Come What MAY

Hey y'all!

I hope y'alls week was happy & y'all had the opportunity to have a spiritually enlightening scripture study!

This week was a wonderful beginning to an exciting 5 weeks ahead. Sister Smith & I are embarking on our second half of training here in Cochran, so if you hadn't already figured out.. We are staying! I'm excited because I love Sister Smith so much, she has been nothing short of a blessing to me every single day :) she is always considering what Jesus Christ would do if He was in her situation.

Last Wednesday, Sister Smith & I went over to teach a convert of about 4 years. We are trying to teach her family, there are a few members who are less active and her granddaughter is not a member. Their family is so special, ever since I came to Cochran I always feel the spirit so strongly in their home. We went over with the intentions of teaching them about family home evening, but to our surprise there was a new face in their living room! The members daughter recently moved back home and shared with us about how she believes she has been spiritually led by God back to Cochran! She loves to learn about the gospel and actually used to sit in on the lessons when her mom was taught. We want to begin teaching her, but we haven't had a chance to meet with her again. Hopefully we can see her this week!

We were tracting on Wednesday and it was about 4:30 when Sister Smith mentioned she had to use the restroom. We had 30 minutes before dinner, so I asked her on a scale of 1-10 how badly she had to go. No one has ever deprived me and I was not about to make her wait, but we weighed our options and she offered we pray about it. We felt like we were supposed to be in that neighborhood, so we asked God for His direction. Afterward, Sister Smith said "God answered very quickly because I no longer have to go!" Hahaha it was so funny, God's sense of humor is my favorite. Anyways, we ended up meeting a man who was very interested in our beliefs and he really admires our stake President and his family! God is always aware y'all, humbly look up!

Last night we had about 20 minutes before going home, so we walked through an ally by the church and had a pretty interesting experience. We walked to an apartment complex with two girls sitting on their back step. They were intoxicated and one of them asked us what we believe. When she found out we are Christian, she put out her substance and immediately dove into a conversation. We ended up singing "I am a child of God" to them and one of the girls was so excited, she was pointing back and forth from her heart to her friends heart yelling, "DID YOU FEEL THAT?" Haha I definitely felt (and smelled) it! She invited herself to come to our church this Sunday, which was so awesome, we hope she comes!

This week was full of miracles, my favorite was a member referral we received yesterday from one of the youth. Her friend came with her to church on Sunday and has a lot of questions and wants us to begin teaching her!

I love Jesus Christ and I love His gospel y'all, there is no greater joy than the every day pleasure of choosing to walk with God. :) He knows you, he loves you.

So do I :) Have a blessed and cheery week y'all! 

Sister Morrill

Hebrews 6

9 But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.

10 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

11 And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

Hit The Nail On The Head

Hey y'all!

Happy Tuesday! We had an adventurous week.

We went to follow up with a woman we had given a Book of Mormon to last week, but she was not home. On our way back, we tried to find a less active man who lives around there that our Bishop had asked us to go see. The address we had led us to a vacant house, so we were at a loss. We continued driving down the dirt road and the next house over had a man out front. We waved and then ended up pulling over because here in the South everyone knows everyone so we thought we would ask him for directions! We asked if he knew the man we were looking for, he said "no I don't know who that is... just kidding he is me". Haha! We found him!! We talked about his testimony and shared with us a little bit about why he stopped attending church. We asked him if he had still been reading his scriptures and he admitted he had not, because he had not been to church. We talked about how our relationship with God is more than a Sunday worship, our relationship with Him is 24/7 and if we are not increasing our knowledge and testimony.. We are decreasing it! Scriptures are the iron rod and it is so important to read His word daily! Scriptures provide a spiritual protection from the adversary and all of his evil temptations. He was so awesome and invited us to come back and see him!

On Thursday we drove home and perfectly impaled our tire with a screw. Cochran is doing a lot of construction and last week people fixed our roof, so we're not exactly sure where the nail came from. Either way, we knew where it was & where we wanted it to not be! Fortunately we were home before our tire went completely flat & I learned how to change a tire in my last area! We were parked uphill and as we lifted the car and attempted to take off the wheel, the car began to roll backward! Sister Smith quickly jumped in the car & pulled the emergency break & one thing led to another.... I really did not want to go to the effort to put the car back down and re park it, but after it almost rolled back a second time with the emergency break on. We parked it sideways & tried again. I noticed while we were parked straight and attempting to fix our tire, we almost rolled backward.. twice, but when we parked sideways, we not only successfully put our spare on, we also had 4 individuals pull over and ask if they could help. All we had to do was ground ourselves to a more flat & steady foundation!

"If we are not being rooted in the word, we can be scorched and wither away when opposition arises. But even those raised in the Church—long-term members—can slip into a condition where they have no root in themselves." - Elder Dallin H Oaks

I hope y'all read your scriptures today as you continue build your foundation upon the rock of our Redeemer :) I love y'all! Have a wonderful week!
Sister Morrill

The Gospel Of Jesus Christ: a recipe for success

Hey y'all! 

I hope last week was enjoyable and life is peachy! 

This week Sister Smith and I were able to experience repentance with a couple, faith with each other, baptism with the Lord Family, the Holy Ghost, and we are in the midst of enduring!

A non-member challenged us to a cheese cake bake off, so we accepted his challenge and planned to use our preparation day last week to bake it. However, as missionaries we are limited on time, funds, & recipes... We decided to take a short cut & buy a fresh premade cake from the grocery store. We threw some semi-sweet chocolate chips on it, put it in a different container, and waaaala. Later we headed over to their home & placed the cheesecake on the table. "Ours" looked perfect (too perfect) especially next to his slightly burnt cake. She was amazed at the appearance of it and I heard him say, "that looks store bought" under his breath. I felt extremely awkward because I knew, and I knew that he knew.. but we proceeded on. She drove us to 3 different houses for the families to judge which cake they liked best. She kept telling everyone we made this cake. Our guilt & shame progressively increased as we identified a loop hole to every question we received, so we weren't technically lying. The most awkward & terrible I felt was when someone asked us how we made ours, we said "uh we just refrigerated it". We got back into the car to go home to report the results to her husband & as we got in we told her the truth. She was disappointed yet amused and when we got back her husband laughed so hard. We were sad because we did not really mean for it to go that far (people never do) but we decieved her! But they really are so special & important to us, we felt like we betrayed their trust. We went back to each house we had been to & confessed. They all laughed at us too, which made us even more sad. SIN FEELS GROSS Y'ALL! We did end up making them a home made cheesecake... which ended up more like soup but it was soup made with love! 

"Choose the harder right, than the easier wrong" -Thomas S Monson


This week I asked Sister Smith how she feels about shortening. She explained she didn't really know what shortening is and suggested chicken stock. I waited as I watched her struggle trying to figure it out. She jumped up and said, "Why aren't you helping me????" I said "because you did not ask". It was so funny, we thought about how often Heavenly Father feels that way.

This weekend we were able to attend the Dublin Elders baptism, Nancy Lord & her 3 children! The sight of a family being baptised filled my heart :) not to mention their last name is Lord, we were so excited for the Lord's baptism!! Haha

On Saturday we decided to begin our fast after lunch. On Sunday, a less active member came to church and signed up to feed us as soon as church ended. We were grateful for the timing, but hesitant to go because we did not have anything planned to teach her. We prayed about it and decided to go with a video in mind that we could talk about. We ended up discussing the blessings and importance of tithing. We are going to begin teaching her and plan to help her go through the Temple! 

Hebrews 11

25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season

39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:

40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect

I love y'all! Have a blessed & Christ centered week :)
Sister Morrill

April Showers Bringin' May Flowers Inbox x

Hey y'all!

I hope your week was great and y'all had the opportunity to listen to General Conference.

On Sunday after the first session, Tucker was baptized! Tucker is so awesome, he is the valedictorian for his class & a huge leader & example to the people around him. It's wonderful to see children of God come unto Christ! The Elders have been teaching him for several months and have been working so diligently to help him.

Something that stuck out to me from General Conference was the talk given by Taylor G Godoy. He spoke about the importance of sacrifice. Sacrifice brings blessings from heaven! When we give up something that we love for a greater purpose, God always gives us back so much more. After all, the greatest sacrifice ever given was Jesus Christ. He spoke about the key to a successful day is sacrifice, whether it be personal or for someone else. I believe He blesses us because of our willingness to give up something important to us. He knows every single one of y'all, and if it's important to you it is important to Him. Trust in God & put Him first. He can make us more than what we can ever make of ourselves. 

I love y'all! Have a blessed & happy week

Sister Morrill

Every Member A Missionary

Hello!

I hope y'all had a great week and are preparing for Easter and General Conference this weekend! What a privilege we have to hear inspired messages and receive revelation from God.

On Thursday afternoon we tracked on a back dirt road which turned out to contain very few houses, majority of them being vacant. We felt like God wanted us to be there though and I always love an opportunity to exercise our Faith! We kept going and eventually we came across a man who used to be active in the gospel. We asked him if he knew anyone who would benefit from our message and he referred us to a woman who recently had a death in her family. He didn't have an exact address, so he kind of described how to get there and gave us her name. After we left his home, we realized if we didn't head back to Cochran we would be late for our dinner appointment. So we planned to go visit her home on Sunday and considered which member might be able to come with us after church. 

On Saturday a member had us over for lunch with her and her mom. We asked her if she could come out with us on Sunday. She is always willing to teach with us, and lucky for us she was available! She is wonderful because she is so bold, outgoing, and sticks to the gospel principles. We love her. 

On Sunday she picked us up after lunch and drove us to our referral. We quickly discovered the visual instructions we received were not as simple as we had hoped. We ended up at a home that seemed like it could have been it, so we got out and knocked. The typical response to that here in the South is "Come on in" and we usually wait outside and tell them who we are first. But our member just walked on in and struck up a conversation about all of the pictures on their wall completely causal. An older couple lives there, Felton and Martha. They started talking about family history and honestly I was confused as to whether they were kin or not. Could have fooled me! After they talked, our member told them the missionaries have a message we want to share with them. Haha seriously y'all this member rocks, she threw us right under the bus which is why it pays to always be prepared!

We all sat down and we taught them the message of the Restoration. Felton said that he was literally just asking Martha why there are so many churches and our message makes sense. They both were so excited to learn more and they asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon! So we planned to bring it by the following day at 2.

We brought it by yesterday right on time and she mentioned she appreciated us coming back when we said. We shared with them the history of where the Book of Mormon came from and after we finished she understood it is not another version of the Holy Bible, but another testament. A companion scripture to the Holy Bible :) she is so excited to read it, she loves Jesus Christ. Felton doesn't love reading as much as Martha, but he said he would try! 

They are so awesome y'all, she even asked if we would be willing to visit her daughter and son in law! Heck yeah! We all need the gospel in our lives!

Anyways, this week was a huge reminder to me of the importance of member missionaries. We are all disciples of Christ, go share the good news with your neighbor and be friendly! All of God's children are important to Him, so they're important to us. 

Happy Easter!

1 Samuel 16:7

But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

Have a blessed week!
Sister Morrill 

We visited a family after taking these and they told us they watched from their window, they were wondering what we were doing. Haha-- I tried