10-13-14

Hola mi familia GUAPA!!!!!!

How are you all today?  I am doing really great!  I just sent you all those pics, I hope you are able to open them all :)  Wow....so much to say and where to start I don´t know, but I´ll start :)

First of all.......one of the number one reasons I love Hermana Mather SOO much...she listens to Christmas music with me!!!  YAY!!!  We LOVE Christmas music and it just makes us happy :)

Also, Heidy Kartchner is going to Pennsylvania!!!!!!  I just got her letter in the mail this last week!  She wrote me forever ago, and I have never written her back!  Heidy....wherever you are, I hope you read this.  I am SOOOOOO EXCITED for you!!!!  Congratulations!  You are going to LOVE being a missionary!  And you are going to be an amazing one!  Thank you for writing me!  I will try writing you back soon :)

Also....did Tiffany have her baby yet?  I´ve been meaning to write her too forever now.  Ahh.....I´m a real bad letter writer....Perdón Tiff!  I am so happy for you though, send me pics!

Also...funny story I forgot to tell you guys....so our ward mission leader, Santi, he´s a really funny guy :)  I don´t know if I ever told ya this, but he only has one arm and he always teaches the Gospel Principles Class on Sunday.  Anyway....the other day, we were sitting in Correlacion meeting and he told us about how he was getting ready for Gospel Principles the other day....picture this......one-armed Santi, making a copy of the lesson from his book, sitting in the Sauna, studying with all the other non-members in the Sauna.....THE SAUNA!  Oh he´s so funny :)  We died laughing when he told us that :)  I think it´s one of those things that you had to be there for.

So, this movie....Meet the Mormons.  Wow!  It sounds wonderful!  I´ll have to ask if we can watch that here.  I´d love to see it and I´m sure it is such a great tool for missionary work.  And the Phoenix Temple is finally up and ready to go!  Wow.  Ahh....I can´t wait to go there, and to the Gilbert Temple when I go back.  And then they´re building one in Tucson too, right?  Wow, the church has been growing in Arizona!  What a blessing to have so many temples so close.  

Ok....well, update on the investigators....lots to update.

So, we had scheduled the baptism for Antonia, Fran and Aarón for the 25th of October, but in the last lesson we had with them, we talked about the Word of Wisdom, La Palabra de Sabiduria.  It was really difficult for Antonia to think about giving up drinking coffee, tea or wine.  This last week, we tried meeting with them several times and every time Antonia said that she couldn´t meet.  The other day we ran into her 3 times with her husband within the same day!  She told us that her husband has had time off recently and that he wants her to be at home with him....she´s also starting a new job and taking an official English class somewhere.  We´ve been really sad, she was loving coming to church and really sincerely wanted to learn, but her husband hasn´t been accepting of all of this change.  He has never met with us and has never wanted to, but continued to let Antonia and her 2 sons come (Fran and Aarón).  Since teaching her about the Word of Wisdom, we think that her husband has convinced her that she doesn´t need the church and because of that she has been avoiding us.  It´s been really sad, but we realize that maybe it´s not her time yet.  She´s been taught so much, but the true change comes as we are willing to make commitments faithfullly and obediently, because we know that these commandments are counsels that come from our Father in Heaven.  He created the world, the universe, our spirits...He knows all and knowing that, why wouldn´t we trust him and live according to his commandments?  It´s been a hard change for Antonia to make.  

I´ve just been thinking alot about the nature of God.  So many people here don´t believe in God at all.  They sometimes believe that there is something out there, some big energy that we can´t explain.  But, how do we KNOW that there is a God?  It´s a good question that people ask us all the time.  Just last week, we met an older Spaniard woman on a bench, named Maria Louisa.  We talked with her for a little while and found out that 2 years prior to that time, she had been completely atheist.  We asked her, how on earth did you go from not believing in anything, to all of a sudden believing in God?  She told us a little bit about her background....but it wasn´t until a few days ago that we found out that a couple of years ago, she had been taken to jail because of a fine that she did not pay.  We didn´t really understand exactly what it was, but I guess she had had a court date given to her, to go and pay this fine of some sort, but she didn´t know about the date to go and so she didn´t go....for one reason or another, because she did not know that she had to pay it, they took her to jail and she was there for 2 years, feeling completely wronged, not understanding why something this serious could happen to her.  She had a 12 year old daughter that was taken away from her and who then had to live in a care center.   She told us that during that time, she went into a huge depression, she felt so alone, and did not understand why her daughter was taken away from her and why this had to happen to her.  She then told us that one of the greatest things that she learned from that experience was that she came to know who God really was and that he really did exist.  She knew that she would not have come to know God had she not had to experience all of that injustice.  She knew that during that time, God helped her through it all, that God was the one who helped her feel peace when she felt so desperately alone and helpless.  

A couple days later we met with her again.  We had given her a book of mormon 5 days prior to that and told her to begin reading it.  The FIRST thing she said to us when we met that day was that she absolutely LOVED the Book of Mormon and that she had been reading it more than she had been sleeping!  She was already in Mosiah Chapter 10!!!!!!!!  Hermana Mather and I just looked at eachother and thought....seriously? This is too good to be true?  A SPANIARD who didn´t believe in God just 2 years ago and after having such a horrific experience in jail, was now telling us that the Book of Mormon had already changed her life!  She absolutely loved it and was so grateful to have met us!  We took her to the church to give her a tour of the church....when we showed her the room where the baptismal font was, she just looked at us in awe.  She saw a painting of the Savior in the Garden of Getsemani and just was in awe.  She asked us, "Why didn´t I meet you 2 years ago when I was coming out of jail?"  She couldn´t stay for long, so we told her that we would meet the next day and that we could talk more about the Book of Mormon and the Church the next time.  She left and we just thought....WHAT?  Did that REALLY just happen?  That had to have been too good to be true IN SPAIN of all places where the majority of the people don´t believe in God.  But, it really did happen.  It was proof that the Lord REALLY is preparing the hearts and the minds of His children to receive His glorious Gospel.  It gave me another glimplse of the love that the Savior had for each one of us as He atoned for us, He not only atoned for the consequences that come as a result of our sins and our mistakes, he atoned and makes up for all of the pain we feel from the unpleasant things that happen to us over the span of our lives, whether it is pain that comes as a result of our own choices, or pain that comes as a result of the choices of others, He suffered for it.  Through his atonement, he satisfied the demands of both justice AND mercy.  Maria Louisa was only able to tap into that love that the Savior has for her as a result of the injustice that happened to her.  That is how she came to know that God is God, that God really did send his son, Jesus Christ, to make up the difference for all of the hard things that happen in this life. 

 I loved what Elder neil L. Anderson said in conference about opposition (I think it was him that said it.)  But he asked the question, why does God allow opposition in this life?  He then answered, "Opposition is allowed by God to send honest seekers of truth to their knees to search for answers."  Spiritual questions deserve spiritual answers.  God wants to give each of us these answers.  We have to understand his loving nature, that He is our Father, just like we have parents on the earth.  We have Heavenly Parents, they love us dearly, they want to help us and bless us with more than we can imagine.  They have given us the Gospel here on the earth, to bless us and give us the understanding that we need to return back to them, to live in their presence.  Each one of us asked for the privilege of coming here to the earth to have a challenging mortal, human experience.  Now we´re here and the Lord wants us to know that He´s still there for us.  

I´m so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know that it is the same Gospel that Jesus Christ himself established on the earth, that we have the Priesthood authority of God on the earth.  I know that Joseph Smith was called of God to restore Christ´s church in this final dispensation of time and I know that through him, we have the Book of Mormon, the Book of scripture written by ancient prophets in the Americas.  I know that the Book of Mormon truly does testify of Christ and that all of the prophets that wrote in it wanted US to know of the reality of Christ as the Savior and Redeemer of the world.  I know that we now have a living prophet on the earth today, President Thomas S. Monson, who guides and directs Christ´s church on the earth today with this Priesthood Authority that comes directly from God.  I know that each of us can know this for ourselves, that as we ask God for ourselves, He will answer us and tell us if these things are true.  I know that the Spirit testifies of all of these truths to our hearts, it is through the Holy Ghost that we know all of these things.  It is the mission of the Holy Ghost to guide and direct us.  What a blessing that is!  

I love you all dearly :)  I hope you have the greatest week ever!  I am loving being here with Hermana Mather!  She´s like another sister and I am so grateful for her love and for her faith.  I am learning so much from her EVERY day.  

Love ya!

Hermana Carroll