SOU AQUI.

HEY GUYS.

 

IM IN MY MISSION. IM IN FLORIANOPOLIS. I DONT UNDERSTAND A WHOLE LOT. BUT SOMEHOW IM TALKING TO PEOPLE... Also Im tying on brazilian keyboards again so i dont really know whats going on. desculpa. BUT... um this is cool. Im legitimately excited to be here. ITS MY BIRTHDAY. RIGHT NOW. IM TWENTY YEARS OLD. AND IM IN BRAZIL. IN FLORIANOPOLIS. I JUST MET MY MISSION PRESIDENT. Pretty sure nobody knows its mah birthday but its fine, still gonna party.... in my mind.. as i try to interpret all this portuguese. yikes.

 

Presidente and Sister Fernandes are the cutest people on the planet. I adore them. Even though I dont really understand them.

 

Random tidbit of information- i have an unidentified giant bump on the back of my leg that may or may not be a rockin but bite. dunno yet. Florianopolis is BEAUTIFUL. Island. Mountains. all green. it is incredible. cant describe it. dont have time right now but i will right yall next week... love ya loads!

 

fique louco no estados ;)

 

AMO VOCES. send me mail in english mmkay? that would be cool.

 

paz.

 

Sister Morrill

OLA BRASIIIIIIILLLLL

Hey guys.

 

Still alive.

 

Still in another country.

 

Still in the CTM.

 

Have not left this building in 7 whole days. We eat here. We sleep here. We teach here. We learn portugues here. Pretty much the hardest thing ever. It's fine. Stir Crazy. I miss being out in the mission field. I miss California. But I am learning a lot more portuguese and I can actually converse for the most part. Definitely super blessed to be here. I'm just not so crazy about it. I hope that I come to love this place as much as I loved California. I know it's going to be incredible but it's so stinking harrrrrd. Our CTM district is phenomenal though! My companion is Sister Brewer. Our outro companheiras do quarto sao Sister Stevens and Sister West (adore them), a portuguesa Sister Moreira, and a brasileira, Sister Da Silva. She's hilarious. We have to speak portuguese. all the time. It was rough at the beginning but we have a blast with her. We're legitimately talking to people in brazil in portuguese and it's super weird and satisfying. Eu manjo dos paranaue. We're making PLENTY of mistakes, but they it's fine because the brasileiros just laugh at us and then we laugh at ourselves and it's all cool. Elder Barton, in our district, told the lunch lady in the cafeteria that "eu preciso pegar voce" (what he MEANT was "eu preciso pagar voce" meaning I should pay you for your service because I appreciate your help... what he SAID was essentially "girl I wanna get with you *smooch smooch*") Lost in translation. It's a bask. The brasilians are trying to get the Americans to say stupid things to the girls and the Americans are trying to teach the Brasilians funny english and it's a big mess and we are laughing all the time. Beleza.

 

We went to the Campinas temple today. It was cool.

 

Ummmmmmm we've just had intense language training and we have literally spent all week in this 6ish story building and I don't know what all to tell you all. Life is good. We're good. It's hard here. I want to get out. I want to know what everyone is saying. I want to be able to say what I'm thinking. But we're all making a ton of progress so it's all fine, i know I'll get there.. in the next 8 months. It's good. This time next week I'll be back in the field and it will be great. I'LL BE 20 ON TUESDAY. AND I'VE BEEN OUT HERE (slash California) FOR 10 MONTHS. TIME IS FLYING. DUNNO WHAT TO DO. JUST DOIN MISSIONARY WORK. It's our p-day. We get to walk the streets of Sao Paulo. I get to leave the building for a little bit. I'm pumped. Gonna go now. Need to talk to real people. It's killin me here. CTM = spiritual prison. With food. And unlimited guarana. (The guarana is fabulous. I'm addicted.) anyways LOVE YA ALL I REALLY WANT TO GO OUTSIDE THOUGH.

 

PS GUESS WHAT. KELLY WAS BAPTIZED LAST WEEK. My favorite person evaaa that I taught in Bass Lake was baptized :) So excited for him. Sister McLelland is still there so she got to see it! SO HAPPY. I wish I could have been there but I'm just so pleased that he was prepared and that I was able to be a part of his conversion. He is so incredible.

 

Anyways..

 

 

Ate logo,

 

Sister Morrill :)

Southern Comfort Zone

Southern Comfort Zone. Brad Paisley. give it a listen. it's the anthem of my life right now. I'm in BRASIL. I don't understand anyone. No one understand me. I now speak more spanish than portuguese, Manteca ruined me =P I don't know what language I learned in the MTC 9 months ago but I don't think it was Portuguese! The language is SO pretty though. I've been on a plane for the past 24 hours an I'm exhausted and it's only 1 PM here. Ha. The first flight was fine from Cali to GA. It was KILLER saying goodbye to President and Sister Lewis, and Sister Clayson got to see me at the mission office before I left, made my WEEK. But the flight was fine. Then we had an overnight flight from Atlanta to Sao Paulo and I told the lady sitting next to me that we serve our missions for 80 months instead of 18 and I don't even know what else may have come out of my mouth. Not much. Yikes. I'm in the Brazil MTC. Ha ha ha. We have to go buuuuut thought I'd let you know I'm alive and I haven't been robbed or held at gun point or anything fun yet. I'm safe =) amo voces! see ya whenever our next pday is. TCHAU TCHAU.

 

Sister Morrill.

Hey y'all.

This week has been madness. Pretty sure I have the weirdest mission ever. It was relatively normal and then the whole Brazil thing came back into play and now nothing's normal and everything is crazy and I'll spend less time in my original mission than I have in California. I still DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE. This has become home. This is going to be a harder goodbye than it was from my real home. I just love these people so much and I've learned so much and I just want to keep doing it all here. I know the Lord has a plan for me and that there are even grander things waiting for me in Brazil, but it's still so hard. I'm excited. No I'm not. I'm trying to get excited. I should be. I will be. 

BY THE WAY. Since I've been out here speakin' da english for so long, they're sending me to the BRAZIL MISSIONARY TRAINING CENTER for two weeks. I'm going to Sao Paulo before I get to Florianopolis. I'm a little bit excited for that, I can't lie... I'm also going to turn 20 and hit my 10 month mark on the mission while I'm there. WHO TURNS 10 MONTHS IN THE MTC? This girl. It's fine. 

I leave in like 6 hours for the mission home. I'm staying with President and Sister Lewis. I haven't packed yet. What's new. One day maybe I'll learn. Eh, or maybe not. My companion is going to be all by her lonesome self for 2 days :( Not really... She's gonna trio it up with the Spanish speaking sisters. HA. 

Speaking of Spanish. Manteca is filled with spanish speaking people. I think more people speak spanish than english, legitimately. It's nice. Problem- I've picked up on it. I can say just as much or more in Spanish than I can in portuguese now. THAT'S why I'm going to the MTC haha. WE'VE HELD SO MANY CONVERSATIONS IN SPANISH THIS TRANSFER. Half of our investigators speak spanish. I don't even know spanish. I hardly even know portuguese. I don't know how it keeps happening. I'm just tired and confused and I don't really know what I'm doing but I keep doing it anyways and somehow it works and we see tons of blessings from it. I don't get it. That's my mission in a nutshell.

The Stotts, my favorite family everrrr/Ward Mission Leader  (in Manteca) surprised me last night. They were being all secretive and stuff with Sister Johnson and pulled up to the house, and Sister Poole pulled out a cake and they decided to celebrate my birthday before I left :) I'll be surrounded by Brazilians that I won't understand on my birthday, soooo it made my night. This area is the best. I love it here. I don't want to leave them!

Here's a story. 

There's this rehab housing across the street from one our investigators. I think I told you about them before? Well we were out knocking on doors to find a member of our ward a few nights ago, and it was in this sketchy-sketch motel looking complex thing. Total DIVE. We talked to this shirtless Oklahoma cowboy who was passing through and asked if he knew the lady we were looking for.. or if he heard about the church before.... Doin' missionary stuff. Ya know. When out of no where this drunk guy pops out across the complex, sees us, looks at Sister Johnson and yells "ERICA!" as he stumbles around the parking lot. We're all super confused. Meanwhile the shirtless cowboy looks at him and just says "Dude, I don't think you have a clue who that girl is!" Sister Johnson pops in "uh.. We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.........I'm Sister Johson" Drunk guy makes his way over to us. "Oh. I thought you were Elizabeth." No, no. We are not Erica or Elizabeth. But it turns out his name is Shane.. We met him at Rehab like a week earlier... He just got kicked out of rehab. But he remembered us talking to him about Jesus, even though he was plastered. That's cool. Sister Johnson thought it would be a good idea to give him a mormon.org card WITH OUR NUMBER ON THE BACK before we left. So I mean best case scenario he sobers up and calls us to be baptized, worst case we get a drunk phone call at 3 AM. We can't lose. 

We started teaching this AWESOME guy named Sam. Sam agreed to be baptized as he learns more. I like Sam. I'm leaving Sam tomorrow :( I am sad. This week has been incredible. We've found THREE new investigators this week! We've needed it! I won't be here to teach them all but I'm so excited for the area. These people have so much potential, I can't wait to hear how things go. I'm proud to say that we busted it all the way to the end, this area is going to explode soon. There are SO MANY prepared people. We've been through heck trying to find them, but they are coming. I'm so thankful for the past 2 months here. I've learned so much here, even when I didn't want to. Especially when I didn't want to, ha.

Well we need to get going and pack, but I love you all a lot and I'll talk to you next week from BRAZIL. Tchau tchau!

Love,

Sister Morrill

Exchanges and visas and transfers, OH MY.

Well, this week has been NUTS. 

First, Tuesday. Tuesday we had exchanges! Exchanges are my favorite. Really, Sister Maughan is my favorite. Sister Maughan is in Lodi. I got to go up to Lodi with her, and Sister Jolley (we served in El Dorado together) came down south to Manteca with Sister Johnson. We got to work in this lady's garden in the morning. It was a blast. Service is soooo nice. They made us homemade calzones. They were delicious. Not like this is important. But now ya know. MOVING ON.

So our mission has been challenged to contact 20 people every single day. Purely street contacting. Just talking to random people outside. I hate it. I've been fighting it from the beginning. BUT on exchanges we killed it! Half of them were purely spanish speaking or muslim, so that was rough. But hey, it builds character. I had to use my portuguese/spanish. It was rough. But they got some of it.  Sister Johnson and I killed it again the next day (all english, luckily). I've been converted. I love it. It's fun. It's a challenge. Like let's see who can give this guy a picture of Jesus Christ first. BAM. Beat ya. Nailed it. It's been so much fun. 

Sister Johnson had to get finger-printed for her visa app on Thursday. So she had to be alone in a room with a guy who had to hold her hand. WHOA THERE. Also one of our investigators went in for a smooch when we were on exchanges, ha ha ha. Sister Johnson's had a rough week. She's scarred but it was pretty amusing for meeee.

OH. OKAY. HERE'S A STORY.

So... the past 2 transfers I've gotten a call on the Friday of the 5th week of the transfer, and in both of those calls it was for an emergency transfer. So all transfer long I've been dreading Friday of week 5. Bad things always come in 3's, right? Let's top #3 off with a transfer OUT OF THE COUNTRY, why don't we. I could feel it. Only to Sister Morrill. So Friday was weekly planning. We were in doin' work and makin' plans, and that afternoon one of the Assistants, Elder Morley, (the same one who's brought the bad news the last 2 transfers) gave us a call. He does the small talk thing again. I do the nervous talking to much thing again. He finally gets to it and ALL he had to say is that they got the phone info from last month and saw that there were a couple calls made after 10:30 pm before I was even in the area... That's all. Okay, Elder Morley. We'll make sure it doesn't happen. Yep. Thanks. We'll repent. BTDubbs, can you permanently reassign me to Sacramento already? No? Okay. Well see ya later. 

Done. 

We go along with our day. 6 and 7 PM pass, so I'm convinced that I'm SAFE. Definitely, definitely staying in Sacramento for the next 9 months. Hakuna Matata. BUT WAIT. Suddenly the whistle of doom sounds. Do doo do do doo. do doo do do doo. do doo do do doo do doooooooooo. It's President Lewis. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is a joke. I'm not answering. No way. Sister Johnson picks up the phone. President does the small talk thing. Jokes about the weather. Haaa, yep. "We're biking in the rain President. Yep. We're enjoying it. You're right, California needs the rain. Oh, you want to talk to Sister Morrill?" NO. I love President, but I DO NOT love what I knew he was going to say. "Hello Sister Morrill.. -small talk small talk small talk-" "Hiiiii President." -small talk- "Sister Morrill, I have some good news and I have some bad news for you. The good news is you got your visa. The bad news is you're leaving us." "I THOUGHT YOU HAD GOOD NEWS, PRESIDENT?" President started talking about how he and Sister Lewis love me and how they love that I've spent this time with them in Sacramento and la la la and I cried like a little baby and he told me I was leaving on the 11th and I cried some more and I hung up and I was still crying and I hated that I'm leaving Sac and I hate that I was crying but it was happening anyways so it's whatever. I've never hated receiving a phone call so much. 

Soooo I'm going to Brazil on March 11th. Next Tuesday. I should be excited and maybe I'll get there and be excited. It's just going to be SO hard to leave Sac. I love it here. I love the people. I've never been so happy in my life. But I'm doing the same work and sharing the same gospel in Brazil, too. Different people and it's a little further away, but i know it's going to be fabulous. My portuguese is awful but I know it will get better in time. I'm excited to get to know the people and the culture. I just can't believe I'm actually going now. I'll get over it haha. It will be incredible. I get to spend half of my mission in another country, speaking another language, and I was blessed enough to spend the first half of it in the best mission EVER. I am a believing, bold, baptizing California Sacramento missionary through and through. I'm excited to see what happens in the upcoming week and maybe by then I'll be excited to see what happens after that :)

Gotta go, love you all and miss you!

Ate logo,

Sister Morrill

NEW ADDRESS: (As of March 11th) Sister Jordan Ashlee Morrill Brazil Florianopolis Mission R. Feliciano Nunes Pires, 42 Centro 88015-220 Florianopolis-SC BRAZIL