Vou vencer!

HI FAMILY.

HI FRIENDS. 

HI STRANGERS. 

Whoever the heck ya are, HEY THERE.

This week was still punch you in the face, spit in your guaraná, rain on your parade, kick your trash.... difficult.. But it was FANTASTIC. 

Things are getting better. I´m understanding my companion better. We´re conversing. No raised voices this week We´ve actually laughed a ton. Comic relief is a MUST on the mission. For real. 

Even the night after I emailed last week was better. 

We worked, visited people, walked like five hundred miles (mmkay, not quite, but kudos if ya know that song), and came home and planned and I was pretty much exhausted. Sister Anjos (super cool, from São Paulo) snuck in our room and said she needed to talk to the two of us... she was super sketch and I was nervous baha, but we came out and they opened the kitchen door and all 5 sisters broke out in PARABÉNS PARA VOCÊ, na na na na na na na (Brasilian birthday song), and we ate ICE CREAM and I taught the brasileiras how to cat daddy and bernie and i´m going to teach them the Haka and they want me to make them american cookies (they don´t know i can´t cook to save my life.. we will be experimenting this week. They don´t need to know that) and basically they love americans and I adore them so it works out pretty well.. SO FUN.

The next day... I ATE CHICKEN GUTS. I GOT A PLATE FULL OF RICE AND BEANS AND CHICKEN GUTS FOR LUNCH. I AM A BRASILIAN. It´s official. After I finished the plate, irmão decided to scoop up ANOTHER plate of chicken guts because he didn´t think I had enough. AI DE MIM. NO IRMÃO, I HAD PLENTY. Mas... I ate it. It´s fine. Bem vindos a brasil, né?

Later we were walking around in this bairro and there´s this MASSIVE muddy puddle on the side fo the road... we walk and walk and I pass the puddle... then my companion reaches the puddle.. and falls into the puddle. I was terrified. I really wanted to laugh but I didn´t know if she had a sense of humor at this point and i was terrified that she was going to be LIVID. So she pulls herself up, tries to get out, and falls AGAIN.... Same puddle.. busted her knee. s o a k i n g wet. soaked. I decide to help her out this time. She stand up...... and she LAUGHS. Tender mercy. I laughed. It was fabulous. some people were watching the whole thing down the road.. eek. But we kept going. She looked up and there was a massive rainbow in the sky... Tender mercies all over the place. God´s watching, just telling us to keep on going, take a few more steps. try one more person. Talk to someone. Try again. Stand up and go until you think you can´t go anymore, and I´ll help you keep going. 

So we kept going... and found ourselves in the middle of a torrential DOWNPOUR. we were soaked almost instantly. Didn´t have umbrellas with us. No raincoat. Nothing. Just soaking wet. We met a less active member of the church in a little hair salon in the rain. God absolutely had a hand in that haha. She feels like she can´t come to church because she´s seperated from her husband. She´s one of the sweetest ladies i´ve ever met (there´s a lot of sweet people here). She tended to Sister Novoa´s bloody knee. She let us stay in the salon until the rain passed. Gave us a towel to dry off a bit. So sweet. 

We left..... it started raining again. we were soaked again. We went to the other side of town for an appointment. We got stood up.. ha. It´s dark. We decide to contact people on the street. Torrential downpour AGAIN. We just laughed. We laughed basically all day long. 

I think it was President Hinckley´s wife, said something along the lines of how things happen and you can choose to laugh or cry about it it, and I chose to laugh. I don´t remember all of it. But the first week there was crying. Everyone was miserable. This week, we laugh. We saw God´s tender mercies and miracles in our days, even when they were difficult. All these thing will be for our good, and will give us experience. Tudo bem. All is well. 

The brasilians found out I can beatbox..... I tried to teach them. My companion is determined. YOU HAVE NOT LIVED UNTIL YOU´VE LISTENED TO A FOREIGNER (yes i am the foreigner here, but what i mean is essentially someone who doesnt speak fluent english) TRY TO BEATBOX. Find an asian or a south american or german or something, and teach them to beat box. boots-and-cats-and-boots-and-cats. Life does not get better than this, people.

I can´t even count how many people have told me im going to marry a brasilian. I think it´s mostly because they want me to marry their sons. It´s fine. 

I hope general conference was rockin! I saw the very last session in english and it was exactly what I needed to hear, but the other 3 sessions were only portuguese and I didn´t understand a THING.

We´ve gotta go, but know I love yall and I´m thinkin of yall and what not :)

AMO VOCÊS. 

Até mais,

Sister Morrill

QUE HORROR

Hey yall.

Where do I even start? I don´t know. Last day in the MTC. I got a priesthood blessing the night before we all left. First blessing everrrr. Definitely needed it. Dont have time to tell ya bout it. Sorry. 

Next. 

First day in Florianopolis. Fabulous. Not even a little bit like the rest of the week, but we got to eat out with President and Sister Fernandes and Floripa is beautiful.

Day 2. 

I went out with some other sisters in an area a few hours away from floripa. it was cool. all the appointments cancelled. couldnt understand the brazilians but the sisters i were with were both americanas luckily. 

Day 3. 

Zone Conference. Didn´t understand A THING that President Fernandes said all day long. The magic of being in brazil wore off pretty quickly.

Day 4

I met my ´´Trainer´´, Sister Novoa. She´s 24. From Chile. Has a crazy accent. (Because president had to throw one more twist into my mission.. ha cool.) 3 hour bus ride to our area. We´re opening a new area in the middle of a transfer. Dont know anyone. don´t know anything. don´t know what they´re saying. I´ve been out longer than she has. it´s a blast. We got to our apartment..

Moldy mattress. Moldy wall. No actual bed. No furniture. We live with 4 other sisters (who are AWESOME) ... none of which speak english but it´s fine. 

Day 5. Saturday. Sábado.

Walked further than I´ve ever walked in my life. Physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Sunburn... eek. Sunscreen is mega expensive here. Our area is LEGIT. We have a portion of São João ward and Oficinas ward. They´re hoping to make our area it´s own ward! It will start as a grupo, grow into a branch and hopefully spring into an overflowing ward of rockin brasilians. This is a crazy place to be. President definitely took advantage of having visa waiters that already have done work haha... this is a TASK. It´s all on us to take our area and the people in it and help it grow enough that they CAN split it. I´m excited and nervous and every other emotion under the sun. 

We got to see a baptism our first full day here :) Funny story: We were at the church wicked early to fill the baptismal font. I was just singin myself a happy little ENGLISH american song. Fact: Brasilians can NOT sing. Nope. The brazilians heard me. They asked if I knew a primary song in english. I didn´t know the lyrics. They threw a copy of the music at me. I´m sitting in the room and they´re starting the service and suddenly I find out that I´m singing for this girls baptism. EEK. WHAT?!  Sneaky brazilians, man. 

Day 6. Domingo.

Church. Holy cow the members are incredible. So fun. We were at church early this week... I was playing the piano before anyone was there. They have the ´´hymns made easy`` (português version) at the piano, which i can actually kind of play, so i was just playing my little heart out, and suddenly there are a swarm of brazilians around me. The bishop comes up and asks me to play the prelude music... Turns out Brazilians can´t play piano either. Compared to everyone else in the church at home I can´t play a THING, but these people were so excited about it. I have a feeling this won´t be the last time this happens...

Uhhh after church things got a lot harder again.

My companion and I were walking to an appointment and suddenly we´re flat out yelling at each other and it was the worst moment of my life. I never yell at anyone. It was better later and we had a killer comp inventory this morning to figure out how the junk we can work together, but this has been the hardest companionship of my mission, on top of everything else that comes with culture shock and inability to do a thinggggg. God´s testing me like nobody´s business, but I know it´s gotta get better eventually, so I´ll keep chuggin along. 

We didn´t get a p-day on monday because we ended up travelling on the onibus for 12 hours total because junk happened, but at least i got to email today!

We have an investigator with a baptismal date already... so cool! Brasil is incredible. This is so hard and I want nothing more than to be able to go home and see my family and not be soaking wet in the rain for all the appointments to fall through and i want to go back to SAC or home where I know people love me and I know what everyone is saying, but I can´t right now and someone needs me here and I need to find them and I´m sure as heck not going to find them sitting around dreaming about home. Soooooo I´ll just keep going and wait until the language clicks and me and my companion get along and everything is good again. I want to embrace this place so badly, to the point where I don´t want to come home in November (I absolutely will, but I want to love it here as much as I loved sac and as much as i love FL) I have to go and meet our ward mission leader, but i love you all so much.

Keep in touch :) Love love love yall.

Ate logo,

Sister Morrill

ps que horror is Sister Novoa´s catch phrase.. awful QUE HORROR BOO WHY  yeah mmkay gotta go.... peace yall

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