God will consecrate our afflictions for our gain!

This week, we had two exchanges, Zone Conference, and an all mission meeting with Elder Kopischke of the 70.  Talk about crazy!  Pretty much if we were not at a meeting, we were on an exchange! The all mission meeting with Elder Kopischke was so fun!  He is hilarious!  Maybe German people are all just really good at teaching! J  He talked a lot about the importance of helping.  Committing people is all well and good but if we don’t HELP them, then they wont do it or will not know how to do it!  Reading with them, praying with them, staying in daily contact with them, going to church with them is important.  All these things are things that we should do with them! We should help them!  It was a really long meeting and he went over by an hour and then after, we went to lunch and as a leadership council had a second meeting with him!  We missed a few of our appointments, but oh well.  What can you do?

At Zone Conference, we talked about the importance of asking inspired questions and had some really great role-plays!  President Craven also gave a talk about being quick to observe and how being quick to observe is not judging but is a skill that will help us throughout our lives.

For exchanges, I went to Matthews with Sister Treadwell!  She is actually a visa waiter and she has her visa to Brazil now!  She will be leaving at the end of the transfer and is excited/scared!  It was really fun to do language study with her though!  Portuguese sounds so neat!

I also had one of the 3 Spanish sisters come here with me for a day. Sister Calvillo is hilarious!  Spanish was actually her first language, but you would never be able to tell!  haha, so while Sister Nielsen was on exchange with the other two sisters, they were helping her learn how to say "our Purpose" in Spanish.  It is pretty great to hear her try to say it and I am even worse because I try to say it with French pronunciation!  yeah, that does not work at all! Just in case you were wondering. J

Also this week, we had a great lesson with a recent convert named Amanda.  I just love her!  She is so excited for everything and wants to go to the temple so badly!  She has a great desire to learn anything and everything about the gospel and I love getting to meet with her!  Sister Lentz is such a trooper!  Due to the fact that we cannot with meet Amanda where she lives, Sister Lentz invited her and her 3 little kids over for dinner and a lesson.  She was very grateful when it was time for them all to leave!

Anyway, I hope y’all have a great week and Remember to focus on the temple!

Sure love ya!

Sister Morris

"If the day ever comes when we quit learning, look out, we will just atrophy and die!" President Hinckley

This week has been pretty crazy!  I got to go to my first High Council meeting this week!  The Zone Leaders and us sister training leaders attend twice a month to report on missionary work.  We were also there to hear the report of a sister who was just coming back from her mission in Brazil!  It was really great to see the leadership of the stake working together!  Guess my mission will be the only time I will be a part of that!  Right after the meeting, we drove to the Harrisburg Sister's apartment for exchanges!  We actually both felt we needed to be in Harrisburg for the next day, so we slept over!  Sister Miller and I slept on the floor in the living room and the crazy thing is, I slept better there than on my mattress at home!  I think I am officially going to be sleeping on the futon!  (is that how you spell it?)  Anyway, the next day, Sister Nielsen and Sister Carter got the car and Sister Miller and I were on bikes (that decision was made because Sister Miller is so small and there is no way Sister Nielsen could ride it!).

Anyway, the day turned out to be wet and rainy all day!  I got absolutely soaked and covered in mud!  I really wish I knew what the weather was going to do!  I would have packed more layers!  But the day before was in the 70s and then it is freezing?  Yep, the weather is bipolar I swear!  Anyway, we had a great lesson with a lady who lived not far from their apartment.  The husband was a former investigator and when we knocked on the door, the wife answered and knew exactly who we were!  They even had their Book of Mormon sitting by the door like she was waiting for us to get there!  We were able to teach her more about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and she was excited to learn more! :)  I love it when you find the elect!

We also had stake conference this weekend and Sister Nielsen got asked to speak on Tuesday for the Saturday session.  She was really freaking out!  But she did great! :)  President & Sister Craven also spoke at the meeting and were just amazing! :)

Also, last Monday, Sister Nielsen got a hair cut and I totally should have gotten a picture before she fixed it!  Because the lady styled her hair to be like a black lady! :)  It was epic!

Anyway, I hope y’all have an epic week!

Love y’all!

Sister Morris

The churches here are so epic!  

Oh, and we like the random bird on the side of a building!
There is a squid on the other side of it, but I didnt get a picture of it...

Sarah and Aneesah :)  Aneesah is trying really hard to frown,
but she's not doing a very good job!

Baptisms are the best!

Sister Collier and I on exchanges -She is from Hawaii!

Only in North Carolina!  And we totally need one of these for our ward!

 
I love this church!  It is so pretty and right on Union street
so we drive past it all the time! 

Love the houses here too!  

I have never seen so many varieties before! 

The houses all have such character!  

"Immerse yourself in the very things that helped build your core of faith". Neil L. Anderson

This week, we got our new i-pads!  On Tuesday, we had a meeting with President and Sister Craven and the rest of the mission leadership council (so zone leaders, sister training leaders and the assistants) and that was where we got our new i-pads and set them up.  Then on Friday, us and the zone leaders got to help all the members of our zone get their new i-pads and set them up.  It was pretty crazy!  Also this week, Molly (recent convert) went out with us to a teaching appointment that canceled.  So we went to our backup and they were not home either.  So we were about to leave when they pulled up!  We were able to talk with them about the Book of Mormon and help them see how the Book of Mormon will really bless them! :)

We went on two exchanges this week.  I went to University City with Sister Knudsen and we had a lot of fun teaching some great investigators there!  And since the two sets of University City Elders live in the same apt complex, we all met up to play soccer for morning exercises!  It was actually raining the whole time but that just made it more amusing because the elders kept slipping. Later in the week, Sister Collier (from Hawaii!) came here with me while Sister Nielsen went to Albemarle.

Also, funny moment of the week: so we were teaching an older black man and were talking about the word pillar (ie Lehi sees a pillar of fire in 1 NE 1) and he just looked soo confused!  After a minute of trying to figure it out, he points to a pillow and says, "so why do they call these pillars?"  :)

On Sunday, we looked at our goals for the week and realized we had not reached our goal of 5 new investigators yet.  So we went out and God really blessed us with 5 new investigators!  I am most excited about Ledo and Dulce.  We went to try a potential (who no longer lives there apparently) and instead found an older woman and her granddaughter.  Dulce does not speak any English so Ledo was translating for us and it was amazing!  The spirit was so strong and both of them had a great desire to read the Book of Mormon and be baptized! :)  So in spite of the whole we-had-to-get-up-an-hour-early thing, we had a fantastic day and were really blessed by God!

I hope y’all have an equally blessed day and week!

I love you!

Sister Morris

"Don't let the noise of other peoples opinions drown out your inner voice." Steve Jobs

So first off, if you saw my i-pad post about being off Facebook for a while, we are getting trained for online proselyting!  So everyone in the mission is off Facebook for a few months!  And everyone in missions who have or will be getting i-pads are going to get the same training so we will all be on the same page! :)  It is pretty exciting!  We have some drafts of the training booklets that are super helpful!  Seriously, it is going to be so much better for missionaries to get training instead of just handing them an i-pad and going, figure it out!  The program is also designed to help us make good use of technology for the rest of our lives and not for just while we are missionaries.  They also talked about developing a new Going home program for missionaries!  Crazy, right?  I love seeing the church develop in new ways like this!  Super exciting!  Also, Molly got confirmed this Sunday!   It is so amazing to get to feel the spirit at events like that!  And Sarah got baptized! :) So it was just a super exciting Sunday!  And I will have to send some pictures next week of that!

Also, when you are in the charlotte zones, we have the opportunity to invite recent converts and investigators to a fireside that President Craven does the first Sunday of every month.  So we took Latoya along (a Recent Convert) and President Craven talked about the priesthood. . . talk about inspired!  Latoya told us afterward that the night before, she had been studying about the priesthood and had written a list of questions that she then prayed about.  And President Craven answered every single one of them!!

Anyway, we also got to go on exchanges with the Reedy Creek sisters this week and they are really great!  I stayed here in concord with Sister Williams and we had a fun time! :)

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

I love you!

Sister Morris