Find 11/15/10

(Sorry that these last 4 posts were delayed - Carly's dad and I have been out of town for a month and of course the computer went down as soon as we left so Denver or Catie couldn't post for me. So now we are up to date again! Carly is having a great time in Boston - she will be sad to leave next week, but also very happy to heading back to Salt Lake to finish things up! :)

Find find find find find... That's what we do!

My time in Boston is running low... sadness. But everything is going really well and I am very very happy :) We went on many splits this last week with some members and had some great experiences. Erica Glenn and I went walking down to the Boston Public gardens on Saturday afternoon and it was beautiful outside! There were so many people out everywhere.I told her we have to use our gift of discernment and then we found some really great people! We talked to a woman from Iran who doesn't believe in God, but does believe in a higher power. She had been through so much in life and was happy to be back in Boston reflecting on her many blessings. She wasn't ready for the Gospel but she did tell us that she was grateful to meet us and spend some time with us. On our way back we met a woman from Ukraine where Erica had served her mission! Ya.. so that was cool too.

Last night Sister Stevens and I went out with Alison Minor a member in the LP1 ward. She served her mission in Tennessee a few years ago. I cannot say how grateful I am for our time with her. She talked to EVERYONE. We were walking and there were 2 girls probably 15 feet in front of us walking towards us, she waves and says " Hi hi how are you! I am here with my 2 friends and they have a message to share with you!" They got to us and kind of laughed but said sure they would listen. Together we taught them the restoration and first vision. We asked them a lot of questions about their own lives and belief in God. The spirit was so strong as we testified to them that Christ's church had been restored. it was the COOLEST conversation. They told of us of how they were looking for a church to go to and not quite sure about things in their lives. Wahhh the spirit was so strong! I was so happy! We got their information and asked them to pray that night to know that the things we had taught them were true. We closed with a prayer and gave them hugs... soooooo wonderful. cool.

Nikia and Alice both didn't show up to church yesterday which equals buuuuummer. We were a little bit happy though because relief society was a little on the strange side and would have thrown them off. We are hoping to see them sometime soon this week. Please pray for them and that they will continue meeting with us! I think both of them are little bit nervous about change and commitment. People need to just chillax and get baptized. We are teaching another girl Jessica who has been coming to church for 2 years! Her dad just joined the church last year and it took him 15 years to get baptized. ya... weird. We hope to help figure it out with Jessica also. Alice is scheduled to be baptized on Dec. 5. I think that it will happen as long as she keeps meeting with us and praying. Common Alice!!! I'm not so sure about Nikia. She feels the spirit so strong and just cries every time we meet with her. She is so beautiful and knows that the church has everything she has ever wanted or needed. I think she is just scared of change. She admires us a lot and feels like she can never get to our point. We are praying the she will feel the love of Heavenly Father and realize that getting baptized is the right thing to do.

We are happy though and continue meeting with other people throughout the week! We have had many first lessons, it is just difficult getting people to church because they all work on Sundays. It will happen though in the Lord's timing. We just do all that we can and then let the Lord take over :)

The church is true

With Love- Sister Porter

Investigators 11/8/10

The Lord really blessed us this week! We had brought our dear friend Alice to church last week and she seemed to like it. Because of health problems we had lost contact with her since I first got to Boston. We set up a time and met with her last Friday. She was struggling to understand that God could really love her, because she has grown up with an abusive father. Her idea of a "Heavenly Father" is hard for her to comprehend, she relates better to a motherly figure. But after our lesson she seemed to feel better about the idea and felt the spirit very strongly. We invited her to be baptized December 5th and she said YES! She came to church again yesterday and we will be meeting with her this week. I just cried Friday night as I realized how much I love Alice and am feeling God's love for her. If anyone has ideas on how we could help her know that God loves her, suggestions are greatly appreciated! :)

Okay Nikia is back in the picture! You may remember that I emailed about her about a month ago. She came from a member friend of hers and we had a great lesson with her. Well I called her early last week and let her know about some dinners we would be going to at members' home and she was welcome to come. She ended up coming with us to dinner at Jodi Cantrell's on Sat. night and it was so perfect. Jodi was so kind in helping her feel welcome and normal. We ate pizza and then Nikia just opened up and told us pretty much her life story about finding God. She has always sought to be christian but has had so many bad experiences in other churches, she always admired the Mormon's for actually living what we believe. She got emotional as she bore powerful witness of how the Lord has helped her life since that first Sunday she came to church. She finally got a job, she felt healthier happier and stronger, and her house is clean! She was just beaming with joy and knew this was where the Lord needed her. Anyway, I could go on and on about her. She is so appreciative of us in how we have helped her gain more confidence, I'm just like... umm I don't know who your talking about.. haha. She is so sweet though! She came to dinner with us last night as well. LOVE HER!!!

So yes.. missionary life is good. We had our zone conference last week in beautiful New Hampshire. It was fun to meet more missionaries. I was given the opportunity to sing "Face to Face" during a meeting and was so grateful! It is so fun for me to be a missionary here in Boston, I know that I say this all the time, but it is!! This last week we went on exchanges with Rori Glover and Katie Winder. Katie and I were walking down the streets talking to everyone, and went to visit our less active but wonderful friend Mary. Heavenly Father is really blessing me. I hope that we all recognize our blessings during whatever time of our lives it may be. I reminds me of Elder Hollands conference talk about gratitude. I think living a grateful life will bring us humility and the greatest joy.

Alright, I love you all. Thank you for your prayers. When I get tired, or even sometimes sick on the trains or buses, I remind myself of the many people praying for me and then I am revived!! haha I know... amazing.

-Sister Porter

oh and we also have another girl Kay who we will be teaching more this week. more about her later. :)

B is for Boston! 11/1/10

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE this city? So much! My two companions and I are having a blast running around the city and talking to as many people as we can. I have a few experiences to share.

On Saturday morning a ward from Vermont came down with their Young Woman to do an exchange with the sisters. We split up the Laurel class and each went out for a few hours with them. I was paired with Molly and we went out to visit some less actives in Cambridge. She was so adorable and had a million questions about missionary work, and she is obsessed with learning Chinese.. odd! The first home we went to was actually a wrong address but we had a wonderful conversation with another guy that lives there and he took the "Living Christ" and said he would read it. We were heading to the next house and passed two ladies probably in their 40s. I said Hi good morning pretty quickly and then felt I should stop and talk. I turned around and asked how their day was going. One of the ladies turned and said "We are gay, you don't like us, have a nice day" I quickly responded "no no no we would love to talk to you!" The conversation that followed was one like I had never had before! They had a few issues with the church and the spirit quickly prompted me to relate everything back to God's pure love for us as his daughters. I shared with them how we as missionaries simply seek to strengthen others' faith in Christ. Their faces began to brighten and we were able to share the Restoration with them. They were very grateful and said they were sorry for misunderstanding our belief. It was an incredible experience. Even though they are on a completely opposite path as I am, I felt SO much Christlike love for them and that God truly does know them.

We went downtown to meet with Katie Winder, a good friend of mine and a member in our ward. Our bus was late so we ended up just walking with her to her class at Boston Conservatory. While we were walking 2 guys stopped us, "Hey hey hey wait do you have a Book of Mormon we could have!?" My companion was holding one in her hand and said, "YES here!" We talked to these guys for a minute and they had been looking for a Book of Mormon all day and calling all these different numbers. One of them was going on a trip and he had promised his friend that he would read one! They were excited, we exchanged phone numbers and will follow up with them soon. It was so cool to see how they were literally placed in our path!

Just after dropping Katie off at school we were walking right by the school I attended before my mission, Berklee College of Music, and the sisters had to use the restroom. We went inside and I ran into one of my favorite teachers! The class I took from her was over 2 years ago and I was so happy that she remembered me. I explained that I'm a missionary now and that I would be back at school next summer. She said that she always knew there was something special about me and that now I looked very peaceful. Hah I told her that I probably was just exhausted...hah. It was a neat experience though to share with her how much my mission means to me!!! She is very anxious for me to come back to school as well, cool!

So everything is going well. We don't have too many people we are teaching right now. We have a few referrals that are taking some time to get a hold of, a lot of people just never call us back and it can be discouraging. Please pray that people will make time to meet with us! They just don't understand that their personal salvation is one the line :)

Love you all! Happy November! Woo!

-Sister Carly Jo Porter

"We can share the Gospel only to the extent we live it"

Changes and Members 10/25/10

Transfers happened last Thursday and I am now living in Brighton with Sister Stevens and Sister Heywood. We are serving over 2 singles wards now. I cannot even say how excited I am for this transfer. At first I was a little bit nervous about being in a trio, I think any missionary would be. But I must say that I have been extremely humbled by Sister Heywood. She has admitted that she was not so obedient the last few transfers and she really wants to change. So all together we are helping to uplift and strengthen one another. We have SO MUCH FUN. It is just so entertaining to have 3 of us talking to people and taking over the trains and buses. Really hilarious. Love it! It also is helpful because we can multi-task a lot of our work. We are able to split and go with members to appointments if we need to so we can get more work done!

We taught another lesson to Cierra and it went really well. She has been reading and praying and was saying that she doesn't feel that she gets any answers. We went over a few verses of Alma 32 with her and then we started to play "The Restoration" movie. The movie was going along and then about 30 seconds before the first vision the movie just shuts off! We tried starting it over and it wouldn't work. I was smiling but in my mind I was yelling at Satan for ruining such a spiritual moment, but it actually turned out really good! In the closing prayer she thanked Heavenly Father for allowing her to see a portion of this great movie and expressed her desire to finish watching it later. So she watched it online by herself that night and had a really good experience. Satan's plan backfired! Hah!

During our church meetings yesterday we split and I went with Jodi Cantrell to the Charles River ward and the other sisters went to LP1 because they meet at the same time in different buildings (I know so convenient right?). It was so great though because both meetings were so uplifting and we were able to share our experiences when we came back together.

MEMBER CHALLENGE!

We have been meeting with as many members as possible to get to know them, uplift them, and give them our 10 Day challenge. This is the challenge;

10 Day Missionary Challenge

1) Pray daily for specific opportunities

2) Pass out all 6 pass along cards ( included in the bag each w/ the missionaries' phone number on it)

3) Choose or find 3 people to invite to church and/or have the missionaries call

YOU CAN DO IT

"...perfect love casteth out all fear" Moroni 8:16

And YES we will follow up with you in 10 days '

Some members were excited and ready while many others were nervous and skeptical that they could commit to this challenge. We would just remind them that they covenanted with the Lord at baptism to share the Gospel and always be a witness of Jesus Christ. So YES they could do it. At church yesterday during relief society they had a missionary moment and many of the sisters stood to share of the amazing experiences they had been having! We are soooooooo happy about this! The members expressed that they didn't know they could do it and then they just tried, the opened their mouths. So many miracles all because of FAITH to ACT! We are not expecting every member to complete the challenge or invite everyone they know to church, (although one girl invited 8 of her coworkers:) but we just wanted them to stretch. When we set our goals HIGH.. then we can get somewhere.

So we will keep working with the members and finding along the way! We have been talking to lots of people, a few of which come to activities and to church, but we know that the members are the greatest source for the missionaries, the ones who will bring long lasting conversion to their friends and loved onces.

The church is TRUE!

With love Sister Porter

Sooooo Good 10/20/10

Saturday night we were on the bus and a girl gets on and says "hey are you girls Mormon?!" She sat down next to us and immediately started firing off a lot of questions she had. She came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it! She has so many questions about everything so we are trying our best to help her just study the very basics first, she is really cute though! Her name is Kristin and we will meet with her again soon.
Monday was incredible! We contacted a referral given to us by some Elders in the morning. Her name is Cierra and she welcomed us right in. We sat down and had a spirit filled 1st lesson with her. During her closing prayer she thanked God for sending us to her and said she couldn't wait to meet and talk about Jesus Christs Gospel again with us... heaven sent. We were having lunch with our relief society president when we got a call from a member Melissa Cannon who had a friend that was interested in visiting with us. We went over to her house and had another incredible lesson with Nikia. She was sooooo amazing! We actually had met her a few weeks earlier when she had come to church and when I saw her I really felt that I wanted and needed to teach her. She is 29, single, and full of life. She met Melissa originally at a gym and contacted her about a month ago telling her she wanted to come to her church. She has lots of really good questions, but we feel that she is very sincerely interested in the church. She gave the sweetest closing prayer as she thanked the Lord for all our blessings and said that even though we all have different lives and paths that the Lord brought us all here together, to help each other be more confident women. She left us the sweetest voicemail thanking us for helping her to become a more confident woman. We are VERY excited about her!!
Ok- right after this appointment we pretty much ran from Central Square back to Alston for our dinner appointment with Allen and Annie, two awesome members in our ward. They had invited Quinn over, who had previously investigated the church and has recently shown interest in coming back to church. We had a really nice lesson with him and the spirit seemed especially strong as Allen and Annie shared powerful testimonies of how the Gospel will bless and change his life for the good.
So ya... 3 new investigators in one day. The Lord is BLESSING us!!!

Tomorrow is our transfer day and Sister Stevens and I are being transferred. We are not sure what is going to happen though. We know that we are both moving to another apartment, we are not sure if we will still be together, or in a trio, or with new companions. There are only 2 other sisters being transferred as well, so the options are limited. Anyway, we will find out tomorrow morning! I'm a little bit sad to be moving out of Arlington, it is a beautiful town! Wherever I go though, I will make it the best! If I get a new companion then I know that that is what the Lord wants for me at this time. I can't believe that my time here in Boston is half way through. There is still so much work to do!

I love serving. I love that the Lord is so aware of us as 2 little missionarionaries out of more than 50,000 serving around the world. I love feeling the Spirit guide our words and actions in all that we do. I love meeting people, talking to them, and recognizing them as children of God. I love miracles.I LOVE missionary work!

-Sister Carly Jo Porter

Happy Day! 10/12/10

I am so excited to write about the coolest experience ever. On Saturday we went to teach a man named Jimmy who we had found in our area book. He had met some elders about 7 months ago at a train station and he gave them his number. For some reason the sisters never made contact with him. We had called him and he invited us over to share a message. We went to his apartment with a member in our ward and had an incredible lesson. Really so amazing!! He told us about many spiritual experiences he has been having in his life. He is from India and has a Hindu background. He used to weigh 300 pounds, his family wanted him to have surgery but he was determined to do it the right way. He felt God leading him to exercise and eat healthy and lost 150 pounds in 8 months! He moved to the US about 1 year ago and got a job here. His only knowledge of Christianity is from watching videos from some preacher on YouTube which he finds very entertaining. ahhh he is so wonderful! As we taught the first lesson he agreed with everything and really felt the spirit. We had him read the first vision out loud and he was getting all into it and using his hands to emphasize the bigger words. He looked up at us after he finished all out of breath and said, wow that's amazing! Near the end of the lesson I was trying to think of a date for him to be baptized and did the math for Nov. 7th. We extended it and he accepted to prepare himself for baptism! Such a tender mercy from the Lord. We taught him how to pray and he just started praying with his eyes open and more praying at us. It was so cute! It was his first time to pray and we were very proud of him. We will be meeting with him tomorrow. I know that the adversary is going to work very hard on him so please pray that he will have the strength to make the steps towards baptism. Woo!

Everything else with the work here is moving forward. We are still finding a lot everyday. We have some wonderful zone leaders Elder Buys and Elder Davies who work in the Arlington area. They only have had this one investigator who is not very hopeful, I started praying that we would find someone for them to teach. The next day on the T there was a man sitting across from me listening intently to a conversation I was having with this women. When she left I jumped up to go and talk to him. I found out that his ex-wife and all of his kids are members of the church in Florida. He loves the church and had gone for many years with her. After visiting for a minute I was so excited to tell him that it's time for him to meet missionaries again and for them to change his life. He just laughed, smiled, and said "wow God does answer my prayers". So I called the elders and gave them the referral and they have already been in contact with him! Tender mercies!! Sister Stevens and I are also trying to work with the members in our ward more. There are many that are less active or just struggling with their testimonies. We will be spending some more time visiting them and strengthening their faith. But for the active who do come to church we have no pity. We went in for the first few minutes of elders quorum and we told them that we as missionaries are here to teach and they as members are here to find... so start finding! I was pretty bold and just said that there is absolutely no excuse for them to say they are just "Working" on their friends (I hate that term by the way) but that the time is NOW and they have to open their mouths. I told them that the Lord would hold them accountable for it :) So little by little we are hoping for the members to step it up with us. It might take some time, but the Lord is helping me be patient.

Yesterday my companion and I had the chance to attend a session in the Boston temple. Wow it was so amazing! I felt so overwhelmed with gratitude as we sat in the celestial room. While sitting there I felt the Lord confirm to me that YES I am supposed to be here in Boston, not for one specific reason but probably for many small reasons, many of which I will probably never know of. I felt so much peace and a calming reassurance that the Lord is with me to guide me in all that I do and say.

I love this work! It's true!
With love- Sister Carly Jo Porter

Good times 10/4/10

Boston is finally becoming the Boston that I love... FALL! It has been really warm but these last few days are cooling off and we love it. We have had some really neat experiences this week so I will share a few of them.

So I guess the way I do missionary work is a lot different than the missionaries out here. Our numbers and the way we work has been attracting a lot of attention, some of it is good and some of it is negative. My companion seems to get worked up over it because she doesn't like that others judge us but don't really know how we are working, I just keep telling her, Don't worry, this work is for the Lord.. his opinion is the only one that matters. So we have been focusing on doing this work for the Lord and for those people whom he has prepared.. then we will continue to be happy :)

We have been working a lot with our area book this week, there are loads of potential investigators in there that were never contacted by the previous sisters working in the area. We had a lot of first appointments that were spirit filled and hopefully many of them will turn into solid investigators. While traveling to an appointment we were waiting at the Park St. T stop. I told my companion, we have to talk to someone, we walked around for a bit trying to discern who to talk to. I saw two girls and walked up and just started chatting. They opened up quickly and wanted to know what we were doing at missionaries. We soon found out that they too were very christian and had done several service trips in other countries including India! We got on the T with them to continue our conversation. The following day we met with Alberta at her home in Dorchester. She was so sweet! After we had met her the previous day she had gone home to read the pamphlet of the Restoration and search on mormon.org. She had a list of very good questions for us and was anxious to learn more. Our second appointment with her fell through but hopefully we will be seeing her again tomorrow. Her friend Susie will be meeting with us as well! One of our difficulties is that everyone is students they are all very busy with work and school. Finding a time and place where they can meet is our biggest challenge! So we are praying for circumstances to get better with those who do want to learn more.

Conference was AMAZING!! So wonderful! I had tears in my eyes and goosebumps throughout the entire conference as I felt the spirit teaching and edifying me. In between sessions yesterday we took some time to eat lunch and visit with some of the other missionaries. There were 6 sisters and probably double that of elders. I started getting antsy and told my companion we needed to go contact before the session for about a half hour. She kind of looked at me like really? I just smiled and said YES! The missionaries were kind of laughing because they thought it would be a waste of time (its the Lords time silly). One elder commented that he had contacted the area over and over again and there wasn't any one around (which is ridiculous because its all students who come and go!!!) So we left with our wonderful roommates to go and talk to people. It was getting cold and pretty windy and there were not too many people on the streets. Sister Makanesi and I found an Indian woman and stopped her. She was so warm, open, and friendly! After visiting for a minute I told her about conference and what a wonderful uplifting experience it was. She said oh I would love to go sometime! We were so excited and said we could take her right now! We toured her around the chapel and she watched the first half of the session. She said she felt something so special, a connection with God that she had never known. I was soooo happy!!!!!! Two of the other sisters were contacting by a bus stop a guy walked up to them and told them he had been inactive for 20 years! Cute Sister Chang said, "Jesus Christ wants you to come back to church! Let's go!!" So he also was able to be uplifted by conference and stayed for the entire session. This was a HUGE lesson for me and the other sisters, we literally saw what faith can do in such a short time. We were so determined to go and find someone who could experience the wonderful spirit of conference and the Lord led us to them!! Miracles!!!

I don't have a favorite talk from conference or anything specific that really hit me. But I was overwhelmed with a sense of love and gratitude for the membership I have in Christs restored church on the earth. I felt so much love from Heavenly Father for me and for the work that I am helping him with here in Boston, I felt an increased desire to be grateful and not take for granted what I have been given, and I was filled with a love for my family quite unlike anything I have ever felt before. The church is true and we know it! So blessed!!!

I love you all so much! Thank you for your letters and prayers! I really do need all of your support, it helps me so much.

and so you know, I will NOT settle as a mediocre disciple of Christ..

you are not you for you

Love-Sister Carly Jo Porter