Chile Con Carlie: Only 7 weeks from call to departure!

Departure: May 21, 2013

Set apart ... Monday, May 20, 2013

Claire and Carlie's mission 'farewell' Sunday, May 19, 2013

Wow, that was really pretty and now I’m going to bawl.

I was talking to a man on the airplane on the way back from my flight and he had a couple of complaints about the church. One of them is that we do not have a hook to drag people off the stage when they are talking too long and the other is that we don’t get to clap after a musical number like that. And I think I have those same complaints today.

I am really grateful to be talking here today. Thank you for the musical number and don’t you just love Claire, she is so great. You just can’t help but feel just happy when you are around her and I am so grateful that I was able to grow up with her.

OK, so for those of you who do not know me, my name is Carlie Webb. I grew up in this ward. And

the last three years I have been learning how to be a teacher at Utah State and I love it. It’s really beautiful because as you learn how to become a good teacher for students for when you say things like how to find the area of a rectangle you learn what a perfect teacher the Savior is. He’s got a really good lesson plan for me about hope in Christ, and I think this is part of it.

I am going to Santiago, Chile in two days, the countdown is on. I am so excited I cannot wait! It is going to be so great.

It’s kind of funny because Claire told a story that is really similar to my first story so sorry, you will have to bear with me. Mine is a little different because I was grumpy, I was mad about life. I came to the conclusion like many of us have and I’ll probably come to this conclusion many more times just like I have many times before that life is hard. Something really hard had happened to me and I had a couple of friends that just had some really hard things happen to them also. And so I was grumpy about it and I was kind of complaining about it to a couple of my friends as I was walking out of class and one of them just stopped, turned around and looked at me and said “You know what Carlie? Life is hard” and she had every right to say that because I’ve never heard of a life as hard as hers. This friend I just can’t even – as soon as she gets up one trial another one knocks her over. And so she said “ you are right, life is hard” and then she stopped and she smiled and with a lot of sincerity in her voice she said, “But I am happy” and it just really hit me and took me back. Why, she doesn’t have a ton of reasons to be happy and at that point she had not very many. And so I started thinking about, why are you happy?

I am sure you guys have heard this story but I love this story. I do not know if it is a joke or whether it actually happened. A little boy in primary class was asked by his primary teacher, “What’s brown, collects nuts for the winter and is furry”. And the little boy said, “I know the answer is Jesus, but it sure sounds a lot like a squirrel to me”. I love that story because little kids are so much smarter than us. And he was right, the answer to all important questions is our Savior. And so the answer to my question is, my Savior. Why are we happy? … because of Jesus Christ.

John Valjean in the play Les Mis, in the most exciting part of the play sings the words:

My soul belongs to God I know I made that bargain long ago

He gave me hope when hope was gone

He gave me strength to journey on.

So I started to think about this hope in Christ which is the topic today. In Ether 12:4 it says, “Wherefore whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world”. And so I started thinking about this better world, what does it mean to have a better world?

Leave it to my little sister to answer the question. My little sister, when she was twelve, was diagnosed with cancer. After beating it twice, because she’s awesome, she decided to start writing a book. And in her book she wrote, “My idea of what happily-ever-after is was the first and most important thing to change” after she got cancer. “I quickly figured out that it isn’t the end of your story or something you have to wait for, but it is something that can happen now. I learned it doesn’t have much to do with glass slippers or castles, but has everything to do with knowing your Heavenly Father knows me and loves me, having the most amazing family on the planet, and laughing more than crying.” which I fought because I love to cry.

She, I love my little sister, and I am so grateful for the book that I finally got the courage to read a little while ago. I believe that because of our hope in Christ we can have a happily-ever-after now. I don’t think we need to wait. Of course there are some things we have to wait for. A little while after Lauren started this book she passed away. I have to wait to see her again, and that sucks, but I have a testimony and a hope in Christ that I can live a lot of those things I hope for now.

So I started thinking about why I hope in Christ and why He makes my world a better world.

And, of course, the answer is the atonement and I started thinking about all the reasons why the atonement makes my world a better world and all of the reasons why the atonement gives me hope.

The first thing I thought of was the classic one we think of, it’s great – I have hope in Christ cause’ I know He can make me clean. I just took the sacrament and I made a covenant with God again that I would try again to be, to choose the right and to not sin.

In Isaiah 1:18 the Savior says, speaking through Isaiah, He says, “Come now, and let us reason together, . . .: though your sins be as scarlet, they . . . can as white as wool”. I have hope that the Savior can make me clean. I have hope that the Savior can sanctify me. He’s not just going to get rid of my sins, He is going to make me a better person. I can be like him. This is my dad’s favorite thing to talk about, he loves talking about making me clean and making me holy.

C.S. Lewis said, talking as if he was the Savior, “Give me all of you!!! I don’t want so much of your time, . . . your talents and your money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. . . . give me yourself and I will make of you a new self- - - in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will shall become your will. My heart shall become your heart”.

I have hope in Christ that he can sanctify me and make me holy.

I know I have already touched on this one a little bit, but I have hope in Christ that he can make my family eternal. I LOVE my family more than anything in the world. They mean everything to me and I am so grateful that I have the hope every day, that I am sealed to them FOREVER. And I get to enjoy that hope every day. And even though part of my family is on the other side of the veil, I still have that hope and that blessing of a family that is forever and I thank my Savior for that. I have hope that He’ll make my family forever.

I have hope in my Savior that he can help me overcome everyday problems.

I feel like a lot of times we talk about the bigger things, overcoming sin, families that are forever and those are great and I love them and I will scream them on the rooftops, but it applies as we attempt to overcome everyday problems. In the middle of this year I started dating a really awesome kid, and it was great, but a little way into it I started freaking out. My friends will tell you, oh my gosh, my poor friends. Anyway, I just didn’t know what to do, and the joys of relationships in college, they’re fun. Anyway, so we finally decided that, because I was freaking this much, it was probably time to break up. It was good and it was a very good decision and it definitely was needed. The problem is he was so stinking good looking and I was so attracted to the kid’s face which causes issues especially when he lived so close by. You would think, that’s, like not such a problem right? It’s not something that you can go to the Savior and use the atonement on but I testify that you can. The Holy Ghost kept saying, “Ask God. Ask God”. And I just kept thinking, ‘I am not going to ask God to help me stop having a crush on a boy.’ That’s dumb, but it worked. I know that sounds so funny, but I have faith in the Savior to help me overcome those problems. And it goes for everything. That goes for when your second child goes pushing you to the point of (kkhhkk.) That goes to having a crazy hard test. I have faith that the Savior can help us overcome these problems.

I have faith in the Savior and hope that the Savior can help me overcome weakness. Cassidy, my roommate, will be the first to tell you that I am emotionally unstable. I like to cry, I like to freak out, and I am weak. I have lots of fun issues and I am going on a mission. I can’t wait because my Savior, my Savior’s grace is sufficient. And even though I am weak and I like to cry and I mess up and I feel totally inadequate, my Savior’s grace is sufficient. In Ether 12:27 it says, “If men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them”. I am so grateful that my Savior will help me overcome weakness.

The Savior will help us overcome addiction. I think all of us are addicted to something. Obviously there are some of us who are addicted to things that need the Bishop’s office like pornography and alcohol and drugs. But I think that we’re all addicted to other things also: Facebook, guilt, food, attention, gossip. There is a list that could go on forever. Satan’s really good … and Lehi talks about the chains that come and hold us bound.

I have faith and I have hope in my Savior that he can help me break those chains. It is very interesting to talk to my sister that is going into psychiatric nursing and she talks about how the world doesn’t see change as a very possible thing. She helps people overcome addictions to drugs and it’s hard. People don’t think people can change. It’s so beautiful to talk to my dad who is the Bishop who watches people change every day. And I don’t know any specifics, but I know he has a testimony of change because he sees it, because the atonement is real and we can overcome those chains that hold us bound.

I have a testimony of the Savior can help me with unbelief. Ever since I was a little girl I was so excited to go upstairs in the temple. It was always the joke, I was so mad because I got banished to the basement. I had to go on a mission or get married so I could go upstairs. So like the day of the temple finally came. I mean like there was a countdown, I was so excited. I got there and I freaked out. The temple is a wonderful place, it is beautiful. But you have to be ready to think on a lot higher level than I was ready to think on, and it freaked me out. And it’s so beautiful because a couple of months before that Elder Holland gave this really awesome talk that I thought was good, but I moved on, about unbelief. Here it is, here is God’s scaffolding for me when I needed it. In Elder Holland’s talk he talks about the story of a man who brought his son forward to the Savior and said, “If you have mercy on us, please heal my son”. The Savior said, “If you can believe, then I can heal your son”. And it says in the Scriptures that straightway the father answered and said, “Oh Lord, I believe; help though my unbelief”. And Elder Holland says in response to this still partial faith the Jesus heals the boy almost literally raising him from the dead.

I really had a hard time with the Temple, but I can stand in front of you today and tell you that I know that it is the house of the Lord. I don’t get anything that goes on in there, but I testify that it is the house of the Lord. It’s so funny because my belief is so partial, but I have hope in Christ and He makes my belief enough and I can go to Santiago and I can tell people that it’s true and I can do it with all of my heart because my Savior’s grace is sufficient for me and I have hope in God for that.

Finally I have hope in God, in my Savior, that He can help me love. My whole life I’ve grown up learning how to love. I’ve learned to love as a daughter, as a sister, as a ward member, as a neighbor, as a girlfriend, as a friend, as a teacher. I’ve learned to love people around me. But they’ve all been people that I know and people that, my friend and I were talking about this, it’s usually kind of a conditional love. But now I get to go to Santiago and I love them. They don’t do anything to make me love them, but I love them. I don’t even know them and I am so excited to go and tell them that families are forever and that Jesus loves them.

I know that my Savior is giving me that love. I have hope in Christ that he can give me that love and I am so grateful for it.

I testify that our happily-ever-after can be now. My little sister found that in the middle of Chemo, radiation, throwing up and everything in between. I know, granted that our Savior …. there are some things that we have to wait for and I understand that. But, you don’t have to wait until you are dead to get to happily-ever-after. You can have it now.

I’m so grateful the Savior helps me overcome sin. I’m grateful that He helps me become a better person. I’m grateful that He sealed my family together for-ever! I’m grateful that He can help me overcome everyday problems. I’m grateful that He can help me overcome weakness and addiction. I’m grateful that even when I don’t fully understand something, His grace is sufficient to fill my partial belief.

And finally I’m grateful that He has granted me this ability to love. My family has talked to me about this … loving hurts! It’s hard sometimes. It’s hard when my mom loves me. I’m her baby and she has to say goodbye to me. It’s funny because it hurts, but she always says I am so privileged to love, and I’m so grateful for the privilege to love. I’m grateful for the privilege it is to be a member of this church. I testify it is true and I challenge you do not wait to get rid of those addictions, to be made happy in your families, to get rid of your sins and become sanctified in our Savior. I’m so grateful for Him, He means everything to me. He is my best friend and I cannot wait to go and introduce the Savior to the people of Santiago, Chile. What a blessing it is to be in His hand and be His tools. I’m so thankful for all of you coming. Thank you so much. It’s so fun to sit out and just think of all the things I’ve learned from each of you. I truly have been so blessed and I really do love each of you and I say these things humbly and gratefully in the name of our Savior and our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, amen.