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