Incredible! 9/20/10

I'm not sure how or why it has happened but the Lord has seen fit to call me to serve in BOSTON as a missionary... Sister Porters most favorite city in the entire world (besides Hong Kong)!!!

On Monday morning the Temple Square mission called 26 sisters up to read their outbound calls. These calls come straight from the missionary department and are made in the exact same fashion as our first mission call. We were given an envelope and then had to wait while the sisters play a bunch of silly games. When the time came to read our calls I couldn't sit still as I waited to open mine!! Sister Cheng opened hers and yelled. BOSTON! I got teary thinking of her going there. Then it came to me and while standing in front of the mission I opened the letter. COMPLETE SHOCK!! I could barely speak as I said Massachusetts Boston mission.

So the next 2 days were just a blur as we continued being missionaries and prepared to fly out. My flight to Boston was wonderful as the Lord placed amazing people in my path to meet and teach. I stepped off the plane and there is Jodi Cantrell right there waiting for me! She kept saying "you were sent here for me" haha while I was thinking the opposite because I need her more than ever!
The mission president picked us up and drove us to the apartment in Arlington where I met my new amazing companion Sister Stevens from California. She is wonderful! Then she told me we are over the Charles River Ward, one of the singles wards. So good. Our first day as we did some planning I soon realized that the sisters had not been having much success in this area. We do have one girl with a tentative baptismal date and another we are teaching but doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. I tried to figure out why we weren't teaching more people and sisters Stevens just said that couldn't find anyone.
The hard part is that we can only teach woman who are 31 and older because that is the ward we are over. She said they had been searching and searching for the last 6 weeks but couldn't find. I looked at her planner and saw that they had hardly planned anything at all for their days..... not ok. This is her 2nd transfer and last transfer her trainer had only been out for a month, so they had been learning together. I have taught her that we needed to have a plan and backup plan for every half hour of the day. This is an act of faith so that the Lord can send people to those areas.

Our first 2 days we taught 20 lessons and received 15 phone numbers, mostly from riding around on the train and buses.. haha. The majority of those numbers we have had to pass on to other missionaries because they are not in our ward :( BUT it's ok because we still found them and they will be taught. We did find 3 new investigators though and have already had a few lessons with them also. I am THRILLED! It may take us a while to get going. Instead of being upset that we can't teach those people we found I have just decided that out of a city of 8 million people I'm sure there are many that we can find for our ward.. it's not going to be easy at all. And along the way we will just bless the other missionaries with more referrals... they might get sick of our referrals and just ask us to teach them.. that's the secret plan! te hehe

So all is well here in Boston! Yesterday we went to the singles ward. We had 2 people we found that we had to bring to the University Ward so we got to meet them at the train and then walk with them to church. It was HILARIOUS for me to be back in my singles ward... really so funny. I sat in the back and if someone turned around and saw me they just would have the weirdest look on their face. As tradition during the first few weeks of school the new people stand and introduce themselves at the end of sacrament meeting. I got up the nerve to stand up and everyone turned around. I just said "I know you are all wondering why I am here! I am here as a missionary don't worry! , I was transferred for a few months and then will be finishing at Temple Square so you will be seeing me around..." it was really funny and my companion said my face had just turned bright red... ya.
My favorite was talking to some guys like Brandon Hopkins who said it was just really awkward. haha! I told him don't worry I'm still the same person, just with a different purpose ...

Anyway.. I'm happy to be here. There is an incredible work here for me to do. I am still shocked but I have realized that I am still a missionary and I can't let anything distract me while I'm here. I am so grateful that the Lord has called me here and I want to be as obedient and hard working as possible because there are SO MANY people that need to be found! Love you all! Pray for the people in Boston to open their hearts and minds.. in just a few days we have already seem so many miracles!

Sister Carly Jo Porter