"Greetings from Arizona a.k.a. H E double hockey sticks (I hope this is because it is so hot in AZ these days!)
...Transfers are coming up again and it’s very possible that I or Elder Hoopes could get the boot from this area, or both of us. I don't want to go. I want to see Lisa and a few others get baptized before I skidattel. If I do go I hope I get on a reservation or something where I have a car and not living with members.
I haven't gotten a conversion story from mom yet, did I forget to ask last week? (Shame on me....things have been crazy here, getting everyone ready for school, piano, but I did get cookies sent!) Oh... the last batch of cookies didn't make it in one piece. They were very "crummy" but still good, we ate them all. By the way on page 42 of the Missionary Handbook or "Blessing book" I like to call it, says not to chew gum in public so I just don't chew gum at all. Just a heads up for the next package, but thanks anyway. But if you do send some, make it Stride instead of Orbit. ;-)
I'm glad to hear that your getting 90 degree weather again. I was riding one night down a street at about 8 o’clock and I was cold! Guess what temp it was.......... 93 degrees! My goodness!
Anywho, ttfn (ta ta for now), says Bro. Waters a British guy who drives us around all the time on P day. Oh, and “Mind the Gap”. (I looked it up on Wikipedia, lol)
Elder Morgan"
18 August 2009
11 August 2009
Today's Letter 08-11-09
Yes, I am posting on the day we got the letter. I am trying to be better and get my world organized for the coming year. That means piano, band, and blogs! Once again this is a tender, sweet letter from Jacob. I am amazed every week by him......I'm definately making more treats for him!
"Hey we have a zone activity today so we're doing emails early today. I got a flat tire Sunday night so I went and bought a no flats tube for my tire yesterday. That was the 20$ purchase just to let you know. Our Zone Activity is a slip and slide at a member’s house who has a huge tarp and is feeding us lunch as well. And we wanted to go to the temple today too so we woke up at 4:45 this morning to make the 5:30 session. I was surprised at how many people were there. I love going to the temple it give me a chance to re-evaluate myself on how I'm doing. There’s still a lot of things I need to work on and a lot of things I need to let go.
Lisa update: She got back from the hospital Sunday night we stopped by Tuesday and set up an appointment with the Bishop. We were there with her as she talked to the bishop and scheduled to have her baptism Interview the next night. We had the bishop pick her up and bring her to the interview. Before the interview we watched a video called Together Forever. It's my favorite Church video that we missionaries give out. It talked about families and how Christ made it possible for us to be together forever. When it was done the spirit was so strong I was shaking. Lisa was crying when she went into the interview. She passed and is getting baptized this Saturday at 8pm. The bishop is baptizing her and I'm confirming her on Sunday. It will be the first confirmation that I've done. I'm honored to give Lisa the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
Another investigator named Amber had her interview Saturday as well. We had her date set for this Saturday, but she feels it’s too soon, which is kinda weird to have an investigator in limbo. She understands that this is an important decision she's making in her life that will affect her 2 and 1 year old kids. It’s good that she realizes that but she's thinking about setting the date for November. We don't want her to become another Miles but... We're still working with her. No word on Miles. He met with the bishop on Sunday and we haven't heard anything yet.
Mom I forgot to ask you last week but what’s your conversion story? I can't remember it. I gave a talk in district meeting last week on personal conversion and I was thinking about you. You don't have to do a biography on it but as a missionary I want to know.
That’s all the exciting stuff, let you know next week what’s going on.
Elder Jacob Frank Morgan
"Hey we have a zone activity today so we're doing emails early today. I got a flat tire Sunday night so I went and bought a no flats tube for my tire yesterday. That was the 20$ purchase just to let you know. Our Zone Activity is a slip and slide at a member’s house who has a huge tarp and is feeding us lunch as well. And we wanted to go to the temple today too so we woke up at 4:45 this morning to make the 5:30 session. I was surprised at how many people were there. I love going to the temple it give me a chance to re-evaluate myself on how I'm doing. There’s still a lot of things I need to work on and a lot of things I need to let go.
Lisa update: She got back from the hospital Sunday night we stopped by Tuesday and set up an appointment with the Bishop. We were there with her as she talked to the bishop and scheduled to have her baptism Interview the next night. We had the bishop pick her up and bring her to the interview. Before the interview we watched a video called Together Forever. It's my favorite Church video that we missionaries give out. It talked about families and how Christ made it possible for us to be together forever. When it was done the spirit was so strong I was shaking. Lisa was crying when she went into the interview. She passed and is getting baptized this Saturday at 8pm. The bishop is baptizing her and I'm confirming her on Sunday. It will be the first confirmation that I've done. I'm honored to give Lisa the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
Another investigator named Amber had her interview Saturday as well. We had her date set for this Saturday, but she feels it’s too soon, which is kinda weird to have an investigator in limbo. She understands that this is an important decision she's making in her life that will affect her 2 and 1 year old kids. It’s good that she realizes that but she's thinking about setting the date for November. We don't want her to become another Miles but... We're still working with her. No word on Miles. He met with the bishop on Sunday and we haven't heard anything yet.
Mom I forgot to ask you last week but what’s your conversion story? I can't remember it. I gave a talk in district meeting last week on personal conversion and I was thinking about you. You don't have to do a biography on it but as a missionary I want to know.
That’s all the exciting stuff, let you know next week what’s going on.
Elder Jacob Frank Morgan
05 August 2009
04 Aug 09
We sent a package of Mallory's Mint Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, a package of gum, and a hand-written letter from me today. Yes, I have sent an email or two, but I do like to write, I'm better at that. My typing gets dyslexic and frustrates me when I do a lot. This is total cut and paste! I like to write him letters and send little stuff in there. I'm hoping to get the camera card soon, so we can post some new ones.
"I'm getting a new camel back tomorrow from a guy who gives discounts to missionaries. The nozzle on the camel back I have leaks and they don't sell any replaceable ones for the one I have. I'm saving $15 by getting one through this guy.
Lisa update: She made it safely through her depression last week and we set the Baptismal Interview for last Saturday. We stopped by an hour before to see if she was still good for that interview (in the apartment where she lives anything can happen) She said yes and that she was having a really bad day, and she really was.........Thank you for thinking of her. She needs all the power she can get to endure to the end.....................Onward, ever onward and Harrah for Israel (line from the Elder Groberg movie “The Other Side of Heaven”/Mike comment. And I have written that in letters to him/Jenn's comment).
The scriptures D&C 117:8 and Abraham 3:16-19 have been on my mind lately about what matters most for people. In the case of 2 souls, one soul being higher and more intelligent than the other, do we compare ourselves to them? We should not look to be closer to the souls that are higher and more intelligent than us. Look to be closer to God who is the highest most intelligent of them all. I've decided I want eternal life (go ahead and read that again…I did/Mike comment again). We are told to be selfless. Then we are told to get ourselves to the Celestial kingdom first, then get our families there, then everyone else. We are told to be selfless so we can receive blessings. All Lisa wants is to go to church with her kids and be happy with them.
That is selfless.
I love and pray for you all and your future blessings.
Elder Jacob Frank Morgan"
Who talks like this but Missionaries???? He is just fine. Thanks for keeping up, Love, Jenn =)
"I'm getting a new camel back tomorrow from a guy who gives discounts to missionaries. The nozzle on the camel back I have leaks and they don't sell any replaceable ones for the one I have. I'm saving $15 by getting one through this guy.
Lisa update: She made it safely through her depression last week and we set the Baptismal Interview for last Saturday. We stopped by an hour before to see if she was still good for that interview (in the apartment where she lives anything can happen) She said yes and that she was having a really bad day, and she really was.........Thank you for thinking of her. She needs all the power she can get to endure to the end.....................Onward, ever onward and Harrah for Israel (line from the Elder Groberg movie “The Other Side of Heaven”/Mike comment. And I have written that in letters to him/Jenn's comment).
The scriptures D&C 117:8 and Abraham 3:16-19 have been on my mind lately about what matters most for people. In the case of 2 souls, one soul being higher and more intelligent than the other, do we compare ourselves to them? We should not look to be closer to the souls that are higher and more intelligent than us. Look to be closer to God who is the highest most intelligent of them all. I've decided I want eternal life (go ahead and read that again…I did/Mike comment again). We are told to be selfless. Then we are told to get ourselves to the Celestial kingdom first, then get our families there, then everyone else. We are told to be selfless so we can receive blessings. All Lisa wants is to go to church with her kids and be happy with them.
That is selfless.
I love and pray for you all and your future blessings.
Elder Jacob Frank Morgan"
Who talks like this but Missionaries???? He is just fine. Thanks for keeping up, Love, Jenn =)
01 August 2009
Mike: This is a bonus email for this week that we received late Thursday night, from a member in the Ward where Jacob is currently serving. I know that President Benson said "...there's no such thing as righteous pride...", but I don't think this is what he meant, because I'm definately feeling righteously proud of my boy after getting a report like this...it was addressed to the families of Elders Hoopes and Morgan:
------------------------------------------------
Hello Families -
My name is Betsey Lee and my husband is Ammon Lee. We have really enjoyed getting to know your boys. We love the spirit they bring into our home. Our two little girls (5 and 2) thinks it's so cool to have the Elders over. I can remember how my mom felt getting a letter or note from families in the mission so I didn't want to pass up this opportunity. Ammon just said to me, "I just love having them over and teaching with them." I want my kids to know and remember us always having the missionaries in our home.
They are both (from what I can tell) doing amazing. You can tell that they want to be here. So positive and upbeat. I love the visuals they provide and have such a way with making you want to listen. Please let us know if there is anything special we can do for them, from you. Whether it be cook their favorite meal or whatever. You should be very proud of them.
Hoping to be worthy to be a mother of a Missionary one day,
Betsey Lee
We area trying to get brownies/Mal's cookies out to him, and we are thinking of a new fingerprint cartoon to send him. I am so greatful to families in Mesa that look out for and take extra care of the boys. I try to feed our missionaries more often because I know someone is taking care of mine! Thanks for reading! Love, Jenn
31 July 2009
Tues, 28 Jul 09
Well golfing was fun. Elder Stewart and I beat Elder Page and Elder Hoopes by one point. It was awesome. We got some good pictures too. The Golf carts were by far the best part. By the way I'm planning on learning how to play the ukulele. You know the little Hawaiian guitar. Yeah, Elder page had one and I thought it was pretty cool. Don't worry it won’t affect the work at all. I'll only play it during the free time that we have.
Tomorrow we're going on splits with the Zone Leaders. I'm pretty excited 'cause I'm going with Elder Page. He is so cool. I'll get pictures of us to send home. Zone Conference is this week and I haven't seen a package from home on our porch yet so hopefully I'll see one at Zone Conference. But if you haven't sent one yet that’s ok. Elder Hoopes gets packages from his mom every 2 weeks that has a news letter about all the missionaries from his home town and what’s going on with them. His Sister went to France and sent him a beret which I wore golfing. He also gets cookies from his sister which are pretty good but I'm sure Mallory’s are better. Not to say that mom should get together a news letter and sugerie goodies and send it in a cardboard box. I'm looking forward to seeing the next installment in the Fingerpainting Missionary Stories. (We were told after he some time in May that he didn't want any treats, misses them now I think! I'm baking tomorrow before it gets too hot.)
Wondering about Lisa. I wish I could say she is doing great...But she is very bipolar. She was very depressed this weekend wallowing about how she is such a bad mother and how she needs to get out of those apartments she's in. They are not good apartments, lots of drugs involved in that place. She was saying how if it weren’t for the motivation of having her kids back she would have committed suicide which kind of scared us. We thought we saw her last night with the "drugies" and we knocked on her door today and one of them answered (A guy we've been trying to meet with) and said she was at work, which is good 'cause she needs to work to get out of there. She knows what’s right and wrong. Thanks for the scripture dad. Next time we meet with her we will defiantly share that with her. Pray for her. She really is a good woman. She’s just like the rest of us.
Don't worry about making me trunky (We told him that his gramma & grampa’s release date from their mission was on his birthday). I didn't even know what that was until I met Elder Brumwell who was the most trunky missionary I've met. He's been home for about 2 months now but, I consider trunky to be shoving things in missionaries faces like "I have less weeks then you have years" or "How far away do you think that plane is up there?” “I don’t know maybe 2 miles?” “ Nope, 2 Months baby!" That’s what I call trunky. But talking about stuff you’re going to do after your mission I don't consider trunky. We talk about that all the time.
Any way time is short and Elder Hoopes wants to play B ball today. Talk to you next week. THE GOSPELS TRUE!!! Elder Morgan
Tomorrow we're going on splits with the Zone Leaders. I'm pretty excited 'cause I'm going with Elder Page. He is so cool. I'll get pictures of us to send home. Zone Conference is this week and I haven't seen a package from home on our porch yet so hopefully I'll see one at Zone Conference. But if you haven't sent one yet that’s ok. Elder Hoopes gets packages from his mom every 2 weeks that has a news letter about all the missionaries from his home town and what’s going on with them. His Sister went to France and sent him a beret which I wore golfing. He also gets cookies from his sister which are pretty good but I'm sure Mallory’s are better. Not to say that mom should get together a news letter and sugerie goodies and send it in a cardboard box. I'm looking forward to seeing the next installment in the Fingerpainting Missionary Stories. (We were told after he some time in May that he didn't want any treats, misses them now I think! I'm baking tomorrow before it gets too hot.)
Wondering about Lisa. I wish I could say she is doing great...But she is very bipolar. She was very depressed this weekend wallowing about how she is such a bad mother and how she needs to get out of those apartments she's in. They are not good apartments, lots of drugs involved in that place. She was saying how if it weren’t for the motivation of having her kids back she would have committed suicide which kind of scared us. We thought we saw her last night with the "drugies" and we knocked on her door today and one of them answered (A guy we've been trying to meet with) and said she was at work, which is good 'cause she needs to work to get out of there. She knows what’s right and wrong. Thanks for the scripture dad. Next time we meet with her we will defiantly share that with her. Pray for her. She really is a good woman. She’s just like the rest of us.
Don't worry about making me trunky (We told him that his gramma & grampa’s release date from their mission was on his birthday). I didn't even know what that was until I met Elder Brumwell who was the most trunky missionary I've met. He's been home for about 2 months now but, I consider trunky to be shoving things in missionaries faces like "I have less weeks then you have years" or "How far away do you think that plane is up there?” “I don’t know maybe 2 miles?” “ Nope, 2 Months baby!" That’s what I call trunky. But talking about stuff you’re going to do after your mission I don't consider trunky. We talk about that all the time.
Any way time is short and Elder Hoopes wants to play B ball today. Talk to you next week. THE GOSPELS TRUE!!! Elder Morgan
21 July 2009
21 July 09
I have decided that I can't get caught up, so I'm just starting where I am. I sent him an email this morning, and as I was writing, Mike got the email. He is such a great kid!
(Random photo from his card taken in April)
"We had a baptism Saturday and finally got Tymes under the water! That was great!
This morning we had a breakfast at Stake President David Palmers house and Ty came along with a few priests in the stake and President Palmer stressed the importance of a mission. It was wonderful and I'm full. Sister Palmer makes the best buttermilk syrup I've ever had!
Yes it's been extremely hot this week we got to 119 degrees. SO HOT!! But I had my first couple Monsoons this week and one dust storm. That was cool. When the dust storm came it was like a wall of sand coming at us. We watched the sun slowly disappear behind it as we took cover in an investigators house. The Monsoon last night was cool, until the lightning strikes right outside our house woke us up at 4am and kept us up till our alarms went off. INSANITY!! But the good news is the temperature this morning was 84 degrees. Perfect for golfing! Elder Hoopes and I called the Zone leaders yesterday and asked if they wanted to go golfing. They said I don't think we have the money. We said they let missionaries golf for free. They said “Hey Elders let’s go golfing”. So we're going golfing.
We had a lesson with Lisa Sunday night. We went in there having no idea what we were going to teach her cause we'd taught her all the lessons. So I had this thought. She's had about 3 or 4 set baptism dates and all of them fell through so I felt like we should teach a lesson on baptism and stress the importance of this covenant. We shared 3 Nephi 11 where the Nephites cry Hosanna to Jesus or Save Us Now! And what does he do? He calls Nephi forward and gives him the authority to Baptize. We said “Lisa, you need to be baptized.” And she said “I know, no more screw-ups this time. I'll try my hardest to keep the Word of Wisdom, read my scriptures read the Ensign, say my prayers” and all this stuff is basically what she committed herself to. Elder Hoopes gave her my favorite talk in April General Conference that Elder Holland gave about being alone. ( None Were with Him ) And she read the whole thing. This woman is awesome. If she keeps her commitment to be baptized on the 8th of August, she will be my first baptism where we taught her from the beginning. You can do it Lisa!......
This morning we had a breakfast at Stake President David Palmers house and Ty came along with a few priests in the stake and President Palmer stressed the importance of a mission. It was wonderful and I'm full. Sister Palmer makes the best buttermilk syrup I've ever had!
Yes it's been extremely hot this week we got to 119 degrees. SO HOT!! But I had my first couple Monsoons this week and one dust storm. That was cool. When the dust storm came it was like a wall of sand coming at us. We watched the sun slowly disappear behind it as we took cover in an investigators house. The Monsoon last night was cool, until the lightning strikes right outside our house woke us up at 4am and kept us up till our alarms went off. INSANITY!! But the good news is the temperature this morning was 84 degrees. Perfect for golfing! Elder Hoopes and I called the Zone leaders yesterday and asked if they wanted to go golfing. They said I don't think we have the money. We said they let missionaries golf for free. They said “Hey Elders let’s go golfing”. So we're going golfing.
We had a lesson with Lisa Sunday night. We went in there having no idea what we were going to teach her cause we'd taught her all the lessons. So I had this thought. She's had about 3 or 4 set baptism dates and all of them fell through so I felt like we should teach a lesson on baptism and stress the importance of this covenant. We shared 3 Nephi 11 where the Nephites cry Hosanna to Jesus or Save Us Now! And what does he do? He calls Nephi forward and gives him the authority to Baptize. We said “Lisa, you need to be baptized.” And she said “I know, no more screw-ups this time. I'll try my hardest to keep the Word of Wisdom, read my scriptures read the Ensign, say my prayers” and all this stuff is basically what she committed herself to. Elder Hoopes gave her my favorite talk in April General Conference that Elder Holland gave about being alone. ( None Were with Him ) And she read the whole thing. This woman is awesome. If she keeps her commitment to be baptized on the 8th of August, she will be my first baptism where we taught her from the beginning. You can do it Lisa!......
...Anyway, got a letter from Elder Ward, He pretty much was going through the same hectic first week in the MTC as I was but says "I'm actually starting to enjoy myself" Oh Jason. Jason. Jason.
Happy "perfect weather to go golfing on a P-day".....Day.
Elder Morgan"
He is doing just fine. Thanks for reading and being patient with me. Love, Jenn =)
(Random photo, thought it might go with the "sand storm" story!)
13 July 2009
I've got another one set up ready to post tomorrow, too. Waiting for a piece of information from relatives.
Here is a picture from the MTC of singing in the hallway.
Our call for Mother's Day was awesome! Melany and Logan were here and we all sat around the speaker phone hanging on every word we said to each other. Ok, just me! He sounded so happy and good. Anytime someone asks me, "How is Jacob doing?" I always respond, "He is doing FABULOUS!!!! He is so happy, loves the hot weather and working hard." And I truly believe that he is. All his letters are up beat telling us how busy he is. We are glad he is writing us back every week, knowing he has other emails to respond to.
Here is one of my favorite flower pictures from the MTC, there are a few from when it snowed in April. I bet he wishes for some snow now! (It was 110+ this past weekend!)
Love to all, Jenn =)
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