Birthday Week!

 Happy Birthday to me!

Yep, I'm 20

 Sweet! Thanks for the boots Mom... I freakin love them!

 Yep...love them!

 Sister Bangs dad sent her a Dr. Who Mr. Potato Head!

 A little birthday pampering.

 Hooray for sisters! And nieces!

 Her apartment.

 A little Birthday music.

 Splits with sister Alldredge.

So I can only think of two really note worthy things this week. First was that we had exchanges last tuesday and so I was with Sister Alldredge for a day. It was really fun! I learned a lot of new things and was able to help her teach a 13 year old named C about the Plan of Salvation. It was so cool! There was one point in the lesson where the blessings of eternal life just clicked and C got so excited. It was like the best thing ever. She was so happy to know that, and she was interested in getting that for her family as well. It was really sweet to see. We also went tracting which was certainly an adventure. A super funny thing that happened is when we went to knock on a door to this house that had like a creepy bunny stuffed animal on the porch. Sister Alldredge knocks on the door and we hear movement inside. We then see the blinds next to the door open and wave at whoever is on the other side of the door. Now at this point I'm really nervous because this is going to be the first door that I actually have to talk at. So we hear the door make a noise and assume that the person is going to open it...but we wait for like 2 minutes and nothing happens. The person had actually just locked the door! I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. What were they expecting us to do? Just come bursting on in flinging Book of Mormons all over the place? So that's my funny tracting story.

Also we had an awesome Stake Conference. I think it was the first that I've ever actually enjoyed haha. We had two elders from the seventies there because our stake was so huge that it had to be split! It was really cool to see. One guy had a really awesome atonement analogy that I just loved. He told the story of a man who was walking down the street one day and came upon a little boy with a bird cage that had a bunch of birds in it. The man asked the little boy what he was going to do with the birds. The boy said "Oh I'm just going to play with them."

The man then said "Well you'll get sick of them after a while, what will you do with them then?"

The boy responded saying "Oh I've got a cat that really likes birds so I'll just feed them to it."

The man then asked how much the little boy would sell the birds for. The boy thoughts about it and said "Two dollars" and the man bought the birds from him, and let them free.

The general authority then goes to say that he feels that a similar exchange happened between Satan and Jesus at the Garden. That Jesus came upon Satan with all our souls in the Garden and asked what Satan would do with them. Satan said "Oh I'll just play with them, make them be cruel to one another, cause them sorrow and pain." Jesus then asked what he would do to us after he got sick of us. "Then I'll just damn them and kill them."

Jesus then asks how much he'd have to pay Satan for us.

"Just give me your blood, all of it."

And so He did.

I'm so grateful for the atonement of Christ. Like I don't think I could ever stop being grateful for it. The story might not exactly go like that, but that's the gist of it.

Then yesterday we had Zone conference which was super awesome! There should be pictures on Sister Ames' blog really soon. Sister Bangs and I won the cleanest car award! You should be sooooo proud. Zone conference was great though! President Ames taught about how to work better with members which is something we've really been struggling with here. It was so great. He also talked about how we should just assume that all of our thoughts are spiritual promptings because we have so many people praying for us to be directed by the spirit and I'd never thought of it that way so it really struck me.

My testimony has grown a lot already and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here. I'm also so grateful for all the support that everyone has given me. Thanks so much. I love you all.

-Love Sister Morrill