I am so sorry I didn't write an email last week. Life just got way hectic so I didn't have time or really the energy to write the email! Little do you know writing these emails takes 45 minutes to a hour to write and man alive its TIME CONSMING! But don't worry I aim to please so I'm going to keep churning these emails out!
The past two weeks were lowkey BRUTAL my friends so lets get right into it.
This week our favorite person we were teaching we sadly had to drop. Last Monday I had a extremely strong feeling that we should ask her to be put on date to be baptized and promise her that if she did, she would get a job within the next month. Let me tell you, I did NOT want to do it. Like my little heart was about to beat out of my chest and when in the scriptures it talks about how people wrestled with God.... I can testify to you that is exactly what I was doing. I was sitting in the lesson SWEATING and trying to get out of this prompting that I received. At one point I even thought, well if they somehow mention her work then I will know for sure that I needed to do it. Almost immediately after I thought that I got the response that, "No, you are going to do it anyway." So I thought crap. I already knew what her response would be and I knew that if I did that she would immediately freak out and we would no longer be able to teach her but as most wrestles with God end.... I lost. So with sweaty hands and I very heavy heart I told her what God wanted her to hear, and just as expected she told us that we needed to leave her house. So we left and immediately I felt my entire heart break. I honestly was visibly upset. I didn't understand why God would tell me to do something that would lead to this dramatic of a response so I just asked Sister Harry to pull over and give me a few seconds to just... well honestly be heartbroken. I stood outside of the car for probably 10 minutes just in absolute pain because I didn't understand why I had to do it and almost immediately into praying and asking why I had to do it I got the response, "Do I not know more than you" and wow, that was the worst response, I had to do a mental check and try and kick myself out of the rut I was in. The rest of the night was brutal for everyone. Part of it was that both of my companions had to receive their own personal witness that it was necessary we needed to stop teaching Shawna and then they had to deal with the loss of losing someone we had each grown to love so much. The best and only way to describe the loss is to try and put it in perspective. We as missionaries are tasked with trying to bring the gospel to every single person that we can and during that process with each person we honestly grow to love them as if they are a part of our family. We cry with them, we laugh with them, we feel close to God with them. Then imagine having to end that relationship knowing that we were offering them literal eternal happiness and they rejected it.... It is one of the most heartbreaking feelings as a missionary. I can't even adequately describe the emotions that we were all experiencing all that night into the late hours, and even into the next day. It. was. brutal. But I know that every person will one day know that Jesus is the Christ and that this is the true Church. That is the only way I was able to get through each of those painful moments. My only hope is that one day I will get to see Shawna and she will thank me for whatever small role I played in her conversion. Who knows!!
This week was filled with a lot of really tough conversations.We had 3 drop lessons with people that we were teaching that were making no progress, and along with those tough conversations came very little other success in the missionary work. We are working every single day as hard as we can to find the people that we know God has prepared for the gospel but with little to no proof of our efforts but I know that God is trying to teach us all something, and I have a sneaky suspicion that it is humility.... YIKES, everyone please pray for me because if God is trying to teach me humility.... these next few weeks might be tough.
BUT on a much much much happier note we also had District PDay which was INSANELY fun. We spent the first few hours at breakfast together where I sadly lost a bet so I had to eat apple butter.... yeaaaaaaaa that stuff is NASTY. I could barely swallow it before literally chugging water and Diet Coke (yes yes my Diet Coke addiction is back in full swing.... Sorry Mom lol) Then we went back to the church were we had a Nerf Gun War... yup I lost... and THEN we played the missionary approved version of Dungeons and Dragons called Pirates and Plundering..... *pause for jokes being mad about my very apparent nerdiness* BUT LISTEN hear me out, it was SOOOOOOO MUCH FUN. Within the first round of the game Elder Muterspaugh had killed 3 people and I was about to break into the Governors house to steal all of his money... yes.... I got very into it. I have decided that when I get back to Provo.... I may or may not be doing this on a regular basis. Just as a reference in my next turn I am going to be robbing the treasury of the Governor and hopefully killing the King in order to call all of the soldiers away from the ship so we can steal it.... I am very excited.
This past week/weeks I have truly learned to be grateful for the challenges that I have had in my life that has led me to have thick skin. Each day as a new challenge arises I can look back on my difficult moments in the past and honestly say to myself, "Well, I've been through worse so I can get through this." All of those days led me to be able to handle the challenges that a mission has brought me with such ease and I know that the days when I feel the most down will only last but a small moment, that in 15 years when I talk about my mission to my kids I won't be able to even remember these hard days. I hope every single one of you know that Christ is on your side. He is always walking next to you, doing everything that He can to make your burdens light, and if they aren't light now, it might be because He is trying to teach you the best way to endure all of your burdens that will come so that they will be light. I know that is what He did for me, He let me feel a lot of pain throughout my life so that I can carry my burdens now without any trouble.
Don't worry everyone, I'm not struggling in anyway, I'm simply just persevering through the normal difficulty of missionary life and I thought I would include you all in my journey!! I'm loving life and wouldn't trade my life as a missionary for anything, even being able to watch Nextflix again ;)
Sorry this week's email is kind of all over the place, after missing last week I wasn't totally sure what all I have written about and what I haven't but if you have any questions of want any advice or if you even just want to rant shoot me an email and I will get back to you in the next 1-2 Preparation days ;)
Love you all!!
God is in the Details!
Sister Carter
P.S. look at me being all cute and stuff with Wyoming and a random dog that went tracting with us for a little while!
