Sun bat? I am pretty sure those are bees...

It's me again! I hope you all had amazing weeks. There is plenty to smile and be joyful about!

We had quite the week. My goodness! I feel bad for poor Sister Wood! We have been positively hammered with unkind words. More than a few people had some choice things to say about who we are and what we do and why what we teach is wrong. It's interesting that each has such a passion about it and yet, they have never know us beyond the few minutes we talked. And I most definitely could feel very bad. I could be wallowing in pity, or worse yet, anger! I could clench my fists and square my shoulders and argue right back! And maybe I would have, months ago. I could easily say that I would've said something regrettable, with no far stretch of mind. 

BUT (you were all waiting for it, I know) ...

What would Jesus do? A classic mantra for all of Christianity, it doesn't exactly to mind when someone is spewing insults and false doctrine. And that, my beloveds, is where the beauty and simplicity of this gospel comes directly into play! 

He would love first. 

The answer to the question, WWJD. (And thank you Lynda, you're the best  for changing my perspective.) In the 8 month long spiritual journey we call a fulltime mission, I have grown to love more than I ever have. And when these people come at me, instead of getting mad or wanting to punch them, I feel genuine sorrow. Because I love them. Because my heart sincerely desires the opportunity to share my love of Christ with them. It hurts more than the words do. They are meaningless words with no truth anyhow. 

And a lovely scripture I found recently helps me to not sink so deep into despair for them: Alma 8: 15 "Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice, for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God..." 

If I am faithful, then I will have joy. And perhaps I will have the opportunity to teach them in the next life. Perhaps they needed someone to simply smile, even while they were not. It's okay! I am so beyond grateful that the Lord not only allows me to let go of my irritation through repentance, but He also gives me charity! What a powerful tool! It truly helps us to look through Heaven's eyes! 

I'm so proud of Sister Wood. I feel like a proud lil mama! She is already awesome at testify and taking over part of the lesson! She is an absolute gem of a gal! She and I are pretty similar and we both have great taste in music so I think we're gonna be just fine:) She is an amazing pianist, loves choir and singing, will eat just about anything, makes me laugh, and has a passion for the work. Man oh man did I hit the jackpot! She also LOVES mac n' cheese haha. 

Aside from that, we had a great week! We actually both ended up getting sick, but we overcame and now we're back, better than ever!! 

I also had the opportunity to sing at someone's memorial for their husband who passed away. I sang Amazing Grace while my lovely companion played the piano. One of those in attendance was bawling her eyes out. It was such a tender moment. I LOVE MUSIC! We met this lady whose whole life has revolved around music. She's an extremely talented lady with instruments of every shape and size. No joke. And she sat at the piano for half an hour sharing music that she had written herself. It was beautiful. And the best is when she made up a song about California and Oregon (she's been to both) and literally composed in front of our eyes. It was so COOL! And it sounded amazing too! I could almost envision the Oregon Coast and the mountains and the valley. I do miss my green Oregon country. 

I hope you all have an amazing week! Thank you for reading my updates! Blessings to you!

Love, Sister  Morrison 

Onward and Upward!

Que Dieu vous bénisse 

I look like a sad piece of steak

Let's just say, it's been a weird week. Some weird quotes came out of this week. 

Hope you all had a fantastic President's Day weekend! 

So the first of my fantastic news! My brand-spanking-new companion is Sister Wood! She comes from Southern California in a little town called Hesperia. She is an amazing piano player and it's so fun to hear her play! She really understands the music and creates beautiful stories out of her music. Music is the language of our souls I think. Anywho, she is crazy awesome and already is so comfortable jumping in and testifying! We're both so excited to see how this transfer goes! 

Fun story: Once upon a time I carried around a dead man in my car. No, I'm not kidding.

Okay so back story: I was invited to sing Amazing Grace at a member's husband's memorial this Saturday. Easy peasy. We went over to her house to finalize the program and she asked us if we would take a box to set up at the church for the service. Just display items. An old flag, a hat from his years of service, a few odds and ends. Whatever. Basically, I thought nothing of it. That is until we got to a meeting that night with our Elders Quorum President and we began talking about the decor for the memorial service. Suddenly it occurred to me....."Was her husband cremated or buried?" I asked. He replied with a fatal, "Yes. Why do you ask?" I then immediately sprinted from the room saying "no no no no no" and retrieved the box that had been in our backseat all day. You see folks, I had noticed a cute little jar painted like an American flag in the bottom. I, in a subconscious effort to spare myself, had thought nothing of it. 

And now I came to the full conclusion that I indeed had been carrying Arthur in my car all day. 

What makes this story worse (or funnier, depending on how you look at it,) is that we have to keep him in our living room until Saturday. Every night I pray that Art stays happy and content with his little jar. 

And that is just a taste of my poor companions first week in the mission field. We've certainly had quite a few laughs. We've had doors slammed in our faces, a couple of crazy lessons, and more than a little confusion as I've been faced with new challenges. Being a trainer is not exactly how I expected it to be. It's better in a lot of ways, but that's mostly due to how amazing my companion is! 

As for the French.....oh la la. J'apprends plus, mais mon français n'est pas bien. Mais pour cela, je sais "Je puis tout par celui qui me fortifie," (Phillippiens 4:13). Je sais Dieu est notre Père céleste. Ils nous aime. Nous sommes ses enfants! Grâce à l’Expiation du Christ, nous pouvons être tellement heureux!! 

I hope you all have an amazing week! You are all in my prayers and heart. Thank you for your continued patience, love, and compassion! Please continue serving the Lord! 

Love, Sister Morrison 

Onward and Upward 

Que Dieu Vous bénisse 

"Don't tell me you've never had goat sloppy joes!"

I rewrite my intros at least 7 times, and somehow I always end up with nothing good anyways. I think I need a system. 

This week was absolutely fantastic and I wish I remembered any of it. Wouldn't it be nice if my brain worked properly? 

If I start with the most exciting news, do you promise to read the rest of my (most likely short) email? ...... I'll take that as a yes! 

TRANSFER NEWS: 

Came as an absolute shock to many, and no surprise at all to most. Definitely a bit perplexed myself. 

Anywho.....I'm.......staying in Woodstock!! And......I'm......training a new missionary!! And here's the real kicker....I've also been called as a French speaking missionary!!! 

I will definitely be needing lots and lots of prayers from here on out! But I'm so excited to see the Lord's hand in my life even more with this added responsibility! And you better believe I'm bearing my testimony in French when I get home. And probably in my emails as soon as I learn Gospel-related words. 

As far as the work goes, we are just accelerating! As a Zone, we have found over 25 new people to teach in a week! We tend to not focus on numbers, but that is a huge deal because our usual average has been 8-15! And for those of you who aren't aware or have it differently, the end of a 6 week period usually has much lower numbers, so for us to find so many people is truly impressive! The Lord blesses the faithful and diligent! 

I am so sad to be saying goodbye to Sister Beus, she has been an absolute blessing in my life! By far, she has taught me the most about loving and being loved. I'll miss her sweet nature and her humming Primary songs around the house. 

The ward I'm serving in is also taking off with missionary work! How exciting to be a missionary at this time! They all don't even realize the potential they have to sweep this area as member missionaries! Think of all the people that could be at peace, have support, and partake in sacred ordinances that bring them eternal blessings.... the Lord is hastening His work. Hopefully, we can all keep up! 

I recently had a small epiphany. It's one of those incredibly obvious things that I always knew but I really didn't understand. It comes from a scripture I recite quite often. Philippians 4:13 which reads, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Sometimes I pray and ask God to surround me with His peace and love. Sometimes I pour my heart out and all I expect is an overwhelming feeling of hope. I always hear people saying, "The Lord wrapped me in His arms of mercy." "I was flooded with pure love from Heavenly Father." And so on and so forth. 

Okay, so what does that have to do with that scripture Sister Morrison? 

Let me explain. It has been made incredibly clear to me that I could NEVER have made it this far, on my mission alone, without receiving incredible measures of strength from the Lord. I don't feel a flood of it, but somehow, I always make it through. When I have aches and pains, when I am in a bad mood, or when I feel like all I want to do is curl up in a little ball and sleep, I find myself continually pressing forward. Now that isn't to say that missionaries who go home early didn't have the Lord helping them, because that certainly is false doctrine. There is a time allotted for each person in their service and I am simply blessed to have 18 months as my time in this kind of service. However, with Christ, we achieve all things. You may not be aware of it, it may not seem significant, and you might very well be taking advantage of it simply because you don't know it's there. He strengthens each one of us. He does this because He is preparing us for tomorrow. Tomorrow He will prepare you for the following day. And Thursday He will prepare you for Valentine's Day. (Happy Valentine's day by the way everyone!) He is constantly preparing us for our future. He prepared me for my mission. He prepared my sweet mother to have me as a child, (don't ever think you are impatient Maman, you dealt with little Cassidy haha). 

Anyways, the Lord is constantly giving us strength. To some it is a natural way of life, but we must always remember Who gave us life. Who created these bodies, minds, spirits. Obviously, it was someone who was much smarter than any of us. 

May the Lord bless and treat you this Valentine's week. His love FAR outshines any others. Everything you are and have is a product of that love. Immense. Infinite. Eternal. Pure. True love. It is too much for my heart to handle. I cannot express myself well enough, nor can I explain fully, how deeply and sincerely you are loved!!! (That's three exclamation marks people!)

I hope you all have the bestest week ever! I cannot wait until I can talk to you next week about how amazing my new companion is. I am so excited to meet her! Please pray for us though. The power of prayer is so real! 

Love, Sister Morrison 

Onward and Upward !

Que Dieu vous bénisse 

"I opened the closet and someone was staring at me"

Hey friends and family! 

No one really ever knows how to do intros without being awkward. Hopefully, this suffices. 

So a few of my favorite experiences from this week: 

Haley, a cute girl that we're teaching, is kinda crazy. She doesn't sit still and doesn't remember what we teach her and we've been slightly at a loss about what to teach.  So one night we sent her a children's Bible video and she watched it and loved it! So we asked if we could say a nighttime prayer with her and she said yes! Now every morning and night we ask her if she's said prayers and if she hasn't, we call her and pray with her! It's so awesome! I can just imagine her 5-10 years down the road saying in church, "And the Sisters just kept calling and talking to me and helping me feel loved. They taught me slowly and soon, after I turned 16, I started coming to church, was baptized, and then I decided to go on a mission just like they did! I'm now happily married in the temple to a worthy Priesthood holder."  I know the Lord is proud of her and the progress she has made so far. I love that little girl! 

Next up is our dear friend Nancy! She said that she's adopting us as her kids and she loves us! We've been meeting with her pretty regularly! She hasn't been to church in decades. As soon as we started seeing her, she started coming! Pretty funny how sometimes all people need is a little love! 

We enjoyed a massive dinner pre-Super Bowl! It was a little odd to be out while everyone was inside watching the game, but we were able to see some tender mercies. A few people who were open and willing to have us over, and we weren't even supposed to go to the area we were in! 

We've been talking to this lady, Kandi, who is completely against Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but we went to go see her and she was so grateful to have us over! She was struggling and she told us that our visit really uplifted her and gave her courage for the tasks ahead of her. I seriously love being a servant of the Lord. I'm not here to convert people. I'm here to help them come closer to Jesus Christ and see the hand of Heavenly Father in their life and my oh my, do I see it! He's working so hard for you. So very hard to make sure your life is everything you need and deserve. He is so tender and loving! 

There have been quite a few cool miracles this week and I wish I had time to tell you about them, but know that the Lord is aware of you, He is guiding you, and His love never ceases! 

Y'all keep being lights! You make the world a better place and each of you has a purpose! 

Love, Sister Morrison 

Onward and Upward!