Good people know about both good and evil; bad people do not know about either" CS Lewis

Hi everyone!  I hope y’all have had a great week!   It has been really cold here this week!  And there was even a day where, as a mission, we were not allowed to drive our cars because it was so icy!  So that made it kind of hard to get around anywhere, but we did get to teach a lot of lessons over Skype and face time!  For our coordination meeting, we ended up going to Brother Leinbach's house instead of the church and they fed us (the sisters, not the elders) dinner.  So Sister Shepherd had finished what was on her plate and was going to go get more when Brother Leinbach picked up her plate and took it to the sink.  The look on her face was hilarious!  She looked so devastated! On Tuesday night, we got transfer calls and found out I was getting transferred.  Not super unexpected, but still really sad!  On Wednesday, Sister Shepherd got a call and found out she is going to be training!  Crazy!  She totally just finished being trained!  And then on Thursday, President Craven called me and asked me to be a Sister training leader.  Talk about stressful for both of us!!  We both had some roller coaster emotions going on!  And then transfers were on Friday and I have no idea how my suitcases got so heavy but I think Sister Shepherd stuck some bricks in there when I wasn’t looking!  And she moved all her things to my side of the room-I guess the grass is greener on the other side of the room!  Really though, my closet is the much bigger one!  Also, since it has been so cold, we have been leaving our taps and faucets dripping, but the pipes froze anyway! And the heat stopped working right before the Harwards got there!  So we didn’t have time to do anything to fix them!  Talk about a nice warm welcome to the new Sister!  Anyway, Sister Shepherd's new companion is Sister Rasmussen and mine is Sister Nielsen.  And I am in Concord now! So that is the Charlotte Central Zone.  Also, weird moment, so I have actually stayed in Concord before with the Sister Training leaders a while back and we went on a mini exchange!  So I already know some of the people here!  Also exciting, Molly Sherrill got baptized on Sunday! :)  She is really amazing and it was really fun to get to be here for that!  I am excited to teach her the after baptism lessons!  And it was really exciting because her mom and dad and brother came even though they have been anti the whole time! 

My favorite teaching moment of the week is when we went to see some investigators (husband and wife) but they were not there.  However, their daughter treasure was there and she just got super excited about being taught!  She was trying to remember everything so she could share it with her other sisters and she asked us if she could come to church! :)  We are really excited to meet with her again!

Anyway, I love y’all!

Sister Morris

 

Love the fluffy dog! 
She weighs a lot more than I thought she would though...

we made a mini snowman!

 Finley Harris knows how to build a snowman!

Me with Stephanie and Savannah!  I love them!

Whitney Sweat is one of the cutest primary girls in the ward!  -love her! :)

Sister Shepherd was drawing us pictures since we got transferred
--Elder Kleinman asked for a picture of
Elder Lemon holding a goose :) hehee

Molly Sherrill's baptism was this sunday! :)  She is the best! :)

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny" CS Lewis

So this week has been really crazy!  As was today!  We finally went to physical therapy for Sister Shepherd and we both got haircuts!  Plus it is snowing!!!  What is with that???  I thought North Carolina was supposed to be warm!  Instead we keep getting weather that is 17 degrees or lower!   Crazy!

Transfers are also coming up!  We will get the call on Tuesday night and transfers are on Friday.  Since Sister Shepherd is done training, one of us will probably get transferred :( and since I have been here longer...

Great moments of the week: Stephanie Falls and Natascha Bynum both signed up on our meal calendar for this week!

We got a return appointment with the woman who cut Sister Shepherd's hair: she told us she is interested in being baptized and we told her that is our specialty! :)

One day this week, we were following our plans when both of us just stopped and we were like, we are in the wrong place.  So we thought about it and both of us were like, let's go see Natascha!  So we did and she had just gotten back from the mall and let us in and we were able to teach her about the plan of salvation! :) yay!

Also, there was a relief society activity this week where we were talking about nails, hair care, skin care, etc.  And the lady who was going to do hair care canceled last minute!  So Sister Roma called us and asked if we would fill in and we were like, yes?  You do realize we know nothing about hair, right??  And we don’t have internet access to find anything out!  But she wanted us to do it anyway.  A while later, we were talking to Stephanie and telling her about how we have to teach about hair and how we know nothing and she was like, well I know about hair!  #stephanietotherescue!  She ended up coming to the activity even though it was Savanah's bedtime so she could teach for us!  yay!  I didn’t have to pretend like I know what I am talking about!

Anyway, I hope y’all have a fantastic week!

I love you!

Sister Morris

you want me to do what? #veryconfused!

valentines! :)

Sister Shepherd, Sister Belk, Stephanie-holding Savannah,
Natascha, and Me at Church :D

it is snowing!

I got my hair cut!  And we got a return
appointment with one of the hair stylists! YAY

by courage i repel adversity!

Last Monday, our whole zone went to High Point to play lazar tag.  So I am thinking it is going to be like some nice indoor lazar tag, yeah no!  It was outside lazar tag and it had been raining all morning!  We played a couple of different games and a lot of missionaries got super muddy!  Anyway, we were totally running around in the woods and having a great time!  The only problem is, one of Sister Shepherd's knee braces had slipped without her noticing, so by the time we got home, her knee had gotten huge and she couldn't walk!  So we didn’t even end up going shopping, even though I told her I would push her around in a shopping cart.

That night, we went on exchanges again with the Kernersville sisters (President Craven asked us to do so) so Sister Kennelly came here!  We had a great exchange and taught a ton of lessons!  (Tuesdays are always our busiest day!)  We taught Stephanie Jewell and her 8 year old son kept coming in and trying to get our attention but we had to keep telling him that we were going to come teach him on Friday (teaching them together has NOT been working at all!) and at the end, Hayden comes in and says, "I need to say a prayer!  Dear Heavenly Father, I am really mad the sisters come meet with my mom on Tuesdays instead of me and me on Fridays!  Amen!"  He is a character!

So we have an amazing new investigator named Stephanie Falls!  The Guilford sisters talked to her Sister's dad and set up a return appointment, but he had canceled on them.  later, they called back and Stephanie answered and agreed to have missionaries come teach her.  So we showed up and were able to teach her!  :)  She is the sweetest ever! And she really showed us that the small missionary efforts people do really make an difference!  Her family had been invited by another family, years ago, to go to church with them.  They had only gone that once, but she recognized the pictures of the first vision and of Christ coming to the Americas and remembered the good feelings she had had there!  And she was soo excited to come to church!  When I went to see her on exchanges, we asked her if she knew anyone who might be interested in meeting with us and found out she had given the second copy of the Book of Mormon (the one her Sister's dad had gotten from the guilford sisters) away to a friend in the apt complex!  Her name is Natascha and she came to church on Sunday! :) She also came to our next meeting with Stephanie Falls and told us she had been praying about the Book of Mormon since she'd gotten it and felt God was telling her it is true!  Talk about miracles! :) And Stephanie was great at the lesson all helping us set expectations with Natascha!  We just love her!  And the Belks (cute young couple that just moved into the ward) live in her same apt complex and invited us all over for lunch!  (Natascha wasn’t able to come since her 3 yr old is sick) and then Stephanie invited us all over for dinner on Tuesday! :)  She is so sweet and her 8 month old baby Savannah is the cutest! Anyway, Milford Keller got confirmed in church this Sunday!  :)  It was just an overall exciting day! I love Sundays!

Also this week, our plans changed so much that we ended up getting ourselves abandoned over by the church twice!  yep.  That wouldn’t be a problem if we lived close to the church, but we live 7.3 miles from the church!  Good thing we have great ward members who were willing to rescue us!

Also, we were at the rehab center and there was a cute older lady who looks at Sister Shepherd and I and goes, "wow!  You two are so beautiful!  Wow!"  And then she looks at Sister Shepherd and goes, "is she your daughter?"  hehee.  I don’t think Sister Shepherd looks that much older than me!! :)

Anyway, I hope y’all have a fantastic week filled with miracles!

Love ya!

Sister Morris

we look pretty good for just having placed lazer tag!

Sister Kennelly and i!

oh yes, I always look so great after biking!

we are so good at biking!  Actually, I had to wait at the top
of this hill for forever--lots of time for pictures!

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. Edith Wharton

So on Monday, Sister Shepherd got some epic knee braces that are really helping her have less pain.  Turns out her joints are just super flexible and so her knee-cap just goes wandering when she is walking. The solution is to build up the muscles around the knee- cap so it will be held in place.  We are working on getting to a physical therapist so that she can learn some exercises for it.  But when she first got her knee braces, they were super stiff and so she walked really funny!  Like without bending her knees very much and I just busted up laughing every time I looked at her as we were walking through Wal-Mart last Monday :)

On Tuesday, we had interviews with President Craven as well as district meeting.  Unfortunately, Sister Shepherd woke up and was throwing up.  so I was like, i'll call Sister Craven and tell her we can’t come today.  Sister Shepherd's response was: "I have to go to give the White Hand Book training!"  It was pretty amusing.  So anyway, interviews started late and went too long so we were waiting around for forever for all our district members to finish so we could start district meeting.  And then some of the elders, not in our district, needed a ride, so Elder Maumau and Elder Russell went to take them home.  So we waited and waited and waited.  Yeah, turns out they stopped by Cookout for lunch and didn’t get us any!  By the time we finished district meeting, we had eaten all our snacks and it was after 3!  So we were hungry and needed to head directly to an appointment.  Anyway, the Harwards are my favorite because they drove us all the way to the High Point building and then picked us up again and they had gotten us potpies, oranges, and doughnuts!  #mannafromheaven!  So we didn’t starve!

Also this week, we went on exchanges with the Guilford Sisters and Sister Tenney is there right now!!! :)  I was really happy to see her again! Also, we got a great referral from the Guilford sisters.  It is a really cute young mom and we were able to teach her the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation this week :)  she loves the pictures and she actually recognized the first vision picture and the picture of Christ coming to the Americas!  She said that another family had invited them to their church one time and she had seen the pictures there and she still remembers them!  Who would have thought that just inviting a family to church can make that much of a difference in the future?  Wow!

Also, Milford Keller was baptized this Sunday!  :)  We ended up doing it in a Springhills Suite Marriott hotel since they have a lift into the pool!  It was amazing!  We had five men helping him into the water and baptizing him and it was a super spiritual experience!  He also bore his testimony at his baptism :)  it was a wonderful experience! Can’t wait for him to get confirmed next week!

So Sunday night, we had dinner with the nelsons, and Elijah (3) is hilarious!  It is really hard to hear what he says sometimes so he had said something about monkeys and we were trying to guess what he had said.  So Sister Shepherd says, "monkeys jumping on the bed?"  his reaction was priceless!  He repeated it like it was the dumbest thing he had ever heard and gave her this look that said it all!  :)

Anyway, I hope y’all have a great week!

Love ya!

Sister Morris

Milford was really excited to be baptized
-said he felt a weight lifted off of him! 

cupcakes at the church! :)

Milford's baptism!
We were waiting in the main area for everyone to get there!

Brother Jordan is going to be doing the baptizing!