Vivo En Peru: Sister Stevie Carr

January 20, 2014

Querido Fam bam,

How fun that you got go to Jace´s open house! I hope that they are SO happy, it sounds like she´s a keeper.

So this week was psycho. And by psycho I mean completely awesome. I feel so blessed to be a part of this great work. On Monday we went into Huaraz to pick up Hermana Brown, our Sister Trainer, to do a work visit with us. She is seriously the coolest. We went to the Solis home and taught a POWERFUL lesson with them that was really beautiful. Hermana Sheyla has been battling the after effects of cancer, and H. Brown had the thought to call the Elders for a priesthood blessing. They came right away and the raging pains H. Sheyla has been battling went away right after the blessing. It was a powerful witness to me that the priesthood is real and the Lord works according to our faith, because Hermana Sheyla has GREAT faith. It was a beautiful night for us. Hermana Brown stayed with us all of Tuesday. She´s hilarious and we had a blast talking to her. She gave me a ton of advice for my dying mission body, because she went through the same thing...battling her hair and nails and just everything haha. We talked about a ton of stuff and she´s just one of those people that can be your instant friend for life, and mom...she was the one that ate the cake batter on that blog you found...baha that was a hilarious moment when she was talking about it and I said ¨THAT WAS YOU?¨. Love. Tuesday night we took her back and I was sad to let her go. She´s an awesome girl and I hope we have some more mission adventures with her later.

Thursday....was even crazier. Thursday morning we had a training meeting WITH PRESIDENT ARCHIBALD at 9am, ONLY OUR ZONE. We live really far from Huaraz...and I didn´t know that it started at 9 until I woke up at 630 like usual. Yeah... we were running around like crazy people getting ready and left the apartment as a disaster. We made it during the opening song. We had a morning of an AMAZING training session. This year our mission is focusing on FINDING FAMILIES. We learned about the doctrine of the family, and how our ultimate goal is to help these people be sealed for time and all eternity. We talked about how this is the ENTIRE purpose of the gospel, everything we teach is focused on the FAMILY and if there aren´t eternal families...the earth is utterly wasted. D&C 2...studdyyyy that out. It´s cool. We talked about how we can´t go to the Celestial Kingdom unless we´re sealed, and so the Celestial kingdom is made up of families, and the Celestial Kingdom is going to be the earth, so if there aren´t eternal families...everything is wasted. My mind was blown. We also had a training on a new contact activity. We´re contacting families and teaching the Family Home Evening first... with the ¨If you have a frowny face¨ song and Don't Eat Pete and everything, it´s super fun and we tried it later this week and the family absolutely loved it. After our training session, the AP's came up to us and told us that we were riding in the President´s car back to Caraz. Immediately I thought of our DISASTROUS room. I had a mini panic attack. We got in the car, then went to lunch in Huaraz. The President treated us to lunch and gave us a lot of insights about our area and found out more about us. It was really comfortable to be with him, his wife, and his two youngest kids, and the APs...they´re all really great people. We drove to Caraz and I answered all the questions I could about the area, because it was their first time coming this far out to Caraz. We gave them a mini tour of the city and then they came to the house. Hermana Flor almost DIED when we introduced them haha, the PRESIDENT was at HER house! Yeah...I was freaking out too. I asked Sister Archibald if we could go straighten up real quick, so we ran upstairs and did our best. They came up just to make sure we were in decent living quarters, told us before coming in that they weren´t there to judge how clean we were or anything, just really chill. Then when they saw how much we lacked, they told us that we have permission to buy the things we need for the house, because we really only have the basics and we don´t even have bedding from the mission home, which apparently we were supposed to get. Sister Archibald told me that I shouldn´t hesitate to call when we´re lacking, and the President too told us that we need to call him for any reason...apparently we are living down to the basics haha... I had no idea, I just figured this was the mission and this was my life...Hermana Cueva didn´t tell me anything on that one haha .It was so fun to spend the day with them. They gave me my packages (Thanks Momma and Thanks Sister Rogers. You two are seriously the best). And we said goodbye. They were awesome to come, Momma don´t you worry, I´m being taken care of.

That night we tried the Family Home Evening contacting activity which was way cool. We tried it with a family that owns a tourist business and speaks English. It was super fun, and they were really cool. We only talked in Spanish but they really think it´s amazing that I´m living here and for that they were really receptive to what I had to say.

We´re continuing to work with the Solis family. Their dad has some problems that we´re trying to work through, but the other three are determined to be baptized this Saturday. PLEASE keep this family in your prayers, I think satan´s working pretty hard with them.

One thing the Archibald´s taught was that they started family home evening the week after they were married and they have NEVER missed a week. This is my challenge to you guys. I believe the promises of unity that come with FHE are REAL and I think that our family can be EVEN MORE UNIFIED if we don´t falter in FHE. Please always, always have it. Always have scripture study and family prayer... I know we aren´t perfect in that, but I just feel really strongly that I should encourage you to do it!

PS. Shout out to Eric Smith, Tanya Shuvarikov, Rachel Cranney, and Mikalikalaela Johnson for emailing me this week, I was so surprised and SO excited.

This is the church of Jesus Christ. This is His work. We are ALL children of God and WE ARE ALL important. Do what you can to help another, share the gospel. And to my nonmember friends, don´t shut the door when the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints come knocking. They have a message SO important for you, if anything remember your crazy little friend Stevie is in the middle of a foreign country sharing the same message they are...and if I´m out in the middle of nowhere spending a chunk of my life doing this, then I MUST KNOW something important, then THEY must know something important. This Gospel has changed my life and my family. It can change yours too, for the better. Have an open heart.

I love you all so very much,

Hermana Carr