love, serve, teach: 2-2-2015

That's crazy news about Dexter! And great news!! :) I bet the house is absolutely insane right now, haha, I can't imagine that many people all living there! But from the pictures and everything, it looks like it's going well. That was too bad about his job, but that's great he has extra time now to train and get ready for the Navy! And it means I can send letters to him home, and he'll actually be there to get them! :D That's a plus! Haha. That story about the picture of the man with the cat, and the cute old guy thinking that was Randi's ex husband - hahaha that was hilarious!!! Oh my goodness! That seriously made me laugh sooo hard. Oh man, that was great hahaha. It sounds so fun painting, and helping the animals, and having the elders and sisters over for dinner. I bet they love it! That's so neat they could sing for you guys! Being a missionary is so much fun. In our mission, we're allowed to have dinners with the elders and sisters whenever, so we have a lot of super fun dinners with the elders. We all just talk and laugh, and share our testimonies. Every Wednesday our Bishop in the South Mountain ward feeds us, his name is Bishop A. He and his wife are INCREDIBLE. We eat with them every Wednesday, and it's probably one of the highlights of my week! It was really fun seeing Sister R at transfers, too!

Thanks so much for handling all the college stuff! I really appreciate it! I'll write that essay and send it home this week. By the way, we lost our mail key.... so if you could send packages and letters and stuff to the mission home - 1871 E Del Rio Dr. Tempe, AZ 85282 - that would be great haha. :) No worries about sending home homemade stuff! Homemade stuff is the best stuff to get! :)

Well, for us this week has been pretty good! I'm still in South Phoenix with Sister S!! YAY!!!! :) :) :) :) I am so happy I'm staying! I love this area so much! This is my fourth transfer here, the longest I've ever stayed in an area! And my third transfer with Sister S, which is tying with Sister R as the longest companion. I'm really happy, because I love it here. I'm staying a sister training leader, too, with Sister R. So nothing changed!

The highlights of our week were probably our online lessons. T and C are doing pretty good! We had a lot of fun putting their Book of Mormons together. We put some beautiful pictures of Christ on the covers, and covered it with contact paper, so they look really nice, and we wrote our testimonies in them and highlighted scriptures, and we sent them off to Scotland this morning! I'm so excited for them to get them, and read them! The main miracle though, was I! I can't remember if I wrote home about him last week. Basically, he commented on the church's facebook page "how do I meet with missionaries?". So I messaged him, and we started talking, and he is seriously golden! He lives in Romania, but it turns out he works in Virginia - in Alexandria - and he's going there in March! He really, really wants to go to church!! He's read from the Book of Mormon before - as a kid missionaries taught english classes in his city, and they gave him one. But he gave it to a friend a long time ago. He is seriously counting down the days until he comes to Virginia in March so he can go to church. It's been really exciting having us teach him! I'm trying to involve some of my friends from the ysa ward there so he can have some friends when he comes! Isn't that so cool?? It's incredible how prepared he is!

We had some good experiences this week... we had transfers, and lots of lessons. It's been a bit hard in the work lately. We have tons of people to teach, but nobody is committed to coming to church, or really doing anything. It's really hard... there is one lady, M, who we're teaching. She struggles with a lot of addictions, depression, and health problems. :( She is always happy to listen, and she wants to have a better life, and we are doing everything we can to help her - getting her a ride to church, friends to sit by her, inviting her to family home evenings with a ride, everything. But she just chooses at the last second not to come. It's really sad.. and it's hard, because no matter what we do, it really is their choice. So that's been hard, but comforting to know that I can just continue to try my best to help them keep their commitments, but in the end it is their choice. We are praying to find people to teach who want to act, and who are willing to make those changes in their lives. We are also praying to know how to help M want to come to church and help her in her trials. We'll see what happens.

We taught the man I told you about last week, with the Bishop. It was a really powerful lesson, and he's going to start coming to church again! :) We are so happy for him. He is going to work towards being rebaptized. We've started teaching a Marshallese family, who are so neat! They have a son named Y whose 9, and he is so cute! In the closing prayer, he prayed, and he just prayed thanking Heavenly Father that all we taught them that day was truth, and none of it was lies, and that he wanted to follow Jesus. It's amazing, he has the most profound answers to our questions in lessons! He's an amazing kid, and he has amazing parents too. They are so cool! They just moved here from the Marshall islands, and they were taught by missionaries in Mesa. One of the elders, his name is Elder J, his mother just died of cancer. :( While on his mission. Well, this elder is one of my greatest heroes. N, the dad, told us that during Christmas Elder J gave him a present that his mom had given him. He told him his mom had died, and before she died she gave him this present (I can't remember what it was - a scarf or book or something) and he said he wanted N to have it. It meant so much to N. I thought that was incredible. It made a big impact in how they feel about missionaries and the message we share.

We also had the coolest lesson this week!! There is a less active grandma whose raising some of her grandkids. Y, the granddaughter, is 14, and her 8 yr old nephew and 5 yr old niece were there too. We taught them about how God loves us, and reasons why they feel God's love in their lives. Their answers were so sweet! Then we taught them how to pray, and they all prayed for the first time! At first they were really shy and didn't want to, but we taught them how, showed them the "cheat sheet" in the pamphlet they could look at, and it was so cool because they all started teaching eachother how and encouraging eachother to pray! We all knelt in a circle, and they encouraged and helped eachother, and we each said a prayer. It was so, so awesome! The nephew got so excited that he ran into the other room to get his dad to pray with us! It was such an awesome lesson!!! They are such a sweet family. We are so excited to be teaching them! Y went shopping and bought a dress to wear to church, but they didn't end up coming :( So we hope they come next week!

This week has been a bit stressful, too. I'm learning a lot about loving my companion and living with differences, and being humble and patient. I really want to develop greater patience before I get home, and before I become a wife and mom. I want to become more like my Savior, because I love Him. And I know when I feel the Spirit, I feel true happiness. So, that is my goal for the rest of my mission. Feel free to follow up with me to see how it's going. :) And pray that I'll be able to become more patient. I think that would help a lot!

I love my Savior. I love this work. I love, love, love being a missionary! I had a funny dream last night that I was on a road trip in Romania, traveling between the different missions, and my family - you guys - were telling me to come home early, because it was going to get too hot in June in the summer (hahaha... it was weird. You meant in AZ, but we were in Romania...) but in my dream, I felt so sad! Because I thought, there is no way I am finishing early! I love my mission, I love being a missionary. As hard as it is, it is the greatest experience I've ever had in my life, and for my life. It's the greatest decision I ever made for myself. I know our Savior lives, and that He loves us. I know repentance is a joyful process, when we apply it in our lives. The hard part is humbling ourselves to get started. The rest of it is incredible, and joyful, and freeing, and cleansing, and life changing. I am so grateful for my Savior and His Atonement that makes change and repentance possible.

I love you guys! Thanks for the awesome emails. I love you all. I know this gospel is true. :) I'm so proud of you for being such great missionaries! How has your goals of making friends with more nonmembers going?

Love you! :)

love, Sister Whitney Morris

We got warm coconut milk at dutch bros on the way to transfers. :)