12-4-2014

Dear Family,

 

I can't believe you saw Les Mis on BROADWAY!!!! WOW!!!! I am SO jealous!!! Hahaha, I bet Hannah was in dreamland. That is incredible!! It looked so, so fun, with the hotel and the energy of the city, and seeing the play... that is amazing. :) I'm so glad you had so much fun! We are going to HAVE to do that someday!! And holy cow, you guys did look gorgeous. :)  I loved seeing the pictures, it looked like an amazing trip. That is so awesome! :) We are definitely going to have to do that someday!

Mommy, I loved your advice about your dating and future marriage are only as bright as your faith, haha! Not going to lie, I think my faith could be built up more in that. It's funny, I realized the other day - my whole entire life, I've had so many fears about marriage, probably because of what our family went through. I never, ever want to go through a divorce. Anyways, I've had these fears kind of cripple me, or make me so afraid of the future. It's really cool, because on my mission, Pres. T has talked a lot about how the things we go through and do now will prepare us for our marriages. One thing I love about our mission is having ipads. We've learned to have transparency in our messages with our companions, and our companions know everything that we're doing online. We've learned how to protect ourselves and our companions from bad situations that could happen. That really hit me, and then I realized that on my mission, God has been blessing me to learn about tools that can prevent my fears from happening! He's been giving me tools to prepare for that marriage I want someday, and I didn't even know it! So that realization has really helped me have more faith in having a happy eternal marriage someday. I cannot tell you how much my view of marriage and romance has changed since I've come on my mission!  I have learned SO much about marriage, and I know it's going to help me, when I come home in the far off future (I keep telling myself. Don't say otherwise haha) I'm so grateful Heavenly Father sent me to a mission that is preparing me for those specific fears and concerns I had about being married someday :) It's been amazing.

Anyhow, sorry for that tangent! Thanksgiving looked fun at Cracker Barrel! Peter is soo cute, and I loved Isaac's sock monkey baby haha. We had an awesome week! And a fantastic Thanksgiving!! The work is going really well. We have a plethora (I never thought I would use that word, haha) of people to teach. S and R are doing wonderful! We're having a hard time nailing down a date for their baptism, because the church building is scheduled for lots of Christmas parties :( But hopefully their going to be baptized next weekend! L is doing awesome!! She loves to come out with us on visits now, she just wants to share the gospel with everyone! We're going to get her and A and some of our other recent converts started with family history soon. 

We had a really fun Thanksgiving! We spent the day writing letters, and all the sisters in our house painted our front windows with window paint!! It looks so good!! We did the "He Is the Gift" (Have you seen that video yet?? It's amazing!) and I painted a little nativity scene, and we painted #ShareTheGift and christmas.mormon.org. Do you guys get the Ensign? If not, I'll send you home some pass along cards to give away!! It is an incredible initiative the church is doing! They even bought all the front page advertising on youtube Dec 7th and that video will be the front screen on the homepage all day. It's amazing! We are hoping for lots and lots of people being able to see it, and wanting to learn more!

Anyways, Thanksgiving was really nice! We painted our front window, and then we had lunch with Sister S. She is so amazing! She feeds us this delicious, incredible lunch every Tuesday. She's returning to activity, and she has a special needs daughter whose around 40 who is so cute! Her name is J, and she is just so funny. She always tries to eat our food off our plate, haha. We have so much fun eating with them every week. But she had us and the elders over for Thanksgiving, and it was a lot of fun! But the best part was.... Thanksgiving night.... we were allowed to watch a Disney movie!!! Woooohooo!! So we got to watch Frozen! I LOVED it!! It was seriously so weird, it's been over a year since I watched a movie! Let alone a Disney movie! We had so much fun, we watched it as a zone, with hot chocolate and all in our pjs. (Elders on one side, sisters on the other, don't worry!) It was so awesome! At first I was a little worried, because she seemed a little feminist and the guy seemed wimpy in the beginning... but it ended off with him and her both being strong, and the wimpy guy was the evil guy. So it was a great movie, I loved it! And we just had a lot of fun being with our zone.

After Thanksgiving we went on exchanges! We saw sooo many miracles. Sister C and Sister B are both incredible missionaries. They've been huge examples to me my whole mission, and Sister C used to be my sister training leader. I told Sister S that going on exchanges with them was like giving a general authority a temple recommend interview, haha. They are just amazing. But they've been having a really hard time, because they've been working soooo hard, but have no really solid people to teach. Just finding all day.. which is tough! But it was amazing, because they told me how discouraged they felt and what a hard time they were having. Then, the day began, I stayed in Sister B's area with her, and Sister C came into our area with Sister S. And we saw so many miracles in their area!! People opened doors who never had before, and wanted to set up weekly appointments! We even found one family, whose mom is a less active member. She has a nonmember husband and nonmember teenage kids, and she opened the door and told us she wanted us to come teach their family, because she wants them all to go to church again!! Sister B was SO happy and so excited! It was awesome to see her discouragement change into happiness :) It was truly an answer to their prayers. So that was an awesome moment! I love how the Lord blesses us so greatly when we put in our effort. Eventually the blessings always come :) So that was an awesome exchange. 

Then we had Sunday, and that was a crazy day... haha. We spoke in sacrament meeting with the elders, and that was awesome! Sister S and I were also asked to sing Beautiful Savior again, so we did that too. It was a wonderful Sunday! The Spirit was soo strong. I talked about the Atonement, and how our love for Christ is directly connected with our desire to share the gospel. It was such a powerful topic. Because my love and gratitude for the gospel has changed on my mission. When I first came out, I came because I knew it was what God wanted me to do. But I've stayed, because I love Christ. I love His gospel. I know it's the most precious gift we've been given, and my gratitude to Him is what makes me want to share it. How can I help but share something so wonderful, that can help with any problem or challenge we face? People need it! We need to share it with them! The hymn "Because I have Been Given Much" describes my feelings perfectly about the opportunity of serving a mission. I love being a missionary, and I love this gospel!

We're really excited for this week, because we are going to be showing the He Is The Gift video to everyone! We are SO excited about it, and we'll be talking with everyone we see about what they love about Christmas, and making them excited to see the video  (the fact that it's on youtube is super cool).... and we'll be testifying of how the sweet, sweet spirit of Christmas can be with us throughout the rest of the year, if we discover and embrace the gift each day of our lives :) And our purpose as missionaries is to help them do that! Our message can help them feel the Spirit more in their lives, always. So it is just the coolest time to be a missionary! I am so excited! And I hope all of you can stop and think and pray about someone you can help feel the love of Christ this Christmas. 

Well, I love you guys! Thanks so much for everything. I love my companion! She is seriously the most patient, cheerful person I have ever met. I love her to death. And I just love being a missionary!! :)

Hope you all have an awesome week!

con mucho amor,

Sister Whitney Morris

P.S. Thanks so much for working on the applications!!! I appreciate it so much! And I feel I have decided to go to Virginia for school. I just love it too much there. :) And my dating/marriage will only be as bright as my faith haha... so I believe that Virginia is where God is leading me right now, and that means He has a plan for everything. So I'll trust in Him, follow the Spirit, and just choose that's where I'm going to go! And by golly, I'm going to love it, and share the gospel with everyone at GMU! Wooohoo! Haha.

Love you guys! :) Thanks SO MUCH for everything you do!

love, me!

Our zone on thanksgiving... sad it turned out so blurry :(

our painted window

 

 

me wearing a sombrero :) also not the best pic, but it's one we have in our house that all the missionaries sign who lived there!

 

 

Also! Just real quick, our mission pres just asked us to ask our families to not send us any unapproved books, music, clothing anything. I think you guys will be good, just basically no books because I have all the approved reading material already :) Thanks guys! Anything you want from AZ?  Love you!