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
Monday, October 27, 2008
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
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
“Nothing says 26 like dill spears.”
Quote inspired by the jar of pickles I found on my doorstep Mon. night that kicked off the bday celebration.
BRAZILIAN FLARE
“What are you doing on my doorstep and why are you in a pioneer dress?”
So Sis. Granja, the crazy Brazilian I’ve been blessed to live with for months, has had a few precious moments lately. The quote above comes from when she and her companion were practicing door approaches (randomly knocking on someone’s door to share the gospel). Since practicing with the temple missionaries hasn’t been entirely accurate in that regard, I suggested they practice rejections with each other. It’s a little demoralizing but very helpful. :) Anyway, so Sis. Alexander (now cousins-in-law with April Fisher we discovered) was “knocking on the door” and that’s how Sis. G answered since Sis. A was indeed in a pioneer dress. Ah, too funny. Maybe not on paper though.
The other moments with Sis. G were in a teaching appt. I went with their companionship. We showed up at the house and the woman we were teaching opens the door and Sis. G calls out cheerfully, “Goodnight!” Stunned and awkward pause. Then “uh…I mean good evening. Uh, goodnight and goodbye.” Then hysteric laughter from all. She’s quite proficient in Engl. but every once in a while that language barrier comes back and bites her in the bum.
BDAY JOY
Thanks for all the bday emails and letters and fun. It was so good to hear from so many of you. I’m really excited to read everyone’s updates. I love you all! :) I had a fun day. We had a surprise breakfast at the Cambre in the morning. At my suggestion, the pancakes turned into choc chip pancakes and it was bliss. (Sis. Lancaster who loathes pancakes but can’t resist chocolate just sat there staring at them, confused what to do. Poor thing.) At the VC one of the senior missionaries found out it was my bday and ran promptly to Ducks (the one and only convenience store in Nauvoo) and got all my favorite treats and made a little cake out of them in the VC. So precious. Then at night we had dot cake with dot frosting. My comp even shaped it into a “C” (she’s pretty good). We enjoyed it with the fake rotten Halloween teeth that Sheena sent. (Ok, we took them out to eat, but not to sing or blow out candles). All in all, fun day. Best part was I got to be a missionary! :)
ON THE MOVE
To clarify: I’m in Nauvoo until Oct. 8 (that means whoever is secretly coming to see me better come soon) :) and then I serve in the Peoria mission until the beginning of Dec. I go home on the 4th. Address-wise, just keep sending everything to Nauvoo and they will forward it. I’ll let you know later if there’s a better way but that’ll be easiest.
Ok, time has flown again. I had lots of stories but they’re gone. Just want to let you know that Heavenly Father answers prayers. Very specifically. Almost like He means it when he says “Ask and ye shall receive.” The very most important thing to Him is our happiness. As we follow the Spirit in knowing what to ask for, then we can know it’s according to His will and will help us to become what we need to become. And something to ponder: Mosiah 2:41. So simple and true.
Love you all!
-Sis. Cartwright
BRAZILIAN FLARE
“What are you doing on my doorstep and why are you in a pioneer dress?”
So Sis. Granja, the crazy Brazilian I’ve been blessed to live with for months, has had a few precious moments lately. The quote above comes from when she and her companion were practicing door approaches (randomly knocking on someone’s door to share the gospel). Since practicing with the temple missionaries hasn’t been entirely accurate in that regard, I suggested they practice rejections with each other. It’s a little demoralizing but very helpful. :) Anyway, so Sis. Alexander (now cousins-in-law with April Fisher we discovered) was “knocking on the door” and that’s how Sis. G answered since Sis. A was indeed in a pioneer dress. Ah, too funny. Maybe not on paper though.
The other moments with Sis. G were in a teaching appt. I went with their companionship. We showed up at the house and the woman we were teaching opens the door and Sis. G calls out cheerfully, “Goodnight!” Stunned and awkward pause. Then “uh…I mean good evening. Uh, goodnight and goodbye.” Then hysteric laughter from all. She’s quite proficient in Engl. but every once in a while that language barrier comes back and bites her in the bum.
BDAY JOY
Thanks for all the bday emails and letters and fun. It was so good to hear from so many of you. I’m really excited to read everyone’s updates. I love you all! :) I had a fun day. We had a surprise breakfast at the Cambre in the morning. At my suggestion, the pancakes turned into choc chip pancakes and it was bliss. (Sis. Lancaster who loathes pancakes but can’t resist chocolate just sat there staring at them, confused what to do. Poor thing.) At the VC one of the senior missionaries found out it was my bday and ran promptly to Ducks (the one and only convenience store in Nauvoo) and got all my favorite treats and made a little cake out of them in the VC. So precious. Then at night we had dot cake with dot frosting. My comp even shaped it into a “C” (she’s pretty good). We enjoyed it with the fake rotten Halloween teeth that Sheena sent. (Ok, we took them out to eat, but not to sing or blow out candles). All in all, fun day. Best part was I got to be a missionary! :)
ON THE MOVE
To clarify: I’m in Nauvoo until Oct. 8 (that means whoever is secretly coming to see me better come soon) :) and then I serve in the Peoria mission until the beginning of Dec. I go home on the 4th. Address-wise, just keep sending everything to Nauvoo and they will forward it. I’ll let you know later if there’s a better way but that’ll be easiest.
Ok, time has flown again. I had lots of stories but they’re gone. Just want to let you know that Heavenly Father answers prayers. Very specifically. Almost like He means it when he says “Ask and ye shall receive.” The very most important thing to Him is our happiness. As we follow the Spirit in knowing what to ask for, then we can know it’s according to His will and will help us to become what we need to become. And something to ponder: Mosiah 2:41. So simple and true.
Love you all!
-Sis. Cartwright
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
"Why quit?"
Inspiring quote by Hans Smith.
He was a service elder last summer. He lives outside Nauvoo. He has a disease I can’t think of the name of right now so he’s confined to a wheelchair. Last summer he was hit by a car (he was in a wheelchair before that though) and we talked about the missionary work that’s come as a result of that (some of it to the driver of the car). I complimented him on being such an awesome missionary even though he wasn’t a full-time one anymore (something a lot of people struggle keeping up after they’re released). He just looked at me and said, “why quit?” I thought it was such a profound and powerful statement. This mission has been very purifying and changing in many ways and I hope I can keep that attitude. Why quit doing the things that I know will make me the most happy. Throughout and after my mission. (Don’t worry, skirts and nylons isn’t in that list of things :) ).
CAPTURE THE OLD WOMEN
So a couple weeks ago we played a nighttime game of Capture the Flag. We did the 2nd summer sisters versus 1st summer. They told us they’d win cause we were old and tired. Unfortunately, they were right. Haha! But also we were being much braver so ya know, there’s a price for that. But I did come away with mud all over my leg, making me look tough at least. I don’t remember the point of that story and in fact, may have already written about it. Well, enjoy either way.
TOUR OF THE HCK
So one quick story, took a family on a tour of the Heber C. Kimball home. (My comp LOVES wearing her pioneer dress. It’s amazing! I love it!) This older man came in and couldn’t talk. He just sort of motioned. I got excited and signed to ask if he was deaf. He wasn’t. He’d had a stroke. I took his fam on the tour but there was just something about this man. Something in his eyes throughout the whole thing. This story has no amazing ending, just that the Spirit was so powerful throughout the entire thing. He testimony and faith came through just by his countenance—even when he couldn’t talk. That just really stuck with me.
SOMETHING TO PONDER
K, here it is…Moroni 10:32. It’s about becoming perfected in Christ. I know this is possible (not in this life obviously, but after) because God, as the perfect Parent, wants us to have all of the blessings that He enjoys. As much as we let Him, He will help us prepare to receive them. :)
Love you all,
Sis. Cartwright
Monday, September 1, 2008
“Clean underwear and amputated legs. Welcome to church in Nauvoo.”
Quote: Sis. Lancaster to my comp upon getting out of her first sacrament meeting here. She was referencing just 2 of the wildcard phrases mentioned over the pulpit that day. The seniors’ talks are typically action-packed with stories and life lessons, leaving you with a slightly different flavor than you’d get at a typical ward sacrament meeting.
Well, well, well....
MORE ON THE COMP
Can I just tell you all the I LOVE my companion?! She’s the stinkin’ raddest. I look up to her in every way. I’ve never had a bum companion. They’ve all been amazing, but maybe this is just such a pleasant surprise cause I didn’t know her ahead of time so it was like an early Christmas present or something. She’s AMAZING and she teaches me so dang much. She learned ASL in the MTC and can teach me all sorts of things I missed out on learning in the MTC (like, um, how to teach the gospel in ASL, not just signing love songs. Ha!) and she’s SO diligent and hard-working and fun and patient. She’s from North Hollywood, which most ppl associate w/ “Hollywood” and she says, “know the show COPS? That’s my town.” Ha! She’s hilarious. Oh, and remember how I said she’s a mix between Ashley Scoresby and Megan Monahan. Well, I found out her full name is Megan Ashley Meyer. What the? Anyway, she’s a gem and I’m sure I’ll have many more stories.
LINGERING LIGHTENING BUGS
So Heavenly Father sent a little present to my comp. The fireflies are gone for the most part cause summer’s ending. I haven’t seen one in a couple weeks. Then last night we were walking home (little did I know Sis. Meyer had been way stoked to hear that there were fireflies out here) and we saw one. She freaked out cause it’s the first one she’s ever seen. Then we saw one closer and she goes. “There’s another one! I’m gonna catch it!” Then just leaps ahead and cups her hands and what do ya know, she caught it! So random. So we trapped it in our hands and tried to take pics of it, which was unsuccessful as you might imagine. But it was a glorious moment nonetheless.
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD 2008
So coolest thing ever this yr. Since we’re all done calling about the Pageant CDs, we’re turning Nauvoo into like a city-wide TRC. (That’s the place in the MTC where you practice teaching fake investigators.) We all get teaching appts at night where we go teach the senior missionaries and even go tracting to their apts. Ha! It’s gonna be hilarious! And wonderful practice to get us back in the groove. Then the 3 ASL sisters get to practice teaching each other in ASL which will be very helpful. There’s a slight chance we might use it in the “outfield” this winter cause one of the areas in Peoria has a deaf program. Anyway, but we’ll see. (Motto of my mission: “We’ll see.”)
RETURNED MISSIONARY IN TRAINING
So I’ve had a few moments lately where I delightedly find out I’m totally out of touch with the world. One of these moments being when we walked into Wal-Mart and Sis. Thomas mentioned something about New Kids on the Block. The other being when we were playing a game of questions and one was “what’s the biggest news you’ve gotten on your mission.” I said mine was “that my whole city was burning down” and Sis. Lancaster said “that Heath Ledger died.” I said “Heath Ledger died?” and all of the newer missionaries in the car freaked out that I’d somehow missed out on this breaking news. After pondering for a moment on the loss of Heath (poor guy) I felt a little happy inside to know that I’d been successfully detached from the world enough. Not that I was ever great on current events in the first place (Katie, I can read your mind) but still, it just helped me realize the reality of my call and the whole idea of being “set apart” from the world. I’m thankful that the Lord’s given me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be so out of the loop because I’m so fully immersed in something else. I pray I’ll be able to keep a piece of that throughout my life. I think I’ll have a lot more time in my life if I stop worrying about things that aren’t going to build any lasting happiness.
P-DAY ADVENTURES
So we took the Community of Christ tour today and we had to laugh at all the similarities. For example, apparently we all use the same joke about the 1840’s air conditioning. Ha! Who knew? Made me wonder how often the visitors’ laughs are simply those of the courteous variety. But the tour was awesome and our guide was an old-timer from MO and had such an authentic Mid-West accent. Love it!
DON’T POSTPONE JOY
Sis. Ludwig talked to use on Sunday about the idea: “Don’t postpone joy.” Just one thing mentioned was that when something lame happens that you know you’ll look back later and laugh at, just laugh now so you can enjoy it in the moment. Ha! Probably easier said than done but I’d like to try to apply it nonetheless.
SCRIP. FOR THE DAY
In the words of Nephi (2 Nephi 4:29) “Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions.” I love this. We all have afflictions and we can definitely use them as an excuse to grow week. Or we could be as hard-core or steadfast as Nephi and just plow through them with the strength of the Lord. This kinda goes along with another quote I’ll close with from Elder Bruce. C. Hafen (Apr. 2004 conf) “You can have eternal salvation if you want it, but only if there is nothing else you want more.”
Keep up the good work. Love you all!
-Sis. Cartwright
Well, well, well....
MORE ON THE COMP
Can I just tell you all the I LOVE my companion?! She’s the stinkin’ raddest. I look up to her in every way. I’ve never had a bum companion. They’ve all been amazing, but maybe this is just such a pleasant surprise cause I didn’t know her ahead of time so it was like an early Christmas present or something. She’s AMAZING and she teaches me so dang much. She learned ASL in the MTC and can teach me all sorts of things I missed out on learning in the MTC (like, um, how to teach the gospel in ASL, not just signing love songs. Ha!) and she’s SO diligent and hard-working and fun and patient. She’s from North Hollywood, which most ppl associate w/ “Hollywood” and she says, “know the show COPS? That’s my town.” Ha! She’s hilarious. Oh, and remember how I said she’s a mix between Ashley Scoresby and Megan Monahan. Well, I found out her full name is Megan Ashley Meyer. What the? Anyway, she’s a gem and I’m sure I’ll have many more stories.
LINGERING LIGHTENING BUGS
So Heavenly Father sent a little present to my comp. The fireflies are gone for the most part cause summer’s ending. I haven’t seen one in a couple weeks. Then last night we were walking home (little did I know Sis. Meyer had been way stoked to hear that there were fireflies out here) and we saw one. She freaked out cause it’s the first one she’s ever seen. Then we saw one closer and she goes. “There’s another one! I’m gonna catch it!” Then just leaps ahead and cups her hands and what do ya know, she caught it! So random. So we trapped it in our hands and tried to take pics of it, which was unsuccessful as you might imagine. But it was a glorious moment nonetheless.
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD 2008
So coolest thing ever this yr. Since we’re all done calling about the Pageant CDs, we’re turning Nauvoo into like a city-wide TRC. (That’s the place in the MTC where you practice teaching fake investigators.) We all get teaching appts at night where we go teach the senior missionaries and even go tracting to their apts. Ha! It’s gonna be hilarious! And wonderful practice to get us back in the groove. Then the 3 ASL sisters get to practice teaching each other in ASL which will be very helpful. There’s a slight chance we might use it in the “outfield” this winter cause one of the areas in Peoria has a deaf program. Anyway, but we’ll see. (Motto of my mission: “We’ll see.”)
RETURNED MISSIONARY IN TRAINING
So I’ve had a few moments lately where I delightedly find out I’m totally out of touch with the world. One of these moments being when we walked into Wal-Mart and Sis. Thomas mentioned something about New Kids on the Block. The other being when we were playing a game of questions and one was “what’s the biggest news you’ve gotten on your mission.” I said mine was “that my whole city was burning down” and Sis. Lancaster said “that Heath Ledger died.” I said “Heath Ledger died?” and all of the newer missionaries in the car freaked out that I’d somehow missed out on this breaking news. After pondering for a moment on the loss of Heath (poor guy) I felt a little happy inside to know that I’d been successfully detached from the world enough. Not that I was ever great on current events in the first place (Katie, I can read your mind) but still, it just helped me realize the reality of my call and the whole idea of being “set apart” from the world. I’m thankful that the Lord’s given me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be so out of the loop because I’m so fully immersed in something else. I pray I’ll be able to keep a piece of that throughout my life. I think I’ll have a lot more time in my life if I stop worrying about things that aren’t going to build any lasting happiness.
P-DAY ADVENTURES
So we took the Community of Christ tour today and we had to laugh at all the similarities. For example, apparently we all use the same joke about the 1840’s air conditioning. Ha! Who knew? Made me wonder how often the visitors’ laughs are simply those of the courteous variety. But the tour was awesome and our guide was an old-timer from MO and had such an authentic Mid-West accent. Love it!
DON’T POSTPONE JOY
Sis. Ludwig talked to use on Sunday about the idea: “Don’t postpone joy.” Just one thing mentioned was that when something lame happens that you know you’ll look back later and laugh at, just laugh now so you can enjoy it in the moment. Ha! Probably easier said than done but I’d like to try to apply it nonetheless.
SCRIP. FOR THE DAY
In the words of Nephi (2 Nephi 4:29) “Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions.” I love this. We all have afflictions and we can definitely use them as an excuse to grow week. Or we could be as hard-core or steadfast as Nephi and just plow through them with the strength of the Lord. This kinda goes along with another quote I’ll close with from Elder Bruce. C. Hafen (Apr. 2004 conf) “You can have eternal salvation if you want it, but only if there is nothing else you want more.”
Keep up the good work. Love you all!
-Sis. Cartwright
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