Letter from Elder Morrison

hey family. it's been a pretty good week. i guess i'll start off with the spiritual experience that happened this week. we were out tracting and were crossing a street. a guy crossed after us going another way. i had the impression "that guy needs to be contacted". so i turned around and contacted him. it turns out that he's in the same position as young Joseph Smith. very confused about religion, and is trying to find the right one. he was very excited about the message of the restoration, and we'll be teaching him more this week. his name is jason.
well, i'm really missing spring-fest. i'm really excited to be able to go next year. no fun run for me though. good job ty and kevin with that. no way i could keep up with that. it's hard to find some exercise that wont hurt my knees too much. we've been getting on the bikes a bit lately, but we're staying away from it the last couple days due to rain. today, we gave up part of our p-day to help brother ward and brother reynolds put some tin roofing on brother reynolds's house. it's a heck of a job, and they would have been up a creek without a paddle without us today. elder parkinson was able to climb all over the roof pretty well, and me and brother reynolds were cutting peices. brother reynolds just turned 81, but he's pretty able with that stuff for his age. i'm also pretty stoked about the waterpark. i'm way excited to get on that and give it a whirl. ty looks like he's doing pretty well on it. are they not letting people stand up?
you're gonna have to show me a picture of the new car. in st. louis, gas is up over 4 bucks, but we're lucky out here. it's only 3.69 :-P well, summer is definitely coming up on us quick out here. the humidity is already getting way uncomfortable, just like when i first got into missouri. we had a day in the 90s on sunday. that was not fun at all. the church building was way hot too. luckily, we'll have our own building in july hopefully. i'm pretty glad i only have one summer left. i'll be getting home before it gets way bad out here.

well, i guess i'm about out of stuff to say. hopefully i have some good stories for you next week. love you!

Elder Morrison

The Surf

The Race is On

Kevin & Crew came up for the Memorial Weekend. Ty & Kevain ran in the 5k fun run. Ty took 8th in his class and 28th overall, Kevin took 3rd in his class and 68th overall. Craig took pictures and had more class and didn't run at all.

Obviously this picture was taken before the race ran. There are some rules on blogspot that don't allow pictures after the race. Now I understand why.

One Year Anniversary

One year out... one less shirt!

Congratulation Kenz only 365 more days!

Letter from Elder Morrison

well, this week has been a pretty good one. we've found a few new investigators this week. we also started looking for some service to do here in boonville, so that we dont have to go to columbia so much and use all our miles. we found a recycling center that can use our help, and the employees there are mostly developmentally disabled, and that's essentially the purpose of this company here, is to give them jobs. last weekend we helped brother ward and his father in law (who is from Royal City) do some yard work. we mowed the lawn. but this is a little different. the lawn was mostly weeds, and some of them were up to 3 feet tall. we used a weedeater to get a lot of it, but it was a pretty good sized job. the missouri summer is starting to set in too, which means plenty of humidity. sunday we had a potluck after church, which was way good. cant turn down free food. the reason we didnt email on monday was that we helped brother ward's parents move. they are moving back to south jordan, utah. what we thought was a 2 hour job turned into 6 or 7 hour job, and we were way tired after it. we figured we'd go shower and just work that day and then take p-day today, since we had nothing planned. the Elmer family let us use their computer for this, so that is nice. sometimes you have to live the spirit of the law to meet circumstances. it also gives me a chance to get some of my pictures on cd's, since my cards are nearly full. you're going to have to send me some pictures of the flowrider. i'm excited to see those kids on there. next year, i'll be able to try it out for myself.
well, i cant think of any other updates.
as far as your questions go, my new companion is great. we get along really well. we've had some good times. his dad is not ray, and he doesnt think he knows a ray parkinson. and i did buy some shoes in columbia. yes, dad i did get your card. thanks a ton. and i was a little surprised at the rock, but i know that only you would send your missionary son a smooth rock. maybe i can trade it for an eval kneval motorcycle! lol.
well, i'll be sending some pictures through g-mail.
love you, and keep it up on the bom. i'm in alma, but hopefully i'll finish within a month.
Elder Morrison

letter from elder morrison

i guess i covered most everything yesterday. although i forgot to tell you that if my shorts are the ones that are the Roca brand, dont send them.
they're not very good. i saw tyler's special musical number. it was way funny. i'll send you some pictures from gmail too. hope you're all doing well still. love you,
Elder Morrison

The Shriner's Report

Deb & Tyler went to Spokane this morning for Tyler's 6 month visit with the back surgeon at Shriners Children's Hospital. The news is good. For the past year now the curve of his spine has remained the same. In the doctor's words, "surgery would only help cosmetically". Tyler has been able to control the pain with meds and exercise. So... at this point his name has been taken off the perpetual appointment schedule and no restrictions have been placed on him. Obviously, mowing the lawn, cleaning his room, taking out the garbage and homework will continue to hurt his back, but his parents will have less guilt making him do it.

Letter from Elder Morrison

well, it sure has been another week. i cant believe May just decided to come up. it's like i just got here 2 weeks ago. we do have transfer info though, and Elder Thomas is going to be transferred. he will be training in florrisant, which is close to st. louis. i'll be getting Elder Parkinson, who has been out about 6 months. this week has been somewhat productive. we had some really good lessons with Jonathan and Christina. they are very sincere, and are asking very sincere questions. we had stake conference this weekend, so i dont know if they were there or not. there were a lot of people. it was a really good conference though. we had some really good talks by the stake leaders, as well as the st. louis temple prez/wife and president and sister turley. presiding at the meetings was Jay E. Jensen of the Seventy. he was a really good speaker. there was a lot of talks on spiritual healing and emotional healing. it was way good. we've been in Columbia for the last 3 days to save miles. with stake conference over 2 days, and p-day the next, there was no sense in driving back to boonville (25 miles each way).
this week there was a big festival in boonville, too. they had some live music (in a place about the size of noon moon (when it was open) and a bunch of kids activities. they also opened the old county jail from like the 1800s for tours and such. me and elder thomas took our own tour, and got some good pics.
sounds like coltin did pretty dang good at the derby. i really like the picture of him playing derby on mac n' cheese. that sounds like something missionaries would do. except we wouldn't have that many boxes.....lol.
so the missionaries there just call and say 'we're hungry'? wow, they have some guts. there's no way i could do that out here. maybe it's just different back home than out here. but that is sad that donna moved out. you'll have to let me know about the new neighbors.
as for tyler, holy crap! have you cut your hair since i left? looks like you're enjoying the high school life. you'll have to write me about the prom date, and all that good stuff.
so amanda came over huh? we've been writing still, and we're getting to be really good friends. of all people i wouldnt have imagined i would stay in touch with her. but i'm really glad i have. i didnt send you that skirt pic because i either forgot about it, forgot my card at the library that week, or was at a library i couldnt send it, and so i forgot about it. that's pretty cool she stopped by though. i got a couple pics in here. one is in the car last night. clockwise, starting with me, its me, elder thomas, elder jones, and elder cloward. i'll also send you a video of when we were driving and had a couple guitars in the car. elder jones and elder cloward were playing the back seat. i think you'll like it. but that will come from gmail.
well, i think that's about all for this week. i guess i'll talk to you on sunday, and i'll probably call around 1 your time. i say around, give or take a half hour, so you dont get mad at me if it's not on the dot. cant wait!
love you,
Elder Morrison

Dark Star Orchestra - A Near Dead Experience

Spencer & I went to Portland, Oregon for the weekend to see Dark Star Orchestra. It was like traveling in a time machine back to 1988.

Dark Star Orchestra is a tribute band that recreates Grateful Dead shows. The show we saw was origionaly performed by the grateful dead on July 30, 1988 in Monterey, California. They reproduced this show using the same equipment and the same setlist. For my own information and any of those who care the setlist was:

Let The Good Times Roll-> Feel Like A Stranger, Loser, Minglewood Blues, Row Jimmy, Memphis Blues, When Push Comes To Shove-> The Music Never Stopped-> Don't Ease Me In Victim Or The Crime, Touch Of Gray, Estimated Prophet-> Eyes Of The World-> Drums-> Space-> Smokestack Lightning-> Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad-> Wharf Rat-> Throwin' Stones-> One More Saturday Night.

This picture is of us in front of our KOA Kamping Kabin in Cascade Locks, OR.

The Yellow Submarine

Tyler borrowed the Walker's yellow submarine for prom. He and his long lushes locks were really stylin'