I wish I had a porta potty!

Hello people that I love dearly!! :)

How is everyone's summer going? Very well I hope!! :) This week was a fantastic week!I actually can't believe it is already p day!! The week flew by! :) 

We were able to teach Brenden on Tuesday and that was really super cool for a few reasons :) Before we went to teach him, Sister Gibson and I were role playing mostly so I could get more practice teaching (since we don't have many opportunities to teach) and we thought of questions Brenden might ask. Guess what? One of the first quuestions he asked was one that we thought through in comp study! Coincidece? I think not! :) He asked so many questions!! They were really awesome questions too! The gospel is starting to make sense to him. :) OTher really cool thing is that someone "misplaced" his Book of Mormon, but not wanting to not following through with his commitments, he looked it up online! Guess what? He didn't go to any lame anti sites, he went right to lds.org and then he downloaded the gospel library app!! Who is this kid?? :) Ahhh it was so cool!! Aftter the lesson was over he said that he wanted to keep meeting with us!:) Sister Gibson and I were SO happy!! :) He is the first progressing investigator of my mission!! Man, miracles happen when you really try hard to do what God asks of you. :)

That wasn't the only miracle of the day...after we taught Brenden we ran into a man and his son. I was half expecting him to just tell us to go away, but we had a good 20 minute conversation! He and his wife, who came out near the end, wanted us to come back to teach them more!! MIRACLES HAPPEN!! (Please tell me you are all singing that song now, because I certainly am;)) anyways, we are teaching them tonight!! AHH so stinking exciting!! :) 

We have been riding our bikes a lot this week which has been really...fun. haha we end up holding on with one hand most of the time because the other hand is used to keep our skirts from blowing up and making us immodest lol! We explored the outskirts of our area on Wednesday which was way fun!! :) It is how I imagined Ohio to look :) Lots of open space and lots of farm land :) Want to know something that was cool? Every single person that we talked to aactually let us say more than five words!! Haha it was awesome!! :) We had some really cool conversations with people, and were able to obear testimony a lot. The Spirit was awesome that day...well it is everyday, but it is a different kind of awesome when you're able to bear a longer testimony of the restoration to them. :) We got a few potentials in that area, so we will be going back soon. :) 

Haha one funny thing about missionary work is the awesome excuses you get to use to talk to people...like needed to use their bathroom! Lol I have to pee about every hour, which is really inconvenient, but has provided many opportunitiess now for Sister Gibson to talk to people as I use their restroom. Haha it is so funny! I sometimes wish I had a porta potty that just followed us around. ;) 

The work is really pressing forward in Dublin. :) Sister Gibson and I are so excited to see more miracles unfold. :) Thank you all for the emails, the prayers and the support ! I love you all lots and lots! Keep on beig the awesome people that you are, and you will bless so many lives!! :)

Love,

Sister Morris

Link to a video message from Miki. Copy and paste to your browser to watch.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1k3wx2o4rbzek4/20170716_211644.mp4?dl=0

A week of miracles!!

Wow...this week was a roller coaster of tears and miracles!! :)

Where to begin?? I guess I'll start off talking about our new Mission President, President Stratford. He is from Ogden, and is super friendly!! When I got set apart one of the blessings I was promised was that my mission President and I would have a good relationship...already I can see that to be true. :) his wife, Sister Stratford, is also incredibly sweet!! Haha they both cry really easily, so we will definitely have that in common. ;) they bore amazing testimonies when we met them, and they said how very excited they were to be here with us in the Great OCM. Well, President Stratford has already had inspiration that has been a HUGE blessing. He was extremely impressed with how obedient all the missionaries are, and felt very jjmpressed that the adversary was working his butt off on us to get us discouraged, tempt us to be disobedient, etc. He felt very strongly that in order to help give us strength, our apartments needed to be rededicated. Wow...words cannot explain the difference that made. The priesthood is sooo amazing!! After that happened, Sister Gibson and I realized how much Satan had been affecting us even in our apartment! The Spirit has been so much stronger in here since it was re dedicated, and we have not been getting as discouraged when facing so much rejection everyday. :) so that was the first miracle that happened this week! Thank goodness for inspired mission presidents! :) 

On the fourth we helped with the parade! :) haha I thought we were going to be handing out balloons to little kids...nope. We were holding those ginormous balloons!! Haha it was SO hard!!! 😂 not at all what we were expecting, but it was still very fun. :) every time members saw us they would freak out. That's probably what it feels like to be a missionary in Utah haha ;) after the parade we came back to our apartment and fought a very intense battle...with the bed bugs. Don't worry, we won!! :) it was pretty nasty, but thankfully they hadn't multiplied too much so it wasn't impossible to exterminate them. :) that was another tender mercy! :)

The work here is going pretty slowly, but we are trying everything we can to find those who are prepared!! :) Sister Gibson has been here for 3 transfers already, and has found a few prepared souls! Unfortunately their spouses are very much not prepared. :( it's a lot of heartbreak that you experience in Dublin, because you find someone who seems like they're genuinely interested in learning more, and then they drop you. :( good news though! We have an investigator named Brenden, and are planning on teaching him tkmorrow!! He had to reschedule the lesson from last week, so we are really hoping he doesn't again! I'm excited to see at least a little conversion in him. :) he told us when we met him, "yeah, I'm actually interested in investigating your church." Ahhh!!! Please don't lose that desore!! Our investigators in Plain City are doing well! We had a lesson with them on Saturday! It was the first planned lesson that I helped teach! :)) we taught them the restoration, and they liked it a lot. :) they said that they felt really good as we were teaching, and Charlie, the 7 year old girl said that she wants to come to church to meet other girls her age! :) Carol and Josh are still a little hesitant in going to church, but we have faith that their desire will grow as they learn more by the Spirit.:) 

During our companionship study yesterday, Sister Gibson and I were talking about how we feel like Dublin is sooo close to experiencing a miracle of baptism, but we felt like something more needed to happen. Sister Gibson immediately remembered a talk that someone had sent to her about a missionary who did a 40 day fast, and was given a lot of added strength. We read it and felt very strongly that we needed to do a 40 day fast. Don't worry, it's not from food, ;) we made a list of different things that take our mind off of missionary work throughout the week, and have made commitments to fast from those things. :) it was crazy because as soon as we started the fast we felt a stronger spirit, but we also felt Satan trying even harder to get us down. We went out tracting and for no reason at all I was sad and Sister Gibson was frustrated. After about 20 minutes of almost complete silence between the two of us and everyone telling us they didn't want to talk, we said a prayer. I realized that the reason we were randomly feeling that way was because of the devil. After the prayer was said, we were given a new sense of strength. :) also, almost everyone else the rest of the night was super friendly to us! (Another tender mercy:)) haha it was funny, because we ran into a man that we had met last week who was not super kind, and he had an incredibly friendly conversation with us!! :) he said that he was even happy that we talked to him again. :) it was just an awesome moment realizing how God works...He helped us become much happier and we were able to help that man feel a sense of peace and happy (aka the spirit) and he was able to cheer us up as well! It's amazing seeing how God places people in your path every single day for you to help them, and for them to help you. :) 

Sorry this email is so long!! This week was very good...hard, but good. :) thank you all for your prayers!! They help every minute of every day. :) I love you all!! Have an amazing week wherever you are in the world!! 😊 enjoy the summer heat!! 

Love,

Sister Morris

PS

Another tender mercy is that almost every member family feeds us watermelon...it is glorious 😊🍉

Hello hello!! :)

Crazy that it is already July!! I hope that everyone has super fun plans for the fourth!! We get to help hand out balloons during a parade tomorrow, which will be fun because there will be lots of happy people haha! :) 

Guess what?! The Hamms are officially active members of the church again!! :D they are such incredibly people! They're working really hard to get their temple recommends, and can't wait to be sealed to each other. :) haha the other day when we were teaching them a lesson, Brother Hamm started giving Sister Gibson and me the "recipe" of a good man. Hahaha it was SO funny!!! 😂 I wish you all could meet them! Brother Hamm is the super sarcastic kind of hilarious...a little like Uncle Shan, and Sister Hamm is super sweet and laughs hard like aunt Lisa. They make a good couple. :) 

Okay, super cool tender mercy!! I'm not gonna lie, this last week was pretty hard. I was expecting a mission to be hard because of having to talk to strangers all the time, but it's the exact opposite! It's been hard because every stranger I want to talk to cuts us off before we can say anything! It's been hard because I know how much Christ lives them and how amazing the gospel can make their lives, and they just aren't ready yet. :( I guess someday they will be ready, and we have to be okay with the fact that they aren't yet. Anyways, we went to Plain City on Friday, and were getting doors shut in our faces repeatedly all night, and we were both getting really discouraged. We said a prayer that we would be guided to someone who needed to hear about the gospel, and that we would find confidence in the Spirit at each door step. We felt like we needed to turn ariund and start tracting the other street. As we turned the corner and there was the house. It looks exactly like Aunt Carl's house...yappy dog and everything. ;) I just knew that a sweet lady was behind that door waiting to hear of our message! We knocked, and I waited excitedly to meet Aunt Carl's Doppelganger. She wasn't anything like aunt carol!! Haha she was so completely opposite! She opened the door, said that she was Baptist, then slammed it on our faces. Welp...maybe the next door? However, as we kept walking we saw a small family walking towards us. YAY!!! We walked up to them and introduced ourselves. They had a 7 year old granddaughter with them, and she was super excited about church. She kept interrupting us asking questions about what we believe. Her grandma (Carolyn) and uncle(Josh) then explained how life had been really hard for them, and they were realizing as we were talking that they really need to go back to church. THANK YOU!!! We went on to bear testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how much easier those hard times in life are when you have knowledge of God's plan for you and how loved you are. The little girl then asked, "Grammy can we go to their church??!" Again, YAY!!! :) Sister Gibson and I felt very strongly that we needed to introduce them to the Hamms, so we asked if they would come meet us. :) They met up with us and started talking to our new potentials. Eventually I asked them if they wouldn't mind bearing testimony of the gospel and how it's helped them through similar hard times. HOLY COW. That was soo powerful!!! :) Brother and Sister Hamm have such an amazing love for their Savior, and bore beautiful testimonies. Carolyn amd Josh then said how they felt really good listening to all the testimonies that had been shared. They said that they would love to come to church! :D HOORAY!!! It was an amazing tender mercy...i can't wait to tell them more about the gospel this week! :) the Spirit really was just so strong as we were all bearing testimony. :) unfortunately, they changed their minds last minute about coming to church, but that doesn't mean we are giving up on them! No way Jose! We are going to have a lesson with them on Saturday hopefully :) 

Guess what? We have bed bugs!!! Woohoo!!! Lol it's actually kind of hilarious...we are in the nicest area in the mission, and we still have bed bugs! 😂 I think I'm bad luck, because Sister Gibson hasn't had to deal with them at all her entire mission, and the week I came, they came with me...oops! We have to spend part of today and probably tomorrow trying to get rid of them. Literally every item of clothing except what I'm wearing right now has to be washed, we have to wash our bedding, and spray stuff all over our mattresses and bedrooms lol. 

Ohio is a beautiful place. :) I love being a missionary! :) my testimony grows stronger every single day. I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is restored to its fulness...i know that God loves each of us so much more than we could ever comprehend, and I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. He is just waiting for each of us to reach for His hand to help us become as happy as He knows we can be. :) the Book of Mormon is the word of God...if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. :) your life will be forever changed. :) thank you all for your prayers! :) I love you all and hope you all have an incredibly amazing week!! 

Love,

Sister Morris

PS

Fireflies are absolutely magical:)