3 Yaks

This was a really good week, as a Zone we had a really good end of the month, and it was the best month the Zone has had in a LONG TIME. I am really pumped. Likewise our companionship had a really great month and we are super pumped to get prepared for March and the Big One in April!

We were able to finish up and baptize 3 people this week, two sisters and their cousin! It was really cool, they were super nervous in the water but coming up out of the water they were all smiles! The Nicaraguans are not good at smiling for pictures, but they do light up with a smile often.

Elder Smith and I entered into a new community this week, it was hard as expected, which is fine I am just so pumped to start seeing miracles and bring the light of the gospel to them. In Sacrament meeting I went in with a two questions, What lack I yet? and What will be the key to success in Yaule? (the community where we are working) and the answers came by the Spirit, to the first question was REVERENCE, I hadn't realized that amidst the good times laughing and joking with Elder Smith I was being irreverent, but I will change that. And to the second question LIGHT. The light of the Gospel and my life is Christ.

Truthfully our mission is unique, we teach the Gospel, about Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, waaaayyyyy more than Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. It is so cool really, I feel like Peter, James and John, or Lehi and Nephi telling people to repent, and get baptized. Because that is what people really need most, they need the light of the Gospel in their lives. Not that I don't like teaching about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, but... in the end I have been called to preach repentance and baptize converts.

I really love this work, it is the Lord's work, I know this with all my heart might mind and soul!

Love you all!! Love Elder Morrison

White Waterfall

This was just a fantastic week, we just put in a bunch of work as a Zone and we were able to baptize a lot of people this week. Elder Smith and I baptized a young man, whose family is part member/less active/recently turned active. His name is Esteban, he is really polite and obedient and a really cool convert of the Lord.

I was able to work in 3 different areas this week, it was a lot of fun being able to meet so many new people. The missionaries here are increasing their faith and did not give up in the midst of trials. We had a lot of times of low success, but now we are starting to see the success that we have been striving for for such a long time! And it is nice that the Lord is definitely blessing us with just the biggest miracles.

I love to do fasts together as a Zone, we feel such a powerful connection as we work, and the Lord blesses us so richly for such a small sacrifice. Truthfully the mission is like a big fast, we abstain from all worldly entertainment, all selfish pursuits like jobs, education, dating, etc etc. And truly I have been blessed greatly and I still haven't finished this little 2 year fast of mine!

This week we have a sweet little family lined up to be baptized. They have been keeping all commitments and are ready to get dunked. Also, I am super pumped because this past week Elder Smith and I have received the revelation to open up a new area in our area!!

Love you all,
Stay sweet!
Elder Morrison

The Conversion of Conversion

So this was one of the most satisfying weeks of my mission, the Zona as a whole just improved a ton, and I am pumped it has come with a lot of fast prayer faith and work! And in our personal area we had some miraculous things happen, which just makes me pumped and makes me want to work harder!

We baptized Conversion this week (in Spanish pronounced Conver-see-on) and it was one of the biggest and most satisfying moments of my life! As many, if not all you may know, I am in Matagalpa the very place where I began my life as a missionary. In my first six weeks I walked up and down the same mountains where I am now, and in those journeys I met Hermana Rosa and her family, including her husband Conversion. At that time only Rosa and her son were baptized, and Conversion was very anti-Mormon, for he was a member of another church and a leader of that church at that!

When I returned he had strayed from that church and was traveling throughout the country because he hated his family. But he fell and broke his wrist forcing him to return home. While he was gone my companion and I baptized one of his daughters and activated his wife. Two days after her baptism he came back in a cast and on bed rest.

I would like to add that a year ago he was also in a cast at that time because of a broken leg. That time too I tried with all my might to get him to join the church, but he worked me over with some different belief apostasy.

Fast forward to the same man and same missionary, one year later, I began to teach him again, this time with way more experience, so I did not try to convince him with knowledge of the scriptures and doctrine, but we taught him with a different approach, using the spirit to persuade him to repent. And it worked, from there he was humble enough to ask us with a sincere heart and real intent about the church, and we were able to teach him and explain to him the true doctrine of Christ, Faith, Repentance, Baptism by Immersion for the remission of sins, Laying on of hands for the gift of The Holy Ghost by those who hold the priesthood authority of God.

About two months ago I was going through a tough time because I was failing, I thought, and I was confused as to why God would send me here again, just to have me fail! So I asked him, "Why did you send me here again?" And He did answer.

Hermana Rosa´s family had lost all contact with missionaries and the church in between the time I left and the time I came back, no one visited them, so had God not been so wise and merciful to send me back, Conversion would have been prepared by God in vain. For God prepared him to receive the gospel, just as much as He prepared me to bring it to him.

I have taught Conversion with all 5 companions with whom I have shared this area. Once more I realize that try as we might in the end, God does the work and we are but the instruments in His hands, or as King Benjamin said  "if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be  unprofitable servants." I am grateful to be the unprofitable servant of the Lord, because it is not my work but His work.

Love you all so much!!
Love Elder Morrison

Jump Man

Well this was quite the tiring week, because Thursday I had to go renew my residency here in Nicaragua, which meant I had to spend a couple of hours in a trashy hot building. But it also meant I was a couple of minutes away from a shopping mall, where I got caught up with some old friends, namely, Carl's Jr. American burgers and Beaverton Oregon based Nike shoes. Then that night I spent the night in the secretary´s house because we had leadership council on Friday, which is always a very edifying experience.

Unfortunately that meant that I had two whole days outside of my area, and generally I lose about 1 day normally because I have to travel to other areas to interview people for baptism. But we were still able to put in work and see many miracles. We had a very successful Sunday, we brought many investigators to church that are preparing to be baptized, the next step is to get them off coffee and then YEET they are all getting dunked.

In our church building there are two wards, so before priesthood class started the sister missionaries pulled me aside asking me to help them in the baptismal service they were holding. After finishing up that I go into the priesthood class and one of the coolest miracles from my mission happened, all the members in the priesthood class had convinced our investigator to get baptized next Saturday! Fasting works guys! I have gone a couple weeks too many with out stepping into a baptismal font! We are going to try and convince his son to get baptized, so we might get two baptisms this week which is very exciting!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, my camera is broken, so hopefully I can get a new one soon, but don't y'all worry, I am still as handsome as ever! Just a little skinnier! Still incredibly humble too!

Love Elder Morrison