18 Months old and my last full Pday

I AM AN 18 MONTH OLD!!!
This is my last official full week of being a missionary. It is so scary!

For my 18 month mark we were given a gift card for a really expensive and Yummy Italian Restaurant

No special diet tonight... Its an all out food fest

My departing interview with President Alba is tomorrow. I am so excited. I am hoping that he will receive revelation as to the future of my life such as who I will marry, how many children I will have etc. But I have a feeling that isn't very realistic.

Being co-driver again is great! I'm loving the life of backing, map reading, and giving directions.

Last week 4 of us sisters went to a members house to chop wood. I have never felt more useless and girly in all my life. When we got to his house he walked us to the pile of wood, handed us a sledge hammer and a couple wedges and told us to go for it. We all took a good look at the pile of wood, then at each other, and busted out laughing. We were there for a while and barely made a dent in the pile, but I feel much more manly now... We assured the poor little old man that we would get elders to help him next time seeing as he did more work than the 4 of us combined.

Saying goodbye to Sister Whimpey was so sad. We had a good little cry. I love her so much.

Our conference with Elder Nielsen was so awesome. I received so much revelation for myself, my investigators and the sisters I am over as an STL. I had a good cry as I realized I would be taking off my badge soon and that being a missionary was coming to a quick end. There is truly no better substitute for missionary service. Being a full-time worker for God is so rewarding. If your thinking about it, pray about it! If God says yes, DO IT! That includes you potential senior missionaries. I hear nothing but good and wonderful things about being a senior missionary. The Seeleys have convinced me that senior missions are the only way to go, not to mention the missions across the world are in dire need of them. They hold our mission together. The mission was chaos when we were short senior missionaries.

Moment if the Week:
Part 1: Sister Petersen learned how to burp this week. She has been burping everywhere we go with a great big grin on her face. She even burped in front of our recent convert without even thinking twice about it. She kills me.

Part 2: Sister Petersen on the phone:
"Hi, we were wondering if we could come bless you? I mean leave a blessing with you?!."

Oops. Just a little bit of blasphemy that's all.

I am going to miss Sister Petersen so much!!!

Love,
Sister Carter

Here are Some Pictures with some great people whom I love....

Lost Biking Privledges

Just so the world can know how buff my legs are now, I snapped my bike chain in half while biking up a stupidly steep hill last week. I haven't known anyone to loose driving privileges AND biking privileges. Pray that my legs don't break next. Luckily we have our car back! After being on bike for over a week I discovered muscles I didn't know existed. Most nights I slept like a baby. Although babies don't really sleep very well so I would say I slept more like I was in a coma. It was great!

I handed the keys over to Sister Petersen and since then she goes around excitedly telling the other missionaries that she "holds the keys."

The other day I was reading a talk from this last general conference called "The Lord Has a Plan for Us!" by Elder Godoy. A line from that talk stood out to me, paraphrasing, it asked, "If I were to continue on the path that I am on now would the promised blessings in my patriarchal blessing be fulfilled?" I immediately remembered a line in my patriarchal blessing that promises music in my home. I longed to have that blessing fulfilled but I felt like the path to that blessing was unreachable and too hard. This week I was worrying a lot about where to study and what to study when I get home. The thought of it scares me so much. I was putting way too much time thinking about and it was taking away from me being able to be a full-time missionary. So I decided to go to my room and say a good, solid, and sincere prayer to God about it. I let Him know I understand that now is not the time nor place to be needing an answer about something unrelated to missionary work. So I'm my prayer I asked God to answer it in his own time but to please answer it. It was great then because I was able to get it off of my chest and focus on the work so much better. I had a few really great days with Sister Petersen working hard and seeing miracles. I had a pile of papers on my desk that I have accumulated from different conferences and meetings and I wanted to go through them to dejunk and study them one last time. I found the talk "Cast Not Away Therefore Thy Confidence" by Elder Holland in the midst of the pile. I felt too guilty to throw it away so I determined to read it the next morning. While reading it in my personal study I got an answer to my prayer. I had a complete assurance that I was supposed to continue my studies at BYU-I and that I was supposed to continue studying music. I had a good long cry about it because it was the answer I was hoping not to get. I am completely terrified out of my mind thinking about the long semesters ahead of me. The last semester I did exhausted every ounce of me emotionally, mentally, and physically. Throughout my whole mission I have been convincing myself that I am not going to go back to music in Idaho. It felt beyond my capacity to repeat. But the talk gave me a lot of comfort and I am so grateful that I have a direction and an answer way sooner than I expected. I now know immediately what I need to do when I get home. I am so grateful to learn that when I put the Lord first, he helps us with all aspects of our lives. I'm grateful to know that He answers prayers. He yet again has answered my prayer and I am also grateful to know that the blessings I desire are mine as I put God's will before my own. I am scared, but I know that he will be there to help me.

I AM HITTING MY 18 MONTH MARK THIS WEEK. What the heck! Today is my last full p-day :(

 

Gotta go.

Love, Sister Carter

The car accident

Fun fact:
Sister Petersen and I calculated how much time we have spent together
by the time I go home.
3 month
12 weeks
84 days
2016 hours
102,960 minutes
7,257,600 seconds

That's a lot of seconds. Good thing I love her. Missions definitely
produce best friends.

Our Last time together on the Northern California Beaches

So... I got Into a car accident this week... Pretty much the most
damage was done to my pride. I got a much deserved stern talking to by
President Alba, got put on bike and foot until our car is fixed, and
lost driving privileges for the last 3 weeks of my mission.
So here's what happened: I was on exchanges with a sister over in
Rohnert Park. She didn't know her area very well and wants really sure
where we were going. We were approaching a red light in the far right
lane and at last minute she told me we needed to turn left. So I
safely crossed over the middle lane to get to the turning lane. There
was a line of vehicles all stopped at the red light in that lane, so I
merged the front of my car in front of one of the cars a few cars
down, looked at the passenger and thought we had eye contact but I
guess not. We sat there for about a minute and when the light turned
green the other car drove into me... Oops
Let's just say I have learned lots of good lessons. The day before I
prayed for an opportunity to grow and now both my lucky companion and
I have been blessed with an opportunity to grow. You know when they
say never to pray for opportunities to grow? This is why. Heavenly
Father takes you seriously. It has been so much fun though! Sister
Petersen and I have had more fun on bike than we know how to handle.
We have laughed so much. We look so ridiculous it's great! We have
been so tired, so cold, so sore and so happy! We love the exercise and
we have been able to talk to people that we normally wouldn't have
been able to. It's awesome! We named our bikes the black stallion and
the squeaker. They are beautiful elder hand-me-downs that get the job
done. Not gracefully, but they work.

Elder Nielsen of the seventy is coming back to our mission for another
conference and is going to be inspecting random missionary apartments
this week so we were frantically cleaning every inch of our apartment.

Our Carpet shampooer barfs up hairballs.. yuk

Moment of the week:
I was looking at my tonsils in the mirror with a flash light and got a
Charlie horse in my mouth.... I didn't know that was possible but
turns out it is. Watch out for those mouth charlie horses, they'll
getcha!

Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Carter

Camp Liahona in the Redwoods

Soooo... I have 24 minutes to write this. Mom please don't kill me.

Okay so we had a leadership training camp out at camp Liahona in the Redwoods. It was soooo muuuuch fuuuun. All of the STL's and Zone Leaders went to the MLC camp. We had hours of sitting and training and camp fire and songs, and trust activities involving sending groups of missionaries over walls and falling from tall heights. I was asked to give my departing testimony and freaked out. I have seen missionaries give their departing testimonies my whole mission and never thought the day would come when I would share mine. I ate all sorts of gluten free food. The sisters all had "The Marriage Talk" from Sister Alba about what to look for in a husband after the mission. She pretty much made us all marriage trunky for a good hour. We did service creating 3 campsites in the woods. There are parts of my body that I have never felt sore before, but I loved every moment of it. There is nothing better than working out in nature and getting dirty!

We mad a mini missionary with us this week! It was AWESOME! We prepped her to invite our investigator to be baptized and she did it! She even set a baptismal date with her and everything. It was awesome! Poor girl she was so far outside of her comfort zone but she did so great, we were so proud of her. I am envious of her mini mission experience. She got to spend 2 nights with us doing everything a missionary does. Her name is Hannah Gerber-Kai but we called her Sister Gerber-Kai. She is half Hawaiian and has probably the worlds longest middle name on the face of the planet.

The Wilson's quit smoking this week!!!!!! They are on day 6 of quitting and Steve Wilson has been smoking since he was 6 years old! We are so proud of them! They are incredible!

Well... 24 minutes is over.
Love you,
Sister Carter

Christmas 2014 in Santa Rosa

This week started with 2 flash mobs on Monday and Tuesday night Both of the Santa Rosa zones as well as a ton of members from the stake went to the mall to sing Christmas carols from the hymn book. At exactly 7pm one elder randomly started singing in the mall and we all slowly joined in until everyone in that part of the mall were singing with us.

The whole month of December the sisters in our apartment did the 24 days of Christmas. We had an advent calender that one of our moms sent with a passage from the NIV Bible for all 24 days leading up to Christmas. We made a game out of it and made up a song for every night leading up. Then we would read the passage of scripture complete with actions.

Posing in front of the "Christmas tree"

Christmas Eve was so fun. Sister Petersen and I got to spend the evening with the Kitchen family. It was so fun! We had a wonderful Christmas dinner, played a bell game, the present game, and acted out the nativity. Sister Petersen and I got to be wise men. Elder and Sister Seely came too and when we were all introducing ourselves to each other the Seelys claimed us as their granddaughters. It was the best. I almost cried. I felt like I was with my family consisting of Sister Petersen, Sister Seely and Elder Seely. It was great.

Christmas Eve night was hilarious. We got word from President Alba that we could sleep in to 8:00 AM on Christmas morning. We were so excited. The problem is that we were so excited to sleep in that morning that we couldn't sleep at all. Then at 4:30 in the morning we got woken up to someone doorbell ditching our house with candy. It took a good hour and a half to fall asleep after that. It's funny how on a normal missionary night as soon as the head hits the pillow we are out like a light, but the moments we get word that we can sleep in we are so focused on sleeping in that we can't sleep.

Christmas day was awesome!!! We did service cleaning and weeding a park in the morning and afternoon.  Before that we opened presents and ate tons of junk food! GOT TO SKYPE MY FAMILY!! Best Christmas present ever!!
I got stuffed silly eating 2 Christmas dinners. Then we finished with a member taking us out to look at Christmas lights. it was so great!!

This is how close I am to going home.. My picture is right near the top

I haven't done a moment of the week in a while so here's one:

Moment of the Week:
"Elder Heil, what do you think of when you hear Victoria, British Columbia, Canada?"
"I think of a moose, tea, gross sesame candies, and those soldier looking guys in red suits and fuzzy tall black hats."
"Sister Gowens, what do you think of when you hear it?"
"I think of Canadian Bacon, and the TV show How I Met Your Mother"

I cant even count how many times I have had missionaries inquire about if Canadians eat Canadian Bacon. For the record we call it ham in Canada.

Last year I served around Elder Heil and got a package in the mail from my family with some cool assorted Mediterranean candies in it. They were fun to try but not what I would consider a tasty treat, so we made a game out of them. We put them in the computer room at the stake center for all of the missionaries with a rule on it: once a candy enters the mouth it stays in the mouth. Everyone was so curious so they wanted to try one. It was so entertaining watching them put the candies in their mouth, deciding that they didn't like it, but having to follow through with their commitment. It was especially entertaining when they would go for a different one in hope that it would taste better but being equally disappointed and having to finish that one too. Elder Heil got the one that had sesame seeds in it, and has forever associated Canada with weird sesame candy.


Well love you all. Happy New Year!

Sister Carter

Double dating and our Christmas Party

Last Monday sister Petersen and I spent almost an entire day in jeans. It was so weird. We ended up doing service the whole day. Our poor office missionaries were overloaded with work to do because of transfers, Christmas and the Christmas party all happening around the same time Sister Petersen and I took pity on them and helped them out for a couple hours. By the time 6pm rolled around we were skirt trunky and happily changed back into missionary cloths.

I probably felt every emotion you could possibly think of this week. Saying goodbye to missionaries on their last day in the mission was soooooo weird. Weirder than other times before. They are the missionaries I have known the longest, meaning that I and the other sisters I go home with are the next oldest missionaries. They were scared, worried, excited happy, and sad all at the same time. It freaked me out to see them go home.

Saying goodbye

The Christmas party on Wednesday was awesome! I got to reunite with some old companions. I managed to get wrangled into playing the violin twice. once at the Christmas party in front of the whole mission (SCARY) and once at church with a days notice (SCARY). Sister Finlinson and I put together an arrangement of Greensleeves/"What Child is This?" It was so fun putting it together and so scary playing it. But we did it! Then I played along with a congregational hymn at church on Sunday.
Each zone at the Christmas party put together a skit. They were all so funny. Our zone did a skit with Elders portraying Sisters and Sisters portraying Elders in three different scenes: contacting, companionship inventory, and P-day. They were hilarious. Everyone laughed as they watched the Elders act like stereotypical sisters and vice versa. Sister Peterson and I with some other elders did the P-day scene and acted out what elders are like sending emails and playing sports on Monday.
President Alba and the AP's did a skit and danced around in elf costumes. It was so great!

These funny guys are dressed for their Christmas skit

Elder Prince has rocked  the ugly sweater look

Sister Harper reunion

I went on a double date this week... Let's just say it was as awkward as it sounds! Let me explain:

Three of us missionaries had doctors appointments in Stockton. Two sisters and an elder. A senior couple drove us and they were both in the front with the three of us packed in the back of a two door car like awkward sardines who couldn't remember the last time they touched someone of the opposite sex. Luckily I was on the outside and the other sister got to protect me from physical contact with the Elder. We felt so incredibly awkward, a trio of two sisters and one elder. Then on the way back we had to drop off the sister in her area and for the last hour it was just me and another elder with the senior couple. The senior missionaries thought it would be a great idea to take us out to dinner cause we were all starving. So there we were; me, an elder and the senior missionaries on a double date in A&W. I felt more awkward that words can describe.

Well time is up.
Love you family! Cant wait to talk on Christmas!
Sister Carter

Silliest Letters from Home... a good giggle

Just had to share these funny letters from home... My Aunt and Uncle are more like my Siblings so maturity isn't their finer points.. but neither is mine.

Me and my Uncle Jonathan, just before my Mission

Malia,

 it has been way too long since you have had the pleasure to recieve communication from me, also known as the good word of Jon. I admit I am the worlds most amazing infrequent letter writer, it's actually pretty incredible, I know, you are probably already incredibly impressed by my abilities, nevertheless I must type on. I shall give you an account of my current state of being me, but due to the immense amount of amazingness I have to share with the world about me I shall have to limit myself to the highlights and most profound details. First, I recently becamed the most smartest man that has ever lived in my house. Second of all, I ate 17 perogies a few days ago, which pleased me greatly. Last Wednesday I ate a banana that had two bananas inside a single peel, a new personal record. Also, I am considering running for president of my house, for which I would kindly ask for your vote over my opposition, the infamously crazy Dana Adams. My platform consists of incredibly meaningful wedgies, dancing like fairies in the kitchen while Dana is cooking, and recording peoples snoring at night for research purposes and telling friends about it and laughing. Plus, I will give all voters $1,000,000 in bank notes from a board game of my choice upon successful inauguration.

Well, I know that's a lot to take in, I hesitate to even mention such wondrous achievements but I have come to the conclusion that I have a duty to encourage others to aspire to greatness.

Anyways, how do you feel coming to the end of your mission? Don't let me make you trunky, but When you get home in a couple months we're gonna party it up and do like every fun thing ever in the whole wide island of Vancouver.

We had a real treat yesterday and today, we had Elder Bednar come to our stake conference, so we are pretty much apostles now so if you need us to come like tour your mission it's totally cool. Seriously though, it was the most incredible mind blowing, brain exploding, heart forming, spiritually conforming, and totally not boring, sessions with one of the 15. Wow, I think I'm still looking for the missing pieces of my medulla oblongata that got plastered against the wall when he started speaking. I wish I could upload it all to your brain but I thought that you probably need your brain intact right now so maybe another time. One thing that was super neat to hear was that he said that the way the growth of the church is going means that the church as we know it, in terms of how the programs run and things work, have to and will change as time goes on. The doctrines and teachings of the church will always remain the same, but the church will change. The work of the Lord is hastening, He is the one whoo hastens it, not us, we simply are to do what we can to keep up. I love it! He also talked a lot about how important covenants are and about the atonement; it was all so incredible.


Anyways, keep doing your best, and know that despite not seeing fruit fall from the tree, as long as you shake it, you are doing your part to make the fruit fall, even if it's not on your side of the tree or from your branch.
Your most amazing genius uncle ever in the whole universe galaxy,  Jon Adams
 P.S. I know you're busy so I wont be offended if you cant write back :)

—
The Next letter in my inbox was from his wife.....

Sister Carter,

I am pleased that you have the opportunity to read from your Supreme Highness. I have purposely not written to keep you in suspense and so you can more fully appreciate my most excellent awesomeness.
I know you would do anything for your Greatest of all Aunts, waiting on my every word and would spend all your P-day reading about how glorious I am. BUT I am feeling generous and will not take all your time.

I have a matter of great importance that I need to address with you. You may have received an email from your deranged Uncle. He believes he is the better candidate for President of the House. If he becomes president our house will never be the same. We would all be forced to speak in mathematical equations while being chased from his ultimate wedgie giving power.
I ask for your support and vote, I know you'll see it in your heart that I'm the better candidate as my platform consists of rainbows and unicorns, pretending to be great painters and rocking out to songs we can't remember the lyrics for.

I know you'll see reason and not be bribed by the game money he offered. All my voters will get a ride on the unicorn while it jumps over the rainbow.

Well, other than being spiritually slam dunked by a special witness of The Lord today and yesterday, that's all for now.

I shook Elder Bednar's hand! I spoke with him, I never want to forget this feeling of floating in spiritual warm goodness of Christ. I can testify that he is an apostle!

I can't wait to see you, but don't think of us. Keep working hard, Satan will be working just as hard to distract you.

Love you my sweet and wonderful, vote for me, niece.
Bye for now!
Dana Adams