Feeling the Spirit at the Whitmer Farm

Dear Family,

There is lots to write about this week so I'll try to get in as much as much as possible. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Thank you for sending the Thanksgiving package! I love it.... I devoured the Frito chips in a day :). It sounds like you have some great plans for the Holidays. I always love the bustle of eating dinner together and then trying to squeeze in a nap before BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING!!! Wish I could be there with you, just know that I am there in spirit :).

This last past week has been FULL of miracles! It seems like sometimes, after trials, the Lord just seems to hand you some amazing experiences to keep you going. We had a wonderful lesson with Bro. C this week. We took him down to the Peter Whitmer Farm because it is the last church site he hasn't seen. We had such an amazing spiritual experience. There is nothing like sitting in the downstairs of the log home there and thinking about how far the church has spread since 1830. It had 6 official members in its first organizational meeting and now there are over 14 million members of the church! Pretty incredible. I also love hearing investigators explain how the spirit feels to them. Bro. C kept saying that it felt like "pin-prickles" were going up and down his arm :). We find out if he gets off of probation this Wednesday, and if he does he can get baptized!!! So... we're praying hard.

Another neat thing was a family that we have been working with for a very long time finally came to church this week! It is two sisters that we are working with, Karen and Tiffany, and we just happened to go by this week at the exact times that they needed us and I think it was the Lord softening their hearts enough to let our message move them to action. So they brought all of their kids and we had the entire middle pew FILLED with people! YAY! I haven't experienced that my entire mission. I felt like I was serving somewhere in South America. The Lord has been so gracious with His blessings the last little while.

I had a really neat dream this week. In my dream I was at the church house and there were tons of people running around everywhere. I remember I had a place that I needed to be at but I heard a familiar voice start talking behind me. I looked back and there was President Monson! He was starting a "Mormon Message" (this just goes to show you how much of a missionary I have become :)) but no one was listening. Everyone was just running around not paying attention to him. So I decided to stop and listen. He was talking about a tree that was growing in the corner of the church house. That this tree had a limb that was growing at the bottom of the trunk that was so big and heavy that if they would have left it there the tree would have eventually fallen over. So they had sawed the limb off and grafted in a "good" limb, to support the tree where it was needed so it could grow better (I swear- I haven't even read Jacob 5 in a long time.... too much time out in the Grove I suppose :)). I was super confused by this whole thing and because I didn't understand what he was talking about I started walking away. It was then that he summed up his "message" or the point he wanted to get across. His message was, "Stay your course. Finish what you started to do". Wow! I have no idea what that had to do with the tree but I woke up from that dream feeling like that was direct revelation from Heavenly Father. That morning I had "new" eyes and some moments that seem harder then others I just remember to "stay my course", I'm going to finish this.

I hope that all is good for you the rest of this week. I sure love all of you. I'm okay to fly into St George. That will be fine. I guess I'm just a little nervous about being by myself for a couple hours... but I guess it'll be time to just plunge into being normal again :). Have a wonderful grateful week, and just know how grateful I am for each one of you!

Love always, Sister Carter

Satan never quits

Dear Family,


Wow! Your letters were so exciting! I couldn't help but feel the butterflies in my stomach when I saw all of the classes that I'm signed up for! I'm SO nervous, but really happy. I feel good about all of those classes (a little nervous about Biology but I think its going to be okay :)), and I hope that as I get back into school things will start to come back to my memory. YES... I would love that job at the Elementary School! That would be such a neat opportunity, especially if education is what I want to go into. It would give me that extra shoe-in to get into the program I want. If the job becomes available I would love if you put in my application. I might need your help to kind of adjust it to fit more of something that they would be looking for. I want them to want me! :) Those hours would be great as well.

I got a hand-copy of my flight plans this week after site meeting. My whole stomach about dropped. I can't even believe it. I feel such a wide-variety of emotions as the end is coming near. I don't think I've prayed or cried more on my mission. My knees are sore for kneeling for so long, pleading that I can end strong. I have never felt Satan so great. He's such a jerk! He gives me every reason to stop, and I've realized that excuses are easy to find. I can feel like I am entitled to be tired and some-what discouraged but we are asked to "remember him... and not hang down our heads" (2 Nephi 10:20). So... sometimes, 5 weeks seems like a short amount of time. Sometimes it feels like an eternity away. I know that I'm going to make it to the end... I just want to do it well. So every day I need a new "rally cry" to get me up, but I know that the Atonement isn't just there to cover our sins. It is there to to sustain and enable us to accomplish the things that we could not on our own.

There is nothing too exciting happening in our area right now. We're actually just trying to find people to teach. Lots of nice people, just no takers. We got our last transfers this week. I'm staying with Sister Lee in Marion. I'm happy about that. She helps me stretch and grow and she doesn't let me give up. We've been doing lots of service lately with the holidays coming. We helped decorate a Christmas tree yesterday!!! YAY!!!!!! So happy! I sure love Christmas. Mom's going to have to start recording all of our cheesy Hallmark channel shows because guess what?! "I'll be home for Christmas" (I have a whole new feeling associated with that song now).

So to end, family. I just want to say thank you. I thank you for figuring out my resume, my apartment situation, staying up till midnight to get me signed up for classes, helping me find a job. I couldn't have a better family in all the world and I know my words don't do it justice, but thank you. Sincerely from my heart. I love all of you more than I can express. I hope you all have the most amazing week.

Love always, Sister Carter

You need happiness in your lives!

Dear Family,

Yay for Daylight savings time! Its the closest that we can get to sleeping in as a missionary! Plus it makes it nice not to have to run in the dark, in the mornings. Thank you for taking care of everything with school! I sure appreciate both of you for all your efforts. I think Dad's email came at a perfect time. I am so glad to know that life is still good after this. That the experiences only get richer and more rewarding. I feel as if I am on an emotional roller coaster all of the time. One moment I'm crying because I don't think I can do it one more day, and the next minute I'm crying because that day has ended. With all of this crying I have now become a real Sister missionary :).

We've had a pretty good week this week. It has been relatively nice outside which always lifts my spirits up. We're still finding it very hard to get people to progress in the gospel. Its weird because people will sit out and talk to you for hours but when you ask them if we can come back they never say yes. DOESN'T ANYONE HERE WANT MORE HAPPINESS IN THEIR LIVES!? I'm always amazed when we talk about how this message can improve the quality of anyone's life and their response is, "I'm all set" (Those words haunt me at night :)). Its all okay though. Sister Lee and I were talking about it last night and its really frustrating when people don't pick the right things with their own agency but at least we can decide what we want to do with ours. So.... fellow Western New Yorkers.... although you think that this is all the happiness that life has to offer, I promise you there is more, and it is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We had a really great experience this week with online proselyting. I don't know if you've ever been to mormon.org but if you go to that website there is a place that you can click on that says "Chat with us". Its a place where you can anonymously ask questions about the church. Now, all of the Visitor Center's are going to be the missionaries that these people get to chat with. So you literally Chat with US! How cool huh? We work in companionships still and just wait for people to get on and answer their questions using the resources the church has online like mormon.org or lds.org. You teach lessons online to people! Sister Lee and I taught a girl from Pennysylania last week. She had just received a Book or Mormon and had questions while she was reading. We asked her if she wanted missionaries to come over and help her understand it more and she said YES! So cool. Its fun to get to use technology to further the work.

This week we watched "17 Miracles" at Site Meeting. I don't know if you have seen that yet or not. It was SO sad! It made fasting and tracting in the snow look like a cake walk! I can't believe all of the things the early saints went through. Makes me appreciate what we have so much more.
Well, family. Sure love you. I can't believe Lindsay comes home this week! Tell her how much I love her and I'm sure excited to see her!

Love always, Sister Carter

Happy Halloween

Dearest family,

Sigh... what a week! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! I know this is Kreigh and Kris' favorite holiday and so I'm sure Atreyu got all costumed-up. What did everyone dress up as? Did we get any trick or treaters this year for Abby to bark at? This Halloween ended up being a great one for us. We had the ward truck-or-treat on Saturday night which was a lot of fun and then last night Sister Stoker and I got a special invitation to come to the Senior couple's Harvest dinner. They wanted an encore clogging presentation!!! So... we gave them what the people wanted! Sister Stoker and I thought it would be funny to dress-up as a Senior couple as well. So I wore this terrible 80's grandma dress with shoulder-pads and bright red lipstick (although, to their credit, none of the Senior sisters actually dress like that), and Sister Stoker wore a white shirt and tie, and we put flour in our hair to make it look white. Oh the Senior couples LOVED it when we walked in! They think everything we sisters do is cute. It was such a great night. We ate food, enjoyed each other's talents, and Sister Stoker and I performed our famous dance for the last time (she goes home in two weeks). I sure love those Senior couples. They have become my new adopted Grandparents :)

The rest of the week has been pretty good. Its been one of those weeks where you wonder if you're really making a difference. We have people that we are teaching but none of them are progressing. No one is willing to change to get closer to the Savior... frustrating. Its funny because I feel like I'm getting split personalities. Some days I don't think I can wake up and do it again, but then I go to bed and night and feel as if I never want to leave. I had a dream the other night that I was home and Dad told me that it was time to take my badge off. I, first off, told him he had no authority to tell me that (ha) but he told me he had permission from the Stake President to release me. So I took off my badge and as I walked up to him I looked at it. It was banged up, and scratched, and as I walked I thought about all of the things I had experienced wearing that badge. When I finally handed it over to Dad I just sat and cried and cried. The sad thing is... that dream some day, will happen (except it probably won't be Dad :)). And that kinda breaks my heart. But, I'm not going to think too much about that right now. I've still got a month and a half. Every day is a brand new day, thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Anyway, sure love all of you. You're my rocks. I can't wait to see Baby A WALKING! I'm missing all the good stuff. You're all the best.

Love always, Sister Carter