September 14, 2014

Dear Family,

 

Thanks for the email!! And thank you SO MUCH for the package!!! Funny story... I got the package... I was so happy and excited! I opened it up, and found beef jerky... interesting... and sour candies... and random rubber chicken throwing things hahaha... so I was like, wow this is random! And fun! I love beef jerky! And then I started reading the letters, and it was Brayden's package!! Hahaha that made me laugh soo hard. So I can send back the letters you all wrote :) It was so funny! So hopefully he doesn't get some cute skirts and girly stuff. I'm sure his fellow sailors would get a kick out of it, haha! :D

 

I loved hearing about all the fall things happening at home!! It sounds sooo cozy, I can totally picture it. :) The sheep, the walnuts, the gem corn, the leaves... it sounds sooo beautiful. That's so awesome. I love the color in the kitchen too!! Wow, it looks beautiful! It does open it up a lot. I love that mint color, it's so pretty :) Those Book of Mormon documentaries sound awesome!! I can't wait to watch them one day!  E. is so amazing. I have never seen anyone so strong, so fast. I am so excited for his baptism! I really hope we can Skype in too. That's SO awesome you and Dad are going to go down, and that you'll share your testimony and Dad is going to baptize him. That is going to be such a special day :) Thank you SO MUCH for thinking of him when I asked who we could teach! I just know the prepared people like E. are out there, and sometimes all they need is a simple invitation. I wish more members would invite like you guys did :) Thank you! 

 

That's so sad about the elder being sick... that's cool Isaac could spend the day with him though. Does he ever go on splits? That would be an awesome experience for him preparing to serve a mission! We love taking the young women out! I loved Hannah's pictures too, those were so cute! :) 

 

Well as for me, It's been a good week since Wednesday :) We had a super cool miracle after P day! So we went to contact the miracle referral from last week (the one where we talked with people right before dinner, and I had said (let's just go talk with them in case one of them is prepared to receive the gospel) and we met R. He speaks Spanish, so we're turning him over to the Spanish missionaries. But he's so awesome!! We started talking with him, and he was so happy to see us! He looked at our name tags and knew what church we were from... It turns out he is here for a few months from Honduras, and back in Honduras he is meeting with missionaries!! He goes to church because it's a few blocks from his home, and he has a copy of the Book of Mormon and has loved reading it!!! Isn't that so cool?? So our miracle referral just got even better :) We are so excited to meet with him with the Spanish missionaries!

Then Thursday was awesome too. I went on exchanges with Sister C - a sister I served with in Maricopa! So that was fun! We both can't believe how old we're getting :) we had a pretty good lesson with the kid named N we've started teaching... He's a cool kid. Really troubled teen, always always listening to his screamo music. But he liked talking with us, and we invited him to church.... And cool story, he came! We weren't expecting him to, so we were passing out programs before sacrament, and one of the members came and told us N was sitting outside the church!! We ran out to say hi to him, and he told us he was going to come in but he got too shy. So we brought him in.. He just sat in the foyer listening to his music through sacrament mtg and Sunday school, haha, but it was a baby step :)
it was awesome!!

 

We also had an AMAZING miracle on Friday. So we have felt prompted to try this former for a while, so that night we thought "Okay, we will go to this person first thing". So we did, and a woman answered the door. We asked if J was there, and she said no, and we asked how she's doing, and she said not well. We asked about what was going on, and she said her mother had just died, and she needed to move tomorrow. She said she was so depressed she felt like she was moving through molasses and couldn't do anything, she felt so overwhelmed and anxious and was slightly intoxicated, and needed help. So we immediately said we would come in to help her. She started crying, and told us that she had been praying that someone would come and help her. We told her God loves her, and that's why He sent us, and she said this was the greatest "God moment" she's had in her life. It was soooo amazing... we helped her pack up her room, all her belongings, and cleaned up a bit. At the end she wanted to donate $100 to the missionary fund, but our member convinced her to keep the money in case she needed it and said to feed the missionaries in Washington pizza, and she started crying again and said she would. It was so powerful! In her depressed, sad, alone state, God knew her and loved her and sent us to help her. It was so humbling. I know He truly does guide us to be instruments in His hands, and that He loves and knows each of us. That was probably one of the most spiritual experiences of my whole mission so far.

 

We also had an awesome Saturday! Haha, there were these grandparents who called us a long time ago. Their not members, and not interested at all, but they have a grandaughter on a mission, so they wanted to feed us and get to know us. It was so fun!! They're this loud, fun Italian couple, who loved talking and made us delicious Puerto Rican food. It was so fun! It was really cool that they had us over, even though their not interested in a message or anything. It was alot of fun :) 

 

We also had a pretty good Sunday. Church was great, N came! So that was a miracle! And we sang in the spanish ward. We sang I Believe in Christ in Spanish with the spanish sisters, and it was really cool :) It's been cool to pick up a little bit more spanish while I've been here. I love it! 

 

It has definitely been a great week. We also had some really funny moments :) 

Funny moments:

We were teaching Sis K, the older lady in our ward who makes
furniture, and she is soooo funny!! She was trying to show us a pic of
her latest dresser on her iPhone, but she isn't the savviest with
technology, and so she accidentally showed us like 50 selfies she had
taken hahahaha... It was so funny!! She was like "whoops, woops, not
that one!" As she was scrolling through a bunch of pics she had taken
of herself in her new haircut, with a serious, dramatic expression on her face.. and she's around 70 yrs old. It was so funny haha.

His hilarious picture of our zone leader... They airdropped (or sent
it) to our iPads... The longer you look at it, the weirder it gets!
Notice the goose staring at them from a distance by the playground
hahaha. So funny!

 

Well, I'm glad things are going well! I'm so happy to hear that Randi will probably be moving closer soon too :) That's so awesome!! Transfers are next week - eek! So next Monday we'll know if I'm being moved or if I'm staying. We'll have to see! Hope you all have an awesome week! I love hearing from you guys. And I'm excited for next Thanksgiving too :) The wedding, the holidays.. it will be so cozy! Back in Virginia! Until then, I'll enjoy the 90 degree weather here - it is GORGEOUS out :D Haha. And Dad, thank you so much for writing about GMU! It was really cool, I was biking, and I've been going back and forth on what I want to do... and I was thinking about the Smithsonian. And I was just thinking, I would love to work there... especially in the art department. It feels super right, because I'm not that good of an artist, but I love art, and I also love history, Washington DC, and basically everything back east... and it just feels really right. So I'm thinking that might be the route I take, going to GMU and hopefully working somehow with the Smithsonian someday. :) What are your thoughts? Do you know anything about that? Thanks so much for doing that for me! I'm still thinking of BYU Provo, but thinking about GMU and studying art there, and finding work there, feels so right. Of course my main priority, and I think Heavenly Father's, is to have a family and eternal marriage with a super solid spiritual best friend/handsome man.... so... hopefully there will be one of those around GMU... Haha. That's the part I worry about. But that can wait 10 more months, and longer :) Anyways. Sorry to ramble. Love you guys! Thanks for everything. :) And I can't wait to tell you about Elder Christofferson next week :)

 #AZTempe Mission is the best! #missionaryswag #calledtoserve #God'sTeam 

 

All my love,

 

Sister Whitney Morris

 

PPS I just bought the D&C 4 cd by Nashville Tribute band, so you don't have to look out for that one for me anymore :) However you should get it!!! IT is soo good!!!! And the boys especially, and Hannah, would LOVE it! It is worth $12!!! Also, for Cmas I would love a copy of "The Power of an Everyday Missionary"... and it would be a great Cmas present for you too :) Haha, I know I sound like a typical missionary, but seriously. That book is amazing! 

 

PPPS That's funny the text randomly turned blue. :)

Us with the awesome Italian couple who fed us!

 

 

The Australian hermana we live with! I love her!! She's so funny!

 

 

Sister Romano and I at mission conference!! I LOVE her. She's dying this transfer :(    Sad day...

 

and Sister Dewey and I, too :D

 

 

And Sister Williams and I...

 

 

And a funny palm tree in the retirement community. They have the most random yard decorations! This one is a phone on a palm tree, complete with the cord and everything.

 

 

 

 

And also a Swedish sign on the garage :)