November 5th, 2012

Hey Everyone :)

It looks like you all had fun at Tyson and Stephanie's house and also enjoyed Courtney's birthday there.  Sorry Courtney I was going to wish you a happy birthday in the email last week but then I thought I would send you a card but then I forgot to get the card during shopping so I’m going to get one today and send it ha-ha.  But Candace and Courtney look really cute in their Halloween costumes. I hope everyone had fun.  In the picture Courtney's left eye is squinting.  Is her eye okay I remember she had that bacteria in her eye did that get all fixed?  Maybe she just blinked for the camera.  Anyhow the pictures at the pool look really fun those hot springs sound nice.  Yeah Mike really liked the trunk or treat.  Unfortunately he didn’t come to church yesterday.  We will just keep trying to get him there and also teach him.  Saturday morning we did service at a part member families home we helped them build a fence.  She is a member but hasn’t come for a long time and he isn’t a member and they have an older daughter living with them also.  So it was good to work with them and get to know them.  She ended up coming to church yesterday so that was good.  We are going back on Thursday to finish it.  Halloween was good.  We just got home by 6 and then just kind of hung out.  It was also really nice to get an extra hour of sleep on daylight savings ha-ha.  But I’m not sure about the guy with cancer. We haven’t checked by since but we will probably do that soon.  Transfers right now are scheduled for Thanksgiving but hopefully he moves it forward or backward a day.  He will probably leave and then I will get a new companion. Well tomorrow is the big day for elections everybody here seems to be on edge about it ha-ha.  I can’t wait to see what happens.  For P-day today we are going to wash and then wax our car and one of the member’s cars we live with.  It won’t be quite as enjoyable as waxing the mustang but at least it’s something ha-ha.  Well Courtney I hope that tryouts go good for you!  I know that you'll do great.  It will be fun to watch you play next year.  Well that’s about all I’ve got for this week.  I love you all and take care :)

Love Devan    

October 29th, 2012

Hey family!

Good job Monkey's I’m glad that you did well at state!  That’s really awesome :)  I’m glad that BYU finally won a game they had a bad streak going for a bit.  Well dad I’m glad that your talk went well.  It’s amazing how the spirit prompts people what to do and say.  That’s one thing that I’ve really noticed since I’ve been out here.  Especially the other night we were eating with a part- member family.  The husband isn’t a member but he has terminal cancer in his lungs.  And they recently found 2 small spots on his brain so he was going in the next day to have them removed using lasers and things and he was pretty uneasy about the whole thing.  He asked us for a priesthood blessing and so I gave it to him.  It was cool how I was just really relaxed and just knew what to say.  He and his wife seemed really happy afterwards it was a neat experience. Oh I forgot to say thanks for the package!  It gave me some good Halloween candy to munch on.  Candace and Courtney looked really cute in their volleyball picture together.  Yeah it’s crazy that it’s almost November.  We have had some really cool weather this week so it’s been nice.  But I really can’t think of much that I want for Christmas.   But yeah I’m not sure either what will happen with the elections.  I got my card thing in the mail that has my voter ID on it so I’m going to try to vote today if I can.  It will be interesting to see what happens. I can’t believe that Court is already turning 15!  It’s pretty crazy how fast the time flies by.  Today in Presidents letter he said in the next few months we will have 190 Elders and 60 sisters which is due to the recent announcement.  Right now we have 160 Elders and 30 sisters.  It will be cool to see the huge influx of missionaries.  It was fun last P day we got to burn a big pile of old wood and sticks in the member’s backyard.  It was a big fire and burned really hot cuz the wind was blowing.  The zone conference was really great on Wednesday Elder Perkins had some great ideas, it was really neat to hear him talk.  Friday was our ward Trunk-or-Treat.  It was really fun we got to be the judges for the chili cook off, we had to try 15 different chilis and give them a score.  It was cool too because Mike and his 3 kids came to it, his wife had to work.  We weren’t expecting him to be there but I think he really liked it; everyone was really nice to him.  He said he was going to try to get to church yesterday but they didn’t show up.  Anyways it was a pretty good week.  But yeah I remember when we went to the Snyder’s haunted house it was pretty sweet.  That’s cool Courtney that you got to help out with it I bet it was fun.  Brad sure is a funny guy ha-ha.  Well Monkey I’m glad that you played well at state.  I’m sure you’re glad it’s over for the year and can now just relax through the winter.  Hopefully you did well on the ACT, but I know what you mean by the end of the test it’s hard to care ha-ha.  well I hope that you all have a fun Halloween:)  we will be in by 6 that night and we'll see what there is to do past that!  Have a great week I love you all!

Elder Morgensen 

P.S. the picture at the trunk or treat is of us and then Mike and his kids.  He also goes by Miguel too I think I have been calling him both ha-ha.

October 22nd, 2012

Hey everyone! :)

Thanks for the pictures everyone looks great!  The mountains look really nice too.  The girl’s sure look a lot older from what I remember.  This whole time I’ve kind of just thought not too much has changed but I guess that a year is a long time.  It doesn’t feel like I’ve been gone for that long though.  Our zone meeting went well.  Our interviews with President Jones got postponed cuz he had something come up so they will be in a few weeks.  We have got zone conference this Wednesday though which will be good.  Elder Perkins of the seventy will be there training so it should be a good conference.  We had dinner last night with the two boys that are from Utah and are inactive that had served missions.  It went pretty well, both their girlfriends were there too, and they all had a glass of wine with their dinner.  We just got to know them and tried to be their friends, we didn’t give them a rebuking or anything like that.  We hope to be able to get back over there sometime in the next few weeks and just kind of ask them what happened after their missions and see if we can help them.  Anyways yeah we had another lesson with Pam and it went ok.  She is just kind of ditsy and it’s hard for her to understand things.  We aren’t sure if she is just taking the lessons cuz she lives with her brother who is a member or if she really wants to learn, so we will see how that goes.  Well Candace good luck on the ACT!  You will probably get higher than I did ha-ha.  Just make sure you don’t spend too much time on one question.  Let me know when you get your scores back.  Its crazy how big Ava is getting she is just so cute.  Chan sent me some pictures and she is just growing right up.  Well we got the ward Trunk or Treat on Friday so that should be fun.  Well that’s about all I’ve got for this week.  Things out here are going great and the time seems to be flying by!  I love you all have a great week! :)

Love, Devan   

October 15th, 2012

Hey family :)  Sounds like you are all doing well...except for Monkey :(   ha-ha just kidding.  Wow that’s a crazy story about Candace having that reaction and getting the hives.  Hopefully it was the pistachios and she doesn’t have any more outbreaks.  That’s scary though.  She has really been accumulating some doctor visits hasn’t she.  We saw a dead corral snake this week which was kind of cool but also made me scared to walk through longer grass now.  Sounds like mom and dad had a nice drive up the canyon.  For some reason I can’t view some of the pictures you sent me.  I can view the three last ones you sent me but the group of ten that you sent won’t come up.  It will be Thanksgiving in no time.  But yeah Elder Holland’s talk really is amazing I really like it too.  Well this week I decided I would vote and so I registered so I should be getting something in the mail soon.  I’m going to vote for Romney.  I’m not too sure how the elections are going right now but I have a feeling it will be close.  Yesterday our ward had a "break the fast" activity at a ward member’s house.  It was like a big potluck to break everyone’s fast it was really fun like half the ward showed up.  As far me not a whole lot going on here.  We haven’t talked to Mike for a little while I was thinking about calling him sometime though; he hasn’t come to church yet.  This week we have zone meeting and presidents interviews on Wednesday.  Then next Wednesday we have zone conference where a general authority is coming, I can’t remember who but it’s a member of the Seventy.  So that should be pretty good.  The past 2 Sundays we have taught a members sister who is living with them but who is catholic.  We also have a lesson for Friday her name is Pam.  Not sure how fast she will progress but over time I think she will.  We also had a mormon.org referral to go by a member of the church.  It said he moved from Utah a little while ago and isn’t interested in the lessons but is willing to feed the missionaries.  We got that a while ago but finally got in contact with him this week.  It is two brothers living together who moved from Utah.  They are probably around 30 or so and both served missions, but they are inactive now.  They made it sound like they wanted to get away from Utah.  They had liquor bottles on their counter and also girls living with them so it was kind of sad to see.  One of the girls was also a member from Utah. They were both really nice though and we just got them talking about their missions.  We got his number and said we would call sometime to come over to dinner.  I don’t know about one of the brothers but I think the other one may have some potential of coming back.  But I’m not too sure right now we will just have to wait and see.  But we made the ward council aware of them and told them the situation.  That’s about all that happened this week.  Well I love you all and hope you have a great week! :)

Love Devan

October 8th, 2012

Hey family :)

Well dad it looks like you all had a fun successful hunt!  Conference was so great and it was awesome how they lowered the age for missionaries to head out.  Like you said it will really increase the number of those that serve, especially for sisters.  But yeah I really liked Jeffery R. Holland’s talk it was really good and then I also really like President Uchtdorf talk.  The whole conference was really good though we watched it down in the stake center.  And since it is down in Kyle in-between a session we went out tracting with the Kyle missionaries.  So it was fun to tract in the same area that I was at this time last year.  I didn’t see that TV special between the conference sessions about the missionary that served here.  I only know of two converts that went home this summer and that was Elder Brook and Elder Walter so I don’t know if either of them ring a bell but that’s really cool.  They were both actually AP's in the mission.  That’s cool that Bonnie and Tevan both got their calls.  Well we got transfer calls last night and we are both staying here for at least another 6 weeks.  We had Mike planning on coming to priesthood session with us because we had a barbeque before it but he didn’t show so that was a disappointment.  But no we aren’t really working with anyone new.  We have just been trying to contact less actives and also part member families which have had good results.  It sounds like the Monkey's are doing good in volleyball this year.  When is state?   It has been cold here too the past few days it has been nice.  Well that’s all I can think of.  I’m emailing off the members computer because the library is closed for Columbus Day.  Well thanks for the pictures dad!  Everyone looks great and so does the Bronco!  It looked like a fun camp.  Well I love you all have a great week! :)

Love, Devan

October 1st, 2012

Hey family!

Well I hope you all had a good week!  This week I went on exchanges with the district leader into his area called Bastrop.  It’s a huge country area their ward boundaries are like the size of Austin and it’s pretty much a bunch of nothing.  But anyways if I what I heard was true it was the same area that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre happened and also where those two missionaries got killed back in the 70s that aunt Natalie was telling me about, I think the area is called Dale Valley but I’m not sure.  So it was kind of scary knocking on houses late at night out in the woods.  But I made it out!  I guess a lot of people have pulled guns on the missionaries in the past but luckily not while I was there.  Also on Tuesday we went up into Austin for a Leadership training meeting it was pretty good.  On Saturday at the church was an emergency preparedness fair open for the community.  It was really cool there were a lot of booths on food storage and just being prepared for emergencies in general.  There was a pretty good turnout of people.  We were in the “Mormon Helping Hands” booth for an hour or so before we had to go.  But it was pretty fun.  Thanks mom for speaking about me in sacrament meeting I’m sure it was really good.  Hopefully you had enough experiences to work with.  But yeah send me the talk if you remember to I would like to read it.  Hopefully you are all ready for general conference this weekend.  It should be really good.  But yeah I told Josh sorry about his grandma.  Tell the girls to keep up the good work and make sure to watch conference :)  Well Monkey that’s cool you got asked to Prom already :)  That might even be earlier than when I asked.  He probably wanted to make sure to get you.  Well I love you all so much I hope you all have a great week!:)

Love, Devan

September 24th, 2012

Hey everyone.  Sounds like you all had a fun weekend.  The fireside that we did went really well.  We gave a 15 minute presentation along with a video to 4 different groups of youth.  The youth would just go to the next station when they were done with us so it turned out good.  We gave everyone donuts so that turned out good.  We also had stake conference which was really good our mission president came and spoke and did a really great job.  That’s funny that President Robinson still is going to keep that axe that is stuck in the wood for me to pull out ha-ha, but yeah I talk to josh every week and just see how he's doing.  They are a really great family.  I’m glad that the temple dedication went well.  Bryce was telling me that he went to it also.  I bet it’s a pretty temple.  Well dad, enjoy the hunt!  Have fun and try not to get your bronco stuck or anything ha-ha.  Hopefully it’s a good hunt this year and you see some nice bucks.  Say hi to Doug and grandpa and Justin for me.  But thanks for starting my car and stuff like that to keep it in good condition :)  But no Miguel has been hard to get an appointment with but right now we are scheduled to give him a church tour this Saturday and he said they are going to make it on Sunday so hopefully it works out.  We didn’t meet anyone new this week unfortunately.  But yeah I love to hear the prophet and apostles speak to us.  I’m so excited for General Conference coming up.  Also for family home evening or for a Sunday activity or something you should check out mormonmessages.org it’s a really great sight with great videos on it.  Well that’s all I’ve got for this week!  Have a great week i love you all so much! :)

Love, Devan