I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my biiiike

Hey hey! I can't believe it's already P-day again... time is FLYING. I'm in the last 2 weeks of the transfer and then we find out if my visa is here, whaaaat! I honestly hope that it isn't here yet, is that bad? eh. I love this mission and the ward and my companion and our zone... and basically I just love everything here. Except the ridiculous sweating that's goin' on with all this bike riding. Seriously, I don't know why people let us in their homes when they see us at the door.. We have to look awful haha. It looks like Niagra Falls is just rolling down my forehead, and Sister Hale had some craaazy sweat marks when we went to a member's home last week, it was hilarious. Not so much to her, but really... it was great. Good times, good times.

We had exchanges on Tuesday! Monday night I went to East SAC with Sister Loli, and Sister Acker covered our area with Sister Hale.. Sister Loli was Sis Hale's trainer back in the day, so I got to spend the day with my grandma :') and I. Love. Her. She's from Australia/Samoa and she is just the best. We had so much fun. We took a member with us to some appointments on Tuesday, and we were riding bikes, ya know, as usual. We were waiting for a light to change and Fiona (the member with us) just fainted on the side of the road.. Sister Loli is like "FIONA, FIONA! FIONA ARE YOU OKAY" and I'm just staring at them like "uhhhhhhh......shoot. what happened.. what do i doooo what what what" So Loli sat Fiona on the curb, threw her debit card at me and told me to go get a gatorade for her across the street... I come back and Fiona looks up and asks "What happened?" and we kinda laugh at the way she said it, and Loli's like "girrrrrrl you just passed out on us" and she reenacted it for her, Fiona was embarrassed because we told her how ridiculous it looked haha, we were so nervous at first, but as soon as realized she wasn't about to drop dead on us or anything it just got suuuper funny. 

Sister Loli said I'm a great teacher :') I felt like such a champ haha, I feel like I suck at teaching, and Sis Hale loves to talk a lot so I rarely get to teach in our lessons haha.. But I got a lot of time to teach on exchanges and she thought it was great, so that was good to hear! Sister Hale got to visit the Kittel family while we were on exchanges, and I was bummed because I loooove love looooooove the Kittel's and I was in East Sac that day, but we had dinner with them on Friday and it was great! I love them so much. 

I'm learning a lottttt about missionary work lately. As missionaries we have a tendency to get pulled into people's problems and we have to go in and fix things... and I didn't like that haha. My mentality has always been that I'll figure my junk out and yall can buck up and get your junk together, and we'll all be cool. But I really can't do that here. Some people need a little help. Some people don't know how to do it themselves. And the perfect way to counteract all those problems is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel brings you so much peace and comfort, and simply having faith in Christ makes things SO much easier, simply because if you have faith, you may not know when, why or how you're going to get through those trials, but you know that you CAN do it. And that's the message we try to bring to people. Some of the people we've met with are so focused on the problem, that even when the solution is RIGHT in front of them they don't see it, because they are sooo focused on that one thing. It's frustrating for me, but I've grown so much just this week from learning that. They might not get it now, but one day they will, because we were here and we tried and we told them what we knew to be true. It could be tomorrow, next month, or YEARS from now, but one day they will be able to recognize and receive the blessings from the gospel. 

We got to see Larry on Saturday! He is such a champ. He's progressing soooo so much. I love him. He was at church on Sunday and some lady was giving a talk and said that her husband had joined the church, and that he said his greatest accomplishment from that was "getting off the 'Mormon's Most Wanted' list" ...Larry heard it and just cracked uppp in the middle of church because he knows we're all getting on him about accepting a baptismal date and everything, it was so funny. 

OKAY YALL, So Sister Hale and I have been chased by not one, but TWO dogs last week on our bikes. TWO. We could have died. The first one I think just enjoyed the chase, but the second one was hardcore trying to chew our ankles off. Sister Hale lifted her leg up so the dog couldn't get it, tried to pedal at the same time, and almost crashed straight into a giant pile of junk on the side of the road. It was rough. Missionary life is serious business guys. 

Mmmmmkay I gotta go, I love you all! 

PS I'm getting a boat load of mail from everyone.. Half of it is from my mom but it's still CRAZY. Thanks for the love, you're all great!

Hey, Coddingtons... Send me your new address cuz there's another letter waiting with your name on it!

Gotta go. PEACE.

Com amor, 

Sister Morrill

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SAC life!

HEY EVERYONE. 

Whaddup! This week has been straight up cray. Straight up. We're talking like hicks/gangsters all the time for fun, and I can't stop anymore so I'm sorry if my thug side shows through the email.. Whatever though. 

Sandy was batizado on Monday! She was sooooo so happy all night long, it was great. Her smile was still just as big yesterday when she was confirmed. AWESOME. I love being a missionary. Larry came to the baptism too, we've been teaching him foreverrrr, like way before I got here. he knows it all, but he won't accept a date and get dunked already. But that's okay haha, we love him. We're going on exchanges tonight! I'm heading up to East Sac with Hale's old trainer and we'll be up there all day tomorrow. I'm psyched but it'll be weeeeird being without my trainer!

So it sounds like if our visa comes, we still won't leave until the end of the transfer.. So if I don't get have it by the end of the transfer I'm here for another 6 weeks!... and if I don't have it then, then I'm here for ANOTHER 6 weeks! I'm totally fine with it, too. Haha I want my visa but I am loving it here! Whenever I need to be in Brazil, I'll get there. I'm not sweatin' it. 

We've got some storiesssss this week- get ready. It's been fun.

First- on Friday morning we were listening to music while we were studying, and I had just finished an hour of language study.. Sis Hale put this CD in and one of the songs came on and it was in a different language.. and it was a tune I knew but I had NO IDEA what it said.. and automatically I was listening and realized that it wasn't portuguese.. but I couldn't figure it out what it was, and I had myself completely convinced that it was english, and I just had NO idea what they were saying. I freeeeeaked out a little bit, I just had  this deer in the headlights look and I looked at Sister Hale, and she's just like "....it's another language". I thought I had just lost all of my english randomly and it was terrifying hahaha. I dunno man, ya had to be there.

2- We went to find some people that old missionaries had dropped, and we knocked on a door.. this tatted up guy with a crazy beard answered and we introduced ourselves, Sis Hale asked him how he was, and he's like "I'm tired, I'm hot, and I'm gonna shut the door" and he slammed the door on us right there. Best first door slam EVER. Rude but hilarious. I don't even care.Then right after that some inactive member started yelling at us for trying to visit her.. Awesome.

3- I saved a bird! He fell into the Larsen's pool and I took him out, he just chilled on my arm for a while, I let him go, he came back to me.... Just call me Snow White.

4- We did our stereotypical missionary duties and helped a family move out of their house on Saturday. So much fun with the Elders that were helping, but sooo hot, and sooo sooooo exhausting. 

FOUR- So we're getting crazy dreams on the mish. Every. Single. Night. Last night my dream was REALLY crazy. I had a dream that I was trying to break out of the mission field, I had a plastic toy bow and arrow and some other weapons for protection, all the YSA's from PC ward were texting me and we planned to meet somewhere for chocolate chip pancakes to watch a fight or something, I was going Katniss Everdeen on anyone that got in my way... with my fake bow. It was hard core. Then a Lambo popped out of no where and I was speeding down this road, people were chasing me and I was racing people home... total Fast & Furious moment... I can't even explain it all, it was just crazy. My zone was trying to stop me and Abby and Russ were popping out randomly and taking people DOWN so I could escape... Crazy crazy crazy..

I'll have you know that I am completely happy serving a mission right now and I have no intention of breakin' free, but that dream was sweet. 

I wish I could keep writing buuuut I'm totally out of time. Amo voces! :)

Sister Morrill

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dois mezes!

Ola errrrbody!

How's life? Mission life is going pretty good over here! I've been out for 2 months and in the field for 2 weeks... WEIRD. So my comp is awesome. Pretty sure I told you about her last week? But she's great and we're having a lot of fun! We have a baptism tonight! Sandy is getting DUNKED. She's so excited and I can't waitttt. Yesterday I had to give a talk in our sacrament meeting.. I guess I did alright, I could only remember one scripture in portugues and I had to look it up in english.. Kinda looked like a fool but it got a good laugh. Larry (one of our AWESOME investigators) came up to me after I spoke and says "Ya know, you gotta lot of soul..... You a souuuuul sister." He was totally serious about it but the way he said it was so funny. He liked whatever it was that I said haha, so that's good. The members here are so great, I love them. There are a couple families that we're already super tight with, it's great. We have dinner appointments everyyy night except for P-days, it's so nice haha. I'm livin on verrrrrry little right now, so dinners are seriously the greatest. 

My zone is pretty awesome, we have sports every p-day, I looove it. We played soccer world cup style last week followed with a game of scatterball, and not to brag or anything but I kind of dominated scatterball. Today we're headed to the park for some Ultimate Frisbee! I'm pumped. Our zone is fun fun fun. 

We met a few people last weekend that we're hoping to teach! They're super cool buuuut we'll see how that goes. We're hopin they'll let us teach them :) 

Bah, I feel like there was so much more to talk about in the MTC, this is lame. There's actually a lot going on here haha. We're still riding bikes and so far no one's crashed or gotten hit (there's been some close calls though) We just moved from our apartment into a member's home, so we live IN our area and biking is so much easier! The family we live with is super nice.  Welllll I'm running out of time and what not, gotta goooo. Ate logo!

Loooove Sister Morrill

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Meanwhile....at the Sacramento California Mission Office...

Jordan and her adoptive parents for the next little while.

Pres Benson Lewis & Sis Lewis

Sacramento California Mission~Mission President

 

Taken on July 2, 2013 @ the Mission Office.

Life in the SAC

Heyyyyy yallllll

I've just been in the mission field for a whole week, nbd. 

I'm gonna apologize now if this is a short letter, I'm about out of time for emails. UGHHHH.

My companion is from Texas, like Sister Shaw :') haha, her name is Sister Hale and I love her to pieces. We're serving in Sister Sirman's old stake and I'm psyyyyched. I like it here. It's a little ghetto, I love it.

We're riding bikes todo dia, cada dia.. It's ROUGH. Last Friday was our first day on bikes. We don't live in our area right now, So we have to bike 4 miles to get INTO our area, then we have to bike allllllll over to get to the other side of the area and there are hills EVERYWHERE and it's seriously rough, man. We were biking uphill BOTH WAYS (not lying, Cali is ridiculous like that) to the San Juan building for one of our investigators baptismal interviews, and one of the hills were just killer... Sister Hale was exhausted and I thought I was going to die.. She just stopped in the middle of the hill and looked at me.. and I'm like "I QUIT. NOPE. DONE. I QUIT." and we got really dramatic and she says" NO. WE ARE NOT QUITTING. WE HAVE NOT COME THIS FAR TO QUIT. ARE YOU READY? WE'RE GONNA BIKE THIS HILL, AND WE ARE GONNA MAKE IT TO SANDY'S INTERVIEW. YEAH. WE'VE GOT THIS. "We biked over 20 miles on that first day.... I wish I was exaggerating. We got home and we were soo sooooo sore.  We just DROPPED on the floor as soon as we walked in. Sister Hale almost ran over a squirrel. Itttt was hilarious. It kind of ran at her and then decided to go in front of the bike... These squirrels are MASSIVE. They're like the size of cats here. 

Yesterday we were riding bikes to a member's home for dinner, and randomly Sis Hales back tire just EXPLODED. We were stranded on the side of the road waiting for the members to pick us up... It was a rough night hahaha. Our members are the absolute best though. I love them so much. 

On 4th of July we weren't really allowed out because of craaaazies, so we had weekly planning, and then we had a zone activity that evening which consisted of 3 hours of playing scatterball... Basically I kicked the elders TRASH. Mostly.. It was a blast. 

This whole missionary work thing is hard, guys.. I knew it would be... but MAN. IT'S REALLY HARD.

Teaching in English is hard.

Not being able to practice a lot of portugues is hard.

BIKING IS HARD

Trying to help our investigators is hard

and learning how to help our ward is really, really hard.

But I love it so much.

There's this song from the Nashville Tribute Band saying "It's the hardest thing I've ever loved to do"

That's SO TRUE. I've only been here for a week and it's one of the most physically, mentally, spiritually exhausting and difficult things I've ever done. I know there's a lot more coming. But I love this work SO MUCH. I know that it's true. I know that the gospel can bring so much joy to other's lives. The work is difficult, but we are learning so much every day, and it's SO rewarding seeing the change it has on people's lives. I love it here. I'm so glad to spend this time in the Sacramento mission before I head to Brazil, whenever that may be. 

OH, HERE IS MY NEW ADDRESS

8267 Deseret Ave 

Fair Oaks, CA 95608

It's the mission office, and they forward everything to me!

Write me lots, I miss talking to you alllllll. Seriously. I miss my friends a lot haha. Let me know how everything's going! Love you all,  nao mais tempo :( 

Tchau tchau pica pau

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