Transfer week and 5 Weeks on Sunday!

THIS IS TRANSFER WEEK!!!!! In case you couldn't tell by the title of the email! haha I am so excited about transfers! We called the office missionaries Friday afternoon to get a phone number approved (because its out of our area code) and we asked if there were any new sisters coming in to the mission since we have one leaving this transfer. They said that there was going to be one but she for some reason was not coming anymore. So we have no new sisters which meant that I was not at risk to be a trainer! haha! Yay! We knew for sure then that we would be staying together. We got the calls on Saturday and since Sister Faamau and I had only been together for one transfer I was not expecting anything to be happening to us but I WAS WRONG! Sister Faamau will be transfered to the other sister area here in Vancouver to be with Sister Horvorka and another sister named Sister Dilworth, who was half trained by Chatwin. I will be receiving Sister McGhie! She has been on her mission for more than a year and she is from Georgia and was an English major in college. She is kinda short, silly, has red hair and snores. She loves Hello Kitty and doesn't like it when people kill bugs. The only reason I know these things is because Sister Faamau has been companions with her before and so was Sister Lush. I am so excited to work with Sister McGhie here in Vancouver! Sister Faamau and I have been working very hard to make the area stronger and I know that through the work and the power of God we are having success! Even though we don't find as many new investigators as we would like to each week, we are still working hard! The Lord is blessing me and I am so grateful! I am slightly sad this week because Sister Chatwin is leaving but I know that it is her time to go home and she is ready for this next season of her life which also makes me excited for her! I was able to finish the Book of Mormon last Saturday, a week early, and when we first started the challenge I didn't even feel like it was possible to finish on time. Near the end I had to slow myself down! I would be so into reading the stories that I would sometimes forget that I was sitting at my desk! I needed to remind myself that I was not sitting at the Waters of Mormon listening to Alma teach, marching in my rank after my righteous leader Captain Moroni, or being driven by the waves of the sea in a barge lit by stones touched by the finger of the Lord. I couldn't help but feel sorry for Ether, Mormon, Moroni, and others as they watched their people perish in unbelief. I know that my missionary work isn't nearly as hard as theirs but they never complained and I try to model my teaching after their great examples. I know the Book of Mormon is true and I have known that since I read it when I was 16 but receiving and retaining that mighty change of heart is so important for the work and for the rest of my life! I was slightly frustrated after church on Sunday because we were expecting at LEAST 3 of our investigators and none of them showed up! President Greer is always stressing how important it is for us to get our investigators to the "Ordinances", meaning Sacrament meeting, Baptisms, and Confirmations. It makes me sad when we work so hard to bring people closer to Christ and they say that they will be at church on Sunday and then they don't show. I know that it has nothing to do with me and that it is their own decision but if they would only put forth the little bit of effort they could experience the joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for themselves! I can't believe that it is almost JULY! Craziness!!! So that means that if I come home "early transfer" (which as of right now that is what I am planning on doing) then I will be home in almost a year, on July 9th! Super Craziness! It is going by way fast! Is it going by as fast for you guys as it is for me?!? Anyway, Sister Faamau and I have been taking some photo shoots so I will send a couple pics to y'all! I love you all so much and I hope you have a wonderful week! The church is true and Christ lives!

It's another rainy day here in WA!

What's up family!? So last Monday/p-day was absolutely beautiful. Not a rain cloud in sight, warm weather with a cool breeze...today, not so much! Rain Rain and more Rain! haha! Last week we had a picnic in the park with the other sisters close by us (Sisters Neal and Horvorka). It was lots of fun to just hang out the 4 of us girls. They wrote letters and painted and colored. I played on the swings and tossed the football to myself and ate broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, a wendy's frosty, pizza flavored pringles, and circus animal cookies! Haha! I listed the healthy stuff first to throw you off! I will send a pic of each one of us individually, I wanted to get one of the group of us but my camera battery died. :( I listen to the recording of Sister Chatwin singing and playing the guitar and look at all my pictures too much, and I forgot to charge my camera, so it died... Oh well! This week was pretty good! Not too many exciting stories to share, sorry! The work moves forward and we continue to try to find and teach people. Okay, here is a funny story that is not too funny and taught me something that I will never do again. I was calling the couple that we were going to be having dinner with the next day and they didn't answer so I left a message. They called back and we didn't answer because we were in a lesson, but they didn't leave us a message. So I called them back and when I did the husband answered the phone so I said, "Hi, can I speak to Sister 'So-In-So' please?" (I omitted her name) He said yes and handed her the phone. I proceeded to identify myself to her and make arrangements for dinner the following night. We hung up the phone and we continued planning for the next day. Next thing you know the phone rings and its the same people I just talked to so I answer and Sister So-in-so proceeds to tell me how rude I was in asking to talk to her and not wanting to talk to her husband and how this shouldn't be a habit. She asks me why I was like that and I told her how incredibly sorry I was and that I would not ever do it again and I had just assumed that she would know more about the dinner than he would have and continued to apologize many more times. I felt absolutely HORRIBLE and it never even occurred to me that I had done something wrong. If she hadn't of called me then I would never have known what I did and she would probably would have not liked me forever. I have decided to make a conscious effort that every time I call someone I will be more friendly to the person who answers the phone even if they are not the person that I think I should be talking to. Well we went to dinner the next night and I was thinking that it was going to be very awkward between us but it all was ok. They are a very nice couple and we had a nice conversation. She made us each a home made loaf of wheat bread which was super nice! We were just finishing up dinner and Sister so-in-so reached across the table to get something and spills her water...ALL OVER MY LAP! It was ice water and it was freezing! It ran all the way down my leg into my shoe, so cold! I am not sure why things always get to be spilled in my lap! haha... So hopefully she was able to feel bad enough about dumping her water on me that she forgave me for my unintentional phone "rudeness" the night before. The couple we live with has been out of town for the past week and so it has been fun to be in the house and not have to worry about how loud we are or walking into the kitchen and them having to mute the tv or what not. Its nice living with members but at the same time its very difficult because I feel like we can never really relax. On Saturday my grandma, Sister Cooper, who was Sister Chatwin's trainer and Sister Faamau's trainer came back to the mission with her parents to visit all the people she met while she was serving here. We didn't have a dinner appointment so they took us out to eat which was so much fun! They are awesome people and I know why people always talk about how amazing Sister Cooper is. I don't think a day went by when I was with Chatwin that she didn't bring up Cooper in some way, shape, or form. haha! It was a great dinner and I don't think I have ever seen Sister Faamau so excited and happy! We get to teach FHE tonight so say a little prayer for us. We will see how it goes! We get transfer calls this weekend can you believe its already been that long!?!?Me neither! I am excited to hear what's going to happen!! So its almost time to go and I want to make sure that I send pictures, so I hope you all have a great week and I love and miss you all!

Here is a quick shout out to some people: (sorry if I forget anyone and sorry that it is late) :) I still love you

Happy Birthday to Karen Foreman, Brittany Jones, Jessica Hernandez

Happy Anniversary to Jakob and Sara, Kristi and Anthony

AND HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DADDY! I LOVE YOU!!

Talk to you all later!

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SISTER MORGAN BROX

It's That Time Again...

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

Its time to email again! Yay! haha Sorry for the Espanol, we did exchanges with the Spanish speaking sister on Saturday and I had the opportunity to go and work in their area with Hermana Alard and Hermana Watson came to my area to work with Sis Faamau. It was so much fun! I got to teach in Spanish (kinda) and they teach an English class so I had the opportunity to go and teach English as well as learn some Spanish. It was seriously so much fun! We had some English speaking people to teach as well so I was able to know what was happening. We went tracting/knocking on doors at an apartment complex and we were just about to be done with pretty much no luck in sharing the gospel when we knocked on the door of a young family from Jordan (middle eastern country). We told him who were and what we were doing and he said that he was Muslim but we were more than welcome to come in a visit and have a drink. So we agreed and he was so nice. He spoke English very well and he had a 3 year old son that was very sick and they are here in Washington because of the surgeries he has had to have. We got to know this man and his wife and Son. They gave us grape juice in wine glasses which was kind of scary at first but he reassured us that is was just juice so we drank it. haha! He told us so many things and it was so much fun talking to him and getting to know them. I was SO happy to have Hermana Alard with me because she has done a study abroad progam and was actually in Jerusalem for 4 months and was able to go to Jordan for 3 days and Egypt for 3 days. She was SO excited to be there. It was funny. His wife (sorry I don't remember their names) was BEAUTIFUL. She looked exactly like Jasmine from Disney's Allidan. She doesn't speak English very well but she understands most of what we were saying. They both have BAs from a university in Jordan and are so smart. Hermana Alard told them about the English classes that they teach and that they were more than welcome to come and join them. They agreed and hopefully they will be able to go so that this beautiful woman will be able to speak English as well as she understands it! They are not interested in the gospel but we are here to do service as well and I know that good things will come from meeting this family. But here's another fun story that happened in my area when I was gone... We have been teaching a less active part member family the Wrightsons (mainly teaching the 9 year old son Robbie). Brother Wrightson is a single dad with 3 boys. Chase who is 11 (already baptized), Robbie who is 9 and Noah who is 7. We teach all of them because obviously everyone should learn more about the gospel. We had planned to get Robbie on date for baptism for the 7th of July and so Sister Faamau was sticking to that plan. Sister Faamau invited Robbie to be baptized and he said Yes, so she asked about July 7th and he said, "Hold on a second I need to check my calender!" They waited while he ran into the kitchen and grabbed his calendar to bring it out. He turned to July and EVERYDAY had "Pool day" written on it. He said, "It looks like I already have plans, but what about next week??" They explained that there were still a few things we needed to teach him so lets plan on the 7th and he agreed. They erased "pool day" from his calendar and wrote in "baptism day" instead. This made everyone happy! It sure made me giggle when they told me this story. I am so excited to have someone on date for baptism and that we can help Brother Wrightson and his boys come back to living the Gospel. I love kids and I am so excited when I get a chance to teach them. I have recently read the chapters in 3 Nephi when Christ is teaching the children the babies and then he looses their tongues so that they can minister to their parents and the rest of the multitude. The things they say are so wonderful and marvelous that they can not even be written or repeated! I love that part of living the gospel is becoming as a little child, full of love, kindness, humility, honesty, and being teachable among other things. I love the Book of Mormon and all that it teaches us. I love that we have the opportunity to share it with others and I know that I can find those people that are waiting and willing to read it and learn from it.:) On Wednesday we went to meet some Samoan people that a member told us we should go and visit. We knocked on their door and a little girl opened the door so we asked if we could talk to her mom or dad and she ran away to go get them. So then her grandpa walks out and he sees Sis Faamau and reads her name and he says in Samoan, "Thank you Heavenly Father for answering my prayers!" Sis Faamau talks to him more in Samoan and then she laughs and giggles and blushes and I have no idea what is going on. Finally she translates for me what has been going on. She said that he said that about his prayers and she asked him why he said that and he said that he had been praying for a good Samoan to come around to date and marry his son. Hahahahahahahahaha!!!! So funny! She said that his son is the same age as her and that he is in the military. It was so funny because he kept saying how he has been praying for this for a while and now his prayers have been answered! She told him that it would have to wait till she gets off her mission in September and he was a little sad about that but it was ok. In the midst of their conversation. His daughter came out and I started to talk to her. We found out through the multiple conversations going on that he (the grandpa) is a baptized member of the church and he went inactive when he got married but most of his family back in Samoa are members of the church. The daughter who I was talking to has a boyfriend that is a member of the church and he lives in CA but has been able to share a lot about the gospel with her. We are going back to teach this family and I am SO SO SO SO excited!!!! :) I love being a missionary and I love having a companion that speaks Samoan! The Church is true and I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior.

I will write more next week. I gotta go now! OU TE ALOFA IA TE OE!!!! I love you! :)

I Hit My 4 Month Mark!

So I hit my 4 month mark last Friday! That is so weird, huh? 14 more months to go... haha! I can't believe its already June! Crazy! I don't have much time to write today because my letter to President Greer was kind of lengthy. I will touch on the exciting parts of the week though. We had sister exchanges on Thurs I went to Lacamas Creek and Harmony (wards) to work with Sister Horvorka. Sister Neal came here to Mountain View and Clark (wards) to be with Sister Faamau. Sister Neal was also trained by Sister Chatwin so that makes her my sister (because we have the same mom) and so because Sister Neal is training Sister Horvorka right now, she (Horvorka) is my niece! haha Hopefully that makes sense! Anyway, working with Sister Horvorka was so much fun! She has only been out one transfer less than me so we are pretty much in the same boat when it comes to knowledge on missionary work and such. We stayed up till 12:20 that night just talking and getting to know each other. That is the latest I have stayed up during my entire mission so far! Talk about exhausting for the next day! We taught great lessons and walked so much I got blisters again, lol! It was so much fun! We also had stake conference this weekend. I met and shook hands with Elder Hanson who is an area seventy and also...drum roll please...Bishop Gerald Causse the new 1st counselor in the presiding bishopric! That was cool! I love being a missionary and seeing all of these GAs! Elder Hanson talked about missionary work and Bishop Causse talked about families and children. It was so amazing! We have big plans this week for finding new people to teach and also getting the people we are teaching closer to the covenant of baptism. I will send some pics next week (hopefully) of Sister Horvorka and Sister Neal and us! We also have exchanges with the Spanish speaking sisters on Saturday so I will let you know how that goes! Also, we are going to start teaching some Samoan families in the area that we found that understand Samoan better than English. I won't know what is going on but Sister Faamau is excited and a little nervous too! The Spirit will be working extra hard to help her out since I won't know what to say. She has taught me a few things like "Epikopo" which means "Bishop" and "Ou te alofa ia te oe" which means "I love you"! So cool! haha, I will be bilingual after all...kinda! Please keep looking for people in your area that are ready for the missionaries and the gospel in their lives! You might be surprised if you pray for it... :)

I gotta go now, I love you! I miss you! The Gospel is true!
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SISTER MORGAN BROX

Happy Memorial Day!

Here is my funny story for the week! On Tuesday last week we were trying to find a woman that is less active in the church and as we got to where she lived none of the houses had numbers on them so we decided to just knock on all the doors. As we were walking on to a specific porch is was wood and since it is always raining here it was slick. Apparently I wasn't walking carefully enough because I started to slide. I did the splits (almost) and there was a lawn chair next to me that I tried to catch myself on. It was the kind of lawn chair that has plasticy rubber slats as the seat and back, well my hand landed on the seat and then my entire arm slipped through till it hit the floor. It was seriously so funny! I couldn't get up fast and walk it off because I was stuck with my arm in the chair. It was slow motion and yet it happened in a second. So funny! I will sent some pictures to hopefully help you visualize it. It was right next to the front door and it wasn't even worth it because no one answered the door when we knocked on it. I had to go home and change because I was all muddy and stained my skirt.

We had specialized training the week with the entire zone and President and Sister Greer! We talked about how we can find people that are prepared to and willing to learn more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was so good and we got a lot of new ideas. Please pray that we might be able to find those people.

Yesterday we set up an appointment with an investigator in the Clark YSA Ward for 8PM. We invited her to FHE but she wasn't comfortable coming to that yet. Anyway, when we got to her house she was outside with a bunch of her family and friends. We were a little nervous to walk up to the big group but we took courage in finding new people to teach and walked straight up to Megan and the group around her. We talked to everyone for a few minutes and discussed what we were there for. We invited everyone to join us for our lesson and most denied our invitation but we ended up sitting down with Megan and her friend Heidi and a girl named Jennifer. We danced around the plan of salvation with them and there multiple questions and I finally said, "Let's take this from the beginning." So Sister Faamau and I taught the entire second lesson on the Plan of Salvation, Megan had already heard the 1st lesson on the Restoration. We were able to answer all the questions they had and then some other questions from the law of chastity to temple work. They knew a lot of things about the church and they had really awesome questions about the things that confused them. I hope we were able to clear up the confusion they had and I am SO excited to go back and teach them more. They have a lot of changes that they will need to make in their lives but by the way they act and talk, I know they are ready to make that change when they know that the Church is true! Its nights like last night that make me excited to be a missionary!

I have finished reading Alma and am in Helaman now in The Book of Mormon. I can't even tell you how much I love that book. As I was reading in Alma, Captain Moroni really started to have an impact on me. I actually wrote in my journal, "Marry a man like Captain Moroni" and then we celebrated Memorial Day and I had a weird feeling that I will marry some one in the military. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens...haha

I hope everything is going well at home. Sorry this email is pretty short. Things are getting better everyday here in Vancouver and its pretty crazy how fast time flies here in the mission. I hope it is going by just as fast for y'all back home. I love you and I miss you and I pray for you! Keep up the good work and find people for the missionaries to teach and always be missionary minded, Its very helpful!

SISTER MORGAN BROX

RAIN

Howdy! So I have been in Vancouver WA for a little over 4 days now and the first couple days were bright and sunny. On Sunday it started to sprinkle and now today it has been full on rain since before we woke up. Apparently this is how it is most of the days here so we will have to see how long it takes till I go completely crazy! haha! The drive to Vancouver was beautiful! We drove along the Columbia River and saw Mount Hood for quite a while on the drive. I was the only Sister that was going to Vancouver so I was riding with a bunch of Elders, yay me... It is absolutely gorgeous here. Everything is so green and so colorful and so mossy and so fresh and so..well I could go on forever but I won't. We live with members of the church who are also serving a full time mission from home. They are Elder and Sister Rippon. They are nice but they don't talk to us very much. I have NEVER seen a cleaner house in my entire life! It is immaculate! (I'm not sure if I spent that right.) I think this house is just as clean if not cleaner than the Temples. We enter and leave through the garage and we are not allowed to go bare foot or wear shoes in the house. Only socks or slippers! We have to clean our room and bathroom everyday. Its pretty crazy. We aren't allowed to go into the formal living room or dining room or the guest bathroom or his office or their bedroom. So pretty much our room and bathroom and the kitchen. Its pretty funny I think. The houses here are so big and beautiful. I want to take pictures of everyone of them. Working with Sister Faamau is a lot different than Sister Chatwin. Sister Faamau doesn't really talk, like if I didn't ask questions then she wouldn't say anything. Its hard but I guess I am getting used to the silence all the time. She has an awesome accent and I love to hear her talk to I ask as many questions as possible. I miss Sister Chatwin just as much as I miss home and it is very hard for me. I don't know the area of Vancouver yet and the roads and streets are CRAZY!!!! I had to buy a GPS otherwise we wouldn't get anywhere. Sister Faamau doesn't have a drivers license so I get to do all the driving. We have a little silver Toyota Corrolla instead of a red one. It is exactly like Daddy's was. I got to bear my testimony in both Sacrament Meetings yesterday and that was fun. I have met a lot of the ward members and to be honest I don't remember most of them. oops! haha! I am glad to know that what I am doing is the Lord's work otherwise this would be even harder. I have to get going. Sorry I couldn't fill you in on anymore details. Ask me questions and I will let you know the answers! I love you and I miss you and I really hope to hear from you soon!

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SISTER MORGAN BROX