2/22/10
Buenas tardes!
Everything is going GREAT here in Florida! We had 2 baptisms on sat and they were both confirmed on sunday! We also have on this coming sat for a guy named Jose Luis. Thanks for all your faith and prayers. It helps a lot! Before i forget, i just got my allergy shot this morning so all is well. I had the perscription all week but i was really sick so i decided to wait. Please erase the following before sending to others: I had severe diarea for over a week! I spent every morning in the bathroom and my stomach was a little nautious all week. Its finally gone away. I hardly ate anything this week though and i think i lost a little weight from it. I had to drink a ton of water to stay hydrated. I think im gonna start eating healthier because i just started working out again. I ran 2 miles this morning and lifted weights at some other missionaries apt gym.
Good luck on the second trip to D.C. dad! Ill be praying for you! Today we are probably going to the beach again to play soccer. My new comp is awesome! His name is Elder Johnson from Draper, UT. He has been out for 8 months i think and was switched Spanish right when he got here. He speaks pretty good Spanish. He has been learning for one less transfer than me. He plays guitar and piano and basketball. I am really excited for this transfer! He is a really hard worker and has a lot of faith. I think we are going to get along much better. We will probably be doing a lot of tracting this transfer but it should be fun. When i was first switched Spanish i hated tracting but now i love it! As long as there's plenty of people to teach.
The mission this year has been changing a bit. Last year we learned how to run hard and fast for a long time. Now a lot of the meetings and conferences have been focusing more on Christ and the Atonement and repentance. We use the same approach but really focus it on repentance and Christ. This transfer i am going to study anything and everything about Christ to really increase my testimony of repentance and the Atonement. I started Jesus the Christ a few weeks ago and im about a quarter of the way through it. It is blowing my mind! So many little and big details of Christ i never knew! Did you read it on your mission dad? I was also interesting that a lot of the big words that Talmage uses that we normally dont use in everyday language are very similar to many Spanish words. Without knowing the words in Spanish i would probably not know what it meant in English! Its interesting how much i have learned about the English language by learning Spanish.
Well i dont have too much more to say. I feel like my testimony of Christ has really grown this transfer. I know without a doubt that He lives. I know that the repentance process truly works and how exquisite the joy can be if we are humble and repentant each day. Ill share something else i have learned in the last several months- the key to longsuffering and enduring to the end. It is diligence. A couple months ago in Live Oak i was feeling really homesick and the end seemed too far away to endure. After much thought and prayer the Spirit simply told me what i had to do. Be diligent. I have always worked pretty hard but i learned how to sacrifice more and run faster and harder and be diligent in everything- studies, tracting, teaching. I found that the more diligent i was, the less i thought of home or was distracted by worldly things that dont matter. I found a greater happiness and satisfaction in the work and time seems to dissipate even faster and all i can think about are my investigators and how i can better help them come unto Christ. So if anyone who reads this cant seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel and aren't sure how you can possibly endure...BE DILIGENT! And i promise all feelings of sadness and discouragement will disappear. Times up!
Love,
Elder Carty
Sunday, May 16, 2010
2/16/10
Good afternoon!
What a beautiful day in Florida! Well the weather at least. I feel a bit under it right now though. I have had a slight stomach ache for the past 3 days and havent slept well. It wasnt nearly as bad as the flu but i think it was something i ate that didnt sit right and it might have just been food poisoning or something. Pepto bismol has helped a lot so i havent had to stop working at all. Ever since a burrito i had at our favorite hispanic restaurant Pepe's i havent felt good and have spent a lot of time in the bathroom. lol. Everyone went to Wing Depot today after district meeting(which was one of the best district meetings ive had-almost everyone cried when they bore their testimony) and got all-you-can-eat-wings which looked delicious but there was no way my stomach could handle it. I still havent eaten anything today.
Anyways, this week was really good and we should be having a couple baptisms this weekend! I dont have much time to write because i forgot my library card and had to borrow one when someone finished. Im glad the baptism was great! Send some pics! And congratulations on succeeding in D.C. dad ! You're on your way to the top! Im glad you made it there and back safe with the weather! I prayed all week that it would go well. On tues. i had a distinct impression all of the sudden to pray that you would make it there safely to give the presentation. Guess it must have worked!
My comp is getting transferred this week and i am staying here. I will be getting 1 of 3 others that are getting transferred. This week we were planning and my comp blew up a me for something really small and stormed off so i had to go talk to him and get things settled out. We had a long talk about several different things and get along a ton better now. We just didnt communicate very well and he let a lot of little things build up without talking about them. But all is well now. I'm really excited for transfers. Elder Probert my old comp will be my zone leader which im excited for. He has been my favorite comp so far.
Thanks for taking care of my school loans. I think with that loan you mentioned you may have to still pay a bit. They said that it would go into forbearance for a year and then i could do something else for another year to either decrease the payments or something. Ill call and find out. I better get going so i can go on the website to figure it out. Hope everyone has a great week! Congratulations on your baptism Aaron! And thanks for the Valentine's Day package!!! It was great!
Love,
Elder Carty
Good afternoon!
What a beautiful day in Florida! Well the weather at least. I feel a bit under it right now though. I have had a slight stomach ache for the past 3 days and havent slept well. It wasnt nearly as bad as the flu but i think it was something i ate that didnt sit right and it might have just been food poisoning or something. Pepto bismol has helped a lot so i havent had to stop working at all. Ever since a burrito i had at our favorite hispanic restaurant Pepe's i havent felt good and have spent a lot of time in the bathroom. lol. Everyone went to Wing Depot today after district meeting(which was one of the best district meetings ive had-almost everyone cried when they bore their testimony) and got all-you-can-eat-wings which looked delicious but there was no way my stomach could handle it. I still havent eaten anything today.
Anyways, this week was really good and we should be having a couple baptisms this weekend! I dont have much time to write because i forgot my library card and had to borrow one when someone finished. Im glad the baptism was great! Send some pics! And congratulations on succeeding in D.C. dad ! You're on your way to the top! Im glad you made it there and back safe with the weather! I prayed all week that it would go well. On tues. i had a distinct impression all of the sudden to pray that you would make it there safely to give the presentation. Guess it must have worked!
My comp is getting transferred this week and i am staying here. I will be getting 1 of 3 others that are getting transferred. This week we were planning and my comp blew up a me for something really small and stormed off so i had to go talk to him and get things settled out. We had a long talk about several different things and get along a ton better now. We just didnt communicate very well and he let a lot of little things build up without talking about them. But all is well now. I'm really excited for transfers. Elder Probert my old comp will be my zone leader which im excited for. He has been my favorite comp so far.
Thanks for taking care of my school loans. I think with that loan you mentioned you may have to still pay a bit. They said that it would go into forbearance for a year and then i could do something else for another year to either decrease the payments or something. Ill call and find out. I better get going so i can go on the website to figure it out. Hope everyone has a great week! Congratulations on your baptism Aaron! And thanks for the Valentine's Day package!!! It was great!
Love,
Elder Carty
2/8/10
Hello!
Sounds like everyone had a good week! Thats awesome that you are going to D.C. to present the new hospital! Sounds really exciting! Just drive on down and you can come tracting with us! Speaking of tracting, i dont think ive tracted so much on my mission than i have this week. None of our investigators had progressed for a few weeks so we dropped all of them and started over. We only had like 2 appointments the whole week and all we did is tract the rest of the time. A lot of the complexes dont have too many hispanics so we would have to tract the whole thing just to teach 2 lessons. One of the apt complexes had like 60 buildings with 16 doors in each one! It was huge! But finally by the end of the week we started seeing the fruits of our labors and found some pretty good people. We found a couple from brazil that only speak portuguese. We are going to see them again tonight. Surprisingly i can actually understand about half of what they say. Portuguese sounds weird when im so used to Spanish. We set a baptism date with a lady from Honduras and then last night we found these 3 guys, 2 from Mexico and 1 from Colombia, who were pretty cool. They immediately let us in and asked a ton of questions throughout the lesson. We didnt set baptism dates but they have a desire to do it and want to come to church.
My allergies have gotten really bad. Supposedly Jacksonville is one of the worst places for allergies. I never had them this bad at home. Ithink an allergy shot would be the best option. Im taking some cheap Walmart meds for them right now but they are still not too good. I have really struggled waking up this week because they make me really tired and my eyes are swollen up in the morning and my nose is running all the time. I got them pretty bad last year too. I guess Sis. Newman called mom about it. Does our insurance cover out here?
Did Aaron get my package this week? I also sent a letter on saturday, a short note that you can read at his baptism if you want. Well i dont really have much more exciting news here. We are going to go play soccer again today. Keep up the good missionary work! And good job skiing Aaron! Sounds like you are learning really fast! Keep it up so we can ski together when i come home. Thanks for the letter and the story/poem about the work horse. Thats definitely what i felt like this week. You mentioned on Christmas that you would send some bathroom supplies when i run low. Could you send a couple things? Unless it will cost a lot to send. Toothpaste-Aquafresh Extreme Clean, Freshening Action. Deodorant and Body wash-Old Spice, Swagger(scent). Allergy eydrops. and a sponge thingy for my body wash. i think thats all i need for a while. Thanks! Hope everyone has a great week!
Love,
Elder Carty
Hello!
Sounds like everyone had a good week! Thats awesome that you are going to D.C. to present the new hospital! Sounds really exciting! Just drive on down and you can come tracting with us! Speaking of tracting, i dont think ive tracted so much on my mission than i have this week. None of our investigators had progressed for a few weeks so we dropped all of them and started over. We only had like 2 appointments the whole week and all we did is tract the rest of the time. A lot of the complexes dont have too many hispanics so we would have to tract the whole thing just to teach 2 lessons. One of the apt complexes had like 60 buildings with 16 doors in each one! It was huge! But finally by the end of the week we started seeing the fruits of our labors and found some pretty good people. We found a couple from brazil that only speak portuguese. We are going to see them again tonight. Surprisingly i can actually understand about half of what they say. Portuguese sounds weird when im so used to Spanish. We set a baptism date with a lady from Honduras and then last night we found these 3 guys, 2 from Mexico and 1 from Colombia, who were pretty cool. They immediately let us in and asked a ton of questions throughout the lesson. We didnt set baptism dates but they have a desire to do it and want to come to church.
My allergies have gotten really bad. Supposedly Jacksonville is one of the worst places for allergies. I never had them this bad at home. Ithink an allergy shot would be the best option. Im taking some cheap Walmart meds for them right now but they are still not too good. I have really struggled waking up this week because they make me really tired and my eyes are swollen up in the morning and my nose is running all the time. I got them pretty bad last year too. I guess Sis. Newman called mom about it. Does our insurance cover out here?
Did Aaron get my package this week? I also sent a letter on saturday, a short note that you can read at his baptism if you want. Well i dont really have much more exciting news here. We are going to go play soccer again today. Keep up the good missionary work! And good job skiing Aaron! Sounds like you are learning really fast! Keep it up so we can ski together when i come home. Thanks for the letter and the story/poem about the work horse. Thats definitely what i felt like this week. You mentioned on Christmas that you would send some bathroom supplies when i run low. Could you send a couple things? Unless it will cost a lot to send. Toothpaste-Aquafresh Extreme Clean, Freshening Action. Deodorant and Body wash-Old Spice, Swagger(scent). Allergy eydrops. and a sponge thingy for my body wash. i think thats all i need for a while. Thanks! Hope everyone has a great week!
Love,
Elder Carty
2/2/10
Hello!
Sorry about not emailing yesterday! The main server for all the Jacksonville libraries crashed so we couldnt email yesterday. This week has gone by unusually fast! There are only 2 weeks left in the transfer! Time just keeps going faster and faster and faster the longer ive been out. It was an ok week. It has really been difficult to teach lessons and find people to teach in this area. We tract at least 4 hours each day and barely even see any hispanics and we havent had anyone at church for 2 weeks. We are defenitely working hard though so i know we'll find some more. I had a really good interview with president Newman this week. He leaves in 4 months! He told me that during the next 4 months he will be looking for his "anchors" in the mission, those who he knows he can count on when he leaves to be leaders. He gave me a really good compliment and said he will be looking to me to be one of those leaders. We talked about my comp and he gave me some advice and said that he will probably be transferred and ill most likely be staying.
Aarons birthday sounded like a blast! I will be mailing a small package for him today so look for it in the mail. We went to St. Augustine yesterday and looked around in some of the shops there so i picked something up for Aaron. Ill write something for Aarons baptism tonight and mail it out tomorrow. Ill try to write more letters to him from now on. Every baptism that ive had Satan always throws every temptation and negative feeling he has at them the week before to try to stop them from getting baptized. Maybe thats why hes been a bit angry. There is always a trial of our faith before we can progress. I think thats also true for children, though maybe in a smaller degree. Ive really missed Aaron this week!
Thanks for applying for school and scholarships for me! I still cant decide if thats what i want to do. Ive thought a lot lately about coming home for a few months and then living in central america for a few months and returning to school in the fall. I know a lot of people down there and could probably find enough places to stay for a while. I really want to visit Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Ive actually learned a lot about those places from talking to people. I think it would be great to perfect my spanish and ive always wanted to live in another country. I think that may be the only time in my life i would have the opportunity to do something like that. It also may be easier to get scholarships that way. Maybe i could do some online classes before the fall. I think i only need a few more credits to be considered a junior because of the dual credit in high school. If you want to send me the essay prompt i can make time to write it. How soon do you need it done? Or you can just write it, it doesnt make a big difference to me. I cant really think of anything special to put in it. Some of my life goals are to have a family, become a pilot, own my own business, learn several languages and travel the world! I dont know. Just make me look good if you write it. lol.
We will be seeing a member family today. We really dont have too many members that actually live in our area. Most of them live in the other area. Thanks for the tips about member missionary work! We are hoping to have a baptism this weekend for the Nicaraguan that we found. Pray for him that he can overcome drinking because he drank again on sat night and couldnt come to church. His name is Walter. Also pray for Vinicio to be able to come to church. He has had to work every sunday and we cant seem to get him to church one more time to be baptized. Well thats about everything thats going on here. Oh yeah i got your postcard! Thanks for thinking of me while you were skiing! That plus the winter olympics advertising everywhere has made me miss skiing! Hope everyone has a great week!
Love,
Elder Carty
Hello!
Sorry about not emailing yesterday! The main server for all the Jacksonville libraries crashed so we couldnt email yesterday. This week has gone by unusually fast! There are only 2 weeks left in the transfer! Time just keeps going faster and faster and faster the longer ive been out. It was an ok week. It has really been difficult to teach lessons and find people to teach in this area. We tract at least 4 hours each day and barely even see any hispanics and we havent had anyone at church for 2 weeks. We are defenitely working hard though so i know we'll find some more. I had a really good interview with president Newman this week. He leaves in 4 months! He told me that during the next 4 months he will be looking for his "anchors" in the mission, those who he knows he can count on when he leaves to be leaders. He gave me a really good compliment and said he will be looking to me to be one of those leaders. We talked about my comp and he gave me some advice and said that he will probably be transferred and ill most likely be staying.
Aarons birthday sounded like a blast! I will be mailing a small package for him today so look for it in the mail. We went to St. Augustine yesterday and looked around in some of the shops there so i picked something up for Aaron. Ill write something for Aarons baptism tonight and mail it out tomorrow. Ill try to write more letters to him from now on. Every baptism that ive had Satan always throws every temptation and negative feeling he has at them the week before to try to stop them from getting baptized. Maybe thats why hes been a bit angry. There is always a trial of our faith before we can progress. I think thats also true for children, though maybe in a smaller degree. Ive really missed Aaron this week!
Thanks for applying for school and scholarships for me! I still cant decide if thats what i want to do. Ive thought a lot lately about coming home for a few months and then living in central america for a few months and returning to school in the fall. I know a lot of people down there and could probably find enough places to stay for a while. I really want to visit Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Ive actually learned a lot about those places from talking to people. I think it would be great to perfect my spanish and ive always wanted to live in another country. I think that may be the only time in my life i would have the opportunity to do something like that. It also may be easier to get scholarships that way. Maybe i could do some online classes before the fall. I think i only need a few more credits to be considered a junior because of the dual credit in high school. If you want to send me the essay prompt i can make time to write it. How soon do you need it done? Or you can just write it, it doesnt make a big difference to me. I cant really think of anything special to put in it. Some of my life goals are to have a family, become a pilot, own my own business, learn several languages and travel the world! I dont know. Just make me look good if you write it. lol.
We will be seeing a member family today. We really dont have too many members that actually live in our area. Most of them live in the other area. Thanks for the tips about member missionary work! We are hoping to have a baptism this weekend for the Nicaraguan that we found. Pray for him that he can overcome drinking because he drank again on sat night and couldnt come to church. His name is Walter. Also pray for Vinicio to be able to come to church. He has had to work every sunday and we cant seem to get him to church one more time to be baptized. Well thats about everything thats going on here. Oh yeah i got your postcard! Thanks for thinking of me while you were skiing! That plus the winter olympics advertising everywhere has made me miss skiing! Hope everyone has a great week!
Love,
Elder Carty
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