06-09-14 Repentence

                Here is a heartwarming Thai commercial

Dear Family and friends!

I want you all to know that I love you all so very much. I love hearing from you and I love all the cool exciting announcements with my cousins getting their mission calls! Congrats Tiani and Tyler! You are so awesome! 

A lot has happened this week. I have learned how to get around places more easily and how to get on and off my bike 10x faster too. I've unfortunately gotten food poisoning twice this week. It wasn't very fun. I figured out that it was from this restaurant by the church. Let's just say that I will never be eating there again. 

We were able to meet this man named ใช (chai) and he met with us the next day. He accepted a baptismal date and even met with us the next day. Brother Nick helped fellowship him and be his friend. He is an awesome guy. Chai even went to church and he is set on being baptized this coming week. I am so happy. I feel so much love for this knew brother. Even though Chai works for an alcoholic company, he is willing to keep all the commandments and make so many sacrifices. This is what missionary work is all about. If you can feel the spirit working through you and your investigators, you are doing something right. 

Yesterday we had Zone Conference in Udorn. It was a two hour bus drive and we got to stay in hotels on Sunday night. The next day, Zone conference got started off by a Thai missionary reciting D&C 4 in English. He practiced so hard and he struggled remembering the words. It was amazing how the rest of us Elders and Sisters were sitting in the pews and cheering him on. I found myself smiling and nodding whenever he got a word right. Many people, including myself were mouthing the words. When he finally finished, we all clapped and cheered for him. It's incredible to find myself with so many supportive people for this Thai Elder. I just wanted to give him the happiest hand shake! Haha! We later found out that while on his mission, his mother was converted and he was able to go down and baptize her. There were tears in his eyes as he bore his testimony in Thai about how God is a God of miracles. 

The rest of the conference, I felt the spirit so strongly. We were given training on how we need to be in line with the Lord just as the Godhead are in perfect unity. We need to emphasize to our investigators that God is their Heavenly Father and He loves them. He is a God of flesh and bone, He is merciful, patient, and never changing. 

Also, I was able to receive a lot of revelation about repentance. In the Bible Dictionary it says:

Repentance:

The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. Since we are born into conditions of mortality, repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God, and a renunciation of sin to which we are naturally inclined. Without this there can be no progress in the things of the soul’s salvation, for all accountable persons are stained by sin and must be cleansed in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Repentance is not optional for salvation; it is a commandment of God 

Too often, I will teach repentance like a check list. I will say, oh, you need to recognize you did something wrong, feel bad, confess your sins, correct it, don't do it again, and continue to keep the commandments. While that is all true, I have realized repentance is an actual change of heart, and mind. It's a willingness to turn back towards God and want to serve him. God sent us here to Earth so that we can learn to be like Him. He gives us commandments so that we can accomplish that. Whenever we go against what God commands of us, we are turning away from Him. Whenever we have the desire to not only correct our mistake, but to willingly follow Him and BE like him, that's what true repentance is all about.

Sister Senior did an excellent training on "remembering" the hand of God in your life. I want to start writing in my journal all the little miracles that God has granted me. In the hymn, Come Thou Fount, the second verse relates to 1 Samuel chapter 7 when the prophet Samuel sets an "Eben-ezer" in the middle of two valleys to show that God had delivered them from the Philistines. A lot of Old Testament prophets would use physical objects to show their gratitude for their God and that their posterity would never forget either. 

Come thou fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing thy grace

Streams of mercy never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

I'll praise the mount I'm fixed upon it

Mount of thy redeeming love

Here I raise my Ebenezer

Hither by thy help I come

And I hope by thy good pleasure

Safely to arrive at home

Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wondering from the fold of God

He, to rescue me from danger

Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!

Let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above

I love this song. I love you all and I pray for you!

Love, 

Sister Carter

We went contacting and saw these cute dinosaur bushes! 

: Elder Schmitz trying on my new glasses I bought for biking at night (bugs get in my eyes all the time)    

Elder Chambers and his recent convert, Brother Nick. I love these Elders and this Brother!

Elder Harris and Barffus' investigators and recent converts

Sister Broeder and I had fun trying out a mud mask from seven eleven. It was so much fun and my face feels smoother and cleaner!

Me being silly at a sushi place last Monday

Me under a table... I got food poisoning and I was in a fetal position all day!

Me in a duk-duk squished with my district! It was so crazy!