February 9, 2015 Transfer to Palo Alto, CA

Happy Preparation Day!

Hello from Palo Alto California!!!!!

Woooo.  I am so incredibly happy.

We are currently in the Family History Center with part of our zone emailing.  Life in Palo Alto is pretty different including the fact that I am in a trio!  More on that later.

Well, I LOVE Palo Alto!!!!!!

I love my companions!  I love the five, yes five wards that we cover.  I love my apartment.  I love pretty much everything.

Transfer meeting started out a bit scary on Tuesday morning.  I had to stay up the night before, pretty late to pack all of my stuff, and the Sunday before as well as the day before that.

All of the missionaries in Livermore knew that transfers would be intense because all of the companionships knew that they would be expected. . . every companionship would lose a companion!  Crazy!

Transfer meetings are pretty dramatic.  All who got a transfer call on Friday night are asked to report to the San Jose mission office on Tuesday.  On that morning, we all meet in the chapel at 9:00 a.m. and it begins!  A giant white screen comes down and the name of the area pops up.  The picture of the Elder or Sister that is currently in that area shows up on the screen and President would say, "and serving with her", or ""Meet your new companion" or "and training. . ." and their companion's picture pops up next to their's!! It is super dramatic.  Lot of crying, lot of oohs and ahhs, and lots of hugs take place.  When we see our picture are to quickly go sit by our new one. . . (or new ones in my case).

My sweet new companions!!! Sister Fraser is from Columbus, Georgia.  Yay!  For two companions from Georgia.  She leaves in March along with Sister Packard and Sister Gregerson, my trainer.  I am so depressed and sad at the fact that all three of my companions will be leaving in March!!!  Next transfer!  That really makes me sad.

My other companion to make up the trio is Sister Uelfe from Samoa!!!  She moved to Hawaii about 3 years ago and has spent most of her life in Samoa.

I LOVE them and we are already making so many good memories and spend a lot of time laughing.

Here are some (funny to me, at least) of our good moments already:

Scene 1:  It has been raining like crazy here and despite the fact that we have a car, we can't seem to stay dry.  We were driving to our dinner appointment and got out of the car to it it pouring down raining.  Of course, we ran to the door and ring the door bell soaking wet because of course, none of us had an umbrella.  So we covered ourselves with our sweaters etc.  We rang the doorbell and were welcomed inside but here is the catch:  Since we cover 5 congregations, 4 wards, 2 family wards, 1 Young Single Adult ward and 1 mid-single adult ward plus a Samoan branch, we have our work cut our for us, but we are also in the Polonesian program which means we learn a new language, new people names, customs, and cultures.  In Polynesian/Samoan culture, you take your shoes off and if you don't, you're in trouble. . . back to the story.

Picture three soaking wet sister missionaries in the pouring rain ringing a doorbell.  The mom opens the door andshe is Tongan.  I freak out because I need to take off my shoes!  My companions are wanting to get inside (as am I) but if I walk into their home with my shoes on, I will probably lbring shame to everyone, right?!  So, Sister Frazer is literally shoving me through the door frame and I am just not budging.  I'm screaming about to fall over but refuse to take a step inside because I've got my shoes on!  Meanwhile, it's still raining.

Laughing, giggling, screaming, wet.  Needless to say, all is well.  I didn't bring shame to anyone by not taking off my shoes.

Five wards is already an amazing experience.  Being in a branch is an amazing experience.  Serving in Palo Alto is amazing.  Being in a trio is amazing.  I LOVE this.

I'm grateful.  Still so grateful.

Sister Carter.

January 29, 2014 "And Mary kept those things and pondered them in her heart."

Happy Preparation Day!

"And Mary kept those things and pondered them in her heart."

I had a really touching experience at our member dinner, one of which I will truly keep and ponder in my heart, just as Mary did while she raised our Savior Jesus Christ because some moments and times are just so incredibly sweet and tender and precious, they should truly be kept in our hearts.

I will just say that I am so incredibly grateful to be one of the Lord's messengers on His errand.  As a missionary we are given what to say at the exact time that it needs to be said (so long as we remain worthy).  I am grateful that the Lord allows us to be His voice of sorts.

In the moment that I said the words that the Lord directed me to speak (which I don't even remember by the way), I looked up to the sweet dad of the family, red as an apple, with tears flowing from his face and his eyes piercing right into me clinging on to every word.  Again, I have no idea what I said but I will never, ever forget the strong spirit in that home at that time.

We can be the Lords' hands while on this earth.  We just need to be willing to do what He wants.

Transfer time is coming!  This transfer is 7 weeks and it just may be my time.  I have been in Livermore since October!  And I can't leave!  I refuse to actually.  :)

I love Livermore.

I love you all. 

I love the Lord.

Sister Carter

January 19, 2015 What our Sundays are like and a car adventure

Happy Preparation Day!

What a week!  Actually what an interesting last 24 hours.

Let's just start at the very beginning.

Our Sundays are always busy.  We start off with a meeting with our 4th ward mission leader, Brother Romano.  He is a convert of about 30 years and has three daughters.  We are close to his whole family.  His wife's grandmother who we call "Nana" lives with them and she is fantastic.  She is 100 years old and from Germany!  

Anywho, we start our morning bright and early with him and then head off to our first sacrament meeting.  We then either teach or go to the Gospel Principles class (we teach next Sunday :)) and from there we go to our next meeting with our Second ward mission leader in the 1st ward, Brother Bailey who is actually also a convert!!!

He just moved with his family from Washington state.  After our meeting with him, we then go to 1st ward Sacrament meeting, and then if we have investigators, we teach a Gospel Principles class.  But if not, we go to Gospel Doctrine, then to Relief Society (which we actually taught yesterday :)  Now this schedule is of course dependent upon which investigators come to church and what class we get invited to teach.  Two Sundays ago, we were asked to teach junior and senior primary singing time. . . Ha.  We are basically at church from 7 a.m. -4:00 p.m. and I LOVE IT!!!  Four wards meet in our building.  We cover 1st and 4th ward and 2nd and Springtown which have the Elders.

Yesterday we had about 5 less-actives come to church, and an investigator.  What a blessing.  In our mission we have the blessing to be a mission that is piloting the "to the rescue" program where we help less actives or what we in the San Jose mission call "returning members" come to church.

After church yesterday we got a referral from the Mocho Elders (from the Mocho spanish branch).  They contacted into a Hindi family who speak (Punjabi) from India and since the Elders are really Hermanos, they passed them off to us!  Blessings!  Not only do we love referrals, but it's a family:  Husband, wife, 1 son and 2 daughters!! Blessings!! And the 4th ward that we cover has a recent convert family that is also from India!! Woo!! We will go back to teach them on Thursday and Sunday.

Later on in the day we were planning to go visit another one of our investigators but Sister Carter just decided to shake things up a bit. . .

I love driving in California, really, I do.  In fact, I think I do a pretty good job but last night, I was not on my A game.  I do a horrible job at getting close to the curb when trying to park.  I'm either too close or too wayyyyy too far away.  But, I've been getting better!  Well to make a long story short, I popped the tire.  Actually, I cause the tire to explode.  The thing made the loudest noise.  How did that happen?  I was trying to park close to the curb and rammed so hard into the curb I caused the tire to pop.  

Eh.  Oh well.  I had to call the mission office this morning and talk to Sister Ned who is in charge of all of our mission cars and beg forgiveness.  Hopefully my driving privileges don't get taken away. . .!!!

Anywho, this morning (It's p-day) we drove to wheel works and they gave us a new tire.

Oh I forgot to tell you how we got the spare on!!

After screaming for probably 20 minutes we called the Elders!  Good thing they had just gotten out of a dinner appt.  They came to our rescue.  They put the spare on and we were off.

So grateful for those elders.

I promise I'll do a better job driving.

I promise to do a better job taking care of the Lord's car.

Sister Carter

January 12, 2015

Decisions Determine Destiny

We teach a lot of people! A whole lot.  Just to give you an example, we contacted (remember we don't tract) about 300 people last week. . . So, our teaching pool is pretty huge as well.  With this knowledge it can easily be assumed that we are teaching people of various walks of life.  Not only am I in the Bay Area where you can find people driving Teslas, Range Rovers and other hundred thousand dollar luxury cars but we also see drug addicts on Livermore 1st Street asking us if we want to smoke weed with them, alcoholics with no job, and children with no way to feed them.  I had seen this type of poverty on T.V. but up until the mission, despite being from the D.C. area, I had never seen how real poverty is.

I pray that the Holy Ghost will be with me as I write this letter.  I don't want to offend anyone but simply stating what I've seen as a simple minded 22-almost 23 year old (thank you very much) from Northern Virginia living in California.

I have come to know, though I have always known even more while on the mission that 

Decisions Determine Destiny;

And that the Gospel of Jesus Christ allows you to have a happier life.  The Gospel helps you with your decisions and your choices, thus having a happier life.

Sister Packard and I teach people of all walk of life but this week the theme was apparently that of our decisions determining our destiny.  It seems as though some of the people that we teach may not have thought about their futures too much and so the choices that they made are still having lasting effects on how their lives are playing out now.

When you don't put the Lord first in your life you will be unhappy.  When you have the gospel of Jesus Christ in your life and do those things that are pleasing to Him, you will be happy.  It's proven and we can see the results in the lives of others who don't.

Commandments like the Law of Chastity that helps us to keep our bodies, minds, and lives morally clean bless and protect us.  Commandments like the Word of Wisdom allow us to have control over our lives and maintain happier and healthier bodies and minds as we abstain from alcohol and drugs.

Commandments are laws/standards set by the Lord that will bless and protect us as well as elevate us.  Commandments aren't rules set by a vengeful spiteful God to hinder us or limit us, but they are truly there to protect and bless us, to shape us and make us into what we have the potential to be.

On my mission, I am learning of the importance of choices.  This decision of going on a mission has blessed my life and I know it will determine my destiny.  For that I am grateful.

Elder Cook, an apostle of the Lord came to our mission on Saturday and spoke to us of the importance of this mission and beautifully bestowed an apostolic blessing on us.  It was tender and beautiful and I will never forget it.

I love you all and am very grateful for your love, your examples, your influence and your testimonies.

Always,

Sister Carter

Merry Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas!!!!!!

Well.  Sorry it's late but Merry Christmas!  Our Christmas was full of laughs but also tears.  I got the blessing of being able to skype my family!  Maybe that blessing of being able to skype is more for our families than us?!  All I know is after sobbing from talking to them, I went right back to work!  Right back to the work, whereas maybe some of my family were still distracted from getting to talk to me.  Anywho until Mother's day family!  It certainly was fun!

We woke up to my sweet companion Sister Packard screaming Merry Christmas!!!  We then opened all of our gifts.  Sister Packard and I then went to our first breakfast at the Holt's home.  They are wonderful.  We then went to our ward mission leader's home for our second breakfast.  We had breakfast casserole at both homes by the way.  

Breakfast casserole

After we ate and skyped, we ate dinner with them.  Brother Bailey made us lobster and crab legs!  We then left for our second dinner at the Webb's where the Loyde family was present.  We had a blast!

Just for reference, we are watching "Meet the Mormons" as a zone at the building, so I'm a bit distracted writing this letter. . .

Our ward mission leader who actually just got called has been the source of great blessings.  We are teaching a woman named Vanessa.  Vanessa is currently living in her dad's house.   Vanessa's dad was an extreme hoarder. You know that show "Hoarders"? Yeah.  Picture that.  We have been doing service for Vanessa at least twice a week since I've been here in Livermore.  Because of the extreme hoarding, Vanessa doesn't have a job.  She is left to cleaning the house with her father now in the hospital because he recently just had a heart attack and is now in a coma and can't speak!  She has a lot of bills to pay.

Back to the ward mission leader. . . His family has read the book "The Christmas Jars." and because of that book, his family does a jar every year.  Brother Bailey asked us who from our teaching pool would need this jar.  We said Vanessa.

Vanessa called us the other day completely in awe, shock and amazement that someone left a jar (of money).

 

She said that she will keep the jar forever in remembrance of how good God is to her.

The Lord is merciful.  He uses us his servants as his hands.  We need to be working and willing to do all that he asks.

This is His work.  We're just blessed to be a part of it.

Love,  Sister Carter

December 15, 2014 Christmas, transfers, miracles

Oh my goodness.  This is easily the craziest mission day ever!  Well, such is mission life, right?!

We were just sitting at the computers (Sister Gregerson and I) when the Hermanas walk up to us and say that they are moving in!  Well, funny thing is, we knew that they were moving in but we thought that it was more towards the beginning of the new year!  Turns out it's today which means that we have to completely clean out their apartment so that they can be sleeping in their new warm beds by tonight.  Not to mention p-day is over at 6:00 AND their old apartment is getting completely shut down.  No more missionaries will be living there.

Also here's the kicker. . . Sister Gregerson is leaving!  My trainer is getting transferred.  Not only am I getting two new roommates but I'm getting a new companion!  Tomorrow morning at (9:00 a.m.-ish I will be driving Sister Gregerson to San Jose and picking up my new companion.  My zone is all the same people minus Sister Gregerson and Elder Lundy one of our zone leaders.

Yesterday night was the 21st Interfaith Activity Day by the Livermore wards where we invited five choirs to come and sing/perform for and with us.  Three other Christian churches came along with a high school choir and us.  It was beautiful.  We all together sang the Hallelujah Song. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBZ7AfZR9xs

 It was intense!  It was so loud in there.  More people were there than at Stake Conference!  Our Stake Presidency also showed the "He is the Gift" video to everyone.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzjFEMmM0Xs

Sister Gregerson and I typically go to Zumba on Wednesday mornings for exercise.  All of the moms are found there and it's actually pretty hilarious because it's a bunch of moms dancing around with children and babies running around in circles.  Needless to say it is chaotic but fun and a wonderful teaching/finding opportunity.  Sister Gregerson and I typically bring Vanessa with us who we are teaching.  She has a son named Ethan who is so wonderful.

Here's a miracle.  Sister Gregerson and I are never ever low on food and we ALWAYS have dinner.  Since I've been on the mission we have only had to eat at our own apartment once!!  With that said, we for some reason had two nights where members did not sign up to feed us.  We were not worried and figured that we would just call our ward mission leader to feed us or even a member.  Sister Gregerson and I did not have to do so because the Lord blessed us with a miracle.  Sister Gregerson and I answered our phone one night to a lovely experience.  A member called us and asked if we could come to dinner on the very night that we didn't have dinner and to teach a non-member friend!!!  Woo hoo.  Not only did they call for the night that we didn't have dinner BUT it was so that we could teach!!!

Sister and Gregerson and I had the opportunity to teach her on Sunday night and will start teaching her twice a week!!

Not only did that happen once, but it literally happened twice.  We didn't have dinner (for some reason) again and the Lord blessed us with another referral!!  A member called and asked us to teach her friend!  

Merry Christmas to all!

Love,

Sister Carter

December 8, 2014

My emailing is terrible.  I'm not too sure why besides the fact that I am HORRIBLE at managing my time!  On Monday, the hour we have to email really isn't enough!  I feel really sad because I'm so bad at expressing myself and informing everyone on what's going on and how people are progressing etc.  I'm sorry.  I pray that I will get better and I will certainly pray that my future letters will help many people see how happy and grateful that I truly am. 

I had the blessing of being able to give a talk on Sunday about being physically and spiritually prepared.  That, translated to me, was "The Doctrine of Jesus Christ".  Truly, the Doctrine of Christ: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End allows us to be BOTH physically and spiritually prepared.  "Keep the Commandments." is a phrase we read a lot in the Book of Mormon.  Wickedness never was and never will be happiness and truly keeping the commandments always allows us to be happy, thus, being "Prepared".   I sobbed while giving my talk in perfect Sister Carter fashion.  I'm always so embarrassed but oh well, I'm tender.

Here is a bit from my talk:

Missionary works allows us to declare to others that they too must be physically and spiritually prepared.  There are many who don't know what they're missing in their lives.  Many don't know where or how to find the truth.  But, all is well Brothers and Sisters, because I am here to tell you as a representative of Jesus Christ that not only I, as a missionary, but we all "must declare this gospel [to all people] that they may be filled with joy.

Declare to this people that they must repent, have faith, be baptized.  Don't only tell them, but show them of that straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life.

"This is the way and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God.  And now behold this is the Doctrine of Christ, and the only true doctrine of the Father. . ."

We're in a pretty serious drought here in Livermore.  Something that I'm not used to, especially being from a place that gets a ton of rain.  Everyone is so cautious of how much water they use, shower time, dish washing/hand washing time.  It's interesting.

Thanksgiving has come and gone.  It's so weird:  number one being in California where there is no snow makes it even funnier.  Snow certainly helps you realize what season it is.  :)


I love you all,

Sister Carter