Hey!

Hows everything going out west? Things are going really
good here. We are having a lot of success here and expect
a lot of baptisms soon. Sounds like everyone had a pretty
good week! I have been calling my recent converts this week
from Gainesville to see how they are all doing. Most of
them are doing very well and are still very strong in the
gospel. One of them however has been getting mixed up in
the wrong crowd and falling back into old habits. I had
a couple really good talks with her this week and she is
recommiting to everything and giving up some things.
Please pray for her if you could. She has a ton of
negative peer pressure and all of her friends and family
are extremely against the church. I think that had a lot
to do with it because her parents did'nt know till this
summer that she was baptized and they freaked out on her.
Plus all of her friends pushing her to go to another
church just kind of made her fall a little. But i was
pretty bold with her and we made a plan to get her back
on track so she be around soon enough i hope.

I wrote Sarah this week and ill write Alayna today. I
feel bad cause i havn't written her yet. I really want
to keep up on writing people but it really is a struggle
to find time cause i need to keep in contact with recent
converts as well. I probably have 10 min a day where im
not doing anything and we are always gone doing stuff on
p-days. I have to send this email and go somewhere else
to finish

We were finishing up laundry at Hermano Pinto's house,
our ward mission leader and now im at the library downtown.
It is massive! We are going to go to the Museum of Science
and History after this which should be pretty cool. Oh i
got the package, thanks! Thanks for the letters mom and
rachel! Way to go Aaron for scoring 3 goals! Keep playing
hard! I really fell like my Spanish is improving. I can
finally teach a principle how i want to and basically
express what i want to say. The most frustrating thing
is really wanting to say something and not knowing how
to say it so they'll understand. I dont feel like i
have improved as fast as i should have by now though.
My companion Elder Brown was switched the same time i
was and is a lot more fluent. I think he might have
known a lot more when he started though. The beaches
wasn't the best area to start in either cause there wasn't
that many hispanic people. I guess i need to study and
pray a lot harder. Hows Justin doing? What did he decide
to do and what has happened? I need to send grandma and
grandpa a letter cause its been a while since i have.
Know that we are working as hard as we can here to bring
as many souls to Christ as we can. We leave at 11a.m.
everyday and don't come home till 9p.m. Thanks for everyone
love and support! Here's a quote i just remembered from
Maximus in the movie Gladiator, "What we do in life,
echoes in eternity." (and no i didnt watch that movie
recently, lol)

Love,
Elder Carty

Hello,

Hows everyone doin? Im doin pretty good here. Soccer sounds
like a blast! We played at the beach last week. I tore up
my toe pretty good... under my right big toe, from playing
barefoot, pulled a big chunk of skin back and a bunch of
sand got all in it. so i put on a sock and kept playing.
lol It was fine though. I just cleaned it out really good
with some alcohol wipes and stuck a bandaid on for a few
days. My feet and legs were extremely sore for a while.

Oh ya i forgot to ask you who it was that wrote me. On
the letter it said Sarah Wuebkles? She said she was a
young woman there but i cant remember her. Did i meet
her? Ill really try to write her today. I was using
all my spare time before to read so i put everything
else off till i was done.

The retention here for recent converts is about the
same as everywhere else in the world. Its not the best
but its not too bad either.  We live pretty close to
downtown. There are a lot of ghettos in our area and
a few pretty sketchy parts with people from all over
the world. Usually thats where you find the most humble
people. We have met a lot of people from Burma, Sudan,
and Albania this week. Our area is huge so theres some
good and some bad parts. Actually our apartment is pretty
ghetto. lol. Dont worry though, we'll be safe.

I cant think of too much to put in my package. Maybe some
good granola bars or something. I gotta go before i get
logged off. Happy Anniversary!!!

Love,
Elder Carty

Hey!

Que pasa? everythings going good here. We are at a
 members house doing laundry and emailing so i have
 to make this one fairly short. This week has been
 pretty crazy! Im actually still in Jacksonville
 but the little area is called San Jose. Im about
 20 min away from my old area. Its straight inland
 right next to the St. Johns's river. Rosario
 finally got baptized! She has been investigating
 for 6 months! Of course it was 2 days after i
 left. But i got to go back for it. The trahans
 picked me up yesterday and took me to it. They
 are so nice!

My companions are awesome! Yes, there are
 multiple. We are in a threesome! Its different
 but we can talk to a lot more people. Their
 names are Elder Peck and Elder Brown. Elder
 Peck is senior comp and district leader. He
 is from Oregon and has 4 months left in his
 mission. Elder Brown has been out a year but
 was switched spanish the same time i was. This
 area is a really good opportunity to become
 fluent because we're in an all Spanish branch
 and there are a ton more hispanics here. A
 lot of apartment complex are entirely hispanic.
 We had a challenge throughout the mission on
 friday to teach 200 lessons and invite 150
 people to baptism. We ended up with 93 and
 93 which was the most spanish lessons i have
 taught in one day.

Joshua's stone sounds really neat. Im sorry
 you guys are struggling so much. I still
 have some hard days but luckily the work
 keeps me busy enough. Just pray and read
 and pray more. I love all you guys a lot
 and miss you! Thanks for the letter mom
 and the postcard dad! Hope you guys have
 a great week! Heres my new address:

6200 Barnes Rd. #S8
Jacksonville, FL 32216-5658

Love,
Elder Carty

Fam,

Another transfer is coming to a close. And Im being transferred!!! DANGIT! oh well, hopefully my new area will be awesome. I love it here though and we have at least 3 solid baptisms coming up. One of them is this Friday. The day after i leave of course! I should be able to come back for them though if i dont go too far away. I really liked this area and the people here a lot. Sister Trahan was crying when i told her i was leaving. She is one of the sweetest ladies ever. Her personality reminds a lot of you mom. And she kind of looks like you! We went to the temple on sat. and the the Trahan's were able to go. They really enjoyed it. The ward had about 8 recent converts there which was really neat. I got to baptize 5 of the youth. It was the first time Ive baptized in the temple! Afterwards, a guy named William who got home from a mission in Ogden about a month ago, took us out to lunch at Bono's BBQ which was really good. We met a 14 year old kid named Hugo who has been coming with a member for a couple weeks and he told us he wants to join the church but doesnt know how. He really wants to be baptized but we have to see what his mom thinks.

I sent Doug and Nat a postcard. Ill send you guys one this week. Man i am exhausted! I havent gotten over 6 hours of sleep all week cause ive been staying up trying to finish the Book of mormon. My goal is by this Friday. The Lord has definitely given me the strength to endure all week. We did A LOT of finding people this week. Lots of tracting! We went contacting at the flea market yesterday. We go there about every other week. Its really cool actually! Its huge and theres people there from just about every place of the world (and lots of hispanics). They sell just about everything there; fruit, seafood, haircuts, army surplus, sunglasses, shirts, washing machines, and anything and everything you can think of. You can actually bet some pretty good deals there.

Im probably going to buy another memory card for my camera today. Its about $32 bucks for 8GB. The one i have now is 2GB so this one should last me a while. I havent had to spend money on food for about 2 or 3 weeks cause the members have been feeding us a ton so i have some "pros" money that ill use to buy it. We went running on the beach again this morning. For some reason i had twice the energy as last week. We probably ran about 4-5 miles. Running on the beach is harder cause your feet slide a little. We will probably spend the rest of the day at the beach and i may get a shirt or something.

Seattle sounds like a blast! Hope Chicago was fun too! Send me some pics! I need to make another cd of pics for you guys. Thanks for the letters mom, Aaron, and Caleb! That was a really cool picture Aaron! Thanks! I doubt ill be made senior comp. cause i dont think i know enough Spanish. Ill probably have to be soon though cause i think we are getting 4 new Spanish missionaries this week and half the rest here were switched Spanish this summer so theres not very many that speak it fluently right now. Good luck with seminary dad! That is one calling that i pray i never receive in my lifetime. The tower you're building in the backyard sounds sweet! Well im gonna get going. Tell Aunt Cathy and Uncle Jorge they should write me a letter in Spanish! Ill write them back in Spanish if they do. It will be a good language study for me one day. Thanks for all of your love and support fam! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Carty