#42

Dear President,

This week was awesome! We went to Alaverdi to meet with the family there, but only met with the grandma and one of the granddaughters. We taught about tithing and the blessings that come from paying tithing. The grandma really accepts everything that we teach. She had some concerns from another religious book she has been reading, but we talked about the Book of Mormon and how we can know the truth of everything by immersing ourselves in the Book of Mormon. We gave a Book of Mormon to her granddaughter and invited the two of them to read together.  It was a great lesson. 

We also met with a lot of our new investigators this week. We met with the man who has previously met with the missionaries and picked up his family as investigators. (He has a wife and two young sons.) We established our purpose and tonight we are going over to teach the Restoration. We also met with the two referrals given to us by one of our investigators. We also did how To Begin Teachings with them and will be teaching them about the Restoration as well. Normally, we invited all our investigators to be baptized in the first lesson, but it didn't seem appropriate for them at this time. But we will be extending the invitation as prompted by the Spirit this week. 

We had the opportunity to meet with a lot of our less active and new members this week. We we able to continue with the member lessons this week, with many people who have been difficult to meet with lately, so that has been a blessing. We also met with many of the less actives that our bishop assigned us to meet with. The meetings went well! Bishop even came with us to a couple of the meetings and the Spirit was felt. 

We also had the opportunity to meet with the family we are teaching (with the father who is trying to quit smoking). We read a lot from the Book of Mormon with them. A few days later, we were walking and went to call a taxi and it was the father! So he drove us to the church and we had an unplanned meeting with him and read Lehi's dream and compared him to Lehi trying to bring his family to the tree. We talked about what he can do to hold steadfastly to the rod and be the example he needs to be. We talked a lot about faith and reading from the Book of Mormon and almost all of our lessons now are reading from the BoM. 

Exchanges went well this week and I enjoyed learning from Sister L. She is learning very fast and already knows the language so well. 

                                                      Happy day for her district when they got all their mail.

Sister T and I had an incident this week when we were walking with some young boys. I'm not sure you heard about it, but some got pretty physical. We were able to leave the situation quickly  (and bought some ice cream to cheer us up - that always seems to work). Right afterwards, we ran into so many of our ward members! It was amazing! We stopped and talked to six different members on the street right after! Heavenly Father sure was watching out for us and showed his love for us through our ward members :)

Thanks for all of your love and support!

I love you and Sister Carlson!

Love,

Sister Morreall

                                                      Skirt made by a member for Misa.

Dear Family,

Yay! I am so happy to hear that Mom is doing well! I hope that things are going well for ALL of you! I pray daily that mom's health will improve, that Dad won't be stressed, and that Trev and Asia will be happy and do well in school and at church! So thanks so much for your package!!! And please tell the Young Women thank you for their package too! I also got Aunt Cheryl's and Uncle Chuck's and Lori's! Please tell them all thank you for me!! I will write them this week to express my appreciation!! I have been able to give out a lot of things to the Armenians here and they love it. So thanks :)

This week has been a good one for me! As you can probably see from my letter to President. We had an issue with some boys, and I had my first experience being spit on here, but the ward members we met after were super kind and it was so sweet! I also had this little boy follow me around at church this week. I let him use my colored pencils and coloring book ( I bring every Sunday for the kids). So after he ran up to me to give it back and grabbed my hand and gave me a kiss. It was super cute!!

Well, I sure love and miss all of you and I hope you have a great week! I'll write you a letter this week!

Love,

Misa :)

Cool fact: In Sons of Provo if you look in the Band Manager's apartment in the back when they're interviewing him, there is an Armenian flag!!!!

# 41

Dear President,

Thank you for your kind response. I am so happy to here that our friend has receieved the preisthood!! Thank you for approving that. That will be such a blessing for him!

As you know, I wasn't feeling well this week. But thank you so much for letting the elders give me a blessing. I think it helped a lot. Sister T and I were able to go out and work and we met again with that special family. We talked a lot about covenants with them and shared a talk from the most recent Relief Society Session of General Conference about covenant making and keeping. We met with them later in the week to celebrate the three year old's birthday and we watched Finding Faith in Christ with them and their family friend. They really enjoyed it. We felt that it was a good boost for them as lately they have shown a bit of fear and doubt. (The dad is having trouble quitting the last couple of cigarettes and they are looking to sell a car for financial reasons and haven't been able to.) We discussed faith after we watched the movie and challenged them to pray together as a family to increase their faith. 

We also we referred to two other people by that family. We met with the first referall and he invited us later to meet with his family, who have apparently met with missionaries already before. We are hopeful that they will receive our message well.

We then met with the other referral who lives alone, but he is willing to listen and meet with us and has already become good friends with one of the members. We see great potential in him as well, but we may end up passing him to the elders.

We walking this week and prayed about where to go and felt impressed to walk uphill. Half way up the hill, we met a man who actually stopped us and asked about the church. He told us that he felt good talking to us and that he wanted to meet with us. He wants his family of four to meet with us as well. He said that they had met with the elders in the past and really enjoyed our message and wants to start learning more again. What a blessing that we met him!

This week I have been studying a lot from the New Testament about the life of Christ. I love the simple parables that he uses to explain profound doctrine. I am working on trying to better simply explain the doctrine to our investigators as well.

This week has been a good one, despite the sickness. Thank you for your concern and for your love!

Love,

Sister Morreall

Dear Family,

I hope you enjoy the pictures! Some of them are old... I ame happy to hear everyone had a great week! I love and miss you all! Wish everyone in the family happy birthdays for me!!

As far as service goes, the kindergarden is the main project right now. But there is also an orphanage that the mission has donated to that we have been helping with. We are also just do service for people on the street a lot (like carry groceries) and the elders chop a lot of wood for people to heat their houses. 

Love,

Misa :)

# 40

Dear President,

Thank you so much for your sweet response to my last letter. This week was a far better week with our investigators. We met with that family again and the father, who normally smokes 1 pack of cigarettes a day, has now reduced to 2 cigarettes a day. We have brought many ward members to meet with him and his wife and they all testified very strongly about the Word of Wisdom and the power that comes from being free of addiction. The father and the son both prayed from the first time this week as well. They truly are making great progress and I have great hope that they will accept and reach a baptismal date. 

We also met with the family in Alaverdi this week and taught the commandments. They are now in Gyumri and scattered about the country for the month with other relatives, but we are hoping to teach them over the phone. They are accepted the gospel so well and I know that Sister T will just be so happy when they are baptized! (As will I!)

We have also met with a part member family this week and have been working with the father. We are hopeful that he will be baptized, but we know that there will be a smoking barrier, that he will need to overcome as we teach the Word of Wisdom.

I have been feeling much better this week after being sick, but I know that Sister T is still struggling with a cold. She is still in good spirits though and received a blessing of comfort from the Bishop yesterday.

During studies this week I was contemplating my mission call and missionary work in general.  When I opened by call to Armenia, I had no idea where it was (like most people), but I remember very distincltly that I felt at peace. Sometimes in the MTC the thought crossed my mind, why am I called to Armenia? But since I have been out here I have learned why. I was reading in 2 Nephi 3 this week, which just reaffirmed why I am here. Lehi is talking to his sons and he says "and I have chosen the good part, according to the words of the prophet. And I have none other object save it be the everlasting welfare of your souls (v. 30)." I love the Armenian people and I desire that all of them be baptized! I desire that they all are saved!

I know that Heavenly Father loves them and I am so blessed that He has allowed me to be a part of His work. Sometimes, I think I am too hard on myself...and that my work isn't enough. But this week I was thinking about what my dad told me before I came on a mission. He advised me to always hold myself accountable to the Lord through prayer. As I have done that, I have felt that peaceful feeling that I felt when I first opened my call and I know He is pleased with my work. 

Thank you for all that you do!

Love,

Sister Morreall

Mom,

Thank you for your advice with the proper authority. As for my investigators, we are working on helping them with their pipes, because the pipes lead to the outside though, it is really hard to keep them insulated even with foam as it is super cold here. 

We haven't had any baptisms yet this transfer, which has been really hard for me. This has been a super prosperous area in the past, but everyone has their free agency...

My baptizee from another country is in town today, so President gave me and my former companion permission to come to the office today to go see him, so I'll be making the two hour trip to Yerevan for Preperation day today. It will be fun to see him again. We are hoping to help him get ordained to the Priesthood soon.

Aunt Cheryl sent me the pictures of you all. You all look great! Especially you!! I have a good looking mom :) And hey, has Asia started wearing make up? Weird...

Anyway, I love and miss you a lot!!!

Love,

Misa :)

# 39

Last week's letter to president,

It was great to be reminded this week of Christ and His love for me. We had a great week this week working with our investigators. We have been working with the two families who are interested in our message. One family was going to come to church this week, but the father got in a car accident and wrecked his car (he is a taxi driver and so that is affecting his family's income). This is the same family whose father was in an explosion and has grafted skin, and whose son is blind in one eye. They showed us that the pipes in their home have all frozen with ice as well. They have no running water. My hert hurts for this family. We visited them this week to help them around the house and I could just see the stress and the pain they are going through right now. My heart hurts for them. 

We also met with our investigator who has been learning from missionaries for several years. He admitted that he is nervous about what his family will think about being baptized. We scheduled a time when we could meet with him and his family together. When we first arrived, his father, mother and sister were all skeptical, but by the end of the night I felt like their hearts had opened up to our message. We later met with our investigator indivually and challenged him to talk to his family about him being baptized. We invited him to pray for the Spirit to be with him when he talks to them and for courage to be a "light on a hill that cannot be hid." Hopefully, he has talked to his family already. We have hopes that he will be baptized this week.

Thank you for the mission donation to the kindergarden! We were able to visit the kindergarden this week and everyone there is just so grateful for the many hours of service and funds donated and for the dishware.

Thank you for your love and support. 

Love,

Sister Morreall

This week's letter to the president:

Happy belated birthday! 

This week was very hard. I don't know if it was just because of the New Year or what, but Sister Tenguerian and I have really learned how to manage stress...I think on paper it looks like we had a pretty decent week, but it was so stressful trying to teach our investigators and even new members...especially when one of them drank for the New Years right in front of us. It was disappointing, but we are just trying to correct him with love and remind him of the doctrine he has been taught and the covenant he made while at baptism.

We decided together that we were going to focus on the positive things that happen with our investigators. It's really helped our stress levels go down.

This week we went to Alaverdi and committed a family to baptism. We also served another family we are teaching (with the father with grafted skin) by bringing cookies and working around their house. We were able to get lessons in this week with other single investigators, most of whom have baptismal dates. 

I've been reading a lot from Moses this week and I really love chapter 7. It's where Enoch sees the Lord weeping for His children. He asked why he's crying and the Lord responds "Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. (v. 32-33)" The Lord then choose Enoch everything that ever will be and Enoch begins to understand and "wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook. (v. 41)" I've felt a lot like tht this week. But I've learned that we can only do what's in our power, everyone has their own agency and we can't force others to choose right. We just need to focus on the positive and have faith that miracles will happen! I just see the potential in this area and I wish so badly that people choose to follow God's plan and be baptized!

I hope you had a great New Years and a great birthday!!!

Love,

Sister Morreall

Dear Family,

I hope you all had a great New Years...It's Armenia's biggest holiday. They celebrate it all week (Jan 1-5) and then on Jan 6 is the Armenian Christmas! So Merry Christmas again! I spent all week eating food at peoples' homes. And after 7 appointments in one day....I felt like I was going to die. Trev, the 15 y.o. girl you're friends with on fb showed me your senior pics on her phone...how come you never told me you got your senior pics?!?! You stud muffin. Anyway, I hope you all are doing well. I was happy to hear that mom is doing better this week! I love and miss you all so much! I will write you a letter and send you last week's email to president.

Love,

Misa :)

Fun/cool facts:

I ate dolma 11 times this past week.

They don't salt their sidewalks often, so people use ashes from fires and throw them on the ice to make it easier to walk.

Santa showed up at church this week...basically some guy in a santa outfit showed up and it was crazy......

Dear Mom,

I am so glad that your headaches have gone and the swelling is going down. As for the hair, I'll cut mine when I get home so you can use it :) I'm trying to grow it out better. Keep me updated on how you're doing...I smile when I think about how strong you are! And all the missionaries here keep you in theiprayers and always ask about you. They are rallied behind you 100%!

I think the members here are catching the picture, but of course there are still some things we have to help them along with. But we're working on it! I've mostly just been struggling and having a hard time with our investigastors though. Missionary work is hard. I've been emotionally exhuasted lately. Sis T has been too. Yesterday after church we just broke down in the kitchen crying. But it felt good afterward to relieve the stress. We are just going to keep working our hardest this week and see what miracles are in store. 

Yes, the word of wisdom seems to be the hardest thing here and also many people were baptized as infants and they always refer to the scripture "One God one fath one baptism" and so it's hard for them to accept a date...even after we teach them about true authority. Any suggestions from you or dad on that? That would really really help.

I hope you and Dad are doing well this week. It makes my heart happy to know you are doing well and you all are working together and the family (in NY and in Utah) is unified in supporting you, Mom. 

I love you all!

Love,

Misa :)