ONE YEAR MARK!!!

Well my zone Zona Leon is victorious!! We had the great miracle of baptizing 37 children of God, which is the new all time Leon record for a month. That is more than the last 3 months combined. In February Zona Leon literally baptized 3 with 24 missionaries, and with 18 missionaries we baptized 37. Which is awesome because next p-day we get a lunch with Presidente Poncio and his wife, we will be eating some Guatemalan food!!!

Our two mottos: "Bears Beets Bautismos" and " You have only to believe if you wish to achieve."

We as zone leaders first off got blessed with some awesome missionaries, and even better District Leaders (the motor of the mission). Then we focused on breaking the mindset that Zona Leon doesn't baptize. We tried our best to be unified in our goal which was to baptize 37 people, then we worked like caballos to get 'er done. And we got 'er done! Now we are the highest zone in ALL OF NICARAGUA and one of the highest in all of Central America.

Preach My Gospel says Pride is Competitive, so I still gotta work on that!!

As a companionship we were able to baptize two kids, Hazel and her older brother Christofer. They are awesome!! Super elect, from a humble family but for their confirmation Hazel got a dress and Christofer got a white shirt and we gave him a tie! They were both super pumped and already get along famously with the youth here.

We have had a lot of success amongst the youth of Leon, mainly because they haven't fully committed to their parents or grandparents religious traditions. Very cool.

I love the simple truths of the gospel. One day this week we contacted a man who was very confused on one simple thing: God. He first said that God is a spirit without shape or form, and that he was one being, the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, and that the Father sent the Son to do His work, and that we like God have bodies, but he has no body. but.... he contradicted himself like 20 times in 50 seconds, even though he was a devout church goer and had been forever, yet couldn't get his story straight.

Gotta love apostasy.

Speaking of which, p-day we went to a giant cathedral (IT IS HUGE) and it was cool. We went inside and looked around at all of their relics and idols and what not, very impressive, then we went on top of it and got to see the many Volcanoes that surround Leon! There are quite a few of them!! I still prefer the Temple, the temple has such a power that can echo through a family for generations without end! It has such a profound peace and when I enter I feel such a sense of belonging. I felt very off being in a Cathedral, not quite the same feeling truth be told.

Love you all.
Love,
Elder Morrison

Learning to walk with Him

This was a week of miracles, and I would like to share why.

Let me first explain a little piece of the glorious Atonement of my Lord Jesus Christ. After suffering all the sins of the human race, in the Garden of Gethsemane, where the very God of all the world suffered such a burden that it caused Him to beg to His Father to let it pass from Him, such suffering that caused blood to pour from every pore of His body. After passing this infinite atonement, Judas came to betray Him into the hands of the Romans and Sanhedrin, where Peter, in fierce loyalty, tried to defend the Lord, yet Christ knowing what he must do detained Peter. Peter had cut the ear off a solider, Christ healed that mans ear. One of the very men that would later be the means of His death, yet He heals him, considering how insignificant that ear may have been in relation to what Christ had just completed and what he yet lacked to do, He healed his ear.

I have learned that when we do as what the premortal Savior invited Enoch to do to "walk with me" or as President Eyring said, "to serve as he did", we begin to be the beneficiaries of the blessings of the Atonement. When we act in a perfect faith in accordance with the principles of God, we begin to be prepared by the Atonement of Christ to achieve our divine potential.

I have learned this principle by personal experience on the mission. 

Here in Leon we found a mother whose young son just got out of the hospital after several months of intense surgeries and therapies in order to cure a brain tumor. This poor mother sits over her son for hours on end, keeping a challenging and rigorous schedule of medications for her son. While her older son works several jobs to keep them alive on rice and beans living in a single room, tin shack with dirt floors and holes in the walls. 

You could say that the visits, prayers and blessings me and my companion have been making are blessing their lives, and they are. But in the end I am the one who is blessed by those visits, prayers and blessings.

Elder Renlund when he visited the mission said that as missionaries we are messengers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the very authority that we have been given is after His order. However...

I feel like the Nicaraguan mailmen, somehow I seem to be benefiting more by the message I bring than the people who I go to deliver to. 

Seeing that mother hanging on to all the faith she has, hovering over her young son in critical condition, touched me to my very soul.Thus is the Lord Jesus Christ hovering over us, blessing us, sustaining us, asking for nothing in return, just that we get better. That we use the glorious gift and power of His Atonement.

I love the mission, and I am grateful to be a part of this marvelous work and wonder.

Love you all very much, 

Love Elder Morrison

(sorry for the lack of pics as of late, the internet cafe here uses computers from 1988, so such thing as USB ports don't exist or don't work)

Lessons from Leon

Hey y'all,

This was a cool week. We got a lot done and are having a lot of success as a zone. I am super grateful for the missionaries that we have here, they are working hard and working miracles in their area. As ZL's we have focused on unity, we set high goals but placed very simple but effective plans to achieve it. And, WE ARE KILLING IT!!!

My most humbling moment on my mission so far was in my first area, Matagalpa. We were talking about lunch and I said that I could spend like 10 dollars on a lunch easy back home. Then a very humble and wonderful man said "I don't have 10 cords for lunch" (30 cords is 1 dollar). 

I have had so many incredible experiences teaching that I can't begin to count them, but one this week was when we were teaching a family about the restoration and it was really spiritual, then they opened up to us just poured out there heart. We were able to help them, they came to church the next day, the two of them fasting, and she had already read up to 1 Nephi 14.

Being a good teacher has been a focus on my mission and I try to always improve my teaching everyday.

But today I want to share a small story I heard from Elder Holland, one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ.

One day a 15 year old boy from Idaho decided he had enough, so he ran away from home. His home was that of a "normal" LDS family. Upon running away he found the wrong friends and years later he was living in all sorts of drugs and immorality in Southern California.

On a hot summer day he was sitting on his porch and he sees two missionaries walking down the street. Immediately he recalled just a profound burning hate upon seeing them. In his yard he had two Doberman dogs, they ran up to the fence barking at the two young missionaries, trying to bite at them, the man laughed and said some choice words at the Elders.

Then it happened, suddenly the dogs went and laid down, The Elders enter the gate without saying anything and walks up to this lost man. They begin talking.

The Missionary asks where he was from. He replied, "I am actually from Pocatello Idaho"

To which the Missionary replies, "Me too, do you know such and such family?"

The man replies stunned " Yeah they are my parents"

The Missionary replies " They are my parents too, Mom and Dad have been praying for you every morning and night for 20 years and have sent me to find you and tell you to come home"

In the end the man went home and repented and was eventually sealed in the temple for time and all eternity in the temple of the Lord to his wife.

This story´s theme, is that all of us missionaries have the same goal. Our Father has given us this calling to invite His children, our brothers and sisters to come home.´

We are his Children this is His Work and Glory that they Come Home, 

Love you all I am so grateful to have this calling.

Love Elder Morrison

Wet baptism

Hey World,

This was a good week, we had a baptism and a good turn out in church. The members are starting to help us a lot and trust us a lot so that is always a good thing, members are the key to success. 

We are enjoying our time here in Leon, we currently are dominating all of the mission because we have some really good missionaries!! 

The young girl we baptized is a daughter and granddaughter of some really inactive family, but they all came to the baptism and the confirmation and it was really good! I enjoyed it a lot because they for sure felt the spirit. 

Before the baptism we went to go fill the font, it was already filled about half way, nevertheless my fearless companion tried to enter the font and clean it fully dressed!! He quickly realized his error, I was laughing my head off!! It was so stinking funny!! I was crying I was laughing so hard. 

Nicaragua is just the best country, everyone has a Samsung smart phone but never have the money to use it, because in order to use phones you have to pay as you go. Makes no sense to me, but whatever!! Anyway some missionaries that are opening up an area here in the zone got their phone stolen, while one of them was puking out his guts in a park, so then we had to find some way to get in contact with them because of course not only are they are in the furthest away area, but both white dudes that are still fairly new on the mission, so it was a hassle but we got er done and now they are accounted for.

Other than that, work as normal. Love ya all!

Love Elder Morrison

Happy Independence Day

Hello World, tis me,

This week was ballin, we got stuff done for reals. Elder Wilkes and I attacked this week like bosses and we had a good week, and the other missionaries in the zone also took care of business. We are hoping to break the all time record for Zona Leon. 38 baptisms is the goal we are currently projected to do it which is nice because for a while Zona Leon has been chupando duro.

Likewise changes came and went. Elder Wilkes and I are staying to take care of business and we have for sure found our stride. We are super pumped because the ward is also getting a lot better and we are getting a lot of support from the members and that is always a nice treat!!

But we didn't baptize. The young lady was so pumped and ready and had permission and everything thing, but then her Grandma turned into the evil Step Mom from Cinderella and literally locked her in the house and forbade her to leave! Soooo poor Crisha is on house arrest! ugh it was shocking to say the least!!

This week the APs (mission supervisors) called us and we went down and worked with them in Managua Thursday and it was so much fun. We had some seriously super spiritual lessons and I learned a lot from them and the way they work. I learned a lot about the importance of truly showing love to people and it was pretty neat!! We heard an awesome testimony from a guy that has been in active for a long time but has done a 180 and is just the coolest guy ever!

Well Elder Wilkes and I get along great. I teach him a bunch of random sayings I have picked up through the years haha. And The best service was this Sunday as we were going to a visit with some members and then we saw an investigator with an old lady in a wheel chair and next thing we knew we were hiking way far away carrying her part of the way to get to his house, it was a neat experience and the investigator really opened up to us and it was really neat.

Any way God Bless America, here they hate me and all white people because of our Commander in Chief, Donald Trump, because Nicaragua is in the leagues of Venezuela and Cuba.

Love ya all
Love Elder Morrison