The promises we have are real!!

Carlie just received the sad news that her Grandpa Tom was tragically killed in a car accident this last week.

As the very fortunate adopted children and grandchildren of our beloved Tom and Cathy,

we salute in loving honor and memory, the heart of gold inside this contagious man.

Who else could have that smile on his face and "Bah Humbug" (Certified 100% Scrooge) on his shirt!?

Only Tom.  'Something else again!!'

Until we meet again ....

Hey!

I love you all a lot! 

I definitely was not very happy to get the news of Grandpa.  I am really, really sad.  I love him!  I miss him already!  It was so sudden!  I love Grandma Cathy so much.  We sure are lucky to have those people in our lives!  I could not be more grateful to have them as my grandma and grandpa.  Their examples of courage and faith in our God have given me so much strength.  What would we have done without our sweet stories and memories of grandpa Tom?  I have very fond memories of him telling the story of Lauren kicking him in the belly and his sweet horsey laugh.  I know that my testimony of eternal families is going to be even more earnest and even more sincere!  Since I know I am supposed to be here, I am going to tell even more people that families are forever.  I don´t really have anything else except a whole boat load of love, and faith that the promises we have are real!

This week was full of miracles!  God is good!  Even though this life is really hard and there are so many broken things, God can and is healing all! 

 

We have some awesome investigators! Rodrigo was baptized yesterday and it was awesome.  It was on his birthday so that made it even more fun.  He turned 11.  The water heater was broken so the poor kid had to be baptized in ice cold water but he was a good sport.   We gave him the option to wait but he did not want to.  We ate dinner with his family afterwards, and our work with them is not done! They are a sweet family and I really want this baptism to be the first step of having the Lord more in their lives.  Rodrigo is a great example for all of them.

Vania is our next baptism and she is ready!  I am so excited for her!  Her smile gets bigger and brighter every time I see her!  I love her and her family so much!  This has now been seven days that Paula has not smoked!  It is amazing how many beautiful miracles are happening in their family!  I pray every day that they will continue!  I want their entire family to have the blessings of this gospel! I just love them more and more every day.  Their entire family has hearts of gold.  I am usually actually pretty patient with my lack of Spanish except when I find I can´t express my love for them. They are making so many beautiful changes! 

We have been blessed with a lot of beautiful investigators.  The bad news of the week is Isidora asked us to give her a little break.  She is not sure how she is feeling.  We are so frustrated because she keeps coming to us with questions that are so obviously not hers but her parents.  I am really hoping to work with her parents this week.  She has a testimony but she just can´t do it without her family. 

I have others but I am kind of waiting for them to start progressing before I write about them ... is that cool?

I have not written a "pulling a Carlie" for a while so here are two this week.  It rained pretty hard one day and when I walked into my apartment that night I announced to the other sisters that I was very purple (mohado and morado are very similar words;)) and then to make things better in a very spiritual part of a lesson when I went to read a scripture,  I started reading in English and did not realize it until someone stopped me.  Sometimes I follow along in English so I can have a good bearing of what is going on and I had forgotten they were in English.  So many palabras in me mente y no puedo tell which palabras son en inglese and which ones are in Spanish! 

I love you all a lot!  I am almost out of time.  Sorry this one was really short.  We are back to two in our companionship now.  My companion se va on Wednesday.  I was super bummed!  You guys have no idea how much I love her!  That is okay though because she was pretty excited to get to her actual mission.  I don´t blame her.  I would feel the same. 

To answer questions about how I get around -- it is practically always walking. We have a little sector that takes probably three hours to walk across.  I have never been to the top of our sector though so it is not like we walk the length of it in a day.  We spend most of our time in the valley.  My area is really really similar to Salt Lake.  All of the rich people live at the top.  We don't usually contact up there so we are only up there if we have a cita.  I eat rice EVERY DAY. (Yes, that to me is a sign that God loves me.)  I am not tired of it yet!  My sector is this odd mix of Utah, (the mountains and who lives where and the stores) California, (the weather and the palm trees) and South America (of course the language and the dogs.)  I think that was it.  I love you all!

Love Carlie