It's a Wonderful Life

My Dear Family and Friends,

It's been several weeks since I have written and I am writing to you now as I sit in front of my fireplace and Christmas tree in good old South Jordan, Utah. I would like to take a minute to explain some of the things that happened during the month and why I am home for Christmas.

Like all missionaries, I experienced all the joys and sorrows of being a new missionary. I struggled with learning Portuguese and adjusting to a new culture but also loved the many new and happy experiences I was having. I loved my companion, my branch, and the people I had the opportunity to teach. However, despite all of the joy I felt from sharing the gospel, I began to recognize that rather than becoming more comfortable with missionary life, I was becoming increasingly anxious. I tried my best to continue working, hoping that the anxiousness would go away. However, about a month ago I took a turn for the worse and recognized that I was suffering from a major depression. The following  weeks turned out to be some of the most difficult weeks of my life as I struggled to cope with overwhelming amounts of sadness, loneliness, and all other feelings and symptoms associated with major depression. As I counseled with my mission president, parents, stake president, and mission doctors, we unitedly came to the conclusion that in order to heal and receive the treatment I needed, I would need to return home. This was an extremely difficult decision to make, and it was very hard to leave the people and country I have grown to love so much in the past 5 months. I never imagined needing to return home early from my mission, but the tremendous peace I have felt in relation to this decision have helped me know with a certainty that this is where I need to be and where the Lord wants me to be. I have been honorably released and will be spending the next while healing and beginning the next chapter in my life. I know that there will be ups and downs and to be patient with the process of overcoming depression and understanding the things that have taken place.

While this has proven to be one of the greatest trials I have experienced, I have seen God's hand work miracles in my life and know that He was there to lift me in my darkest hours. I have a firm testimony that Heavenly Father is keenly aware of each of His children and has a plan for every one of them. I am so grateful for the knowledge of our loving Savior Jesus Christ who knows us perfectly and will be with us in every moment. I am so grateful for my loving mission president, my wonderful companion Sister Smyth, and my incredible family and friends for all they have done to help me and show me so much love and support. It has been incredibly difficult, but I am now aware more than ever of the many blessings God has given me. It truly is a wonderful life.

Com amor,

Bethany

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Bom Dia Alegria Minha Famíla!!!!

That's right folks, we had transfers this week and............you bet Sister Smyth and I are back at it again for another transfer!!! We were so surprised because I was just sure that one of us was leaving but no sirree!! We are so beyond pleased and had a great week filled with a lot of hard work! It was one of those weeks where you knock a lot of doors, appointments fall through, and investigators drop you, but we are still as happy as can be and are doing our best to find people ready to hear the gospel! The gift of tongues is kicking in and I am understanding more and more! I hit a milestone in my book this week where I was able to have a full converstation on the phone without needing to hand it over to Sister Smyth. Hallelujah! On top of that we were blessed with such nice weather! It was so warm and sunny all week! But I think it will start raining again tomorrow, good think I finally got a good umbrella!! 

We had two great lessons with Bruna this week and she is doing wonderfully! We went over on Monday to give her pictures of her baptism and to talk about her baptism and confirmation. It was such a great little lesson and she just talked about how much of a difference she felt after recieving the Holy Ghost. And then she was talking about how much her life has changed in the last 6 weeks and how grateful she was for the gospel. We talked about the temple and family history and she is so excited to start looking for her ancestors! 

This week I read the talk that President Nelson gave in conference about joy and loved it!! He said "When the focus of our lives is on God's plan of salvation and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening-or not happening-in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy. We can feel it at Christmastime when we sing "Joy to the world, the Lord is come." And we can feel it all year found." And then he quotes Psalms 16:11which says that "In His presence is a fulness of joy." I know that this is true! Christ is the source of all joy and happiness. It is when we have lives centered on Him, that we truly find the peace and joy in our lives that all of us desire. I know that the more we learn about Christ and the closer we are to Him, the happier we will be and the more joy we will feel. Our lives won't be perfect, but we will have the perspective that we need to joyfully keep pressing forward. How grateful I am for this gospel and the opportunity I have to share this joyful message of hope and peace! 

That's all for this week folks! I hope you have a great Halloween and a great start to November! 

Com amor,

Sister Morey

BOM DIA ALEGRIA PART 2

Olá Minha Família!!

Well I hope you all had a great week because I just lived one of the best weeks of my mission! Because guess what! Bruna was baptized!!! I honestly can't put into words how wonderful of an experience it was! She was so so happy and we all laughed and cried and had a wonderful day celebrating her baptism. So many members came and they have embraced her into the branch family which is all that I could ask for. After the baptism we were all chatting and Bruna was talking to the ward mission leader who was talking to her about the temple. A few minutes later she announced "In a year, we are all going to Madrid to go to the temple!" I am so happy for her and so excited to help her prepare for that incredible day! I wish I could describe how much I love her and how grateful I am for the wonderful experience it has been to see the gospel change her life. 

It is starting to get cold over here and we are getting some rain! And when it rains...IT RAINS! But we love it and still have a great time as we get splashed by cars driving by. :) But we saw some miracles this week! We were able to teach 3 complete families and have plans to go back to all of them! From one of the families, the mom and daughter came to church yesterday and loved it! I have such a good feeling about them and am excited to continue teaching them! :) 

Other updates:

1. Transfers are this week! Do you know what that means? I am done with training! How crazy is that? We find outtomorrow whether we stay or go and who knows what will happen! Until next week! 

2. Yesterday we were visiting a less active family and they were trying to guess our ages and apparently I look like I am 27... Let's just say they were very suprised when I said 19!

3. Last but not least, I found letters from Clarissa and Sariah this week from when they were on their missions and they were so fun to read because now I am in the same place that they were in! I am so grateful for such wonderful examples in my life!! :)

Last but not least, I remembered one of my favorite quotes this week from Elder Hales: " With your own testimony of God you will be able to bless your family, your posterity, your friends, your own life--all those you love. Your personal knowledge of God is not only the greatest gift you will ever gife, but it will bring you the greatest joy you will ever have." And he is so right! I know that this Gospel is true and that it brings us the most happiness and peace in our lives. I know that God is our Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is our Savior and through Him, we can repent and recieve all the blessings Heavenly Father has in store for us. I am so grateful for the Gospel and the happiness it brings me every day. And I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to share the good news of the gospel every day!! It truly is an incredible work!

I love you all! Thank you so much for your examples and all that you do for me!! 

Com muito amor,

Sister Morey

PS Sorry I don't have as much time to email today but know I LOVE YOU ALL AND WILL GET BACK AS SOON AS I CAN!! But I pray for you all on the daily! 

PPS No I did not buy the Bastille CD I was just overjoyed to see it in the store

Bom Dia ALEGRIA

Olá Tudo Mundo!!! 

I hope you are all ready because this was one of THE BEST WEEKS OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! Miracles happened and I am so excited to tell you about them! :) 

On Wednesday Sister Smyth and I had a division with the sisters in Braga! I was with Sister Costa (once again a native Brazilian) and we had a blast serving together. I was able to ask her lots of Portuguese questions and she is just the happiest and nicest person in the world and we had a great day together! What made it even better was our lesson with Bruna!!!! As you know, Bruna has been doing wonderfully, coming to church, and loving everything that we were teaching! There was only one thing missing! She still wasn't wanting to get baptized. We didn't know why, but Sister Smyth and I decided that division day was the day to invite her again. So Sister Costa and I planned a lesson on faith and went in with prayers in our hearts. Well, we got in and Bruna started telling us about how much she liked Alma 32 that we had asked her to read the night before. She was talking about it and then said something about baptism. Now, my Portuguese is improving but I still have a longs ways to go and am slow at understanding. So she said something about baptism and I thought she was saying she still didn't want to talk about it. I WAS WRONG!!! All of a sudden Sister Costa got really excited and they were both looking at me and it hit me! SHE DECIDED SHE WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED!!!! Oh my goodness I cannot even describe the joy I felt! The lesson switched to planning the baptism! October 22nd is the day and we are all so excited! The members were all so excited when we announced it in church and I know it will be an incredible day! Stay tuned!! 

Other than that we knocked doors, talked to people in the streets, and had a great week! It is crazy to think that this week is the last week of the transfer! Time flies! 

Funny story of the week: To begin, if any of you don't know, one thing the Portuguese do is whenever you are greeting or saying goodbye to someone, you give beijinhos, or a kiss on both cheeks. And everyone does it! Obviously as missionaries, we give beijinhos to women and a nice firm handshake to gentleman. Okay now for the story! Yesterday we had the opportunity to teach a less active and his wife with the elders and had a great powerful lesson! But afterwards the member was dropping Sister Smyth and I off at the church. We all got out of the car, Sister Smyth shook his hand and then I went to shake his hand. Next thing I know he is going in for the beijinhos and I had to jump out of the way and apologize because it's a rule. The elders were laughing and Sister Smyth was crying she was laughing so hard. Welcome to the struggles of Sister Morey! 

Anyways, have a great week everyone! This gospel is true and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a part of this great work. Tchauzinhos!! 

Com muito amor,

Sister Morey

Ps Here are pictures of our division, district p-day at the bowling alley, and the pumpkins Sister Smyth and I carved today! 

Well Folks...She's Married!!

Dear Everyone,

That is right! My big sister got married this week and she was the most beautiful bride in the world! Congratulations to Meredith and Kyle!!! I have absolutely loved seeing all of the pictures and hearing about the wonderful wedding day! Everyone looked amazing, the house looked beautiful, and Kyle and Meredith looked absolutely wonderful and so so happy! I thought of all of you so much on Friday and was praying for you and I am so grateful that it was such a wonderful day. I thought so much about our family on Friday and how grateful I am to be a part of it. :) I am so grateful to know that I am sealed to the best people in the world for all eternity!!!! 

This week was a great week and we were able to knock a lot of doors and have a lot of lessons! Bruna is doing well and we are just working on helping her build her faith and feel the love that God has for her. We had a great lesson with her where we followed up on conference and we asked if she liked it and she said she loved it and knows that the church is true! She came to church again this week and we are having a lesson with her tomorrow!! Hurray!!!!! 

But other than that this week was great! We worked hard and were able to meet some very cool people! We met this one man named Francisco who met with the missionaries 30 years ago! We had a long talk with him and he remembered a lot of things about our church and had some questions about the plates and about baptisms for the dead. He said he wasn't interested but he came to the English class the elders teach this Friday so who knows! One interesting thing he said to us though is he asked "Are you doing missionary work for your salvation, or for mine?" And that really struck me! Of course we want to be serving missions because we want other people to know about the gospel, but it was a reminder to me to check my heart and see what my motivation was. 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week! Thank you for everything!!! A Igreja é vededeira, o livro é azul, Moroni está acima de bola....e amo vocês todas!!! 

Com muito amor,

Sister Morey

By small and simple things

Bom Dia Energia!!!

Olá tudo mundo!! I hope everyone is doing well and is excited for conference this weekend! I am so excited! We will be watching it in our church building with everyone in the branch and we have a few investigators that want to come so it will be a great weekend!

I don't have a ton of time but I will get the big updates in!! This was a crazy but wonderful week!

First off, this week we had zone meeting and interviews with President Amorim! Zone conference was great as always and we focused a lot on working with the members which Sister Smyth and I have been trying to do a lot more!  After that we had interviews which was really great! President Amorim is probably one of the best men I have ever met and had a lot of great advice for me, which was really nice! I even got a nice little Portuguese lesson. We started off the interview with a prayer and I may or may not have made a few errors but tudo bem! Who better to learn Portuguese from than your Brazilian mission president? 

Other great thing: Bruna came to church this week! It was so wonderful! She really enjoyed it! All of the members were super great at welcoming her and she had a great experience. We had a lesson with her last week and will hopefully have one or two this week! I love teaching her and love seeing the gospel touch her heart. It makes me so happy! 

We also have two other investigators named Cristina and Domingos. Cristina is Columbian and speaks Spanish but she is so great! How we understand each other I have no idea but the gift of tongues is real! She really believes in the church and is planning on coming to conference this weekend! Domingos is her boyfriend and he is really incredible. He really wants to find the true church and has been praying to know. We left them a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read and are going back later this week and I am excited to see how it goes!! 

All in all everything is wonderful in Portugal! Sister Smyth and I will sometimes stop and just say "We are in Portugal!! Portugal!" and then talk about how incredible it is that we are on the other side of the world, speaking Portuguese, and talking with everyone about the gospel. This truly is an incredible work and I am so grateful to be a part of it! 

I thought a lot this week about how through small and simple things, great things come to pass. I think this very much applies to our and our eternal progress. As much as we want to one day wake up and suddenly be perfect, that isn't how it works. It takes small changes, every day. But through those small changes, every day, we can become more like our Savior. It requires a lot of patience, and we won't even realize we are changing, but the more we try to be like Him, the more we will become like Him and the better we will know Him. 

Have a great week everyone! Enjoy conference! Love you all! 

Com amor,

Sister Morey

Bom Dia Energia!!!

Olá My Wonderful Family and Friends!! 

I hope you are all having a lovely week! This week was transfers and....you'd better believe that Smyth and Morey are sticking around for another transfer in Guimarães! We were both very pleased to see that and the transfer has gone off to a great start! In fact, this has been the best week of the mission so far! Want to know why? It has absolutely everything to do with Bruna. We knocked on her door a few weeks ago and ended up teaching a quick lesson about Heavenly Father and our relationship with Him. We left the Restoration pamphlet with her and went back this past Tuesday. Well it was absolutely incredible! We taught the Restoration and were inviting her to pray about it and she stopped us and said "What is this feeling in my heart? It is beating so quickly! I felt it last time you were here and every time I looked at the pamphlet!" As you can imagine Sister Smyth and I were just beaming as we told her that this was the Holy Ghost helping her know that the gospel is true. We went back again on Friday and when we asked if she had prayed she said "I know this church is true, I feel it in my heart!" And (it gets even better) She agreed to be baptized!!!! Oh it was absolutely incredible! I am so so excited for her! The Lord truly does prepare people to recieve the gospel and seeing the Holy Ghost touch their heart is a truly incredible experience. 

Our other investigators are doing well! We are teaching a family and their oldest son Ricardo (he's 16) has come to church twice and told us yesterday after church (without us even bringing it up) that he wants to be baptized! We are very excited for him and are trying to help his entire family come to church so that they can feel the same Spirit and excitement about the church that Ricardo feels. 

Other updates: 

A few weeks ago we had Mission Conference with Elder Zwick! It was such a great experience! It was so fun to get to see all of the missionaries, President and Sister Amorim, and see Elder Zwick again! (He spoke to my zone the second day at the MTC) It was a great reminder to me of the privilege it is to be serving a mission and the power that missionaries have. 

Another fun update: two weeks ago the elders had a baptism and asked us to make cookies for it (twist my arm to make cookies!) and all of the memebers loved them and are asking for the recipe. So don't worry, just because I am on a mission doesn't mean I have given up my love for baking :) 

Also, every third Sunday in our branch is "Missionary Sunday" and they have a few of the missionaries give talks. So who do you think gave a talk yesterday? That's right! Your's truly! I talked about prayer and how prayer is our opportunity to have a personal relationship with Heavenly Father. It went really well and overall it was one of my favorite sacrament meetings so far! 

Final update: Becaue I know you all want to know how the Portuguese is coming I will tell you my conversation with our investigator Lurdes at the ward picnic last week. Please note this conversation was in Portuguese.

Me: I love your shoes!

Lurdes: What?

Me: Your shoes! They're pretty!

Lurdes: Irmã, speak Portuguese to me. 

Me: .........

Lost in translation every day!!! 

I love you all and hope you are all having a great week! Thank you for all of you love and support! The church is true! I am so grateful to be serving here and so grateful for my opportunity to share the gospel!

Com amor, 

Sister Morey