Ensenada!

That´s right! I got transferred to Ensenada! Here is where I finish. I will be coming home in 3 months. My companion is named Elder Luna, and he is going home this transfer, so no doubt where I go for my last transfer in the mission.

INVESTIGATORS

None for my new sector, but I´ll write about the last ones.

Joellen - She came to church again! Really nice lady. She wants me to come back to confirm her. I hope all goes well with teaching her, because she had problems with the Word of Wisdom when I left....

Amador - We didn´t have enough money left to visit him on Sunday... It looks like he´s interested though, because apparently he wanted to know who Joseph Smith was. We´ll see how that goes.

We´re starting a new initiative this month called Gracias a que Él Vive. Gotta start giving those cards out all I can.

EXPERIENCES

1.) Gotta be brief because I don´t have much time left. So, the first one is actually a miracle that happened. So, you remember how we ate with an American family a couple weeks ago that had the programmer there? Well, I actually wanted to get his email address to be able to keep in contact. Maybe I could end up landing a sweet job working for Microsoft because he puts in a good word, you know?

Anyway, so I didn´t have any way to talk to him again to get it, so I was just worried about the fact that I wouldn´t be able to even get it. I then decided to pray and I said that if it were at ALL possible, please help me to get in contact with him one last time so I can keep in touch.

Well, that day in Walmart while buying food, we met this lady who asked us what ward we were in. We told her and she told us she was living in Rosarito. Pretty nice lady, and we didn´t think too much about it.

Later on that day, we were sitting in the taxi base, waiting for one to come by when this black car rolls up. Inside is this lady with her husband!

In the mission, we have a rule that unless we know someone personally, we can´t get into their car. So Heavenly Father placed his wife in our path so we could get to know her a little, so that we could get in the car with them!

Turns out, THEY WERE GOING TO VISIT THIS FAMILY! I was just so amazed. Honestly. It was insane.

Well, I managed to call them while they were there, and I got his email address. So now, I´ve got a contact in Microsoft. Talk about a miracle.

2.) We were also waiting for a taxi with Jason, the American, when it suddenly passes by and we miss it. So Jason just gets in his car and is like,

"We´re gonna chase it down."

So, we did. He got up to 80 miles an hour chasing this taxi for like, 10 minutes. It was crazy. We ended up passing it, and then we got out a little ahead and flagged down the taxi, got in, and went home. It was awesome. I felt like we were in a pursuit in like, Fast in Furious or something. haha

3.) Elder Rose and I started throwing eggs at the stray dogs here. Well, honestly, just Elder Rose. I didn´t have the heart to do it. He didn´t hit anything, but he did scare off a dog and a cat pretty bad. It was hilarious.

4.) We got our light bill stolen, and so we couldn´t pay it, and they cut our light! We had to mexicanize our house and string an extension cord from the apartment below us to the one we were in to have some electricity for the fridge and microwave. We were going by flashlight and candle light all weekend. It´s kinda cool to shower by candle light.

5.) I realized the other day that I´m almost done. I´m about ready to finish. I can´t believe it. I remember the first day on the mission when I ate IHOP with grandma and grandpa and took a small nap in the car before entering the MTC, and now I´m about ready to go home. Holy wow. I´m pretty amazed.

But with that realization comes a bit of frustration. Life is constantly moving on. I´m grown up now. No more Veggietales, no more Disney VHS movies, no more riding bikes with Derek at the school, all of that is now in the past. My life is onward. I can´t stop it. I just want to go back to those times sometimes and enjoy them more, you know? I really miss it.

Okay, well, this is it, people. My last two transfers in them mission. Who knows what will happen? I could baptize, maybe not, but who knows? All I know is that I just gotta TRY my best. Even if I fail, at least I tried. God can work with failure from effort, but not with failure to act. So, if I want God to change me these last few months, I just need to act. Who cares if I´m not a leader or anything? That´s all hype anyway. And more responsibility. And a little more frustration.

So this is it, folks! My last 12 emails will be coming through from Barrio Hidalgo in Ensenada, and after that, I will be 100% normal again. Wish me luck.

Thanks for the support and love I have received from all of you. I miss you all a ton, and I can´t wait to catch up when we see each other again.

Bye!

Elder Carter

Nothing Super Noteworthy

To start off, this week really didn't have a whole lot that was super noteworthy in terms of the work. We just contacted and knocked on doors... And no one was home. That's always how it seems to be here... It's rough.

INVESTIGATORS

Joellen - She's a nice old lady from California that contacted us. She is living here in Mexico because it's cheaper. It's kinda weird because she says she's had a personal visitation from Jesus Christ, so... We're kinda working on that. The good news is that she believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and she says that she believes almost all we tell her because she knows "we are of the order of Melchizedek." Kinda weird, but she came to church. That was the coolest part. Really really kind lady.

We have a lot of potential investigators, but we just can't seem to find them at home. We put a lot of appointments, but when we show up at the mera hora (spanish for something like EXACT HOUR) they aren't there.

EXPERIENCES

1.) Well, first, THEY ANNOUNCED THE DEDICATION OF THE TIJUANA TEMPLE! The open house will be from the 13th of November to the 28th of november (something like that. At least two weeks). The actual day of the dedication is scheduled to be the 12th of December. So there it is. Finally on it's way to finishing.

2.) Second, we were visiting a lady and when we finished, we went and waited by a road for a taxi. As we were waiting by this road, not even joking, there were HUNDREDS of mosquitos. They started eating us alive. It was crazy. I started just rubbing my arms and neck to keep them from landing long enough to eat me alive. I got bit twice. My companion was bitten probably 25-30 times. It was nuts.

3.) I'm getting fat. I've gone up 10 pounds. I used to be at 140, and now I'm at 150. I have some serious weight loss to do when I get home.

4.) I've been showing a family, the Pech family, some magic tricks, and I've managed to convince Angela that I'm good enough at magic to get paid as a street magician. Pretty cool. I really like doing card tricks for people. Makes me feel like a boss.

5.) I really hate translating.

At first, I thought it was pretty cool to translate from Spanish to English. Made me feel really cool. Now, the problem I have is that it's just SO HARD. I'm really sick of listening to people, saying what they say, and then listening again. My companion hates it more because he gets nervous in front of people. I'm not really nervous in front of people as much as I am nervous about translating the whole talk wrong. Seems like people understand what I'm saying anyways, so I guess I must not be saying anything wrong.

6.) My Spanish is pretty sub-par. I thought I was doing pretty good, but just the other day, there were 2 teenagers that got in our taxi together and I just couldn't understand them. I got a few things, but only around like, 20%. They just talked WAY too fast. I need to still study some more... And try to learn more mexicanisms...

Thanks for everything. The Support, packages, and love. I feel like I've been really supported a lot by a lot of good people. I'm so happy to know that I've got so much support.

Elder Carter

Pues Si

This week is going to be fast, because I really don't have much time to talk. We are still out of investigators, but I've got a couple things to talk about:

1.) We are teaching this lady that has a husband that investigated the church. She's a non-member but we haven't really gotten much out of her but questions and doubt. What was hilarious was what happened with her husband after a bit of time talking with her and trying to explain that she's just got to ask about the Book of Mormon. We read the promise in Moroni (It's a lot shorter in English than SPanish.) and then said that that's her way to know about this stuff, and her husband says this:

"You know, I got really sick once, so I decided to read the Book of Mormon. I read that promise and stuff and I asked God about it, and guess what?"

We all got silent. I was SO scared he was going to say he hadn't got an answer. And then he said:

"I BELIEVE IT!"

It was awesome.

2.) Speaking of English, we actually taught in English for quite a while because we put some appointments with people who only spoke English. It was really interesting to see how much I've learned after teaching in Spanish for so long.

3.) I actually really like eating like the poor people here, because it's really fun to buy some tortillas, some avocado, a small block of cheese and a bit of beans and make that feed like, 5 people. I found out that they don't eat until they are full, they just eat until they are no longer hungry. Pretty fun.

4.) Last thing, as we were headed home after a meeting yesterday, we saw a car that was on fire. We have no idea what happened, but it was sitting on the side of a road, on fire. It's still there, but no longer on fire.

Okay, that's all. I'll probably get more this next week. Sorry for the short letter. The dentist's office killed my time this week.

Elder Carter

Rough Week

We had a lot of problems this week, but the biggest ones are the ones that really killed us.

INVESTIGATORS

Sadly, we have run out of all investigators right now. We've found a couple people, but we haven't been able to teach them, so we're basically stuck right now looking for good new investigators. We have a couple potential people, so we're going to keep praying.

EXPERIENCES

1.) All of my shirts were burned in a dryer. All of my CLOTHES actually. It was really sad. I have huge stains from the burns all of the shirts, and so this week, I've been using, for the WHOLE WEEK, shirts that came from another Elder. It was really sad to me. I have to get new ones today, because the Elder needs his shirts tomorrow... I included pictures to show the difference between the other Elder's shirts and mine in color. I've got yellow shirts now. Not white. haha

2.) There's this dog that we see all the time who sits down at the bottom waiting for us to feed him because we usually toss him down our spare food we don't eat. We named him Sparky. He's such an adorable little guy.

3.) There's a member here that has an Xbox 360 controller that didn't work because the battery pack discharged, so he just hooked it up to the wall through a charger and it worked. It was hilarious.

4.) Last Monday, we were looking for something to eat, or where to eat, and we went into this restaraunt to ask if they accepted cards. They said no, so we left, but JUST as we were leaving, some really nice woman, non-member, told us she would pay for us! It was really nice of her. We ate a pretty good meal. There you go. Miracle.

5.) I actually saw the corruption in the government here in Mexico. We were waiting at a stop sign for a taxi, and we watched this car get pulled over. The cop got out of his car, and started walking towards the driver's side of the car he pulled over. As he did so, the passenger got out, went up to the cop and shook his hand. As soon as he did, the cop turned around, got in his car, and drove off. I'm pretty sure he paid him or was really good friends with him. Kinda sad right?

6.) My companion got chased by a duck. It was hilarious. We were walking by a house and all of a sudden, this duck just appears out of nowhere. We keep walking, thinking he's just going to go on his merry way, when suddenly, he starts following us.

My companion freaks out and just starts running, and when he does, the duck starts running after him, with his wings spread out. It was hilarious! He just ran in circles, and I just watched and laughed as this duck ran in circles to bite my companion. He picked up a rock and threw it and got the duck to go away, and basically we just had a hard time keeping straight faces for a bit. Pretty hilarious.

7.) Someone threw rocks at the church! They broke two windows, and we found the rocks on the inside of the building. Since it's been raining so much here, it was actually pretty surprising that it wasn't all wet inside. We don't know who did it or anything, but we do know that they targeted the church specifically. Probably some Christian church or something. We don't know.

8.) We contacted a guy a couple days ago and we asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ, and he says:

"I don't even believe in the pants I put on."

Then he proceeded to talk about how he was a believer and how we are from yesterday and that where he was from, he met everyone. I honestly didn't understand anything from what he said. It was hilarious though, that he made it clear that he didn't believe in his pants. At least we know he won't pray to the Pants God and thank him for covering his nakedness every day.

We're working a lot on trying to contact 10 people every day. It's really hard because many people don't want to listen to us in certain situations. We can't contact people working because they just wave us off and say they're busy. People that are walking really don't want to stop because they're just in a hurry usually. The only places we can contact are when they just sit outside their house or when we're in taxis. That's about it.

Okay, well, I gotta wrap this up. Still gotta go buy my shirts and stuff. Thanks for the support and the love. I definitely need it right now.

See you all later.

Elder Carter