Letter October 27, 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Family,

 

Thanks so much for the email!! And for the letters!! I loved getting a letter from each of you!!! :) I loved hearing how every person is doing. My favorite things to get in the mail are definitely, hands down individual letters from each of the kids and Mommy and Dad, because I think of each of you individually and miss you so much. The letters make me feel like I am talking directly to each of the kids - to Hannah, Isaac, Jacob, Adam, and Peter. I also loved the drawings, and Jacob's hilarious story he wrote :D Haha, and Isaac, I don't understand what you wrote in French! But did you know in the gospel library app on Mommy's phone you could download the Book of Mormon in French?? I downloaded it after your letter to me, and it was fun to look at it. :) I'm sorry Hannah is still having a rough time with her teachers. That is soooo sad.... ugh! It is the worst when people choose to believe misguided, false, twisted information. We get that all the time as missionaries. It's so frustrating, but really all you can do is share your testimony and not get into an argument about it. I don't know how that relates with falsehoods about the founding fathers, but way to go for defending them! 

That's so funny you got another pig!! Wow!! Haha, I love reading about the adventures with animals and everything. That's so cute Adam loves playing and learning about the sheep. And Virginia is soooo beautiful!! I love the leaves, and the bigfoot pictures of course haha :D It sounds like things are going so well! And I LOVE the felt my little pony!! That's the cutest thing I've ever seen!!!  Good job teaching class, too. That is always so nerve-wracking... sometimes a video is perfect. :) 

As for me, this week has been fantastic! And SO busy again!! I don't know where the time goes. We had alot of really great lessons, great learning experiences... I don't even know where to start. 

L is doing awesome! She is now on her 11th day of not smoking. It has been so fun teaching her. She is seriously the sweetest lady I have ever met. We taught her about forgiveness this past week, and had a really powerful lesson. I shared the experience of Corrie ten Boom (if you've never heard it, look it up and read the book. It literally changed my life, during high school). She is doing well and is so excited to be baptized! She told us she wants to come with us to go to the park and talk with everyone about Jesus. She wants to invite and bring everyone to church, and then she told us we can take it from there. :D Haha, I just love her. She is amazing!!

We had zone interviews this past week. Something happened and Pres T had to leave early, so we're having our interviews with him on Friday. But we had to give trainings... it was so scary again haha. I trained on teaching to understanding. How we are sowing seeds of faith every time we teach, but we need to make sure we're sowing that seed in deep soil. Like the parable of the sower teaches us. One of the most important ways we can do that is teaching to their understanding. It was pretty fun! I love our zone. We had a great time learning together. After interviews we just sat and talked with Sister T, our mission president's wife, for about an hour or more. She is soooooo incredible. We just talked with her about life, companionships, the things we're learning and how it's preparing us for our future... I love her. Sitting next to her, she had so much light in her eyes and in her countenance, and she has so much wisdom! I wished I could just absorb it all. I felt like I was sitting next to a general authority or something. I am so, so grateful for President and Sister T. I love them. I needed them to teach me, and I have learned so much from them. That is one of the best parts of being a missionary, is your mission president and his wife. Sister T told us to every time we feel prompted or have a thought that something is preparing us for the future, we need to write it down so we can look back and remember. That's something I have been doing, but I made a greater commitment to do it more, and look for those opportunities. I just love Sister T!!

We learned alot about online work during interviews! Elder B, the one who almost got stabbed in our ward in PHX haha, is now the tech elder, so he gave this awesome training. In it there was such a cool quote from Elder Ezra T. Benson, way back in the 80s or so, telling us in general conference that someday missionaries would have devices they could hold in their hands and in their pockets, to share the gospel with the world, and that's how the work would spread to all nations. It was the most powerful quote!!! It is a direct prophesy that has been fulfilled with us using ipads and facebook!! Isn't that amazing?? Prophets truly do receive revelation from God. They saw our day, they saw us, and they were so excited for this time! It is the best time to be a Latter Day Saint, and to be a missionary!! We are so privileged and blessed! And we need to use these tools the best we can to help fulfill Heavenly Father's purpose. 

We went on exchanges this last week, and a new missionary named Hermana M came into our area to be with me for a day. It was so fun!! It was really cool, we pray alot about who we should go with, and I know we were prompted to have her come with me into our area for a reason. We had the most amazing exchange. She is the sweetest sister, and I just loved serving with her. She's the one I posted a video of me singing with on facebook. 

We did the service project again, and we saw a field mouse! It was so cute! We also saw a leopard gecko!!! That was super cool!! And I also tried a fresh fig! It was delicious :) Did you know figs are normally pollinated by wasps? So when you buy a fig from the store and eat it, it has thousands of dead baby wasps in it?? Gross huh?? But the one we ate isn't pollinated by wasps, so it was fine. It was actually delicious!! I don't like fig newtons, but I loved fresh figs! :)

Things have been going well with Sister D.  I'm learning so much from her, and I just love her. :) Transfers are next week, so next Monday I'll know if I'm being transferred. I have a feeling I'm going to stay, and Sis D will leave... she's been here for 8 months! Crazy huh?? 

We also had the coolest experience this past week!! So we started teaching a less active girl named G whose going to ASU. She grew up in the church, but went less active, and kind of believes the church is true, but believes it because of the good morals and her parents. She has alot of doubts and questions, and wants to know for herself if it's true. So we taught her this past week on exchanges. We had planned to teach the Restoration, but it ended up being this powerful lesson about prayer and scripture study, and how those build our faith. It was sooo powerful!! The Spirit was so strong, and I know it was guiding the lesson. It strengthened my testimony, and I could tell she was feeling it too. It was so powerful! Well, she came to church Sunday, and it's so funny how everything was perfectly for her! Before church she told me her favorite hymn was I am a child of God. Well, guess what hymn they played in sacrament meeting? And guess which hymn one of the speakers talked about? :) And then we went to Sunday school, and this incredible lady taught. She's a convert from New Jersey, and is INCREDIBLE. Well, the whole lesson was on how studying the scriptures is essential to gaining a personal testimony. It was literally perfect for G!  She taught in a fun way, she has the gangsta sass of New Jersey and South Phoenix, but she is also super intelligent and incredible and taught with the Spirit so strongly. It was so cool!! So that was a super cool miracle this week :)

Another miracle is that we are literally sooooo busy.... like, each day is nonstop. Literally. So our WMLs in both wards had asked us to teach gospel principles. So we were supposed to teach both Sunday school lessons in two different wards, on two different chapters in the book. It was insane! We had literally no time to prepare. So at church we were stressing so much about it! Because we were just too busy, with too many other important things for our investigators, interviews, trainings, etc. to prepare. Well, we got to our first ward, and found out the lady was going to teach the class instead! The New Jersey lady! And then the next ward had the primary program, so we only had to teach for about twenty minutes. It was a tender mercy. I am not condoning slacking on preparing for things the Lord asks us to do, not at all! But I know He knows when we are so overloaded, and He mercifully made it so that we didn't have to worry about teaching those days. It was such a tender mercy. :)

We also had two really funny moments...

 So first of all! Tuesday night we were driving, and one of the ghetto birds (aka the cop helicopters) was shining a spotlight in our neighborhood looking for someone!! We were driving home, and it was so scary!! The copter was following us, and shining the spotlight everywhere. Well we got home and were so scared! And the copter shined his spotlight in our backyard!! Haha, we were freaking out. It was so scary!!!

The Hawaiian sister in our apt also had a scary experience! So they were walking along, and they saw these kids run out of a store, and had a bunch of beer cans fall out of this bag. They knew they were stealing beer, so they told the store owners, and they said they knew. so for some reason they decided to follow the kids... so they did, and asked why they stole the beer. Well, it was in this trailer park, and a ton of these huge scary men came out of the trailers threateningly. So the sisters both left, and called the police. But now their not allowed to proselyte in that area for a while, because the people will be looking for them, because they'll know they called the cops on them. Crazy huh??? South Phoenix is crazy... I don't know why they followed them, haha. But theyre awesome Hermanas. And it worked out. :)

We also had the funniest experience on Sunday!! Oh man! So we were sitting in the foyer, and there was this really old Hispanic man in great shape. He started talking with us... and we thought he was just really nice. But then he started telling us that my ancestors are British, and Sister D' are Native American. He knew that because he could hear it in our voices, and also because he could hear the voices of our ancestors telling him that we were descended from them. He then told us that the ancestors wanted us to research them, and that Sister D ancestors came from Delaware, and that he saw beams of light. He THEN told us that he was one of the Three Nephites, sent here to talk to us, because we are angels sent from God. He told us he was in a transfigured form, but that one day we would meet him and know who he was, and how privileged we were that we were able to meet him. Hahahaha isn't that crazy??? It started off this super sweet conversation, and then.... well.... yeah hahahaha. It was so funny!! #phoenixiscrazy

Well, I think that's it for this week! It's been awesome. :) I LOVE my mission. I love it so, so much. I can't believe it's November this week! Almost my year mark. It goes too fast! 

I love you guys! Hope you have a fantastic week :) Thanks so much for sending stamps too! 

I love you all!

con amor,

Sister Whitney Morris

 

They drink coke floats instead of root beer floats :) It's pretty good!

 Us and Laurie! our gator quitting smoking!! I Love her!!!

 

A member bought us matching scarves, so we all wore them to church :) and pumpkin carving! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ours is the three eyed alien from toy story! :D

10-19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Family,

Haha, I love getting your emails! The glorious pig picture with the sunbeams was soooo hilarious... she is so fat! Hahaha. It looks like an awesome weekend with Dexter and Britt, and all the sheep and everything. It looks so fun :) Virginia is so beautiful! I love seeing the pictures!   :) I am sooo grateful I served a mission before I get married... I don't think I could have done it without the experiences I'm learning from haha. I'm glad my car is okay! :)  That's so sad about the kitten! Aw I hope it's healing okay. Great job on your talk, Hannah! That's so cool you could speak about family history, and that it wasn't boring!! Wow! I wish I could have heard it :D Have you ever thought about serving a mission? You would be an AMAZING missionary! I'm happy to hear that E is doing well, and that he's going strong and receiving the priesthood. He is amazing. It's inspiring to see him, and to see all the friendship and fellowship and love you and Randi and everyone has for him. I love seeing people join the church, it can be so hard for them, but it's also some of the times of the greatest love and friendships.  The nacho pictures were hilarious!!! Hahaha.  My diabetes is going well, but I will need some more set changes :) If you could please send some, that would be awesome!

Well, this week has been fantastic!! Well, very hard, but also amazing. I don't even know where to start! My companion... well it has been a learning week! AtWhen describing our personalities, we put it in a scenario: If we went hiking, she would be the hiker to stop and look at the flowers, look at the scenery, sit down for water, stop and talk to people, ect. I would be the hiker who goes straight to the top. Haha, not that I don't enjoy the beauty, but I like to be focused and work hard and am pretty fast paced as a missionary. Luckily, in companionship inventory on Friday (it's a time we set apart to talk with each other, talk about things we can improve on to improve our relationship, our strengths and weaknesses, etc.) we talked about it, and we made some goals to have more positive, friendship building communication with each other. We made a list of random questions to ask each other in the car. As we opened up and slowly felt more comfortable joking with each other and just talking with each other again, the whole dynamic of our companionship changed. We're nurturing our companionship and it is blossoming into a awesome friendship and working in unity. :) It was so cool... earlier in the day we had called and asked Sister T if she could come talk with us and help us out. Well, when she got there Friday night, we sat down and talked with her, and she said it was the oddest helping companions out talk she's ever had, because we were both happy and could laugh with each other and were willing to talk about everything. She gave us some AMAZING advice. She mainly advised me to first, not get offended easily. Just tell myself that I will not be offended, no matter what. Then she advised both of us to serve each other. Man, that has made such a huge difference!!! I've always been nervous to, because I'm scared that my companion will think I'm weird or it will be awkward. Well, when Sister T talked with us, I realized that I just need to do it anyways! If it comes from my love for her, she'll feel it. So immediately Sister D and I both started serving each other, and oh man! Our companionship has changed so much! We are so happy, and I just love serving with her! We still have our differences, but we respect and love and accept each other, and it has made all the difference!

There was also one really cool experience that helped me out alot. I was reading the addiction recovery program packet in my personal study for one of our investigators, and I came across a section that said to make a list of people you have hard feelings for. Then you take steps to forgive them. If you can't, it advises you to kneel and pray a specific prayer for them every day. It gives you some scriptures to study. And then you write in your journal about it, and how your feelings change for them over the next two weeks. I am SO GRATEFUL I chose to serve a mission! I want to change, and become more like Christ. One verse of my favorite hymn "Savior, Redeemer of my soul" has been stuck in my head. It says

" Oer-rule mine acts to serve thine ends

Change frowning foes to smiling friends

Chasten my soul, till I shall be

In perfect harmony with Thee

Make me more worth of Thy love

And fit me for the life above"

every time I write that, or sing that in my head, tears come to my eyes. Even now. I love my Savior. I want His chastening, I want to become more worthy of His love. I feel that He has chastened me in my experiences with my companions, and it has turned out to be one of the sweetest experiences of my whole mission. I feel the Spirit so strongly, and I feel His love, and I feel so happy! Chastening at first feels like your swallowing bitter medicine. But we have to trust that this medicine comes from our loving Heavenly Father, the Master Doctor. That medicine is what is needed to heal our spiritual infirmities and weaknesses. If we take it as prescribed, He will heal us. We will become who He wants us to be. I just love my Savior. This Christmas, I want to give Him greater service and kindness in my character, and in my companionships. And also a greater testimony and closer relationship with Him.

So, as you can see, it has been a huge week for personal growth. I am so, so grateful. 

Aside from that, it's been a huge week! We had two exchanges this week, it was so busy! I got to go in the Spanish area, and I LOVED it!!! I love, love love serving in Spanish wards and going with the Spanish missionaries. I want to learn Spanish so badly :) We visited this funny old lady who has this tiny pet chihuahua. Well, she's single, so she talks to the chihuahua like it's her boyfriend. She'll yell in Spanish "I'm leaving you!!! I'm leaving you!! How could you do this to me?!" And then the chihuahua yells and whines and barks back to her, like he's so sorry and it's so dramatic hahaha. It's soooo funny!!! I wish I could send you a video, it is the funniest thing I've ever seen. She just does it for fun hahaha.

We ate at this really humble house... they fed us outside, some kind of meat and beans I didn't recognize with chili powder. The family was so funny! Especially the dad! He talked to me in Spanish and Hermana F acted as a translator. We ate in their backyard, and there were soooo many mosquitos... my legs got eaten up!! It was horrible! But they showed us all their animals after, they have tons of goats and chickens, and a giant pig that almost attacked us haha. It was really fun! It was a great exchange!

Then we had a service project at a farm and helped a family thin out their crops. That was alot of fun! Their a nonmember family, and the dad is so sick. He's basically falling apart from the inside out
:( So we got to do some farm work. That was alot of fun! We had another exchange, which was great... I love the sisters we serve with. I learn so much from them. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to get to know each of them.

We also had the best weekend ever!!! So L, sadly, smoked again :( It is sooo hard for her. But she's back on track, going strong on day 4 today, and I believe she'll make it! Progress is sometimes two steps forward, one step back. I know she'll make it! Saturday we took her and A to the temple open house in Phoenix, and it was SO BEAUTIFUL. Wow! I love, love, love Arizona!! The temple was sooo gorgeous... it had the Arizona desert theme, even with the beautiful Arizona diamond triangle patterns on the couches, and the murals were of the desert landscape, with the cactuses and rocks and desert blossoms.. it was so gorgeous. I love Arizona. The Spirit was also so strong. And they had beautiful, beautiful artwork...  it was such a special experience. After the open house, we came home and had lunch, and then got everything ready for A's baptism. That was so special!! He was glowing, and so, so happy! His family came, and it was such a spiritual experience. There was one really funny thing that happened haha. So we as missionaries always give some sort of presentation while their changing out of the baptismal suits. So we had planned to pass around notecards and have everyone write a note for A, to put in a book to give him. Well... we had it all planned out, and even had all the notecards in the programs so everyone had one. But in the Holy Ghost talk, the lady pulled out these notecards and pens, and had the exact same idea!! She totally stole our show hahaha. So we had about 5 minutes to whisper to each other frantically figuring out what we were going to do instead, since we couldn't do that now haha. But we decided to share a mormon message called "lifting burdens" about the Atonement, and then share our testimonies, and then open up the time for people to share their testimonies. It actually ended up being incredible. The Spirit was soooo strong. So many people bore their testimonies, and were so emotional. One man whose A's friend in our ward is struggling with serious cancer. He got up and shared his testimony, crying, and shared with us how this experience made him want to keep his baptismal covenants. It was so powerful... I definitely know that happened for a reason. It was meant to be. :) 

Sunday was good, but so long. 6 hours of church is hard haha. But I love all the members, so it's all good! We had a delicious carne asada dinner, and then went to the mission president's devotional in Tempe with A and L. It was an awesome weekend!

So, it has been an amazing week. I am so happy! I love being a missionary. I hit my 11 month mark of entering the MTC today... so weird!! It has gone so fast. Too fast. I LOVE my mission. It is the greatest experience of my life so far, and I trust it is one of the greatest experiences for my life after. 

I love you guys :) Hope you have an awesome week!!

love,

Sister Whitney Morris

 

p day shopping and froyo

 

oh, and I dyed my hair back to my natural color. It was crazy... Sis D did it. Right before I went in the shower to get the hair dye out, the power went out!! Haha so I almost had to take a shower in the dark... we were all freaking out, and then the power went back on . It was super weird :)

phx temple

 

 

 

the baptism, and A and his family, and all the sisters who taught him :) love this kid! He is the sweetest kid ever

 

 

 

 

October 13th 2014

Dear Family,

Aww, I love seeing the pictures of home :) Virginia is so beautiful! Mommy, I'm sorry things have been tough lately. I've definitely noticed that on my mission as well - even as a missionary, sometimes you have highs and lows spiritually. I think it's just a part of life. But the important thing is how we react to those low times. I'm so grateful for your example in trying to do the right things, even when it's hard. :) Thanks so much for the package!! I absolutely loved it! I'm wearing my new skirt right now :) I've actually lost about 10 lbs in the past few months, which is something I'm really excited about haha. Hopefully I can keep it up and be in great shape when I come home :) I didn't realize my car was broken! What happened to it? Is it working okay now? I hope so! Haha. That's so fun you've been looking for Arizona jewelry! Sorry, no pressure or anything, haha. You know I love anything you guys send me :) And I don't want you to worry too much about it, or spend some atrocious amount of money. I am perfectly happy with just letters and homemade stuff for Christmas, too :) That's so funny, that's true there are no oil paint stains on the floor haha! Just you wait! :D It was so fun in Gilbert, there was a member - an old lady, Sis K who painted the furniture - and everytime we saw her, she was in these old workclothes covered in paint, her hair going everywhere. It just made me miss home and painting haha. I'm excited to paint with you again :) I love your cute pumpkins!! Those are so neat with the jewel corn stems! And that would be awesome if you sold prints of my paintings in the stores!! Seriously! That would be a great way to make money while I'm gone :D  The downstairs bathroom looks so cute! I love the colors, and I LOVE the red washer and dryer!! So cute! 

That's so awesome you went out with the sisters too!! :) I'm so proud of you! A busy mom, with everything going on, and you take the time to go out with the missionaries and share the gospel and strengthen new members. I know when members come out with us, they are so blessed. Bringing members brings miracles :) That's so awesome you could go out with them and share that experience! I'm glad you loved it! It did sound scary driving though, haha! It's funny how cool it is there - here, it's still mid 90s :D It doesn't feel like fall at all!I got Randi's package too, and I absolutely loved everything, the skirt, the Joseph Smith stuff.. I'm sorry I haven't had time to write her. Can you let her know I love her? And that I pray for her? I hope things work out so she can move out to Virginia. We would love to have our aunt Randi close by :) 

That's cute Dexter got a pit bull! My companion LOVES pit bulls. She's not scared of dogs at all! Even huge barking ones, she just walks up and knocks on the door anyways haha. It's really funny! That's so cool we're related to George Washington!!! :D And that Hannah got asked on a date! Her dating experiences almost begin, haha. That is definitely a great opportunity to share the gospel, though. :) She should invite him to church sometime!  I hope Isaac and Jacob are doing great too, and Adam and Peter and Dad! I really miss you all. But the time is going so quickly, I hardly even notice. 

Well, as for me, this week has been CRAZY. Even crazier then last week!! We had a great Monday, we had two family home evenings to go to with investigators and new members, but by the end Sister D was feeling sick.... she got a fever and a really sore throat. So we had to come home and let her rest. I was kind of panicking though, because the next morning was zone conference, and we had our huge training to do. It was scary! So we called the zone leaders, and she was so sick that they told me to just prepare to do the training with the Hawaiin sister we live with, Sister F. So Sister D had to stay home, with Sister F's companion :( It was sad! I missed her! And Sister F and I did the training. It was so fun!! We started off by asking the missionaries about the most spiritual experiences they had in their lives, before their mission. They shared some powerful experiences, and then we had them think about where they were, what they were doing, and what the environment was like. Then we moved out into the gym, and did this super fun roleplay. We set up half the stage completely covered in toys, and a tv blaring (a cheesy old LDS movie from the library) and we had the zone leaders be the investigator and the investigator's toddler son. We had some of the missionaries try to teach them, with all the distractions going, and it was really funny haha. The distractions totally controlled the lesson, with the kid crying if the tv was turned off, ect. But then, we had the other half of the stage set up like a member's home (prepared for a lesson). So it was clean, soft toys for the kid to play with, ect. And there the missionaries were able to teach a really spiritual lesson. We talked about the importance of the environment, and then encouraged the missionaries to try and have their lessons on holy ground - in a member's home, in a church building, or on the temple grounds. It was really fun! There's a cool part of the missionary handbook that talks about dedicating homes. It basically says that member's homes can be dedicated to be holy places where the Spirit resides, where family members can grow in the gospel, and where families can prepare for eternal family relationships. We asked, don't we want that for our investigators too? In members homes they can learn those same principles in that environment. It was really cool. :) We also talked about street contacting, and had this fun role play. In PMG it talks about looking for clues when talking to people, and showing sincere interest in them, and relating the gospel to them in a way that meets their needs. Well, we made up these scenarios that have actually happened to us street contacting in Phoenix (a man riding a horse, a family with a pet pig in the doghouse in the front yard, a lady on her way to the airport, someone who doesn't speak english, ect) and they had some fun roleplays. There was also this super cool thing we shared that Elder Sweitzer of the 70 taught us. He talked about the DIMS - discouragement, idleness, murmering, and sin. This is a process that happens, we become discouraged, then we become idle, we murmur or complain, and then we sin. He talked about eliminating those things in missionary work and in our lives. So we talked about eliminating that in street contacting - sometimes we get discouraged because people are mean, or we're rejected, we become idle by being lazy and not talking to people because we don't want to, we murmur or make excuses by saying their too far away or their too busy, and we sin by not talking to them - by not giving them that opportunity to talk and to learn more... of having the opportunity to do good, and not do it. So we talked about overcoming the dims by doing it anyways, by having love for them and for Christ, and by just telling ourselves we can do hard things. There were alot of really great ideas the missionaries shared :) Overall it was just such a fun training! I feel lucky because I feel like I learned the most, the missionaries had such amazing insights and are such great examples. It was awesome! One of the elders talked about how sometimes he knocks on doors and asks if the "goldens" live there (aka the golden investigators). Haha it was a creative way to make it fun :) 

There was one embarassing part though.... we made these handouts that said "I ______ can do hard things!" with the new hashtag our mission is using, #standonholyground. Well, I made those right before bed the night before... so I accidentally wrote the wrong hashtag! Haha I did #standinholyplaces instead. Woops!!! So that was super embarassing hahaha. But oh well! :D 

Sorry to ramble forever about the training. It was just really fun and a cool experience. :) We had another super cool experience this week!! We got to watch Meet the Mormons!! I guess all the missionaries in the US and Canada were supposed to watch it before it comes out, so we can answer questions about it. So we went to a stake center in Mesa and all watched it together. It was AMAZING. Holy cow!! It was so fun to see the candy bomber, and the Naval Academy coach (woot woot!) and also the last story at the end was sooo powerful... it was a great reminder to me that we should never, ever judge anyone by the way we see them now. Because this mom started her journey in the gospel as a 19 year old homeless girl with two sons, and look where she ended up. It was so powerful to me, and such an incredible reminder that every person on this earth has divine potential, to become who God wants them to be. We just need to help them see it and find it for themselves. :) So that was powerful!

We also had a crazy experience with C. We went to visit her, and we got there, and she was yelling at one of the workers :( we went in to help calm her down. Sister D handled it like a pro! We sang a primary song with her, and then said that we should color pictures. So we started coloring with her, and then sister D said "You know, we should give one of these to the worker, because I think he must be feeling pretty sad right now." So she had C color a picture for him, and we went to give it to him with a picture of Jesus. It was so cool! She took this crazy situation and made it into a lesson of Christlike service, patience, and forgiveness. I wanted to record it and rewatch it, because she just handled it so well. I thought it would be perfect for a mom haha. It was a really awesome experience. 

We have had so many cool experiences teaching! We taught this 26 yr old couple with 5 kids, who aren't married, but who are SO awesome. They live in this humble, humble home, and the kids were sooooo sweet! They just surrounded me, and I showed them pictures of Jesus, and they kept asking me all of these questions about Him. It was soooo sweet. We taught them about the Restoration, and the kids were all listening and involved. The dad really wants to be baptized, he's INCREDIBLE, but the mom doesn't want to be baptized or married. So that's sad :( Nobody ever taught them that they should be married first before having kids. But their moving into the elder's area, so hopefully someday her heart will be softened so they can be baptized. Those were the sweetest children I have ever met! I just love them so much!

We also had a super cool lesson with A. He's preparing for his baptism this Saturday :) So we went over the program with him. Then we sat in the chapel and showed him the Bible video of Christ being baptized. The Spirit was so strong, especially when afterwards we talked about his feelings for Christ and about his upcoming baptism. And then we talked about the sacred promise we make when we're baptized, and pointed to the nearby sacrament table and talked about how every Sunday we can renew that sacred promise and be cleansed and forgiven of our sins, for the rest of our lives. It was so, so sweet, and the Spirit was so strong. I am so happy for him! He is an incredible kid! And he is filled with happiness about his baptism!

We also had a great lesson with L! Some ward members pitched in to help her quit smoking, and help her get rid of mosquitos, so she's doing so much better. :) We started a smoking program with her, and hopefully she'll be able to quit and be baptized Oct. 24th. I love her so much! Hopefully I'll have pics to send of us with her next week! She's going to wear a skirt to church next Sunday for the first time. :) She was waiting because she didn't have any dress shoes to wear. So this Sunday, she'll finally have some, and she wants a pic with us. :) 

We also had some super funny moments!

Our WML in one of our wards, his wife is super pregnant... like 6 days overdue now haha. Anyways, they were showing us pics of the ultrasound. Their 7 yr old boy saw it and yelled "What kind of creature IS this???!!! It looks like a MONSTER!" Hahaha it was soooooo funny!! He then started describing how he thinks his baby sister is a t rex... it was hilarious hahaha. 

We also had a super funny moment! So there's this Elder, Elder T, who is so awesome! He just graduated high school, and has these big glasses and is a total hipster. Well, his first name is Raul, and we were laughing because we were saying his name doesn't fit him. Raul sounds like a masculine macho mexican guys name :) So later on that night, we met a potential investigator and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend is this huge, macho, masculine mexican guy. We introduced ourselves and said "Oh, what's your name?" In this deep husky voice he said "... Raul". Hahaha that was super funny too! We had a great laugh about it :D

Well, I hope you are all doing well! Thanks so much for all your support and love. :) I MISS YOU GUYS. Adam, your bday letter will be on the way today! And Dexter's too. :) Hannah, Jacob, Peter good luck with school! Isaac, stay swagtastic! Dad, hope your job is going well, and the yard looks great! Mommy, I love you!!! Thanks so much for being such a great friend and support to me, even when I'm far away. :)

Love you guys, with all my heart! Also how is my car? Haha. 

Love ya!!

con mucho amor,

Sister Whitney Morris

 

Also us trying on zippy pajamas on pday!!! :) Sock monkey and cheetah!! woot woot! Haha

 

 

Some more views of Phoenix. I've mostly taken pics of the country looking places. I'll take some of the neighborhoods too :) but here's some cool buildings and landscape and stuff.

 

Gorgeous sunset

 

 

This hilarious note we found in the back of our dresser hahaha

 

A cute American quilt we have in our apt, that I get to keep :) (don't mind my sweatiness)

 

The hermanas we live with left cute notes everywhere, haha

 

 

 

 

Something gross! I'm never one for gross pictures, but when I changed my set in my insulin pump, my blood like pumped out into the tube!! Gross huh?? haha,,, it was gross, but I thought you would get a kick out of it. yucky!

 

Also, Hermana D's poor legs!! The mosquitos here are AWFUL!!!

 

Also a little monkey statue with a beer can.... #phoenix

 

Our church building :) and random mail trucks, so you can get a feel for what PHX looks like

 

 

 

And a scene of an Arizonan party! The Hispanic families here have bday parties all the time, where they have brinka brinkas (or the jumping castles). this one had horses too :) this is right in our neighborhood. it's so fun. there are almost no white people here, it's very racially diverse. which I love! I love the different languages and cultures. It's awesome!

 

 

October 5, 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Family,

Thanks so  much for the emails! That was the best General Conference ever!! It was so amazing. :) It sounds so fun having everyone over! I loved the pictures, especially of Charlotte, and the cute wool sheep!!! And the paintings! I actually thought of that while watching, if I was home I would be with Mommy oil painting :) Haha, but don't worry, there is no place I would rather be then right here, right now. :) I'm so glad Ed. is finding support from you and the branch. He is amazing !I'll keep him in my prayers. That sounds so hard with Hannah's history teachers too... ugh! Way to be for standing up for truth. I loved Jacob's quote, truth has been spoken... and the creepy animal farm meme haha... so weird! 

Oh, I'm SO SORRY I didn't send Adam a bday card yet!! I was going to, but I ran out of stamps. Speaking of which, could you please send me some stamps? :) And also, we're not allowed to have burned cds, so in preparation for Cmas I was wondering if you could send me some Christ centered Cmas cds before the season starts? :) Let Adam know I LOVE him, and I'm glad he had a great birthday! And that there will be a letter coming his way! Also, before I forget, for a Cmas present I would love some Native American jewelry :) Like simple torquoies necklace or something... if it's from AZ, all the better :) Haha.

Well, as for me, this week has been the busiest yet of my entire mission!! Oh my goodness! South Phoenix is a great area, and I absolutely love it. Alot of the people live in poverty conditions, especially some of the people we are teaching, which is so humbling. I can't imagine living and having the struggles they struggle with each day. Elder Holland's talk really touched me as I've served here in Phoenix. It's opened my eyes to alot. But the things I LOVE are how amazing the people are!! Oh, I love the people so much! They are so humble, and so kind, and so willing to give anything. It was humbling to have lunch on the reservation. I didn't actually serve there, but our zone leaders did, and they had some crazy stories. It's true, they are under different law enforcement jurisdiction, so sometimes its a bit lawless. But the people we ate with were so, so kind, and their kids had the happiest smiles and just loved talking with us. I just love serving here.  Being a sister training leader is a new experience! We had a huge leadership meeting, which was really humbling this week. Something I'm learning as serving as a sister training leader is that leadership positions really mean nothing. They are simply an opportunity to love, to serve, and to give greater sacrifice to help the Lord. It's also an opportunity to use our unique gifts to help others. But it's really not about us at all. There are millions of sister missionaries who could be in the same spot I am, giving the same service. For some reason the Lord just wants me to serve in that spot in His kingdom right now. It's exciting, because we mainly work with the zone leaders alot. We go on exchanges with the other sisters in the zone, and help build them up. We give trainings... this Tuesday is zone meeting, so Sister D and I have to train for 45 minutes. It's stressful, and has taken alot of preparation, but we're also really excited now! We're going to be talking about teaching in member's homes and the importance of street contacting. It's going to be a really fun training! We have some really fun role plays planned, and it's going to be awesome! I'm super excited! :D For the rest of our district meetings on Tuesdays, we'll just give a brief 10 minute training at the beginning. So it's nothing too scary. Mostly, it's a lot of fun.  We also just help decide and plan the training for our zones, and help with transfer suggestions. It's been great so far!

Sister D is awesome. She's really sassy, and just says things how it is. I'm still learning to not be so sensitive to things, which I think is a good thing. :) Just learning not to take offense easily. But she's so much fun! She's a fantastic teacher, and I'm learning alot from her. One thing I'm struggling with is that one of my strengths I think is being a really efficient, diligent worker. I just want to work hard, all the time, and not waste time. Sometimes she's a bit slower paced, which is teaching me patience, and I help her learn greater diligence. So we're hopefully learning from eachother. :) Haha, but overall our companionship is awesome! I'm really happy and it's going to be a great transfer. 

We've had some great experiences this week! We teach alot of people with handicaps, or who are disabled. One lady we teach is in a mental health hospital. We go and teach her, and it's basically a hospital room - there's another sick lady on the other side of a curtain in her room, and it's really an interesting experience. We'll be teaching C, and her roommate will be rambling or start yelling in Spanish. It's a very different teaching environment. But C is so sweet. She's had so many hard trials, but her greatest desire right now is to quit smoking so she can be baptized again. (she's an excommunicated member.) We also started teaching a really cool lady named B! She is actually a worker in a different mental clinic, so we teach her and there are some interesting people walking around... but she is amazing! She moved here from Africa a few months ago, and she LOVES the Book of Mormon. She read all the way to Alma in 1 week! She told us she wants to be like Nephi, and in her closing prayer she prayed that she could learn to be like him. It was so cool!! So we're excited to be teaching her!! 

It has been nonstop teaching in two wards! With the leadership meetings and stuff, we have barely had time to just meet the main people we're teaching... it has been soooo busy. But I absolutely love it. It's stressful, but it's awesome! MLC - the missionary leadership meeting - was so awesome! We received alot of training. It's so funny though, just the sister training leaders and the zone leaders of each zone attend. So we dressed up all nice, and were just getting ready to leave, when the zone leaders called us... they asked "Hey! What are you sisters wearing?" We told them, and then they told us that we needed to all match to show zone unity...so I had five minutes to change into a totally new outfit haha. It was so crazy! I didn't have anything that matched Sister D, so we frantically went through the other sister's clothes. I ended up borrowing Sister F's skirt - a polynesian sister who I LOVE, but her skirt was like a potato bag on me hahaha. So we safety pinned it, and it all ended up nice.. all within 5 minutes! It was a crazy morning :D Next time the elders promised to give us more notice haha. On top of that, we were in such a rush to get out the door, I accidentally grabbed the other sister's phone instead of ours.... haha woops! So that made for an interesting day! 

We also had the funniest teaching experience! So L is a lady we're teaching who is SO AWESOME! I love her!! She is so, so sweet. She lives in this tiny, tiny house, that is basically outside because the door just has bars. Well, she wants to be baptized but she has to quit smoking. So we made tons of little quotes and signs and pictures of Christ to hang up all around her house. We got there, and started taping them everywhere! But then we noticed there were literally HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of mosquitos!! It was so  sad! Just hordes of them on the walls and on the roof, because they just have the door with bars, so the mosquitos come right in. So Sister D had this brilliant idea. I guess lavendar dryer sheets keep mosquitos away? So we went, got some from our car, rubbed our arms and legs with the dryer sheets, and then took a bunch to rub on Laurie's walls. We ended up taping some to her swiffer mop and using it to kill mosquitos, like a giant fly swatter! Haha it was so crazy! We ended up killing hundreds of them for her. We didn't get all of them. but by the time we left there were lots of mosquitos gone, and it smelled nicely like lavendar :) Haha, it was so funny! We had a blast, just laughing as we were swiping the mosquitos with the mop... oh man, it was crazy! We're so happy we could help her though! Laurie is seriously the best! 

We also had an AMAZING miracle!!! So do you remember A? He's the young man, 17, who wants to be baptized, but his Mom didn't give him permission, she said he had to wait until he's 18. He's the one who baked us a cake :) Well, we prayed, and we decided to talk with him about faith. We talked with him about how we were going to fast and pray that his mom's heart would be softened so he could be baptized. He agreed to fast and pray as well. Then we had coordination, and we agreed with the ward to have a day where we fast and pray for him and his mom as well. So we were doing all we could to exercise faith so he could be baptized. Well, two days later, we showed up to his door.. and he opened with a HUGE grin on his face!!! He asked his Mom, and she said he could be baptized!!! It was such a miracle!!! He is so, so, so happy! It was so funny, we share one of our wards - the South Mtn ward - with our district leader and his companion. So we told our district leader that he needed to give someone a baptismal interview, but we told him he couldn't know who it was because it was going to be a surprise. So we met at the church, and A was there, and our district leader was so surprised! And so happy! Haha, it was so awesome! Those moments are better then surprise birthday parties. :D It was awesome!! So he will be baptized on October 18th!! (Dexter's bday! :D)

Other then that, I didn't cover half the things that happened this week. It is SO CRAZY BUSY, haha, but I love it so much! Missions are the best. Conference was incredible. I made an action list of things I want to do from Conference, like record myself reading Joseph Smith's testimony, and some other different things. I know without a doubt this is the Lord's work, and that this is Jesus Christ's church. I know He is so aware of each of us, and answers our prayers if we simply ask and search for the answers. I'm so grateful I decided to serve a mission! It has changed me, and I hope it continues to change me for the better. This gospel truly is all about change. 

I love you guys :) Thanks so much for the emails and everything. Keep me updated! :) I'm so glad everything is going well, and I loved seeing the pics of home! VA is so beautiful! And I got Dexter and Britts letter. :) Thanks for your prayers and your support. Your the best!!

Love you guys!!

love,

Sister Whitney Morris

Sister D is an STL too!! :) Us at MLC! I LOVE her!

 

 

 

Sis D and I, and the zone leaders - Elders V and G. Their awesome! Notice we're all matching to show zone unity... this is our "mexican faces" haha. (The elder's idea. Their spanish speaking.)

 

 

Sister F's text to us, when they found out we accidentally took their phone... hahaha. I love her. She is so funny!

 

 

 

And, funny texts about training! We're doing this sweet roleplay, where we'll set up the stage - half like an investigator's normal home (tons of toys, tv blaring, loud kids running everywhere) and half of it like a member's home. They did it at MLC, and just talked about the importance of the environment, and controlling distractions... and how a member's home or a church building is the perfect place to teach, because it's much easier to control the distractions. Well, we asked Elder V to be the child in the roleplay, and Elder Gto be the gater (or investigator). Anyways... I'm explaining way too much of this haha. It was just a funny conversation. :)


I'm behind Sister T. All the zone leaders and STLs in the mission.