all good things

Okay so last week (after I emailed) we watched the Boston Marathon at the Mission Office! It was so cool (and way inspirational) to see everyone running and everyone who was pushing along their family members. My favorite part was that we had like 40 missionaries lined up in this one spot and every time there was a Mormon runner they would see us and get SO EXCITED it was like an extra adrenaline rush for them! haha it was great! 

We got a member referral this week for a girl named Elena! She's so cool we taught her the first lesson on tuesday and she's suuuper solid. She's excited to learn all about the plan of salvation and hopefully we will be setting up a baptism date with her this week!

ALFREDO! Okay so last week his phone BROKE. Like we had NO contact with him and we were freaking out (because he's our most progressing investigator and we love him and he is supposed to get baptized soon ya know) ANYWAYS so we were praying and praying to find a way to get in contact with him and it got to the point where we were willing to go tract the ENTIRE town of Newton to try and find this guy. BUT THE LORD BLESSED US SO HARD. We were eating lunch on thursday and we get a call from an unknown number and who is it? ALFREDO! we were so excited and happy! His phone should be getting fixed this week but we'll see! we've met with him twice since then and we will be meeting with him more and more before he get's baptized on the 14th! 

On Wednesday we went on exchanges with the Spanish sisters (hermanas haha) and if there's one thing I learned, It's that I'm SO grateful I didn't get called spanish speaking. I literally don't think I understood a single thing that happened THE ENTIRE DAY. and THEY DIDN'T STOP FEEDING US. Every house we went to fed us! WE ATE LIKE 7 TIMES AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND. It's hard to pay attention in a lesson that is all in a language you know 0 of. so I might have fallen asleep a few times and hermana Lira just laughed at me and said it happens every time they go on exchanges with english sisters. oh well. 

Then on Friday we had District meeting and went to lunch afterwards and we were all together when we got t-texts (texts that tell us who's getting transferred where) and surprise surprise I'm staying in cambridge! so is my companion! We're super excited for everyone who's coming in though! It's going to be a SOLID zone. 

On Saturday we got to go to the recent convert temple date! We helped out in the Baptistery and it was such an amazing experiece to witness people go into the temple for the first time and do baptisms for their own ancestors. IT WAS PACKED THOUGH. i have never seen that many people in a baptistery before! It was way cool. 

ANYWAYS that's about it for this week! It FLEW but I feel like I say that every week. I can't believe I've been out two months??? super weird. Anyways I love you all have a great week (:

-Sister Morley

what a week

I feel like this week was 8 years long, but also like it was 8 seconds long. It was so so good though.

1. So last monday after I emailed we went to the stake center to play basketball and hang out with our zone, which was great! Except it started snowing SO HARD (well at least I thought it was snowing so hard) and it was SO SO COLD. and me, not knowing any better, was not dressed properly for it (i don't understand how people here can just whip out all their winter gear from their little purses whenever it snows? like was that in there the whole time?) and because of the snow, the public transit was way off so we couldn't figure out how to get to our dinner and eventually the zone leaders had to pick us up and take us haha and they all freaked out when they saw me because apparently I looked an inch from death from all the running around in the freezing cold weather. Safe to say i felt about an inch from death ahhaha. It's way too cold here.

2.We had a few lessons this week and they all went relatively well! Alfredo started recognizing the answers to his prayers, and Patrick is making bigger and bigger strides towards baptism! we're so excited for this coming month! it's cool because even we're teaching our investigators who are borderline crazy, it's amazing to realize that the spirit is still there with us, helping us and carrying us through everything we need to do, teach, and say. It's the most comforting feeling in the world.

3. I GOT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE ON WEDNESDAY. The Boston temple is BEAUTIFUL (although I have to admit I'm still partial to the Gilbert Temple) It was amazing! I got to see my MTC companion Sister Clark. I love her to pieces, and as I always say to her, I hope we get companioned together someday.

4. On our way to service on thursday we met this guy named Jajuan who we both just felt like we needed to stop and talk to. He just sat and told us his story and cried and accepted to hear the gospel! we met with him and his girlfriend Sheila on Friday, and to be honest, it was a lot of sitting and listening. and sometimes that's what the first lesson is. And it's good because we really get a feeling of what they need. the spirit was so strong, and we're meeting them again this week. ALSO on our way BACK from service, it was POURING. and i mean we were DRENCHED even with umbrellas it was ridiculous hahahaha I'll attatch a picture.

5. We had zone meeting on friday which was so great but also funny because my companion was the STL in our zone before I got here, so we were still given tons of stuff to do haha. we had to make the entire lunch and everything so it was crazy. I put a picture of most of our zone in this email, some of them already left, but for the most part thats it. I love my zone so much i am so blessed. especially my zone leaders, theyre the best.

6. On saturday the portugese elders in our area got to baptise their investigator Aline! we love her. because she's YSA age, she actually is starting to go to our ward now! So we got to go to her baptism and bring some of our investigators. even though it was all in portugese, it was such an amazing experience. you could feel her happiness and God's love for her. Heavenly Father loves us so much its so incredible. 

Okay well that's all for this week! Have a good week and I love you all and the church is so true! 

Love, 

Sister Morley

SNOW

TOO MUCH SNOW. It's April and it's snowing. I don't get it. BUT despite the cold, I'm still loving Cambridge! It's amazing. and CONFERENCE was amazing! (would i even be a real missionary if I didn't bring up conference in my weekly email?) if you didn't get to watch it, I highly recommend that you go online RIGHT NOW and watch it. or at least watch Elder Holland, Elder Richmond, President Iring, and President Monsons talks. They were my favorite. 

This past week was good! not our best week but it was good! I keep trying to figure out how to format my emails but I think I'm just going to stick with lists or else I forget everything I was going to write.

1. In the MTC they teach you how to teach lessons in 45 minutes or less. My comp and i have a goal to actually do that because it seems like ALL of our investigators have 873 questions for every lesson! which I mean it's good that they want to know and understand what we're teaching but it makes teaching short lessons really really difficult!  

2. We committed Patrick to baptism! I'm so excited because I really love patrick. He found US and said he wants to become a member and bring his inactive girlfriend back to the church!!! now they just have to get married!! hahaha I'm so excited for them but kinda nervous for the next lesson when we tell them that! but we're excited because his baptisimal date is may 7th, and his girlfriend got baptised on may 4th so we might be able to move it to the 4th which would be so cool for them! 

3. One of the people we're teaching is george. He had a baptisimal date a few months ago but it fell through and missionaries havent been able to get in contact with him since then! but he came up to us a few weeks ago when he saw us on the streets and said he wanted to learn again! so we taught him and his girlfreind tina this week, and now we have to get them married too! it's about to be a crazy wedding season here in Cambridge, MA. 

4.Alfredo is still doing well! hopefully still on track to get baptised on the 23rd! the only sketch thing is that a few days ago he was saying something about wanting a sign so we might have to clear some things up about how we get answers to our prayers haha.

5. OKAY so below is a picture of my comp and i outside looking MISERABLE because so yesterday we had a dinner at a members house and we left and went to go wait for the bus and it was about 8:00 and we are supposed to be home by 9, which would usually be pleanty of time except public transportation is SUPER unreliable on weekends so we were outsite and it was like 30 degrees and windy and we were waiting for like 30 minutes and the bus WASN'T COMING. and eventually we called a member to drive us home and we maybe got there by 9:30. IT WAS SO COLD. 

6. One cool story from this week is that sister Graham and i were at the saturday morning session of general conference and we get a phone call from some random number and we go out to answer it and it's this girl named Dominique and shes like yeah i want to come to your church what time is it and we told her about how its general conference and where it is and so she came on sunday, and turns out she dated a few mormons in high school but she was catholic and never wanted to learn anything but now she just felt like it was time that she became open minded to our religion! so she looked us up and found out number! it was such an amazing experience so hopefully we will be able to teach her soon! 

It's STILL snowing as I'm typing this, which isn't cool but I know that Temples are the most Holy places on this Earth, and I know that if we attend them often that we will be blessed beyond measure! I love temples, and I love our prophet and the apostles and the revelation they receive for our church. seriously, if you didn't get to watch conference, GO WATCH IT.

 

I LOVE YOU ALL so much. Also i had my first bowl of clam chowder this week, which rocked.

-Sister Morley

p.s. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/media/session_5_talk_8/4829866645001?lang=eng

Opposition in All Things

and by opposition i mean really there was only one bad thing this week. and by one bad thing i mean that i had the worst cold in the history of colds! It almost completely knocked me out. I got it on wednesday and today is the first day I've felt better! It's crazy! It probably wouldn't have lasted so long except we had such a good week lined up, I couldn't miss anything so we just kept going! 

We witnessed like 800 miracles this week, but I don't have time (or motivation) to put them all in here! So I'll just tell a few.

1. WE GOT SOMEONE TO COMMIT TO BAPTISM ON THE FIRST LESSON. His name is Alfredo (remember the one who thought i was a nun hahaha) (turns out a lot of people have thought we are nuns so thats cool) but yeah we had a lesson with him and the spirit was SO STRONG and at the end we asked him if he would be baptised on April 23 and he said YES! and he came to church on sunday and told everyone he is coming back! We're so excited we're teaching him again tonight.

2. We had 10 nonmembers at church on sunday! That alone is a HUGE miracle. The spirit was so strong because of the Easter program and almost everyone who was there kept saying they want to come back! it was amazing!

3. Daniel. haha he's so great. he's from Brazil and we met him at a bus stop and

without us even asking, he just said, "I want to know more about your church on your name tag!" He came to church and said that this is the first time he's felt like he's home since leaving Brazil. We're teaching him for the first time this week, and will hopefully set a date for him too!

Okay so those are three cool miracles that the Lord has worked in our lives. Sister Graham and I are doing great. We eat tons and tons because all the singles LOVE to feed us. We get to pet lots of dogs on the street which ROCKS and then usually we get to contact their owners! 

Yesterday we had TWO easter dinners which was way cool but also I didn't think i could eat that much! unfortunately because i was sick and kinda gross looking most of the week, the easter sunday picture is the only one we have for you guys this week! oh well. IF ANYONE WANTs a postcard email me your address because i bought some cute ones and i want to send them out to everyone (:

The church is so true guys. Conference is coming up, which I'm SO excited for. AND ALL OF YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED TOO because we literally get to hear what The Lord has for us to hear. Christ loves us, and he's our best friend. It doesn't matter what you're going through in life, he's waking through it with you, and he knows what you're feeling because HE feels it too. And because he's felt what you're feeling and because he's suffered for our sins, he can plead with our Heavenly Father for our forgiveness and that is the most amazing thing in the whole world! I love this gospel so much, and I'm so excited for conference and I love all of you!

-Sister Morley

Long post, sorry

WOW what a week. I've never been so cold and tired and happy in my whole life. we did so much this week and it just FLEW by. This email is pretty long mostly because I'm introducing everything and everyone we're working with.

Stuff: Okay so as far as missionary work, we had a few lessons. You really do meet and teach some interesting people here. We taught a guy named Jim on Tuesday. He's super cool but it's weird because he only has a house phone so it's hard to get in contact with him sometimes. He has A LOT of questions. and i mean A LOT. and not just about what we're teaching, but like deep deep doctrinal questions haha it's crazy! We also taught a girl from China named Autumn and she's super Buddhist which is cool. she doesn't speak much English so we had a guy from our ward who spoke it come and help translate but we're passing her off to the Chinese elders soon, which will be good for her. Another interesting guy we taught this week is Frank. He's so interesting. he has had a really hard life before now and it's so cool to see him as he's just now getting back on his feet and we are there with the Gospel helping him up as well. We also taught a girl from Japan this week named Nina. IT WAS SO COOL. we also had a member there to help with translation a bit because the english was a little rough, but she is so open and eager to have a relationship with God, and she said the sweetest prayer at the end of the lesson! We also taught a couple (amanda and luis) this week. Amanda was baptised a few years ago, but kinda went inactive for a while and shes really trying to come back to the church. she really wants a temple marriage and luis is really serious about taking the lessons! the hardest part is that they're kinda afraid of actually getting married but he can't get baptised unless they get married! so we'll see how that goes. they're all so amazing though.

Funny Stories:  Okay some of these i don't know aren't even that funny but here goes. 

1. turns out im still bad at walking and running because i trip like every three seconds and im destroying my knees. 

2. Okay i debated putting this under stuff, but Kathleen is too funny so I'm putting her under funny stories. So shes an investigator, and she LOVES wine. LOVES IT with all her heart. and she loves having us over for dinner but she always drinks wine before we come over so shes always telling us the vraziest funniest things and we're just like alright kathleen haha and it's so hard to teach her because she's DRUNK ahha ah but we love her so much and she really loves us so we're making progress.

3. We do service at a food bank every thursday and there's a special needs guy who works there whos way cool and everyone loves him but for some readon he decided he HATES me and sister graham! and he always walks up to the elders when we're talking to them and tells them how bad we are and the elders just go along with it its so funny but also sad because he's so cool i just want him to be my friend

Miracles: I'm remembering peoples names! We have yet to get lost in the city. There are people in our ward who literally speak like every language so whenever we have an investigator we are always able to find someone who is a fit for them. The Atonement. The Atonement is a miracle in my life every single day and my love for Christ grows every time i think of him and see his hand in my life. if you have't watched the church Easter video yet, go watch it. it's amazing. Also i ate spicy chili and DIDN'T DIE and if that isn't a miracle, i don't know what is. 

Alright well that's about it for this week. Write me letters! I love letters! You can send them to the address i sent last week or to 400 Mt Auburn St Watertown MA 

BOSTON

Okay and by Boston, I mean Cambridge. So my area is the Cambridge area and I'm serving in two singles wards with all these crazy smart students in med school and harvard and it's crazy. One thing I've been having to get used to is PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. I've been on buses and trains and well i guess that's it but still its super weird. I miss cars. I walk around in the city in Harvard square a lot! THE LORD IS DEFINITELY HASTENING HIS WORK HERE IN MASSACHUSETTS. i came into the area with SO MANY potential investigators. We've been teaching tons of first lessons and doing lot's of contacting which is scary but cool! My companion is sister graham! shes super nice and normal AND TALLER THAN ME WHICH IS SO COOL. there are a lot of short girls in my mission so i got blessed haha.

some funny stories this week:

1. So we were on the bus on the way to an appointment and this guy comes up to me and reads my nametag and pulls out his earphones and says "so are you like a nun in training or something?" HAHA i don't think i look like a nun??? but it was actually way cool because i ended up being able to talk to him about the church and getting his number so we are setting up an appointment with him soon! 

2. OKAY so this story is kinda odd. In one of the wards i serve in theres a guy named bobby who has been coming to church for over two years, and believes it's THE true church. BUT. he's gay. and he's so convinced we're going to change our policy on gay marriage and it's kinda funny. we were teaching him (because technically he's still an investigator) and he was saying "yeah i think once everyone gets to know me they'll end up changing their policy" so hahaha wish us luck on how we can break the news to him. any advice???

3. sorry if i don't get back to all of your emails this week but i promise I'm trying!!

4. SEND ME YOUR ADDRESSES and send me letters. I LOVE LETTERS.

my address is: 182 W Central St Natick MA

5. HAHAHA I ALREADY HAVE HAD TO GIVE A TALK IN SACRAMENT just my luck

okay i think that's about it! sorry my pictures are lowkey kinda awful but they'll improve i promise haha also some of these are still from the mtc but that's okay.

the city is slowly growing on me

the church is still true

i love all of you

TODAY IS DAY 20 WOO

-sister morley

BLESSED

I HAVE BEEN SO BLESSED. if you have ever been on a mission or been in the mtc and thought you had a pretty cool district, I am so so sorry but you're wrong. my district is the best thing that has ever happened to the mtc. they're my best friends. Threyre so cool, and so amazing and all i can say is that wow I have been blessed. IM SENDING SO MANY PICTURES because pictures are worth a thousand words, right? I will probably send them in a different email though for the sake of space. The Lord is working miracles in our lives. We have all grown so much in the gospel and had our minds blown at least 4 times a day. the mtc is kinda weird though because you go from praying night and day to praying at least 98 times a day and its insane. I AM ALWAYS BUSY and i LOVE every second of it. If you're not sure if you want to go on  a mission i highly recommend it. OKAY but no joke they do not procrastinate throwing you into the field. Like the first day we met our first investigator. but I'm so happy. there is such a cool spirit here in the mtc because every one (or mostly everyone) who is here is SO EXCITED to go out and serve the Lord and wow there is so much happiness it's phenomenal.  My teachers are so cool and are so good at helping us grow closer to Christ and learn how to better search and study the scriptures. every one and their mother is at the mtc right now ps. Ive seen elder lyman elder pothier, elder peterson, elder taylor, sister christiansen literallty everyone it is so cool. so i promise my email with pictures is going to be way more interesting with actual stories and people! Woo!
okay so the first one is me with elder boatman and elder johannason (all the elders are going to colorado springs) the second one is me and my way short but way great companion sister clark. and the third one is my entire district! from left to right it is sister archer and sister doucharmme (georgia) sister clark and i (boston) elder smith and rodella and johanneson and boatman! the very last picture is was special to me because even i got super sick one day this week and my entire district got together and wrote me letters and it was the sweetest thing in the entire world. once again, so blessed. SIDE NOTE if i am on your missionary email list can you change my email to amber.morley@myldsmail.net??? because obviously my email has changed. thanks (:

p.s. i would send more pictures but unfortunately space is limited and i dont want to annoy you with 34893578 emails so

deuces, sister morley