How to Write Brittany

Okay, now that she's out in the field here are some updates for writing:







Physical Address

110 Edgewater Circle

San Benito, TX
78586







Her email address has changed to brittany.morrill@myldsmail.net.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Long week...

hello everyone.
this has been a really long week. i think because so much happened in it. it should have been enough to have lasted us a month.
transfers happened and we got a new sister in our apartment named sister bevan. she came from my old area in laredo so she was able to give me updates on everybody. i love frank and jesus! the two brothers who got baptized the week after i left.. they are the sweetest. they sent me a note with her. apparently they have both read the book of mormon like three times now. they are preparing to serve missions. and are just awesome. and i guess all of these things that we would do with them have started a tradition. like my last night with them we took a picture by this dead end sign by their house, and now they do it with every missionary that leaves. and they still go to wendy's every wednesday. they're so cute. it's been nice to have someone to talk laredo with.
sister petersen and i found the most awesome people this week. isaac and his grandma. we first started teaching isaac. he, like nearly everybody in the valley, has had a pretty sketchy life. when he was 12 years old he was high and on shrooms and crashed a four wheeler into a trailer home and was in a coma for 3 months. enough said. anyway, we had this amazing lesson with him about the savior and forgiveness. after we shared this powerful scripture with him, he tooked out his pack of cigarettes, looked at it, looked at us, and then asked us if he could give to us. he said, "i don't need these. i don't want to smoke them anymore." he hasn't smoked one since. it's been six days. he still has a problem with the marijuana, but he is trying to quit. he is amazing. the next time we came over we had a great lesson about repentance. his grandma sat in on it. she cried. she has had an equally rough life and wants to change. we love them. we are going to work hard with them to help them overcome all of their addictions and change their lives around. they are so sweet and willing.
sister bustillos and sister call went home this week. i am suddenly becoming one of the oldest sisters in the mission. five of my seven companions have gone home now, if you count sister carlos who is home on medical leave. it's pretty crazy. where does the time go?
anyway, this week we started this "purification challenge" that our district leader challenged us all to do. we thought of all the things that distract us from the work and decided to cut them out of our lives for forty days. he promised miracles. we're already starting to see miracles in that we randomly may have a baptism this week. this young boy who's parents are coming out of inactivity (they've been back for four months now) will probably get baptized this sunday. we just met him yesterday and his parents said they need to get him baptized. he's so cute. he's been coming to primary and everything so we don't really need to teach him anything. hah.
well. i am out of time. hope you are all doing well. until next week..
xoxo
me

Monday, October 18, 2010

Exciting News

hello people.

this was a week of exciting news.
exciting news number 1:
sister petersen and i will be staying together for another transfer. yay! this is the first time that has happened to me since sister kellett. looks like i finally get to stick around and see some of the fruits of my labor. we're excited.
exciting news number 2:
the church is growing down here! we had a special sacrament meeting with the hidalgo 1st ward (my old spanish ward from mission), my ward now, and another ward. they made a brand new ward and split some wards and changed boundaries and it's awesome. they are buying land to build another chapel that is actually IN mission, since we go to mcallen and la jolla everywhere BUT mission. the other cool part about it is that there are now more spanish wards than english. 5 spanish, 4 english in the stake. i love the hispanic people.
exciting news number 3:
remember my favorite family, the elizondos? the guy who got deported and put in jail from my old mission ward? well with the new ward boundaries, they are going to be in my ward! so i get to see them every sunday again and take them out to lessons with us and everything. i am very happy about that.

we found a cool guy this week named michael. he is 23. he has had a sketchy past... surprise surprise. he has been in and out of jail since he was 17... he just got kicked out of the army last year because he punched his sergeant in the nose and broke it. he has a five year old son that he doesn't get to see very often. anyway, he's really trying to change his life around. he loves the book of mormon. he's read a lot of it. we set a baptismal date with him for the 14th of november. we're hoping things will work out with him. he's a good kid.

anyway, i think that's about all i've got for this week. hope this email finds you all happy and safe.
love,
me

Monday, October 11, 2010

A Slippery Serpent

happy columbus day to all!

the temperature is dropping here down south. it's been even as cold as the 70s in the mornings when we get up to go running. such drastic climate changes have put me under the weather.. i've got a mad 'grippa' (cold) and it has not been fun. who would have known that my body would adjust to being in the scorching heat for so long and get a cold when it's in the 70s. weak.

i seem to have gained my first 2 pounds of mission weight. i held strong for ten months, but i think i've just had one too many desserts at members houses. i am making a plan of action to shed them though. although it's time to gain a little extra and go into hibernation for winter time, right?

well, this week was a week of opposition. all of the people we've been so happy about have slowly been dropping off the radar like flies. i'm learning a lot about the lord's timing. sometimes we just want to see the miracles happen while we're here, but it's not always god's way and sometimes we have to wait. maybe i won't even see the miracles happen with some of these people. but that's okay. we just know that we are doing our best and it's all in their hands to have faith and make good decisions with the knowledge and experience they have. sigh. i hate patience.

anyway.. we have one week left of the transfer. i can't believe it went by so fast. we'll see what changes they throw my way this time. there's not much else to report on this week. we'll hopefully find some new cool people these next few days.

OH. me and sister petersen almost got attacked by a rattle snake. we were knocking doors down this kind of sketchy dirt road (successfully though because we found a family of investigators) but to get back to a main road we had to go through a field of grass. let's just say we heard rattling and saw grass moving and we froze. then we decided to run. it wasn't very funny when it was happening, but now it's pretty funny to think about. don't worry, mom. we learned our lesson and will not run through sketchy fields anymore.. no matter how much of a shortcut it is.

que les pasan bien!xoxo
me

Monday, October 4, 2010

Great story

hello everybody.

i am going to copy and paste the email that i wrote
to my president this week, because you all should know the story too.
it's the story of the fifteen year old on probation that i mentioned
last week, but i didn't share the details because i was too busy
sharing the other story. i got chastised this week in my interview
with president trayner for not sharing this story in my letter to him.

"hello, hello. so, as requested, here is the story of azalea:
it's neat to look at it from the two different sides, now and in thef uture. from our side: the night before it happened, we were planning and i was looking at the map to find a street to contact. this one neighborhood in the bottom far away corner of our area stood out to me. i asked sister petersen about it and she said she couldn't remember ever contacting it. so we decided to go to it first thing in the morning. when we pulled into the neighborhood, sister petersen realized that she had just recently contacted almost that whole neighborhood just weeks before with sister smith. but since we already made the trip out there, we decided to contact this one little street that they hadn't hit. and then of course it was the last door on the street that the miracle happened. we knock on the door and a very sleepy looking fifteen year old girl answered the door. we had just woken her up. we got to know her alittle and then told her that we share a message about jesus christ and how we can strengthen our family relationships by living the things that he has taught us. we said that, still not knowing mucha bout her. she let us in, and we sat down and talked about the doctrine of christ.

Her side: she told us that just the night before she had stayed up half of the night crying and praying, and asking for things to get better with her relationship with her mom. azalea has been locked up three times, and is on probation, and she and her mom do not have a very good relationship. she expressed to us that she even had thoughts of suicide, and that is what brought her to be praying so desperately. we were able to promise her that through jesus christ things with her family could be better. she could be forgiven of all those past things she's done and start a new life. she could have god's spirit with her to guide her and help her make good decisions. that even if things with her family never improve, she has heavenly parents who would always be there for her. we set a baptismal date with her for the 31st of october. she has been reading in her book of mormon and been preparing for that day.

at times like these i know that the spirit of our father in heaven really is here in mcallen and is truly preparing people to receive us, and preparing us to find them. all miracles aside, this week was kind of disappointing (not discouraging). azalea didn't come to conference and we had to drop two of our investigators with baptismal dates. but it's okay. we have faith and we will find more and help the ones we have..."

this week we found caleb at his parents home alone, doing the deed with his girlfriend. it was really awkward and i'd rather not re-hash the details. hah. but we had a "you need to get off the fence and make a decision about something...anything.. or there is nothing else wec an help you with" lesson with him. it was sad but it went well. he is really thinking and meditating on his life and if he wants to choose to be happy or choose to keep getting into trouble all the time. we're hoping that with some time alone to think he'll figure his life out.

anyhoo. general conference was great. i hope everybody enjoyed it. i am running out of time. hope everyone is happy and healthy and well.

until next week.

brittany