!

Well a little more productive week. Well the ending was more productive.

As y’all may know, we've been struggling to find people to teach so my emails haven’t been very lively. Well nothing to big this week but we were able to find more and more people to teach. We’ve added about 6 or 7 people to the teaching pool. That'll do to get us started.

Some were referrals from a few members and others came to church on Sunday so we'll be visiting them this week. 

Crazy story this week…Well let me just say to start, 2 nights of no sleep!!!

Friday night we came home and as we're getting ready for bed the light went out. So the electricity company had turned off our power and a few others in the neighborhood but our land lady still had power. She’s connected to a different power pole.

So Friday night we slept without electricity or light. This is how the night went…I immediately started sweating! And I CANNOT sleep when I’m hot. So Elder Paulson and I had moved a mat out into the main room by the front door so we could get some breeze from the air outside. Well, we have a BIG dog in our compound that the land lady lets out at night. We've become good friends with this dog (we'll play with him sometimes) so every night he runs strait to our door and starts barking to play. Well by this time we were just hanging around because we couldn’t sleep. The dog kept barking at us so we shut the door. When we finally felt like sleeping we opened the door to get some air but as soon as we did that dog came running to see us. Well we didn’t mind him until he was the one keeping us from sleeping. So Elder Paulson kind of ran the dog off in a nice way, and he left us alone for a little. About 3 hours later he came barking at the door again. It was 2 am in the morning…we were sweating, angry, tired!

Finally Saturday morning came. The day was great but we arrived home and electricity again! 

Same thing happened this night. The dog came barking at the door over and over and over again!

 Again at 2 am I got up this time to ran the dog off. It didn’t work so I tried to sleep. At 4 am that dog came back for more. By this time I was just like...”the dog is gonna die or I’m going to die” So I got a broom, walked outside and chased the dog to the back of our compound. Luckily he didn’t bother us anymore that night. But when I showed up to church on Sunday one of the youth members in our ward was like "Elder Morris...are you okay? You look very sick!! Your very white ha ha" "Yeah..it’s true, I told him…I haven’t really slept for the last 2 nights because of lights off" Oh she said and just smiled.

That was our terrible story of the week. Light (electricity) tend to go off for a few hours but it was never like this. It felt like I was camping this weekend in the Texas hot weather!

Even though the challenges are hard, I’m grateful for them as it’s giving me experience for life. The mission is great! It’s definitely not the easiest thing in the world but I have learned some of the greatest lessons on my mission. I’m truly grateful for this time to serve the Lord!

Thanks for the support y’all! Hope everyone has a great week

With love,

Elder Morris

HEY Y’all!!
Hope everyone had a great week!

Not much is going on here in Ofankor. We’re actually in a small pit trying to get out. We don’t have many people to teach and only about 3-4 people we're prepping for baptism. (that isn’t much for serving here in Ghana)

Well... Saturday we attended the Funeral for one of our recent converts’ daughters. It was a simple, normal funeral service. It started raining small so it made it a little more dramatic! Most of the service was in Twi so I didn’t understand much. But there was another overwhelming feeling of the great plan of salvation.

Sunday I was asked to give the opening prayer in Sacrament meeting. That was new! 

Sorry there’s not much to report on this week. Hopefully this next week will be better!
We're trying to work harder and pick the area back up! Keep the prayers up please, they're much needed!
Thanks for the support! Hope y’all have a great week!
With love,

Elder Morris

 Ghana Sunset

 A puppy I named MoMo

MORRIS