Week 27

I'm trying to be really positive, but I just can't this week. I
apparently don't adjust well to new things.
So I've been so seriously fed up with members giving us boxes and
boxes of Oreos and feeding us biscuits and gravy. It's a problem. So
I've been seriously praying for Heavenly Father for help, like I know,
I'm so lame, but I've been legitly praying that I can somehow lose
weight. Well lesson learned for the week, specific prayers get
specific answers. And I've learned my lesson the hard way, cause I got
to my new area on Wednesday and well.... We're in a car share, so
guess what that means? I'm on a bike.
My first day in Florida, one of the sisters asked President about the
whole bike situation. He specifically said, and I quote "I can promise
you that none of the sisters will ever be on bikes." LIES, PRESIDENT,
LIES!!! So you know those poor sisters that you drive by and your like
oh man, they just look absolutely retarded, someone please just help
them? That's for real my life. I, in no way can rock the bike look, so
you will not be getting any pictures this week. I look SOO DUMB on a
bike. I can't even stress that enough. I look SOO dumb. SOOO dumb.
My new area is very Diamond Bar-y. Go watch the part in the Blind Side
where she goes to find Michaels real mom. That's exactly where I am.
For real west side. Us white girls are the minority and it's just
really sketchy around here. I miss my redneck Keystone. My new
companion's name is Sister Orton, she's 22 and from Salem, Utah. The
ward's huge, the Relief Society is bigger than my last ward. And we
get fed every night, so yay! There's us, another set of sister, and
the zone leaders in the ward. The four of us sisters are always
together cause we share the car, they're amazing, I love them. It's so
fun. We have like no investigators right now, but that's going to be
quickly changed. Our key indicators for this week was what we usually
got in one day in keystone! and most of it was from my investigators
from Facebook. Uhhhhhh, This area is going to be a project.
So my first day on the bike, we were coming home at the end of the
day. It's pitch black in the middle of Jacksonville at 9 at night. I
don't know where I am, there's scary people around and I'm strugglin
on my oh so attractive new ride. My chain breaks, so we pull over to a
parking lot and try to fix it. In the middle of ghettoville, in the
dark, it's like 80% humidity and I'm sweating and my
perfectly-done-that-morning-hair is sticking all over my face and have
oil all over my hands and now I have to wear my bag across my body and
it kept rubbing against my button up shirt, so my shirts wide open, so
I'm trying to deal with that and I'm just freaking out. I'm so past
the point of caring how retarded I look and just hating my life. And
that's pretty much it to the story. I got it fixed, we went back home,
I had some ice cream cause I sure as heck deserved it, and that's
pretty much it. That's my new life. Just trying to deal with it. The
end.
I'm still alive and strugglin through this whole "endure it well"
thing. Never praying for help to lose weight again. I'm still loving
the iPads, they're amazing. I love you all! Enjoy your cars.
Missin' my rednecks,
Sister Carr

My new address is:
1171 Lane Ave S #710
Jacksonville, FL 32205



Sent from my iPad

Week 26

  Well, we got transfer calls last night... I'm headed out. I'll be
transferred to Normandy in the heart of Jacksonville. So I'll meet my
new comp tomorrow and in the meantime I'll be trying to fit all of my
clothes in my two little suitcases. Not an easy task? I'm really
scared to move and I've fallen in love with the Starke ward and all
the people here. So my heart's hurting a tad bit and I don't want to
leave. I've been deathly sick this past week too. We've been so dang
busy and we can't just take a day off and sleep, so I've been getting
worse and haven't been feeling too hot.
   Ciera, the Beckhams 14 year old neighbor, is still set with her
baptism date. We've been working a lot on her personal progress and
she's already done with Faith. She's already had such amazing
spiritual experiences with prayer, the Spirit speaks so strongly to
her. It scares her to death hahaha, she doesn't get whispers from the
Spirit, she gets screams. But she's feeling how true this all is and
it's the most amazing thing in the world to see.
    Her 15 year old step sister, Hailey, asked us if she could do
personal progress too. So we've been working with her too. They both
have been faithfully coming to church, hallelujah, and we invited
Hailey to baptism on Sunday. Her response - "Yeah, actually I was
thinking a lot about that during church today and how I really think I
need to be baptized." We died. She wants to complete personal progress
before she gets baptized so she'll understand everything better. She
started on Friday and is already done with both Faith and Divine
Nature, she's just working on her projects now, so Keystone's going to
get two baptisms in the VERY near future. They love us to death, and
hopefully I'll be able to come back for their baptisms!
    I love this area and I hate packing and I'm just so very shocked
and bummed that I'm leaving, but twill be an adventure, that's for
sure. PMG says to leave the ward stronger than it was when you first
got there. I don't feel ready to go yet, but I feel like I've
accomplished that. We've strengthen our relationship with the bishop
and ward council, have a pretty large teaching pool, three baptisms
lined up, left a bomb trainee, and have started the ward in their own
missionary efforts, so I feel peace with what state I'm leaving
keystone in. That's all I can ask for.
     Love y'all! Sister C

So very sick and exhausted, but I love car selfies.

Week 25

Getting' that line in the water.....

WE GOT IPADS!!!

     I can't even begin to say how amazing these things are. The hastening of the work has been talked about a lot lately and President explained that this is the way the work was going to be hastened. This is in no way doctrine, but President feels strongly that God is fulfilling His promise in Moses 7:62 through these ipads. This is the way that it truth will come out of heaven (satellites, hello), and it will reach all four quarters of the earth, even those places that we're not allowed in. Cause fortunate for us, the internet's kinda everywhere. He showed us a video of President Kimball talking about how technology is going to be used in missionary work and he's trying to explain stuff like computers and ipads and how they'll be used. It's amazing.

     The hastening's on. With every post we put on Facebook, we have the potential of reaching 54,000 people as people who are friends with our friends can see it. Instead of tracting and putting a ton of energy reaching out to one person, we can reach out to thousands with the touch of our fingers.

     In chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel, there's a quote from Elder Oaks about how fishermen will find more success the longer they keep their fishing lines in the water. That's the whole point of this. We have access to Facebook all throughout the day and we have a ward missionary email account, where we're in constant contact with our ward leaders and investigators. Our planners and area book are on it, which is difficult as we're in the process of transferring everything from paper to electronic right now. #firstworldproblems #forreal

     On Saturday, we a ward service project at the Beckhams and we stayed there after for facebook and dinner. We had four lessons that day and ALL of them were from the ipad. And since it's so convenient to just roll up and sit there at a member's home, ALL of them were member present. We've been struggling to just get 2 member present lessons a week and we got 7 last week. I know, ridiculous right? We had our first skype lesson that Sheila and Milly taught with us in and we had 2 Facebook lessons that Noah, their teenage grandson who usually isn't too interested with gospel stuff, got so involved in it.  We had a full on lesson on Facebook while we were sitting outside in the woods by the campfire. It's amazing. We had a couple other lessons that day with so many different people without even leaving their property.

     We've been working with Ciera, who's 14. She came to church last Sunday, thanks to the Beckhams and she can't get enough of Young Womans and Personal Progress. We've been kinda teaching her the lessons through Personal Progress. Like in the first Faith experience, you read all about faith and prayer and the First Vision. What? It's like they knew what they were doing when they put those experiences together. She loves praying. She said the night of our first lesson, she went home and prayed to know if God was there. She felt peace throughout her whole body and got chills and started crying. It kinda scared her how immediate and how powerful the feeling was, but we explained what she felt a little bit more. She's just soaking up the gospel and asked her mom yesterday if she could get baptized. We weren't even planning on bringing it up till tomorrow, but Milly said she asked her mom if she could and we set a date for March 1 with her.

     Milly said that two different people came up to her at church and told her how much they loved us. I'm just so grateful to be serving in this ward. Ahh, I love it, I LOVE the people here, I'm going to die when I leave.

     We'll get calls from President tonight. Things are finally going right here and I am dying to stay here just one more transfer. 7.5 months in Keystone? Bring it.

Love y'all!

Sister Carr

Week 24

This week us and the Elders visited EVERY SINGLE active family in our ward. We did a ward fast yesterday to get out of this baptism drought that we've been stuck in. So we sat each family down, talked about how they could help out, asked them to participate in the fast, gave them a little missionary kit with dvds, a Book of Mormon, and pass along cards to hand out. We took the quote that Mom sent and made 50 copies and put some missionary ideas on the back. I know, we're adorable. We prayed with each one of them that they would be able to find someone who is ready to hear the gospel. And like everyone's seeing back home, fasts work.

Just some of our miracles this week:

-We've had members call us and ask for even more Book of Mormons and pass along cards cause they've already passed them all out. One family is on their thrid kit right now. Hello miracles.

-We had a movie night last night. The Becks brought FOUR nonmembers. WHAT??? I love them to death.

-We have this lady that we found a few weeks ago and the first time we met with her, she REFUSED to even touch the Book of Mormon. But we've done some service for her and when we were leaving the other day, she was like "so can I buy that book online? Where can I get it?" WHAT? Come again?

-The quietest lady in our ward talked to us for the first time like ever. But not only did she talk to us, she told us her whole converstion story, talked about how sad she was her husband was less active, and asked us to help her introduce her mother to the church.

-Sister Hillman and I have been specifically praying this week that we'll be able to find a family who is willing to keep committments and are independant so they can get themselves to church. Guess what? We found em. The girl was practically in tears she wanted to go to church so bad. They're coming next week.

-A family in the ward asked us to start teaching their grandmother who wants to come back to church after being excommunicated for 30 years. A heck yes, we'd love to do that.

-We had a golden investigator that we dropped cause he moved. Guess what? Got a facebook message from him this week saying he wants to meet with us. He moved back and WANTS to meet with us. WHAT??

-The Elders called us yesterday stoked out of their minds that they had already found 2 new investigators that night. And guess what, we did too. What? Hello miracles.

-And the biggest miracle of all, we had an investigator to church! Because our building is so far away and everyone here doesn't want to come, I've never ever had anyone at church the six months I've been here. But yesterday, we had 1 investigator and 2 potential investigators who we aren't teaching yet, but will. WHAT? Goin from none to THREE.

God lives. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is His kingdom upon the earth. It is. I know it.

 

I'm so technogically lost. I can't figure out how to turn these pictures around. Our hike in the forest with the Scotts and Beckhams. Florida's the only place that you'll see tropical plants mixed with redneck forest plants. It's bizarre.

And our lovely missionary kits that we handed out to the ward.