"Obedience is the price..." :)

Hey hey everyone!! :)

I hope you are all doing super amazingly! :) Especially because you have the gospel in your life and that is the greatest gift EVER!! :D I love and miss you all and want you to know that you are all in my prayers everyday! :) And thank you EVERYONE who prays for me and the missionaries!! We feel your prayers, need them, and are grateful for them! :) THANK YOU! :) So going along with/explaining the title.. "Obedience is the price.." Everyday, Sister Draper and I recite our "Mission Values" which are.. "Faith is the power, the Spirit is the key, Obedience is the price, Love is the motive, Christ is the reason." and i lOVE it!! :) They are all so true!! These past weeks i have dEfinItElY seen that "Faith IS the power!" Without faith there can be no miracles. These past weeks we have been working on increasing and exercising our faith and they have been fULL of miracles! uh-mazing! :) This past week i have really recognized that "Obedience TRULY is the KEY!!" Everyone (Returned missionaries) ALWAYS would say that to me about missionary work and i believed them but WOW now i REALLY believe them! This past week i set a goal to start being more EXACTLY obedient 'time-wise.' I've done pretty well with getting ready and going to places on time and stuff but not as good at doing it EXACTLY on time etc. SO i made a specific effort to focus on getting to bed at EXACTLY 10:30pm and contintue getting up at 6:30 and being all ready AND already eaten breakfast and in personal study (room) at EXACTLY 8am! and i did it! The first day i did it i noticed a HUGE difference in the way i felt! i felt so happy!!! and like i could count on the Spirit to be with me the whole day because I was striving to do my part more by being more obedient! It was awesome! :) So i want to testify to you that obedience to the gospel really does bring blessings, the Spirit, and true and lasting happiness in our lives! :) and i lOVE It! So this week we have had AWESOME things happen! More miracles in the "miracle field!" :) I want to share two stories with you! First, we had our first lesson with a 12 year old boy named Christian (who has had missionaires teach him before but his dad wouldn't let him get baptized till he was 12 etc.) and it was incredible!! The Spirit was so strong there and the lesson we shared was just perfect for him and we had 2 members come with us to teach him! (one is a 11 yr old boy who is awesome!) He said he wanted to get baptized on March 3rd! woo hoo!! So we are going to continue to teach him and help him reach that incredible goal!! :) Second story, One night Sister Draper and I were out looking for a referral at an apartment complex but she wasn't home.. so we talked to someone outside who was walking her dog and gave her a card. We went back in the car and were trying to figure out what to do (since it was 8:50pm and we go in at 9pm- aka never really a fun time for missionaries because you want to go home but you don't because you want to be obedient and stay out and do missionary work until 9pm) I asked if we could tract the apartments but we weren't sure if the other Sister Missionaries in our area already had.. so we texted them and they thought they had but we felt prompted to tract at least building 1. We said a prayer and Sister Draper felt prompted to go to a specific one, so we did. (and on our way i said a little prayer that the person would at least be nice and that the Lord would bless us for trying to be obedient) ..We felt bad knocking cause it was kind of later but we did anyways and the person who answered was sUper nice and let us in!! (that's like only the 3rd time i've ever been let in from tracting! ha) She has never heard of "Mormons" or the Book of Mormon (which is a first! ha) and she said she would be interested in learing more and having us over again! MIRACLE!! (and answer to my prayers!) Her name is Tiffany and we will be going back to teach her more :) I call it our "8:55 Miracle"! :) So those are the good stories i wanted to share with you! As for the other fun things that happened throughout the week.. Monday, we went to our AWESOME Bishop's house for dinner and shared a message with them! It was so fun! We had Japanese curry (yum!) and when we go to his house they have the missionaries do a talent! ha So Sister Draper and I did what i like to call our "Waterfall Talent" :) She is amazing at piano and i do hair! ha SO we combined our talents and she played the Jon Schmidt song "Waterfall" while a did a waterfall braid in her hair!! hah it was awesome! :) He recorded it and everything! fun stuff! :) Tuesday we went to dinner at Chili's with an awesome couple in our ward who are also temple workers! It was way fun and they came with us to our lesson after which just happened to be on Temples and Temple Sealings!! (we didn't even know they were temple workers before we planned this! ha) It was great they had great comments! It's sOO amazing what a difference the Ward Members make!! Holy Cow!! Our ward is incredible in helping us with missionary work! It really is a combine effort! Ward members at lessons, tracting, inviting, referrals, and everything is the GREATEST blessing and help for missionaries!! I didn't even realize it until i came out on a mission! It made me realize how much I want to help the missionaries when i get home! and how much 'easier' it is to be the 'member' in lessons because basically anything (even if it's just a little comment or testimony or experience) the member says the (us) missionaries LOVE! and it really helps the less-active or investigator connect better to the gospel and see how it has effected/blessed someone else's life! i love it! (i hope that all made sense! hah) So don't be afraid to help or go with the missionaries!! It will bless your life, the missionarie's lives, AND most importantly the person you are all teaching together life!! :) Never underestimate the power of one!! Joseph Smith was just one voice and look at ALL he's done for us! EACH of us has the power and potential to do just as much in helping build the Lord's kingdom! :) It's the greatest thought, blessing, and reality ever!! i love it! :) Elder Holland talks more about this in his amazing talk from last conference "We are all Enlisted"! He says we need more people to be "a greater voice for good, for the gospel, and for God!" That is so true and awesome! :) So go be that 'member missionary' that us missionaries (and the Lord) love!! :) you won't regret it! :) Alright last couple of things (sorry my emails are so ENORMOUS!! i hope it's okay.. :) ha) This week we also got to walk dogs for service! (i bet you are lovin' that family-especially mom!! :) ha) it was way fun! We go to the shelter and they have a little park area in the back that we walk them in it was cute and fun! My dog was named Reesa and super cute and a little energetic!! hah i loved her though-good stuff! :) AND i saw my first LIVE ARMADILLO!! ahhh!! we were drivin down the highway one night and i see this animal in the middle of the road and i first thought it was a hUgE rat! but then i realized it was an Armadillo!!! hah so crazy/funny/random!! i guess people see a lot of dead ones here but not live! haha so funny but it was way cool! Alright, i think that's it for this week! Oh! except church was amazing as always!! and Christian came!! :) yay!! blessing!! And i was able to bear my testimony! at first i thought hmmm i wonder if i'm suppose to since i'm a missionary..then i thought no i should let the members cause i'm a missionary and can bear it all the time! hah but then in the middle of it I felt the Spirit realllllyy strongly and couldn't deny it so i was like okay i better go up! ha so i did! It's amazing how the Spirit speaks to us so individually in ways we can learn to recognize throughout our lives, i love it! :) President Packer said, "Always, always follow the promptings of the Spirit." I testify that that is true and if you do you will never regret it! Think, have you ever regretted following the Spirit before?? but have you ever regretted NOT following it? Something to think about and that i'm still working on!! :) ha i love you ALL! THank you So SOOO much for all the letters, love, prayers, and support!! THis is DEFINITELY the Lord's work! I could NEVERRR do ANY of this without HIM!! that's for sure!!! I love you all and hope you have an excellent week!! and if you read this whole thing, I'm sUper impressed!! hah sorry it's so long!! But thanks for reading!! I love you all!! :)

Love, Sister Carlini

ps. Quote of the Week: "Don't pray away the trials that were put there to exalt us." :) deeeep! :)