love, serve, teach: Letter home, week of Feb 17th 2014

Dear Family,

WOW that's a ton of snow!! Holy cow! I can't believe how freezing that looks.... you guys are so awesome for working so hard and doing so much. That sounds kind of cool. It's funny how some times in life are super hard work, and your just completely exhausted - mentally, physically, emotionally - but you just feel good. Because you know you've worked hard. Work just makes you a much better person in the end. I've seen that so much in my mission. It is hard work! I won't sleep in for another 14 months or so haha. But it's definitely the good tired. The best days are when you hit your bed, completely utterly exhausted, but you look back on all the things you've done that day, and the experiences you've had, and you wouldn't trade it for the world (: Those are the best moments.

The runner ducks sound soo cute! I'm so glad D. is doing well too, and is staying active and everything. I'm so grateful, thanks for keeping me updated. (:

Mommy, I loved your humbling experience about patience. We have some investigators that are finally getting baptized this weekend, and we just keep running into more and more things to put it off longer. We were talking with bishop, and I was just feeling so hopeless and thinking how can this possibly happen?? It's taking forever! And then I saw the picture of Christ on his desk, and I thought that same thing - how much patience Heavenly Father has with us. I have to help prepare these people for baptism, who although they face challenges, they truly have this pure desire to be baptized. They want to follow Christ. It's such a blessing to help them! And Heavenly Father has infinite patience and mercy and love for each of His children, despite all the things we do.... it really puts it in perspective, doesn't it?

Great job on the diet too! I'm so jealous, that's awesome. (: I can't wait to try all these weird health tricks haha.

This week has been FULL OF MIRACLES. Wow! Hold on to your seat, because this is going to be amazing. (:

First of all, there is this woman that the missionaries taught back in October. We hadn't met her, because they had stopped teaching her. We knew she had needed First Presidency approval for her to be baptized, and we just hadn't gone by yet. Well, this past week the mission called us and told us that she actually didn't need First Presidency approval anymore. We went to her house, and knocked on her door. She answered, and the first thing she said was "It's funny you guys came by today." It turns out that she had recently found out that she may be diagnosed with cancer. She's in her 50s, lives with her family, and had been planning on going back to school and doing more things with her life. With this diagnosis, she felt all that had been taken away. That day she prayed and asked God "What do you want me to do in my life? What do you want for me now?". Later that afternoon, we knocked on her door.

I know that this happened for a reason. God knew her prayers, and her heart, and He answered them by sending us.

It was the most incredible experience. The Spirit was so strong. She has many concerns, mostly about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. But she shared with us how she really knows that their true. She recognizes the Spirit she feels when she went to our church, and when we come by. She says it all makes sense when we are there with her, but when we leave she is faced with many doubts and fears. She lives with her family, who are Jehovah's Witnesses, so we think that may be where some of her challenges are coming from. But she knows that it's true. She just feels afraid, and doubts. We are trying to help her. She went to Phoenix this weekend, but we'll be teaching her again when she gets home today. So please pray for her. She is incredible, a very fun person, and is so sincere in her searching for truth, and for that peace and witness from God. So please keep her in your prayers!

The other miracle is our little golden child, T! He is THE BEST. He's the one who came to church last Sunday with his sister. (: We had our first lesson with him this week! He was so excited that when he opened the door he yelled "It's the missionaries!!!" And ran to get the plate of cookies - fresh out of the oven - that he had baked for us, haha. He's the sweetest kid ever!! His mom was there too, and she is just like him - so friendly, and kind, and just so fun to teach and get to know. It turns out that she LOVES the church. Her daughter was baptized about 8 years ago in Gilbert, and she would have been baptized too - she loves the church, and believes everything - but she has a smoking addiction. They are incredible though. T. loved church, and they had ordained the deacon's pres that Sunday, so he saw them give him the blessing for that call. He told us that he wants to be in that circle someday (: And he asked us what he needed to do to be baptized. I can't tell you how happy and excited we were at that moment, haha. He is the best kid ever!!

Needless to say, this has been a fantastic week (: We're teaching quite a few people, and have two meetings with new people today - H. and J. It's just such a miracle to be part of this work. We had a lesson with I. this week, and he said he didn't want to be baptized - we think he has a mainly intellectual interest in the church, and is happy with the spirituality he has now. But he and one of our ward missionaries became instant friends, and their going to start hanging out. We also gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read it, and pray and ponder about it, which he said he would. So keep him in your prayers too! We know if he reads and prays, he will feel the Spirit and will know that it's true. We know he'll want to be baptized when he receives that witness. So hopefully he follows through. (: There are so many blessings to be had in this gospel, if only people would read and pray and sincerely search to know if their true for themselves. Even for those, like me, who have had the gospel their whole lives! If we would only take the time and put our heart into the small and simple things we do every day, our lives would be so blessed.

Well, I love you all! Thanks for everything you do for me. I love the little individual message/hash tags at the bottom of the letter, they made my day :D from the French to the 'yoscany power' to the snow apocolapyse and all the messages from you guys... they seriously make my day haha. :D Hearing from you is BY FAR the highlight of my P day!!! And maybe getting frozen yogurt, that's become our tradition :)

Oh, one more thing - we took T. to the Gilbert Temple open house this Saturday, with the H's!! It was AMAZING. One of the most beautiful temples I've ever seen!!! The baptismal font has blue, shimmery tiles, and is a mosaic with a simple flower pattern around the edge, all made out of shimmering beautiful tiles.... oh, you'll have to look up pictures. I think they have some online that the media on the news were allowed to take. (: The rooms were soo beautiful as well. But the most beautiful part was the Spirit there. The instant you walk into the temple, the feeling of peace and reverence and beauty is just unmistakable. It is truly a house of God!

I took tons of pictures, so sorry there are a lot of emails haha. Can you believe it's February already? Crazy! It's already getting hot here, mid 80s... wow haha.

Love you (:

Love,

Sister Whitney Morris

The red roof at the top left is our church building!

This is part of our area... It is a desert! So dusty! The ground feels like cement - very very hard - with a layer of super fine sand on top. You leave really cool footprints and everything gets dusty. The green is mostly palm trees, cacti, and tumbleweed looking bushes, or nectarine/orange/tangerine trees. Some members let us pick bags and bags of fresh ones for ourselves or investigators (:

These neighborhoods are where we spend most of our time. The church is in the 'middle again. We bike everywhere, and I LOVE it (: The blue dot is where we live! And we run around the pond - the blackish lake shape in the top right corner - for 3o min every morning (: