From: Braydon Carter <braydon.carter@missionary.org>
Date: Sun, May 5, 2019 at 7:02 PM
Subject: The Guidance of the Spirit.
Good Morning， Good Morning, It's great to be alive, Good Morning, Good Morning to you.
Hello Everyone!
This week has been a really good one and I have a really awesome story and experience that I would like to share for the week. But first off. I woke up a little bit early this morning with my companion because we are wanted to go hike the famous Penang Hill. As we woke up, we did our studies and started to write our letters for the day. It was at this moment that I found a quite exciting email waiting for me. Today is transfer day for our mission, and if you have ever served a mission, or are serving a mission, you would know that transfer day is kind of like waiting for your ACT score to come in the mail. Everyone starts getting a little excited and starts making silly predictions, although 99% of the time they are not true. Because I am training, I have teased my companion for a while that I am going to leave him, that he is going to need to stay here and train, or to have a new companion. He never thought it was as funny as I did. The email was a letter from my Mission President saying, "We will be transferring you, new area, new assignment, new companion. Enjoy the Journey." At the moment of writing this email, I still don't know what the plan is for me. But I do know that there is one.
With that being said, I have loved being with Elder Lowe. He was a dream of a companion. Although on the transfer board, and according to the mission, I was his trainer, he was really mine. I learned a lot from him and grew a lot because of him. Thank you Elder Lowe for the many memories and long talks about the gospel. ❤️
Now onto the miracle for the week :)
For missionaries, as you kind of get to know an area and which places are good for contacting, you will find yourself going to places that you think have the most amount of people to talk to. Well, my companion and I woke up one morning and as we prayed and looked at our area we felt this strong feeling to go to a place that we had never gone before. We were excited, and saw a lot of success come from that area throughout the day. But the miracle was towards the end of the day. As my companion and I were about to head off to a neighborhood that we had felt prompted to go to, I told him that we needed to pray and see about which street to go to. We prayed about it and we had a feeling for a specific street. We happily peddled our bikes over to the neighborhood, and I started to get excited because, on the way there, we were riding through what seemed like very well put together neighborhoods. A lot of families outside, good looking houses, and happy people all around but we weren't quite to the neighborhood that we felt prompted to go to. As we had reached where we had felt we needed to go, it was at this moment that I was struck with confusion. We had biked into a little country side neighborhood where houses were made of just tin and concrete. Sadly, I have to say I had much doubt. I thought there was no way we were right. We must have incorrectly solved this revelation equation. But my very faithful companion said, "This is perfect! This is exactly what we were looking for." As he said that, the only thing I could think of is that he would get his heart broken. I suggested we go look for a place where we can park our bikes in hopes of seeing a better area nearby that we could go instead. I feel bad for saying this now, but I was a doubter for sure. We saw a park near the inspired neighborhood and we parked our bikes. I was trying to think of how I could tell my trainee that we should probably go somewhere else. But before I could say anything, we saw this young man walking up the street and we started to talk to him. We learned that he just worked down the street and was planning on going to college soon. He then started to show us around his neighborhood. Which was the same one I just felt like wouldn't have any potential. Then he took us to his house, and it seemed as if he was about to say goodbye. So we told him why we were here and what we do. We had asked him if he would be interested in learning, and he looked down, and then looked back up and said, "Yes, I'm really lost in my life, and I really need direction." I was blown away. There is no falsely solving revelation. Just having doubt. We shared with him a lesson and it was beautiful.
For me, that experience just goes to show that there are times we have no idea why God wants us to do some things, or to be in some places. I have no doubt that when Nephi was standing at the edge of the ocean, having God tell him somewhat 2600 years ago that he needed to cross that ocean and go to the promise land, that he probably thought for a second, "Wait. What? Really? Go across that? I don't even know where that goes." For me, I went into what seemed like a abandon neighborhood. Thinking, "This is the place?" But friends and family, Brothers and Sisters, if God tells you something it has a reason. I know that is so so true. I know that God will lead us into the best situations and circumstances for all of us. But we need to trust Him first.
I have such a strong testimony that we have a loving Heavenly Father. I had no idea how much that meant to me until I started my mission. But it's true. We don't just have a God that created everything and put us here for fun. We don't have a God that is just sitting in the universe watching us. We have a Father in Heaven that loves us. We are His Children and He wants to help us. We just have to accept His out reached hand. I know that is true and you can to.
I love you all,
Elder Carter
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