Vivo En Peru: Sister Stevie Carr

Nov. 16, 2014

Holaaaaa Familia!

Sounds like you've had a great week! I'm glad Stake Conference was so great and that you all enjoyed it. Kacey, glad everything is going well! Good luck with your tests and drive safe! JAKE, way to go in wrestling! Sounds like your killing it in all your sports. TJ, I'm glad you liked the talk. Dad, thank you for sharing your home teaching story. I know that she felt the spirit. The spirit always testifies of the first vision, no matter what. I'm glad you were able to have that experience. You're a great example to me. Mom, you're so right about tithing...we teach a new lesson that's not in PMG about tithes and offerings and it's one of my favorites. I love sharing tithing stories from our family. Sacrifice really does bring blessings, and I want to share a little bit about that with you guys today.

As you know... I've completed two transfers in Proceres, and we haven't really had any measurable success. It's been ROUGH. My district is the best, I have tons of fun with the missionaries, I have a good ward, a good comp, we just never were able to have success. Luckily I had my interview with President Archibald last Friday and he gave us some tips that really changed everything.

This week we've been praying to the Lord every night to bless our imperfect efforts with our 10 maneras (our mission has been focusing on FINDING and we have to come up with 10 finding activities that we use every week). President told me to apply these finding activities with faith that the Lord would fulfill President's promise of starting to baptize again. He told me that doing this would be like showing Him that the offering is on the table. He blessed us with a lot of tender mercies. On Saturday after a finding activity, we had a church tour with a family that we've been working with for a short time. They hadn't come to church the week before, and we felt like it might have been because they felt a little unsure about what we do there. We called them up on Saturday and asked if we could give them a tour, and they said yes. We showed up...and there were a ton of members with their different activities and cleaning the church... we were freaking out a little because we wanted to have a spiritual experience. The members that were cleaning the sacrament room were really awesome and cleaned it up fast so that we would have the room all to ourselves. Pretty soon the A. Family showed up. We went into a room and started with a prayer. Then it was like there wasn't anybody else in the building. Children running around and playing in the halls didn't distract from the spirit we felt as we showed them different rooms and talked about different paintings. As we were about to enter the sacrament room, we stopped by the painting of Christ in Gethsemane. We testified of the Atonement and the importance of covenants. It was an amazing experience, and the family all said they felt a lot of peace and were interested.

Other story...one of our 10 maneras is that we have a table with candy and pamphlets every Wednesday in a busy intersection. A lady came up and started talking to me, I knew I recognized her from somewhere, but I didn't know from where. She was really sweet and invited us to come visit her. We went to her house two days later, and I realized that I had always seen in her in our neighborhood. We went to visit her and she told us her life story and the hopes that she has to come closer to God. She told us that she´s seen us multiple times, and that we´ve talked to her boss (she's like a nanny housekeeper), but we never had the chance to talk to her...she told us that when she saw me at the table, she knew it was her chance to talk to us. I don't know why I keep letting that happen... it happened with L. it happened with C., now with Y. She's a really great lady. We had a small first lesson with her, but this week we're going to teach the Restoration and I know she's going to get baptized.

Sunday came around and the miracles flowed like crazy. We had Hermana Lind with us for Sunday, she finished her mission this week. We had the A. Family, Y. and her son D., and J....the PF that we're trying to baptize, all showed up to church this week. I was in awe. It had been a LLOONNGGG time since I've had INSACs like that! I was ecstatic, seriously. It was a great day.

Sunday night we went to visit the A. family for a moment. We were going to have Noche de Hogar, but they ended up sharing some really cool things with us. The Dad knows the church is true. He described to us how he felt at church today, that he felt an energy through his whole body, and that as he was talking to the members he felt like he could do the things that they do. It was amazing. The mom is a little bit harder to crack, but she told us she feels peace, and we're trying to help her recognize that comes from the spirit.

Please pray for each of these families. I am SO excited and have so much hope for the coming weeks. I think we're going to have some Christmas miracles in Diciembre!

I love you guys! Thanks for your support and your prayers.

Hermana Carr