The last email....

dude. i am going to see you in two days. life is really weird right now. the baptisms were so awesome. the week was so awesome. it's not real that i'm coming home. it's. not. real.


so tomorrow i go down to mcallen. i'm gonna probably going to lunch with some recent converts. then at 2:30 i have my interview with president trayner. then i'll probably go hang out with some more members until we have dinner at the mission home at 6:00 and a testimony meeting. sister carlos is coming home with me, so we'll have a sleepover at the mission home. then in the morning we'll eat some breakfast and head on our way.

i will be seeing you. too soon.

love,

me

Francisco's Baptism

My last Zone Conference

 Luis and Victor at Victor's Baptism

Cutest little missionary ever!  Jacob

Me at the Freddy Fender Monument.....Who knew he was from San Benito??

Strong Finish

howdy everybody.


it has just come to my attention that i only have one week left of my mission. i kind of feel like someone just punched me in the stomach or like i ate too much chile or something. i don't know what happened. i had 18 months to go and now all of the sudden they are gone.

this should be a good week. we are getting some mini-missionaries again for the week, we're picking them up today at 4:45 and they'll just be out with us all week. i guess god wanted to make sure i wasn't sleeping my last week away or something. had to keep me on my toes. we have zone conference on wednesday, and then two baptisms this weekend (francisco's got postponed for a week) so it should be a good ending. victor is going to be baptizing his brother luis, so that will be really neat.

did i even tell you all last week that sister martinez got transferred? it all happened so suddenly. now i have a companion named sister lichfield and she is so stinking cute. we clicked right away and have been having a blast. i'll get to see sister martinez at zone conference this week. she went to my old area in brownsville.

the heat index was at like 115 this week. they told nobody to go outside. apparently there's all these fires and crazy stuff too. all i know is the second i walk out the door i feel like i just got out of the shower, only it's my own sweat. nasty.

random thing of the week: we saw a coyote on our morning run the other day. that was pretty intense and we were afraid it was going to chase us.. but it ran away. anyway. i guess that's it. who knows if i will even email next week. "this could be the last blog.." oh snap i just remembered the funniest youtube video ever.

well. keep it real, everybody. see you soon, i guess.

love,

me

Crazy Week!

hello everybody.

this was this craziest week of all time. so many people's lives were falling into shambles and so many miracles also happened. our investigator francisco is just the sweetest little angel ever. he got his baptismal interview this sunday and is good to go for this weekend as long as he doesn't drink any more beer. he was still pretty on the fence this week about his baptismal date, but he told us that one night he was praying and he had a dream. he saw all these little children and all these little lambs and then he heard a voice that said "this is the lamb that takes away your sins." he had the same dream five times in a row. he said he knew that it was from god and that he needed to get baptized. he's finally decided to give up the drinking for good. he's going to go back to mexico in august and he wants his whole family to get baptized because he knows this is god's church. he is just on fire.

     we've also been visiting my favorite cerdan family a lot this week. luis (victor and daniela's brother) is here from mexico and has been coming to church and is thinking about getting baptized on the 26th. they are the greatest family ever and i love them so much.

    have i told you about brother ricker? he's this man that used to be a branch president and a patriarch, and then after his wife died a couple years ago he went completely inactive and angry. we've been visiting him almost every day these past two weeks and he's been coming back to church. i love him. he reminds me a lot of my grandpa clark, maybe that's why i love him so much.

    anyway. life is still good here and getting better. the closer it gets to me getting home, the less real it feels. i think i will just always be a missionary.

not looking forward to seeing you all soon,

brittany

:)

Life is Awesome

hello everybody!

i have good news. i tried on my jeans today and they still fit me! it seems as if only my face has gotten fatter.

anyway. yes, it is still super hot down here. so the world isn't ending. we had a great week here. our investigator francisco is so stinking awesome. in gospel principles class, the teacher had him introduce himself. and he said, "my name is francisco javier aguilar. for about the past year or so i have been looking for god's true church. i feel like i have found it. " he's so awesome. he has some problems with drinking, but i have no doubt in my mind that he'll be able to quit. he's awesome.

we also found this awesome family... sandra, carina, beau, and lauren. they're great. um. i don't really have much else to talk about today. life is still awesome. i'll see you all soon enough. hope you're all doing great!

love,

me

Baptism

buenos dias!


another hot week has gone by here in sunny texas. cinthia got baptized this weekend it was so nice. AND. turns out her boyfriend is realizing that he's crazy about her, so they're going on tuesday to get the marriage license and will hopefully be getting married by this week's end. it's amazing how heavenly father just makes everything work out if we do his will. cinthia is an amazingly prepared person and is just so willing to do whatever it takes to be happy and to live with god after this life. she's going to be the best member missionary ever.

this week we made great strides with our investigator, francisco, who i probably have not told you anything about. he is such a great guy. he is here from mexico.. he had to come because things at his work got very crazy with the drug cartel. so his family is still there and he's here laying low for a while. for about a year now he says he has been searching to find god and to find his true church. he had been praying about it a lot the week before we showed up at his door and he knows that god sent us to him. he has been reading the book of mormon like a mad man and praying and came to church this week for the first time and LOVED it. we set a date with him for the 19th of june. he is the coolest. he's been telling his wife and kids in mexico about it and wants to send the missionaries to them too.

hmm. what else has happened this week. oh i got to see a bunch of the young single adults who would come out with us all the time from laredo (pictures)... they came down for some YSA conference and came to church here in harlingen. it was nice to see them.. and weird that it has been more than a year since i had seen them. man i am old.

well, i would just like to challenge everyone out there in cyber land to write me one more letter before i get home. you have five weeks. yes, i do still exist, and it does still suck to not get mail. help me. p.s. if your name is kate or marni or bonnie you are excused from that because i still need to write to you.

anyway. hope that you are all doing well.

love,

sister morrill

No Trunky Transfer

She told me in her letter to me that she did not get transferred, so she will spending her last 6 weeks in San Benito with sister Martinez.  She's happy about that as they have a baptism coming up they both wanted to be there for.  Here's her letter:

hello, people!


this week it got up to 105 degrees here in the lovely valley. it seems that all of the states around us are getting torrential downpours of rain but we are looking like we're having a drought here. looks like i won't be getting a "mormon helping hands" t-shirt for hurricane clean up this year. sigh.

anyway, this week was great! cinthia is amazing! her boyfriend started being lame about getting married and wanting to wait until june. and so it looked like she was just going to put off her baptism and wait til june when they got married. (the thing is though, for the past year they've been "planning on getting married" and it's always "next month.") so we were worried about her. but. she came to church and got her baptismal interview anyway. and at the end of the interview elder wells had her pray and ask God what she should do. and she said, "the answer comes so clear every time. i'm going to move out." and she did it! she talked to her boyfriend last night and it's for sure. we're going over tonight to help her pack and plan the baptism.. she's moving in with her mom in brownsville until boyfriend will marry her. she is so happy! i've never seen her face just glowing. i think it's because she's known all along what she needed to do but she was fighting it. so when she finally decided to just do whatever heavenly father asked her to do, all the worries went away and she could just feel joy. it reminded me of myself.. fighting going on a mission forever, but then when i finally decided to accept whatever heavenly father told me, all of my doubts and worries went away and i knew it was the best decision i had ever made. i feel so humbled to be able to find people who are actually willing to act in faith and do what it takes to follow god and live his standards.

hope this email finds you all happy and well. until next time.

brittany

Short one...

hello, everybody and happy mother's day!


it was a good week here in the heat. if all goes well, our investigator cinthia should be getting baptized and married next weekend. pray that her boyfriend doesn't do something crazy...

anyway. i used too much of my time today looking at pictures and talking to the missionaries in here distracting me. so. i will have to write more next week. but i hope you all had a great mother's day and cinco de mayo.

hasta la proxima vez

hermana morrill

Faith, Pure and Simple

hello everybody!


this was a great week of learning. we had interviews with president trayner and a zone meeting where we watched another elder holland talk. man he is the bomb. pres. trayner talked with me about being a "finisher." i don't know why though, i still have another year left of my mission...

we found some great people this week and i learned a lot about the power of faith. it's amazing how much our attitudes really shape the things that happen to us. we noticed that after we started losing all of our investigators we went into this crisis mode and all we could focus on were the negative things and how much we needed and were lacking and the things that god was letting us down on. but we came to the realization that the reason it was all happening was because of our attitudes. we were doubting ourselves and our abilities and our investigators and worst of all god. we were forgetting to rely on him 100%. so, we rededicated ourselves to being positive and having faith and sincere prayers and the changes happened immediately. we found 6 new investigators in the last two days alone. faith really is power. and if we want good things to happen in our lives, we just need to think about good things.

so simple.

anyway. i am completely out of time. but i hope that you are all staying happy and positive. happy mother's day!

love,

hermana "morrill of the story"

(people call me that down here.)

Easter

hello!


another week has passed in sunny san benito. all of our investigators for some reason this week decided to not be our investigators anymore so we are going through a cleansing. but it's okay, we are finding some new cool people.

so. this week was easter. down here, people celebrate by getting drunk at barbecues.. so it wasn't the most finding friendly weekend. but. it did make for some good food.

yesterday, sister martinez and i had about an hour to spare before a member fed us an easter dinner, so we decided to go and find some people to teach. we were on a farm road and all the houses were pretty spread apart and we walked kind of far without realizing it. so. after we finish talking to this lady, we realize we are already two minutes late for the appointment, we're far away from our car, and we were super far away in the boonies from where she lived. so naturally, we started sprinting. sprinting past all of the drunk people that we just called to repentance. they were all staring at us. we were just laughing and sprinting and gasping for air because we got really tired. then. my shoe got caught on a rock as we were crossing the road. i think i normally would have been able to just stumble a little and keep running. but i guess my legs were tired from the sprinting and the laughing and i just rolled onto the ground. in the middle of the road. then my companion yells, "cars!" so i just got up and we kept running and laughing. and all of this happened in front of another house that was having a party. it was awesome. i kind of scraped up my knee. but it was worth it for the memory.

well i told my friend victor i would talk about him and his family because he apparently found my blog. victor is cool. he lives with his sister daniela and brother in law senovio and their kids who are also cool. they all just got baptized a couple months ago. victor is probably going on a mission in a year and always gets me and sister martinez candy and bracelets and things. they have a bright yellow and green house.

anyway.. it has been a pretty uneventful week i guess. OH. noel is now being taught by the elders for reasons not to be mentioned in this e-mail. but he's still great and progressing and should be getting baptized soon.

um. that is all i think. i hope that you are all great. i still haven't been taking any pictures. oops. i promise i will take at least one this week.

love,

hermana morrill

Bed bugs and other stuff....

hello everybody!


this will be brief or else i will type at lightning speed because everyone in the zone is waiting on us to go play some kickball. this week was great! we found a lot of new cool investigators who are ready to progress. if all goes well we should be having a baptism in two weeks for a guy named noel. my trainer sister kellett actually used to teach him when she was here in this area. it was her greenie area. so that's pretty neat. anyway, he's a cool guy and he's been coming to church and he likes it and he had been a few times before we got here and yeah. he may or may not have schizophrenia and so it has been kind of a battle for him in the past, but he is really just making leaps and bounds of progress and is super cool. i think he really enjoys being surrounded by good people at the church instead of the family and friend environment he has been exposed to his whole life. he's a sweet guy.

in other news, i think i had a bout with fleas or bed bugs or something because two days ago i woke up with bites all over my body. its extremely itchy and uncomfortable.

what else. last week i tried to go on a carb fast because all i eat is tortillas. i lasted about two and a half days and then a member fed us some tortillas and it was all over. man carbs are so good.

anyway. we have been extremely blessed in finding families lately. and i have just been feeling so grateful to have been raised knowing the gospel and in a family where there was love and we were all trying our best. we've run into some families this week that have abuse problems and anger problems and it makes me more and more grateful to have been raised in the home i was raised in. i wouldn't trade my family's problems for any other in the world. :)

hope you are all doing well.

i regret to inform you that i have hardly been taking any pictures. maybe i will try to improve this week.

love,

brittany

Patience....

muy buenas tardes a todos!


today i broke the vow that i made to myself in 5th grade to never play soccer. and i actually enjoyed it. i guess this is the second time on my mission that i have played. it was fun and i accidentally tackled an elder kind of. i think i have truly become mexican now though. i play soccer and i eat chile. who would have thought this day would come?

well, this week was awesome. it started off horrible. we've been having opposition lately with investigators and helping people progress. jazzmin hasn't talked to us this whole week. her brother jamal got arrested. and anyway, we felt like we were doing everything in our power to find new people to teach and get people to progress but nothing was working. i went into this opposition though determined to handle it better than the last oppositions i've been through. to show that i could be just a little more patient. and a little more optimistic. on tuesday we felt like we were just at rock bottom and so we finally decided to get priesthood blessings from our district leader and his companion. i feel like everything just changed from there. right after that, at almost the end of the night, we were on our way to visit a less active woman and we met this husband and wife and taught them and they accepted a baptismal date. the next day, we had a district meeting and set goals as a district to beat negativity.. to have good attitudes and only say positive things about investigators and situations. our district ended up having one of the best weeks this district has ever had. sister martinez and i were able to find a lot of amazing people and set more baptismal dates. we actually had somebody come to church. and we saw jazzmin's boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) walking down the street in front of our church. a baptism was just about to start so we ran out and invited him to come in. he came and watched and loved it and now we are teaching him. i know that sometimes heavenly father just tries our patience and sees if we will endure humbly. i know that priesthood blessings are really from god. i know that attitudes are what make or break our lives.

i hope that you are all keepin' it real wherever you are.

love,

sister morrill

Conference Weekend

hello everybody!


another week down in san benito. it has been nice and hot. a lot of people here are poor and don't have air conditioners, so we just sweat to death in their homes. it's awesome. general conference was baller. general conference here is like a holiday. you pretty much don't work all day. members invite you out of nowhere to come and eat at their homes. everyone in our zone went to eat at texas roadhouse in between sessions on saturday. all the country music lovers were in heaven and getting super distracted. didn't phase me though. :) i loved elder bednar's talk about light and receiving revelation. i'm so grateful that heavenly father guides us and answers prayers and teaches us things through his spirit.

we visited this sweet woman this week. she got baptized about six years ago.. she has three daughters: 9,7, 18 months. apparently about four years ago, she (Gloria) fell away from the church.. got this boyfriend, started doing things that she knew she shouldn't, got pregnant, etc. etc. and hasn't really been back to church. but. recently she was praying and asked god if she should start coming back to church. that day the missionaries knocked on her door. then later that day she ran into some members she knew from the ward and hadn't seen since she left the church. and a couple days later her new visiting teacher came over to meet her. she said she knew that god was telling her to go back and she is so determined to do it. her boyfriend is aggressive and violent and jealous and doesn't want her coming back to church. so we made plans to meet with him this week and see if we could talk it out. and if not, i think she is planning on leaving him. she is awesome and has so much faith. we love her. so. pray for her! and us. and that the baby daddy's heart can be softened.

anyway. this is short, but i am about out of time. hope you are all swell. until next week!

love,

sister morrill

                                                           The Church in San Benito

What is it with her and animals??

                                     P.S., from Britt's mom:  She will be home June 29th!

Howdy Y'all

howdy people!


i have been trying to incorporate more words like howdy and y'all into my vocabulary. even though i'm serving more in mexico, i want to claim the texas accent. this was a week of some pretty sweet miracles.

we had a zone conference and we studied a talk by elder holland called "the divine companionship." this month as a mission we're focusing on having the spirit more powerfully with us as we teach. sister martinez and i started the 'purification challenge' and we fasted about things that we can give up that are distracting us or poking at our own spirits. one of the things i decided (reluctantly) to give up is naps. not that naps are bad, but it was to the point where i'd be out working and instead of focusing on people i was thinking about when i'd get home to take my nap. so. with the exception of p-day, i am no longer a nap taking person. i don't know how i'm going to do it. but somehow i will survive and become a better and more focused missionary from it. i can survive from my 8 hours of sleep.

this week we started teaching a girl named jazzmin. yes, that is how it's spelled. she's the daughter of a less-active woman that we found on our first day here. we had no idea where to go or what to do or how to start being in a new area, so we just said a prayer that we would be guided to someone who needed us. we found this woman, maria. she had been baptized about 25 years ago but fell away from the church pretty soon after being baptized. she kept dodging our appointments for the first week we were here but then we finally convinced her to make some time for us. she completely opened up and was crying and remembered that when she got baptized, the elders gave her a blessing and promised her that she would be able to have children. she had been married twice before and the doctors told her that she would never be able to have children. so then, a couple years after her baptism, she got pregnant, at the age of 32. then she had another child at the age of 33. she said she had completely forgotten about that until we came. so she committed to start reading the scriptures every night and praying and meeting with us some more. so the next time we came over, her daughter jazzmin was there. she's 19. my companion and i both felt prompted to invite her to come and listen. we asked maria and she told us she didn't think she would want to, but we asked her anyway. she came and sat with us and the spirit was so strong. we taught her about jesus christ and faith and repentance and baptism. the spirit was so strong, i felt like my heart was going to leap out of my chest. i asked them if they felt the peace. they answered without a delay and said they had felt it the whole time we had been there. we testified of the holy ghost. jazzmin cried. she accepted a baptismal date. maria suddenly remembered all of these feelings that she had from when she was baptized and was baring testimony about how she knew this was god's church. it was such an amazing experience.

i'm so grateful to be a missionary and to see heavenly father do his work. i know that he loves each of his children and is constantly preparing them. we can help him in his work if we are just pure and listen for the spirit to guide us.

hope that you all are happy and healthy and well.

love,

hermana morrill

Growing Branches

hello queridos!
this has been a fast week. it seems like it was just monday two days ago.
amber, our sixteen year old we found last week is still doing awesome. she prayed and got an answer that she should get baptized. she's been reading the book of mormon and is just so awesome. we love her. we're hoping to start teaching her whole family this week, since spring break will be over and people will have more regular schedules.
we also found a great lady named beatriz this week. i say lady, but in fact she is only 19. she just seems like a lady to me because she already has three children. it's pretty crazy. she made some very big mistakes in her past but she has completely been changing her life around. she wants so badly to repent and has already come a long way. we taught her about repentance and baptism and she said she wanted to get baptized on the 17th of april. when we saw her again last night she said she had already talked to her husband about it and told him that she is planning on getting baptized and coming to church with us and that she knows its right because we've been able to answer the questions that she's always had and nobody has been able to answer. she's great. we are meeting with "husband" tonight to teach both of them. "husband" is really boyfriend.. so they will have to get married before they can get baptized, but i just know that beatriz has the faith to do pretty much anything that the lord asks her to.
this week was the first week our english branch met. they just split it from the ward last week and so yesterday was all the organization and everything. there were probably about 30-35 people tops. the spirit was so strong there. there was a spirit of humility there as young and/or unexperienced people got called to leadership positions, and of unity as everybody was supporting each other and so willing to help out. i kept imagining what it would be like to be in the very first sacrament meeting of church history when joseph smith and a handful of people organized the church for the first time. i could really feel heavenly father's approval and the spirit was so thick you could swim in it. it was a really neat experience and i am excited to be a part of helping this little branch grow.
well.. i am about out of time. choose the right!
love
brittany

Out of my comfort Zone....literally!

hello, world!


greetings from my new area in san benito, texas. it's awesome. we cover a little bit of a city called harlingen, and then pretty much the whole north of san benito, and a couple other little pueblitos named rio hondo and lozana. we serve in two branches with few members.. our spanish branch is just meeting in an office building in the "downtown" part of san benito. we've got a lot of work to do. san benito is beautiful and country-like. lots of roads without names and fields and dirt and palm trees and little neighborhoods that look so mexico-esque. it's very different from mcallen and mission, which are a lot like west jordan, just with more latinos. so far, the members have been so helpful. we went to the spanish branch this week for a wedding (an investigator is getting baptized, but had to get married first.) and we got to meet lots of the members and they are just the sweetest and most faithful people ever. a lot of them are new converts themselves... one of the converts in our area just got baptized a month ago and is already in the young women's presidency. it's pretty amazing because since people get responsibilities so fast, they strengthen their faith and stay active and everybody helps each other. it's pretty amazing.

we've been feeling a little overwhelmed... our area is about three times as big as my last area was (and my last area was pretty darn big) and we don't really have a clue where we're going. but somebody said in church this week that "faith doesn't grow in comfort zones" so i know that this experience will only build my faith. i was definitely in my own little comfort zone their in mission for so long.

we did find a cool girl yesterday named Amber.. she's sixteen. we set a baptismal date with her for the 17th of april. she's really awesome. so we are slowly building up the area. hopefully we'll see some good things happening.

anyway... not much else to update on. definitely looking forward to my p-day nap right now. hope you're all doing swell.

love,

me

hello, everybody!


this has been a week of exciting news.

1) Kim is having her baby right now as we speak! They don't know if it's a boy or a girl... it was going to be a surprise. So we'll find out today. YAY! Also we found out their dog is pregnant. (i feel like i have to live through their family. ha.)

2) We found out where sister martinez is going... San Benito. Surprise of the week: I'm going with her! We leave on friday. I am excited but also sad. i've been in this area for seven months... i've kind of become attached. i also don't like it because it makes the end of my mission seem closer. i'm pretty sure this will be my last area.. i'll have two and a half transfers left. blech. we get to live in a members home though... we'll be living a life of luxury.

3) Mariana got baptized! She is still just the sweetest woman that I know. She was so happy.



hmm. i think that's it. it seemed like there was so much more. this week we got to go to a thing called border fest. janet jackson came and performed. as well as salina gomez. apparently it's a big deal. we had a booth set up and got to hand out cards and candy and talk to people about the church. apparently there were like 800,000 people that went or some riduculous number. so that was fun and different.

i'm sad to be leaving all of the amazing people that we are teaching. the torres family and briana should be getting baptized any week now. but i feel good about going to san benito with sister martinez. she is awesome. plus she is straight from mexico so i will get to finish off the mission speaking lots of espanol. well, that's it for me this week. hope you're all fine and dandy.

love,

sister morrill

Amazing people

hello everybody!


i am kind of running out of time but i will give updates:

-new companion: sister boyle from sandy utah. amazing! we are getting along like two peas in a pod.

-we will be getting another addition to our companionship tomorrow. hermana martinez. she was supposed to serve her mission in san antonio but is now coming to our mission. so sister boyle and i will be training her for the week and then she'll go to her own area.

-melody got baptized this weekend. it was so awesome. everytime i go to a baptism, i just know that god exists and that baptism is the gate to salvation. i'm so grateful to be a missionary and have my testimony of that strengthened all of the time

-my companion held two joints in her hand this week for the first time ever. we saw isaac walking down the street smoking. so we pulled over and told him to throw it away. we made him empty his pockets in front of us and we took all of his pot and cigarette related things and threw them in a dumpster after he left. i'm not even sure what you're supposed to do with illegal drugs or if i should be broadcasting that on the internet. but it was kind of funny how it all went down.

-we are going to our investigator briana's basketball game tonight. shoud be fun. she came to church again. she is the most amazing person i've ever met. but i think i say that about a lot of people.

that's all. love you all!

love,

hermana morrill

Also...if you're interested, here is a link to her mission president's blog: http://texastrayners.blogspot.com/, there are several pictures with Britt in them.  :)

Forever in Mission...

hello everybody!

big news this week. in list form:

-sister busath is getting transferred to the land of white people and doors slamming: kingsville. she's opening up an area with another sister. should be awesome. i'm sad to see her go though. my new companion is coming from my old area in brownsville.. so i'll get to catch up on all the people we were teaching.

-remember our favorite pothead investigators from back in november? well, we were in their area and ran into one of them outside. he told us that he has quit smoking pot now, he's lost like fifty pounds, and found new friends. we are coming back to start teaching him again. we'll see what happens. there should be fun stories at least if nothing else happens.

-elvira (the one i told you about a couple weeks ago) and her daughter came to church this week. they loved it. they are so pumped to get baptized. we taught daughter briana's boyfriend too and he's getting in on the learning. he might not be as promising but he's cool. he told us, "what the heck, at least if one day i ever want to be on who wants to be a millionaire, they could ask me a question about mormon's beliefs and i'll know the answer." ha.

-the torres are still awesome. this week was diana's birthday. she turned six. they invited us over to celebrate. they are so cute. we are hoping for a miracle in getting them baptized this week. they know all that they need to know and have been to church enough times.. they are just scared of falling away after they get baptized. they don't think they have enough faith.

-this week, we will be baptizing melody silva. have i even told you about her? she's this sweet little 15 year old. her dad is a convert but is now inactive (still has a rock solid testimony) and she is awesome. we're hoping she'll get her whole family back to church. she is such a sweetheart.
-i am beginning to wonder if i will ever leave this area.

-mariana is so awesome still and will be getting baptized soon. the elders are so happy they get to teach her. ha. sigh. i miss her.

-katie and tammy, those two sisters, ended up dropping us. their grandma is a super duper catholic and just absolutely will not have her granddaughters being anything else. it's really sad. they have testimonies of the book of mormon. i hope that one day they will have the courage to do what they want to do and not worry about it. but for now they are not budging.

..... um.. that's all. it has been a great week and should be a good one this week. hope that everyone out there in cyber space is doing well.

love,

brittany

Mariana

Hello, everybody. I would just like to share with you an experience we had this week as i said it in my e-mail to my president.


"...We have an investigator named Mariana. She has a baptismal date for March 6. She just got here from Mexico. She swam across. She has more faith and more love than anyone I have ever met and every time I talk to her I feel like I am close to heaven. She's been living with this family and taking of care of their children for them. She's been to church three times now. We were never able to teach her at home because the padrona wouldn't let us, so we taught her on sundays only at church. Well, this sunday when she got to church she was a hysterical crying mess. She told us that the family she lives with had accused her of robbing them and were saying that she owed them 5,000 dollars. They said they were going to take her posessions and take her back to Mexico.

Our ward members are SO amazing. I don't think I've ever cried so many tears of gratitude in one day. One ward member after another came up and was offering her help. The members of the bishopric, sisters in the relief society, elders in the elders quorom. One brother gave her a blessing after sacrament and it was one of the most beautiful i've ever heard, i think just because the spirit was so strong. By the end of the three hours, Mariana had people offering to buy her clothes, and she had an older couple offering her to live at their home and work for them. She is now living with a family in our ward, will be able to be taught by the missionaries (we passed her off to the elders in that area since it is far away from us) and will have a more loving atmosphere. She'll be able to save up money and help the rest of her family come across. I'm so grateful for humble and loving members who are willing to sacrifice to help people in need. I've been thinking about something that one of the members told her when he was comforting her.. he said, "don't worry. nothing will happen to you. you are in the best place. you are in the church of jesus christ." earlier in that sacrament meeting, our stake president gave a talk about how we as members should be doing and saying what jesus christ would say and do. we really are in the church of jesus christ, and you can tell by the way that the sweet members took our investigator under their wing. I'm so grateful to be a missionary and a part of his church. I'm so grateful to witness christlike love and I know that it's only possible for people to love like that because they have felt the love that Christ has for them..."
One day if you ask me, I will share with you the story of how Mariana came here to the U.S... she is the most inspiring woman that I have ever met.

I hope that you all are happy and healthy.

Until next time.

Britt

Brrrr!

hello team!

it has been another great week in the valley. strange things happened this week. it went from being 85 degrees on sunday evening to being 30 degrees tuesday afternoon. i don't know how it is possible. i haven't seen ice on a car in over a year but i saw it this week. crazy.
we are teaching amazing people right now! heavenly father is really blessing us lately.. i think because we went through some major opposition in january. the torres family is doing wonderful. they will be getting their baptism interview this sunday and then getting baptized the following. i continue to be humbled every day that i talk to them. i've never felt so much love for somebody.
we also met this cool lady named elvira and her family. they have gone through some opposition this past few years.. they were abused by their husband/father and have kind of pushed god out of their lives but they are really searching for him and are feeling the healing powers of the sacrifice of jesus christ. we invited them to be baptized. in her prayer at the end of the lesson, elvira expressed that she wanted god back in her life, and that she was so happy we met her, and that she is excited to be baptized and start a new life with god again. she is so amazing and the spirit was so strong in that lesson.
we also found these two sisters.. tammy (15) and katie (13)... they are adorable and katie reminds me a lot of me. maybe that's why i like them so much. so conceited. but anyway, we set a date for them on the 13th of march and they are just so stinking funny. i forget how much i love working with youth.
we had a miracle happen with this man named oscar. maybe i have told you about him. he is this old man who has been taught by the missionaries since early july last year and has come to church ever since. he calls us every now and again telling us that he wants to be baptized, but in the end can't because he is absolutely unwilling to quit drinking coffee. well he has been going through some humbling experiences the past few weeks and for the first time since i've known him, he has told us that he is willing to quit coffee. so we bought him this coffee substitute stuff made from garbanzo beans and he is going to give it a try and if he can show that he has really quit it, we are going to baptize him by the end of the month.
we are continually being blessed and stretched and tested and tried and blessed some more and i am so grateful to be a missionary at this time in my life and for the things i am learning about myself and about my heavenly father and about mankind. i hope that this e-mail finds everybody happy and not ice cubes from the storm this week.
nos vemos!

hermana morrill



Getting warm....

hello everybody.
we got a little glimpse of the summer texas weather this weekend. it was back up in the high 80s yesterday. it was nice. i miss sweating profusely.
this week was so amazing. the torres family, remedios, luis, florencia, and their kids have just been a constant light in our lives these past couple of weeks. they are so inspiring and sweet and humble and grateful and amazing. yesterday was the one year anniversary of when remedios lost his legs in the accident. they expounded on the story of it for us. remedios and luis (father in law and son in law) worked together at a granite field in hebronville, texas. the family had left everything behind in mexico to come to the united states, six years earlier. they worked their way up from having absolutely nothing, to having a nice home and enough to get by. then one day at work, remdios was moving some of the big granite stones with the tractor. something went wrong with the electrics of it all and it jerked the whole tractor, which in turn bumped a large, 15-20,000 pound stone right onto remedios' legs. luis saw the whole thing, was probably about ten feet away from him when it happened. florencia, (luis' wife, remedios' daughter) had just had their 4th baby a few days before. they rushed to the hospital, remedios was life flighted to mcallen. when he woke up he asked the nurse if she could elevate his feet because they were in pain. the nurse burst into tears and told him that he didn't have legs any more. remedios just put his hand over his heart and didn't say anything. the job that they were working at fired luis and remedios and to this day are not helping them financially with the results of the accident, although they are going through a legal process and trying to get money from it. they had to leave all of their things in hebronville and move here to mcallen to be closer to the hospital. they live in the humblest little home you can imagine with mice and cockroaches and not enough chairs for everyone in the family to sit and eat dinner together.
we told the ward mission leader about their lack of chairs, and directly after that, without us knowing, he and his wife went and bought them chairs and delivered them to their house. when we went over for appointment that night they had new folding chairs and they were so grateful. that's when they told us their whole story. they were so grateful to find people that cared about them and gave them chairs. florencia and luis were thanking us and then remedios said, "no, it's a blessing from god." he is the most cheerful and faithful man i have ever met. everything is a blessing to him and he's just so grateful to be alive. they are so excited for the friendships and they things they are learning at church and for the blessing they can have to be a family forever and follow jesus christ together.
last night i was just reflecting and thinking about them and had the deepest feeling of gratitude i have ever felt. i am so humbled to know them and i know that heavenly father has not put me here to help them, but has put me here so that i can learn from them. i have never loved a family like i have loved them before. i am so grateful for the many blessings that i have in my life, and this opportunity that i have for even just a small time in my life to dedicate my life to giving back and helping others.
...i hope that this email finds you all happy and that we can all remember our blessings and remember to reach out to others.
love,
me

Baby!

Her email to me (her mom):

"baby!
i have no words. i've just been sitting here looking at pictures with watering eyes for the past thirty minutes."

Then came this:

"hello everybody.
this week i have wasted my entire e-mail time looking at pictures of my new niece! happy birthday (today) to my favorite older sister in the world and to her new baby layla.
love,
hermana morrill


"mom, will you put up the cutest picture you can find of the baby? or maybe just the one you sent me of rachel holding the baby. then it has both of them."

Here is what she's been looking at: http://4wardthinking-terry.blogspot.com/

Happy Preparation Day!

hello everybody. feliz dia de preparacion.

this week has been good. we got a new sister in the apartment.. straight out of puerto rico and learning english. its nice to practice spanish a little more. hermana feito is her name.

sonia and jose dropped us. sadly. they got into some anti-mormon literature and after some trying to battle it out with the spirit, jose said, "i will NEVER believe this." its sad that someone can feel the spirit so strongly and then through doubt or fear or lies completely deny it and be seem so miserable. the spirit in their home and eyes had changed very dramatically within a two day period. sad. BUT. we did find amazing people this week. when one door closes another opens. (anyone get that horrible pop song stuck in their heads? "i hope you daaaaaance.") yes i still battle with getting songs of the world out of my head.

anyway, we found la familia torres. sister busath and i do service every week at the church employment office. luis torres came in looking for a job. he had been to our church in corpus years ago with the missionaries and liked it, so he knew we had an employment office and searched us out here in mcallen. we set up an appointment to visit him and his family on saturday. long story short: they are so amazing. it's him, his wife, his wife's father, and they have four children under the age of 5. we went over on sunday morning to help them get ready but they were all ready already, including the wife's father, who has no legs. they were cut off in a work accident almost a year ago and he is in a wheelchair now. the seven of them came to church and loved it and are planning to get baptized, although they are still being scared about accepting a date to prepare for.

we also met a woman named diane. she had an aviary with about 200 birds as of yesterday. she sold them all to the botanical gardens in corpus. we helped her rake all of the bird poop and seeds. at first she was very cold to us and didn't want us to even talk to her. then as we continued to talk we found out she had an aviary and asked her if we could help her clean it and after some time she finally caved and let us come back the next day. when we came back and got to know her we found out that the aviary was really her husbands and that he left her, took all the money, left her with all the birds, and hasn't talked to her since. she said that she has been really trying to work on her relationship with god lately and that the other day when we came over, her initial reaction was to shoo us a way, but that she felt like god had "slapped her on the back of the head
" and said, "LISTEN!" so she let us come back. after sharing a message with her she asked us if she could read the book of mormon and told us that she knows god sent us to her. she is a great lady. she cried and expressed her gratitude for us coming over to help. and she gave us chocolate chip cookies. i love being a missionary so much. i love seeing that god really does love his children and reaches out to them always.. we just have to let him in. and listen to him.

hope everybody is doing well. until next week.
britt

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

feliz ano nuevo!

the pictures are of a few of the sisters down here in the valley, and my district after eating lunch at taco palenque. this was a good week. me and my roommate got to go to a leadership conference (because we're training) and we learned a lot of good things. the gospel is amazing. there are these members in our ward, the ochoas, who are newlyweds. and they had been talking to their neighbors recently about the church. so we decided to stop by and visit them. and for the past month or so things kept getting in our way and we couldn't get over to teach them. but then finally this week things started happening. on monday we went over and we met the wife. her name is sonia. they just had a baby about two months ago. it's so cute. anyway, she asked us all about our purpose as missionaries so we told her we were there to represent jesus christ and help her make changes in her life and come to know of the truthfulness of the restored gospel for herself and so on so on. so she agreed to have us come back again. then they weren't there for their appointment. lame. but we didn't get discouraged. we stopped by again yesterday. we were planning on teaching them about the restoration, but then after we prayed we got the distinct impression that we needed to watch together forever with them. for those who don't know, together forever is a delightfully cheesy 80s movie all about how living the gospel of jesus christ can help us in our family problems. whether it's marital problems, or death in the family, or rebellious children.. luckily in spanish, NOTHING is cheesy. so anyway.. both sonia and her husband jose were there. we call them in to watch the movie. by the end of it the spirit was so strong and sonia was crying a river. when it was over she got up to go to the bathroom to dry her face. jose told us that he wanted to act. that it's one thing to watch or listen to the word of god, but that we need to act. we need to be doing things. then sonia came back and we asked her how she felt. she cried again and told us that she loved it. we then shared 2Nephi 31:10-11 about following jesus christ. and how he has commanded us to repent and be baptized. they had a little bit of confusion as to why they needed to be baptized again because they were already baptized when they were babies. we shared another scripture and then asked them to kneel down and ask god right then if he wanted them to be baptized again. we all knelt down and sonia offered the prayer. the spirit filled the room. she was crying. we asked her what she felt. she then opened up about how they've been having all of these marriage problems and she's been praying everyday for the past few years that something can make their marriage better and that they could grow closer together. We invited them both to be baptized on the 6th of february and they accepted. We promised them that as they grew closer to jesus christ and continually strived to become more like him, and by following his example and being baptized, their marriage could be better. It was such a beautiful moment that i don't think i will ever forget. it's so amazing to see that the lord is constantly preparing people and putting us in their paths at just the right moment. when we called the ochoas later and told them their neighbors were getting baptized they were so happy. it was cool. i'm grateful for members who are not afraid to open up their mouths and talk to their neighbors.
anyway. that's about it for me. looks like me and sister busath are staying together for another transfer.. we got transfer calls this weekend. hope everybody is happy and well.
love
brittany