October 12th, 2009

Fam,

Sounds like an awesome weekend! Lucky you with cold
 weather! I am getting extremely sick of the heat!
 It wasnt my suit pants dont worry. But it was one
 of my nicer pair. I should be alright with what i
 have. I was actually given a pretty decent pair
 of pants recently anyways. But i do need like
 5 more pairs of socks. And maybe like 2 pairs of
garments. Actually i could use another short sleeve
shirt probably. i would probably need to try it on
though.

Transfers are this week and im leaving again! I
really wanted to stay here for a while but thats
alright. I leave thursday. This area was spilt in
two before with 4 missionaries but they havent had
enough missionaries the last 2 transfers. We are
getting 3 more now so they will probably send 2
more here so i could end up in the same branch
but a different apartment. I have a bunch of
frozen meat i have to leave behind. You'd be
proud of me mom, ive been cooking a lot this
transfer. Im slowly learning how to make different
kinds of hispanic food. Ill have to miss our
baptisms this weekend as well. We are baptizing
Yave's daughter and 3 Cubans who are the parents
of the kid we baptized last week and the sister
of on of the parents. They are awesome! We ate
at their house last night. The only problem with
Cubans is you cant understand a word they say!
Most of them i can understand about half but
the dad, i literally couldnt understand a word
he said! He mumbles and slurrs his words together.
Even Elder Peck who has spoken for almost 2 years
didnt understand a lot.
Today im at Hermano Pinto's house emailing. We
did laundry here and they fed us this morning.
My companions wanted to go to the library after
and email and then just hang around so im going
with Pinto to play soccer with some other
missionaries and hispanics. We already played
a little this morning.
As far as books go for Spanish, i just got a
work book that i ordered that they should
have given me when i started but the office
people didnt know about it. I should be fine
with the materials i have right now. I feel
like i keep improving. We had 3 trade offs
with members on thursday and we each went to
different appointments. I prayed really hard
to have the words to express myself and the
Lord really blessed me. i was able to think
perfectly clear and recall every word that i
needed to say. It was a very good learning
experience that i need to trust more in the
Lord.
Good job playing soccer Aaron! Thats awesome
that you always win! Keep it up! Do you like
dad as the coach? Thanks for the letter and
the picture last week! Well, time to get going.
Dont send anything till i tell you my new address.

Love you all very much!

Love,
Elder Carty

Oct. 5th, 2009

JOSEPH'S LETTER:

The Fam,

Sorry I couldn't email much. Busy, busy, busy... The Lord's work never ceases. How's everyone doing? Thanks to the sister that gave me the honey. It's delicious! It's actually on the oatmeal I'm eating right now. And thanks for the pictures! There are a couple really good ones of Aaron and Caleb that I might hang up. So about that funny story about being "tarred." We've had to ride bikes for the past week and a half cause we ran out of miles on our car. I was following Elder Peck on the sidewalk and he decides to take a shortcut down a short grass hill (maybe 15 ft. long and kind of steep) and then through an asphalt parking lot. I was probably following a little to close and all of a sudden on the hill he swerves to miss something and by the time I saw it, it was too late. There was a foot and a half deep hole right in front of me in the grass, just big enough for my front tire to sink in and get stuck. I was standing up and immediately launched face-first over my handle bars. At this point I am about 6 feet off the ground because I flew from the hill and am over the asphalt. Of course, I had to land in this particular stretch of asphalt which had been recently fixed, and it's about 2:00 p.m. and probably 100 degrees. I now fly through the air, landing on my hands and then my whole body slides (on my stomach) across 10 ft. of melted tar! It was crazy! Luckily, all I had was a small scratch on my knee. I think the tar was probably a blessing because it absorbed my fall as I slid. Needless to say, I ruined an entire pair of clothes, including a tie! We had to bike to our branch mission leader's house and get some grease remover. It took me like 3 hours to clean it off me and all my stuff!

Now that you're all laughing hysterically at me, I'll share a miracle from this week. It was incredible! We were waiting for church to start and watching for our investigators when a man comes wandering into the church. We start talking to him and find out that he is from Cuba. He has been living on the streets for a month looking for work. We taught him a quick lesson and asked him to be baptized and he said yes. He is really excited, and I'll be the one to baptize him tonight! He said he had a dream a few days before that he went to church and woke up and really felt like he needed to go this week. He asked a friend, who happens to be an inactive member, where he should go, and he recommended our church. Including him, we have 5 solid baptisms this week! A guy and his daughter who have been investigating for 2 years are finally getting baptized, an 11 yr. old Cuban kid, and a girl who's 13 from the Dominican Republic. Both of their parents will be baptized the following weekend.

Well I better end this letter so I can get ready. Oh real quick, do you remember when I got that Hep. B shot in the MTC? They said I had to get another one after 6 months. I'll call Sis. Newman to have her find out if I need to do that, and i'll let you know on Monday. Anyways, hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Carty

October 5th, 2009

Greetings earthlings,

haha. Hows it goin? Im glad you got my letter! I was
 worried for a min that you didnt get it. Wow!
 Miracles this week! And 4 baptisms!!! We had
Gerardo on wed.(the guy i wrote about in the letter),
 a daughter of a lady who we've taught for a while, an
 11 yr old Cuban kid, and another guy named Yave from
 Peru. We are going to baptize his daughter this
 coming week. Those 3 were baptized on Sunday
 between conference. Man conference was awesome!
 I especially enjoyed Elder Holland's talk in the
 last session.

Today we wemt and toured St. Augustine which was
 really fun. There were a lot of cool shops and
 historical sights. Ah! How do i keep running out
 of time! We have to go to be at a dinner in 10 min!
 Oh a girl from Gainesville just started her mission.
 She is in the Las Vegas, NV mission! Her first area
 is in Reno. Whats Aunt Carol's address? Maybe they
 are in the same ward or she could have her over for
 dinner! Her name is Sister Cockrell. Sorry to cut this
 email short. Everything is going well. Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Carty

September 28th, 2009

Hey!

I can only write a quick note because we ran out of time today.
 I will be writing a letter tonight instead. Everything is going
 great! We have 5 solid baptism this week and 2 more hopefully!
 All the hard work is paying off. We had an amazing miracle happen
 on Sunday! This week has been kind of crazy. I have a funny story
 to tell. I can now say that i have been "tarred" on my mission.
 Dont worry ill explain everything in the letter. I wrote Alayna
 a letter as well and sent Grandma and Grandpa a postcard. I sent
 Doug and Nat a postcard a week or 2 ago. Do you know if they got
 it? We were going to go to the zoo today but we ran out of time
 for that too. Our laundry took forever today. I bought a soccer
 ball with some of the money you sent. We found some Mexicans on
 the beach and played for a bit which was fun. It was extremely
 hot today though. Next week we are hoping to go down to
 St. Augustine which is supposed to be really cool. I think its
 the oldest city in the U.S. Hope everything is going great
 there! Its 6:00, time to get back to work!

Love,

Elder Carty