You Only Live Once - YOLO County

YOLO!! Fun fact, I now live in Yolo county! If I were to have named a county, I probably would have named it Yolo county too.

Transfers are very bitter sweet. Saying goodbye to investigators is not fun. In fact it is kind of heart breaking. I love them all so much. 2 of the investigators that Sister Van Wie and I found together are getting baptized in the next few weeks. They have grown so much. Funny story: Julian is the 2-3 year old little brother of our investigator Julianna. When I first got to Windsor he did not care for me in the slightest. By the end of my 4.5 months there we were pretty much BFF's. So on the night that I came over to say my goodbye's he was devastated when he realized I would not be coming back at all. I gave them all hugs, then opened my arms wide to give Julian a hug. He frowned at me, called me a word that rhymes with itch, and stormed out of the room. Probably the first time a 2 year old has ever done that to me... It was partially hilarious, and partially heart breaking. I did manage to get my hug after his mom gave him a good chastizing.

 

Right before I got transferred Sister Becker started teaching this incredible girl on facebook from Uganda who is soaking up everything about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She could never get enough she wanted to learn it all! She told sister Becker that she was going to preach the gospel to her whole village. I believe the closest church to her was 2 countries away. Sister Becker and I prayed for a miracle that as we set a baptismal date with her that the Lord would provide a way for this sweet girl to be baptized. We are teaching people all over the world right now. Uganda, Gambia, the Philippines, and all over the united states and Canada. Miracles are happening!

 

My new area is AWESOME! It is definitely still an adjustment, but I love it. I am serving in 2 wards. A YSA ward and a young married student ward. There is something so neat about teaching your piers! I love Sister Eisert and Sister Beach! They are some rock solid missionaries! Anyone who has ever served in a trio before would know that there is definite adjusting though, even with the most amazing missionaries. We had a very interesting experience the other day. There was a little bit of tension/frustration in the air, when we were about to go into a lesson. We said a quick prayer and asked heavenly father to allow us to have the spirit. We got into the lesson, and lets just say, the spirit was NOT there. It was probably the worst feeling I have felt on my mission so far. Here we were, servants and representatives of Jesus Christ and couldn't even have the spirit. We talked about it a little bit after and resolved a few things. We promised to never allow there to be another lesson like that. That no matter what we did we could not teach a lesson until we fully could have the spirit with us... Later on that night we were about to go into a lesson with 3 guys that we met on the street the previous night. They were very interested, and something inside me felt like this was going to be a very important lesson. We said another prayer and started our way into their apartment. While we were in the parking lot I had this almost sick feeling that we could NOT go in there until things were fully resolved. I stopped cold and asked if we could say another prayer?! This time we prayed pouring our hearts out to heavenly father, pleading with him to forgive us for the contention that was still being felt. We asked him to let us feel love and compassion toward one another, and pleaded for the spirit to be with us. It was short, heartfelt and powerful. The spirit was back! And the feeling completely changed. The lesson was so incredibly powerful. I can honestly say that we did not teach that lesson. The spirit taught it. We were all so unified. And we knew that the hearts of all three of those guys had been pierced.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS! We pretty much Buddie the Elf'd our apartment with snow flakes galore!

 

Moment of the week:

Last night while contacting we met this guy named chad. Chad was probably as wasted out of his mind as a person could get. We didn't know it until we started talking to him though. The conversations went a little something like this:
"Merry Christmas, My name is Sister Carter"
"I'M CHAD!" he yelled, raising his arms into a huge bear hug and proceeding to move towards me."COME HERE LETS HUG!"
"Oh! Chad! Hand shake! Hand shake!" At this point Sister Eisert is laughing pretty hard! But it worked! I managed to get by with only a handshake instead of big stinky beer smelling man hug.
"WELL WHAT ARE YOU LADIES DOING?!"

"we are sharing messages with people about their Savior, Jesus Christ"
"I LOVE JESUS CHRIST!!!!!! HIGH FIVES FOR JESUS CHRIST!!!"

Lucky for us we managed to get our high fives and get out of there in less than 30 minutes. It was a struggle but we did it!

Love you all,
Sister Carter