Sister Morris saying her "goodbyes" to the Penza Branch

Fleshy Tables of the Heart

I think I always thought about writing this email, the last one, and now I am writing it, and I don't know what to say! As I look out of the window here of the Internet Cafe and see the people walking around that I have grown to love for 16 months, it really seems unreal that soon I will be ""home." I think that a part of my heart will stay here in Penza and of course another part is still in Saratov, but I can't
express the gratitude in my heart to my Heavenly Father for the opportunity to serve on a mission here in Russia. I have grown to love a people who are kind, warm, friendly, generous and STRONG. As stated in the Book of Mormin we have taught them in their homes, in their meeting places and even on the street and like the missionaries of old, I can say that the experiences I have had are not written on tablets of stone but in the fleshy tables of the heart. I am so grateful to have been able to share the Gospel with these amazing people and help them to know that there is a God. I think that the first principle in the missionary lessons really is one of the most
important-- that God is our LOVING Heavenly father and that He hears and answers our prayers. I can't express the feelings I had when I heard an investigator pray for the first time or explain how they felt after church. I am so grateful to that same Loving Heavenly Father who gave me answers to my prayers, supported me through my miniscule trials and always held me up when I was too tired to go on. I know this church is true and like Elder Holland I will leave my "last testimony" that the Book of Mormon is true. That it is scripture and that we truly can grow closer to our Heavenly Father and know more about Jesus Christ through that book, than any other on the earth. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, that He descended
"below all things" to raise us up above all things. I know that it is through Him and only through Him that we can return to our Loving Heavenly Father and that we can receive ETERNAL LIFE. I know that the only true and sure way to happiness is when we keep the commandments, that we truly will be blessed in all things, in spiritual, physical and emotional. I know that prayer is real communication between our
Heavnely father and His children and that ANY time, ANY place and in any language, He hears and answers our prayers. What a privilege and blessing it is to have such a Loving Heavenly Father who is so ready to always listen, always help and always comfort. I have to say I love a whole lot of things about Russia but I think I will do a quick list of my favorites (this is probably more for me than it is for those reading this email but hey... what can I say...) ***In no particular order
1. GRANDMA'S-- they love you, yell at you and then kiss you-- there's not anything better
2. Strength- they love who they are, they love their country adn they
love their family
3. Marshutki-- magical buses that take you anywhere, really fast
4. CANDY-- Oh they have good candy...maybe I'll share...
5. Podezd's-- each one has it's own character, it's own neighborhood,
and it's own crazy color
6. Members of the church- They know who they are, they know wy they are members and they have a testimony. They also share that testimony and are so convinced in the power of this Gospel adn the saving ordinances. I have never seen anyone more dedicated to going to the Temple than these Russian Saints and I love it!
7. Russian culture-- the dancing, colors and music-- it really is beautfiul
8. Their humor-- I still don't understand all of it but it's really
really fun to joke with them
9. Their love of beautiful things-- I think I inherited this from my Grandma's, but I have noticed in Russia that everything they do at home is BEAUTIFUl and their houses are always clean
10. Their work ethic- they know how to work and work long hours, EVERY
day to support their family.
Well this is a just a start of my list that I will continue to write but I can definitely say that Heavnely Father has blessed me abundantly in allowing me to serve here with these people and with all of my companions. I am also very grateful for a wonderful family. I have been so blessed to have the mom and dad that I have and the
brothers and sisters. They have supported me through everything and have been FANTASTIC writers. All of my companions are amazed when I tell them about my parents and how orgaznied they are, loving, and hard working. I love them and am so grateful for everything they have done for me. As I said, I know this church is true. I know that it will continue to go on and that the church here in Russia is only going to grow. They are a wonderful people and so ready to hear the truth and the good news of the Gospel. I know that we can always receive inspiration from our Heavenly Father and I know that he is at the head of this work. I know that this really is the Church of Jesus Christ adn that He is at the head of the church with his mouthpiece,
the prophet. I love this Gospel, I love the change it cna bring into the lives of people adn I am so grateful for a mission that has changed my life and has changed the way I view people. I love all of you and am so grateful for all of your prayers, love and support. Love,
Sister Morris

"The best things happen while you're.... tracting"

Wow! I don't even know what to say! i got soooo many amazing and inspiring emails today! Thankyou! It was so great to hear from everyone and I really can say the Lord has blessed my family! I love seeing the pictures of the kids and just thinking how much they've grown and how great they are doing! It really is a blessing from our Heavenly Father to have such great and strong family relationships.
Jill- I have to say that I had a crazy dream this week, where you were serving with me on a "mini-mission" and all of the other sisters were on a Visa trip and so we were together the whole day and we had to decide where to go, what to do etc. and it was HILARIOUS! I woke up just thinking that wow, that would have been a really bad combination on a mission ;) We saw MIRACLES this week! I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve with my amazing companion and in tis area and especially in our
ward because we really are being able to witness miracles and the hand of the Lord in our work. This week we had some great lessons with members and investigators and have been able to really see a change in many of them. This week was REALLY REALLY COLD, like -25, and so we were able to also do A LOT of tracting. Unforuntaltely, it wasn't always really successful, or shall we say normal... but I mean, who doesn't have
good stories from tracting on their mission? We did get to meet a really really Grandpa who spent about 2 minutes opening the door, when he then just said, "Be Healthy" and then 2 minutes closing the door. Awesome. We had alot of fun and luckily my companion is really easy going and so we laughed really hard.
I can also say that the good ol' fall count is coming back. I fell 3 times in one day... where is Sister Stolyarova when we need her?! The roads are really really slick here and so I find myself always telling my companion to slow down (who is used to roads here) and holding on to her like I'm 5. I asked her last night if maybe today (P-day) we should just find a sled or something and then she could just pull me. We'll see")
Wednesday night we had a really sweet experience. We have been visiting with a lady here in the ward who is fighting with cancer. I have to say that it has been a very solemn and humbling experience to watch this spiritual giant in my eyes, to lose strenght every day. It really brings me back to the time when my grandma was fighitng with cancer and I can honestly say that I have never felt the love of the savior more real and powerful than in these few minutes with her. we were able to sit with her for a couple of minutes and hear her sweet and strong testimony about how God lives, how he loves us and how He always will ove us. That His hands are always outstretched towards us and that we can always realy on His redeeming and loveing power. It
was so sweet to be able to hug her and know, that through the Gospel and the saving ordinances, this POWERFUL Spiritual Giant has a great and magnificent work in the future. How grateful I am for a loving Heavenly Father and for knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. I know, without a doubt, that there is life after death and that we will be able to be with our families. How grateful I am for that knowledge. Thursday we also saw a "tender mercy" of the Lord. After calling everyone we could think of, to set up a lesson, we decided to pray and just see what we could do. We continued our day, continued to work and do everything we could to set up a lessona dn about 5 pm, an investigator called us and asked US if we could come and teach her at
6! WOW! The Lord blesses and loves his missionaries. In our district we have been praying non-stop to see MIRACLES in Penza, and I can testify that they are occuring. I am so blessed and amazed to work with these amazing missionaries here and see the changes that are happing in Penza as we continue to do the Lord's work. I love you all and I know this church is true! Thanks for your testimonies, your prayers and your love. The "tender mercies" of the Lord are upon us all and God loves us. Go and be someone' Spiritual giant today, and I know you too will see miracles. This is the sprint to finish!
Sister Morris

The Thanksgiving Spirit in Penza

Well I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving and it was a fun-filled, good food day for everyone! This week has been awesome andwe are seeing miracles in the Penza area. We are so excited to workwith our awesome ward and to just have the support of all of themembers. I am seriously amazed by their dedication and love to thegospel every week! Well I need to start out adn say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of
my favorite little nieces, LUCY! YEA! i can't believe that she is already 4 and already all grown up. I hope that she has a great birthday filled with princess fun, lots of candy and cake, and lots and hugs and kisses. I can't wait to get my princess shoes on and dance with you ;) Well Monday night was fantastic! We had 2 family home evening's and we loved being able to spend some time with our members and get to know them and their families. Our first FHE was with one of our new converts and it was her first "try" at FHE and it was a huge success. It is such a cool sight to be able to see someone who didn't know anything about the gospel transform and become just... perfect. I was so proud of her for wanting to hold her own FHE, for having a spiritual thought, treats, etc. It was such a great evening and I think that she will continue to have many more successful and fun-filled FHE's! WE then went back to our area for FHE with an amazing family here. BY far my favorite part was the game at the end where I was enlisted to act out a famous RUssian Fairytale (one, that I was not familiar with at all) in the form of a comedy. I was enlisted to be the mouse and so just ended up crawling around nad
trying to understand the story. They then did the same story in the form of a tragedy and it was so funnY! The president of the branch was there and so it was so fun to watch him be the grandma in the story, trying not to laugh and act it out. It was great. We had some great lessons with investigator's this week and so it has
been great to just watch them progress. We also got to work with TANYUSH this week which is always a HUGE treat! i love her and am just so happy when she comes out on the street with us. We were at our investigator's house and we LOVE to be there because we always have really really interesting conversations and we realized that we had to be home in about 20 minutes. Well, she lives about 30 minutes away and
so we finished the lesson and RAN out of there. Unfortunately there was a HUGE storm and the wind and freezing rain was a little bit of a deterrent. We were half running, half walking while trying to see in front of us and singing hymns all the way. I felt so bad for Tanya who was with us because she did not have warm clothes on but we were laughing and having a good time. We had to RUN home by the end because
we realized we had about 3 minutes left. Luckily we made it but I was SOAKED from head to foot. We also had a great lesson with an inactive lady that night and had a really interesting conversation on the atonement and how we can apply it more in our lives. It was great to be able to talk to her about it and we love working with her. SHe has the best sense of humor! Her and Tanya got along great instantly! We
really hope that soon she will be able to come to church! Thanksgiving this year was miraculous and I have to say it was all thanks to our new investigator. We met a really really great lady a couple of weeks ago while tracting and so set up a meeting with her on Thursday. We knew that she spoke perfect English (she is a teacher here) and so planned to our lesson in English (which is always realy
interesting). We showed up for our lesson and she had a whole Thanksgiving Dessert tray for us. It was so cute! She knew that in America it was a big holiday and so had planned for us to celebrate. It was so sweet. We had a greta lesson with her and talked about the Book of Mormon a lot. She had been to Salt Lake City for a teacher's
conference and so we were able to talk about that a little as well. We gave her the BOok of Mormon in English and just had a great lesson. The spirit was so strong and she promised to read. She then came to church on Sunday and it was Fantastic! She loved the meeting and so we are so excited to keep working with her.
We also bought a pumpkin from a grandma on the street and made pumpkin and banana cream pies for the ward Thanksgiving party on Friday. The pies were a huge hit and it was so fun to start with a pumpkin and at the end have a pie. I have to say i felt pretty proud and felt a little like Martha Stewart. The pies were delicious and the ward absolutely loved them!
Friday we had a great Thanksgiving evening where we talked about Gratitude, taught the members how to do the traditional "primary turkey with your hand" and played some musical chairs. There was then a big feast. Everyone loved the activity and there were A TON of investigators there and so it was even better. Overall it was a great evening and we absolutely loved it! The members loved celebrating the
Holiday and loved being able to share their gratefulness. As I said, this week we saw lots of miracles and have been amazed that the work in this area just keeps going on. The church in Penza is GROWING and there is so much success here. We know that the success here is because of the faith and prayers of the members and their
willingness to work with us. I love working here in this branch and I love seeing the changes that are taking place in this area. WOW! Our Heavenly Father loves us and gives us so many blessings. I am so grateful for a fantastic week, for an awesome companion, for the opportunity to serve the Lord and testify of Him and His sacrifice and for all of the tender mercies He gives us everyday. I know this church
is true and it brings HAPPINESS! I hope everyone has a good week and continues to feel the "thanksgiving spirit". I lvoe you! Sister Morris

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE TOM THE TURKEY!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Who could have asked for a better dad! He emails me every week, inspires me, gives me funny stories to use while I"m teaching and when I spoke in church yesterday! (I spoke in church yesterday about faith and hope and used your Thanksgiving on the mission story with the turkey;) Thanks dad for everything you do and for always being so positive and a great example of dedicated service to the Lord in your callings, in your family and while you work! I love you! THis week was great! I can't even describe how happy I am about everything that happened this week! We did have our Visa trip and it was fantastic. It was so great to get to be with and chat with SIster Tedrow and i love her! I am so happy and grateful for her amazing example of service and how awesome of a missionary she is. It was also great to be with the Elder's who I haven't seen for a long time and to know that as Alma says, "they were still my brethren in the Lord." It was great to be with them and joke and just see how they have grown and changed. It is so intersting because you really can see the change in others and not in yourself. They have all become AMAZING missionaries with strong testimonies and a love of the Lord. I am so proud of all of them and how they are doing this work for the Lord. Lithuania was, as usual, really fast BUT we did get to talk to two American WNBA players who are playing right now on a Russian INternational team in the off-season. they were really really cool and we talked to them for a long time while we waited for our flight from Moscow to Lithuania. They were also renewing their visa's and so they told us all the cool things to do in Lithuania... unfortunately.... we usually have about 10 minutes:) But their names were... LIndsey _____ and Michelle Snow? Maybe Devin knows them :) I hear her loves the WNBA and Michelle Snow played for Duke? So that was fun and of course it was crazy to talk to AMERICANS with AMERICAN ACCENTS! WOW! That is weird. It was also great of course to see the other sister's and get to spend some time with them! I love to just be able ot see them and how awesome they are! THey inspire me to be better! We also got to see Sister Sartori, Sister Robinson and Sister Templeton which is a treat. We came into the office to get supplies and the mail for PENZA. When
you live "off the beaten track", you don't get materials that often so we thought we'd take advantage of the time in Samara to pick up our stuff! (Thanks mom for the package, it was great-- we've already started giving stuff out!) I absolutely love Sister Sartori and am so grateful for her example of dedicated service and LOVE! Wednesday, after the Visa Trip, I found a nice little present on my bed from my companion. She had given me some candy and a really nice card and.... a crab, yesa, a real crab. Wow. thanks! i reached into the box and pulled out this stange-feeling thing and then looked at it and screamed and threw him. He was half dead and half alive because he had been sitting there all night but it was NASTY! Turns out someone
had "given" it to her on the street-- I don't know... We got back inot our area on Thursday and had a great day working. We had a FANTASTIC meeting with an inactive lady in our ward and I just love to meet with her. The Spirit was very strong and we were able to just talk about the blessings of going to church. It seems like that
was definitely a theme in our meetings this week because with a lot of people we were able to talk about the blessings of going to church! On my mission, I have realized more and more what a blessing it is to go to church. I find that at the end of the week i just thirst to be in church, to see all my friends and to partake of the sacrament. It really is like it says in Moroni 6 that we need to get together often
to be nourished by the word of God, pray, fast, and talk to each other! It is such a blessing to have that strength and support from other members of the church.
Friday night was... well miraculous! We had our first ever "CULTURE NIGHT"! It started by going to McDonalds (my first time in Russia- still not sure how that is culture but the Elders were DYING to go) and then headed to the Philharmonic. It was a concert of a singer from St. Petersburg but the best part, by far was the Russian Folk ensemble and dancers! Yes, I got to see the Kazak done by Russians! Woohoo! It
was so fun to sit there and see them dancing in their traditional costumes and just think that "wow, this isn't even at BYU, I'm IN RUSSIA." THe concert was great and I really enjoyed it. I think the Elder's had a hard time with the singer but overall they seemed to enjoy themselves. They did say that next time, they are picking the
cultural event but oh well. Saturday was just a good working day and we had some good lessons with some inactives and some referrals from the members (THEY ARE GREAT!)
We also had a great lesson with one of our new investigators and it was so fun to discuss with her the purpose of life, why we're here, who God is and all of those good questions. It really was a very powerful discussion and we are so HAPPY to work with her! She is great! So overall our week was fantastic. I am still amazed by my companion everyday and her commitment to work and try her hardest! She is doing
absolutely amazing and I couldn't be any prouder! YEA! I hope everyone has a great week. Have a good and YUMMY thanksgiving and remember all of your blessings. Also remember the great blesssing it is that we can go to church every Sunday and be fed by the word of God, talk with each other and pray and fast. It really is AMAZING! I love you all! Sister Morris