Happy New Year!

Hello family and Friends!

First off, it was wonderful to be able to talk to my family on Christmas! It may or may not have ended in tears... but hey, that is okay. When I came out from talking at the Pineda's house they had 3 different families from our ward there. They all could tell that I had been crying and all of the Hermanas came up to give me hugs. They all have missionaries out so they understood. Hermana Zamora was excited to talk to her son who left in October and wanted to know how it was from a missionaries perpective. Unfortunately her son Luis had been attacked on Monday and had bruises and scrapes but is okay. Aren't we so blessed to have the Lord on our sides?!

I am not going to lie.. this week was almost impossible to teach. Everyone was either gone or busy with their families. We tried very hard to work and find and everything but our numbers were very low. Fortunately we know that we did our best. Ilse passed her Baptismal interview!!! She will be getting baptized on January 17th. We need ot work a little bit on her testimony of Joseph Smith but it has been amazing to see her grow and change as she has learned more about the Savior. She has such an honest desire to follow our Savior and is willing to do anything that she needs to get there. I am so proud of her and everything that she is doing. 

On Saturday we had a Mission Wide Conference! It was so amazing. All of the missionaries were together to learn more about Jesus Christ. We studied His teachings, and His prayers. It was such a good experience to study our savior because he was the perfect example of how we need to serve our missions. I learned to much! We had Elder Highum come from our Area authority and he talked a lot about how it isn't the numbers it is the people. We are working very hard to keep that in mind. I also was able to learn a lot about how I can be more like the Savior. We need to know our Savior and not just of Him. It was really good. I am inspired to be a better missionary!

We realized that we are sending a lot of people home this transfer. That means that in February we will be down to 8 Spanish sister missionaries! Only 8! However, we will be having 2 new sisters and then 8 more. That means we will all be training soon! I can't believe it. I am nervous but know that "Whom the Lord calls, He qualifies."  I have to have Faith that through the Lord I can do anything. I am excited!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Years! I will talk to you next year!

Don't forget to look back on 2014 and make goals on how we can be better Children of our Heavenly Father in 2015!

Hermana Morey

This is the cow's head they got to eat for dinner!

High School Reunion

Apparently 37 degrees is cold out there!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

First off, I would like to thank every single person who sent me a Christmas letter the past two weeks! I am so grateful for the outpouring of love that I have felt from so many different families. I pray for you all and I hope you all know how grateful I am for each and every one of you!

This past week has been pretty great. We have been working very hard and trying to spread the Christmas cheer to everyone we see! We have had to drop several investigators, even some I really loved which was extremely hard, but the Lord has blessed us with finding a lot of new people to teach. What is a better Christmas present than to learn that you have a loving Heavenly Father!? I am so grateful for this opportunity to help others feel this wonderful Spirit. 

Have you noticed how Satan has been working very hard to ruin the Spirit of Christmas? Everyone is fighting over gifts, who is getting who what, how expensive is it, how much, and even shortening the name to x-mas. He littlerally took Christ out of Christmas. It breaks my heart how quick people are to forget the many blessings that God has sent us. (That is from the Book of Mormon, Alma) God loves us so much but sometimes we forget that all good things come from Him. Just think, how could a Father send His only son to live a life where so many people would reject him, smite him, and kill him? That must have been so hard. However, it is because He loves each and every one of us that He gave His son so that we can all live with Him again! How fortunate are we to have this knowledge.

I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and that you can feel the Love of our Father in Heaven. Please don't forget the real meaning! I promise that God loves you and that He wants the best for you. :) I am so grateful to know all of you and thank you so much for your love, support, and your prayers. 

Love always and Merry Christmas!

Hermana Clarissa Morey

Rain!

Hello again!

These weeks just seem to be getting faster and faster! We just finished our last transfer and I can't believe it. My district leader, Hermana Tapia, Hermana Zamora, and 24 other people are going home. That is a big group! I am going to miss them but know that I still have things to be doing here.

This week was pretty good. On Friday it POURED! It was raining so hard. Hermana Lozano was feeling really sick so she stayed with a member while Hermana Zomora and I went to do a service project. We went to volunteer at a senior citizen christmas party. It was so much fun! We talked to a lot of people and helped them make a cute craft. We ended up talking to a lot of people about the gospel and someone told me that they had heard that people from our church were really mean but we didn't seem like that. That is good. I generally try and be a nice person! It was a lot of fun and it was nice to be able to go and do service. After that we picked up Hermana Lozano and got to work. we had to walk a little bit and there were seriously rivers in the road, lakes, (giant puddles) and such. We had fun and Hermana Zomora kept saying that she thought we were going to get trench-foot because our feet were so wet. Also, we felt like pioneers fording rivers! This rain was different than the last one because it was really cold outside. Recently it has just been freezing! We are working hard to stay warm and to share the gospel. 

This week we have started doing our Christmas Family Home Evening with members in our ward. It is such a cool experience because the spirit is so strong! We read Luke 2 while Hermana Zamora plays her Violin and then sing Silent Night. After that we have the members share an experience when they felt that Heavenly Father was mindful of them. We have heard such wonderful experiences! It really helps me to focus on the real meaning of Christmas because it is all about how Heavenly Father loves us so much that He gave his only son. How, I would love to hear your responses to our question. What is one experience that you have had where you knew that your Heavenly Father was mindful of you?  You can respond in a letter, or however you would like! I would love to hear it! 

Yesterday we met with Ilse again and last Sunday we gave her a Book of Mormon and she is already on 2 Nephi. She told us that she literally couldn't put it down. Do we feel the same way about our scriptures? A lot of us have had them our whole lives but do we really appreciate what a blessing they are? We can show our gratitude by actually studying them and even better, applying them! 

I hope you have an amazing week! I love you all and I hope and pray that you can feel my love and the love of the Savior in all you do!

Thank you so much for everything!

Hermana Morey

P.S. Mom I got my christmas package! Thank you so much! Hermana Zomora opened it to make sure the presents were wrapped so that we could put them under the tree. I loved the writing on them. Thank you so much!

Zamoreyano

Hello!!!

In case you are wondering Zamoreyano is our companionship name. Zamora, Morey, and Lozano. It is fun! This week has completely flown by! I can't even believe it. We are all working very hard to make the trio work out and have been doing a pretty good job. We are having fun and we are laughing maybe a little too much! We are working hard and are using the fact that we all love music to help bless our area. 

This week... it rained... hard. It was on Tuesday and we really didn't have many people that we could see so we ended up walking for a little bit. I wore my rain jacket, we had one umbrella, and we put on a smile and walked. We were SOAKED!!!! California roads weren't built for rain so we had rivers running everywhere and our feet were soaked. It was so much fun! It spiked up a couple conversations, people thinking we are crazy, and we were able to explain our purpose. We realized that if we put on a smile people would realize that we must have something worth listening to because why else would we be so happy while walking in the rain?! It was really cool... and then cold. We were walking to an appointment when it just started raining extremely hard! Somehow a member in one of the English wards was at the stoplight and stopped what she was doing to give us a ride to our next appointment. What a blessing! The Lord really knows what we need.

As I mentioned earlier we are using our music skills to bless our area. We have planned a Christmas Family Home Evening for members in our ward. Hermana Zamora plays the violin and Hermana Lozano and I sing. We have a musical reading, we read the Luke 2 story while Hermana Zamora plays the violin and it ends in Silent Night. Then we will be showing the "He is the Gift." and something like that! It really brings the spirit and we are encouraging members to invite non-member friends to come when we go to their house. Hopefully it all works out. Our first one is tonight! 

Yesterday we had 8 people say that they would come to church... and we only had 1. We were excited for the one but pretty disappointed about the rest. We aren't sure what happened and are going to be working hard to figure that out. We did a inacctive family to come to church! It was amazing!!!!! That was a miracle moment.  The investigator that did come, Ilse, (Ill-say) came and we had an appointment with her after church where she accepted a baptismal date, and when we invited her to the Christmas devotional she said yes! We got to see it! it was so powerful and she had tears in her eyes. She just gets it. We were so happy and the spirit was so strong. 

It has been a great week with so many blessings. I can honestly say that I know that Heavenly Father is working hard in this area and I am grateful to be a part of it! Thank you so much for the package!!! it was so fun and we decorated our apartment. I gave my companions the advent calendars and I am using the cute paper chain. Perfect! I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!

Love always,
Hermana Morey

Bring on the Trio

Hello!!!

I hope this letter finds you all well and enjoying the Christmas season! I absolutely love this time of year! I will admit that it throws me off to be celebrating Thanksgiving and the Christmas season at 80 degrees... but it is this time of year!

This past week has been a pretty interesting week. We knew that it would be hard to see people on Thanksgiving so we made a TON of cookies and cute little Turkey cards with D&C 78:19 on it. We delivered them to all of the members, less-actives, and investigators in our area. It was a lot of work but was a lot of fun as well. We ate dinner with the Pineda family and they made it really special for us. The Turkey was AMAZING! I don't know how they did it but I loved it. They also had a ham but they had covered it with Pineapple rings... so I kept away from that one. Also, Hermana Zamora, the member not my companion, gave us some homemade cheesecake and Pumpkin Pie. It was delicious! It was really cool to be able to go around and see everyone and give them the cookies. Hopefully they were able to remember to give thanks to the Lord for all of our many blessings!

Yesterday we all had to give talks/testimonies in Sacrament meeting. I spoke on how everything we do is centered in Christ and how we have the privilege of sharing this message of Christ with our families, friends, and neighbors. Hopefully people will be sharing the gospel and how God loved us so He gave His Son. Especially around this time of year I feel like people need to know that Christ was born to save them. We all need our own relationship with Christ!

We got a new investigator this week! Her name is Elsa, Illsa? Something like that. She is 27, has a son, and is really great. She is interested in the Bible but she was praying about which church was true when a friend talked to her about our church. She loves coming and really feels the spirit. I love watching people have their own conversion! God is mindful of each and every one of us.

SURPRISE! Yesterday morning when we woke up everything seemed normal... however, by the time we went to bed last night we had 3 beds in our room, 3 desks in the main room... and as of this morning we have a new companion! Yes, we are in a trio! Our new companions name is Hermana Lozano and she is from Georga. She started in the SLC Utah mission but her family moved to Tooele so she got reassigned here. I will be her companion until she goes home in February! Also, Hermana Zamora goes home in 3 weeks... I feel like such a new missionary! We will be working hard to make things work as a trio. Pray for us! We seem to get along well so far so it should be really good.

I love you all and hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you have a wonderful week! thank you so much for all of your love, support, and prayers on my behalf!

Love,

Hermana Morey