The last posting was a letter from Sam July 15th, 2009; the night he entered the MTC.

7-16-09

I talked to my teacher about home sickness and he told me some good things. The first was that if I wasn't home sick, something is wrong. All it means is that I have a lot of love for my family and that's good. The other things were to laugh and to pray and I think the others were to trust the Lord and have faith... That may have been my own interpretation.He also said I can play the piano here to relieve stress. He said when I get to NY I should talk to the mission pres about having a guitar. He said everyone feels a certain amount of homesickness. I think my uneasiness comes more from the idea of being in new circumstances and leaving behind everything for two years.

I ran into my friend Stu at lunch ,m he said that time doesn't matter here. Its funny to me how I have always said that time is silly and now its one of my primary concerns.

So the second half of the day was amazing. I really let go. We went to the gym, and that helped me release a lot of stress and laugh. My personality is starting to emrerge and people are seeing my funny faces. This is awesome cause it usually takes a long time for that to happen with me. After gym, we went to class and studied scriptures from Preach My Gospel. Elder Wright and I would study seperate scriptures in depth for like 10 minutes (felt like 2) and then would share what we found.l We had a lot of insightful things to share and we built off eachother and got inspired.

I bought a study journal and I am writing all my thoughtws in there now.

My roomates and I are all going to the New York New York South mission. We are getting close pretty fast. There is Elder Wright, Elder Swan, and Elder Sealander. We are all exciyted and laid back. Elder Sealander is from Illinois. His accent and terms are funny, but he is great. Elder Swan is from Orem, he is a theater major and super friendly. Its hard not to love these guys.

Any way, its bed time. Last night I had a horrible time sleeping, tonight I hope its better.

The Lord loves us and wants to help us. All we have to do is let him. I am a lot happier than yesterday. If every day I get that much happier, I will be so jolly I will explode!

Love, Elder Morris

PS Please send EVERYONE my letters!