Sorry to those of you who are following Elder Carty's letters. I've been a bit of a slacker in posting them. He will remain in Live Oak, FL it looks like through Christmas. He is doing very well. Thank you for your prayers in his behalf. He does not get a lot of letters, so if any of you would like to write him, I'm sure he would love it!

11/30/09

Hello!

Im glad you were able to understand my letter! I sent
a quick one in english later that evening after we found
out about transfers but im not sure if you got it cause
it looks like it came back to me. Just in case, Elder
Smith was transfered and im still here. They did transfers
a little crazy last week. They didnt tell us till the night
before, who was leaving and where they were going and then
we had to get there the next day which was tuesday and we
didnt have a transfer meeting. So Elder Smith packed up
and a member took him 50 miles south to a small town
called Chiefland. My new comp is Elder Price from St.
George, UT. He came out one transfer before i did and we
started our mission in the same district so i already knew
him pretty well. We have been on tradeoffs together in
Gainesville. He is sweet! Though he doesnt speak a lick
of Spanish. Elder Smith actually got pretty good at
Spanish by the end of the transfer but he's still an
english missionary. He wasnt afraid to just say what
he wanted to say, even if most of the conjugations
werent right. But they understood what he said. He
had taken classes before which helped him a lot but
my new comp hasnt taken any Spanish before so hes starting
from scratch. Hes still an english missionary but he
really wants to learn spanish so ill be teaching him
i guess. It will help improve mine a lot im sure. I
feel like my spanish has improved a ton last transfer.
It helped me really step out of my comfort zone cause
i couldnt ever rely on my comp to help teach till
towards the end of the transfer.

Oh yeah! Happy Thanksgiving!!! Hope you guys had a
delicious meal! We had a lot of fun on Thanksgiving.
An inactive/part member family i had met once before
invited us out for the day. They had a bunch of
relatives there too. We thought it might be really
awkward cause i didnt know how many members there
would be. She had like three sisters and their husbands
and a brother and his wife and they were all members.
They are all half Korean. It turned out to be a blast!
Their whole famaily was awesome! They were all laughing
and cracking jokes and having fun. We all played 2 hand
touch football for a while, had a ton of southern food,
including smoked deer and turkey...mmm..., went on a
tractor hay ride, and had a camp fire with smores that
night. They sent us home with a ton of leftovers!
Thanks for the postcard! How much have you rafted down
there? Is that where you usually go rafting? I dont think
we are doing anything special in the work for Christmas
unless i havent heard about it yet. Im not really sure.
Our mission is so close to reaching our goal of 1050! As
of sunday we are at 980! Only 70 more to go! We have like
7 people who are so close to baptism but little things
keep getting in the way like not coming to church or
they live so far out that we can only see them once a
week which makes it hard for them to progress very fast,
or they cant afford to buy a marriage license so they can
get married and then baptized. They all want it but these
little things keep holding them back. Pray that they will
all be able to be baptized before the end of year. The
member work in this ward really isnt very good. Ive only
gotten like one member referral since ive been here and
it was from a less active. Everyone lives so spread out
that it hard to get members in on lessons and theres not
that many active members here to begin with. The other
wards ive been in were a lot better as far as missionary
work goes but i still love all the people here and am
slowly getting used to the southern country accent, lol.

I could always use more ties! Im not sure what else i really need
for christmas. Did you find that sweater? I could use like
a v-neck sweater or a zip up one cause its getting a bit
cold at night and it gets dark at 6:00. As long as my tie
isnt covered up i can wear it. We have a fireplace in our
house and its finally cold enough that we've been having
fires inside every night this week! I am loving the cooler
weather! How did you guys like the movie New Moon? I was a
little disappointed in the first one. Was this one any
better? Anybody have plans for Christmas break? Cant wait
to talk to everyone! Hope everyone has an awesome week!

Love,
Elder Carty

11/23/09

Bueno! (the accents are meant to be on the letter before it)
>
> Esta semana fue muy bien, pero no tuvimos unos
bautismos. Pero este fin de semana vamos a tener tres
bautismos esperamente. Ellos son jovenes, 16 y 17, y
quieren bautizarse esta semana. Tenemos un paraje
quien necesita casarse antes de bautismo. Ellos no tienen
mucho dinero para comprar una lisencia de matrimonio.
Por favor, oren para que ellos puedan tener la fe necesario
para comprarlo y ser bautizado este domingo. Tambien,
estamos trabajando con un joven hispano. El se llama Jose
Alfredo y tiene 16 an~os. Necesitamos llamar sus padres
en Mexico y pedirles por la permisio`n de bautizarle.
Vamos a tener mucho e`xito pronto! Hoy, fuimos al Lake
City por una reunion districto. Era muy bien pero estuve
un poco enojado porque hoy es nuestro dia de preparacion
y queriamos pescar con un miembro. Ahora no tenemos
tiempo para hacerlo. Pues todo esta bien aqui en Live Oak.
El jueves vamos a ir a una casa de un miembro para comer
una cena rica por Thanksgiving. Esperamente no voy ser
cambiado a una otra area porque no quiero salir. Me gusta
la obra en Live Oak mucho! Los miembros son un poco
extran~o..."redneck"...lol, y no nos ayudan mucho. Los
otros barrios en que yo he servido nos ayudan a los
misioneros con ensen~ar mucho mas. Esta semana pasada
e`ramos tracting mucho pero no encontramos a nadie bien.
>
> Papa`, no he recibido el "postcard que me envio` pero recibi`
el paquete. No se` donde esta` su mapa. Yo deseo ir cazando
con usted! Ten cuidado cuando esta` andando en el bosque
solo! Esperamente no necesitara` usar su pistola! Oh! Yo casi
perdi` algo. Las transferencias van a ser man~ana y yo no he
recibido una llamada toda via, entonces yo no se` si voy a
salir o estar aqui toda via. No se` porque nuestro presidente
lo esta` haciendo en esta manera. Yo le amo a mi compan~ero
y nosotros somos amigos buenos. La semana pasada su padre
lo perdio` su trabajo. Pueden orar para su familia? Gracias por
todos sus oracio`nes. Mama`, que chevre que el presidente de
la misio`n por alla` le visito`. Que` le dijo? Co`mo esta`n los
misioneros por alla`? Esta semana yo hube un tiempo difi`
cil con los pensamientos de Joshua. Muchas cosas me recordo`
de
e`l. Ayer, nosotros conocimos un muchacho que ha habido una
vida muy difi`cil. Ah! Necesito salir ahorita!
>
> Con amor,
>
> Elder Carty
>

9/16/09


Hello!

Thanks for the letters mom and rachel and for
 the email dad! I also got a letter from Alayna.
 She gave me her mtc and mission addresses so
 ill have to write her back. Sounds like a
 pretty good week in montana. Wow i miss mountains!
 Well Jose was confirmed yesterday and got the
priesthood which was awesome! Wow this week has
 been a week of miracles! We found 20 new
investigators and 11 new baptismal dates! A few
have fallen off the map and some didnt come to
church but we are definitely going to baptize at
least one or two of them this week. And if all
goes well we will also be having a wedding! So
the bishop called us one day and asked us to go
give a blessing to someone. It was a few miles
out of town in a small trailer park with about
ten trailers. Afterwards my comp felt like we
should tract them and we found a really cool
guy named Robbie who commtitted to baptism.
We came back the next day and sat down to teach
him and people started coming out of the wood
works! Another lady came out named Debra and
as we started teaching her she stopped us and
said wait a min. Robbie and i were just talking
the other day about how we both wanted to find
a church and we thought about going to the
mormon church last night i prayed about it
and the next day you guys showed up at our
door! She was so excited and her mind was blown
she said. Then right before we got to the part
about the restoration her daughter and boyfriend
walk out and want us to teach them! Their names
are Natosha and Earl. She had a crazy/scary story.
She said that the day before she saw us walking
around the park but we didnt talk to her. Then
that night she said she felt as though some
power or devil seized her and she couldnt move
or talk and felt like she was burning and her
soul was in pain. It woke up her boyfriend and
as he looked over he saw a spirit that was dressed
up like a missionary and then it immediately left
and she was fine. They strongly felt that it was
some sort of a demon trying to stop them from talking
to us. We then retaught a little of the lesson and
read Joseph Smiths first vision and how he was also
overpowered for a moment by the adversary but through
his prayer he overcame it and saw God and Jesus. I
dont know if what they claimed to see but i really
felt like satan really didnt want them to be baptized.
We gave all 4 of them blessings and then Debra's
8 year old kid Demonte came in and she wanted us
to give him a blessing too. They all really want
to come to church and be baptized. Unfortunately
they all slept in on sunday! Natosha and Earl want
to be married and they have to, to be baptized so
we may have a wedding on saturday. Sweet! Then the
next day we found a 16 year kid from Mexico who wants
to be baptized and he came to church on sunday and
liked it a lot. Afterwards we met two of his roommates
who want to come next week. He is living here with a
bunch of friends in their 20's from Guatemala. His
family is in Mexico and he came here two years ago
to work and send money to his family. Can you
imagine going to a foreign country at 14 to work
and support your family? Please pray for him and
that his parents hearts will be softened because we
have to get their permission to baptize him. Miracle
after miracle!

Anyways today we deep cleaned the kitchen which
took a while but now the entire house is cleaned
and reorganized. Last week we moved our study room
to a room with more windows and made the main room
into a dining/living room. The whole house looks
completely different from when i got here. It was
pretty nasty when i got here. We may kick a soccer
ball around for a bit and go to the gym. man last
Monday we did a crazy ab workout and it literally
took an entire week to heal. After the second day
it hurt to walk! We are going to do another one
today but hopefully it wont be as soar. My hip
is actually doing really well. I do need to stretch
it and work it out everyday though. I usually work
it out about once a week but now that it a lot
stronger i need to do more. I cant believe how
long its already been since i had my surgery! 
Hopefully i wont
be transferred. Honestly i dont like the ward here
as much as my previous ones but i love the work
here. I found out transfers will be the day before
Thanksgiving instead. Can you give Jason my email
address and tell him to send me an email so we can
keep in touch?

Im glad i guessed the right size on your shirt
rachel and that you like it! It looked like your
style. Glad you had a great birthday and that you
party went really well! Last years new years eve
party was fun. Hmmm...what else happened this week?
Oh yeah we went to a cane grinding this week! Some
members invited us to their annual cane grinding.
They grow a bunch of sugar cane and send it through
a presswhich squeezes out all the juice and then put
like 60 gallons in this huge kettle thing and boil
it for several hours which takes out all the water
and impurities and then they let it cool and bottle
it up into syrup bottles and sell it. It tasted ok...
kind of bitter though. Well thats about all the
excitement here. It has been another great week in
Live Oak. Hope y'all have a great week too! And in
case i dont see ya, good afternoon, good evening,
and goodnight!

Love,
Elder Carty


p.s. - hey could you send me a few good pictures
of Josh. I dont have any pictures of him. Ill work
on putting mine on a cd to send soon. Thanks!