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!
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.
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
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!
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)