Hey Everyone!
How is everything back home? All is well here in good old Otavalo Ecuador. We had a good week this week. Still teaching quite a few people. We found a little pueblo around the mountain the other day that, of the people we met, have never heard from the Mormon missionaries. So we have a couple of places to go into now and make known the Restoration of the Gospel! There is MUCH work to do here, alot of people have no idea about the church and many have never even heard of it still. So we have our work cut out for us. We need all the help we can get. So we have had a good week this week. OH!!! I got Jared and Krystens x-mas package this week! Exactly 4 months after they sent it, it got to me. The candies were still good. The pictures were GREAT! Especially of Magnum pheasant hunting, it sure put a smile on my face. As of 4 months ago Cole was a pretty big boy! So I imagine now he´s even bigger! After having received the package from Jared and Krysten, I filled a little zip lock bag with mint candy canes. That night we went to an appointment to visit a very very poor family of 8 that lives up on the mountain side. We got to the house, and to make sure that the little ones would not be rowdy during the lesson, I gave them candie canes to keep them busy during the lesson. Its the first time they have had a candy like that. There sitting on a stump, inside a little mud hut with dirt floors, I saw 6 little kids, dirty clothes, muddy faces, a couple of the kids missing front or other teeth, but I saw those little kids light up in their faces. I wish I would have had my camera to take a picture of the group of them in that little hut, and their bright smiles as they sucked on their little candy canes! It was quite a humbling experience for me. Sometimes we worry so much in life about what we have, or maybe even more, what the neighbors do have. But we so easily forget how much the Lord has given us. I'm fairly certain that all of us back home, have a house that keeps the heat in during winter, the heat out during summer, we have a bathroom.. and almost always more than one, in our house. We have so many things that we take for granted. I can remember that back in high school, I HAD to have clean clothes everyday, I couldn't wear the same shirt more than once a week without washing it after the first use. But sometimes, these people down here only have one shirt to wear, one pair of shoes, usually broken and worn out. Yet, under these circumstances, they are happy, they don't complain or worry. I have come to find that the main reason for that is, they have their family, and they have the gospel, It may be that they are recently learning about it, but either way, they are happy and grateful for this life and their blessings. I don't know how I'm going to be able to leave this place. Tomorrow night we receive changes in the mission, I hope I stay. I don't know what it will be like when I have to finish up and go home. Its a pretty hard thing to even thing about. I love it here so much. The dogs, well.... ok I could do without all the dogs all the fleas, but I am going to miss it here. I cant imagine where or how I would be right now, had I not decided to serve a mission. Jared and Zach, thanks for pestering me so much the summer after my graduation. I'm sorry I didn't always listen, I know, I'm a putz.
President Sloan challenged us a couple of months ago to reread the book of Mormon before may 1st. Well to be honest, I'm not going to make the deadline, but its been a great experience for me. I think I'm on my 4th way through now. Every time I read I find new things, and better understand what I already may have known. Its strengthening my testimony day by day of the truth of this gospel. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, no doubt about it. We recently have had some ´bump ins´ with missionaries of other religions, they every time have tried to attack at our belief in the Book of Mormon and that of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe in the same situation a year ago, I would have felt hurt, shaken. But today, no. In these moments I have been able to simply smile, bare my testimony as simply and clearly as I can, and I have no worries. I know that this is the true church, I know that I am where I need to be.

Elder Matthew Morris