4/25/09


Hey! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALEB!!!!!!!!!!!!!I cant believe youre already 4! Sorry i cant be there. Guess what? Im going to see the alligators today! Ill take a bunch of pictures and send them to you for your birthday. What have you been up to? Any cool plans for today? Tell me what you did and what you got for your birthday. You should fly down here and go see the alligators with me! How come your arms are so huge? thats crazy!Hope your birthday is awesome!!! -Love, your brother, Joe The Walkers are taking us to a place today to see some alligators. It should be pretty fun. Ill be sure to take lots of pictures. Sounds like the temple was awesome! I wish i could have gone. Thats amazing how many blessings come from paying tithing. Thats awesome! Transfers are next thursday and i find out tonight if i stay or go. I think im staying cause we're having so much success, but ill send a quick email monday to let you know for sure. Thanks! This week has been slow as far as the work goes. The next two probably will be too. Everyone was studying for finals last week and they have them this week. Then theres a week of no school until summer semester starts. Half of the student population will probably be going home for the summer. We met some awesome people this week. One of them would probably have been baptized but he is going home to Lebanon this week. Aye yie tie! We have a couple investigators but are going to have to do a lot of finding people this week. We teach investigators the first four lessons before baptism and then the ward or branch teaches them the same lessons over again and then the fifth one. Our mission is a lot different than others i think. We work really fast and ask everyone we meet to be baptized. They have to come to church twice before they can be, with a few exceptions. If someone is ready to commit to be baptized within the first or second lesson or want to think about it for a long time we usually move on and tell them to contact us when they are ready. We are supposed to be very bold with people, telling them that they need to repent and be baptized and they shouldnt wait. Elder Probert said in his last area he met someone on a saturday night and they were moving to Ohio sunday night so they taught him all 4 lessons in a row , he went to church, was baptized right after and then moved. They set up everything for him in his ward in Ohio too. Crazy! Two years ago this mission had 260 baptisms all year. We had half of that for just the month of March this year! Its so exciting to see all the success in bringing people to the truth. It feels like the final push to bring as many souls unto Christ as possible before he comes again. I got your letters rachel and mom and grandma. Didnt get one from Cathy yet though unless it was the one from a few weeks ago. Thank you everyone for your letters of support and encouragement. It's what i need the most right now. Tell Grandma and Grandpa i really appriciated their letter. It really boosted my spirits. What is their address? Thanks rachel for your letter. It was really good to hear from you! Thats awesome that youre on the tennis team. I wish i could watch you play. Tell dad to film you at a match and post it on the blog so i can see. Im planning on writing you a letter today so ill send it out monday along with pictures. Sorry i couldnt send pictures last week because the guy that drove us took us to the wrong side of town on accident and we didnt get to Walmart. He was in a hurry to get to the talent show. We got to go too. Some of the acts and talents the students did were hilarious. Ive gotten to know the guy that took us really well. He just got off his mission a couple months ago from Rapid City, SD. He is really cool and comes on with us to lessons all the time. He reminds me a lot of Josh. His mission was spanish speaking too! His name is Daniel Johansen. Actually i think someone talked to him on facebook. Wow, facebook is one thing i dont miss at all. I dont think i could ever live in Florida. At first i thought it would be a cool place to go to school but its started to get ridiculously hot and humid! I dont think i would ever live here. Ill try to write a letter to the branch soon. It probably wont be this week cause im gonna write rachel and caleb too. I got the $50. Thanks! Ill use it for the pictures. Time to go! Talk to ya soon! Love, Elder Carty