Friday, August 21, 2009
From: Shae Morgan (shae.d.morgan.mes@myldsmail.net)
Sent: Tue 8/04/09 4:40 PM
To: morganet@msn.com; shadanielm@hotmail.com
Familia,
Hola from the CCM o the MTC. It's been a beautiful sunny week with wonderful weather and wonderful spirit. So here goes my weekly letter to tell you all about the craziness which is going on here.
First off. Yes, I saw Elder Schellman, Jessica Ex-Lewis, and ALSO a Mr. Kaplan Sanders. So that's been good and it's always a little boost to see people I know from EFY, Home, and BYU. Some of my good friends from BYU came in this week. Namely, Jericho Lopez, my ping pong buddy, David Grimm and others. This week My district and I get to be hosts! so that is going to be way sweet, we'll get to walk all the little nervous smiley scared new missionaries to their home for the next little while. I'm exited for that.
So I'm companions with Elder Mullen right? Elder Mullen has some back pain and stuff that he does Physical therapy for. Guess what this means?! I GOT TO SEE THE REAL WORLD!!! 2 times this week we went out into the real world, talking to REAL people. It was pretty neat. At one doctors appointment, I was sitting in the lobby waiting for Elder Mullen, and I said "ok Lord, I'll talk to everyone that sits in this chair" (the one really close to me.) Guess where every single person sat? you got it. That chair. So I talked to a lot of people, even challenged a man to start reading the Book of Mormon again after having a difficult time believing. So hopefully something good comes of that. Also a shout out to Hannah Pullan, I saw her as we drove by the BYU buildings.
Random spanish phrase that doesn't really work out?
This week Elder Allred (the goofball we all love in our group) came up with this one. It's a "Tres Manera Corbata!" meaning (literally) Three Way (pathway or manerism) Tie (the kind to wear)
ok Neat Experience of the Week (N.E.W.) soooo this week, we had a rockin' devotional. Talking about how the Lord's hand is in everything and how we need to be submissive and humble eenough to accept whatever he has planned for us. Sooo, one of the songs we sang, they changed the lyrics on the screen. It was "Army of Helaman" the childrens song. The real words say "We will be the Lord's missionaries..." The words changed to "And we are now the Lord's missionaries, to bring the world His truth" Wow. What a neat experience. Being in a room of 2100 missionaries, each sacrificing something to be there and wanting to talk with everyone about the restoration that has changed their lives and made them Happy. Happier than they've ever been. A talk given this week, something stood out to me, a story was told about a missionary who was in an interview and he said "President, I've never been more tired...but I've never been more happy." I hope that I get to that point. I'm happy, I'm REALLY TIRED, and I'm starting to kinda realize what all God has in store for me. I'm DYING to get out to Mesa, and start talking with people. I'm excited to be able to communicate with Spanish people. in the REAL WORLD, I talked to a spanish lady, and we actually could communicate in her language...it made me happy, anxious, and excited to learn more. I'm humbled because really, I don't speak spanish, but I'm sure giving my all to learn how to do so better. Pray for me will ya? pray that I'll be able to speak spanish? Thanks everyone for all the support and love. Prayer works. Read the scriptures, for therein lies the answers to the things you think you'll never get a response about.
Love you all.
-Elder Morgan
okee dokee....cheque leque peque como un panqueque
| From: |
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| Sent: | Tue 7/28/09 4:42 PM |
| To: | morganet@msn.com |
ok so I don't even know what that means in the subject line, but it's something about pancakes and evidently in some places it means "yeah ok for sure." or something similar. For mom, yeah I'm doing well. I'm healthy, I'm exercising, and I'm not eating too much. The food here IS wonderful...however...there's SO much of it it makes me sick. bleck. ok not literally sick, but you get it. ok I've started making lists of thing to write about since time is so limited. So here it goes.
Gabby. Gabby Sandoval. This is the name of my new investigator! a REAL LIVE one. haha she sent in an e-mail (in spanish) about a week ago and we e-mail her back and forth to teach her, and give her assignments, and check up on her. Anyway, this week we challenged her to go to church, and she accepted! so we have yet to hear about that but we'll see. :)
Family: I need a line of authority sent to me, just in case I ordain someone and give them the Mel.Priesthood, they'll know their line.
RC=Referral Center. where we can call people and offer videos, Libros de Mormon, and othre stuff. Making phone calls is scary. making phone calls in spanish is REALLY scary. I'm getting over it though, starting to realize that these people NEED the gospel, to experience joy that I've felt in my life. So I press on making calls, offering the truth to those who will listen.
New topic. Funny spanish stuff! This week, we decided to kill english. English is dead here for my district. That's brought about interesting new frases. like "que muela" which means something like "how totally gorgeous" don't worry...we only use it to describe meals, scriptures, or occasionally or rooms after cleaning. Also Tortuga Torpe = our spanish equivalent of "awkward turtle". For those who know what that is.
Guess who I saw here!?!?! ELDER SCHELLMAN! that's right. Eric Schellman is here at the MTC, he came up to me and totally called me out. I had no clue who it was, then saw his last name and almost died. So that was cool.
SUPER neat experience this week. As a district, we're taking Moroni's challenge to know if the Book of Mormon is true. If we're challenging our investigators to do it, we better know AGAIN t hat it is true. So we go on. learning and studying and let me tell you...that book is so amazing. There is so much to learn in it's pages I cannot even express.
My goal for the rest of my tiempo aqui is to read the entire book of mormon in spanish. It's going along great and I'm learning a lot by reading it.
I had this theory, that at EFY, they work you so hard until you are just physically dead, then they NAIL you thursday with devotionals, and then testimony here. I feel similarly here...every day is so much work, it's so hard, there's so much to do, and I've never felt so strongly guided and so...spiritized? ok not a word, but you get it. it's so great here. I love learning the gospel. I love learning spanish to help me teach others the gospel. I'm just an uber happy guy now! Anyway, Thanks mom for whackin' Mr. Christopher in the head, that made my day, and my time is about up. Just know that I love you all way much. seriously. En Serio. Thanks so much for all the letters, support, help, thoughts, everything. I know that God loves His children. Yo sé que He es nuestro Padre Celestial. Envió su Hijo, Jesucristo para que mediante su Expiacion, podemos ser liberados del pecado. (we can be free from sin through Christ's atonement. God is our loving heavenly father, who sent us his son.)
Thanks for your prayers.
Les Amo mucho
-Elder Morgan
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
From:
Shae Morgan (shae.d.morgan.mes@myldsmail.net)
Sent:
Tue 7/21/09 5:05 PM
To:
morganet@msn.com; shadanielm@hotmail.com
Familamily...so life is pretty darn good here. week 4 is coming up and as of this coming friday I'll have hit the 1/2 through the MTC...which also means only 23 months left :(. Real quick thing to note: Mom, and family if you could dearelder me long e-mails that would be better for me, because I'm spending about a third of my total e-mail time reading and then I have little time to type...even though I'm a beast typist (humble too). :) Ooook so week three hmm...yeah mom you're right we did start lesson 2 in spanish. we're not really supposed to until week 6...but what the heck :) So the first time we taught it, we were smoother than butter out on a hot day. The next time, we thought we were up for a challenge, so we asked that the "investigator" have a little deep problem something they really want help with. This was an ABSOLUTE FAILURE. We started getting to know the guy, (a native speaker by the way) and he was telling us something was bothering him. After assuring him we were there to help, and give a message of peace and comfort, he told us that his father had passed away, but that wasn't necessarily his problem...except for the fact that I thought he said that his problem WAS that his father had passed away. Soooo I jump right into how families can be together forever, and how God made a plan so that it's possible... we get to the end of the lesson, where we can ask for feedback, and he was like...I told you that my father passing away wasn't my main concern. And it turns out that his scenario he had been given was that he had cancer...so that was just a total failure for not getting to the heart of the problem. Oh well all is well. Todo esta bien :)Mom, I have a short little fun note for you. this week I learned that the "haré finca" means "I will do/make farm" so yeah...I feel pretty stupid now for saying that so much. ONE MORE story. So two of the hermanas in our district are gone now, but we still have Hermana Voigt. She was having a really bad day, and at lunch she was kinda just blowing steam and saying why everything was going so horribly....Shae stupidity instincts kick in...he reaches his arm out....moves it in her direction as if to comfort her with a side arm hug....then realizes he's a set apart missionary and that he really can't do that, freaked out, knocked over his cup and fell out of his chair.yeah. felt pretty stupid about that too. OOOK so about the work. It's awesome. Lesson 2, down in spanish. ok so it still needs a TON of work. But it's getting there...I can mumble through it and mostly conjugate all the verbs the right way. We still listen to general conference talks in spanish, and that's been a great help learning vocab and just getting used to how different people say stuff. Elder Reid and I are doing great...which is a major answer to prayer. I know God hears our prayers and even desires of our heart. This week, we've really straightened things out, and set some high goals. Just yesterday we had this ridiculous goal of "contacting" 100 people. Which entails introducing ourselves, getting to know them a little bit, and concluding by bearing testimony of some principle. and guess what? we did it. at 9:35 at night we bore testimony to a whole beginner spanish district and put our number at 108 contacts for that day. I feel really great about bearing testimony and stuff like that. Speaking of which. We taught lesson 2 a 3rd time in spanish...and I had a great experience. We were in the very beginning just talking about how God loves us...and out of nowhere I just spewed out "Do you understand that God is a real being who loves you?" Now...I don't know how to say that...I could piece it together now, but it just came out then. And then whoosh, and peace. the whole room was quiet...and this missionary, this human being, felt the spirit of the Lord testify that what we were saying is true. If he didn't, I sure did. And it was the first time I've really felt the love of God obviously manifest in my spanish teaching. One more quick thing. Every Sunday, there's a devotional, and then the opportunity to watch 1 of 4 church films. This week we watched The Testaments. And I think that everyone needs to watch that again. It's amazing. :) Thanks for all you love and support and prayers. I love you all and I miss you tons. But I'd miss not being here more :) -Elder Morgan
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Week 2: Mission Report: 2 words. qué pasó? haha ok so that's just a little chiste (joke) as all is well here in MTC land. Or "MTCia" so lovingly named by Elder Allred. He's such a goofball and keeps our district lively and animated. As for Elder Barnes, no he's not from the STL. He's from Topeka Kansas, he actually knew me from EFY and I basically inspired him to play guitar...interesting how the world works out huh? Anyway, he's not serving in Mesa, So much has happened this week! so, I don't know if I've mentioned this or not yet, but we have 3 hermanas in our district now, Hermanas Voigt (Serving in Mesa AZ!), Tracy (Panama), and Brown (Barcelona Espana). Also we added another Elder who moved up from beginner. Elder Mullen (serving in Long Beach CA) Sooo...Elder mullen and barnes are going to Long Beach, Elders Allred and Covey are serving in Tegucigalpa (sorry president Slezak I know I murdered that), Honduras mission, and Elder McDonald is serving in Chile Concepción and elder Hansen in Santiago chile. Then Reid and I going to Mesa. So that's the low-down of my TOTALLY INSANELY AWESOME DISTRICT. Basically we're the best.
Anyhow so today I went to the Temple. LOVE. haha it was wonderful, and a great experience. Classes? I'm doing a great job with spanish. I 'm really getting used to speaking and hearing it. I'm doing pretty good at understanding it. I can listen to conference talks and basically get everything out of it. unless it's Dallin H Oaks or someone with crazy language skills.
I need a line of authority sent to me just so you know. :) That's something else. Thursdays we have english fasts and we don't speak english the whole day...not going to lie it was really really rough and we had a hard time expressing ourselves. I'm gonna go get my laundry now, but I'll write another e-mail later since I have time left, so I'll ask more questions later!
Mucho amor -Elder Morgan
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
My days! I've been here 5 days this is starting th 6th. It's been nuts. My district is way neat comprising of Me, Elder Reid (comp), Elder Barnes, Elder Hansen, Elder McDonald, Elder Covey (yes, the grandson of Steven R.), and elder Allred (muy muy muy comico y amable). And we just had the pleasure of gaining a new addition to our distrito! 3 hermanas!! ellas estan muy muy alegres y simpatico tambien. Hermana Brown, Voigt (also going to Mesa Arizona), and Hermana Tracy. They are such an awesome strength to our distrito. I love hearing their testimonies, and you just can see the shining goodness in their eyes. Ok. Class description. I have 2 maetros (teachers). Hermana Hawley, and Hermano Stanfield. Hermana Hawley served in Spain and yes renae she speaks spanish with the lisp and everything. I'm glad you spoke like that cause it makes it easy for me to understand her while everyone else is having a really really hard time. Hno Stanfield served in Argentine and he has some FUNNY ways to say things. He's very helpful, as they both don't speak in english to us whatsoever, Hno stanfield especially is good at acting out the word, or explaining it in simpler terms. I love it. loooove it. So as I said, we are basically a no-english distrito. Class lessons are 100% spanish except for when we are COMPLETELY LOST. Which believe it or not doesn't happen much. We're all pretty darn good at spanish. The first day, we were extremely blown away, but now that we've been here 5 days, the spirit is definitely helping us out in the translation department. Yesterday, I understood every single thing Hna Hawley said. what a blessing! I know I don't know all the words, or how she was using them, but I know that I understood the entirety of her messge, even down to the little details, and for that little glimpse into the gift of understanding, I'm incredibly grateful for.
This is my longest e-mail probably because I have more time cause I don't get to read anything you have tried to send to me. Any messages from family and friends need to be sent to this address, or I won't be able to read them. shae.d.morgan.mes@myldsmail.org or wherever this message is coming from. maybe it's .net. oh well. just try and get any messages to me. Dear Elder.com is AWESOME. use it my box number is #105 and my estimated leaving date is Aug. 24 ( no early release here!) So I have 8.5 weeks to go insane and learn a ton of spanish and discussions in spanish and how to teach and everything else in the world. I've already learned so much!
I know mom probably wants a play by play of everything I do each day so here it is. 6:10 I wake up to beat the 6:30 rush to the showers. This gives me more time to feel the spirit in the morning instead of being rushed here and there to get to class on time. So, I wake up, pray for me, my companion, and my district. Shower, brush, change into awesome white shirt, slacks, and a DARN good tie, then I head to class by 7:00 personal study until breakfast at 7:45. Then class for 4 hours, till lunch, then lunch class for near 4 hours, then dinner, then comp study, and MDT (missionary directed time to study, language study, use the teaching evaltuation center, or referral center) That's pretty much it.
Seralyn just left for EFY huh....goodness you better keep those boys away from her Matt! Have an AWESOME time counselor-ing, it's going to be great and I hope you never ever doubt for a second if a prompting from the spirit to talk to a boy or girl is of God, because you may just be the thing that starts them changing for the better. That's what happened to me, and I'm forever grateful for that moment of my life.
ok I'm pretty ADD cause I just threw that in mid-schedule. So, After MDT is comp inventory (where we talk about our day and what we can do better) and then after that is study time, praying time, comp prayer, then lights out at 10:30. We also usually have a gym period (which is heaven here.) and sometimes we have devotionals and other stuff.
Ask me questions I'd love to answer anything next week!! Make sure this makes it to the blog and I'm starting to run down on time, but we'll see what I can do.
Sooooo Devotionals! that's something to talk about. This week alone, we had Jeffery R. Holland come speak to us. That was SUCH an awesome lesson about divine companionship, and how if we strive to be obedient, then we're a companionship of 3 not 2 and one is a member of the Godhead....wow. I think of the miracles performed and the converting power of the spirit when Lehi and Nephi in the book of mormon (the end not the beginning) preached and brought in TONS of people into the church. I'm so grateful for that ability to have the spirit as a companion when things get hard. Cause things get hard, really hard, the days are long, 100% spanish when you don't even really speak it gets discouraging sometimes, but "lo I am with thee " and the Lord will go before me and follow behind me so long as I am obedient to His commandments. Mi testimonio? En espanol? pues. Yo tengo un testimonio que el Evangelio de Jesucristo esta restaurado a la tierra. Tenemos un profeta viviente, se llama Thomas S. Monson. Yo se que Jesucristo es mi Salvador y Redentor...y que a traves a la Expiacion, podemos ser limpios de pecados. Y yo digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo Amen.
I love you all very much,Thanks for your support,My time is goneHurrah for Israel!-Elder Shae D. Morgan P.S. Mom, don't worry about my health. I only live on the top floor of the Quarantine building with 3 floors of contaminated elders with the Swine Flu...er...H1N1. haha No all is well there's a ton of hand sanatizer here so it's all good, and we're taking major precautions. Thanks Love ya! Bye
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Addresses: Updated
I'll be in the MTC until Mid-August. After that, letters and/or packages can be sent to the mission home. Here are the addresses for both.
MTC:
Elder Shae Daniel Morgan
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 E
Provo, Utah 84604
Mission:
Elder Shae Daniel Morgan
Arizona Mesa Mission
6265 N 82nd Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
Thank you all so much for your support. I love and will miss you all very much. Remember...every member a missionary. Go out and do some finding. :)