Blessings on Blessings on Blessings

Missionaries always ride sidesaddle on playground toys    

Hi everyone!!

This last week was SO amazing!!

We were crazy busy like always but we were able to teach some really cool lessons this week!

We were able to meet with Bongani twice and it was great! And the best part.... we invited him to be baptized and he said yes!!!!!! Ahhhhh!!! Sister F and I did a little happy dance when we got back to the car after the lesson ha-ha! He's just so solid and I love it! Whenever we teach he is so engaged and asks really meaningful questions and you can tell it's not something he's taking lightly! At the end of our last lesson with him on Thursday we asked him to say the prayer at the end and he said "God, thank you for sending my sweet sisters so me" so sweet I wanted to cry...and when he finished he told us that was the first time he had ever prayed in English!! It was the most sincere and amazing prayer I've ever heard and it just makes me feel so happy :) missionary work is AWESOME!

We all went and got lunch after district meeting one day! I love my district :)    

We also had splits this week! So I went with another sister missionary to her area about 30min away for 24hrs. It just helps us get practice working with other people in other areas and gives us a break from our companion (not that I need it sister f and I are like soul sisters) the missionary I was with is named Sister Gibb and she is the best. Her area is VERY different from St. Augustine, and we spent basically the whole time I was there walking and knocking doors in these super nice neighborhoods. We hadn't had much success and we had about 5min left in the area before we needed to take me back to St. Augustine. We decided to knock on one more door and this guy answered and ended up being interested and we taught him the whole first lesson right there on his doorstep! It was crazy and a miracle and I was so glad to end the trade off on a high note!

Me trying to teach Sister Gibb how to be thug with the classy BK sign in the back    

I’m really excited for this upcoming weekend because it's General Conference!!! For those of you who don't know what that is it's a live broadcast that is shown world wide every April and October where the Prophet and other church leaders speak! It happens twice and year and it's always so amazing!! I love getting to listen and I always have my questions answered...if anyone wants to check it out I highly recommend :) to get ready for conference I have been reading a talk from the last session (back in April) everyday during my personal study time. One of my favorite quotes from the Prophets talk last time has been on my mind a lot this week, he said

"May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. As we contemplate the decisions we make in our lives each day-whether to make this choice or that choice- if we choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice" -Thomas S Monson

A member took us to chilies for dinner and they gave us this thing with our silverware and we thought it was perfect for missionaries lol    

I love y'all!! Have a blessed week <333

xoxo

Sister morrow

Raining//Pouring//Snoring

Hello everyone!!!

I hope you've all had a blessed week!

This week was CRAZY here in St. Augustine! I survived my first tropical storm and it was wild. It rained for like 2 days straight! I woke up in the middle of the night and our apartment was shaking and the thunder was sooo loud and I was sure our apartment was going to flood ha-ha. Then we were out tracting the next day and we got caught in the rain and got drenched ha-ha it's all a part of the experience though and I love it. The one thing I didn't love was the frogs...there's frogs everywhere 24/7 but all the rain brought even more out somehow and we came home one night to about 5 frogs on our door. I unsuccessfully tried to smack them off the door with a palm leaf but then luckily one of our neighbors came and got them off for us. It was super gross lol

The frogs!  (not showing the other 7 frogs around our door)

We also had this huge lizard that got into our apartment somehow and has lived with us for like 4 days!! I'm not sure how it hasn't died yet lol but we would be like sitting doing our studies and it would randomly run out from under the couch but we would lose it...and then the next day we would be like making dinner or something and it would run out from under the fridge ha-ha. We can never catch it so we have finally just accepted the lizard as our new roommate ha-ha that's Florida for you.

A member gave us this weird soda…it said non alcoholic on the bottle but it had hopps in it…and it tasted really gross…so who knows.

We were able to teach some really cool lessons this week! And we have one investigator preparing for baptism!! Her name is Hannah and she is so solid. Her baptism is next Sunday so we have been meeting with her a lot just trying to make sure she feels comfortable and is ready!! She has three young kids and is excited for her kids to grow up with the gospel. I know it will bless her family more than she even knows and I am SO excited for her!! More details/updates next week after her baptism :)

Out on the Bayou

We also have been working a ton with Bongani!! We had a devotional yesterday called "Why I Believe" where recent converts share their stories and testimony and there's a lot of musical numbers and it was just awesome.  We took Bongani and he said he loved it!! We set an appointment with him for this upcoming week and he seems to be really progressing! He is so excited to learn more and just accepts everything we teach him and it's so amazing. We love him and really hope he keeps progressing!

Sister Pennock, Sister Brian, and Sister Fotheringham…I Love them!!!

After the devotional we somehow convinced President Lee to let us have the other sisters in our district stay the night at our apartment ha-ha. We told him we were trying to conserve miles (we can only drive so many miles in our car every month) and that we were spending all day together anyways...we didn't think he would say yes but sister Brian can be pretty convincing ha-ha so we partied all night and practiced ASL and then we went and got bagels for breakfast! It was like a real sleepover it was awesome ha-ha. My ASL is really coming along and sister f and I take turns going up and having conversations with anyone we see doing ASL in stores or restaurants (which is like everyday it's crazy how many people know it here) we really hope the ASL branch will get started soon so we are all practicing and just signing with everyone we can!

We went and got Icees one day bc it was 94° with 60% humidity and we were dying...I went to get mine and I wasn't holding my cup bc I was texting someone back and I pulled down the lever thinking it would fill up slow and I wouldn't have to hold it...NOPE red icee comes shooting out, my cup goes flying, and I get red stuff all over my dress lol. We were going home anyways so I was able to change but it was such a moss moment

(Sister Pennock says there're so many crazy people here because the humidity makes moss grow in their brains lol so whenever we do anything weird or crazy or we aren't paying attention we call it a moss moment hahahaha)

 

When your chocolate encourages u to break mission rules

Well I think those are all the highlights of my week! I love being a missionary it's the best!!

I hope y'all had a great week out in the real world! Email or write me a letter or something I would love to hear from y'all :)

The church is true!!!!!!!!!

xoxo

Sister Morrow

 

Glamore shots by Deb

(The humidity is doing crazy stuff to my hair...it's super curly like this like everyday) <333

 

Mooching someone's  wifi so we can sync our schedule...the wifi is stronger when you sit like this I swear...iPad struggles lol

 

 We told him we were already committed to someone (Jesus) but that we would still like to teach him....he never replied HAHA also our phones are ancient and it kills me haha

Born in the South

We went to this hip Popsicle place and I got avocado. Super Yummy!

Hello family and friends!!

I'm sorry for not emailing last week! I left early early Tuesday morning to fly out to Florida and then I got my comp Wednesday and we headed straight to work!! Her name is Sister Fotheringham and she is AMAZING! I know we are going to do amazing things together! In the mission (at least they do this in FJM) they call your trainer your mom/dad and the first area you serve in is where you're ''born'' lol so she's my mom and I was born in St. Augustine!! It's this beautiful city right on the coast and I love it so much already!! And apparently it's the oldest city in the United States (idk if that's true but that's what everyone says here... I don't have Google to fact check) I'll be here for at least the next 12 weeks but my trainer thinks I'll be here for around 6 months! I'm not complaining though, the work is so amazing here in JAX South!

iPad selfies with my companion Sister Fotheringham!! she doesn't like taking pictures but I force her to lol 

One of my favorite things is the missionaries call their investigators "gators" get it...like alligators...because we are in Florida...hahaha I love it

Also one of my favorite quotes from the first night I was here "the more grits you eat the better you get at saying y'all" hahaha I loved that, even though I hate grits. They are gross. This week I had my first true southern meal, which is when everything on your plate is fried. We had fried green tomatoes, fried zucchini, and fried pork. It made me sick but the people here take good care of us, which is super sweet. I pray for salads everyday lol

This was a week of MIRACLES! We had legit miracles everyday!! I don't want this email to be crazy long so I will just share a few of my favorites! My mission president, President Lee, told us that there were miracles happening here and I don't think I really believed him until I got out here and got to work!

To be able to truly understand one of the miracles though I'm going to give a little bit of background information...

So in St. Augustine there is a huge deaf & blind school! It's super cool! Because of this school there's a lot of deaf people in my stake, and the other sisters are ASL missionaries! They are trying really hard to get an ASL branch set up but they are still a little low on numbers. On Wednesday night (my first night in the area) we went to the church to do a scripture class with some of our investigators and then we were planning on playing basketball with them after. The same time as basketball the sisters teach an ASL class for anyone that wants to come learn so they can talk to some of the people in the

stake! Only one of our recent converts came to scripture class so we didn't really want to play basketball. I didn't know why, but I had a really strong impression that we should go to the ASL class! We did and it was amazing! I have the alphabet down, I know the sign for alligator and Mormon missionary lol, and I can say a full prayer all in ASL!! My comp has been learning longer than me so we practice in the car a ton and we are planning on going to ASL class every week! After ASL class we were standing out in the hall and decided to make a "mission bucket list" one of the things on sister Fotheringham's list was to have a gift of tongues moment (basically someone speaking in a different language that you don't speak but you are able to understand them with the help of the spirit. Super cool stuff) and I joked with her that I wanted to have a "gift of signs moment" ...can you guess where this is going?


So we were tracking and had already met 3 amazing people that were each little miracles but I'll just include this one experience we had. We knocked on the door and waited for a while but no one answered so we started walking away. There's a nursing home across the street so we planned to go there and visit some members. We were about 20ft away from the house when we hear someone call out to us. We turn around and see a 14/15-year-old boy. We start walking back and we are asking him questions and he isn't really replying. Once we finally get back to his house we notice he still isn't really replying and we realize...HES DEAF! My companion asked him if he knew ASL and he smiled, took out his hearing aid, and started signing to us. We were able to have a full (simple) conversation with him!! Like 5-10min! We gave him a picture of Christ and told him that we had friends that knew better ASL than us (the other sisters) that would love to come sign with him and teach him more about Jesus! He agreed and gave us his name and we gave him our number and said we would come back. MIRACLE!!!! We had a total gift of signs moment and we were able to understand what he was saying and sign back to him. It was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me and we were so excited to call president Lee and the ASL sisters and tell them all about it. I pray for him all the time just hoping something works out because it was such a cool experience!

Chloe came and saw me at the temple before I headed out to Florida!! I ran across the parking lot when I saw her because I was so excited and I and completely left my companion lol whoops! I'm still getting used to having to be with someone else 24/7

My next miracle happened on Friday. We couldn't do golden hour (1hr of dedicated finding new people to teach. Normally door knocking) and we were super bummed but we decided after three days of our car being sketchy and the battery acting up it was time to take it in. We were doing service and it was getting late so we hurried and dropped the car off and went to wait inside. We debated going home to change into our dresses after finishing the service, but we didn't want the car place to close so we just hurried and went in our service clothes (frowned upon but we really needed to get the car fixed so we would have it for our appointments the next day) While we were waiting the lady sitting next to me complimented my workout shorts, and that led to us having a very nice conversation. She told us that she had just moved here from NJ and that she had left behind her job and her husband because she felt like God needed her in Florida but she didn't know why. She asked who we were/why we had on name tags and we were able to tell her we were missionaries trying to help bring people closer to God. We were then able to relate Lehi and his family’s story to her, explain the Book of Mormon, and share a message about the restoration. She agreed to meet with us again and we were able to give her a copy of the Book of Mormon and get her contact information. If we had taken the car in a different day, or changed into other clothes, or gone to a different tire shop we wouldn't have met her, but God has a plan and is preparing people for us. I love waking up every day and being a missionary. I never know what is going to happen and we see tiny miracles everyday!


One last story! We are teaching this guy named Bongani, he is from South Africa and is here going to school and he is so amazing. The other sisters taught him about two times before I got transferred here, and Sister Fotheringham said they weren't sure how interested he really was. We decided to go to his apartment complex for golden hour and went to see if he was home. He has a hard time reading the Book of Mormon because his English isn't very good, but he has been praying and was so happy to see that we had come back! He said that since he's started praying he feels like his "spiritual eyes were opened" it was so amazing. We invited him and his roommate to scripture class on Wednesday and we are planning on going back and teaching him soon. He seemed so genuinely excited to learn more and I loved it.

Sister Clark! We were trek sisters and friends in high school! She's headed to Russia in a few weeks and it was so good to see her on my last day at the MTC!

Today we are going to downtown St. Augustine to see all the touristy stuff with the other sisters in our district so hopefully I will have some cool pictures to send out next week :)

Oh and I haven't seen any actual alligators yet, but there's a gator farm here so maybe next week!! Other than that Florida is great and I've loved it here so far!!! :))

If any of y'all want to write me letters (I LOVE letters. just saying) you can send them to

Sister Olivia Morrow
1845 Old Moultrie Rd. Apt. 43
St. Augustine FL 32084

Idk if I trust my apartment to get packages to me lol so anything more than a letter just sent it to the mission office:

Sister Olivia Morrow
8663 Baypine Rd. Suite 102
Jacksonville FL 32256

I love you all! Thanks for the constant support and love!

God be thanked for the matchless gift of his divine Son.

Talk to y'all next week!!

xoxo
Sister Morrow

I miss my MTC friends (sister Hardy and sister Stetson)

"P" is for P-DAY and PINK EYE

preachin, praisin, savin souls #bless

Hello family and friends!! 

One more week down at the MTC and it has been a crazy one! This is my last P-day in Utah before they ship me out to Florida!! I'm so excited and counting down the days. (6 more!!) We got our travel plans this week and we leave the MTC at 3:30am on Tuesday. That'll be rough but it's so worth it. It’s crazy to think the next email I send I'll be somewhere in Florida or Georgia!! 

 

After a LONG day we got our flight plans!! we were very excited and only slightly delirious

To start things out, Thursday after P-day I woke up and couldn't open my eyes or see really and I was super confused until I remembered that some elders in my zone had pink eye...and those stinkers gave it to me somehow!! I went to the doctor and got medicine and he told to take it easy. I only had to miss a couple of classes but it was still super frustrating. I just sat in my room and read my scriptures and felt super useless. Luckily I made a full recovery haha! lAbout half of the elders in my district are super sick too so it’s been a hard week for everyone. Sister Stetson also found out she has to stay another week at the MTC and will be with my district until we all leave. She was really sad and I can't even imagine having to be here for so long. I'm glad I get another week with her though. She is one of the life long friends everyone says you meet on your mission! We have so much fun together and I love her so much. She keeps me sane lol.

 

How Sister Stetson and I actually feel about our DL Elder Bingham haha. Just kidding! We love him! (appropriately)

Sunday is the best day of the week. It's the only day we get a break from teaching and just get to go to meetings, listen to devotional, and watch church movies. We watched this one called the Legacy and the two main characters kissed at one point and the 500 hundred missionaries in the room stood up and clapped and cheered so loud. Missionaries (specifically elders) are weirdoes.

My sweet district on our Sunday temple walk. The sisters are angels and the elders are goobers but I love them all!!! (appropriately)

Sundays we also have an hour-long meeting called Sacrament Meeting, where different missionaries prepare and share talks on certain subjects. The only catch is we have all week to prepare, but you don't know if you are speaking until your name is announced during the meeting. I was joking around with my district saying "Oh, I'm teaching the lesson in Relief Society (another meeting kind of like Sunday School) AND I'm giving the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting so they won't call on me to speak" haha nope. Heavenly Father doesn't work that way and I was one of 3 missionaries to speak in my zone. Luckily I still prepared something and was able to go up and share my testimony of relying on the Holy Ghost and why it is so important to have it as missionaries. The MTC is all about humbling us lol. I was also able to sing in the choir Sunday night and it was one of my favorite experiences so far. Being in a room of 1500 missionaries singing about God and serving him is amazing. 

 

A little 2pac motivation while I was doing my personal study. We can't listen to any music in the MTC and its the worst lol. This is the closest I get to having music

Another crazy thing that happened this week is we had a BAT in our residence lol. After a long day we were out sitting on some couches in the lobby, when a sister comes up to us and says "we found a bat in our room and they called animal control but if they can't get it they will have to evacuate the floor" we were like uhhhh...haha! I didn't even realize they had bats in Utah (?) but I am very glad it was not in my room because I would have freaked out.

 

Gigi helping me stay fit while still enjoying the occasional jelly belly hahaha 

It's crazy that it's P-day again. The days all blur together and I can't believe this is my third Wednesday as a missionary. I love being here and feel like I have grown so much already! I am also so amazed by the amount of support I have received since I have been out. The letters and emails really make a huge difference!! I have a few more days at the MTC and would love to hear from you guys!! Dear elder is the best and it’s free so please keep sending them. I'll put my new address in my email next week!! I love you all! I hope you have a great week! 

xoxo

Sister Morrow

THE FOOD HERE STINKS!! seriously. We taught an investigator until 5:30 this day so we were one of the last groups to eat dinner and all the food was gone by the time we got there. The vending machines in our residence have been a life saver.

They don't have any caffeine at the MTC so my brother Adam tried to sneak some in to me. It didn't work. It started to leak in the box and he had to dump it out. But it's the thought that counts! And I got to smell the Dr Pepper. lol