Week 1

Hello gorgeous family! 

I love hearing from all of you - my district leader makes fun of me so much cause I get the most letters out of everyone! I love it!  I'm leaving Tuesday morning (we have to leave the MTC at 2:30 - oh joy!) and my flight takes off at 7 UT time, so I'll be calling sometime before then - be ready to answer!

So much has happened this week and I feel like I've grown so much! We had an MTC devotional on Tuesday night, it was broadcasted to other MTCs around the world. That was such an amazing experience, we were singing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and in walks Elder Anderson - we had no idea he was speaking and it was so cool to be singing about the Savior and have one of His apostles walk in - as you could imagine, I kinda let a couple tears out. We had 1500+ missionaries in the choir, which was the COOLEST thing ever! The camera got me singing way up close a couple times, so awkward. But Elder Anderson was so amazing. My favorite quote from him - "We love the things we sacrifice for and we sacrifice for the things we love!" How perfect?!

Mom, I'm really glad you and Sis. Payne are friends now - Elder Payne's in my district but he's also our zone leader, such an amazing missionary. He came up to me a few days ago and was like "Would it be weird if I told you that I knew who you were before we came here? Cause my mom FB stalked you." You two were so meant to be friends.

  Anyway, the Spirit is so dang strong here, I feel like this place shouldn't be real cause it's so perfect, but it's just a little spot of heaven on earth. One of our teachers told us yesterday that the veil has never been thinner for us and heaven's always so close for missionaries. Holy cow can I testify to that! I have a whole new view on the phrase "the heavens were opened," I always thought it was some Avengers-like, giant hole in the sky thing, but no no no, I have seen the heavens opened many a times. It's a long story, but our district calls them "chair out the window" moments, where we'll be reading our scriptures or role playing and one of us will get this huge revelation or get this amazing insight on a verse or make some insane connection and we'll all just sit there in awe and are like whoa - The Church is true! We've had lots of good, spiritual tears every single day and I can't believe how amazing this gospel is, I've gained so much insight and I look at everything so differently now.

   My favorite thing is being able to teach investigators in this trc thing ( i don't know what it stands for), but real investigators come to the MTC and we get to teach them. With that and role playing with other missionaries, I'm constantly teaching and bearing my testimony to others. It's insane how doing that can increase your testimony so much. I've always known this stuff was true, but telling people about it, you're like holy cow, this is seriously so true! I've relied on the Spirit so much to teach and it's amazing the outcome when I do. We had our last lesson with one of our investigators the other day, and it went so insanely well that my comp and I were smiling so much and we just knelt down right after and thanked Heavenly Father for His Gospel and the Spirit that was in the lesson and just everything. His hand is in everything here - it's amazing to see it in action.

   Our weird color days have been continuing, and we've gotten other districts to do it with us. We had blue day on Tuesday and Wednesday was black in mourning of our favorite teacher leaving and yesterday was red. I've also run into another guy from EFY, there's four of us here who were all in the same company together and now we're all preparing for our missions together. Who woulda thought?

I wish I had more time, I have so much to tell you! Love you so much! 

Love, Sister Carr

THE FIRST LETTER

Mom and Dad, 

   Thank you so much for all your letters, it's so nice hearing from you guys. I love looking at my mail and emails and seeing nothing there - it's so fantastic.

   I'm a missionary!!! How weird is that?! I don't feel like a "Sister Carr" yet and I don't think that I'll get a hang of it even when I'm in Florida. Friday is my Pday, so expect another email from me next Friday and then I leave for Florida on the 3rd, so my next one won't be for another week and a half. It's so weird getting used to it all, we'll be in class and I'll see two elders walk by and I'll get all excited that I saw the missionaries, cause at home it's a huge deal and you have to wave and honk at them, but then I realize that every single person in that room is a missionary, even me. It's the weirdest thing ever. 

   The MTC is absolutely amazing. I don't know why everyone makes it sound so traumatic, the first day was not hard at all, it was uber weird and different, but I absolutely loved it. And all the food things that Dad warned me about - not true. I've already lost 5 pounds, but I'm not too excited about that cause I know I'm going to gain 50 more in Florida. 

     I've never been more EXHAUSTED in my life, I'm dying for a nap.  I've never been more frustrated either, but I've also never been happier. The Spirit is so strong here on campus. Even if you don't know each other, everyone says hi to everyone. I feel like I'm back in Idaho or at EFY, but it's even better cause you're all there for the same reason and it's impossible not to feel the Spirit no matter where you are on campus. You're constantly on a major emotional roller coaster here. One second I'm stressed with how much I have to do, the other I'm freaking out that I can't figure a lesson out, and then literally within the next ten minutes I'm in tears cause the Spirit is so powerful and there's no place I'd rather be right now. It's absolutely insanely ridiculously hard, but it's worth it! I've never prayed so much in my life, which is hard, but its so cool how instantly it invites the Spirit.

   I love how simple it is here. Here we are, a bunch of 18, 19, and 20 year olds without our phones or the internet and we're put in classrooms to learn, it's so strange and nowhere else would you ever see that, but it's amazing. Everyone gets along great and just loves each other and we're all insanely bored, so we're forced to talk to each other, and it's been amazing! I love the people here so much! It's so fun hearing people speak different languages around campus and seeing the elders trying to workout with their memorization cards in hand, it's so cool seeing the spreading of the gospel in action.

   I've already run into Matt Neubert and David - which was so nice to see some family here, that was cool. There's a teacher here, Sister Mitchell who served in Nauvoo, but she served in our ward when they do the 6 month rotation thing, and I got to chat with her for a bit. I've also seen two guys that I went to EFY with. 

   My district is amazing. There's six of us sisters and six elders. One of the elders, Elder Larson, is from Spokane and he knows Stevie, I love how Mormons know everyone or everyone's cousin, it's so fun. We're together almost all day and the elders are hilarious and the sisters blow my mind at how spiritual and loving they are.  I'm also so grateful that I get to serve right after the  age change was announced. All of us sisters are 19, and most of the elders are too. It's so nice to be with people my own age. I would've gotten so annoying with the "immature" elders if I had gone at 21, but we all just lift each other up and we have bonded so easily. I absolutely love it! I'm the only one from California in my entire zone, which I didn't expect. Everyone's from Utah, Idaho, and then there's a few from some other random states. 

    My companion's name is Sister Hibpshman, pronounced Hipsman. She's from Who-knows-where, Colorado and loves camping, sci-fi movies, and animals, so we've got that going for us....... But she's absolutely amazing and I love her to death. She's the only active member of her family and is so faithful. Every time we have something go wrong, no matter how little it is, she's like, Sister Carr, we need to say a prayer. I don't think she's human, but I'm learning a lot from her, which I definitely need. 

   I've been made the music coordinator for my branch and district, so thank you Mother for forcing me into a talent that I can never run from, (please take that sarcastically). My branch president is from Jacksonville and served his mission in Orange County. He said that in 1947, the first stake that was created east of the Mississippi was in Jacksonville! We're the best! All my "roommates," the sisters in my district, are going there too and two additional elders in our district are going there too. 

   We've already started teaching investigators, which is so fun, but so frustrating cause no one knows what they're doing and have never even read Preach My Gospel before, so that's awful. The lessons we have to do aren't super fun and the hardest day for me was yesterday, but I was talking to one of the sisters in my district and she said she was close to tears in our lesson yesterday cause she was just so overwhelmed, so I'm really grateful to know that I'm not the only one. The hardest thing is not having any time to do anything and getting out of the habit of calling everyone "guys," it's either "Elders" or "Sisters," it's going to take me a while to get used to that. Also music, I MISS MUSIC! I've had Teen Beach Movie and AC/DC stuck in my head 24/7 and I'm dying! We got up at 5 to do some service in the gym and they were having some aerobics class in there and played Mario-like/weird elevator music and even that made me so happy. 

   I had my first interview with my branch president yesterday and he was giving me some advice and was like, "Now Sister Carr, write this one down, you'll be using it throughout your entire mission. It's the six Ps." And I stopped him and asked him, "Do you mean Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance? That's my Dad's quote!" He was shocked and impressed cause I was the first missionary he's ever had that had heard that before. Yeah, that's right, I know what's up!

   So Kenna, Zayn and Perrie, what the heck? It's amazing how fast 1D gossip travels through the MTC, There could've been a major natural disaster that I don't know about, but don't you worry, I have direct connection to One Direction breaking news. 

    I've survived the first three days, so hopefully the next 500+ won't be so hard. I love you guys so much! Love, 

     Sister Carr

Arriving at the MTC

August 21, 2013 was the day Sister Carr reported to the Provo MTC.  Mom and Dad flew up with Chelsea Wednesday morning, dropped her off, and flew back later that night.  For the hour following the "drop off" they drowned their sorrows in Provo at Marley's with great food and large sodas.  

Such a great and terrible day!