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