letter from 12/14/09


Heeellooo!

How is everyone doing this Christmas season? I am getting very excited for christmas next week! I cant believe its already here! Plus today i have been gone for 11 months! Crazy! Thanks for the sweaters! I like them both and they both fit very well. They came just in time cause the next day it was freezing outside! I thought about a GPS for Christmas actually but im not really sure how expensive they are. I would use it a lot on my mission probably but i dont know how much i would use it after. If its a lot or you already bought stuff thats fine. But if theres a good deal on one i think the Garmin nuvi one is really good. Thats probably the best brand. Or maybe some cds of some christian music. I get tired of motab and really slow music pretty fast so if you find any more upbeat christian cds i might like. I'm really getting tired of my music. lol. I'm not really too worried about getting much this year anyways. Plus there arent that many thing i can even use.

The new puppy sounds sweet! I have no idea what to name him! Ill let you know if i think of one. It sounds like both of your talks went really well. Always a good experience getting to speak in sacrament. We had an awesome yet different sacrament meeting this week. A family spoke, the parents and 2 daughters, and the daughters played some songs on their flutes in between a talk and then one of their boyfriends who is not a member played his acoustic guitar with them. Then after the next talk he played a small guitar that sounded kind of like a banjo while his dad played acoustic and they played a couple bluegrass gospel songs. Then after the next talk he went back to the acoustic and sang a few songs including Amazing Grace and one that he wrote about Christ. The Spirit was still there and he played extremely well and had a really good voice but it almost felt like a southern baptist church or something. lol. I really enjoyed it though.

I actually caught about 5 min of the Grizzlies last game. Oops! lol. We went to visit an investigator at a members house and the Grizzlies game was on for a min. I think they were playing Appalacian State. It looked like a blizzard while they were playing! The Gators were undefeated till they lost their very last game against Alabama so they will play in a bowl game for 3rd or 4th. Still not sure what to do about school. I completely forgot to talk to President Newman about it in my last interview.

This week we have our mission conference/Christmas devotional in Jacksonville on Thursday. A guy who is preparing to go on a mission soon is going to drive us down.

Did i tell you about our wheelchair races? We have a random sports wheelchair in our house and we have been having races around the house this week. We would time each other to see how fast we could go from one side of the house to the other while holding a wheelie. haha. Then one night we built a ramp with one of those rectangular tables they have in church buildings. We tilted it up against th back of a big armchair and started at the top. You would go down that really fast and go through a doorway across the kitchen and down the hall where you make a hard right into our study room and have to pop into a wheelie and wheelie through both doors of the bathroom across the living room and back through the kitchen and into the room with the ramp. haha. It was a blast! If you missed going through the doorways after the ramp, you would slam into the frame and fall out of the chair. lol. Whatever it takes to cure boredom as a missionary i guess!

We had a crazy experience with an investigator this week! We have been teaching this black lady of about 50 or 60. She was preparing to be baptized this weekend and we had taught her a couple lessons and she went to church last week. Then this week at the beginning of every lesson she would make some huge deal out of nothing. She thought we lied to her cause The program didnt go exactly as it was written. Then she was mad because we couldn't help her buy cat litter. (We knew she was a little crazy to begin with.) Plus some members got upset with us because she bore her testimony in relief society about how her mom tried to kill her and it scared a couple people. She seemed to be more and more upset each day we went there but we were always able to calm her down and then teach a lesson. Then on Wed night she called us and asked us if we could find someone to help her move and we said we would try. We went back the next day and when we told her we hadn't found anyone yet she completely blew up on us. She was yelling and screaming and telling us to get out of her house so we just left and dropped her pretty fast. She called the next day and kind of apologized but then yelled at us again on the phone. She also ended calling like 10 auxilliary leaders including the bishop and upset a lot of them i think. AHHH!!! So bishop had to go over there Sunday to sort it out but im not sure what happened. Anyways, crazy experience!

Well i better get going here but i love all of you and appreciate the love and support. You are my strength to make it through a lot of weeks. Thanks!

Love,
Elder Carty