The Swanky Part of Town

Hello again family!

Things are awesome here in St. Charles. We have one of the worst

apartments in the mission, but this is America, so it's still pretty

nice.  Fun facts about it:

-The person living below us controls our heat.

-The light switches to the bathroom are in the hall and the light

switches to the hall are in the hall closet.

-The front door doesn't open from the inside, so we have to pry it

open with a butter knife.

It's pretty nice besides that.  The members in this area are crazy

rich, and one of them bought Temperpedic mattress pads for our beds,

so that was awesome. They're the best beds in the whole mission.

Other ridiculous things that have happened since I got here:

-I was fed a $40 steak.

-We were "official" fancy cheese testers, since that sort of thing

just happens all the time here.

-We were fed Thanksgiving twice.

It's kind of ridiculous, but the members are all super nice and

awesome.  We're trying to spend as much time with them as we can,

since missionary work is best done through the members.  It's

difficult (WAY harder than tracting.), but the results are tons

better.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FIGURING OUT BYU FOR ME!!!

I'm super excited, and yes, less worried.  It's going to be great.

I'm going to try to figure out today when to go home.  I've been

thinking about it for a while, even though I thought I wouldn't need

to figure it out for a long time, but now it's come right up, and I'm

glad I've already put some thought into it.  There's been a lot of

prayer involved, studying it out, and talking to my mission president.

I'm going to make some calls today and then I'll let you know.

We have two investigators, and they're pretty cool.  We have a lesson

with one of them tomorrow, and he sounded excited, so that's going to

be great.

Thanks for the advent calender!  It's going to be awesome.  I really

like it a lot.

We got paid today, so we're going to Giordano's.  It's a deep dish

place, and it's not too expensive, and it's delicious.  I feel bad for

everyone that has not experienced it.  It's the best deep dish I've

found out here (yes, there really is deep dish pizza EVERYWHERE. It's

the greatest thing in the world. At first I was like, "What's the big

deal? It's just thick pizza."  I was wrong.  So wrong.  So many years

wasted!)

I am doing good.  Things are well.  I am co-senior companion right

now, but it doesn't mean much.  No one is really in charge in a

companionship.  It's good preparation for marriage.  If the Ensign has

taught me anything, it's that neither spouse is in charge.  They make

decisions together.  We do kind of have a problem with unrighteous

dominion in our mission, but it's just a few elders.

I hope everyone is having fun!  And Christmas is coming crazy fast!

It seems like mothers day was just last week!  It's insane.

Have a good week!

Jordan

Catching UP!

So...I'm a little behind on blog updates so here's a few:

Hi family!

So about stories of the people we're teaching: I would love to send
them, but we currently have no investigators. They all left the state
the transfer i got here. So we pretty much spend our tome contacting
referrals and meeting with members. We did meet an awesome man from
india the other day, named Venka. He's super cool, but doesn't want to
change religions, but also loves the discipline our church has. He's
awesome.

I guess i can talk about the ones from Plainfield. We had Kasie and
Kelsie, two twins who lived together with their kids. They were super
awesome, and are close to coming into e church, but they have a little
bit more to go. They introduced us to their friend Katrina, who wants
to be baptized, but her husband won't let her. She's super awesome
too.

Then we had the Lilly's, who are 80 years old, black, and awesome.
They have a grandson who played for the pacers, but he's since been
traded to the celtics, i think.

Then we had Sam and Sandy, who are 93 and 73, respectively. Sam is one
of the two people who invented the board game Operation. He also
played guitar on the radio back in the 20's, and had a friend who
played the piano in a mob joint.

Then we had Jon, who was baptized. He was the non member husband of
an active member, and claimed to be atheist.

Then we had Kathleen, who was a less active member who has a son on a
mission. She and i got along really well, and her daughter Brianna,
whose thirteen, is awesome and loves doctor who.

There was brother Torres, a less active member who did not feel at
home in our ward, so the bishop of his old ward sent us to reactivate
him. He ended up going to Nauvoo with our ward mission leader, and now
is a ward missionary and is super strong.

There is Subhash, who moved here from india ten years ago, was
homeless, and was living with a friend when the sisters knocked on his
door. He converted, and his family has disowned him, but he now has a
great job snd a nice house, and married an lds woman from Germany that
he met online.

Plainfield was awesome. I really want to visit it after my mission.

My mission is super fun, and everyone should serve one, if they are
able. I hope everything is going well back home!

Also, we went to the temple today, and it was awesome! Everyone should
go there, if they are able.

Love,

Jordan

Hello family!

There is nothing much new to report. There should be some packages
coming to the house soon. One of them, the bigger one, is full of fun
stuffs for the family. The smaller one is my stuff. Please put it
somewhere safe.

There is a member in he ward that is helping me with an awesome
project that I am working on. We're still in the planning and prepping
phases, so I'll let you know how things are going as it develops.

I get to speak in church this Sunday! It's on faith, so I'm kind of
nervous, because that's a big topic. And I'm speaking on high council
Sunday, so that will be interesting.

We still have no new investigators, but we do have lots of awesome
ward members who are trying to help with that. People are going to
show up, I just know it.

We're also planning on talking to our president to see if we can go
downtown for a pday.  He's a pretty reasonable man, so we'll see.

I hope everything is going fine back home. I pick up on things now and
again on Facebook, so that's been cool.

Have a great day!

Elder Jordan Morgan

Do you get the subject line? Tell Parker I want to play that game with
him when it home, because I keep seeing pictures of it when we do
online proselyting, and it looks AWESOME.

Two exciting things happened this week: I got to speak in sacrament
meeting! That wasn't so exciting as it was terrifying. I don't know
why, I'm a missionary, all I do is talk to people. But for some reason
whenever I get up to speak in front of a crowd, I get really nervous.
Maybe it's because they're all facing a different direction than I am.
I feel outnumbered.


I got to speak on faith, which was awesome. I'm only now starting to
get faith, and it's been super awesome. I talked about how it's a
principle of action, because true faith always motivates someone to
some sort of action. It was a lot of fun.

Then we finally got a ward mission leader! We hadn't had one the
entire time, so that was a nice surprise. His name is brother Abromov,
and he's from Soviet Russia. Like, he grew up in the Soviet Union. How
intense is that? He's super cool, and his wife is a recent convert.
Her name is Lybov (Pronounced Luba.) She's super nice, and loves
having us over for dinner.

So we're at the mall right now, and it's been awesome. Have I ever
mentioned that we have, like, the largest mall in the United States in
our area? It's called the Woodfield mall, and it's gigantic. There's
pretty much every store you could ever ask for in here, including an
AWESOME anime store.

So this week has involved lots of experiences with heeding the
direction of the Spirit and finding people to teach. Sometimes
missionaries (and members, frankly) fall into the trap of thinking
that busy=productive. This isn't necessarily true. For instance, I
could decide to walk to our appointment clear out in Barrington. It
would take about six hours, so we would be perfectly busy the whole
time, but would we be productive? Hardly. I had an experience with
this while I was on exchanges with an elder that is very much like,
"gogogoallthetimehurry!" Which I don't really like. Instead, I was
sitting there trying to heed the spirit in which person we should go
visit. He just wanted me to pick someone and get moving because he
thought we were wasting time, and I thought that it was a pretty sad
thing if you call trying to listen to the Spirit "wasting time." But
finally a name felt good to me, and we drove clear out to visit it,
and we found a man that's interested in coming to church! And he's
Russian, and speaks little English, but we just got a new ward mission
leader that speaks fluent Russian! How about that. Things have never
worked out so well as I have seen them work out on my mission. It's
been great.

So keep reading the scriptures and doing good things, and being nice
to people. Especially being nice to people. I've spent a lot of time
wishing I had been nicer to people in high school, so just do it,
alright? It makes everything better.

Jordan

First things first: When on earth did we get a fire pit?  And the deck
expanded? Nobody tells me anything!  I just saw it on the Facebook!

This week has been really, really cold.  It finally started snowing,
which back home is like "Yay!" But here it's like "It begins..."
We're supposed to have a really bad winter this year, but we'll see.
It is so cold.  Like, crazy cold.  It's the humidity.  It gets you
both ways.  You feel like you're melting in the summer, and then in
the winter it manages to permeate every single part of you're
clothing.  It's currently twenty degrees out right now, but with the
wind chill it feels more like -20.  Tis truly the windy city.

So Davis wants a fox that wears a top hat and takes people shoes?
That sounds awesome.  We actually saw a fox running across the street
a couple days ago, and it was awesome.  And it reminded me of my
perfect pet! I want a falcon that is trained both to deliver messages
to my friends and family, and also it stays within hearing range of me
all the time, so at any moment outside I can just whistle, and it
swoops down and perches on my arm.  I'd be like a pokemon master.  It
would be fantastic.

I'm sending a picture of a plate that one of the members in the ward
gave me.  You'll understand when you see it.  It's pretty awesome.

I have no idea what everyone is so busy with in the states.  It's
like, we ask them to read the Book of Mormon, and then a week later
they were like "Oh, I was too busy, and didn't get a chance."  Really?
There are 168 hours in the week, and 10,080 minutes in those hours,
and you were busy during every single one of them?  I would almost
rather people just say that they didn't want to read it, because THEN
we can maybe help with the real problem.

I'm excited for Christmas to.  It's next transfer!  That's pretty
crazy. Time is going by too fast out here.  Like, it's already pday
today.  That's insane.  And transfer calls are this saturday, which is
also insane.  They are going by too fast.  And I hate transfer calls.
The suspense is almost too much.

A mission is awesome, and I wouldn't trade the things that I have
learned out here for anything.  Please keep writing!

Jordan

I'm being transferred!

That went by really fast.  True, I was only in this area for half as
long as I was in my first area, but still!  Three months!  Like
nothing!

It'll be sad saying goodbye to my companion for a spell, but I'll see
him again. Apparenty my next companion is super cool

I'm going to an area called St. Charles.  It's supposed to be pretty
wealthy, so it'll be an adventure.

So this transfer is the Christmas transfer!  It's going to be awesome
to get to talk to everyone!

Is it snowing over there?  Because it was rainging earlier, and it
just turned to snow.  You know how you would watch the sequel to
Frosty the Snowman and all the adults were like "Snow is awful, we
must get rid of it!" And you were like "Those jerks!  They hate fun!"
Well, now I kind of sympathize with them.  The snow wouldn't be too
bad if it wasn't SO DANG COLD!!!  It was ten degrees all last week,
with the wind chill!  It's awful.  But my companion is being
transferred up to Beloit, Wisconsin, so I shouldn't be complaining.
At least I'm heading southwest.

People should email!  I like hearing from people!  And to everyone who
does email, thank you so much!  Have a great day!

Elder Jordan Morgan

Greetings from Illinois

(This is what Jordan made to scare his companion--poor companion…Also, I'm too lazy at the moment to figure out how to turn it so good luck…)

Hi family!

To answer Mom's question, I'm in the Arlington Heights 1st ward, but
we live in Palatine. You should look it up! If you got my videos,
you'll be able to see the glory of Illinois.

Things have been going great out here! We don't have any
investigators, but we have been getting s lot of referrals! That's
been awesome. Also, it's awesome to hear about mrs. Baxter! Thanks for
helping the missionaries out so much, thats fantastic.

We are in a car share now, which means that we only get the car every
other week. So it takes us forever to get to places, but i also walked
28.5 miles last week, which is great because i want to lose ten
pounds. My face is starting to change shape, and i don't like it.

Oh, so i heard the greatest joke a little bit ago:

What's a pirates favorite letter? You'd think it'd be R, but it's
actually the C.

People fall for it every time. It's fantastic.

Other than the car share, and scaring the corn out of my companion,
there hasn't been a ton of interesting things that have happened.
Apparently the Piano Guys came to our ward last year, which is pretty
crazy. I didn't know they were members, but it makes sense.



I hope everything is going well back home! Keep reading and studying
the scriptures, and have fun in the Gospel! Also, let McKay know that
the two pieces of advice that i give to every missionary are:

1. The Lord loves a working man.

2. Don't trust whitey.

It's awesome.

Jordan

Does Anybody Know Candle Grove?

Hello again family!

First things first: Is Carter going to Brazil? I thought I saw
something about that on Facebook, and if so, that's awesome! He'll do
great. If not, then it's the Lord's will. He will send Carter where He
needs him to be. The Lord doesn't let His will be stopped by a couple
of bureaucrats from Brazil.

How has everyone in the family been doing? I'm super excited to hear
about people possibly getting baptized! And about you helping the
sister missionaries out!  That's awesome. Blessings come from helping
the missionaries, because they are there to represent the Lord.

Speaking of that, I loved conference this weekend! If I had to guess
what the overarching theme of this conference was, it would have to be
"Quit apostatizing." I had never made the connection that when the
apostles and the first presidency speak, it is really the Lord
speaking. So when you don't listen to them, it is the same as not
listening to Christ. That's why it makes me sad when I see members
that advocate things that the Lord has told us is wrong. Like same sex
marriage. That's the big one right now. Do people think that the
prophets are wrong? If so, they must either think that Christ is
wrong, or that the prophets do not speak for Him. Honestly, if a
member thinks that the Church is wrong about same sex marriage, then
they do not understand what a prophet is.

Sorry if that sounded harsh, but it's true. I just got done reading
the Book of Mormon, and it's kind of scary how many parallels there
are in it to our day. Like, all the parallels. How can nobody else see
it! We're heading for the same end as the Nephites and Lamanites! I
don't know. I'm just trying to do the best I can.

I'm sorry if this email sounds like I'm calling people to repentance.
That's not what I'm trying. It's not my job, because there are
missionaries in Vancouver who are assigned to do that! Our mission
president tells us all the time that one of our biggest jobs is to
call people to repentance. Lots of people don't do it, myself
included, because we're afraid of offending people. But I'm slowly
getting over it. Everyone has to repent, so it's not that big of a
deal to tell people. I loved one of the quotes from this conference:
"Scorn is guilt trying to reassure itself." It's super true.

Speaking of super true, the church is super true, and we truly have
prophets leading it today. I got that spiritual confirmation this
weekend. It's awesome to have prophets again to lead us and warn us of
the dangers that face us, and it's humbling that the Lord would still
send prophets even after all the chances He's given us already. If you
don't know that it's true, pray about it and study the scriptures.

Love,

Elder Jordan Morgan

Jordan's Mom here:  I received this FB message from the Mom of Jordan's companion. Apparently they get along great and all sorts of hilarity ensues--but Jordan likes to scare the pants off of poor Elder Judd.  Heaven help him when "the elf on the shelf" comes around...

Wolverine!

Hello family!

 

Sorry about last week, we were having all sorts of computer troubles.  Things have been pretty crazy this transfer so far. I will attempt to explain:

 

So apparently there's some supervirus going around the midwest right now, and when I got here, my companion had it.  So we were stuck in the apartment for a week, and didn't really get much done.  We call it the VOID: Volcaninc Outburst of Impromptu Diarrhea.  It's pretty awful.  Anyway, we were all worried that I was going to get it, you know, because of the whole "Stay with your companion at all times" thing, but I was like "No, it'll be fine.  I'm Wolverine, I never get sick and I heal super quickly."  But then I totally got sick.  I got over it in a day, because like I said, I'm Wolverine.  The whole family is, frankly.  We never get sick.  It's pretty crazy. 

 

So my new companion is super awesome, and we totally get along.  It's been awesome.  We also have an aweomse mall in my new area.  It's the second largest in the United States.  And you can see the skyline from where we live, including the Sears Tower!  Or the willis tower, whatever it is now.  So that's pretty awesome.  That thing is huge. 

 

I loved the package that you guys sent, especially the quotes!  It was awesome.  I love things like that.  I've already decided that my last words are going to be "Rosebud."  It's going to be great. 

 

So how is everything going at home?  Mom said that you sent a package, so I should be getting that this wednesday.  We have a zone conference then, and that's when we get all our packages.  It's going to be awesome. 

 

So I just realized a couple of days ago that in a little less than three months, i will only have a year left on my mission.  What?  That's insane.  I sort of freaked out.  I was like "Where did all the time go?  Oh that's right, Plainfield ATE IT."  Not that I don't like Plainfield.  I like it a lot, and I want to visit it after my mission.  It just sort of took me by surprise. 

 

Speaking of that, when you're with the same person 24 hours a day, you get the opportunity to talk about EVERYTHING.  This leads to what my companion calls my "stoner moments," since i'm from Washington and we've gone ahead and legalized that herb.  Here are a couple of mine.  He's making a list:

 

(while eating with a bunch of missionaries) "We're all getting older.  AT THE SAME TIME."

 

"I'll never be able to take my fingers off.  Like, they'll always be attached to my hand."

 

"What if we got a fog machine for the car?  Then every time we opened the doors, it would be like 'fwoosh.'"

 

"You know what the best super power would be?  If you could launch your head off of your body on a spring, like a jack in the box.  I bet that would really freak people out." 

 

I don't know if I was always like this and I didn't talk to enough people, or if there's something in the air in Illinois, but it's been super fun.  My companion doesn't believe me when I say that I'm almost 22.  He thinks I'm really a little kid stuck in an adult body, Big style.  And he thinks that it's unfair that I got better faster than he did, because he eats pretty healthy, and the other morning I had Skittles for breakfast.  This is truly the life. 

 

I hope everything is going super well at home.  A mission is awesome, don't trade it for anything.  So many memories!  Like, so many. 

 

Elder Jordan Morgan

Aha moment

This week has gone by SO FAST.  It's ridiculous.  It's because we've been super busy.  We're trying to spend all of the time we have where we're not teaching investigators in members homes doing finding lessons with them.  Finding ought to be done through the members, because that's the way to do it.  Sometimes missionaries will get into that Superman way of thinking and be like "I'm just going to go out on find people on my own."  That is a huge mistake, especially because this often turns out to be hours and hours of tracting.  I'm sorry, but I do not like tracting.  It doesn't give people a fair chance to actually hear our message, and when they open the door and see us standing there, their minds are flooded with untrue stereotypes that cause them to immediately close the door.  Finding should be done through the members.  I've been pushing it really hard, because for a bit, the missionaries and the members in this ward weren't unified.  They got along just fine, but there wasn't a lot of unity on the missionary work.  And when there's a problem, the answer is NEVER to just ignore it.  You try to fix it, and if you can't, then you either find someone that can or move on.  But don't ignore problems.  

We've seen some fantastic people become reactivated in our ward!  It's been awesome.  I love serving a mission.  And I'm glad I came home early.  I was not ready to go out, and I was going out for the wrong reasons.  I am confident that I would not have had the sorts of experiences I'm having now, had I gone out the first time.  Also, something crazy I realized: So I've obviously been called to where I need to be.  I have reasons that make me 100% sure of that.  So if this mission is where I'm supposed to be, then why wasn't I called to it in the first place?  I always struggled with that.  But I received an answer: This mission didn't exist when I got my first call.  This mission was about 1 year ago.  Doodoodoodoodoodoodoodoo.  (That's the Twilight Zone music.) But yeah, that was pretty intense.  

Things have been going great out here.  The summer has been really mild.  That's because I brought all the good weather from Washington out here with me.  I keep telling everyone that's thinking about moving to just move to Washington.  It's simply the best state.  

Send pictures!  PICTURES!

We don't have a ton of time today, so I'll be ending the email here.  This work is truly the work of The Lord.  

Elder Jordan Morgan

"Chester Macaroni"

This week has been pretty good. We had a ton of finding lessons with the members this week.  We're working on getting the ward and the missionaries united on missionary work, and we figure the best way to do that is by listening to the same person: The Lord.  So we've really been pushing revelation and been getting the members to commit to seek revelation on what they can do to further The Lord's work.  It's been great.  

So our super awesome recent convert had an amazing story to tell us this week.  So he was the non-member in a part member family, and no one ever thought he would get baptized, but then he totally did and now he's on spiritual fire.  Anyway, his wife had a really strong prompting from the spirit that they needed to move to Utah, even though she didn't have a job lined up, or a home, and he would have to quit his job.  But he totally supported her, and the family left.  They found a house, and she found a job, but he stayed here so that they woulnd't have a break in their income.  In the time he was here, he was living with his boss.  Anyway, last week their house in Utah kind of burned up.  Not all the way down, but enough that they couldn't live there anymore.  And then on sunday, he came and told us that they were actually going to stay in Illinois, because the guy he was living with offered him the vice-presidents position at his company!  He compared the whole experience to Lehi fleeing to the wilderness, which it pretty much was.  Everyone he knew was like "What on earth are you doing?  Don't quit your job, don't move when you don't have a house down there, don't leave if you don't have any plans!"  And now look what happned.  He's going to be making a ton more money than he would've had they not even left for Utah.  It was pretty crazy.  And I'm super excited, because like I said, he's awesome.  

Also, I need to tell you about another one of the stress dreams I've been having on my mission.  I'm sure you can relate.  You know, those dreams where you wake up and your just so relieved that it was all a dream?  Actually, I have two:

1. I dreamed that elder Rowley and I were companions.  I love elder Rowley, i was in the MTC with him.  Anyway, I dreamed that I took the car by myself to Meijers (It's like a ghetto Winco), and started buying fireworks.  Then all of the sudden, I was like "What am I doing?  Where's my companion?  Why am I buying fireworks? I need to get out of here!"  I looked around for a place to put the fireworks, when all of the sudden I ran into my mission president and his wife, followed closely by elder Rowley, who was crying.  I was relieved when I woke up.  

2. I dreamed that I was companions with elder Linford, an Elder in my district at the time.  He's super nice.  Anyway, we were at the mall, but it looked like Evergreen, and we got in a fight.  It was so bad that I wanted to be alone, so I went to the bathroom, but right before I opened the door, I turned around and swore at him, and a bunch of people heard.  Then while I was in the bathroom, two ward members were outside, and they had the following conversation:

"Did elder Morgan just swear at his companion?"

"I think so, but it's ok."

Then I ended up on the front page of the newspaper because of it, with the following headline: 

"Servants of the Lord, or of the devil?  Mormon elder swears at his companion!"

Then my mission president was like "You've ruined the work in the area!"  I woke up and I was like "Oh my gosh!  Every time!"  

Do you know a Russel family back in vancouver?  Kayla and Jenna Russel?  Because they live here, and Kayla went to Evergreen, and Jenna was living about 10 minutes from me while I was home from my mission.  They know the Carnahans and the Muellers and the Babbs.  Pretty much everyone.  It's pretty crazy.  

One of the less active members we're working with has the greatest cat ever.  His name is Chester Macaroni, because he's orange and bendy.  And super fat.  But that's ok, because it makes him super chill.  He's an orange tabby cat.  I'll make sure to get a picture with him before I leave the area.  

I have a cool story about why iPad's super helpful: We were talking to a less active sister in the ward, and I had to use the bathroom.  When I came back, my companion and the member that came with us were having a discussion about what happens to stillborn children.  The less active sister (who is AWESOME, by the way. She's like my grandma in the field.)  had a stillborn child years ago, and she said that no one in the church has been able to give her a definite answer.  All of the sudden the spirit took hold of my memory and put it to good use, and was like "You've read this in the Handbook 2: Administering to the Church."  So I looked it up on the iPad in like, ten seconds, and read it to her, and she received spiritual confirmation it was true and started crying.  So yeah, the iPad's are totally part of hastening the work.  

I hope you enjoyed the pictures!  And send more puzzles! Did you get my email about the maze puzzle?

Elder Jordan Morgan

Me with Fo, the sunflower.  The planter and the soil were gifts, but I bought the seed.  I love her like I would my own child.  We're also about to go do service, which explains the normal people clothes.

Me, beholding Fo's beauty...

Releasing balloons into the air with a really nice message and our phone number attached.  We call it "sky contacting."