Well we had Marcos' baptism marked for Sunday, and...true to the Santo Andre standard, he disappeared. I'm actually pretty worried about him. He's a great guy--reminds me a lot of Scott Henry. But he used to be a real partier, and he's had to make a lot of changes since we met him. I'm kind of afraid he's the type that would say farewell to his old life before getting baptized and then really get in trouble...which is such a dumb idea!
Our mission is going to divide in
July!!! Woohoo!! The funny thing is our zone leader played a prank on
us earlier, saying that the missions were going to divide. Sister Reis was
made to think she was going to be sent to the Baixada (lowlands) Mission and
started crying. I nicknamed it Missao Rebaixada (mission demoted). It
caught on. Who knew it would actually come to pass? Our zone leader
was blown away. I'm really excited. The only downside is that 7 new
missions opening in Brazil is probably a good indicator that China will NOT, in
fact, open any time soon.
So this week we had two all-day
sister conferences cuz our sister quota is gonna double. The mission
normally holds 26 sisters. Right now we have only 16. Soon we
will have 60 in Sao Paulo Sul alone!
The conference was really
powerful. I just love having all of the sisters together. There was
one part where each of us taught a small lesson of The Gospel of Jesus Christ
to President and Sister Tanner. It was so cool remembering the way all of
my (surviving) companions teach with the Spirit: Sister Reis' unshakable
testimony, Sister Leite's tons and tons and tons and tons of enthusiasm, Sister
Dias' no-nonsense approach, and Sister Sena's simple trust. (Sister Leite
and Sister Dias are companions now. I would pay good money to have a 24-hour
video camera on them. While I love them both, I have never met two people
more different from each other. Haha.)
But then Elder Soares, a member of
the Seventy who came to pick up his daughter from the mission, bore his
testimony and reminded us of the cruel fact that all of this will come to an
end soon. We will never again sit together as the same group of sister
missionaries. And he even added that over time, some of us will die or fall away.
He said it as a warning--so that none of us actually would fall away. But all I could think about was how much I don't want to let go of these moments. How
can heaven possibly be a happy place without that particular sisters conference? I
felt like Peter at the Mount of Transfiguration who said simply, "It is
good for us to be here." But the rest of my life waits, I
guess. So I'll go ahead and live it. And I know the end will be hecka
awesome.
Thank you so much for the Valentines
messages from everyone! I loved it so much I might have cried a little
bit.
Yes, I got the Valentine cookies from
Aunt Lori Ethel, and, yes, I loved them...and so did everyone else! I also
liked all the letters. Whitney's blog got me thinking. One of Whit's
friends made a comment about entropy--that chaos in the universe will increase
unless energy is added from a higher power. I'm not a physics whiz, but as
I understand, that's a pretty basic premise of the field. Prove entropy
wrong, and the whole science goes topsy turvy. I think that entropy in
itself is proof that God lives. If we were part of our own creation, then
we should be able to fix our own mistakes. But if God made us and the
whole world we live on, then things will fall apart--things that we ourselves
can't fix. That's life as we know it. Imagine a building you've created out
of building blocks. You can fix it if you tip it over. But if you break
the wall of a complex building that an architect designed, you have to hire out
to fix it. Same thing with the whole world... and our souls.
Also, here are some questions that
I'll be studying this week, if you'd like to join me :)
God cannot condemn us for
ignorance. But we will remain ignorant until we seek knowledge. If God
force feeds us spiritual truths, faith becomes impossible. We will never
trust in Him enough to follow Him. So why can God hold us
responsible for not seeking?
Theory:
Everyone has (or will have after
China opens):
1) A need for the Savior and His
church
--How do our experiences lead us to
recognize this need?
--Why do some people deny it?
2) The word of God.
Love,
Sister Carter
[I had written to Danielle: "So
now Mo wants to come, but it might be too late to get her passport and visa in
time. Can you believe that Cass doesn't want to come because she would miss two
of her track meets?!" This was her reply...]
Try to take Mo if you can! Cassie is a loser, knew it all along.
And, yes, you can rent temple clothing
at the Sao Paulo temple. But, unfortunately, I can't go swimming, which makes
Rio a lot lamer. We would pretty much just travel several hours to see Christ
(the statue one), and then get robbed. So maybe let's stick to Sao Paulo. SP
usually has some good shows or something (music and dance should be enjoyable
in any language), and there's a lot of parks, museums, a big zoo, and some good
hiking in ABC. I'm pretty sure there's also a bairro in SP that is made for
giants--as in everything there is ten times bigger than normal. Yeah, not sure whose idea that was, but sounds
fun, right? Also do you want to learn capuera?
Unfortunately samba is out of the question for missionaries too.
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