9/20/10

Greetings!

This week was excellent! We had a conference on thursday with Elder Pearson of the first quorum of the seventy. It changed my life! It was by far the best conference ive ever been to except maybe Elder Nelson. I have a completely different outlook on my mission and on life. I decided the next morning to make a list of everything that i needed to change, sacrifice, or set as a personal goal. Then at the end of each day i have taken that list to the Lord in prayer to account for how i did on each thing that day, ask for forgiveness for what i lacked and make another firm resolve for the next day. As a companionship we feel greater direction and need to make great plans. We have been spending twice as long planning each day to make sure we can be effective the next day. I have seen a huge difference in how our day goes if we had a great planning session. We have made a firm resolve to make planning a priority each day. I have also made a resolve to never talk about home or going home to other missionaries for the rest of my mission. Ithink that will help me stay focused. We have a baptism on thursday for Crystal Tirado. She is 16 and pregnant but has such a great desire to change her life and follow Christ. She had an interview with the branch president and she said she felt great afterwards. We currently dont have any other investigators who are progressing but we have a few potentials. We hope to find many miracles this week! We didnt know she was pregnant till thursday but we had a great lesson talking about the healing power of the Atonement and the steps to sincere repentance. SHe is really excited for her baptism. I know the Lord sent us to her right now to help her with this because she doesnt have much help at home. Her mom wants her to go to church but wont go herself and is pretty wild. We are actually pretty sure she is a prostitute which of course is why Crystal didnt have any guidance of what was right and wrong. She is half Puerto Rican and half Dominican.

Way to go Aaron and Caleb! Nice goals! What have you both been up to besides soccer and school? Does dad run you hard in practice? How is school going? Do you have good teachers? What kind of stuff are you learning about? Im not sure what we are going to do today after emails but i need to do something active. I cant seem to keep in shape and im gaining some fat and losing all my muscle (if i ever had any). lol. On sat. night we were going to our last app. and it was dark out. We stopped at the stop sign and noticed that the car on the other side was smoking and cars were going around it. We got out to help and it was a mini van with 7 of teenage girls...great...haha. They were really close to their house when they broke down but we helped them push it home like 400yds. My quads were burning the whole way cause theyve gotten so small. My legs are about 2/3 the sized that they were before my mission from so much soccer and skiing. The girls offered to give us a ride back to our car and one wanted to buy us ice cream for helping. Of course we said no and gave them all pass-along cards and walked back.

I am excited to be the best missionary i have been yet for my last 3 months so that when i do go home i will be firmly founded on the principles of the gospel. Thanks for sharing your notes dad! I dont have mine with me or id share some. The most inportant thing i learned is just how improtant the Book of Mormon is in conversion. If we are not studying and praying each day, we will not be coverted completely to the gospel. I hope you have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Carty