Espindle

 

I have so many different experiences and thoughts during the week. Writing home really is one of the hardest things.

 

I realized the other day that after this transfer I only have about 6 months left which just shook me to the core. I started to feel all trembly inside. I have loved my mission so much. And it has nothing to do with Texas. I could have been anywhere as long as I got to love these wonderful people that I love. The thing is, I couldn't have gone to El Salvador, Chile, Mexico, and Guatemala. They all had to come here! It is pretty tender to me to think how Heavenly Father puts us in each other's paths. We are teaching so many people right now who I feel I was meant to meet, so that we could have this precious experience of coming closer to God together. And they have all begun to recognize the truth, and one day they will accept the fulness of it, and I am just so glad for the little piece of time I have to do all I can to accelerate their acceptance of it and reception of the Holy Ghost.

This week has been just like all the others--full of miracles and tender mercies and lots of joy from serving others. I am learning to pray specifically for the things we need and then work as hard as I can to bring them to pass and then stand back and watch as Heavenly Father magnifies our efforts. It is amazingly simple when we call upon the Lord and His power. Our investigators are progressing just wonderfully. And I am learning patience every day. Sometimes when an investiator understands an important point or kept their commitment I get that feeling like I am at the bottom of the stairs and behind 3 kids on Christmas morning and I just want to pick them up and run for the baptismal font. :) But I take some deep breaths and remember where they're at and we keep going from there. Thank you for all your prayers.

This week we had some great finding experiences.

A couple days ago we met this darling 18 yr old girl who works in the pan dulce section of the michoacan (ok so it's just the bakery section of the Mexican grocery store but my mission sounds a lot more exotic that way). When we explained to her the story of the ancient people in the Americas and how they also knew about Jesus she freaked out and couldn't believe we would just give her a Book of Mormon. But then I wrote down her phone number wrong or something and we couldn't contact her! So we were knocking in the area later that week and decided to take a break to use the restroom in the michoacan. When we came out from the restroom we saw her running out the door. We chased after her as graciously as possible but couldn't catch her! WHY ooh WHY did we not see her sooner? SO then we prayed, and felt we should go back into the store. We meandered around, I decided to buy some pan dulce to give to the other hermanas in our ward. We mosied back over to the line. I saw the lady in front of me had a TON of stuff so I looked around to see if there were any other lines. Nope. Still just feeling down about missing Anna by a minute. As I paid for the pan dulce I came to my senses (finally listened to the Spirit) and quickly asked the lady in front of me if she needed help carrying all of her stuff out. She happily accepted which is rare for Hispanics and as we walked out together it turns out that her ENTIRE family in Honduras are members, but converted after she left 18 years ago, and right now her niece here in Houston has cancer and she would just really like us to come by and visit and explain more about God. It was amazing. And It was such a tender mercy of God to give me that experience in that way so that I didn't go home feeling that I had failed in catching the young woman. That is a thought from SATAN and I am getting real good at identifying them. We had our first lesson with her yesterday and she agreed to baptism and has a house full of other potential investigators.

Another Highlight: yesterday we taught this really scroogey man who has a lot of anger in general at life I think and when I was trying to explain the Spirit to him, I read galatians 5:22-23 and asked him if he had ever felt any of those.
 

"No."

"You've never felt love or joy or peace?"

"No."

My eyebrows went up and I gave him the, "Really, you don't want another tortilla?" look and he said, "Weeeelllllll I mean maybe a little from my mom and dad. But not for anyone else!"

It was pretty cool how sincere and earnest he was by the end of the lesson though. And how he said he has already noticed he has a lot less anger when he reads the Book of Mormon, and MAYBE it has to do with the book but probably it is something else but he'll still keep reading. hahahaa. Little stinker is about to find out the true meaning of love. His heart will grow 3 sizes.

Sorry I don't have time to write more today, just know how much I love each of you!

 

Love,

Hermana Carter

 

BTW I didn't explain the title of this post:

The woman we met at the michoacan gave us her address and I immediately went to look it up in our map when we were back in the car. I searched and searched for "Espindle" for 5 minutes before smacking my forehead and looked for "spindle" instead. hhahahaha. duh.