And naa'y Zone Interviews

October 19, 2016

Hello from Dumaguetti. We were told that we have zone interviews today so we went to Dumz this morning. As in... woke at 4, barely made the boat. I'll admit that I threw up on the boat and have just finished my interview with the President. All is well haha.

This last week was actually pretty long. It felt like a whole transfer! Due to Elder Rice being out with Dengue, we had to make some interesting work calls. For half the day I would stay home and watch him and send out the 2 trainees to go and work. Elder Fernandez, my companion is fantastic and can work without me haha! Elder Rice's trainee is only a week in the mission so he is new. Any who, I had a lot of time in the house this last week and you want to know what I did the whole time? TBH slept! Being self motivated isn’t easy - haha. It is a lot easier to get stuff done when you have a plan.

We had ZTM last weekend. I missed it. Elder Rice couldn't make it so I thought it be best to send the two new trainees to the meeting and I would stay here with Elder Rice. So a whole day to do nothing! yeah....

Because we are in Dumz right now we couldn't go on any big adventure today:/ but the Senior Couple was here last night and we worked with them. They took us to a huge resort to eat lunch. I ordered a really expensive pizza that was the size of one of those freezer pizzas you give to your 5 year old. 

(The top pic is me at a resort and this one is ALL of the missionaries on Siquijor island plus the senior couple (the sister is taking the pic)). 

The investigators are still kicken - haha. Juvy and Jesselle are not where we hope they would be. Things are a little difficult with them right now. Mae is doing great! The only problem with her is that she is probably going to the Negros island for school next semester! That’s in 2 weeks... so we may just have to refer her to others to seal the deal with her. And Allyssa is doing great. She came to church last week! We are all still doing great. Our one and only RC just graduated last Monday. We now have no more recent converts in the area:/ 1 year dry ang Siquijor for baptisms.

All is well here. I hope that all of you are doing good back at home! I have about 1 month left on Siquijor before I will transfer. There is a very small chance that I won’t transfer but that’s like nothing so 1 month left! So fast haha!

I read two talks this last week that really inspired me. One is called "Accepting the Lord's Will and Timing" by David A. Bednar (found in Aug. 2016 Liahona). It talks about "Do we have the faith to not be healed from our problems/ sicknesses?" It really focuses on how the Lord's will will prevail and how we need to accept it because it is for our better. I recommend reading that story.

All is really good. Still hangin’ in there! Again, I hope all is well for y’all back at home! Amping!

-Elder Morris

General Conference Was Great!

October 12, 2016

The week was pretty simple as we spent the entire weekend over on the other island, Negros, so that we could watch General Conference. I felt like it was all counsel on enduring to the end. I can see that now that men’s hearts are failing them. All over here we have a lot of people just fall away. As far as member retention goes, it is a little difficult here. 

Our gators are doing great! I think. Allyssa is doing fine; she doesn't commit to baptism cuz she fears her father but we will keep praying and trying! Mae is still doing well. She has come to church two times and if she comes the next two times then she will be baptized here on the 5th! Hooray! Juvy and Jesselle are still trekking along. We are having an important lesson tonight with them which would probably help them decide once and for all (cross your fingers!).

One of the missionaries, Elder Rice, got Dengue. He is training a new missionary and because of this sickness he can't work so we have been switching out on who is working with Elder Rice's new comp. It’s been pretty busy and we aren't getting so high on our numbers of lessons and FTEs, but alas I hope that the sacrifices in the work will bring blessings! 

Not much really happened but I would like to share my favorite part from General Conference. President Thomas S. Monson gave a great talk in priesthood session. He shared a story of a man in WWII who had to evacuate off of a Filipino Island. He caught the last boat leaving the island and barely made it to the last big boat leaving the bay. A rope was thrown to him to climb up onto the big carrier and he had a big radio on his back. As he got 1/3 of the way there (and by now the boat was heading out to open sea) he started to lose his strength and was about to fall and perish in the ocean. He cried out "Father! I have been keeping the Word of Wisdom my whole life! I really need the blessings NOW!" As soon as he said this he felt a great serge of energy fill his body and thus he was able to climb up the rest of the way to the deck of the boat. 

I know that the blessings come when we most need it. We may not see the blessings of keeping the law of chastity of the Word of Wisdom right off the bat but they are ours when we keep them and when we most need them! I've learned from experience that this is true. Keeping these blessings helps you overcome the big problems! 

Any who, I hope you all are safe! My next week email will be short and quick for we have an activity next week. Take care! Love you all! 

-Elder Morris

And Transfers!

October 5, 2016

My sister batch is in their LAST TRANSFER!!! HOLY FAST!!!! I got my transfer call last night and this is the 2nd time in the past year and a half that nothing will be changing for me. It looks like I will be finishing Elder Fernandez's training (he is doing great BTW) and I will be doing 6 months on Siquijor Island (1/4 sa akong mission!). I really need to emphasize just how rare it is to be here and for as long as I will be here!

Last week was long haha! We have been averaging about 16-20 lessons every week since I’ve been on this island but last week we had 31 lessons! A huge amount of teaching haha! We have really been cracking down on about 4 people. We have a sister, Mae Sasi, which should be up for baptism on Nov.5! She came to church a second time with Juvy and his wife Jesselle. And if all is well the three of them could be good for the 5th. Another investigator, si Allyssa, is doing great! It is difficult getting her to church but other than that she is doing great!  We really need your prayers with these gators! Getting answers to their prayers is what is needed!

We have had some fun these past few days. It has been a huge fiesta here on Siquijor. Lechon baboy everywhere! That’s rotisserie pig btw. We had 3 houses we went to that just fed us dayon!! I felt fat after that!  

At one of the houses… oh man I just need to share this story! I felt a little molested by a drunk gay dude... We were walking up a huge hill (about a 2 hour walk) and we heard "Hey... MORMONS!" We looked up to this huge house and like 10 people were yelling at us "Hey come eat!!" Normally we don't but I looked at Elder Fernandez and said "Sigi, kaon ta! Alright, let’s eat!" We went up and apparently they just finished a birthday party but they brought ALL the food back out and fed us! I had never met them before and I didn’t even know their names but we feasted W-.-W. Well while we ate there was this 40 year old gay dude, a bayut as they are called here. (Lesbians are called Tomboys btw). Well he comes up behind me and puts his arms on my shoulders and shrieks cuz I am soaked in sweat! He then tried to take my shirt OFF me!!! He undoes my tie like really fast and I am trying to decline and not insult these people who are feeding me. He then takes my handkerchief and starts touching it into the neck of my shirt... I wasn’t sure what to do cuz I didn't want to insult these people but anyway he then had to go and I said, “Salamat brother!”  And he said, "Dili ko si Brother, Sister ko! DING!" (I'm not brother, I’m a sister DING!) It was a bit awkward!

Everything else seems to be same old same old. I do see a lot of hardened hearts all around, not just on Siquijor but even back in America. Sad to say, but true.

We should be having a great next week. We leave Friday night for Dumaguetti and return Sunday night. We will lose a lot of work here though:/ Oh well, it shall be good.

I love you all back at home, Take care!

-Elder Morris 

Last Full Week of the Transfer

September 28, 2016

It honestly doesn't feel like so but next week I shall have transfer calls. I don't expect any changes but who knows?

This past transfer has been the fastest thing ever! The work here is REALLY picking up! We had about 11 new gators and have narrowed them down quite a few BUT we have a new girl we are teaching, Allyssa, whose sister is on a mission right now. I am in contact with her sister begging her to persuade her younger sister, Allyssa, to listen to us - haha and it is working! The branch president works with us now (after 4 months I finally have members at our lessons!) and we are tackling our investigator Allyssa with about 3-4 lessons a week for the past 2 weeks. She is doing well and keep praying for her! She is so sweet and needs our prayers!

Juvy and Jesselle came to church again for the 5th time. I've never had a gator progress as much as they have and not be baptized! We are so close with them! They are good to go but some Word of Wisdom issues are holding them back. With luck, they could be good for a Nov. 5 baptism. We taught another college girl who came to church, someone who we have been teaching for 4 months but she wouldn’t progress. We dropped her and the next Sunday she came to church so we have returned to her and she accepted the Nov. 5 date. We are very excited for her! TBH I have a lot of hope for her.

We have a new teaching trick we are doing. We would average about 15-16 lessons a week for the past 16 or so weeks since I’ve been here. Well in the past 2 DAYS we are at 12 lessons because of what we are doing. To be honest our tactic is very bold and simple. Instead if asking if we could teach people when we approach them, we just go straight into teaching them. No joke! The very first OST we tried this with, Elder Fernandez walks right up to this tatay and asks "Hey tay, can we pray?" the tatay is confused and so the question is repeated 2 more times before he said yes and so we prayed right then and started right into teaching him the Plan of Salvation. He rejected of course the next lesson (it was expected btw) but at least we gave the Holy Ghost a bit more time to teach this old man. It states in Ch. 9 of the PMG to do so, so we are! It is working and I can see the fire in Elder Fernandez and me growing to share!

Another OST exp... We sat on the edge of a sidewalk, 10 feet drop to the river below, and we shouted the L1 to a group of construction workers while they were working. They DID say we can share before we did so we did! They paid attention and such, it was quite fun haha.

A few days ago I had a DLC in Lahug Cebu... the temple here! So I left at 7 a.m. on Thursday and got to Lahug at 9:30 p.m... yeah I don’t like to travel. On one of the boats, I OSTd a Buddhist guy. He was really nice and grew up in Vegas so we spoke English haha. As we discussed religion I came to see that Buddhism is really close to Mormonism sa pakkatinuod. A few points were brought up that were pretty impactful. The first and main point is the reason why this man left his religion sa una and became a Buddhist. It was because he would go to church, worship and then go home and see all the other people he worshiped with and how they would immediately return to their vices and unChristlike lives. He asked me why people don't live what they believe.  And I see that too! How often are we Mormons only on Sunday? I recall hearing an Apostle of the Lord saying that this religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, isn't just a religion but a life style. We should make sure that it is our lifestyle! My meeting was good. Nothing really big but finally learning how to do my job! after 10 weeks... yeah. \

All is well. I got a package from home which has athlete’s foot stuff! That stuff is really expensive here! I am so blessed to have parents who care about my foot conditions:) It also contained a lot of food. I have shared it with my Comp. and some members. Thanks mom and dad!

So far so good; still alive. I hope all is well with you all at home! Take care! Love ya'll!

CONFERENCE THIS WEEKEND! I get it in 2 weeks btw. 

- Elder Morris

Yo!

September 21, 2016

The last thing I remember is emailing you all last week! The weeks are going by very quickly, especially these past 3 weeks. They feel like a blur! I am glad to keep a journal for everyday of my misison so that I can remember what happened! The week started off interesting.

To be honest, I've been getting very frustrated with the work lately. We are just tracting all day. We don't have gators to teach and we are being punted from many lessons. Punted means that we get there but can't teach for some reason or another. I was in a bit of a funk this last Sunday. Just seeing how gahi the people are lately and the fact that we just can't get anywhere here in this area. But rest assured the Lord always waits until you are pushed to your limits before we receive help (2 Nephi 25:23). The past 2 days have been interesting in the gators perspective.

We spent a WHOLE day going to some far out place about 8 kilometers away, uphill. We trekked up there and followed up with one referral. We had a great first discussion with them and now have 2 new gators and a new area to go to and tract. We have an old investigator who we followed up with. Her sister is on a mission now and so I am like "I'ma baptize this one!" Her sister is a missionary right now so I feel she might be a huge help. Well we taught this girl at the church with the help of our branch president and 1:15 minutes later she was in tears and speechless. I have very high hopes for her! She lives very far away! Even further than the referral that took 3 hours to hike to her house BUT she goes to college in Laurena (right next door to the church) and is there Mon-Fri. so we teach her after class.

Overall, after yesterday and Monday, we now have a total of 11 gators. About 6 new ones just these past 2 days. We extended baptism to a ton of them and they all accepted it. Extending baptism is a great way to find if people will actually listen or if they are just being nice.

We met this one guy in Siquijor, Siquijor and taught him L1. We extended the 29th of Oct. to him and he was like “Sure!” We returned 3 days later on last Friday and he asked "what time on the 29th?" He then asked his mom if he can be baptized into "Mormons". He is like 36 BTW. This actually did cause a huge argument to break out.... Nanay just wanted her family to be unified in one religion because they all had a bad exp. in another religion earlier. Well... I will keep you updated with how this goes. Right after our lesson with that last guy we went to a bread shop to get some bread and the kid at the counter asks "are you 'Latter-Day Saints'?" We said yes and he responded "hmm I am looking for the truth right now, can you teach me?" He is an 18 year old and lives far but works in Siquijor. We shall see how he goes too!

We just had a lot of good FTEs and 1st lessons but this next week we shall see how things go!

To be honest, everything else has been same old, same old. My Zone Leaders came out to Siquijor last Monday. That was a first! They had to get special permission from the mission president to come out here but we had fun:) My comp., si Elder Butterworth, is a transfer behind me and a full year younger than me so it was a little odd but still fun talking and working with another American. We just seem to get the same kind of humor you know?

(This is my district and zone leaders this past Monday.)

All is well here. I head out to Lahug Cebu tomorrow. I have a DLC to be at and will be gone until Saturday because crossing three islands and traveling 99 miles takes over 10 hours. To travel 100 miles on the American freeway system takes an hour in no traffic... yeah...boats...
All shall be well. I can send pictures here!! Prepare yourself!!


I love you all! Take care back at home!

-Elder Morris

Maayo ligi siya!

September 14, 2016

Another eventful past week. Yesterday I reached the end of writing in my first journal and am now on to book number two. I enjoy having these books that have a record of every single day since I entered the MTC. I just know that it will be a huge blessing in my life later on! I do encourage each missionary to keep a daily journal. It pays off once you start reading what you did last year and can still remember the memories:) I find that I am, however, the only missionary to actually write EVERY day. interesting de ba?

I mentioned earlier that a new favorite fish of mine is Marlin but I found out that the fish I ate was not marlin but called Kanyigi. I got another kilo of him and BBQ’d him last week:) He has truly fulfilled his purpose:) BTW the fishes head is bigger than my entire torso! He is a big guy! Coming in around 20-25 kilos, he is a good one! I also like this fish here called a milk fish. It tastes a bit like milk believe it or not.

(I have been eating some really big fishes lately. Tuna (dont really like tuna), Milk fish, Kanyigi etc. This is my big 2 kilo tuna.)

As far as the work goes, we are still trying to trek along. We don't have a definite teaching pool anymore. We are down to tracting and pushing lessons to random people.

Last Friday was the birthday of Elder Fernandez so we went to San Juan (a place really far away that I have never been to.) San Juan is where all the tourists go because it is full of nice beaches, resorts, resturaunts etc. We found a nice Italian restaurant to eat lunch at and I had 2 pizzas -- 145 pesos each (cheap BTW). I now have a hankering for Italian food. I bought a bottle of olive oil and have been frying garlic in it and dipping bread in it for the past week. Olive oil ain't cheap here but it is worth it:)

On Friday we also went to Dumaguetti for a ZTM. The meeting was simple, nothing too big.

 (Elder Fernandez and I on the boat.)

Other than that my week has been same old same old except it went by really quickly! All is well and I hope all of you back at home are doing good too!

I love you all!  BYE!

Elder Morris

Two Weeks of Training

September 7, 2016

So this week was a little stressful as well as miraculous in many ways. We did end up losing 6 of our 7 investigators right at the start of the week. We have spent the last 3 days going door to door and nothing more haha (it rhymed). Brother Juvy is still holding on! His wife is slowly losing interest but he still remains strong.

I managed to have my FIRST member present lesson while here on Siquijor with him. We don't have members in our area to work with us, not to mention the male presence in members is very small (some 5-6 priesthood holders to about 50-60 sisters). We had 2 ladies from the relief society show up and try to help the sister. We talked about the Priesthood to Juvy and he was ok until we told him that after he is baptized he will receive the Priesthood authority of God. This seemed to really spark a fire in him! I could tell that he began to be a little more excited! This was just one small miracle (having members help us!) out of the many that happened; free rides, revelation, receiving referrals from members (also a first for me here on the island), and to be honest... my safety this week was a bit of a miracle.

I have now made it very clear in my work that I will refrain from talking to ANYONE who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs for that matter. We had 2 close ones with drunk guys whose stories I'll share.

The first drunk guy: We got punted from our lesson last Saturday and remembered this huge group of people just down the road at a birthday party. We thought we could get a lot of FTEs there and share a bit. We got there and this big (he was really big) guy came up to me offering me a shot of beer, this happens a lot BTW. I declined and he persisted. I told him that it is a commandment from God that we should refrain from alcoholic drinks (and I saw another witness as to why). He then got MAD! Like, I'm trying to be as nice as I can but he got furious! He told me to get away and such. So I go and say bye to my other new friends and he starts counting to ten much like a parent to a disobedient child. When he hit 7 I got back to the road and he still continued to count.  I looked at him when he got to ten and he jumped up, grabbed his beer and stormed over to me. I honestly thought he was going to 1) dump the beer on me and 2) smash the bottle into my head. I turned my left shoulder to him and readied my right fist cuz if this guy was going to do anything to me I was going to put him down right then and there. He continued to yell at me and I just smiled at him and walked away. As I walked away he said "If I ever see your face again I will shoot you!"... all because I refused beer...

The second guy was WAY WORSE!!! Elder Fernandez and I were hiking up to Basac about 5 km from the main town of Laurena. We rested at our first rest stop and heard screaming. He sounded a LOT like The Water Boy. EEERRRRRR!!!!! We looked to this one house and this guy comes running out saying some very big words! He is screaming at his mother (EEEERRRRRR!). The guy looked to be about 35 and mama was about 60+. The guy chucked many rocks at his mom, missing all and nailing his house 10-15 times. His mom came out and confronted him on the road and he tried to club her with wooden sticks but this old nanay was FEARLESS!!! He then ran inside and grabbed his sundang (machete) and confronted mama again screaming how he was gonna... yeah well mama says "Sigi! Sigi! Sigi!" meaning "GO FOR IT!" he took many swings at mama and stopped each time right before he takes her head off! Nanay is standing there like this is just another day! He then screams like a possessed child (EEEEERRRRRR!) and rants and runs away! Mama then calls the police. We watched for about 15 minutes. Now, we missionaries are to refrain from entering into domestic abuse situations but I and Elder Fernandez were about to tackle the guy had he hit his mother. The guy was, obviously, drunk.

Amongst the drunks, and to be honest I did meet a ton of hard-hearted people this week and all the loss of investigators, I did see the Lord’s hand all the way through. I know I am safe because of the Lord. We found a girl who is actually very bright. She read all of the Pamphlet we gave her (which TBH is rare) and even spelled Melchizedek for us! She ASKED for the Basahon ni Mormon! Other miracles did happen this week that I very much want to share but I feel it would be better to share these things in person when I return home. Ask me what happened and I will be glad to share!

I finished reading the Book of Mormon again for the 5th time yesterday. I can say to you all as I did before that I know that NO man wrote that book. You may know a prophet by his fruits. I know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God.

This week was long haha! And this computer doesn’t let me send pictures, but rest assured I am still alive! I will hit my last 6 months when I am done training Elder Fernandez so PAS PAS (quick) is my mission going and PAS PAS will it come to an end. I love it here! I love serving too!

I promise I will take care! Take care ya'll! Love you all back at home!

-Elder Morris