Cherea's Baptism-March 21, 2011

Dear Family,

First off let me start by saying: Happy birthday Grandpa! I totally didn't even know it was his birthday! The big 80! Too bad I wasn't there, we could have celebrated by going sky diving out of an airplane :)! I'm glad that so many family and friends were able to go down and see him. I'm sorry that Mom is getting an infection. I hope you start to feel better soon. One of the Sister missionaries that I live with, Sister Holm, her parents and little sister came out to see her this week. Her parents just got called as Mission Presidents to the Colombia South Carolina mission and her little sister is leaving on her mission next week to Taiwan, so they came to say goodbye before they all split of to different sides of the world to serve. They walked into the Book of Mormon class, that we teach on Thursday Night, and I just bawled like a baby when I saw them. I don't even know them! But they are the people that matter most in the world to Sister Holm, and their reunion was one of the sweetest I've ever witnessed. Made me miss you all very very much but I'm so excited some day when we get our own family reunion.

This was another week of miracles! So many incredible things happened. There was a baptism down in Henrietta that I was able to go to! Cherea Smith, the 21 year old girl that Sister Stone and I found back in October, was baptized. It was such an incredible day. Her whole family was there to come help support her. She was SO excited! She couldn't wait to be dunked! She's come so far. There were so many ward members there and it was a beautiful service (I didn't kill the spirit with my terrible piano playing this time :)).

I also had a really neat experience happen to me while I was serving at the church sites this week. I just realized that I don't really talk much about serving at the sites. We only go once a week to one of the four different sites, and usually there aren't too many people that come in so it is never overly exciting. This week though, we served at the Joseph Smith Farm on Friday and it was a beautiful sunny day so it was pretty busy. We were taking tours back to back which was a lot of fun. It is so neat to see all the people that come from all over. We gave a family from New Zealand a tour and got to talk to them a little bit about how they joined the church which was great. The last tour that we took for the day was a young couple from Oregon. They were such neat people who had never been to the sites before. We took them into the Smith Log Home and brought them upstairs to, probably my favorite place/site of all, the room where Moroni came to visit Joseph on September 21, 1823. While up there they both really opened up about what the Book of Mormon has done for them in their lives. The spirit was so strong! At one point, all I said was, "What happened here really is real" and we were able to just stand and let the spirit teach us of the truth of the events that had transpired there. No dry eye in the room. It was incredible.

Its funny, Dad, that you would refer to Alma 26 in your last email. I just read that chapter again this morning and was totally overpowered with how much I could relate to Ammon. Before Cherea got baptized, on Saturday, she told us all her conversion story, which I had actually never heard before. I guess she had reached a point in her life where she had no where else to go, and one night she kneeled down and begged the Lord to bring her out of what she was experiencing and find be able to find Him, and a couple weeks later Sister Stone and I knocked on her door. I love what Ammon says in verse 3 when he states, "Behold, I answer for you; for our brethren, the (Western New Yorkers), were in darkness, yea even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work". Missionary work really is a blessing. I'm so grateful to be apart of it, to carry the message that Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, will heal your broken heart. How great is this calling!

I love you all so much. I have been praying about you constantly this week. My thoughts are never far from you. Have an incredible week!

Love always, Sister Carter