Meeting the Mormons

Hello Everyone!! We had a great week in Arlington! Transfers are coming up this week so we are just crossing our fingers that we get to stay together! We had a really fun week though and I'm excited to tell y'all about it! :)

We were able to find some amazing new gators this week. One lady named Onja requested a Bible online and so we called her asking if we could deliver it. She said she would be home in 20 minutes so we could come see her then. We hurried over to her apartment and knocked but no one answered. We figured we would stay in her apartment and look for some former investigators and knock around a bit hoping we could catch her a little later in the day. We were across the apartment complex looking for this lady and we ended up being SO LOST. There’s something about Florida where they don’t like putting the numbers in order on apartments. They are all scrambled up and you have to walk around the whole complex just to find one apartment. I don’t get it haha but anyways...we were walking and there was this man sitting outside. We decided to ask him if he knew where the apartment was. He was able to point us in the right direction and then just paused and said "What do you believe?" We were a little caught off guard but he asked us again and so we asked if we could say a prayer with him and talk more about what we believe. We were able to teach him about the Book of Mormon and share a brief explanation of the Restoration with him and the spirit was super strong. He said we could come back and teach him more this upcoming week! Yay! After we tried a few more people we headed back to Onja's. Turns out we were knocking on the wrong apartment (whoops! moss!!) and she had been home the whole time. When we finally found her she let us right in and we shared some of our favorite Bible scriptures and asked if we could share some from the Book of Mormon as well. She was very open and we were able to set a return appointment with her as well. Miracles!! 

This week our ward had their big movie night! They rented out this old theater and were showing Meet the Mormons. The purpose of the event was to bring nonmember friends so that they could learn more about the church in a super casual setting. We had popcorn and candy and all of that and it was super cool. We had a great turn out and we had 4 investigators come!!! ah!!!!! We were so pumped. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the moving. We have one investigator that has been super hesitant about committing and coming to church, but after the movie she told us she was really thinking about coming now. Huge miracle! Our ward is so awesome and Missionary March has been full of miracles

Saturday we had the opportunity to do service as a zone for a 5k run in downtown Jacksonville. It was a run called Color Me Rad and they throw colored chalk at people while they are running(?) its based out of Utah and most of the employees were members so they called the mission home asking if we could help out. It ended up being SO FUN! We just threw chalk at people all morning and it seems like we ended up getting dirtier than any of the runners somehow! We were at the purple station and my hair has a nice subtle purple hue still haha! Definitely not something I thought I would be helping with on my mission but it ended up being super fun! I don't have any pictures sadly but we were filthy 

Yesterday Sister G and I both gave talks in sacrament meeting. We talked about missionary work and why we decided to come out and how it has blessed our lives. It was basically a mini pep talk for the members trying to encourage them to share the gospel with their friends. We ended up having two of our investigators come to church!! Elly and Vicky. We have been trying to get both of them to come since I first got transferred here so we were super pumped. So many miracles this week 

I am so grateful I get to do this 24/7! Missionary work is the best.  Thank you so much for the continued love and support!!

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

xoxo

Sister Morrow 

-Weekly Moss Moment-

So last pday we decided to make a gingerbread house that had been sitting in our apartment for who knows how long. We decorated it and had a great time and it ended up looking pretty cute! We decided to give it to one of our recent converts just because we thought he would think it was funny. We didn't get to take it to him until Sunday night though so it sat in our apartment for a few days. We headed out to his lesson and made sure to be extra careful with the gingerbread house. We made it all the way to his apartment with it safe and sound. Sister G handed it to me as she was getting out of the car and in slow motion I saw the house slowly slide off the cardboard and hit the concrete. We were devastated. We picked up all the pieces and delivered our ruined house. We explained what happened and our RC thought it was the funniest thing ever. He then picked up one of the walls and started EATING IT! We were like "John that was on the ground!!!" and he just looked at us and said "What?! 5 second rule!" Hahaha 

Dear Heavenly Father We are Happy

Sister G <33 

Hello Everyone!! Hope y'all had a great week! It was freezing here (in the 40s and 50s haha) all week so we bundled up and went out and worked hard!

We had a Monday night miracle. We were out contacting some formers and we were able to meet Karen. She had been taught by the sisters about a year ago and had been taught 97% of the lessons. She was interviewed for baptism and everything and then just had some miscommunication and stopped meeting with the missionaries. We were able to visit with her and clear up some of the previous concerns she had. She said she still really wants to get baptized and wants to start coming to church again. She is so sweet and seems really sincere. We are seeing her again tonight so hopefully it all goes well! 

Vicky is doing great. She hasn't been Feeling that great so we've been having FaceTime lessons with her a couple times a week. She just continues to progress and she loves everything we teach her. She really wants to be baptized later on next month! We are just praying that everything works out with her health so she is able to make it to church and be baptized!! 

 

Missionary struggles. Our phone is so ancient and so we just get these little boxes whenever anyone tries to send emojis. For some reason people respond with only emojis all the time and then we have to guess what they're trying to say

This week one of the sisters in our ward got married! We went on Thursday morning to help them set up and decorate the church for the reception! We put flower arrangements in jars, put Christmas lights on palm trees, and put together the goodie bags. It was pretty hectic but it turned out looking really cute! We got to stop by for a few minutes the night of the party, which was fun. We basically just grabbed some food to go and talked to a few members then headed out but it was still nice to see people and see everything all finished! 

1               flarida

Sister G and I have both been feeling under the weather this week which hasn't been fun but that's okay! We still taught some awesome people and met some kooks. One day I was super tired and it was the end of the day. We still had a few people we wanted to try so I said a prayer before getting out of the car. I started and said "Dear Heavenly Father we are happy..." I was a little confused just because that's not normally what I say but I totally could have kept going I just didn't. My brain just like stopped working and I just looked at Sister G and she started laughing. We were pretty happy though so it worked haha but I had to start my prayer over. Dang moss is everywhere. We are going to take it easy today though and take naps and be lazy which I'm very excited about. Sorry if this email is lame. We had a really good week I promise!! 

I love y'all! Have a blessed week!! 

xoxo

Sister Morrow 

 

Out knocking some doors 

-Weekly Moss Moment-

This week we were out doing some tracting and knocking on doors when we had an interesting encounter. When we are knocking doors it's pretty common for people to just yell back at us "who is it??" Instead of coming and checking. Well we were knocking and at one door someone just yelled back "YES!" Not a question but just yes. I went into auto pilot wanting to say "Missionaries!' but his answer threw me and sister G off a bit so we just kind of fumbled over our words not sure what to do. We looked at each other then decided to just knock again. We heard the man sigh and this time he asked who it was. He answered the door in his underwear and said he had no interest in learning more about his family history. Sad. We gave him a card anyways and then ran back to the car haha! MOSS! 

Missionary/Miracle March

 Sisters lunch after Zone Meeting :)) 

Hello everyone! I hope y'all had an awesome week! We found another 4 amazing new investigators to teach and we have already seen SO MANY miracles from the wards special fast for missionary work!! I'm excited to tell y'all about them! 

The first miracle is Tyler. We were doing service for a member on Tuesday when we got a phone call from an unknown number. I answered the phone and it was a man asking when our church services were. I told him and asked how he heard about the church and if he was interested in learning more. He told us he had a friend that he works with that is a member and that she has been telling him a lot about the church and so he was interested in learning more. We offered to teach him but he said he was in Seattle WA for work but would love to do some kind of online lesson if that was something we could do.... good thing we are an iPad mission!! We offered to FaceTime him and we were able to teach him later that day! We taught him the whole first lesson and he was so sincere about wanting to learn more. At the end he just paused and said, "Is this really true? Did all of this really happen??" We were able to share our testimonies of the truthfulness of our message and of the Book of Mormon and the spirit was SO STRONG! One of the most powerful lessons I've ever had.... and we were just sitting in an empty classroom at the church talking to an iPad screen. Technology is so amazing! We were able to FaceTime him again on Saturday night and he had already read a huge chunk from the Book of Mormon and felt like it was true. He seems so prepared to accept the gospel and we are excited to see how he progresses.

 

A member gave us these and I about cried. They don't sell them in the south and I'm not sure how they found them. It was a very special moment 

We also had a miracle with our investigator Vicky. We have been teaching her for about a month but it's hard to see her regularly because of some different health problems she has. She wasn't feeling well this week so we were able to have a FaceTime lesson with her too! It was her first time using FaceTime and she was so funny the whole time. She would pause randomly during the lesson and say, "wow this is so cool! I can see y'all so clear!! It's just...the picture is so clear!" Haha she's a dork but I love her! We were able to teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we cleared up a lot of her concerns about baptism and coming to church. We were able to set a baptism date with her for April and we are so excited!! She knows it's true and knows she needs to be baptized and it's just so amazing to see how much her faith has grown in the short amount of time we have been meeting with her! 

Sunday mornings are great...and they are even better when your comp makes you yummy french toast!! 

Sister Goeller is doing amazing and really becoming a powerful missionary. We were knocking doors one day and got a pretty bad rejection. Most people are very nice and friendly even if they aren't interested...but this lady was not nice. We left and she didn't even let in phase her. We just kept going and working hard. Her positive attitude and determination makes the work fun. She really makes my job easy haha! I love being a missionary and I love that I get to talk to people about Jesus Christ all day! I recently started a challenge where I want to read all the scriptures about Jesus Christ in the topical guide.... which is over 2000 scriptures. As a mission we have been challenged to read about 15 a day. It was a challenge extended by Elder Nelson and even though it's only been a week I have seen such a huge difference. My testimony of the Savior has grown so much as I have taken this time to study more about his life, ministry, and atonement. I know that Jesus Christ loves each one of us and he died for each one of us so we can all repent and become perfected through him. God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine son! 

I love y'all and hope you have a blessed week <3

xoxo

Sister M

True love for Idaho spuds 

-Weekly Moss Moment-

So we were doing service for a member and one of the things they asked us to do was take their dog on a walk. We grabbed Lucas and took him out and started walking around the apartment complex. We were walking in the back by the retention pond and I was just looking down not really paying attention when all of a sudden I hear this really loud hiss. I looked over and all I saw was a flash of eggs and I thought "OH NO ITS A SNAKE!" And then my brain calmed down and saw it was really just a goose. I didn't even know they hissed. So I yanked on Lucas and pulled him back away and then out of nowhere this huge goose starts honking and flying at us from across the pond. And he's out for blood. Sister G and I just look at each other and start running away as fast as we could. We barely made it out alive hahahaha! I'm not sure if the moss got me or Lucas but it was a pretty mossy situation. 

We are the Jesus People

 

We were knocking this complex one and we were cutting through this pond area and decided to snap some quick pics since it was pretty. While I was standing there I got attacked by about 7 ducks and 3 geese. It was terrifying and we left in a hurry hahah 

Hello everyone! Happy Missionary March!!!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful week! We worked so hard this week it was crazy but so good! We found another 4 amazing new investigators and each one was a tiny miracle. 

We had our Zone Conference this week, which was super good. We talked a lot about finding, and having the faith to go out everyday knowing that Heavenly Father is going to place people in our path that are ready to accept the gospel. President Lee is so inspired and the meeting was just what we needed to be motivated to go out and work the rest of the week. They gave a lot of unique ideas for finding that don't include knocking doors (which was awesome because that's my least favorite thing ever) one of the best suggestions was to record you and your companion teaching a 3 min version of our first lesson, saying our number at the end, then going to a public place and airdropping it to people! I thought that was pretty unique haha! Missionary work in the digital age. 

 

All the Family History cards!! We were pretty excited as you can see 

One of the other finding suggestions was to use Family History cards! We got home from Zone Meeting and I confessed to Sister G that I had never actually used them before...so we filled a bunch out and headed out determined to give all of them away. We didn't have much success and we were getting a little discouraged but then we met Wakeena!! She let us right in and told us she was really interested in learning more about her ancestors and starting her Family History! We were able to teach her briefly and set up a time to come back. It was so cool! Miracles! 

We also were blessed to go on a tradeoff with our amazing Sister Training Leaders this week! I got to stay in Arlington with Sister McConnell and we had a blast. We did some service and visited some less actives and found 2 new investigators!! Yay! We were leaving a less active members house and there was a family sitting outside and so we went up and started talking to them. They were a young couple with two young kids and we were able to share the full Restoration with them. They were super engaged and had a lot of questions and the spirit was just so strong as we were teaching them it was amazing! 

 

Sister McConnell <33 

The Arlington Ward has dedicated the month of March to missionary work and they kicked it off with a special ward fast for the missionaries. Almost all the testimonies yesterday were about experiences with missionaries or how they found the church and got baptized. It was an amazing meeting and we also had a big ward break the fast after where we all just ate yummy food and visited! A lot of people brought friends and it was a perfect opportunity for introducing people to the church! We have several awesome activities coming up this month where the members can be involved in missionary work and it's just so exciting! I know we are going to see some amazing miracles because of the member’s faith!! 

Yesterday as we were leaving our apartment a man was walking down the stairs and he stopped and said "Hey! So y'all are the Jesus people?!" And we were a little confused like "uh yeah we are the missionaries...." and then we realized he was talking about the picture of Jesus that we have on the outside of our door haha! He told us that every time he walks by and sees it he just gets so excited because he loves Jesus too haha. It was awesome! We are definitely the Jesus people. 

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

Xoxo

Sister Morrow

It's Good to be Green 💚

My new companion Sister Goeller :)) 

Hello everybody! I hope y'all have had a great week! This has been a long, stressful, and miracle filled week here in Arlington! Wednesday morning we headed down to Mandarin and I picked up my new companion! Her name is Sister Goeller and she is from SLC Utah! She's pretty shy and quite but she's the sweetest thing ever and she is such a diligent missionary already! We have been working so hard and we've found 4 new investigators in the 3 days we've been together as a companionship!! It's been exhausting but I love training. She’s awesome and makes my job easy haha! 

Our first miracle happened while we were trying some former and potential investigators. We had a man that had requested a Bible a few months ago but we hadn't been able to contact him yet. We decided to try him and we were able to finally get in contact with him!! We gave him the Bible and asked if we could say a prayer with him before talking more. We briefly explained the Book of Mormon introduction and shared our testimony with him. He was very impressed with how centered it was on Jesus Christ and he said he wanted us to come back so we could teach him more! He grabbed our hands and said a prayer for us before we left haha. It was such a neat experience and we could tell he was really prepared to hear our message. 

Knocking her first street haha! She loves taking pictures and wants to document everything it's so funny! 

We had a lot of our set appointments fall through so we spent the majority of this week knocking doors and contacting people. We were in an apartment complex one night trying to contact some people and just talking to people out and about. We walked past two ladies that were working on their car and we stopped to talk to them. They told us they were having some car troubles and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. I threw Sister Goeller under the bus and told them she knew a lot about cars and might be able to help them fix whatever was wrong. Sister Goeller was a total champ and got right to work on the car despite being in pros clothes. I was so proud. We were able to talk to both ladies and found out their names were April and Tangie. We asked if we would be able to share some of our message with them and they were so thankful for our help that they were willing to listen. We said a prayer with them in the parking lot and shared some of our favorite scriptures from the Book of Mormon. We were able to testify that God loves us so much that he gave us the gospel so we can grow closer to him. The spirit was SO strong during the lesson. April told us she was so happy we stopped and talked to her. She said she had felt down and was having a really bad day and felt like we were an answer to her prayers. She gave us their contact information and we are planning on seeing them this upcoming week. MIRACLES! I love how we aren't limited to sit down lessons in someone's house where every tiny detail planned. We teach at every opportunity even if it's on a doorstep or in a tire store or in a parking lot. 

The flash was too bright and I smudged the sharpie but that's okay

Sunday was Ward Conference and we were blessed to have Elder Klebingat speak to us! He gave a powerful talk on the atonement and Christ being our advocate. After the meeting was over he came straight up to the Elders and us and shook our hands and told us how thankful he was we were serving. I was a little star struck and kind of just smiled and didn't know what to say. He just paused and looked at us again and said, "My mission was the best time of my life. There is no better work than that of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your service." Such a cool experience. I love being a missionary!! I know that Jesus Christ suffered for us and felt every pain, trial, and temptation we would ever feel so we would not have to go through it alone. I love spreading the good news of the gospel with everyone I meet. I'm thankful for y'all and the constant love and support I receive. God is SO good! 

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

Rap snacks anyone?? 

-Weekly Moss Moment- 

Well we were heading home from our trainer trainee meeting and we had been on the freeway for maybe 2 seconds when it started pouring rain. Like hurricane tropical storm status pouring rain. I'm a terrible driver anyways, I have this newborn baby in the seat next to me that has no idea what's going on, Jacksonville drivers are terrifying, and I barely even knew how to get home.... so basically I went into straight panic mode. I took the first exit possible just praying there would be like a McDonalds or something we could stop at for a few minutes just until the rain stopped. The exit ended up just taking me to another section of the freeway and we are headed in the opposite direction of where we need to be. Hopelessly lost we see a sign for ST. AUGUSTINE and I know we are in trouble. I guess subconsciously I just really missed my last area haha! So we finally made it off this wrong free way and found somewhere to pull off and figure out how to get headed back in the right direction. It took forever to get home and it poured rain the rest of the day so my comp got a classic Florida welcome haha! I've gotten lost everyday since then so pray for me hahaha dang moss