The Pizza Curse


I LOVE FLORIDA

In the last 14 days Sister Esquerra and I have been fed pizza 10 times. 10. Times. I love pizza but wow yeah it's been rough. We decided that it all started when we ate pizza for her 21st birthday and that we somehow messed with the universe and had some freaky Friday weird bday voodoo and so now we have to eat pizza 21 times to break the curse. At the rate we're going we should hopefully be done soon. Pray for us haha 

Pizza curse 

We had a super busy and great week here in OP! 



Tears were shed in walmart last week. I totally would have bought it if I didn't have to fit all my stuff into 2 suitcases in a few weeks

This week we met this super sweet lady named Sister Spina! She just moved here from Italy and she's amazing. We went by to see her and she opened up about some recent trials she's been having. We just listened, offered support, and tried our best to help. We asked her how her Book of Mormon reading was going and she said she doesn't ever read. We offered to Skype with her a few times every week and read all together which she was excited about. Saturday we were driving to an appointment and I just had the thought to send her a scripture. We texted her one of our favorites and she replied saying she read it and all the cross references and that it was exactly what she needed. She came to church with her daughter and we were so so so happy to see her




My life 24/7 ๐ŸŒฌ๐Ÿ˜‘


We had zone conference this week and it was amazing! It was my last one and I had to give my departing testimony. It was surreal and I still forget sometimes that I only have a few weeks left. Lots of mixed emotions over here. I had to say goodbye to a lot of mission friends that I won't see again before I go home which was sad. I'm so thankful I got to come here and meet so many wonderful people. God is so good. 



Sister Ridenhour <33 

I also got to go on a trade off with one of my favorite humans, Sister Ridenhour. We came out together and served in the same zone in Gainesville and we had so much fun! I went with her to Normandy for the night and it was crazy. We were able to meet a lot of people and just talk with everyone. We were trying to find a LA member and they weren't home. It was pretty dark but we heard some kids playing and people talking outside so we walked down the street to go talk to them. They were outside this trailer and there weren't any street lights so they couldn't see us. We didn't want to look super creepy so we turned our phone flashlight on and yelled out "Excuse me? Hello?" I was like ah man this is awkward...but we ended up meeting the mom and she was so sweet! Her name was Amanda and she said that she had been talking with her husband that day about finding a new church to go to. It was a total miracle!! I've learned that we just have to follow the spirit and talk with everyone we can! We are constantly being led to people that are prepared we just have to be diligent and show our faith(which often times in florida means walking down sketchy dirt road in the dark) 



Sis Harris my MTC comp


Part of me wishes I could stay here forever. I love the people here so much and I love getting to go out everyday and share the gospel. In church yesterday someone said "Jesus has always been good for me." It made me smile and I realized I feel the same way. I'm going to miss the strong faith of the people in the South. They are amazing examples of being open and dedicated to Jesus Christ and I've learned so much from them. I love being a missionary and I know Jesus loves all of y'all!

I love y'all! Have a blessed week!
xoxo
Sister Morrow 


I love Florida so much I never want to leave


-Weekly Moss Moment-

While in Normandy we stopped by to see this random Less Active that they'd never met before. We talked to her on her doorstep and she was pretty cranky and mean. She was complaining to us about how her helper lady had come but hadnt been able to do her dishes. We offered to come in and do them for her and she agreed! We went inside and went to work. She had two sinks full and so we each took a side and started scrubbing. She told us not to use dirty dish water so we left the water on to rinse them. About 2 dishes in she came in and told me I was doing it wrong and to put the plug in the drain so I did and kept working. A few dishes later she came in and said it was wrong again and was like "uggghhh ahhhhh ohhhh wahhhh dirty dish water ahhhh" like super sad and disappointed. I was so confused. We just did what we were told! So I took the plug out and went back to how we were washing them initially. We finished her dishes and headed out asap. She was super kooky man idk.


Cotton Candy Gelati from Jeremiahs ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ˜ฎ
sister Esquerra

Sis goeller at zone conference 


Spiritual Promptings and an Orange Canoe


No bake cookies with my fav sisters ๐Ÿ‘ญ๐Ÿ‘ญ

I found out last night that the Winter Olympics start this week. What the heck!! I'm super bummed! We had a 20 minute conversation with a lady (she rambled, we listened) about how one of the skaters is Mormon and she was so shocked we didn't know anything about it... whoops haha

This week felt super busy. We had lots of lessons and lots of service and yeah. It was a good one. 

 OP District from last transfer

This week we were added to a group chat by the the sisters that had been in Orange Park a few transfers ago. It was with a girl named Ashley and they were introducing the new sisters to her. We set up another group chat with her with just us and we have been talking with her a lot! The one hang up is we didn't have a teaching record for her! So we didn't know anything about her or what she had been taught in the past. We asked our ward mission leader about her at correlation and he didn't remember her or know anything about her. So we went into it blind but ended up having a really good lesson with her! She's dealing with a lot of health problems so we just talked about Heavenly Father and trusting in Him. 

Esquerra turned 12 this week and it was so fun


We taught Robbie and Rosa and also our investigator Alan again this week! All of them are doing well! We are just really trying to help them read from the Book of Mormon and so we were able to bring members with us to their lessons and read together. We send them scripture texts and try to remind them and they seem to be doing really well! 

There's a sweet older lady that we do service for every week named Chris. The church helped clear out a fallen tree after Irma and ever since then the sisters have been coming by helping with her garden and other odd jobs. We stopped by to see her Sunday and had a really really great visit. We were talking with her about family history and genealogy (which she LOVES) and we talked about her tree and experiences she had working online and then she asked us "why do Mormons care so much about genealogy?" We were able to talk about temples with her and explain their purpose. We also testified of eternal families and the Plan of Salvation. We haven't been actively teaching her the whole time I've been here but the spirit was so strong as we talked about our families and how we know we can be with them forever. She told us she's been reading the Book of Mormon on her own without us even knowing. It was a tender mercy and a great way to end our week :) 

The Middleburg sisters dropped off a bday surprise for her and they brought homemade frybread and popcorn. We were SO excited for the frybread

Saturday and Sunday we had Stake Conference and all of the meetings were SO good! One of the speakers talked a lot about Christ and finding peace in Him. One of my favorite things she said was "love is making space in your life for someone." If we really love someone it doesn't matter how busy we are we will make time for them and make them a priority. The next day Elder Godoy from the seventy spoke about a similar thing. He said that love is related with actions more than words or feelings. 


God so love the world he gave His only Begotten Son 
If ye love me keep my commandments 

It's not God so loved the world he had warm fuzzy feelings and that was it. Love requires action. He gave us the most important gift he could have ever given, Jesus Christ. He loved us so much that he was willing to give all he had to help us return to live with Him again. We also have to act to show our love. As we make space for God in our life and keep His commandments we will be happier. I know we can find lasting peace despite the circumstances in life we might face.

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

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

The most new mexican street in OP

-Weekly Moss Moment-
Sunday afternoon we decided to bake some cookies to deliver to people later that night (If you're going to interrupt the super bowl you better do it with cookies) we were missing some key ingredients so the Elders let us borrow them. As soon as they left we realized we didn't have a cookie sheet (this apartment has 0 supplies/household items) so the Elders let us borrow that too. Bless their hearts. They brought us the 3 they had in their apartment and they were nasty. Like honestly so gross. They promised they washed them but they were black and greasy and I was not having it. I was scrubbing them and black gunk was coming off. After about 10 minutes of washing they still looked scary and so we were stumped. I vaguely remembered a Facebook video I watched like 2yrs ago with a bunch of life hacks. One of them was for cleaning pans but I couldn't remember what they used. For some reason I decided they used ketchup and so we whipped out our bottle of ketchup, squirted it all over the pans, and started scrubbing. We were laughing too hard at how ridiculous we felt that we didn't get much scrubbing done. Don't trust Facebook hacks from 2 years ago, esp if you have a mossy brain. We gave up on those pans and just went across the street and borrowed some better ones from the church haha! 

We had a sister lunch/bday celebration for Sister Esquerra and Sister Perry๐Ÿ’–




Be Awesome in Jesus


 #westsidebestside

Welp this week was kind of strange! All the missionaries have been getting sick and this week it hit me. I had the flu and was stuck inside for 2 days. I'm still not feeling 100% but I'm getting there so that's a blessing! This email might be kind of sucky since we weren't able to go out much and there's not a whole ton to report on...but I'll do my best haha! 

Sister Esquerra turns 21 tomorrow so we are for sure going to party hard by sharing the good word. I love her so much!! 


This week we met this awesome guy named Alan! He was a former and we called him a few weeks ago and set up an appointment. When we went to see him he said he had been reading his Book of Mormon ever since we called him last week and he really wants to come to church! He was having a lot of health problems the last time he was meeting with the missionaries but he's doing much better now and we are super excited to keep meeting with him! 

Throwback to LAST YEAR. My daughter/trainee/bb hits her year mark this which which blows my mind and makes me feel super old. I LOVE YOU SISTER GOELLER <33


Our church building in is right on Blanding which is the busiest road in Orange Park. It's location makes it so lots of random people just walk in and join us for services on Sunday (which is AWESOME) and last week like 5 or 6 people just showed up. 2 of those people were Tanya and Simmy. They stayed all three hours last week and they loved it! We were talking with them after and we found out they are both pastors for a different faith. They just moved here from Tampa and are staying across the street from the church. They just googled the closet church and decided to come. They loved it so much they came back again yesterday and stayed the whole time! They asked for more copies of the Book of Mormon because they love it so much and want to give some copies to their friends haha! They are so great but also kind of kooky. We were talking with them after church and when we were leaving Tayna said "Bye sweet babies. Have a good day and be awesome in Jesus!" Hahaha I love her!

Matching with Sister Watchman at mission prep. Her husband came up with this awesome acronym for the prospective missionaries ๐Ÿ˜’ hahah

Last week we set a goal to use the Book of Mormon more in our teaching and so during companionship study every morning we would pick a scripture and try to use it throughout the day. We went to deliver a Bible to this guy named Travis and we asked if we could talk to him for a few minutes about Jesus Christ and give him a copy of the Book of Mormon as well. He hadn't heard anything about the BoM before and was super interested. We asked him about his religious background and his relationship with God and he opened up a ton. He shared some trials he has been experiencing lately and he said that he feels like God is there and Jesus is real but that they don't really know him or care about what happens in his life.  We were able to talk about God's love for us and share our testimony of Christ with him. That morning the scripture we had planned to share was from Alma 7:11-12 which says 

"And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

As we read this scripture and taught Travis about Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us I felt the spirit so strong. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us so much!! They know us personally and are aware of our struggles. God wants us to find lasting joy in this life and He is there to help us. I am so thankful I get to share this message with people all day. Being a missionary is the best thing ever! 

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

-Weekly Moss Moment- 
our district shirts ๐Ÿ’ฅ

Our first week in OP we went and did service at the Clothes Closet. We got stuck in the toy room and the elders were going through bags of clothes and hanging stuff up. We didn't know this but the elders found all these funny shirts that someone had donated that and there was just enough for all of us to have one. At our last district meeting on Tuesday they gave them to us and we were dying. They were all from some kind of camp and each year they had a different phrase on the front. For example there was X-treme faith, Giddy up with God(with a cowboy hat), and my favorite one said Jesus has my heart on the front God has my back on the other side. They are corny and awesome and my favorite shirts ever hahaha definitely some moss involved somewhere idk

The Dog Days

OP District!!

Well transfer call was this Saturday and.....IM STAYING IN OP!! What a relief. From our interviews with President Lee Sister Esquerra and I thought we might be getting split up but we are staying together and she will be my last companion. So crazy this is my last transfer! The next 6 weeks are going to fly by but I'm excited to work as hard as I can until the very end๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜

This week looking back felt really busy but I can't think of anything super exciting to report on...we spent most of our days out trying to find formers and Less Active members. We were able to have another lesson with our investigators Robbie and Rosa! We talked with them a lot about their religious background and what we can do to help them. Robbie mentioned to us how important his family is and we were able to talk with them a little bit about temples and eternal families. They were really interested in that and so we are going to talk about it more when we go back this week!! 

This week I hit 17 months so we got some ice cream to celebrate! 

Wednesday night the sister serving up in Brunswick came and stayed the night with us! Sister Heiner was going to the temple early the next morning and it's a pretty long drive so they just stayed with us! They got here kind of late and we all stayed up way too late talking haha! She had to be at the mission office really early so we didn't get much sleep that night but it was worth it haha! Her companion Sister Rhoads stayed with us for the day and it was a blast. We went and did service with our district at the clothes closet! We were in charge of organizing the toy room and it was a MESS so we filled up like 20 trash bags full of stuff. They only keep really nice toys and there was a lot of weird stuff in there that they just wanted to get rid of. It was kind of overwhelming how much stuff they had shoved in this one tiny room but it was a lot better in the end!

We did service this week wrapping plants in a lady's garden. We had another cold week and she didn't want her plants to die haha! 

We also had a lesson that day with Glenda. Her husband is a member but he had been less active for a really long time. He just recently started coming back to church and asked us to come teach his wife! She is the sweetest lady ever!! She has already read the whole Book of Mormon and she comes to church with Joe every week! We had a really good visit with them and she opened up to us about some of her concerns. Hopefully we can help resolve some of them so she can get baptized! They're an amazing family and sent us on our way with a big box of fudge haha

This week I hit 17 months so we got some ice cream to celebrate! 

This weekend the elders investigator Steve got baptized! His wife is a member and he's been investigating the church for a little over 2 years. Everyone in the ward knows him and we were all just so excited for him and for their family!  We were able to attend the service and the spirit was so strong! He shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon at the end and how it's completely changed his life. He said the spirit slowly chipped away at him for 2 years until he couldn't wait any more and he had to be baptized! We were able to go over to their house after for a bonfire/barbeque and basically the whole ward came too haha! They were burning people's old Christmas Trees which was really crazy haha! We weren't able to stay for very long and so we went to find Steve to tell him bye and congratulate him one more time and when I shook his hand he pulled me in for a big bear hug and you could just see that he was beaming. Such a great day!! 

district milkshake moment before the transfer call

Three years ago this week my family lost my oldest brother Alex. So much has happened in these last few years and it seems like forever ago and just yesterday at the same time. I know that because Jesus Christ suffered for our sins, died, and was resurrected we will be able to be together as a family again someday. I have a new perspective and know that it's possible to feel joy and grief at the same time. Our lives were meant to be a mix of all these different emotions (there must be opposition in all things) because that it how we grow and see things the way God intended us to see them. 

"the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.
He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death." Mosiah 16:7-8

I love y'all! Have a blessed week 
xoxo
Sister Morrow 
 (we love freddys)

-Weekly Moss Moment-

Sunday night we went to the church to sync our tablets and put in a few lesson reports before heading home for the night. When we got to the church we realized the elders has left their bikes in one of the hallways. We always joke about trying to ride their bikes. One of the Elders is super tall (6'9 to be exact) and so the bike seat comes up to above my waist. It was late and no one was at the church so I decided to try and get on and ride it. I hiked my leg over the middle bar and put my feet on the peddles. At this point the seat is still way higher then I can reach so I grabbed the wall to steady myself and jumped up trying to sit on the seat. This didn't go over very well and the bike toppled over. I screamed and jumped and landed on the floor with the bike on top of me. Sister Esquerra and I died laughing. It was so funny! Luckily no one was around because it was super embarrassing and not very modest haha!