6.25.2012
purplee :)
Hello again family :)
This week has flown by as usual. I don't remember if I told you last week but we had a leadership training meeting in San Antonio on Wednesday and Thursday so we weren't even in our area that much. We had a decent amount of lessons and appointments on Monday and Tuesday and we got permission from president Jones to go to the temple on Tuesday night! O my goodness it was incredible. Our ward had a youth baptism trip that night that we were invited to go to and because we were coming up to S.A. the next day anyways we just stayed with some sisters up there that night. Haha it's kind of cool being in the San Antonio mission because this is where District 1 was filmed... Cyd you probably remember those right? We watched part of District 2 before I went to the MTC. Anyways, the apartment that I stayed in on Tuesday was the apartment that they do the "how to plan" video... the blue one. You probably have no clue what I am talking about but I find it pretty cool anyways. :)
But ya, the temple was amazing. There is soo much stained glass in every single room -- mom, please make it a priority next time you come to Austin. The leadership meetings were awesome. They are for all of the district leaders and zone leaders but they let the sisters come too because there aren't that many of us comparatively. They talked about real growth and how to better get into houses when we're knocking... except all they really did with that was tell us what not to say. It kills me that no one will tell me how to make knocking on a random door not awkward. ...but I think I am also coming to realize that that is impossible. Specifically we have been told not to take the easy way out and say "we are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... our message is about..." etc etc. Haha, gosh, let me tell you it is a real challenge especially as you are on someones door step and they are staring at you with that .... "why the heck are you here taking up my time and making me sweat and get bit by a thousand mosquitoes" look. It's great. It really is. But we are also seeing a lot of miracles as people open up to us and tell us some of the deepest things about themselves after only having known them for 10 minutes. And even if they don't want to listen to us, there are just some really nice people around. I love nice people. :) A guy the other day just gave us a watermelon. ...he didn't show up for his lesson the next day but.. hey. a free watermelon is a free watermelon.
Omygoodness. Ok, so I almost forgot to tell y'all this. When we were in San Antonio, we went on splits with the sisters up there. I ended up going to Converse for Wednesday night and one of the sisters up there "sees colors." There is probably a technical term but I don't know how else to put it. She explains it like a halo of color that everyone has. She doesn't know what it means and has never looked into it because people always thought she was crazy (Cyd -- research project). Anyways, I was so intrigued... probably only because I am so obsessed with purple... literally I thought I would have some sort of identity crisis if my color wasn't purple.... Side note, she sees like a royal blue around pictures of Christ and around President Jones... again, don't know what it means. Buuuttt.... after being with her for over 24 hours and not getting up the courage to ask her (because she doesn't really bring it up because people think its weird or not true) I finally texted her when I got back to Pleasanton and do you know what she said!?!?! DARK PURPLE!!!! It is official, family. I don't know what it means but it is official. I was soo beyond excited and relieved that I called her and thanked her for.. I don't even know.. I hope you can feel my joy... I know that shouldn't be the highlight of my week but... ya. I'm still excited as I think back on it. :)
Anyways... I hope you all have a wonderful week. I miss you all terribly and look forward to hearing from you.
Dad and everyone that is going to Disneyland -- I want pictures. And instead of being bitter that I am not there I have decided to just live vicariously though y'alls experience so... make it count.
Love,
Sister Morgan
6.18.2012
Hello again family,
I think time is starting to speed up again because it feels like I was
just here. ..and yet at the same time a years worth of things have
happened..
We are slowly getting to know everyone in the ward and branch which is
great. They are all so nice and strong in the gospel (the ones that
come anyways) As I think I mentioned last week our area covers 300
square miles so people are usually either really converted and make
the trip or ..don't. We were both getting really overwhelmed this past
week as to how much of the area we needed to cover and how to do that
because we only get around 1800 miles to drive each month. We are
going to get bikes this week which should help so that we can drive to
a town and then bike around it (going to be fun in the 103 degree
humidity) but we also talked to our mission president and he basically
told us not to cover it... to only go to the town that have strong
members in them so that if we do find investigators they will have
support there. Unfortunately one of those towns is Floresville which
is a good 45 minutes drive away so that doesnt really help us with our
miles.
We have had to stay here in Pleasanton a couple of the days just
because of miles which is always fun because pretty much everyone has
at least seen or shut their door on the missionaries once. Elders
havent been in this area for over 5 years now so they always just
think it's us crazy girls. Ha, it's fun.
We have had some success though I guess. We are constantly lead to
people that listen but I think only time will tell what will happen.
Ha, I feel like I should mention that every church in this area
including us loses members to Cowboy Fellowship. It is pretty hard to
compete with free breakfast and day care and hanging out with friends
and roping and rodeo on Sundays... It didn't really bother me until
our wonderful family told us this past week that they were going to go
try it out this week... It felt like they were breaking up with us..
"it's not y'all, it's us.." We are going to meet with them again
tonight so see how everything went and hopefully they will still let
us teach them until they fully make up their minds.
This upcoming week we get to go up to San Antonio for a leadership
mtg. I am pretty excited about the whole thing. We will be there
Wednesday and Thursday and Wednesday night after the mtg we will go on
splits with some of the sisters up there to work. I will be in
Converse if you know where that is. I really don't.. all I know is
that it is bigger than Pleasanton. haha.
I really do love my area though and I feel like it is giving me the
closest glimpse to what Argentina will be like. My Spanish is still
just kind of at a standstill but hopefully my companion and I will
strengthen our resolve to speak it throughout the week and going to
the Spanish branch on Sunday is a huge help as well.
Thank you all for being so great. :)
I love you
-Sister Morgan
I think time is starting to speed up again because it feels like I was
just here. ..and yet at the same time a years worth of things have
happened..
We are slowly getting to know everyone in the ward and branch which is
great. They are all so nice and strong in the gospel (the ones that
come anyways) As I think I mentioned last week our area covers 300
square miles so people are usually either really converted and make
the trip or ..don't. We were both getting really overwhelmed this past
week as to how much of the area we needed to cover and how to do that
because we only get around 1800 miles to drive each month. We are
going to get bikes this week which should help so that we can drive to
a town and then bike around it (going to be fun in the 103 degree
humidity) but we also talked to our mission president and he basically
told us not to cover it... to only go to the town that have strong
members in them so that if we do find investigators they will have
support there. Unfortunately one of those towns is Floresville which
is a good 45 minutes drive away so that doesnt really help us with our
miles.
We have had to stay here in Pleasanton a couple of the days just
because of miles which is always fun because pretty much everyone has
at least seen or shut their door on the missionaries once. Elders
havent been in this area for over 5 years now so they always just
think it's us crazy girls. Ha, it's fun.
We have had some success though I guess. We are constantly lead to
people that listen but I think only time will tell what will happen.
Ha, I feel like I should mention that every church in this area
including us loses members to Cowboy Fellowship. It is pretty hard to
compete with free breakfast and day care and hanging out with friends
and roping and rodeo on Sundays... It didn't really bother me until
our wonderful family told us this past week that they were going to go
try it out this week... It felt like they were breaking up with us..
"it's not y'all, it's us.." We are going to meet with them again
tonight so see how everything went and hopefully they will still let
us teach them until they fully make up their minds.
This upcoming week we get to go up to San Antonio for a leadership
mtg. I am pretty excited about the whole thing. We will be there
Wednesday and Thursday and Wednesday night after the mtg we will go on
splits with some of the sisters up there to work. I will be in
Converse if you know where that is. I really don't.. all I know is
that it is bigger than Pleasanton. haha.
I really do love my area though and I feel like it is giving me the
closest glimpse to what Argentina will be like. My Spanish is still
just kind of at a standstill but hopefully my companion and I will
strengthen our resolve to speak it throughout the week and going to
the Spanish branch on Sunday is a huge help as well.
Thank you all for being so great. :)
I love you
-Sister Morgan
6.11.2012
I Thought I Knew Texas....
Wow.za.
It has not even been a full week and yet I feel like I have been here a life time and sweat all that I possibly have in me! Haha, the humidity is definitely a wonderful thing but we drive to almost everything we go to (in a truck! haha-- it makes all the elders jealous) so we get chances to cool back off. As I guess president Jones told you, I am serving in the Pleasonton area. Ha, I really though I knew Texas until I got out here. The area is huge -- almost 300 square miles and a lot of the little towns that we cover are no bigger than a "main street" which consists of a mexican restaurant or two, a BBQ place, a tire shop usually and a DQ. haha its great. Outside of the main towns we often wonder if we are even in the United States. Seriously. Texas is so open and green right now.. and there are soooo many dogs. Holy cow, sometimes that's literally the only thing that keeps us from knocking on someones door.. is the dog tied up? how big is it? ..lol and the nice ones always follow us a few streets before heading back home.
The work is going pretty great though. I feel like I have really experienced the blessings the come from planning. The days that we plan down to the minute, we manage to find people that are so nice and willing to listen. It's so great, we literally spend all day just talking to random people but they are all so nice and end up telling us so much about their lives! When we don't plan as well the time goes slowly. None of the places we planned on going to open up and no one ends up being outside to talk to etc, etc. Lesson learned. plan. But the missionaries before us actually had two investigators lined up that they had knocked into. We got to teach them both the first lesson and we also had an older lady just randomly let us in too. So, three lessons so far. I need to get better about asking to come in rather than just assuming that people are busy and will say no.
My trainer is awesome! I guess the church has a new policy that if you are a visa waiter they keep you in your temporary mission for a full transfer so that you aren't just caught in limbo. I loved my trio in the MTC but it is great just working with the two of us. I feel like we are able to sync up better. Her name is Sister Ferguson. She has been out for about 3 transfers now and we work really well together.
Unfortunately I don't know how much my Spanish will progress while I am here. About 60% of the TSAM missionaries were assigned Spanish speaking but there are not even that many Spanish areas. I am lucky though because the area that we cover includes an English ward as well as a Spanish branch. ..haha yes, that is 6 hours of curch on Sunday. They used to be one ward but the branch broke off and Sacrament yesterday had a grand total of 13 people there. solid huh. In general we teach in English altough there is a family that we are going to in Poteet on Tuesday that is half and half... so, we will probably end up teaching in Spanish so that the mom understands.. I guess it will just depend on whether or not she is there. It is tough though because not all of the kids speak Spanish.. we will see. But ya, it just makes me greatful that I will eventually be going to an area that will immerse me in the language because... I have a lot to learn. The branch president doesnt speak very much english either and holy cow do they speak fast, leave out random syllables, and you name it. Haha I offered to read a scripture during Sunday School (becuase there were only 3 people there) but she didn't really call on me again after that because I wasnt going 8000 words per minute probably.
We live with a member. She is a really cute old lady that just got baptized last year! Ha, she is in her 80s but is still soo spunky. It's hilarious. We will dance and joke around and yesterday we went to her daughters for dinner and their whole family is just like her. We love it. She gets so excited too when we come home and tell her about our day and the success that we have had. :)
I hope everyone's week has been so great. Mine has been. :) Mom - my shoes and bag have been life savers by the way. literally perfect. I might want some more before I leave but I will let you know. Also, could you maybe send some CDs? we have one motab CD for the car and it's killing me. We have paul cardall on my computer - have cyd burn them on to discs.
My address here is:
810 Sutton St.
Pleasanton, TX 78064
Love you!
-Sister Morgan
It has not even been a full week and yet I feel like I have been here a life time and sweat all that I possibly have in me! Haha, the humidity is definitely a wonderful thing but we drive to almost everything we go to (in a truck! haha-- it makes all the elders jealous) so we get chances to cool back off. As I guess president Jones told you, I am serving in the Pleasonton area. Ha, I really though I knew Texas until I got out here. The area is huge -- almost 300 square miles and a lot of the little towns that we cover are no bigger than a "main street" which consists of a mexican restaurant or two, a BBQ place, a tire shop usually and a DQ. haha its great. Outside of the main towns we often wonder if we are even in the United States. Seriously. Texas is so open and green right now.. and there are soooo many dogs. Holy cow, sometimes that's literally the only thing that keeps us from knocking on someones door.. is the dog tied up? how big is it? ..lol and the nice ones always follow us a few streets before heading back home.
The work is going pretty great though. I feel like I have really experienced the blessings the come from planning. The days that we plan down to the minute, we manage to find people that are so nice and willing to listen. It's so great, we literally spend all day just talking to random people but they are all so nice and end up telling us so much about their lives! When we don't plan as well the time goes slowly. None of the places we planned on going to open up and no one ends up being outside to talk to etc, etc. Lesson learned. plan. But the missionaries before us actually had two investigators lined up that they had knocked into. We got to teach them both the first lesson and we also had an older lady just randomly let us in too. So, three lessons so far. I need to get better about asking to come in rather than just assuming that people are busy and will say no.
My trainer is awesome! I guess the church has a new policy that if you are a visa waiter they keep you in your temporary mission for a full transfer so that you aren't just caught in limbo. I loved my trio in the MTC but it is great just working with the two of us. I feel like we are able to sync up better. Her name is Sister Ferguson. She has been out for about 3 transfers now and we work really well together.
Unfortunately I don't know how much my Spanish will progress while I am here. About 60% of the TSAM missionaries were assigned Spanish speaking but there are not even that many Spanish areas. I am lucky though because the area that we cover includes an English ward as well as a Spanish branch. ..haha yes, that is 6 hours of curch on Sunday. They used to be one ward but the branch broke off and Sacrament yesterday had a grand total of 13 people there. solid huh. In general we teach in English altough there is a family that we are going to in Poteet on Tuesday that is half and half... so, we will probably end up teaching in Spanish so that the mom understands.. I guess it will just depend on whether or not she is there. It is tough though because not all of the kids speak Spanish.. we will see. But ya, it just makes me greatful that I will eventually be going to an area that will immerse me in the language because... I have a lot to learn. The branch president doesnt speak very much english either and holy cow do they speak fast, leave out random syllables, and you name it. Haha I offered to read a scripture during Sunday School (becuase there were only 3 people there) but she didn't really call on me again after that because I wasnt going 8000 words per minute probably.
We live with a member. She is a really cute old lady that just got baptized last year! Ha, she is in her 80s but is still soo spunky. It's hilarious. We will dance and joke around and yesterday we went to her daughters for dinner and their whole family is just like her. We love it. She gets so excited too when we come home and tell her about our day and the success that we have had. :)
I hope everyone's week has been so great. Mine has been. :) Mom - my shoes and bag have been life savers by the way. literally perfect. I might want some more before I leave but I will let you know. Also, could you maybe send some CDs? we have one motab CD for the car and it's killing me. We have paul cardall on my computer - have cyd burn them on to discs.
My address here is:
810 Sutton St.
Pleasanton, TX 78064
Love you!
-Sister Morgan
6.06.2012
Greetings from San Antonio!
Dear Missionary Families,
We are happy to inform you that your son or daughter has safely arrived in the Texas San Antonio Mission! President Jones and I and our assistants greeted them at the airport at about 1:45 this afternoon. What a great group of missionaries!
After collecting their luggage, we made our way back to the mission home where we had lunch, individual interviews with President Jones and some orientation. Then they were off to the Alamo where they learned a little history and had the opportunity to talk to people and give away copies of the Book of Mormon. They did a great job with their first true missionary experience in Texas! We welcomed them back to the mission home where we had dinner and enjoyed spending the evening getting to know one another. The Elders then left for the assistants apartment and the sisters went to nearby sister's apartments where they stayed for their first night in the mission field.
Tomorrow morning we will have an orientation and transfer meeting where your sons and daughters will meet their new companions and head out to their first areas. You should expect an email from them on Monday which is their preparation day. We are so happy and excited to have the opportunity to serve with these fine young men and women. Thank you for sending such well prepared and wonderful missionaries!
Sincerely,
President and Sister Jones
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