Helllooooo! 4/23/12

Hey there family!

Well this week has been another good week in Troutdale, OR. I'm sorry your weather has not been super warm, but like you say on weather.com our weather in Portland has been great! There were some days this week when it was raining, but when I end (or start) a week with sunshine...I'll always remember it as a good week of weather.

This week has been a great week. On Tuesday, we had *Zone conference and I really learned a lot. One of the biggest things I learned is that I need to pray with more diligence. In "Preach My Gospel" there is a chart that teaches you about prayer and how to make our prayers better. (I wanna say like page 96, but don't quote me). I realized that I need to have my prayers be more specific. I want to pray for so many people, but I just feel like I have been getting lazy. I will admit, sometimes when I am really tired at night and in the morning I will say something like, "And bless all of my investigators in whatever they stand in need of"...that's not how I should pray. If I want specific things to happen to each individual, then I need to pray specifically. In the Bible Dictionary it states that "Prayer is a form of work." Prayer takes energy. It also says prayer is when the will of the father come in correspondence with the will of the child. Heavenly Father WANTS to bless us, our friends, our family, and the people I am teaching, BUT it is predicated on us asking for those blessings....specific blessings. I learned we are blessed when we pray with diligence.

I have been trying to do everything I do with diligence. I'm not perfect at it, but I know that when I study, pray, teach, find, and even exercise with diligence the Lord will bless me. Even more, if I start everything with a prayer God will, as he states in 2nd Nephi 32:9, He will "consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul". I know as a missionary he will not just bless my performance, but he will bless individuals with the SPECIFIC needs that I pray for and/or he will bless their performance. (which always includes all of you too).

Love,

Elder Trevor A Morgan.

*Mom note: Zones

Missionaries are divided into zones, each led by one or more missionaries assigned as zone leaders. The zones may be geographically large or small depending on the mission. The number of missionaries in a zone also varies widely. The zones are divided into districts, each being led by a missionary assigned as a district leader. A district usually has two to four missionary companionships. The zone leaders and district leaders train the missionaries, see after their welfare, conduct interviews, proselyte together, and share successes.