Familia y amigos!
Well, this week was BIEN CHEVERÉ because I had my first
baptism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wooooooooo!!! Dominica and Johanna were baptized and confirmed this weekend!!!
Seriously, it was an insane Saturday. Haha I think Satan is trying to kill me or
something because I drank a TON of expired milk for breakfast, haha I felt so
sick I thought I was going to die. But I specifically prayed that I would
survive the day so we could have the baptism and we did!!! It was so great!!!
But even better was the confirmation the next day!!! That was super surreal,
like seeing these people who I love so much and I´ve worked with so long be
confirmed members of the church. I didn´t feel like "oh look at this thing
I did!" because I legit didn´t do anything, I´ve learned by now that it is
the Lord who changes the hearts, not the missionaries. No I felt more like
"hey, two of my really good friends are Mormon now!!!" haha but I
also felt really strongly just how important the baptism and confirmation are.
Like I felt so much like this really is a legit promise that they just made
with God. It was pretty cool. The picture is me and Dominica. The other picture
is me, Dominica and Johanna and Eliza. I started teaching Eliza with Hermana
Flores but it turned out she lived in the Elder´s sector so they finished her
teaching. And I didn´t start teaching Dominica or Johanna but I did finish it
so it was sort of full circle there. Pretty cool!!!
Well I have more evidence that Ecuador is actually middle
earth. Here are my comparisons. My first area in Solanda is Rohan, and where
the offices in Quito are is Gondor, and Baños is Rivendell, and Ambato, where I
am now, is the Shire. Also they sell Lamnas bread. (uhhh didn´t spell that
right don´t have Google sorry)
Well this week we had a special training with President
Ghent on the new rules of how we´re supposed to work with menos activos and
recent converts. I´m super excited, and during the training I had a
realization. Even though in my last area we had zero progressing investigators
and zero baptisms, we had INCREDIBLE success with the less active members. Well
sort of. I just remember one time where I was talking with one member who had
gone inactive because of work, and everything we said about the commandments
wasn´t really working, but I felt impressed to ask him if he received the
priesthood yet, and he said no, and I bore my testimony of how much of a
blessing it is to have the priesthood in my home, and he started coming back to
church because of that so he could prepare to receive the priesthood. That is
real success!!! Following the promptings of the Spirit to help bring somebody
back into the fold!! So I´m super excited for this, and super excited to work
as hard as I can so we can meet this new goal of 34 lessons a week!!!
Well, I also had another realization this week. We were
studying in the church and I was reading Alma 26 and 29 because that´s like the
missionary energy drink of the Book of Mormon, and I realized that I am super,
super happy here. Like, sometimes it´s really easy to get caught up in how hard
of a task the mission is, but as I was thinking I realized that really the
mission is more fun than anything else I´ve done in my life so far. Seriously,
every day I get to study the gospel for 4 hours. And then after
that it´s more or less socially acceptable for me to stop people in the street
(or at times run after them like a crazy person) to take down their name and
number, and then I get to make all these great friends and help them to come
unto Christ and make covenants and set them on the path to Eternal Life, I get
to have the Spirit with me all the time, knowing how many people are praying
for the missionaries, receiving more gospel education from great people like
President and Hermana Ghent, yeah the mission is actually the best thing ever.
Even though it´s SUUUUUUUPER hard, it is still pretty dang awesome. I´m not
sure how I feel about this, because I miss you guys so much and I want to be
with you, and I want to have a life with education and I think about my future
kids a ton and I want to be a mom and all that good stuff but the mission is
the best thing ever so I guess the only solution for this is that when my
mission in Ecuador ends we´re going to give me a new identity so I can live a
double life where as Kaela I have my family and I go to school and I live
somewhere where people flush their toilet paper, but then my secret identity of
Hermana Carter, (or maybe it could be like Hermana Batman because this is a
secret identity after all) will be that I´m actually still a missionary and I
go out and do missionary stuff like teach lessons and study and tocar puertas
and all that good stuff. I´m not totally sure how I´ll manage that because the
missionary life is 24/7 but I´ll figure it out. I guess the other solution is
that I serve a billion missions with my husband when we´re old. One of the
office missionaries, who is also my friend, has the best life ever. This is her
third mission with her husband, the first two were temple missions or
something. That is the life. That is what I want.
Well, we get two hours to write and somehow I have a lot of
time left so I´m going to keep chugging along with this email, hehe. Time for
some good news, bad news.
Good news: transfers are next week. Other good news: I don´t
have bed bugs anymore. Bad news: The fleas are back. I think it´s like the
Nephites and the Lamanites, like the bed bugs are the Nephites and the
Lamanites are the fleas, and for a while they were dwelling in peace and
prosperously feasting upon my poor flesh but they have battles and sometimes
the fleas win so I just get a lot of flea bites one week but then the next week
the bed bugs prevail so I get a lot of bed bug bites and every now and then I
have to intervene and smite them with my rod (or Raid, hehe) and they calm down
and then volver...thus has been the cycle.
But, before I forget, Dad, I made your guac for our ward,
and it was a hit. Everyone comments on it now, haha. Except I accidentally made
spicy instead of mild and picante in Ecuador is not a thing so it was
hilarious, everyone was like "Aaahhh Hermana Carter muy picante pero muy
muy rico" and they couldn´t stop eating it. It was great, yum yum yum.
Also all your missionary efforts lately are blowing my mind.
Well, here we part, until next week, and I´ll have news
about transfers!!! Specifically pray that I´ll stay in Ambato because I am in
love with this place.
I love you all SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a
great week and seguir adelante!!!
Love, Hermana Carter
Oh, mission tweets, hehe ;)
Me,
buying hot chocolate: "Can I add flavors?"
Him:
"Why would you do that? That doesn´t make any sense."
Me:
I was born in the promised land.
Serious
tweet: I´m beginning to realize that even in the hardest of circumstances, life
on the mission is still one of the happiest things I´ve ever experienced.
Somebody
tells a joke, search in my spanish/english dictionary, ten minutes later start
laughing, everybody thinks I´m insane.
Me:
Ah, a nice, peaceful P-Day...
Everyone
else: LAST MINUTE ZONE ACTIVITY
Me:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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