"Lift up your heart, and be glad!" (MTC week 4)

Well, since we're on the subject of birthdays.....mine happens to be on Sunday!

I do hope you will all enjoy April the 14th to its fullest and smell the flowers and look at the sky and tell 5 people e.x.a.c.t.l.y how much you love them. 

I am just so grateful to be part of this family. I can't believe the goodness of God in putting my spirit into the Carter home back in April of 1993. Each of you means so much to me. Each of you. So. Much.

And now for the weekly funnies:

 1. After lunch on Wednesday I was just wandering through the bookstore here, cruisin the merchandise (we are pretty hard up for entertainment) and glanced up and saw the zone leaders outside the door waiting for mail. I made brief eye contact with one and he winked at me! I was like, "whooaaa....what the" and he immediately turned bright red and was like "Hermana Carter I am so sorry! That was completely non-intentional, that was just instinct. I am soooo sorry...oh my goodness...oh gosh...I don't even know where that came from." Now the other elders won't let him live it down.

 

2. One day at lunch I approached our district's table and an elder looked up at me with his eyes full of remorse and he just practically whimpered, "hermana Carter, I have got to start eating like you. I weighed myself today. I've gained 7 pounds." I got so excited and just sat right down by him and said "Oh boy! This is what we're going to do!" and explained portion sizes and food groups, etc. He has since lost 5 pounds and is taking my advice to the extreme. He won't even eat ranch dressing on his salad! I've created a monster. But I overheard him telling one of the elders the other day, "Nope I can eat whatever I want for dinner because I had such a good lunch and hermana Carter says I can." hahaha.

 

3. It seems I have sort of become the mom/doctor of the district. Every night before laundry day, the hermanas bring all their clothes to me while I'm trying to write in my journal.

"Hermana Carter, what about this one? It says gentle cycle and like colors, but I just don't know..."

Me: yeah just put it in the gentlest cycle with all the other ones you're worried about and it will be fine. Don't dry it very long.

"Hermana Carter, can I wash my towel and my robe in the same cycle? It says they'd be fine but I just don't want to ruin them you know?"

Me: yeah just put them in the gentlest cycle with all the other ones you're worried about and they'll be fine. Don't dry them very long.

 "Hermana Carter what would happen if I ironed this?" "Hermana Carter I feel really sick..."

It's pretty entertaining. And makes me feel needed.

 

4. I ran into my old roommate Nadine Kawai, who is headed to Japan for her mission and she accidentally called me Rosie. I totally had a Lord of the Rings moment. "Rosie.....yes that was my name....Rosie Carter...They used to call me that. (followed by a self-satisfied chuckle.)"

 

Other than that, life is the same here! And when I say the same I mean that every day is a whirlwind of crazy learning and change still. There are hard days when I think, "oh boy. I cannot do this forever! And 18 months is pretty much forever!" But then I remember just to take it one day at a time. How can I be better today? What can I improve? And then it is just such a joy to work hard to become more and be happy to pray at the end of the day about what I learned and how I'm ready to go to sleep and face a new day tomorrow.

I found the COOLEST passage of scripture this week. Me encanta. I was reading in Moses (which has pretty much never happened before) and got to chapter 7:41-44. It is beautiful. God shows Enoch that the people are going to become so wicked that He is going to have to wipe them out via the flood. Only Noah and his family will survive. Enoch is so sad about it. "His heart swelled as wide as eternity" and he wept. filled with sorrow and bitterness he said to God, "I will refuse to be comforted." In my mind, I think he was doubting God's plan for us. He was saying, "I can't believe you would do this. I don't believe you love your children. How could you let so many grow wicked and then destroy them? I will not be happy. Nothing you do will comfort me."

And what was the Lord's response?

"Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look", followed by a vision of Jesus Christ himself coming to earth and atoning and dying so that we miniscule beings may be sanctified and have eternal life. What a tender, loving way to remind Enoch of His great love and mercy towards us. The entire possibility of our lives is based on His voluntary sacrifice. God is love. You can't understand love without knowing God, and You cannot understand God without experiencing love. No amount of tragedy in this life can outweigh the marvelous goodness of God, His desire to comfort you, and the miraculous power to have your grief swallowed up in Christ. Lift up your hearts and be glad! Because all you have to do is LOOK unto Him and you will have eternal life, and all the wonder that is included in that phrase, forever.

 

Only about 12 days more in the MTC! It's pretty incredible how I am witnessing the end of eternity here: once you're in the MTC your past life seems like....a past life, and you wonder if the future will ever hold anything different. Well! It does! And we're about to experience it. I'm not trunky yet though. I still love my classes and studies. I've enjoyed it here. I'm sure too that I will have these same feelings at the end of my mission on a much grander scale. Pretty crazy how each day lasts forever and every week just flies right on past.

Love you all like Grandma loves chocolate,

Hermana Carter