Luke's Letter Dated 06/24/2013

Hola family and friends!

This week I got transferred to a different zone. I'm in glendale now. It's kinda weird to me to actually know the names of some of the areas up here. Because for the majority of my life the entire area between point of the mountain and lagoon, I've known just as Salt Lake. But My address is          

815 S 600 E #4

Salt Lake City, UT 84102

I would love to hear from you all!  

My new companion is Elder Hazlett. He's from Moab. He's absolutely awesome! He's like really chill and fun. We're both Visa-Waiters. It's really kinda fun to work on our Spanish together. We both decided that by the time we get to Argentina we'll both be fluent in Spanglish. 

One of our first days together we were sitting on this guys front porch having a lesson with him and the phone rang. Elder Hazlett stepped away to answer it, then came back and gave the phone to me. I answered and our AP Elder Woodland said "hey I have someone here who wants to talk to you." So this other person got on and I was talking to him for a minute before I realized who it was. It was my cousin Kelly!!!!! He had served in Elder Woodland's home ward and came here to visit him. It was so sweet  to talk to him. Jeff was there too and I got to talk to him for a little while! I was so surprised and excited!

The other day one of the Zone Leaders was sick, so we went on exchanges with them so they wouldn't have to miss their appointments. As I got into their car I saw a little box sitting on the floor. It looked like it had been there for a while, and whatever was inside was leaking out. It had like a bunch of grease spots on the outside. As I picked it up, I looked at the name. It said Elder Luke Morgan. I looked at the return address and it said "Motherbird" I then looked at the postmark. It said March 25, 2013. Turns out it was a candy bar letter that my mom had sent me like the day I left the MTC. I opened it up, and most of the chocolate had exploded and was melted. It was still pretty cool though. Thanks Mom!

We're hoping that as soon as we get our visas we'll just take off and get down to Argentina. With the changes in Mission Presidents coming this week I think they'll want to get us there asap.

Thank you for all the prayers. They really help. 

I love you all.

Elder Luke Morgan

Luke's Letter Dated 06-17-2013

Hello!!

So... I'm still in Utah. The consulate hasn't approved my visa yet. So I've still gotta wait a little while! I'll make the best of my time here though! We dropped off one of my companions, Elder Blotter, and a sister from our district, Sister Cleveland today. They're both going to Argentina. That was pretty hard. I'm gonna miss them both really bad! 

This past weekend absolutely rocked! On Friday evening we had a wedding for Jose and America. It was so cool, this has been a long time coming and they were super excited. Afterwards we had Cafe Rio. Which always rocks. On Saturday we had 4 baptisms. The first two were Susana, and Jose. Susana is the one who we helped quit smoking. She was so happy. I've never seen her smile like that before. She was baptized by her cousin. 

After her baptism we had Jose's baptism. He was baptized by Elder Verges,(who is about half his size) it was kinda funny to watch them as they were in the font.  Afterwards we had a lunch/ party. It was really cool. Then we went to Kaysville to see the baptism of two people that I got to help teach. They were 11 and 14 years old. I ended up giving the talk on baptism. I don't think I did too bad for winging it. (I learn my "winging it" skills from my mom.)  After that we had another party. We have a lot of parties in the Spanish ward. English wards are all doing it wrong. haha. 

On Sunday we had all the confirmations.  I was able to stand in the circle on all four of them. It was cool to see the changes in all of these people over a few short days. Their lives have been dramatically changed, all in one weekend. After the confirmation we were talking with Jose. He said when he went up there he was kinda nervous, a little sweaty, and scared. But he said that when Elder Pratt said the words "Receive the Holy Ghost." A calm, cool feeling came over him. He said it's like nothing he's ever felt. He couldn't describe how good it felt to him. This is the part that i love. Being able to watch people have their lives changed by the gospel, and by the Holy Ghost. 

I  love this work. I know it's true.

Love you all. I hope you're all doing well.

Love,

Elder Luke Morgan

Luke's Letter Dated June 10, 2013

Hello!

Another exciting week in the exotic land of Layton Utah! We have been working a lot with the ward (aka playing soccer) haha all the ward plays. So we go and play with them. There's a lot of non members there too! It turns into a really good way to get to know them. There's one family. The lady is a member. But her boyfriend isn't. So they're getting married on Friday, and he's getting baptized on Saturday. He's awesome, really sarcastic, and fun to be around. he pretends to be super dramatic. Like when we asked him to stop drinking coffee, he acted like he was gonna die! But he still did it. He's super chill and awesome. Also this saturday we're going to have the baptism of Susana. The lady who we helped stop smoking. She's in Peru right now. But will be coming back tomorrow! She's super excited! So another miracle! We were at this families house for my old companions birthday. We were talking about why we're here on missions. And everything that we do. As we were all talking, this boy, Adi, and this girl, Brandi, both said that they wanted to be baptized right then. We pretty much couldn't believe it. We made all the arrangements and we are having the baptism on saturday, between the other two. This saturday is going to be an awesome, exciting day. I can't wait!

So my visa waiter companion, Elder Blotter got a call on wednesday that he's going to be leaving for Argentina on the 17th. I haven't gotten that call yet. But I'm hoping that it comes this week! We've got a really good, busy week coming up! Should be really sweet!

I love you all!

Elder Luke Morgan

Luke's Letter Dated June 3, 2013

Hey!

So this week has been really fun! We were able to have another baptism too! An 8 year old girl named Jasmin. She is terrified of water, so she was really scared to be baptized, but she was really brave and did it anyways. I was so proud of her! It was really really cool! We had stake conference this weekend. We had Elder Clark of the 70 there. It was really cool to have him speak. We also had President Alba, a counselor to my mission president, speak. And for a little bit he spoke just in spanish, speaking to our ward. He basically told them that everyone needs to be better with being a member missionary. I think we can all do better at that. I know that I wasn't a good member missionary when I was at home. I really wish I would have been better. I could have had a ton of opportunities to serve while I was in Basic Training and AIT. But all I can do now is resolve to be better when I get back!!

We have a missionary in our ward who just barely got back. He is awesome and pretty much will do anything for us! it's really pretty cool to see how he's doing after he got back.

So now for the exciting news. Visa. We have heard a lot about them recently. And I'm pretty sure we're going to be leaving on Monday June 17th. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!! I'm still working hard here. But I really wanna get to Argentina!! 

I love you all! 

Elder Luke Morgan

 Creative Hat that Keynan Left me

 Weekly planning, super effective when we have nice furniture

My District at the Temple

Luke's Letter Dated May 27, 2013

Hey!

Last monday I was riding the Front Runner back up to Layton after going to the Salt Lake Temple. I heard from a guy on there that a guy from Elk Ridge named Cody Towse got killed in Afghanistan. I felt absolutely horrible. I wish I could do something to help his family. I knew his brother from school. And had met him a couple times. At this hard time in their lives It's really comforting to know the plan that god has for each one of us. 

We have been working a lot with our investigators, as well as finding new ones. One thing we've been focusing on is part member families, and less actives. One of the part member families we have has some trees in his backyard that we're gonna help take down. (Sounds like the past 4 years in Springville) So that will be a really good opportunity to get to know them better, and provide some really good service. I'm pretty stoked! 

One of our investigators, Susana, is going to Peru for a few weeks, and is going to get baptized as soon as she gets back. She's super excited, and I'm super excited for her!  This is gonna be so good for her! She's the one who we helped stop smoking after 42 years of the habit. She stopped in one week. Really pretty amazing! 

My companion is going home this transfer, and I just might be going to Argentina at the end of this transfer, so we're both trying our best to not get "Trunky" and keep focused. 

Love you all.

Elder Luke Morgan

Letter Dated 05/20/2013

This week has gone pretty good! I had my first baptism!!! A sister named Maria Herrera. The reason she decided to be baptized is because she says that she was reading in the bible and it says that you need to be baptized in the name of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost. And when her prest baptized her, it was just in the name of Jesus Christ. So she said that she needed to be baptized into the Mormon church. It was really really cool! The bishop was the one who baptized her. It was a really cool experience for all of us there.  Also this week we put a sister named Susana on date to be baptized. She had been smoking for 42 years. And after the missionaries taught the stop smoking program, she stopped. She's been clean for a month and one day now. She is an awesome lady, and we love her so much! She's really excited to be baptized, she's got quite a few really good friends in the church. This step will change her life forever.  On sunday we went to her graduation from the Daily Dose program. Which is a program that is taught by senior missionaries, that helps people learn English as a second language.  She was so proud and happy of that!

 

Friday was an interesting day. It started out with a trip to walmart to buy a tube for my bike, because I had popped it the night before. Later that evening, we were on our way home when it started pouring. While we were riding our bikes through this downpour, I go to pedal, and the whole pedal just falls off. So now we're pushing our bikes the two miles back to our house. Luckily, a man stopped and gave us a ride. We were a little more that frustrated, but it was still really fun!

 

I love you all, and hope taht everything is going good for all of you.

Love,

Elder Luke Morgan

Lukes letter dated 05-13-2013

Hello everyone!

This week has been a little hectic! On tuesday we found out that the other visa waiter and I would be leaving Kaysville to go somewhere else. And that the other elders in the house were also moving out and there would be sisters moving into our house. So we were up till about 4 cleaning. We went to transfers on Wednesday, and  I found out that i would be going to Layton with Elder Pratt, Elder Verges (The old AP) and Elder Blotter (the other visa waiter) We're loving it up here, and finding a ton of work. It's really awesome. The first couple days we were stuck on foot because our bikes weren't here yet. But we now have bikes, so we can get from place to place easier. We've got a good investigator pool going, but we're working really hard on finding new investigators. Saturday we had a mothers day talent show. Which made my companion a little trunky, so we left. He's going home this transfer, so we're working hard on not thinking about home or anything.  On sunday we got to go to Elder Blotter's house to Skype and have dinner. The skype wasn't working very well for me at first, but we got it all figured out. It turns out it was going slow because we had 3 of us on skype at the same time!  It was really good to talk to a lot of you back home, and see how things are going there! 

I love you all, and hope everything is going good back home! 

(sorry for the short letter, the computers here at the library limit our time)

Love you,

Elder Luke Morgan