2-9-2015

 

Dear Family,

 

Thanks so much for the emails!! Mommy,  I loved the patience meme you sent me, hahaha! That was hilarious. It reminded me of the Christlike attributes chapter in PMG, and also just conference talks I've read, where they talked about how the only way to develop Christlike attributes is through prayer, they are a gift from God, and also just practicing it - one moment, one scenario at a time. It's so hard, but I'm so grateful for the Savior who helps us! The farm pics you sent were sooo hilarious!! I have never seen so many weirdly haired animals in my life, hahaha, especially the pig. Is that even real? Hilarious... I loved the painting you painted for Hannah for valentines day. That was so pretty, and whimsical. :) I loved the cute little decorations too! The sheep were so hilarious, and so cute! So many fun projects at home! 

It was so sad to hear about Peter's fever!! I really hope he's doing okay! Poor guy! I'll pray that he feels better. I haven't gotten the valentines day package yet... hopefully you sent it to the mission home? If not, I might not get it haha. Sadly we lost our mail key a while ago.... so we don't get any mail at the phoenix address anymore. I think it's great Dexter and Britt are getting married soon! I think it will be really good for them. I am sad I won't be there, but I am so happy and excited for them. :) For the Christlike attributes chapter, I'm sorry you felt guilty after reading it! Believe me, I do too! Haha, it is a good wake up call. In church they talked about the same thing. One speaker talked about how he thought he was a pretty nice person, until he got married. Exactly how I feel about my mission!  I truly want to become more like Christ. It is a sign of spiritual strength to be patient and long suffering. Sister Stratford said something really cool the other day - in Moroni 10 it talks about coming to Christ and being perfected in Him. She thought it was cool that if we follow Christ, eventually He promises that we will overcome our weaknesses. When we follow Him, it's not a matter of if we will, it's a matter of when we will. I really, really liked that. I find so much hope and faith and strength in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Well, as for me, it's been a pretty good week! A little harder in some ways, and pretty incredible in others. Hopefully you got my letter that said I bought a camera? So you don't go buy me one when Dad gets a job again. :) On Monday we had FHE at the G's house, and a young man named D came! He's living with S and R, and came to church with them! He kind of bore a testimony (we had a testimony meeting around the fire) and talked about how we invited him to church, and he came, and he loved it! It was so funny because we worked SO HARD to get our investigators there, and none of them came. But we offhandedly invited him when we dropped by S and R, and he's the only person who came! It goes to show that people really do make our own choices. No matter how much we teach, testify, and invite, they can only become converted and taste the sweetness of the gospel if they are willing to act on it for themselves, like D was. That was pretty cool!

Tuesday was great too. We had an awesome district mtg. Sister R gave an awesome training comparing the plan of salvation to missionary life. The stages are pre mission life, being set apart (born), mission life (earth life), exit interview and high counsel report (judgement and resurrection), and post mission life degrees of being a member/missionary (the kingdoms). It was a really powerful training! And then the zone leaders gave awesome trainings about setting goals and making plans, especially to improve personally and as missionaries. It helped me so much!! I just gave a little training on setting a vision for yourself. It's a really cool vision activity from a fellow missionary, I'll have to send it home sometime. It was really powerful! I feel so happy and so grateful, because I feel like this transfer I am finally beginning to become the missionary and person I wanted to be. I am getting better at being patient. I am becoming a better teacher. All this because I've set those specific goals, and specific ways I'll achieve those goals. It has helped soooo much. I really wish I had another year on my mission, so I could continue learning and growing. I feel like my growth is finally accelarating a little bit. :) Just a tiny bit haha. I am committed to making the best of what time I have left! I love my mission so much!

 

It was kind of a harder week because we had a doc appt and lots of meetings. It's in Mesa, so it's a long drive, but it's alright.

C met with missionaries in Scotland!! That was super cool! Before he said he would never meet with them! Well, they came and gave him a BOM, and he talked with them because they were super nice! :D He really enjoyed it, and he wants to go to church!! That was super exciting!! We also had a Skype lesson with I, which was way cool! We found out he's 30, so he's actually not ysa age.... but he is super interested in the gospel! It was funny, we taught him about prayer, and he was speaking english with this thick romanian accent. He lives by a castle, and he showed us some of his clocks that are over 150 yrs old and also his weight lifting medals! Turns out ten years ago he was one of the top 15 strongest men in the world! Haha, so random! But he is really looking forward to learning about the gospel and going to church!! That was really cool. :) We had MLC on Thursday, and that was AMAZING, as always. Gosh, I love my mission. I love President T and our fellow missionaries. It's amazing - everything they trained on was something I've been studying about or working on the past week or so. It was incredible! Pres T told us some really cool stories. I wish I had time to write them!!! So many miracles are happening in the work!!! I know without a doubt God's hand directs this work. We saw His hand everywhere! We recieved some incredible training on becoming an "impact teacher", and helping our investigators have testimonies sink deep into their hearts. It was so powerful. He also talked about ipads. You probably know this already, but all the missionaries who have ipads after Aug 25th or so have to pay for their own. I won't have to pay for mine. But it was really cool to recieve that training about it. As leaders, we have to do ipad checks. It's been really, really sad how some missionaries abuse having that priviledge. But it's incredible also to see how the ipad and online proselyting has brought about so many miracles. Pres talked about how he has a love hate relationship with them - sometimes he LOVES them, other times when he's in interviews with missionaries who maybe are struggling with addictions, he wishes he could throw them out in the middle of the desert forever. It's been so powerful to see how the Lord is training us to use this technology, and how learning how to use self control and use it properly - for good - will bless us and our families forever. 

We had some really funny moments this week! So one day we had about 5 min before dinner started. We decided to try calling some potential investigators in our areabook that we had never met before! So Sis S called one, and this is basically how the conversation went:

Sis S "Hey C! How are you?" M: "I'm actually M..."

S: Oh, sorry! Is C there?

M: I once knew a C in 4th grade, but he moved away a long time ago! (He's an adult man!)

S: (laughing) Oh, okay! It's probably not him then! Well, we are sister missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! We share a message centered on Jesus Christ! We woud love to come talk with you! Do you live in Phoenix?

M: (laughing) Actually, my wife and I are joining your church the day after valentines day! 

me and S: "No way?!?!! 

Haha, it turns out that he and his wife were lutheran, and they looked online for a church, found mormon.org, met missionaries, and now their getting baptized! And we randomly called them, because of someone's old phone number! How funny is that? It was pretty cool :D Haha. 

We've had so many awesome experiences this week! Probably the most awesome one was on Sunday! So, about two or three months ago, we tried this lady named N J. She was in our records as a former investigator, but from our notes she looked pretty cool! So We knocked, and she yelled through the door, I'm not interested! So, speed up to this past Sunday, this random lady walks into church, announces to everyone that she had fallen off the band wagon, but she is prepared to come back, and she wants to get baptized! Yes, it was N J! Turns out she's a recent convert's mom. Her hubsand died about two weeks ago :( So we think that might be why. But she even chose a date to be baptized, Feb 27, and she set up an appt with us on Wednesday! It was a really awesome experience, haha. We are excited to teach her! She seems like a really fun, wonderful lady. 

There's so many other crazy, awesome, and hard things that happened this week. Letters don't do missionary work justice at all. :) But I don't have time to write them, haha.

I'm so grateful for the gospel! I love being a missionary. I love my companion. She is so incredible. She is always patient, always kind, and has such a strong testimony. She really tries SO HARD in everything she does! I know she tries harder than me. She makes me want to be a lot better, and she is helping me to learn to be more patient. Most of all, I am so grateful for my Savior. I love this gospel, with all my heart. That's the greatest thing I've felt lately - such a strong love for the Savior, and for the Book of Mormon. Every day I study it, and I feel the Spirit SO strongly. Heavenly Father teaches me things I never thought of before. The scriptures have really become alive for me lately, just how they are real people, and they are sharing their testimonies and experiences with us. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon, and I know it's true! I'll never be able to deny the things I feel and what I learn as I study it. I know those experiences are from God. :) I hope each of you get a chance to study it each day! I know what we get out of our studies depends on our desire and our intent to act on what we learn. When we desire to learn, and to experience, and we intend to act on it, that's when God really teaches us. That's when the incredible spiritual experiences happen. :)

I love you guys!!! Have a great week! 

love,

 

Sister Whitney Morris


Elders took a selfie on my iPad at lunch... Sister Stier always feeds us every tuesday, with jamie, her daughter who has special needs. We love eating with them!!! (Jamie and sis stier)

 

 Random... You can see the top of my head behind the silver jug haha. The lady in the blue sweater is M.