Thank you so much for the birthday wishes!!! On my birthday we had an all mission sister meeting in Tempe, so I was sitting in the chapel waiting for the meeting to start, and I opened my email and there were your and Dad's emails for my birthday. It made me so happy to read the lyrics of the John Denver song. I'm so grateful for you, Mommy. You've been such an awesome Mom and I'm so grateful I've always been able to feel your love for me. That song also reminded me of Heavenly Father's love for us - He'll walk in the rain by our side, He'll cling to the warmth of our tiny hands. I am so grateful for families and for our loving Heavenly Father, who created this beautiful plan for us to be with our families for forever. :) That made me so happy!
I'm so proud of Dexter. I hope his training is going well! I LOVED hearing about the baby lambs being born on my birthday, and Adam's testimony of the Savior and taking care of the sheep. I would LOVE to read his testimony, if you would share it!!! That reminds me, I was asked to share my testimony at the sister meeting on Saturday. I don't know if Hannah remembers this, but she shared a poem with me before I left on my mission she wrote about how Heavenly Father's acceptance is more important. I hope she doesn't mind, I didn't tell anyone who wrote it, but I shared it in my testimony, and it was sooooo powerful... just how she could find confidence in knowing she was a daughter of God, and what knowing that brings to us, and how POWERFUL it is to help God's children come to know that for themselves too. Her poem really made a difference that day. :)
It was sooooo awesome to get E's email!!! That seriously made my day as well!!! I am so happy for him and the young man he helped. They are amazing! Couldn't have asked for better news on my birthday. :) Thanks also for sending me some comments people wrote on my fb wall for my birthday! I loved getting J's and E's and Aunt L's! That was really sweet, thank you. :)
I'll definitely pray for Dad and his job! And thanks for explaining the campfire haha! I wasn't worried or anything, I just thought it was really funny :D
Well as for us this week has been amazing!!!! It has been insanely busy. Thanks for praying for L!!! Great news - he has been living the Word of Wisdom!! He's believed it's true from the beginning, this week he just explained that when he went one morning without coffee, he started feeling withdrawals, and so he drank it again. But the good news is that we had an AWESOME few lessons with him this week, and Saturday we called him to make plans for his baptism - speakers, hymns, and everything, and he said that he's been living the Word of Wisdom! He sounded so proud and so happy to tell us! It was such an awesome moment. :) So thank you for praying for him! I think your prayers really did help to strengthen him. He is so excited to be baptized and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost!
We also met the coolest lady named A! Last P day she stopped the elders in the walmart parking lot and asked if they were mormons, and wanted to meet with us. So we met with her a few times this week, and she is incredible!!! She has a little bit of Christian background, and loves the Bible, and she has soooo many awesome questions. She is very interested in learning. She's a little fearful, but she is asking so many questions and wants to pray and ask God if our message is true. So that has been really exciting. She's a really special lady, she's already started making changes in her life to come closer to Christ, and she really sincerely wants to follow Him and find truth. It has been such a powerful experience sharing the message of the Restoration with her, last night we taught her about it, and the Spirit was so strong! She is an amazing person!
We did some service this week at an old folk's home, and I met the sweetest old man named J. We just played games and talked with them. He was an Air Force vet, and told us how he used to love roller skating really fast, and what oldies song he used to love to skate to. He was sooo sweet! Just the happiest, young at heart older gentleman I've ever met! It was really fun to talk with him and spend time with the people there.
I got to go on exchanges into the Spanish area which was so fun too!! I love going into Spanish areas - they always feed us the most delicious food, and I get to practice Spanish a little bit. It's amazing how you still feel the spirit so strongly and have an idea of what their talking about, even though you don't understand everything. We taught an older lady the Restoration, and Sister J (the sister I was with) told her she liked her skirt. Well, the lady brought over her skirt and gave it to her! It was so sweet! We also had a really cool experience - we were looking for a member who they had never met before. There was a lady in the backyard doing laundry, so we called out to her, and she came to the front yard to talk with us. At first it was realllyyyyy awkward, but she was willing to talk, and we asked if we could share a video with her, and she said yes. We shared Because of Him with her (Because He Lives hadn't come out on our ipads yet) and I thought she wasn't really paying attention - she was kind of looking around, not really looking at the screen, or when she was looking she just looked expressionless. But after the video Hermana J asked her a question, and the lady just started crying. She opened up and shared in Spanish her feelings, and how she hadn't been to church in so long. We could tell she was having a really difficult time in her life. So Hermana J testified of God's love to her in Spanish, and I was just praying in my heart that she would feel His love, and it was soooo powerful. She told the spanish sisters to come back again, and they are going to start teaching her! That was such a powerful experience for me. You never know what someone is thinking or feeling when you teach or testify. Even if they don't show it, they could be having a spiritual experience inside that you just don't know about. It reminds me of when Abinadi preached to the judges, and the one man who believed was Alma. Abinadi probably didn't know he was the only one believing, but because he testified and taught boldly, the one person who was prepared believed and felt the truthfulness of his words, the one whose heart wasn't hardened. It was really cool to see that in real life!
We've done a TON of biking this week, which has been really fun, and also really hot! It's already in the 90s... and we're getting pretty nice tans. :) We had some pretty funny experiences this week - for some reason, in Phoenix there is just a theme of sister missionaries getting hit on. We get marriage proposals/invitations to date pretty regularly, all of us sisters. This week we were standing on the side of the road, looking up our next address, and this car pulls over and the guy yells "Hey! Do you two have boyfriends?!" We both felt really awkward so we just turned around and ignored him haha, and then he yelled for a few more minutes (Come with me! and finally, Happy Friday!) and then he drove away. It was pretty crazy though! Also on Spanish exchanges, we were knocking on a door, and these gentlemen across the street started ay yay yaying at us (that Spanish ayyy yayy yayyy, if you know what I'm talking about.) and then they started serenading Spanish love songs to us! It was sooo hilarious! We just ignored them and biked away quickly hahaha. It was pretty funny though!
My birthday was SO awesome. We had an all sister missionary meeting in Tempe, where all the sister missionaries came. They gave us four conference talks to read before hand about women, and it was sooo powerful. Some sisters were asked to lead discussions on the talks, others were invited to share their testimony. It was cool, the night before we were biking home around 8:55 pm, and this sentence just came into my head "Soy un hija de Dios" which means I am a daughter of God. Those words came into my mind, and I felt this profound love from Heavenly Father, for me and for my companion and His daughters that we had talked with and taught that day. It was such a simple yet profound spiritual experience. About 10 minutes later, Sister T (our mission president's wife) called and asked me to share my testimony the next day! It was a really neat experience! So that was a fantastic meeting on my birthday. We had a brunch too, and I got to sit next to President and Sister T and talk with them. I love them so, so much. They are some of my greatest examples. We had that meeting all day, which was super powerful, and then at the end we ate dinner together, then went and watched the Womens Broadcast all together!! It was soooo awesome!!! President T also gave us each permission to text our moms 10 minutes before the broadcast, to just tell them we love them. I couldn't remember Mommy's phone number so I looked it up in my lds tools and texted the number in there, but I think it may have been a house phone haha.... oh well. It was cool though, he talked with us about forming traditions that will keep our families strong and participating in the gospel, like attending womens broadcast together as mothers and sisters, and how maybe from now on in our lives if we're not with our mom we'll send her a text before the broadcast, letting her know we're thinking of her... because at home, probably most of our moms are sitting there, wondering where we are at that moment and what we're doing. It was just such an awesome day.
Afterwards our roommates, the sisters we live with, got permission to get us ice cream on the way home for my birthday. It was sweet :)
Well, it was such an awesome week!!! I LOVE being a missionary!!! I love my companion, so, so much! I feel like Heavenly Father blessed me with her to really help me prepare for my future marriage and family. Because I have learned so much from her! I'm learning how to be happy, how to laugh often, how to keep the Spirit and happiness in our companionship, and she's just shared so many things with me that have strengthened my testimony and faith in the future. It's probably the best transfer ever :) And L's getting baptized, and A is just golden.... things are going amazing!!!
One more funny story - we were biking, we stopped at a traffic light (sweating profusely because it's hot, of course.) And this random man jumps out of his car, and starts taking pictures of us! He took two or three, then yelled at us that he didn't know that the girls rode bikes too, and then jumped in his car and drove away! It was so random!
One more awesome thing happened - I was sitting in ward counsel on Sunday, and someone opened the door and gave me a note that said "Sister Morris, your mission mom is here!" I didn't know what it meant, so I just sat there, but then later the zone leaders knocked and asked if I could come out - I came out, and Sister R was there!!!! We gave each other the hugest hugs, and we were just laughing and were sooo happy to see each other!!! It was such an awesome reunion! She was my trainer, the best one I could have ever asked for. I love her so much, she's home now and came back to visit. I'm so grateful I got to see her. It was an awesome day. :)
Well, I think that's all for this week. I love you guys! Thanks again for all the love and support and for writing me each week :) I love getting your emails!! If you could send L's pics to me next week, that would be awesome!!!
I just want to let you know that I love being a missionary. It's definitely the best choice I've ever made in my life. I know with all my heart that this church is true, that the Book of Mormon is true, that God lives and that He loves us and is aware of us. I know His hand guides us in this work each and every day! And I know some of the greatest happiness in life we can ever have the privilege to feel comes when we bring souls unto Him - whether it be on this side of the veil or the other side! This gospel is true and it's the greatest! :)
I love you!!
love,
Sister Whitney Morris
Sorry I didn't take many pics this week - just this random sign we saw, drilled into a palm tree with a screwdriver hahaha, looking for a lost person. :P Oh, Maryvale! It's an adventurous place, that's for sure!
Sorry I didn't take many pics this week - just this random sign we saw, drilled into a palm tree with a screwdriver hahaha, looking for a lost person. :P Oh, Maryvale! It's an adventurous place, that's for sure!
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