Week 30

   This week has been another yelled at, no one comes to church,
everyone hides from us, Bishop still hates us, fallin off the bike,
proposed to by creepy guys on Facebook type of a week.
    Had the worst day ever last night. We go to the other sisters'
apartment and use their wifi for Facebook every night. I locked myself
in the bathroom as soon as we got there and just let it all out and
got on my knees for a good 20 minutes. Everything from the week just
piled up til I finally hit my breaking point.
    (We have this new rule that we can read our emails whenever they
show up, we just have to wait to write on pday cause it's a lot less
distracting to just read instead of staring at the blinking icon on
the iPad. Cause to missionaries email day is literally more exciting
than Christmas. I literally can't sleep Sunday nights waiting to read
my emails in the morning. We get excited for mail, we die for
packages, we lose sleep over emails. We live a sad life.)
   So anyway, I was like Heavenly Father, I'm miserable, please just
let me get one email early tonight. Just one exciting thing. So I
connected to the wifi and three showed up. And my wonderful Madison
sent me quite exactly what I needed to hear and I cried. That was a
small but greatly needed tender mercy from The Lord. Miracles.
    My lovely Hailey got baptized in Keystone yesterday! I'm so proud
of her! I've been able to stay in contact with her on Facebook,
hallelujah. We were chatting the other night and she's been going to
seminary every day and has been to church every week and she's
obsessed with everything. She was like "seminary has just helped build
my faith so much and God has just blessed me so much. Thank you so
much for everything you've taught me. Ciera and I already signed up
for girls camp. I wanted to let them know early so they'll have an
idea of how many will be there." Where did you come from child? Shes
my miracle that finished all of Faith for personal progress in one day
and was halfway done with her project the next. She's amazing. I love
her. And her sister, Ciera, my golden little child is getting baptized
on the 4th. I just love them so much. My miracle children that I was
forced to leave.
That is all
Sister Carr

Hailey's baptism with Sister Hillman and Sister Cook!

Week 29

Went to the mall last pday. I felt so evil, it's unreal. Since I've
been in the country for forever, I have no skills in walking up to
people randomly and talking about Jesus, but I have mad door skills
and would so rather tract. But I had a couple of people come up to me
and start talking about religion and such. It was so great. Had a
really good discussion about the church with this guy in the middle of
bath and body works. And I didn't even have to initiate the convo.
Miracles. And they were playing 1D. First time hearing them in 7
months. Miracles.
   The missionaries in the Philippines finally contacted my golden
online investigator and she's absolutely loving it! Ahhhh I so got
them a baptism, you're welcome.
Went on trade offs. The STL's area is further away from the city and
it's this ghettoified version of Keystone. I was lovin it. We cleaned
the absolute nastiest house that I have EVER been in. I'm pretty
positive that I was sent here cause I always hated how Mom would
always make us clean and I'd so rather not. But here I get to see the
results of my way.... Heavenly Father's a clever one.
 While I was in redneck heaven, Sister Orton and our STL found this
golden miracle child. She's so ready for the gospel. We showed her the
bible video of Christ getting baptized and after I was like what
thoughts or feelings did you get when watching that? She was like, um
I finna do that but I don't swim.... total 'District' moment, I
thought it was funny. So after resolving that concern, we invited her
to be baptized on the 29th, she said 'yes, what time on the 29th?'
That took me so way off guard, I stared at her strangley for a second
before responding, honestly didn't think that far ahead, don't usually
get a yes....
 Got yelled at for the second time, but the first time they were very
drunk so it didn't really count. But that wasn't very fun. We weren't
having a very tremendous day, and I started crying right there in the
dude's front yard. I know, I'm working on it. I always try to think of
Sister Hillman's "practice smile for the second coming" face and just
picturing when Christ shows up and everyone realizes that the kids on
the bikes were right. Can't wait.
  We had the car this week, hallelujer. We'll be walking down the
street and I always feel like I'm in that scene from the first season
of Walking Dead where the main guy, (cannot remember his name for the
life of me) shows up in Atlanta on this random horse and is wandering
the streets all cautiously. And there are cars sprawled out
everywhere, there's just junk in the street, and he's like what is up
with this place, this is just a mess and every second he's
anticipating something to run up and eat him. That's kinda how I feel
about Jax, so I really like having the car.
 We had a lesson with this lady and we asked her to read this verse
from the bible. Most people around here have their king James, but she
had some weird modern one. It was interesting how much the spirit was
lacking as she was reading it. It was super awkward cause it was
totally different then what we were trying to make a point of. I'm
grateful for my complete and correctly translated bible. Never have
ever realized how grateful I am for that, but I am.

 We were working with two sisters in keystone and doing personal
progress with them and all. The older one, Hailey, wanted to wait till
she completely was done with personal progress to get baptized.... She
told the sisters that she wants to get baptized this Sunday! I can't
even... I'm so stoked for her! God is real. He's really there. AHHH

I'm so excited I can't even stand it! Anyway, hangin' in. Love y'all!
Sista C

Week 28

Called to Know the Richness of His Blessings....... 

 Everyone says that the mission is the "best two years." I was on a
trade off with my sister training leader a few weeks ago and we were
chatting away and we decided that it really isn't.  It's the worst two
years cause it's not all fun and joyful as RMs make it sound. It
stretches ya and puts you in awkward situations and you're
uncomfortable the whole time. You learn so much about yourself that
you quite frankly didn't want to know. You find out that you really
aren't as great as you thought you were, that your testimony is the
only thing that's going to pull you through It all so if it's not
strong enough you're gonna have to fix that fast, and you learn a lot
of other stuff that you always judged other people for and then you
find out, hey you're in the same boat, buddy.
   My trainer told me that you'd pay a million dollars for your
mission, but wouldn't pay a dime to do again. I can't even tell you
how true that is. I'm tired and I'm stressed, but I've experienced so
many things that I'm so dang grateful for. I think it's the perfect
combo cause if you're just sitting there enjoying life, you never
would notice the blessings. And I think that the blessings are just
little rewards for the pain. So they balance each other out, which
makes me hate it and also love it.
   I have a firm testimony that we are put in certain situations for
a reason. Heavenly Father has our best interest in mind and He won't
make us go through something if it wasn't He didn't have a purpose in
mind. My favorite line from Called To Serve is "called to know the
richness of his blessings." I believe that the seven months I've been
out here have changed my perspective so much and I'll never look at
the blessings I have the same. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father has
called me out here to the East Coast to know how great God is to us
and how rich His promises and blessings truly are. So here are some of
my rich blessings that I've been able to see this week:

-I got a new Facebook investigator who is oh so golden and is the
sweetest thing ever.
-Sister Brown drove us to our lesson on Thursday, and we didn't have
to bike the 5 miles there. Hallelujah.
-I had my first full nights sleep in weeks.
-My comp has been sick this week and is always sleeping so I got so
much extra work out time.
-Sister Orton got a blessing from the elders. It blows me away that
Heavenly Father lets us have His priesthood power on this earth. I
love it!
-A less active sister was worried about her son who is stationed at
Camp Pendelton. "Hey, I can maybe help you out with that. I got
connections." Helping across the country.
-Walmart had real tree jackets for super cheap. Didn't get one, but it
still made me happy.
-Sister Orton hasn't been able to think straight since she's been
sick, so somehow with a lot of Divine assistance, I managed to teach
all our lessons this week on my own.
-We ran into my favorite Sister Call, that was in my last district, at
target and she's in my new zone!
-Had an old lady say I was the sweetest thing ever.
-We get the car next week
-My hair looked awesome on Sunday
-Found out a less active young women we had been working with in
Keystone has come to church every Sunday since I left.
-Got our numbers a little more up this week
-Found the key to the bike lock right before we were about to go to
the store to buy a new one
-The elders had a baptism on Sunday
-Got an email from my very best friend that helped me out so much and
-I'm eating Five Guys right now. Can't complain! ;)
<3 Sista C

Me with my companion Sister Orton

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.