This is what an investigator, Cristina, said to her friend in reference to my companion. i am finally among them. the women in the long skirts.
LIFE DREAM 1/2 REALIZED
so i don't know how many of you know this. but i have a life dream to ride a riding lawnmower. (not across the country like that wierd movie, just in a field of some sort). anyway, so i'm halfway there cause today we went to the john deere pavillion and they had tractors you could play on and yes, a riding lawnmower. we got good pics and had fun. i'm just missing the whole turning it on and mowing grass with it part.
UNIVERSAL TRUTHS
So we had another lesson with Gustavo. It's funny cause I keep being in situations where i'm the only one in the room who's American. makes me feel very exotic. anyway, it was cool to be able to teach him parts of the Plan of Salvation--that we lived with God before we came here, that He has a perfect plan for us to come back as families. Everything seemed to make sense to him. The next day we taught Cristina at the Pages house and had a similar experience, and then again later with a guy named Doug who has many cool, deep ideas. he's big into mediating and drawing truth from where he can find it. it was a cool lesson because just with trying to get do to pure truth on his own, he told us lots of parts of the plan of salvation that has been revealed through the prophets today. it was a cool conversation because we really felt like we were touching on the truths he's known before this life. anyway, i love that lesson cause it everything so clear and every time we teach it, the person we teach is like, "oh. that makes sense." :)
PARABLE OF THE RAINCOAT
so this week i discovered something grand. raincoats! i've never like umbrellas cause i acutally quite like the rain. BUT...it is kinda inconvenient here cause with the humidity and severe cold, you never really dry adn it becomes a tad uncomfortable every time you put your coat back on. my comp happened to have a spare raincoat. i tried it out and it changed my life. it's like getting rained on, without getting wet! man! why didn't anyone tell me?! then i realized, they probably did. but it's kinda like the gospel. it's the coolest thing ever, but all i can do is tell people about it. until they're willing to do something about it and try it out, they'll never really know. so my suggestion to you all, it to try something out you haven't before. whether that's reading the Book of Mormon, going to church, praying everyday, or any other commandment or spiritual something or other that has the potential to change you. try it out and see.
(note: this doesn't work for things like drugs or walking into oncoming cars. I didn't need to go out in an Iowa winter in a swimsuit to know it wouldn't be good.)
YET ANOTHER 8:45 MIRACLE
Last night it was 8:45 and our kid that had a baptismal date that we tried to drop by AGAIN wasn't answering. We had one more contact to get our goal but it was cold and not a lot of people were out. Down the hill and across the road we saw a car pull in. We booked it (in a dignified way :) ) down the grass hill, across the street, and flagged this guy down who was sitting in his car. We contact him, taught him a little, and have an appt to teach him and his wife. Heavenly Father definately took mercy on us. :) I love 8:45 miracles!
ok, thanks for all the prayers. keep them up. i want to go out with a bang and do everythign in bettendorf that Heavenly Father needs me to do.
love you all!
-- sis c
p.s. got an email from a friend who's had 2 babies since i've been gone. does that mean i'm about done with my mission?
Monday, November 17, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
"lead me, hide me, walk beside me..."
The version of "I am a Child of God" sung by Brock Herbst. (Real words= "lead me, guide me...")
It was such a tender moment. He sang it all to himself while he was being swung on the swing, all bundled up in his big coat, with his eyes shut, just relaxing.
Other Brock quotes:
"Mom, I love kissing missionaries."
Granted, it's just usually our arm or whatever he can reach while we're standing there, but it's a phase we hope he eventually grows out of. :)
and "I love missionary work" after a p-day morning of jumping on the tramp together, playing with the dog, and making smoothies.
Also, every time we leave the house Brock and Allison ask if we're going on our missions. Yes, we're going on our mission. Multiple times a day. I love it.
RACHAEL
So we found the cutest, coolest girl. We were tracting in a rather "unsuccessful" neighborhood. We had one door where it opened, we introduced ourselves, and the guy just said "you guys are crazy" and shut the door. We didn't even have time to react. It was hilarious. We weren't sure if he thought the church was crazy or just us for being out in the 2 degree weather. Either way....it was a weird street but we didn't feel like we were supposed to leave just yet. We kept tracting and eventually knocked on a door where the girl let us in before we said anything. What the? Then we proceeded to tell her what we were there for and our message and she was getting so excited. She identified the Spirit even before we did. We started telling her what feelings to look for as evidence of God's truths being taught and she said, "oh, i already know. I've felt that the whole time you've been here." Everything we taught she'd say "this makes so much sense!" or "this is what i've always thought, and now it's right here staring me in the face." Man, oh man. She's so stinkin cool. Anyway, she was way excited but now seems to have disappeared over the last couple days. We're beginning to think we dreamed her up cause she's too prime. Keep her in your prayers that she'll resurface. She's amazing.
HARD-CORE MEMBERS
so one of the best things about serving a mission is seeing how to be a member missionary. there are some amazing examples in my ward of people who just do it. it's not anything extra that they do, necessarily. more of a mentality they've developed. we were over at a family's house the other night and talking about one of her friends and she says "you know what, i'm going to invite her to church." and she just picks up the phone and calls her and she came. another one went over to a family (the cool ones that seemed LDS) we'd introduced her to and just said "I think you guys are really cool and we'd love more friends. Do you want to do dinner." She's doing it even though we're not teaching them anymore and we didn't ask her to or anything. just cause she sincerely thought they were cool. I love these people. They just love the people around them and show it by including them and thinking about them.
TRACT-OF-WAR
So the other day on a doorstep i was standing there innocently holding a scarf (a homemade one that sharon made me that i love) and a random golden retriever comes out of NOWHERE and starts trying to take it from me. I tried to pull back but that's just what he wanted so he pulled harder. yikes! i eventually weaseled it away from him but i was dying. i felt like i was being punked or something. speaking of...
ARIEL AND ERIC
so the lady we live with is scared of missionary work and always teases us about our techniques in finding peolple to talk to. i tell her to stop making fun or we'll take her with us. we called her to go to an appt with us and then went to the house to meet her and she was sittinhg in her sweats by the fire not budging. she said, "if you were gonna play a joke, you could've been more creative that to pick disney names." the appt we had was with a couple named ariel and eric. only we really did have an appt. then she's like "sure, you're gonna take me to some random trailor park." only it really WAS in a trailor park. ha! after much convincing, we finally got her out the door. eric and ariel were no-shows but we did get to teach a guy who's wife locked him out of the house in the 20 degree weather cause she was mad. that was fun! and all in spanish so sis herbst was lost. the coldest lesson i've ever taught but that's what sis herbst gets for making fun. haha!
ok, love you all!
Here's a scrip to ponder: Moroni 10:32. Pick a way to try and do that this week.
love, sis c
It was such a tender moment. He sang it all to himself while he was being swung on the swing, all bundled up in his big coat, with his eyes shut, just relaxing.
Other Brock quotes:
"Mom, I love kissing missionaries."
Granted, it's just usually our arm or whatever he can reach while we're standing there, but it's a phase we hope he eventually grows out of. :)
and "I love missionary work" after a p-day morning of jumping on the tramp together, playing with the dog, and making smoothies.
Also, every time we leave the house Brock and Allison ask if we're going on our missions. Yes, we're going on our mission. Multiple times a day. I love it.
RACHAEL
So we found the cutest, coolest girl. We were tracting in a rather "unsuccessful" neighborhood. We had one door where it opened, we introduced ourselves, and the guy just said "you guys are crazy" and shut the door. We didn't even have time to react. It was hilarious. We weren't sure if he thought the church was crazy or just us for being out in the 2 degree weather. Either way....it was a weird street but we didn't feel like we were supposed to leave just yet. We kept tracting and eventually knocked on a door where the girl let us in before we said anything. What the? Then we proceeded to tell her what we were there for and our message and she was getting so excited. She identified the Spirit even before we did. We started telling her what feelings to look for as evidence of God's truths being taught and she said, "oh, i already know. I've felt that the whole time you've been here." Everything we taught she'd say "this makes so much sense!" or "this is what i've always thought, and now it's right here staring me in the face." Man, oh man. She's so stinkin cool. Anyway, she was way excited but now seems to have disappeared over the last couple days. We're beginning to think we dreamed her up cause she's too prime. Keep her in your prayers that she'll resurface. She's amazing.
HARD-CORE MEMBERS
so one of the best things about serving a mission is seeing how to be a member missionary. there are some amazing examples in my ward of people who just do it. it's not anything extra that they do, necessarily. more of a mentality they've developed. we were over at a family's house the other night and talking about one of her friends and she says "you know what, i'm going to invite her to church." and she just picks up the phone and calls her and she came. another one went over to a family (the cool ones that seemed LDS) we'd introduced her to and just said "I think you guys are really cool and we'd love more friends. Do you want to do dinner." She's doing it even though we're not teaching them anymore and we didn't ask her to or anything. just cause she sincerely thought they were cool. I love these people. They just love the people around them and show it by including them and thinking about them.
TRACT-OF-WAR
So the other day on a doorstep i was standing there innocently holding a scarf (a homemade one that sharon made me that i love) and a random golden retriever comes out of NOWHERE and starts trying to take it from me. I tried to pull back but that's just what he wanted so he pulled harder. yikes! i eventually weaseled it away from him but i was dying. i felt like i was being punked or something. speaking of...
ARIEL AND ERIC
so the lady we live with is scared of missionary work and always teases us about our techniques in finding peolple to talk to. i tell her to stop making fun or we'll take her with us. we called her to go to an appt with us and then went to the house to meet her and she was sittinhg in her sweats by the fire not budging. she said, "if you were gonna play a joke, you could've been more creative that to pick disney names." the appt we had was with a couple named ariel and eric. only we really did have an appt. then she's like "sure, you're gonna take me to some random trailor park." only it really WAS in a trailor park. ha! after much convincing, we finally got her out the door. eric and ariel were no-shows but we did get to teach a guy who's wife locked him out of the house in the 20 degree weather cause she was mad. that was fun! and all in spanish so sis herbst was lost. the coldest lesson i've ever taught but that's what sis herbst gets for making fun. haha!
ok, love you all!
Here's a scrip to ponder: Moroni 10:32. Pick a way to try and do that this week.
love, sis c
Monday, November 3, 2008
"Right next to the Greek Orthodontix church..."
Sis Soza giving directions to our church bldg. Ha! We'll blame it on the language barrier. :) The best part was once she realized what she said she was almost laughing too hard to finish the phone conversation.
ADONIS
last sunday we were driving by a house where we've been trying to meet the member who lives there. we saw the light on so sis soza said, in a stroke of inspiration, "hey, let's try the kings." they answered and let us right in. the mom hasn't been to church in years but somehow she just recently showed up on the records.and she has a 15 yr-old kid who's not but he's definately been searching. he's SUCH a good kid. anyway, we asked him on the phone how he felt when he prayed about the Book of Mormon and we loved the way he described it. He said, "It felt really good. Perfect, actually. Very calming....kinda made me tired." Ha!
BRAZILIAN MIRACLE
so remember last sunday when i did the really awkward contacting to the brazilians? so we're teaching one of them, gustavo. he works for John Deere (like 1 out of every 10 ppl we meet) and he knows engl but not tons--at least not as much when talking about the gospel. so we were trying to find ppl who spoke portuguese to go with us. the night before our appt the other sisters told us they randomly tracted into a house where the girl who answered exclaimed "i'm LDS! i just moved here and have been looking for the church!" wow. ok. :) even cooler, she moved from san diego! she was in the la jolla singles ward and was just baptized in like feb. her name's paula for those who might know her. even BETTER is that she's from brazil. so she came with us to teach gustavo the next day and got to testify in his own language. it was way cool. he's concerned though becuase his fam is the most importnat thing to him adn he doesn't want to go away from the religion that they all are because he doesn't want it to separate the fam. at the same time, he said they all have things in their church they disagree with. we tried to help him see that perhaps the Lord is showing him he gospel so he can take it to his family. I don't know what'll happen with him but he's an amazing guy who has amazing values. Hopefully we can keep teaching him adn it was so neat to see how the Lord looks out for us and sends us just who we need. :)
WARM WELCOME
Also last night we were tracting in our neighborhood and we knocked on a door (after many less than glad-to-see-us people) and the man just kinda listened to us for a sec then walked away. Then his wife pops up and says, "hey! where are you from?!" We said, "oh, well, we live here in the area temporarily. We're missionaries..." "I know. Where are you FROM?" (This is a tip-off that ppl are either LDS or have friends cause most ppl don't know we'er not from here.) Anyway, we tell here and she says "I'm from Pleasant Grove! [UT] Come in and get some water!" Nevermind that it's 7pm and we just came from dinner. We weren't thirsty at all but of course we took her up on it. :) She was so stinkin sweet. Anyway, turns out she grew up in the Church. Her fam's all still members but she converted to another faith and is raising her fam in that. But she's lived in UT and ID her whole life til recently. Anyway, it was a cool connection to make and she lives right by us so hopefully we can see her more. We're going to introduce her to Sis. Herbst cause their kids are the same age. Cool cause hopefully even that little connection was an answer to her fmaily's prayers. she was so cute.
CULTURAL ENLIGHTENMENT
by the way, there are tons of indian fams here and now, jsut from tracting, we've experienced duvaldi (dewaldi...whatever) desserts and seen an evening prayer ceremonish thing. they always invite us right in to talk. they're so great! love it.
Anyway, scrip to ponder: Moroni 9:6. Did I just do that one already? Well that's the one I want to do, so sorry if i did. :)
--sis c
ADONIS
last sunday we were driving by a house where we've been trying to meet the member who lives there. we saw the light on so sis soza said, in a stroke of inspiration, "hey, let's try the kings." they answered and let us right in. the mom hasn't been to church in years but somehow she just recently showed up on the records.and she has a 15 yr-old kid who's not but he's definately been searching. he's SUCH a good kid. anyway, we asked him on the phone how he felt when he prayed about the Book of Mormon and we loved the way he described it. He said, "It felt really good. Perfect, actually. Very calming....kinda made me tired." Ha!
BRAZILIAN MIRACLE
so remember last sunday when i did the really awkward contacting to the brazilians? so we're teaching one of them, gustavo. he works for John Deere (like 1 out of every 10 ppl we meet) and he knows engl but not tons--at least not as much when talking about the gospel. so we were trying to find ppl who spoke portuguese to go with us. the night before our appt the other sisters told us they randomly tracted into a house where the girl who answered exclaimed "i'm LDS! i just moved here and have been looking for the church!" wow. ok. :) even cooler, she moved from san diego! she was in the la jolla singles ward and was just baptized in like feb. her name's paula for those who might know her. even BETTER is that she's from brazil. so she came with us to teach gustavo the next day and got to testify in his own language. it was way cool. he's concerned though becuase his fam is the most importnat thing to him adn he doesn't want to go away from the religion that they all are because he doesn't want it to separate the fam. at the same time, he said they all have things in their church they disagree with. we tried to help him see that perhaps the Lord is showing him he gospel so he can take it to his family. I don't know what'll happen with him but he's an amazing guy who has amazing values. Hopefully we can keep teaching him adn it was so neat to see how the Lord looks out for us and sends us just who we need. :)
WARM WELCOME
Also last night we were tracting in our neighborhood and we knocked on a door (after many less than glad-to-see-us people) and the man just kinda listened to us for a sec then walked away. Then his wife pops up and says, "hey! where are you from?!" We said, "oh, well, we live here in the area temporarily. We're missionaries..." "I know. Where are you FROM?" (This is a tip-off that ppl are either LDS or have friends cause most ppl don't know we'er not from here.) Anyway, we tell here and she says "I'm from Pleasant Grove! [UT] Come in and get some water!" Nevermind that it's 7pm and we just came from dinner. We weren't thirsty at all but of course we took her up on it. :) She was so stinkin sweet. Anyway, turns out she grew up in the Church. Her fam's all still members but she converted to another faith and is raising her fam in that. But she's lived in UT and ID her whole life til recently. Anyway, it was a cool connection to make and she lives right by us so hopefully we can see her more. We're going to introduce her to Sis. Herbst cause their kids are the same age. Cool cause hopefully even that little connection was an answer to her fmaily's prayers. she was so cute.
CULTURAL ENLIGHTENMENT
by the way, there are tons of indian fams here and now, jsut from tracting, we've experienced duvaldi (dewaldi...whatever) desserts and seen an evening prayer ceremonish thing. they always invite us right in to talk. they're so great! love it.
Anyway, scrip to ponder: Moroni 9:6. Did I just do that one already? Well that's the one I want to do, so sorry if i did. :)
--sis c
Monday, October 27, 2008
"This will probably make my hair have more volume!"
Quote by Sis. Soza when tracting in 70mph winds. Always looking on the bright side. :)
no joke yesterday, the wind was so intense. trampolines were blowing into other people's yards and we were getting mauled by inflatable halloween decorations in people's yards as we went out to share the gospel. but there is no bad weather! if it's miserable to be out, at least it means that someone might have enough pity to let you in. :) (sis soza and i also thought possibly that the "wind-blown" look might be alluring enough to get us in a few more doors. :) plus, there was a 92 yr-old woman out there too, going on a walk. but see, she survived the "winter of '36" so this was nothing.
A COUPLE THREE THINGS ABOUT IOWA
First of all, they say "couple three" all the time. It's amazing! Also, the place where Field of Dreams was filmed is nearby. Scott, i'm gonna take you there. The weather is getting chilly but we just keep hearing, "it'll only get worse" and "girl, you better get you a coat." :) actually, i have one to borrow but i figure the longer i put off wearing it the less severe the real cold will seem.
9PM MIRACLE
so the colder and darker it gets, the harder it can be to stay out till 9. but the Lord sure blesses us when we do. I'm scared to ever go in early because it means there's someone we won't find. Last night we had like 8 min but we went out contacting anyway. first we had a pretty awkward exp. where i tried talking to these guys in their car. i wasn't quite sure what to say or what excuse i had to talk to them so i just ended up studdering like an idiot (that whole "given to you in the very hour what ye should say" promise wasn't quite working.) luckily, they spoke mostly protuguese so i tried to just look at them like it was the language barrier's fault that they couldn't understand me. after we sheepishly walked away and they drove off, we started talking to their friend. sis soza and him talked in spanglese (get it? spanish + portuguese) and set up an appt to teach him tonight. :) see the blessings?! so cool!
"DO YOU LIKE my PRETTY DRESS?
"This is just another delightful quote. this was by brock, the 2-yr old we live with when i complimented his sisters on her sunday dress and brock stood there prouldy in his plaid sweater and pants. :)
TRUNK-OR-TREATING WITH THE REVEREND
so we were going to the ward trunk-or-treating. i was worried it would be a waste of proseylting time if people didn't bring friends and it was a ways out of our area. we said a prayer that we'd have teaching opportunities. turns out one of the women in our ward is on some board of churches and brought a baptist minister guy. Rev. Quay. we ended up talking with him the whole time and leaving him with a copy of the BOM cause he wanted to read it and also giving him a tour of the church bldg. it was so delightful! and the members were right there helping and explaining and testifying. yay for halloween!
ANDREA JEAN CARTWRIGHT
so have any of you ever googled your own name or anything? yeah, fascinating to find people with your same name. but even more fascinting to tract into them!!!! what the? we were in the trailor park adn started talking to this woman who was outside. when we came closer she looked at my tag and was like, "oh! we have the same last name!" way weird. then she looks at sis soza and said, "actually, i got a piece of mail for you two." yeah, no joke. she'd gotten my mail. anyway, we talked a lot aobut the gosp and taught what we could and then when we were leaving i asked her first name. yeah, Andrea. says it different from me though. i freaked out. then found out our middle names were almost the same too! we got a pic together.
LUCKY NUT
we met a random guy in front of his house and got talking. he ended up telling us he has a lucky buckeye nut that he carries with him. turns out they're pretty rare but you can rub them and they become shiny. he also happened to have a bunch in his yard so we got to pick out our very own "lucky nut". i'm expecting many more miracles because of this.
GOTTA RUN...but i love you all. i'll leave you with a scripture. Alma 39:17-19. i'ts about why the Lord would want us to have a prophet today. we are precious. we are His children. I know He loves us and that he would and has called a prophet today. I know Thomas S. Monson is His prophet and that the most important decision we can make is the one to find out if Christ's church has been restored to the earth today and then to act upon that knowledge through baptism.
Love you all!
--Sis C
no joke yesterday, the wind was so intense. trampolines were blowing into other people's yards and we were getting mauled by inflatable halloween decorations in people's yards as we went out to share the gospel. but there is no bad weather! if it's miserable to be out, at least it means that someone might have enough pity to let you in. :) (sis soza and i also thought possibly that the "wind-blown" look might be alluring enough to get us in a few more doors. :) plus, there was a 92 yr-old woman out there too, going on a walk. but see, she survived the "winter of '36" so this was nothing.
A COUPLE THREE THINGS ABOUT IOWA
First of all, they say "couple three" all the time. It's amazing! Also, the place where Field of Dreams was filmed is nearby. Scott, i'm gonna take you there. The weather is getting chilly but we just keep hearing, "it'll only get worse" and "girl, you better get you a coat." :) actually, i have one to borrow but i figure the longer i put off wearing it the less severe the real cold will seem.
9PM MIRACLE
so the colder and darker it gets, the harder it can be to stay out till 9. but the Lord sure blesses us when we do. I'm scared to ever go in early because it means there's someone we won't find. Last night we had like 8 min but we went out contacting anyway. first we had a pretty awkward exp. where i tried talking to these guys in their car. i wasn't quite sure what to say or what excuse i had to talk to them so i just ended up studdering like an idiot (that whole "given to you in the very hour what ye should say" promise wasn't quite working.) luckily, they spoke mostly protuguese so i tried to just look at them like it was the language barrier's fault that they couldn't understand me. after we sheepishly walked away and they drove off, we started talking to their friend. sis soza and him talked in spanglese (get it? spanish + portuguese) and set up an appt to teach him tonight. :) see the blessings?! so cool!
"DO YOU LIKE my PRETTY DRESS?
"This is just another delightful quote. this was by brock, the 2-yr old we live with when i complimented his sisters on her sunday dress and brock stood there prouldy in his plaid sweater and pants. :)
TRUNK-OR-TREATING WITH THE REVEREND
so we were going to the ward trunk-or-treating. i was worried it would be a waste of proseylting time if people didn't bring friends and it was a ways out of our area. we said a prayer that we'd have teaching opportunities. turns out one of the women in our ward is on some board of churches and brought a baptist minister guy. Rev. Quay. we ended up talking with him the whole time and leaving him with a copy of the BOM cause he wanted to read it and also giving him a tour of the church bldg. it was so delightful! and the members were right there helping and explaining and testifying. yay for halloween!
ANDREA JEAN CARTWRIGHT
so have any of you ever googled your own name or anything? yeah, fascinating to find people with your same name. but even more fascinting to tract into them!!!! what the? we were in the trailor park adn started talking to this woman who was outside. when we came closer she looked at my tag and was like, "oh! we have the same last name!" way weird. then she looks at sis soza and said, "actually, i got a piece of mail for you two." yeah, no joke. she'd gotten my mail. anyway, we talked a lot aobut the gosp and taught what we could and then when we were leaving i asked her first name. yeah, Andrea. says it different from me though. i freaked out. then found out our middle names were almost the same too! we got a pic together.
LUCKY NUT
we met a random guy in front of his house and got talking. he ended up telling us he has a lucky buckeye nut that he carries with him. turns out they're pretty rare but you can rub them and they become shiny. he also happened to have a bunch in his yard so we got to pick out our very own "lucky nut". i'm expecting many more miracles because of this.
GOTTA RUN...but i love you all. i'll leave you with a scripture. Alma 39:17-19. i'ts about why the Lord would want us to have a prophet today. we are precious. we are His children. I know He loves us and that he would and has called a prophet today. I know Thomas S. Monson is His prophet and that the most important decision we can make is the one to find out if Christ's church has been restored to the earth today and then to act upon that knowledge through baptism.
Love you all!
--Sis C
Monday, October 20, 2008
"You mean the wicked people?"
only 8 min to write. we'll see how it goes...
"HISTORIC" LECLAIRE
so there's this really cool river town here. LeClaire. it's tiny, but famous. yes famous b/c it's the birthplace of "america's first superstar" that's right! you guessed it! Buffalo Bill. he lived here in his "formative yrs" (ages 1-5). there's a whole museum about it. news to me that buffalo bill is a real person. anyway, they have a cute little "main" street and one day we went contacting down. cool and we found some neat ppl. the only prob was it was decorated for halloween so we had a couple false alarms where we almost went up to one of the many scarecrows they had around and started talking to them about the gospel. yikes.
BIGGEST MISSION ADVENTURE YET...
k, maybe that's an exaggeration. but we went on a trampoline today for the first time in at least 18 mths. there's one in our backyard. talk about exhilarating. the next biggest adventure though will be if they let us go to the john deere museum. it's just outside our area. this is the headquarters of john deere (betcha didn't know that). in fact, we were watching this little boy play with toy trucks and he brings one up to his mom and she goes, "yes, that's a combine." hmm. the 2-yr olds know more about it than we do.
MOST MORMON NON-MORMONS
so the other day we felt prompted to tract a street. it was near "friendship park" so we figured the people had to be nice. we went for an hour and a half with not much luck. then we stood at a corner trying to decide if we should keep going straight or turn around. (apparently the Lord was up there just shaking His head saying, "the house is RIGHT THERE...just one more.") we knocked one more door and it opens and the dad stands there with a big grin and says "Hi!!! come on in!!" he and his two cute kids and the puppy welcome us with open arms. what the? did we accidentally tract into members. that's cool. we can play it off like we're just dropping by. the more they talked we soon realized they WEREN'T members but just totally acted like it. they have some best friends who are and they used to live just outside Palmyra, NY (where Joseph Smith grew up) and have seen the pageant out there and everything. turns out his friend once told him that if he ever sees mormon missionaries to at least let them in and offer then a drink. so they did. he had a million questions about missions and how they work so he fired away. eventually we backed up and told him the real point of why we're here and that God has restored His church on the earth. we're going back tonight for a Family Home Evening. :) love it!!
gotta run!
--sis c
p.s. 2 Nephi 2:24-27
p.s. quote is little boy who thought we were going to go teach the gosp to the "wicked people" clearly he's been reading too much scriptures. :)
"HISTORIC" LECLAIRE
so there's this really cool river town here. LeClaire. it's tiny, but famous. yes famous b/c it's the birthplace of "america's first superstar" that's right! you guessed it! Buffalo Bill. he lived here in his "formative yrs" (ages 1-5). there's a whole museum about it. news to me that buffalo bill is a real person. anyway, they have a cute little "main" street and one day we went contacting down. cool and we found some neat ppl. the only prob was it was decorated for halloween so we had a couple false alarms where we almost went up to one of the many scarecrows they had around and started talking to them about the gospel. yikes.
BIGGEST MISSION ADVENTURE YET...
k, maybe that's an exaggeration. but we went on a trampoline today for the first time in at least 18 mths. there's one in our backyard. talk about exhilarating. the next biggest adventure though will be if they let us go to the john deere museum. it's just outside our area. this is the headquarters of john deere (betcha didn't know that). in fact, we were watching this little boy play with toy trucks and he brings one up to his mom and she goes, "yes, that's a combine." hmm. the 2-yr olds know more about it than we do.
MOST MORMON NON-MORMONS
so the other day we felt prompted to tract a street. it was near "friendship park" so we figured the people had to be nice. we went for an hour and a half with not much luck. then we stood at a corner trying to decide if we should keep going straight or turn around. (apparently the Lord was up there just shaking His head saying, "the house is RIGHT THERE...just one more.") we knocked one more door and it opens and the dad stands there with a big grin and says "Hi!!! come on in!!" he and his two cute kids and the puppy welcome us with open arms. what the? did we accidentally tract into members. that's cool. we can play it off like we're just dropping by. the more they talked we soon realized they WEREN'T members but just totally acted like it. they have some best friends who are and they used to live just outside Palmyra, NY (where Joseph Smith grew up) and have seen the pageant out there and everything. turns out his friend once told him that if he ever sees mormon missionaries to at least let them in and offer then a drink. so they did. he had a million questions about missions and how they work so he fired away. eventually we backed up and told him the real point of why we're here and that God has restored His church on the earth. we're going back tonight for a Family Home Evening. :) love it!!
gotta run!
--sis c
p.s. 2 Nephi 2:24-27
p.s. quote is little boy who thought we were going to go teach the gosp to the "wicked people" clearly he's been reading too much scriptures. :)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
"Where's duh udduh one?"
holy cow! so much to write!!!
quote compliments of brock herbst, the 2-yr old in the fam we live with who says that to me every time i come in because he's anxiously awaiting sis soza coming around the corner.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI
so...that gives 2 things away. 1) i'm serving with sis soza. woohoo! so much stinkin fun. i was comps w/ her for one week in the MTC. she's amazing. super just kind and hard-working. she loves being obedient adn working hard. she's thousands of miles ahead of me in her Christlike attributes. she has such an apparent love for the Savior and for others. they kept us nauvoo sisters together for the most part, which was a surprise to us.
THE AREA
we're serving in Bettendorf, Iowa. It's in the quad cities, by Davenport, home of Palmer Chiropractic and John Deere. It's crazy cause we're right on the mississippi again but this time it's the other side (for as easy as mississippi is to spell, it's pretty tricky to type). We're a little less than 2 hours north of Nauvoo so theoretically i could just float down the river. we're sharing the area with 2 other Peoria sisters-- Sis. Mower and Montgomery. they're both a lot of fun. we go on exchanges sometime in the day.
THE ACCOMODATIONS
so we live with a member family, the Herbst. that's the first time i've had that, though they're trying to get it going all around the US. it's really neat though. they're a young fam with 4 kids who LOVE the missionaries. the biggest challenge is just trying to get them not to sneak downstairs and try to hang out while we're studying. the fam's amazing and takes such good care of us. and they have 2 big dogs. so while the little boy is in love with sis soza, the Boxer is in love with me. i'll take it, i guess. :) also convenient, bro herbst is the ward mission leader. yay!
IOWA
The Mid-west, while still very religious and full of fried food, is decidedly different from the South. I think in the South there was a lot more polarity. More people were willing to listen, yet more were whole-heartedly against the Church. Here it's harder to get in and teach people but I've found we get yelled at less too. Interesting. And instead of Baptists, it's Lutheran. Still some similar grammar and sentence structure, but different accent. Fascinating. I'm in a "small town" apparently but compared to Nauvoo it seems huge. I still try to wave to every car that goes by, just out of habit. I guess the Lord wanted me to try to break that before I suffered over-stimulation in San Diego. :)
THE MIRACLES
So here's one of my favorite miracles so far. We get here and there are little to no people to teach so we really have to start working from the ground up. We went out on Sunday and really wanted to go hard all day. It was getting later and we were running out of options of places to go to find people. It was about 8:40pm and we don't go in before 9 but it was getting too late to be knocking on people's doors. We were on a random street trying to find a Spanish fam for Sis. Soza but no luck. As we were walking down the street debating our options, we saw a girl walking to her car. We really wanted to go talk to her but she beat us to her car and we didn't want to go knocking on her window in the dark. Creepy. So we were bummed. A couple seconds later she rolled down the window and called out to us (of course, freaking ME out cause i'm so jumpy). She wanted to know if we'd just doorbell ditched candy to her house. No...(although that's not a bad idea. Bribe people to listen to our message...). But we ended up talking for a long time. Turns out her g-parents are LDS but haven't gone in yrs. She's 21 and single and having a baby any day. she's so stinkin cute! she's looking for a church and is really close to the Lord, you can tell. It was so fun talking to her and SO obvious how the Lord's hand was in all of that. Yay for 8:40 miracles! We went back last night and taught her. She's excited to read from the BOM and pray about it and her g-pa sat in on the lesson and you could just see him soften as she was learning all of this. He even piped in when she asked, "Who's Joseph Smith" and said, "He's a prophet." Thank you. Yay! I loved every minute of it. Her name's Kimber and we're praying everything will keep moving forward and that we can teach her a couple more times before she has her baby.
THE MORAL
At a member's house last night we went to teach and FHE and she really ended up teaching US. (happens often). She brought up the Brother of Jared from the BOM. She said God knows our capacity. With the Bro of Jared, she knew he needed to be told directly how to build the barges and how to get air in them, but then when the Bro of Jared asked how to get light, God said, "well, what do you think?" He asked him to figure it out. she reminded us that revelation is proceeded by work. We can't just expect to have the Lord tell us everything at the exact moment we want it. Joseph Smith didn't get his answer of what church to join just by wondering and praying once. It was after much pondering, studying, and searching. Such a balance to make sure we're not DEPENDING on the Lord for where to go and what to do but we're planning our lives with the knowledge and gifts He's giving us and then we're LISTENING as we go forward and being aware of His answers and promptings.
THE FINISH
We've only got one transfer left and we want to work our guts out. Like a race and going as hard as you possibly can at the end---for those who've gone running with me, you know that's my favorite part. :) I'm excited and love it here already!
quote compliments of brock herbst, the 2-yr old in the fam we live with who says that to me every time i come in because he's anxiously awaiting sis soza coming around the corner.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI
so...that gives 2 things away. 1) i'm serving with sis soza. woohoo! so much stinkin fun. i was comps w/ her for one week in the MTC. she's amazing. super just kind and hard-working. she loves being obedient adn working hard. she's thousands of miles ahead of me in her Christlike attributes. she has such an apparent love for the Savior and for others. they kept us nauvoo sisters together for the most part, which was a surprise to us.
THE AREA
we're serving in Bettendorf, Iowa. It's in the quad cities, by Davenport, home of Palmer Chiropractic and John Deere. It's crazy cause we're right on the mississippi again but this time it's the other side (for as easy as mississippi is to spell, it's pretty tricky to type). We're a little less than 2 hours north of Nauvoo so theoretically i could just float down the river. we're sharing the area with 2 other Peoria sisters-- Sis. Mower and Montgomery. they're both a lot of fun. we go on exchanges sometime in the day.
THE ACCOMODATIONS
so we live with a member family, the Herbst. that's the first time i've had that, though they're trying to get it going all around the US. it's really neat though. they're a young fam with 4 kids who LOVE the missionaries. the biggest challenge is just trying to get them not to sneak downstairs and try to hang out while we're studying. the fam's amazing and takes such good care of us. and they have 2 big dogs. so while the little boy is in love with sis soza, the Boxer is in love with me. i'll take it, i guess. :) also convenient, bro herbst is the ward mission leader. yay!
IOWA
The Mid-west, while still very religious and full of fried food, is decidedly different from the South. I think in the South there was a lot more polarity. More people were willing to listen, yet more were whole-heartedly against the Church. Here it's harder to get in and teach people but I've found we get yelled at less too. Interesting. And instead of Baptists, it's Lutheran. Still some similar grammar and sentence structure, but different accent. Fascinating. I'm in a "small town" apparently but compared to Nauvoo it seems huge. I still try to wave to every car that goes by, just out of habit. I guess the Lord wanted me to try to break that before I suffered over-stimulation in San Diego. :)
THE MIRACLES
So here's one of my favorite miracles so far. We get here and there are little to no people to teach so we really have to start working from the ground up. We went out on Sunday and really wanted to go hard all day. It was getting later and we were running out of options of places to go to find people. It was about 8:40pm and we don't go in before 9 but it was getting too late to be knocking on people's doors. We were on a random street trying to find a Spanish fam for Sis. Soza but no luck. As we were walking down the street debating our options, we saw a girl walking to her car. We really wanted to go talk to her but she beat us to her car and we didn't want to go knocking on her window in the dark. Creepy. So we were bummed. A couple seconds later she rolled down the window and called out to us (of course, freaking ME out cause i'm so jumpy). She wanted to know if we'd just doorbell ditched candy to her house. No...(although that's not a bad idea. Bribe people to listen to our message...). But we ended up talking for a long time. Turns out her g-parents are LDS but haven't gone in yrs. She's 21 and single and having a baby any day. she's so stinkin cute! she's looking for a church and is really close to the Lord, you can tell. It was so fun talking to her and SO obvious how the Lord's hand was in all of that. Yay for 8:40 miracles! We went back last night and taught her. She's excited to read from the BOM and pray about it and her g-pa sat in on the lesson and you could just see him soften as she was learning all of this. He even piped in when she asked, "Who's Joseph Smith" and said, "He's a prophet." Thank you. Yay! I loved every minute of it. Her name's Kimber and we're praying everything will keep moving forward and that we can teach her a couple more times before she has her baby.
THE MORAL
At a member's house last night we went to teach and FHE and she really ended up teaching US. (happens often). She brought up the Brother of Jared from the BOM. She said God knows our capacity. With the Bro of Jared, she knew he needed to be told directly how to build the barges and how to get air in them, but then when the Bro of Jared asked how to get light, God said, "well, what do you think?" He asked him to figure it out. she reminded us that revelation is proceeded by work. We can't just expect to have the Lord tell us everything at the exact moment we want it. Joseph Smith didn't get his answer of what church to join just by wondering and praying once. It was after much pondering, studying, and searching. Such a balance to make sure we're not DEPENDING on the Lord for where to go and what to do but we're planning our lives with the knowledge and gifts He's giving us and then we're LISTENING as we go forward and being aware of His answers and promptings.
THE FINISH
We've only got one transfer left and we want to work our guts out. Like a race and going as hard as you possibly can at the end---for those who've gone running with me, you know that's my favorite part. :) I'm excited and love it here already!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
“Missionaries, missionaries, missionaries…everywhere I go, there's missionaries."
Words of a 5-yr old visitor. And you know what, he’s right.
First of all: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
For his bday, here’s a couple things I love about him:
1. His wheeze laugh that I’m pretty sure I inherited.
2. His dutiful letter-writing.
3. How supportive he tries to be…even coming all the way out to Nauvoo to see me! :)
4. He’s an inspiration of physical fitness.
5. He focuses on the people he is with when he’s with them and let’s them know they are important.
There are many more of course, but that’s just a sampler.
Well, let’s see...adventures in Nauvoo. Everything’s turning Fall. It’s actually getting cold in the mornings. We’ll see how cold it gets in Oct/Nov out here in the mid-west. I’ll keep you posted. We leave in less than a week to our assignments. Kind of exciting!
DUSTY FARMER MIRACLE
So I wanted a while to go to my fav restaurant in the cornfields—The Dusty Farmer. Full of actual dusty farmers. It’s so authentic! But, being authentically small-town, it has bizarre and unpredictable hours so we can never seem to get there. So we FINALLY go one day and it was 1:30 and I knew they closed at 2. But things out here tend to also sometimes just open and close at will. So we get there and the door is locked. I was devastated. So I just leaned my hard against the glass door and stared inside all depressed. One of the sisters said, “well, what should we do…?” and I whispered “just stand here.” Apparently it was inspired cause 2 seconds later someone walked by inside. We got his attention and asked if they were closed and he said no. Turns out we just weren’t pulling on the door hard enough. Ha! So we got to go eat corn nuggets (fried creamed corn. Mmm…) and have loads of fun. Second obstacle…they don’t take credit or debit. So we all pooled together all the $ we could find but thought we might come up short. So they told us if we didn’t have enough we could just pay next time. Somehow, I’ve never had that offer in a CA restaurant. Ha! It was amazing. Luckily, we rummaged up just enough. Good times.
“TEACHING” APPT
Still doing the fake teaching appts but it’s cool because even thought the situation is fake, the doctrine is not and I’m always so blown away at how clearly the Spirit comes to testify of what we are teaching. :) The other night we taught the Normans (temple missionaries who I love DEARLY). We were talking about God and how they can know God is there and how they can know He would answer them individually. During the middle of the lesson they got a phone call from their son who’s kind of gone off track a little and is in the hospital right now due to some unwise choices. When we resumed the lesson we started talking about how much God loves them and wants to hear from them and comparing it to their own son. That no matter how many lousy decisions he’d made, time and time again, they still love him beyond measure and they still will be right there to give help with they need it. They can’t force him to make good decisions but the minute that on his own free will he comes to them, they’re right there. I loved it. It was just so cool how the Spirit taught all of us that day and how profoundly we felt God’s love while we were teaching.
ALMOST LIKE THEY’RE INSPIRED
So last weekend was the Church-wide Women’s Conference. (I thought of many of you while watching it cause we were all watching at the same time.) Long story short, I had a really rough day that day. Nothing really, just days where you can only recognize your weaknesses and Satan’s having fun seeing how discouraged he can get you. It’d gone on for a couple of days actually. But that night I not only got answers through Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk, but more importantly, I had a chance to help someone else out who was going through similar things and that really made my problem all go away. Which was funny cause his talk was about how service to others is the most fool-proof way to combat those feelings and the Lord blessed me with a chance right then to see that work in my own life. Loved it! I know the Lord’s aware of us and sends his servants—prophets and apostles, to give us very specific and important messages.
MORE INSPIRATION TO COME
This weekend is General Conference where the prophet and apostles talk to the whole Church about the things God wants to communicate to all of us. Anyway, woohoo! I’m excited. My invitation to all of you try harder to hear the Lord’s counsel to you individually through it this weekend. Whether that’s through taking notes, writiign down prayerful questions before you watch, watching more sessions than normal, going back over specific talks afterwards, or watching just some of it if you’ve never seen it before. I promise it will be well worth it and that if you’re sincerely wanting to be instructed from it, that you will be in a very personal way. By doing this, you’ll be able to see how well God knows you individually. Conference can be watched on www.lds.org.
Love you all!
Feel free to keep sending mail to my Nauvoo address.
-Sis. Cartwright
First of all: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
For his bday, here’s a couple things I love about him:
1. His wheeze laugh that I’m pretty sure I inherited.
2. His dutiful letter-writing.
3. How supportive he tries to be…even coming all the way out to Nauvoo to see me! :)
4. He’s an inspiration of physical fitness.
5. He focuses on the people he is with when he’s with them and let’s them know they are important.
There are many more of course, but that’s just a sampler.
Well, let’s see...adventures in Nauvoo. Everything’s turning Fall. It’s actually getting cold in the mornings. We’ll see how cold it gets in Oct/Nov out here in the mid-west. I’ll keep you posted. We leave in less than a week to our assignments. Kind of exciting!
DUSTY FARMER MIRACLE
So I wanted a while to go to my fav restaurant in the cornfields—The Dusty Farmer. Full of actual dusty farmers. It’s so authentic! But, being authentically small-town, it has bizarre and unpredictable hours so we can never seem to get there. So we FINALLY go one day and it was 1:30 and I knew they closed at 2. But things out here tend to also sometimes just open and close at will. So we get there and the door is locked. I was devastated. So I just leaned my hard against the glass door and stared inside all depressed. One of the sisters said, “well, what should we do…?” and I whispered “just stand here.” Apparently it was inspired cause 2 seconds later someone walked by inside. We got his attention and asked if they were closed and he said no. Turns out we just weren’t pulling on the door hard enough. Ha! So we got to go eat corn nuggets (fried creamed corn. Mmm…) and have loads of fun. Second obstacle…they don’t take credit or debit. So we all pooled together all the $ we could find but thought we might come up short. So they told us if we didn’t have enough we could just pay next time. Somehow, I’ve never had that offer in a CA restaurant. Ha! It was amazing. Luckily, we rummaged up just enough. Good times.
“TEACHING” APPT
Still doing the fake teaching appts but it’s cool because even thought the situation is fake, the doctrine is not and I’m always so blown away at how clearly the Spirit comes to testify of what we are teaching. :) The other night we taught the Normans (temple missionaries who I love DEARLY). We were talking about God and how they can know God is there and how they can know He would answer them individually. During the middle of the lesson they got a phone call from their son who’s kind of gone off track a little and is in the hospital right now due to some unwise choices. When we resumed the lesson we started talking about how much God loves them and wants to hear from them and comparing it to their own son. That no matter how many lousy decisions he’d made, time and time again, they still love him beyond measure and they still will be right there to give help with they need it. They can’t force him to make good decisions but the minute that on his own free will he comes to them, they’re right there. I loved it. It was just so cool how the Spirit taught all of us that day and how profoundly we felt God’s love while we were teaching.
ALMOST LIKE THEY’RE INSPIRED
So last weekend was the Church-wide Women’s Conference. (I thought of many of you while watching it cause we were all watching at the same time.) Long story short, I had a really rough day that day. Nothing really, just days where you can only recognize your weaknesses and Satan’s having fun seeing how discouraged he can get you. It’d gone on for a couple of days actually. But that night I not only got answers through Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk, but more importantly, I had a chance to help someone else out who was going through similar things and that really made my problem all go away. Which was funny cause his talk was about how service to others is the most fool-proof way to combat those feelings and the Lord blessed me with a chance right then to see that work in my own life. Loved it! I know the Lord’s aware of us and sends his servants—prophets and apostles, to give us very specific and important messages.
MORE INSPIRATION TO COME
This weekend is General Conference where the prophet and apostles talk to the whole Church about the things God wants to communicate to all of us. Anyway, woohoo! I’m excited. My invitation to all of you try harder to hear the Lord’s counsel to you individually through it this weekend. Whether that’s through taking notes, writiign down prayerful questions before you watch, watching more sessions than normal, going back over specific talks afterwards, or watching just some of it if you’ve never seen it before. I promise it will be well worth it and that if you’re sincerely wanting to be instructed from it, that you will be in a very personal way. By doing this, you’ll be able to see how well God knows you individually. Conference can be watched on www.lds.org.
Love you all!
Feel free to keep sending mail to my Nauvoo address.
-Sis. Cartwright
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