I'm going to be a MOM!!

Transfer calls came this week!! Picture the Hunger Games reaping scene and that is what it is like. Only this is the reaping "missionary style." I think I have mentioned before a little bit about how transfers work. Well, Friday night is when the official transfer calls get made. The day before (Thursday) is when Sister Alba calls all of the new trainers and STL's (Sister Training Leaders). For some, all day Thursday they wait in anticipation to know if they will get called, for others they have their fingers crossed that they WON'T get a phone call. I am one of those sisters! All day on Thursday I feared the phone thinking please don't call, please don't call! Well... Guess who called? Sister Alba.

Our Entire Apartment

My crazy Trainer found me at the Temple!! Love my mom!

She gave us all new assignments. Sister Beach will be going to WINDSOR!! I LOVE Windsor! Sister Eisert will be going to Vacaville and will be the STL there and do follow up training. Follow up training just means that the Greenie (missionary who just came from the mission training center) had only been out 6 weeks and you will be training him/her for the next 6 weeks. Sister Alba told us these things and then she got to me, only she kept pretending that she couldn't remember what was happening with me and kept pretending that she lost the paper that said my new assignment. haha She is so funny! FINALLY she stopped playing with me and said that I will be training a brand new greenie fresh out of the MTC, and will be staying in Davis. What is scary is that I will be all by myself. No more trio, just me and the greenie. AHHHHH! I am so nervous.

Suddenly I went from the perfectly happy comfortable junior companion, to having to lead out the area and pretend I know what I am doing with a greenie. So, I am a little bit dramatic... In reality I am actually pretty excited, but I do have a lot of fears. My biggest fear right now is that I have had an AWFUL cold that has not let me sleep at all and has put me at a pretty low functioning level at the moment.

I do find humor in all of this though. A couple weeks ago I found myself praying for a small mountain to climb spiritually. Heavenly Father answers prayers for sure, I know that he will help me. With the help of a priesthood blessing I was able to get through a lesson with a very minimal amount of coughing instead of coughing my lungs out at the person. I feel confident that everything will work out great because I have the power of prayer, and scripture study. So, I am going to be a mom!!!!!

The Lord has blessed us with some incredible lessons this week where the spirit guided the whole thing. I would have to say that my favorite part of being a missionary is when I open my mouth to speak and the words that come out are not my own. I have had so many incredible moments where I have literally been a vessel, for the lords words, and an instrument in the Lords hands. It could be so easy to walk out of a lesson and say, "wow, we did great!" but in all reality it is, "wow, God is so great!". It is all the Lords doing. Our lessons would be nothing without the spirit of God.
We met 2 different people this week who were so incredibly prepared to hear the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ it was incredible. I cried as I heard their beautiful and precious prayers for the first time.

Moment of the week:
So... I saw a tornado on Friday... No big deal or anything. We got a text message with a tornado warning in woodland... And we happened to be in woodland that night. This part of California has HUGE wide open fields that go on forever and ever. It was super windy and rainy on Friday night. We were driving back home to Davis and I looked over to the right into one of the fields and saw a huge beginning stage funnel cloud forming into a tornado. Good news: we're alive :)

Love you all,
Sister Carter

PS. Part of me wishes so bad I could see my actual mothers face when she reads the title of this email. I figured that would be good pay back to her from last year when she posted a picture of a positive pregnancy test on facebook just to freak me out while I was at University! You're hilarious mom!

Oh Canada (Princess Diaries Style) and Praying for Priesthood

Sister missionaries tend to get to a point on their missions where they can hardly bear to wear their own cloths anymore. I think I have hit that point. This week I had to laugh when I got a letter from my mom bringing up the idea of wearing my companions cloths. I chuckled to myself, "Oh, if you only knew!" For about the past 4 weeks we have all been wearing each others cloths to keep our sanity under control. We find out "transfer doctrine" this Friday which means I might be loosing half of my wardrobe along with the sisters in my apartment.

I WENT TO THE SACRAMENTO TEMPLE THIS WEEK!!! 8 of my ancestors were able to receive their endowments on Thursday. The temple is such a special place. Unfortunately I was so tired the whole time being at the temple because the night before I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. That's okay though, I was still able to feel the wonderful peaceful feelings of the temple, and I personally help a relative to receive an ordinance necessary for salvation. I can't remember her name, but she died 180 years ago.

Yay.. I met up with Sister Van Wie my trainer at the Temple this week!! Love this girl!!

This week we saw so many miracles. I will share 2 of my favorites. First, our ward has been lacking priesthood holders bad. We barely have enough priesthood holders to pass the sacrament. For the past 3 weeks we have been praying and praying that we can be able to find the elect men who are prepared to receive the gospel, be baptized and receive the priesthood. Well this week we realized that our entire teaching pool consists of men aside from our 1 female investigator. And all are progressing so quickly!
Second, Saturday night kept going all wrong. Every single thing we had plan from A-Z kept falling through! By the end of the night we were all exhausted and just wanted to go home, not to mention there is a bad bug going around and everyone in our zone is getting sick. This last week I have been feeling pretty lousy. So Saturday night all I wanted was to go to bed. We had about 15 minutes left before we needed to start heading back so we decided to head back and confirm appointments on the phone for the last 15 minutes. As we were driving Sister Beach thought we should so stop and go to a less active members home. Even though we were exhausted we agreed. As we were walking up to this persons apartment we ran into a guy and attempted to share the gospel with him and invite him to church. He was completely uninterested. normally we would at least leave a pass along card with people even if they aren't interested, but this time we didn't. When we got to the door of our less actives apartment we could tell they were home but no matter how many times we knocked they were not going to answer. We were pretty discouraged. Finally someone answered and we found out that she wasn't even home anyway. We turned to go back to our car when the guy who was uninterested stopped us and said "So I think I should go to your church next weekend. What time does it start, and where is it at? I am looking for the right church and I think I will try this one out."
We were shocked! the amazing part of the whole thing is that we NEVER would have met this guy if ANY of our other appointments hadn't fallen through! It was a miracle! God works in mysterious ways!

Moment of the Week:
Actually this is a moment that tends to follow me everywhere I go in the mission. My companions love singing "Oh Canada" to me, but no one ever knows how the anthem actually goes and it always comes out to the tune of "Genovia" from Princess Diaries:

"Oh Canada, the land I call my own,
Oh Canada, Oh CAAAANADA!
Forever, may you banner wave!"

Some random guy with a Canadian Shirt!! Just had to stop and take a pic!

Sister Eisert, Sister Beach, Hermana Law, and Hermana Whitney (The other set of sisters who live at our apartment) always break into song singing this to me while waving their hands as if it is a little flag. They are so funny!

Lots of Love,
Sister Carter

PS... I have 2 desired callings when I returned home, so Bishop (Dad), take note. I have become SOOO excited about family history. All I want to do is family history work and missionary work. So, if there happens to be a need for a family history consultant or ward missionary in a year from now, keep me in mind!