Hello!
This week has been crazy! We have been insanely tired from
everything this week. We spent all day yesterday on campus.
It's been really hot here! Today is nice though cause it's
actually cloudy. We've had awsome food the past few days.
We started the tradition of the bi-annual steak feed. Elder
Jolley has been out for six months and I just started so
every six months we'll treat ourselves to a delicious steak.
-except now we're almost out of money. A girl in the branch
invited us to her birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse and
there were nonmembers there so we could go. Then last night
after district meeting we all ordered Dominos pizza at our
apartment. It was a lot fun. Then today four girls took us
to breakfast- lots of awesome bonuses about being on campus.
haha. One of them is taking us shopping to buy us food. A
lot of students have been helping us out when we have a
table set up on campus. On girl is really good at jumping
right into lessons with us. I have gotten over a lot of my
fears of approaching people which is good. We should have a
lot of investi-'gators' at church. We just call them gators.
lol. I talked to a Vietnamese guy and he's going to bring
all his friends! We had a lot of really good lessons this
week. One guy named Smitty said he really felt the Spirit
after i talked to him the other day and then he came back
and wanted to know more. He couldn't get past the fact that
it takes more than faith in Christ to be saved. Another guy
named Lee is going to read and pray with an open mind. He
said he'll do whatever God tells him to. I think he'll get
baptized. There's 2 more girls that are really really close
to accepting baptism. And there's a few more hopeful ones.
We are really focusing on inviting people to be baptized
more, even if we just met them we are supposed to lead the
conversation to baptism and ask them unless the Spirit
tells us not to.
We had a lot of people try to bible bash with us. We never
argued with them but finally we just had to tell them that
if they didn't want to read or pray about the book of mormon
than there's no point in continuing the conversation. Have
I told you about the other preachers here? It gets insane
sometimes! Usually everyday there's at least one preacher
that shouts out a sermon in Turlington Square where we are.
Some are ok but some are crazy and things get out of hand.
One guy was calling calling everyone sinners and said he
was free from sin now. Yet he called people names and was
saying that all real muslims are terrorists and stuff like
that. People were screaming at him and dancing around him.
Girls started kissing together in front of him! IT was
insane! The police on bikes came and had to break up
everything. It actually makes it easier for us sometimes
because people tell us how much they respect us for not
yelling out stuff like they do.
Tell Aaron and Caleb I miss them too! I haven't seen any
alligators yet but i hear there's a swamp on campus that
has some! Actually all of Gainesville is technically a
swamp. The capmus is huge! It's like 3 square miles and
there are over 50,000 undergrad students here. There are
always hundreds of people in the square so there's always
people to talk to until about 5:00 and then there's hardly
anyone so we go do other things. People play four-square
and nine-square there all the time. We joined in yesterday
for a bit after we were done with our table. The students
here are awesome! Except the ones that completely ignore
you when you try to talk to them.
I really need a nap today... After we get food we're gonna
go take a nap while our laundry is in.
Some good restaurants here are applebees, chipotle...i
don't know too many more. Thanks! Hope everything is great
this week! Stay out of trouble and on the road rachel! I'll
try to send an actual letter by monday with some pictures or
something. I don't have any developed of florida though.
Gotta go! See ya!

Love,
Elder Carty