one year...?

August 6, 2014

So, this past week made ONE YEAR on the mission. I don’t know where the time has gone.

Transfers!!!!!! Drum roll please.....
I’m still here!
Sister Baker is still here!
Our beloved trainee, S. Carvalho got sent AWAY to Caicó!
Needless to say, I’m very very very very very sad. very. I really wanted to actually stay with her for the whole trainamento. But I’ve long since learned the lesson that the Lord knows better than me so I´ll be fine. It’s weirder than weird to just be me and S. Baker again, because we were together for 3 weeks, then trained together in trio for a transfer, and then she left and we´re back at the beginning! Go figure.

DANTAS AND FAMILY WENT TO CHURCH AGAIN - one month strong people! I am entirely convinced that this family is the most important work I will do in this ward. Allyson, their 15-year-old son, received the priesthood :) Next step is to help his dad prepare for the Melquisideque before the next stake conference. (....just like my little brother Benjamin. How did he get so old?)

We had the COOLEST activity Sunday night - The Night of the Missionary Plaque! The ward here has been a little ....lacking....in the missionary fire department. I understand, after enough time of go-getters asking for references it gets a little old. So we planned up an activity to help them FEEL the joy that we have every day. Every returned missionary prepared a table with things from their mission - plaques, journals, old planners, fotos, ties, shoes, gifts from investigators and members, all sorts of things! And the rest of the ward walked around looking at the displays, hearing the missionary stories. At the end, we called all the RMs to the front, name tags on, and sang Called To Serve. Lots of happy tears :) It was so neat to see them remember how wonderful it was to be a missionary and we hope that we´ll work with the members a lot more this transfer.

I learned a lot about agency this week (wouldn’t you know, I learn so much more when I am TEACHING the lessons during the lessons than when I am studying. just one more reason to live what we know). We have been teaching a family for a REALLY long time and they haven’t really progressed in a while. We sat down with the mom to find out what it was and - SURPRISE - she never really read and prayed about the Book of Mormon. No wonder it wasn’t going well, if you don’t have a testimony of this than nothing we say makes a difference. She started giving lots of excuses and we asked her what the real problem is. She said...Well, I guess I don’t really want to read this book. If it’s true, God will touch my heart and make me want to read it and then I´ll know. But He hasn’t touched my heart yet, so I don’t really feel like reading it. If God wants it to happen, then it will happen.

Waiting on God to change our lives for us is a FALSE DOCTRINE.

Wrong.
Errado.
Ensiando e pregado pelo diáblo.
God does not, and will not, control us. It doesn’t work like that. That was the key difference in the war in heaven- Lucifer wanted to control us, Christ wanted to preserve the free agency that we received from our Heavenly Father EVEN IF we would choose the wrong things sometimes. Testimony doesn’t come if we don’t seek after it. We don’t receive answers if all we do is ask. If we are sad and alone and don’t have work or friends or a family because all we do is sit on the couch all day, it’s not because God wants to see us like this and this was His plan. It’s because we never made the choice to ACT.

God wants us to learn. For this, He lets us make our own choices. So we learn! And grow! And become like Him!

Sometimes I wish that God would just make the choice for me. That He would force me on the path and take away my weaknesses and just make me get back to heaven. But that’s not what He does. He teaches me, and helps me learn to make the right choices. And I´m grateful and overwhelmed at the same time at the trust He has in me. And it is the deepest desire of my heart to always be worthy of this trust.

I love you all! Until next week!

-Sister Carroll