Sylvia+Tornado

 

Last week we went and did some shopping at a local thrift store. I found this dress for 7$ and figured it was a steal.... we went to check out and it rang up for 3 DOLLARS! Cheap grandma dresses as a missionary are a #blessing 

Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful week!

We had a busy and productive week here in Arlington! The days are starting to go by faster now that I'm getting adjusted to the new area. We taught some really amazing lessons this week and met some crazy kooks.

 

SYLVIAS BAPTISM! 

First off.... Sylvia got baptized this week! WAHOOO!! We were so so so excited for her. She wanted it to be small and simple so it was just us, the 4 elders from the other ward, her daughter, one or two friends, and some members of the bishopric. It was a short service but the spirit was so strong! Seeing her get baptized just reminded me of why I'm out here. On Sunday she got confirmed a member and once she stood up she had the biggest smile on her face and it was the cutest thing ever

JOHN! He's one of our favorite recent converts. We found out Friday was his bday so we went over a surprised him. He sits on his bench inside and we sit on lawn chairs outside because we can't go in without another female with us. It's a struggle and his neighbors judge us but it's fine haha 

Last night we had a big storm come in. It was really windy and rainy and there was flood warning and tornado warnings. Yikes! We had members telling us to go home and stay inside but we were like uhhh we are missionaries we have to work!!! Hahaha don't worry though we stayed safe hahaha

This week I had the opportunity to give a talk in sacrament meeting! I got to talk about the Restoration of the gospel. (one of my fav topics as a missionary lol) I teach people about the restoration like everyday but it was nice to take some extra study time to really focus on it and the impact it has had on my life. I'm so thankful for my family, this gospel, and all the wonderful people I get to meet throughout my mission. 

I love y'all! Have a blessed week <33

xoxo

Sister Morrow

 

Weekly comp selfie 

-Weekly Moss Moment-

Sunday night we were at dinner with this awesome family in our ward. They have this adorable 4yr old named Tommy. He was very energetic and kept trying to get us to go and play with him and he was jumping all over us. While we were praying before dinner he slid over to me under the table and whispered "I love you" hahaha it really startled me and I almost lost it during the prayer. Slightly creepy but totally hilarious. Sorry this was the mossiest it got and this email is lame haha 

Sylvia and Elder Willets. Isn't she just so cute and tiny? I die every time

New Sista in the House

I was doing Natasha's hair so Loraine started doing mine and this is what I ended up with. I think it looks pretty good!     

Hello Everyone! 

This was a crazy stressful week! Wednesday we packed up all of our stuff and headed out of St. Augustine. I was able to say goodbye to all of my favorite ward members and investigators and it was hard. I miss St. Augustine and the wonderful people but I'm thankful for the opportunity I have to go to new places and meet new people :) 

My new area is Arlington and it's on the East side of Jacksonville. My new companions name is Sister Bedwell. She's from Utah and is a hoot. We joke around and play pranks on each other a lot so I know it's going to be a fun transfer haha we are the only sisters in our district too so it's a good thing we like each other! 

Sista M and Sista B

The work is awesome here in Arlington! We have a huge teaching pool and there are just some really amazing people that are progressing! We are teaching this lady named Sylvia and she's my favorite. She's 82, 4'6", and a fireball. Her daughter is a member and that's how she found the church. She's been taught a ton by other missionaries but she wasn't really receptive until recently. We've been over twice to teach her and both times she just yells back and forth with her daughter while we try to teach hahaha she's getting baptized this Saturday though which is SO EXCITING!!! :) 

Our last night in SA my favorite person ever, Sister Sonney, surprised me by making my moms cream corn. It sounds weird but it's bomb. Trust me. I ate like half the pot I was so excited

We also are teaching this amazing family named the Vihughos. The kids (Soki, Tresor, Jamima, Loraine, and Natasha) all come to church and the other 3 have already been baptized!! We are working with their parents trying to teach them and help them come to church. We spend a ton of time over there with them and I seriously love them so much! Jamima is deaf so I get to practice my sign with her and she even gave me a sign name, which is super awesome. I do the letter M and put it up to my cheek. I asked her why that was my new name and she told me it was because I have chubby cheeks. Lol thanks Jamima! They are the sweetest family ever and I hope George and Elly can get baptized soon 

The Lusk fam. I miss them and juicing with them already </3

Last night we went to try to find this less active member. We knocked on her door and she let us right in. As soon as we sat down she opened up and told us all about her recent struggles. She's been having a hard time with some different illnesses. She told us she wanted to start paying her tithing again because she knows she will receive blessings if she does. The spirit was really strong and we were able to testify that Heavenly Father loves her and wants to bless her. Right after she was talking about her son and how he's a dancer. She then asked us if we wanted to learn a new hip dance move called the dab (lol) she stood up and showed us how to do it them forced us to get up and dance with her haha it was strange but funny looking back now

At church on Sunday we were standing outside the chapel greeting people and everyone was so nice and friendly! One of the lady's in the ward came up to me and yelled, "NEW SISTA IN THE HOUUUUSEEEE." hahahaha It wasn't very reverent but that's the South for you. I think I'm going to like Arlington. 

I love being a missionary! 

I love y'all! Have a blessed week <33

xoxo

Sister Morrow

PS my new address is 

8291 Dames Point Crossing BLVD apt 1105

Jacksonville Florida 32277

(Send me mail:))

-Weekly Moss Moment-

Friday night when we got home I was standing at my dresser looking for something. All of a sudden I see a flash of movement but I was like oh it was probably just a shadow or something. But then I saw it again so I looked closer and there was a HUGE spider behind one of my bathroom bags. I screamed and sister Bedwell came to check it out. She protected herself by putting some socks on her hands then went to work trying to catch the spider. After throwing all my stuff off the dresser we still couldn't find it. We took out all my drawers, moved the dresser, moved her dresser, moved the bed, and moved the bedside table and it was still no where to be found. At this point it was like 10:45 and our room was a disaster. And still no spider. It's still probably here somewhere and I've lost quit a bit of sleep thinking about where it could be haha I don't mess with the spiders in the south 

One of our comp GOALS was to eat healthy. But then we had a really hard day so we went and got pizza. Missionary life haha the elders also caught us taking this picture which was nice and awk  

So Long, Farewell

I have a love hate relationship with these rainy days we've been having. I guess it's better than being boiling hot like usual 

Hello Everyone! This week it got COLD! It rained almost everyday and was just dreary and overcast...it even dropped to the 30's which I know is like nothing compared to home but still. I was freezing!! This week we have some big changes happening in the FJM! 

We had our transfer call and Sister Tryon and I are BOTH getting transferred. Even more crazy is they aren't replacing us with sisters. They are making it an Elders area. So there will be 4 Elders serving in our ward. It's pretty weird ha-ha but we lost a lot of sisters this last transfer and only 3 came in so they had to close a lot of sisters areas :( hopefully they open SA back up to sisters soon. We had a crazy night leading up to the call but more on that later ha-ha

We went to this really cute street on pday!!! (Not really. Sister Tryon just got a new calendar hehe) 

So on Wednesday I'll be headed to Arlington, which is East Jacksonville. I don't know anything about it other than where it is (kind of) so I'm excited for the change. One exciting thing is the sisters in the other ward just had a baptism with a girl they were teaching that lives in Arlington! She's deaf so they have Skype lessons with her and sign. There's no one in that ward that knows it so I'll be able to sign with her and help her during church to understand what's happening. I've been studying my sign language books like crazy ha-ha I have a lot to learn but I'm excited for the extra practice! I'm sad to say goodbye to St. Augustine! I seriously love the ward members and investigators and I'm going to miss them a lot. We had several members tell us they were so sad to see us go that they were going to write some complaint letters to the mission office hahahaha it was sweet :,) 

A member gave us Chili's gift cards and we cried we were so excited. 

We had some serious miracles this week! As a mission our goal for 2017 is to find people one by one. Focusing on the individual rather than a numeric goal for baptism. It's really awesome and after we started working on this we found 3 new investigators in one day!! It was crazy and awesome! Our mission president also introduced a new schedule for us to follow everyday, which is AWESOME. We do our planning in the morning now, which means we can go to sleep as early as 9:30pm(bless) and pday starts at 8am instead of 10am. We also have adjusted study and proselyting schedules, which I've loved so far. It just has made life so much easier and it's been awesome. President Lee is so inspired. 

Saturday a boy in a part-member family got baptized! It was awesome and our investigator John came to the baptism!! He's southern Baptist so the whole baptism he kept saying amen really loud and like mhmming everything. It was so awesome hahaha! At one point of the baptism they opened it up for people to share their testimonies. He leaned over and asked me if he could get up and say something and not knowing what to expect I said sure! He got up and talked for a few minutes about how he found God and how he was so glad he got to be at the baptism and see someone taking that step so early in their life. I was terrified the whole time he was going to go on this long rant but it ended up being a really sweet testimony and it was really neat. 

We were visiting a less active in the Elders area and came out to this note on our car. They tried to deny it but I said we knew it was them because they spelled watching wrong hahaha 

We've been doing lots of packing, cleaning, and taking down decorations to prepare our apartment for the new Elders. I've been a little down about leaving and resistant to change. Despite all the moping and groaning I realize how much I'm going to learn and grow in my new area. I'm thankful for the opportunity that I have to place my life in Gods hands for these 18months. I don't always have it all together or know exactly what's going on but that's okay. I just have to trust that someone knows better than I do and try my best to be the missionary Heavenly Father needs me to be. It made me think of this quote, and I'm sorry if I've already sent it home but it's just awesome 

"The purpose of faith is not to change God’s will but to empower us to act on God’s will. Faith is trust--trust that God sees what we cannot and that He knows what we do not." -Dieter F Uchtdorf

I love y'all! I hope you have a blessed week!! 

xoxo

Sister Morrow 

It's a tradition to go get ice cream as sisters on the night of the transfer call. It was freezing outside and we were way too cold for ice cream but you can't break tradition!!

-Weekly Moss Moment 

In our mission for transfers we have a conference call with all the missionaries and President goes through each area and says who's serving there. The call always starts at 9pm. We got home a few minute early so we could change and be on the call right when it started. It was 9:07 and we hadn't heard anything yet...so we texted the other sisters asking what was up and they said their call was working fine and President had already started talking. We were freaking out. Listening to the transfer call is like equivalent to finding out who won the bachelorette in missionary world. So we did a million things to try and fix our phone and it still wasn't working. By this point it's like 9:08 lol so we decide the most logical thing would be to drive across town to the other sisters apartment to catch the rest of the call. We ran out of the apartment in our PJ's and fuzzy socks and drove as fast as our TIWI would allow to the sisters apartment. We got there just in time for President to get to our zone and announce we would both be leaving. It was a stressful experience lol I wish we could get a less mossy phone. Dang humidity messes with everything 

2K17

Wedding crashers!! With Sister P, Terralyn, Nauvoo, and Abinadi!! They're the cutest kids ever 

Hello Everyone! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

This was an awesome and crazy week per usual. We didn't have the car at all this week(RIP) so we biked all day everyday. Like 10-15miles a day. Which isn't too bad but still. The weather was cooler than normal so it was perfect for biking! And we burned off all the fudge the members gave us so it wasn't too bad. Plus we've been sleeping really good at night 

What if Santa got baptized? He would get the ho-ho-Holy Ghost (hehe get it?) 

On Tuesday we had just finished with our district Meeting when one of our ward members called and told us she had just had surgery and wanted us to come visit her. We took the shores sisters with us and headed over to the Hospital to see her. She has a deaf son that was there with two of his deaf friends and we were able to have a really powerful lesson with them in ASL. We shared some scriptures of comfort and the spirit was so strong. It was such a cool experience and I always love getting to practice signing! 

Wednesday we had some awesome miracles! We went and contacted this man named David that we met in the parking lot of his apartment complex on Christmas Eve. We went for the lesson and he was very accepting! He has an adorable daughter and he said he really wants to find a church so he can raise his daughter with that and so she can get baptized! He accepted a BoM and we set up a time to come back this upcoming week! It was awesome! After his lesson we went to try and contact a referral from the Elders that lives in the same complex. We knocked on the door but the person wasn't home and his cousin answered the door. She was super sweet and I asked if she would be interested in learning more. She let us right in and started talking to us. Her name is Ramona and she just moved here a few months ago to start college. She said she has been praying to find good Christian friends since she moved here so she was SO excited to talk with us. We started talking to her a bit about what we believe and she told us that the past few weeks she's been having dreams about getting baptized. She said she really feels it's what God wants her to do and she is willing to do anything to follow His will for her. We were like jumping up and down in our seats we were so excited lol she is GOLDEN! We set up a time to come see her again and we are so excited about her! It was a total miracle 

 

 Nauvoo wrote me a note :,) Morrow is awesome lol

On Friday we did some service helping a member in the other ward decorate the church for a wedding reception! We did a lot of ironing, chopping onions, blowing up balloons, and arranging center pieces! It was fun even if it was stressful at times haha! We got to stay for the beginning of the reception and eat dinner and talk with some members! It was really fun! The best part was playing with these two adorable deaf kids from the other ward, Nauvoo and Abinadi. We sat at the kids table and drew pictures with them and practiced signing it was awesome 

 Missionary life in a picture. We went and got lunch as a district but the elders were out of money for the month so they whipped out a loaf of bread and some pb&j. We eat at this restaurant like every week so the owner knows all the missionaries. He thought it was funny and brought them out water and plates to put their sandwiches on hahaha 

NEW YEARS EVE! We started the day off knocking some doors. We were walking and we saw a sign for live blue crabs. I wanted to check them out so we walked up to the stand and the guy was like oh no I'm deaf....and I was like hey I'm learning ASL! So I told him my name and asked for crabs. He said they were out so I said thanks and we left. SERIOUS MOSS MOMENT! I was so focused on the dang crabs I didn't even ask him for his name or address or anything so we could try to teach him. We were walking back and I was like beating myself up the whole time for not talking with him more. We walked up to a house a few blocks down and I saw that they had a deaf doorbell and I got really excited! This sweet old lady came out and told us she was deaf and we had a convo a little like this...."oh no sorry I'm deaf"...."oh that's okay I'm learning Sign Language! How are you?"...."I'm fine. How are you?"...."I'm awesome!! What's your name?"...."Doris. Are you Jehovahs Witnesses?"...."No we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!"...."Ohhhh okay. That's a really long name" hahahaha it was awesome! I told her we had friends that knew more ASL and asked if they could come see her sometime and teach her. She said that would be fine and wrote down her name and address for us. IT WAS SO AWESOME! Totally made up for the dang crab man! Hopefully we get to go see her again because she was so sweet! So many deaf miracles this week! After we finished with the rest of our lessons for the day we headed as a district to a families house from the other ward named the Collins! They fed us all dinner and then we played some missionary approved games. We played mormon charades which was really hard hahaha and a few others. We headed home at 9pm and were asleep by 10:30 it was quite the party! 

HAPPY NEW YEARRRRRR!! 

Yesterday we went over to a members house and had a traditional southern New Years meal. They had collard greens for wealth, black eyed peas for wealth, and pot roast. It was my first time eating collard greens since I've been here and they were actually pretty good haha! We sat and talked and played a quick game before they brought us home! It was really fun! The members take such good care of us here! 

As I've been thinking about the new year and setting goals I thought of one of my all time favorite scriptures 

John 17:3 This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent

It's easy to base our goals or resolutions on material things(that's what I normally do) like working out more or getting more sleep haha but this year I want to focus my goals  on developing my relationship with my Savior. It's not always easy but I know as we come closer to Him and keep the commandments we will be able to face whatever challenges come our way in 2017! 

I love y'all so much! Have a blessed week <3

xoxo

Sister Morrow 

-Weekly Moss Moment

Sunday evening we had the privilege of having a 20min long phone call with one of the mossiest people I have ever met. We were calling some formers when we got to this man named Ralph. Sister Tryon had the phone and the conversation started out somewhat normal, but then he started asking us all these weird questions about lizards and how our church started and she didn't know how to handle him so she passed me the phone. He started asking me the same weird questions and I tried to handle them as calmly as I could. The questions started getting really weird and personal and I kept trying to direct the conversation back to church things. He was getting really creepy and asking me where I lived and what my full name was and so I made up a name(lol). I don't even know how to describe the encounter so here are some of the top quotes  "It's all about money my darling" "I'm a very attractive 38 year old man. I'm a very successful chef. I mean I'm really attractive. I'm quite the catch" "if you saw a dead possum on the road or a dead body which would you try to save? See I would save the possum" "I need you to google some facts for me before you come and see me. Okay first...I need you to look up the lizard." "Y'all really should come visit me. I promise I'm not creepy. I won't tie you up and throw you in the ditch in my back yard." If they have to tell you they aren't creepy...they're creepy. We sent him over to the Elders and figured we'd let them handle it hahaha! Sometimes the moss just makes you really really really weird.