Spiritually minded is life eternal. 2 Ne 9:39

Sisters in my zone
-with Sister Caffaro my awesome mission presidents wife-
LOVE these two amazing people!

eating at our zone conference

sisters in our zone

Quetzal- what a cool bird!

baptisms!  :-D

happy day!

Stork parking?

beautiful here!

Our investigator didn't come to the baptisms, but our ward mission leader wanted to start it even without 2 of our candidates there yet... we kept saying no not yet, so we ran to get the lady we thought would be there, but her husband wouldn't let her go.



We got back to the church and our two others had shown up to get baptized so we went out and took pictures and i don't think our ward mission leader likes us very much.
So I got to translate for Sister Caffaro in our Zone conference and I just love her! I have the best mission president in the world!
Everyone at church was telling me that Guatemala beat the US in soccer... I don't think they would have been telling me if the USA had won the game?!





We went to the General Women's conference, but it was on a small computer and there were like 20 of us and i couldn't hear it at all.  I am really excited for General Conference this week and hope you all enjoy it too.
We are teaching an english class and even though I speak english it is complicated to teach it since they are all on different levels of understanding!
It has been really HOT here and there are lots of popsicles being consumed... but none of them are as good as the yummy ones that Tammy buys!

I love you all!
have a great week and enjoy conference :-D
Hermana Morris

"simplify your approach to discipleship"- President Uchtdorft

Hey guys!  So this incredible week was both fast and fun!! Thanks for all the love and support, and thanks for all of the birthday wishes!! We had 3 baptisms on Saturday—wahoo!!! Awesome…we confirmed them yesterday -which was great!!

I got a cake from my zone on my birthday and they have a tradition that the birthday person takes the first bite... only someone who likes shoving cake in peoples faces invented it... but it was fun!! Our baptisms were crazy, but I know that this church is true, and sharing it with others is the best blessing ever!! We are sooo blessed to have this gospel in our lives!!

So with the dentists from Lexington Heights Dental Group (my mission president’s wife Sister Caffaro’s office where she used to work) aka Grins for Guatemala came down to Jalapa, Guatemala and the Capital and donated many hours and provided dental care for hundreds of children and a few adults. They gave them kits with toothbrushes and toothpaste. We helped with members at the church building and then on another day went up to the mountains to a school to help some more children, but sadly couldn’t get all of them. I asked one dentist if he had ever extracted so many teeth before and he said yes in all his years of working combined. He was in his late 50s.  Their teeth were awful –about 15 to 20 kids just got a cleaning, but the rest had several black baby teeth that had to be pulled out so their permanent teeth had a chance to come in.  They don’t have good water to drink and they know this is where the diseases come from, but drinking soda is rotting their teeth out and they don’t ever afford to see a dentist and don’t clean them or take care of them, buying toothpaste is expensive and food is more important… so sad!  We are SO BLESSED! We have so much! 

One cute little 7 year old had 8 teeth removed and she didn’t cry like most of them were… the children were so adorable, they sang a welcome song and hugged everyone after being put through such pain.  A 7 year old handicapped girl came in and she was really a challenge to work on, she didn’t have enough teeth to use the device to keep her mouth open, so we were all getting bitten and blood on us and I was holding her down and then trying to help keep the gauze in her mouth for a while after to stop the bleeding.

We ate lunch and all the children were outside with no food so I felt so bad for them and their life!  There is so much they need and we just didn’t have enough time, so many adults were turned away because the dentists were exhausted from working so long, and we had to get off the mountain because if we stayed there to help more it was getting dark and we knew criminals would come with guns and take all of their equipment.

Only 6 missionaries in our mission were blessed to help! I feel grateful to have been one of the missionaries to translate and help in whatever they needed us to do! We were sharing our experiences and testimonies with the dental group, and I’ve been thinking it’s really the saddest thing, but people without our values and beliefs (the gospel of Jesus Christ) often don’t make it here... some are shot and killed because of drugs and gangs, others are pregnant at age 13, and most of them are never successful and work until they die cause there always seems to be at least one member of their family that blows money on smoking or drinking or some other dead end path!! So so sad!!

How blessed we are to have the truths of the gospel!! Don’t ever take it for granted!!  Matthew 11:30 Come unto me, all [ye] that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke [is] easy, and my burden is light. —I can really see the truth to this all around me. It’s soooo easy!! Don’t make it too hard!!! Living the gospel isn’t hard, it’s easy, and it is such a blessing in this ever darkening world!  Live it and love it!!

 I love you all and hope you have such a great week!!!!

Hermana Morris

these kids are so cute!

what a great opportunity to work with this group of people on their spring break

only 6 missionaries of our mission were given this opportunity- 

2 great dentists!

service is the best!

amazing people to work with!

so much need...so little time!

what a memorable experience!

"What matters most is what lasts the longest." M. Russell Ballard

I know I don’t send much back by e-mail because there just isn’t enough time… but I love reading them and thank you for writing me!  

A few days ago I woke up freezing, so I put on a ton of layers and went back to sleep only to wake back up at 4 burning up… so pretty much I was sick Friday and Saturday, but by Sunday I felt better and so got up and we went to church.  I wasn’t feeling great and got a bloody nose that I couldn’t get stopped, so everyone at church thought I should go to the hospital, because that is what they all do for every little ailment, but we just went back home and lots of amazing members brought us food, but since I wasn’t feeling well my companion enjoyed it all! My companion doesn’t speak English and my mission presidents wife doesn’t speak Spanish so messages were going back and forth with my companion trying to use google translate which wasn’t very effective.

We found an amazing family that the dad thought we worshiped Joseph Smith so he didn’t want to listen… but we convinced him that Jesus Christ is who we really worship and we gave them a book of Mormon with a challenge to read scriptures in it.

These people are so poor it’s sad.  Kids are walking all over trying to sell all kinds of stuff in carts they make from any wheels they can find or just hauling it on their backs- everything is cheap, one lady I tried to buy some small oranges from, but she wouldn’t take my money and just gave us some, so I couldn’t eat them and we found people to give them to.

My companion has a very small bladder and we are always looking for a potty, she does a lot of dancing.

I haven’t been taking as many pictures as I would like to cause everyone here either works themselves to death trying to survive or they are thief’s. The members tell us to be careful cause everything gets stolen. So I don’t dare carry anything of value with me.

So I had no idea there were so many different kinds of beans and that you could prepare them in so many different ways.  I haven’t found any kinds or preparation methods that I like yet…

We were eating with a member and she asked me “don’t you like beans?” And I’m like well not really and she said I could eat cereal if I wanted with her son so that was yummy!

Our bishop has 3 very active people he wants us to get baptized, so of course we are willing to teach them!  We are also teaching an almost 9 year old boy who is smart, but very active!  He can’t hold still for anything, we do try to bribe him though.

We had 11 investigators at church, along with new converts which made us so happy!  It is pretty tough finding people who are serious about making and keeping covenants.

There was a dead cat by the church that we watched decay day after day… no one takes care of the animals here and they are so malnourished.  They just usually seem to starve to death, also the chickens are everywhere because they are cheap, but not well taken care of either.  I guess I feel sorry for all of the poor animals, but a lot of the people don’t seem to be much better off.

Can you see the funny animal?

My new zone

cool mango tree!

people don't like to smile here...

Happy music!

My comp is scared to death of cows.

It is beautiful here!

Can you find the cat?

Do you like our kitchen?