Stake Conference

This week was Stake Conference, and it was also a Zone Conference! So I got the package! It was awesome! I'll talk all about it.

Investigators:

Omar: He's a cool guy. Really quiet, so it's hard to understand him, but honestly a great guy, and he wants to be baptized ASAP. He actually told us he didn't want to go to church because he felt bad he couldn't go dressed like us. Great guy. We'll see what happens here, because he wants to move out of the area....

Brother J: Son of Sister J. Cool kid, and wants me to baptize him. He can be baptized super quickly, because he's got a bunch of support from a cool family that lives a block down the hill. Should be baptized in September, and I'll have to leave my new sector to do it. Stoked.

Brother J: He just can't leave his drinking habits! We're working with him... But we're scared he doesn't understand that he has to stop drinking. His kids are progressing awesomely though. I just hope they don't go inactive.

Sister J: She's just a little hesitant for some reason. Doesn't read or pray, and for some reason, doesn't want to come to church, but she keeps telling us that she wants to know which church is the true church. There's some sort of social problem there. I think it's the fact that her mom is inactive, and she doesn't want to turn into her mom, or she thinks that this church can't be true if her mom stopped going. We're just praying for her answer.

that's all for now.

Cool things: (this list is huge. Lets see if I can do it)

1.) There was a drunk guy who chased us a week ago! He stopped us in the street, and we talked for about 10 minutes, and we then just left, because he didn't listen. He then got angry about how we weren't trying to help him, and he started following us. It was at night, so Elder T and I were just like, "Lets run."

We booked it for around 3 blocks when we rounded a corner, and he disappeared. It was awesome.

2.) We heard gunshots one morning around 2 blocks from our house. 3 quick ones. We're scared.

3.) We were teaching Sister J, and we started teaching about the Word of Wisdom, and we told her she HAD TO STOP DRINKING COFFEE. Well, she refused. She utterly refused, and told us it just wasn't going to happen, and then, I realized something super sad.

A single cup. One cup. Something I could break just by letting it go and dropping to the floor, has more power over a person than she has over herself.

Isn't that just a sad concept? That single cup of coffee taht she has in the morning has more power to control her than she can control herself. Whatever thing it is, if they threaten her coffee, she can't do it. If someone offers her an awesome job where she gets paid a bajillion dollars, but has to stop drinking coffee to get it, she can't take the job. It's just a super sad idea, but it made me appreciate the Word of Wisdom a TON.

4.) DAD YOU HAVE TO SEND ME A PICTURE OF YOUR NEW CAR. CAN I HAVE THE ALTIMA?

5.) I heard from the President that we have 7,500 members (roughly) attending sacrament meeting every single Sunday in Tijuana.

Sounds cool right? Here's the sad part:

There have been, in the last year, around 1,700 convert baptisms. And the sacrament meeting attendance has only risen around 200 people.

The saying that the authorities have about Tijuana is that they enter in the front door and leave in the back one. Looks like we've got a LOT more work to do here.

6.) I have decided to include cool PME quotes every week just to make everyone happy. This week is the first and most important quote that can be found in the first Presidency message at the beginning:

"The Lord will reward and richly bless you as you humbly and prayerfully serve Him. More happiness awaits you than you have ever experienced as you labor among His children."

7.) The President is so awesome. I can't explain it this week, but next week, I will.

Okay, I gotta get going. I'll send a wall of pictures. These are of me in my new suit and the pinata we got so we can celebrate our last week together as a district.

More on the way. Thanks for the support! Have an awesome week!

Elder Carter

Pictures

Coby had a companion in 2013 which returned from his mission recently.  This companion uploaded a bunch of pictures from his mission so we shuffled through the pictures and found a few of Coby.  So, I'm going to upload this pictures to his blog page for everyone to see.  Keep in mind, these pictures are probably from October and November of last year.  Some of them you may have seen before, some of them are new.

Frustration

Okay, I'm giong to cut to the chase here.

Investigators:

I'm sitting on just one right now with a baptismal date: Brother O.

We contacted him in the street after an appointment told us to visit one of the neighbors there. He told us he'd go to church, but never showed. We're giong to see what happened thsi week.

We have other investigators, like Brother J and Brother B, but we aren't seeing much progress there. We're going to see what we can do this week to get them to church.

Kind of low on that pool, but we're giong to fill it up again soon.

Cool stuff:

1.) HOLY COW WE ARE BEING WATCHED. We went to go buy my suit, and one of the people there in the place called MacroPlaza pulled out his phone and took a picture of Elder S and my companion Elder Ts. Then he put the caption: "Hasta los Testigos andan en el Macro" (Even the Witnesses (Jehovah's Witnesses) are in the MacroPlaza."

It was hilarious. But also, we began to think, how many people actually watch us daily then? Pretty funny though. They posted it on Facebook, and it might become a Meme.

2.) HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I'm such a lame person because I'm sending it nearly a month late, but Happy Birthday!

3.) Hey, can someone send me the phrase in Studio C when they say something like, 

"Hey man, it ain't a'aight if you fixin to roll all up in mah crib wichuh outdated steelo flossin like ya got cheddah, cuz it ain't (somthing I don't remember) to front when you draivin dat hoopdie!" that's just a super funny thing to say, and Elder Morales can't understand English if we talk in a Southern accent.

4.) We all died this week!

So, we ate something called Ceviche around a week ago on Sunday, and what it is is basically raw fish with Cilantro, Tomato, and a couple other things.

Anyway, I knew ceviche was bad because I had eaten it before, and it ruined me for around 3 days. So, I didn't want to eat, but the brother that we were with basically told us we were going to eat Ceviche, or we weren't going to eat at all.

Well, I ate a little, but the whole time I was thinking, "this is going to ruin my life later."

I told the other Elders when we got back to the house, "That Ceviche is going to wreck this apartment."

I was right.

We ate it on Saturday, and on Monday night, the bomb dropped.

Elder Torres got up around 7 times in the night to go... evacuate his bowels very explosively. I got up twice to do it, but both times I was stuck in the bathroom for around 30 minutes with just constant need to be there. Elder Scholes got up around 3 times, and Elder Morales just once.

It was so bad that in the middle of the night, when I was up, Elder Torres had to go, and so he got up as well, but I had just started, so he had to wait like 30 minutes for me to finish my explosion, and then he had to go.

The worst part was in the morning. Everyone was just terrible. Elder Torres had medication that he took, but I had nothing to help with it, so I just had to tough it out. Elder Scholes was hit the worst. He couldn't leave for 2 days. Just sitting in the bathroom all day.

Long story short, it wrecked us all. It was terrible. No more fish like that for me. Thank you.

Okay, well, I gotta go. Been here a bit too long. BAI EVERYONE!

Elder Carter

HELLO FROM PARIS!

Hey people. This is Elder Carter. I´m in Paris right now. (I´m sure you all believe that.)

Here are my investigators:

Brother J, Brother F, Brother J, Sister B and a new one! The daughter B!

Brother J, the son, and his brother F were baptized this Wednesday! WOOO! They were confirmed on Sunday! They are officially members of the church! WOOO!

We´re working with Brother J, the dad, and Sister B and Sister B. Sister B appears a little less receptive as of late, but we haven´t had the chance to visit her. Also, Sister B really hasn't been with us. But I´m going to use a couple tricks I have up my sleeve to convince her to listen... >:D

Sister C

WE LOST HER! She keeps telling us that it´s evil to go to the movies because that´s where sinners sit, and we can´t sit in the seats where the sinners have sat. She also tells us we shouldn't ever listen to music ever because it´s not from God. She also tells us that she doesn't feel the Spirit in church because she never cries. It´s really sad. But Elder M and I have a plan. We´re going to get one more appointment with her. Just one more, and we´re going to see if we can at least convince her that she´s gotta keep investigating. Elder M is basically the best missionary ever. Holy cow. He knows a ton. We´ll see what happens there.

Sister J and Brother J

A mother and son that we found through members. Sister J is just absolutely nuts, and I can´t understand what she says because she swears too much. I don´t know the swear words (thank goodness) and so whenever she talks about stuff that has happened, or why she feels like she needs to be baptized, she goes on a crazy rant about how crappy her life is and stuff. Brother J is a normal guy who actually planches his own mom. Like, we tried to put an appointment on Sunday, and she didn't let us, and he was like, MOM! YOU´RE REJECTING GOD. LET THEM COME.

He´s basically a surefire baptism. Already asked 3 times if the BoM was true and got his answer. Total boss. Set for the 27th.

Those are the good ones for now.

Okay, well, I gotta get moving here soon anyway, but i´ve got just 1 thing really important to talk about this week.

This week was really hard for me because for the first time, I felt the sorrow that the profets feel. I mean, we had around 10 baptismal dates at the start of this week, and now we have 3. We had to drop 7 because they just don´t want to listen because they don´t understand the difference between emotion and the spirit. Many go to Christian churches that put music that has lyrics really beautiful and that really pull your heartstrings, and so you cry, and they start screaming about how you can be healed, and they think that´s how God works and they don´t think we have the Spirit. It made me very sad. Not sad as in discouraged, but sad because I knew that they weren´t going to be saved in those churches. I felt really sad taht they rejected God, and that they didn´t want to listen to the voice of the Master. It was a very humbling experience. But, this week, we´re going to find new people.

Okay, Gotta go. Love you all.

Elder Carter

HOLA FAMILIA!

This week, I just had a stupidly amazing idea: What if I wrote the big letter first, so that I had time to write everything I wanted, and THEN answered the little ones? It'd be so much better that way! So today, that's what I'm doing!

Investigators:

Brother J, Sister B,  Brother F, y Brother J - Progressing like monsters over there. Basically set up. Brother F and Brother J (Jr.) are going to be baptized this week, and in around 2-3 weeks, the parents will be baptized. It's super cool. They're basically set up for the temple in a year.

Sister C - She's doing well, but we haven't had much chance to talk to her. She's actually going to be baptized soon, but the problem is we just can't seem to talk to her! Grrr.....

Brother L and Family - New family we found from a member in the other side of our ward. Turns out, he's got 2 kids that are in the age of being baptized as well. We could potentially baptize 4 of them. However, THEY AREN'T MARRIED. We're going to be praying and fasting for a miracle there, because they all went to church together.

That's about all for now. We're working with them mainly.

Okay, so yeah, this week was kinda bad. I was sick pretty much all the time, and I lost my voice for around 3 days, so I was forcing myself to speak Spanish with just the absolute WORST sounds coming out of my mouth. It wasn't as bad as Elder Sant's stomach infection, so I guess I can't complain right?

Anyway, it was really rough this week because I don't know how to find. I just don't know how to do it. I've tried a lot of things. No one here gives us references for some reason, and I CAN'T SEEM TO CONTACT PEOPLE. I just have no faith in contacts because I have heard very little about success in that aspect. However, I think I might just give up and start contacting a ton because I can't go another week without finding.

Now the fun stuff!

1 - Family, do you guys remember the Elder that like, never spoke unless we talked about Celebrity Jeopardy with him? The Elder that always wore a scarf, even inside, and was just generally very... weird? I guess?

Yeah, my companion is like that guy. He DOESN'T TALK. Like, ever. I try to talk to him about his family or something, and he answers with 2 words. I asked him one time:

"So, how many brothers and sisters do you have?"

"One."

That's all he gave me. Nothing more.

"Is he or she older or younger than you?"

"She's younger."

"And, how old is she?"

"18."

"Is she a member?"

"No."

And that's how it goes! It's so frustrating! I can't joke around with him or really just be friends with him because he doesn't let me do it! The only thing he talks about a ton are movies!

Now I guess I can understand why you didn't want me just staying at home all day, BECAUSE I'LL END UP SAYING 2 WORDS AS A CONVERSATION!

The hardest part about the whole thing is the fact that he doesn't actually know how to teach all that well either. So, we get into a lesson, and he just has no confidence in what he's saying, and basically just throws us off a little in every lesson, because he just talks about whatever the heck comes to his mind. It's very very hard.

I mean, don't get me wrong, he's got plenty of awesome things, like he's super organized, he's very nice, and he's willing to work. He's a great guy, just doesn't talk, and has almost no self-confidence. I'm going to work with him to try to up that a little bit, and help him so that he teaches and knows how to teach better. I'm sure this transfer will be awesome.

2 - We've got a joke now in our district: "Ya tu sabes como hacemos esta viana aqui" (You know how we do this thing here.)

Basically, in the mission, we can't speak in Tu, but we do it as a joke like the rappers in Spanish. They always say stuff like that. YA TU SABES COMO LO HACEMOS AQUI ESTA VAINA. (Viana is like, any thing. It's like cosa, but a little more rough. Like the word crap kinda. YOU KNOW HOW WE DO THIS CRAP HERE!)

Anyway, we say that basically all the time now because ya tu sabes como lo hacemos aqui. We just like enjoying ourselves.

3 - I've started reading the Bible from cover to cover. Gosh dangit. The Old Testament is just chock full of a bunch of random stuff. Like, a donkey that talks, Moses throwing sticks into a room to see which one starts sprouting almonds, and a guy thats sitting in church who stands up, grabs a lance that was for some reason AT HIS SIDE, and then chases a guy and his, well, lady into a tent, where he runs 'em both through. That's the word of God right there. And gosh dangit, the law of Moses was nuts. Guess what? If you picked up a stick on Sunday, YOU DUN GET KILLED! If you gave birth as a woman, you were unclean for like, 2 weeks or something, unless it was a girl, and then it was 2 months. Just the weirdest junk in that law. But there you go. Now you know how it is during Moses' time. Pretty awesome right?

Anyway, with this newfound knowledge, Elder M and I had a Bible Bash. I ended up winning because he misread something in Spanish. It was super fun, and we decided that on the last month of the mission, we were just going to Bible Bash a bunch of people. Just to enjoy ourselves on the last month. It's giong to be awesome.

Okay well, sorry I don't have good pictures this week. I kinda forgot about them. I'm sending this one as like, a preview I guess. I know, it's lame, but you gotta understand that pictures aren't really my priority when I'm outside. I don't even take my camera. It's super dangerous....

I'll take better ones this week. Don't worry.

See you all later! Love you to death!

Elder Carter

We are going to Rock It here

This week was actually pretty boring. I mean, we had a couple awesome things happen, but I'm dead serious when I say that almost NOTHING fun happened this week.

So, first things first:

Brother J, Sister B, and all of them: THEY ARE AWESOME. Brother J, Brother F, and Brother J came to church and were super happy about it. They left after the first hour, but when we visited later that day, they didn't know there were classes after, and told us they were going to stay for all 3 hours next Sunday. What bosses. 2 Weeks to baptism I think.

Sister C: Not sure if I've mentioned her, but she's a girl that comes every week, but hasn't been baptized for some reason. Who knows. We're teaching her, and she actually left her boyfriend so that she could come to church and keep investigating. It was pretty cool.

Sister J: Awesome lady. She's super prideful about how she's endured a bunch of experiences, but I don't care. God knows how to help prideful people. He's knocked me down quite a few notches, and I've still got quite a long ways to go, so I'm confident she'll be baptized soon.

That's all for now. We're going to get a couple more baptismal dates placed this week, and I'm gonna do what I can to get them to church.

Umm.... Lets see. Cool stuf this week:

Got a new companion! Elder T! I'll get a picture next week because I forgot my camera to take pictures with him in the changes.

OH MAN. This past Tuesday, one of our investigators told us that someone was killed in our sector that Sunday. So, 1 week ago yesterday, we had a death in our sector. How nice. Gotta love El Pipila.

SUNDAYS ARE SO STRESSFULL. I think that's why I'm a little sick right now. I was super stressed out this passed Sunday because I had to pass to get 10 Investigators in 15 minutes. Well, we only passed for 3, and none of them came. The rest told me they were coming anyway. We ended up with 5. I gotta find another person to give rides so I can get more people to church.

WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE! It's coming along really well. I'm stoked to see it. It's almost done on the outside. It just lacks a couple windows and then they start on the inside. Scheduled date is 2016 somewhere.

The pictures are of us at the temple. Really cool.

Alright, that's all for this week. Love you all.

Elder Carter

P.S. ONE YEAR!

LOOK! IT´S CABBAGE!

Hi everyone. I´m back. With more pictures! And more updates.

Okay, so this is really sad. Let me explain a little.

In order for a person to be baptized here, they have to go 5 times to church, but if they miss 2 times, they can still do it.

Well, seeing as some people already had a few times at church, we put baptizmal dates like, super early. Around 3 or 4 weeks instead of 5. Well, NOT A SINGLE INVESTIGATOR CAME TO CHURCH THIS WEEK. So, we are down to the wire with these dates. We´re going to have to work super hard here this week to get them there so they can be baptized.

INVESTIGADORES

Brother J, Sister B, Brother F, y Brother J: They are just rockin it. We´ve taught up to the Law of Chastity with them and they just keep doing awesome. Didn´t come to church because of a surprise visit from Sister B´s brother, but we´re going to basically just drag them next time so that they can get baptized in 2 weeks.

Brother J and Brother D: Didn´t come. Aren´t going to leave work. we´re going to have to leave them for a bit.

Sister J and Brother S: We taught the authority really well. Basically, the most obvious we possibly could without going into a match of "Your church, my church." Well, we explained all that, and Brother S didn´t even care, and Brother J still doesn´t get it. I honestly think she doesn´t even pay attention to us when we talk. 

Sister A: She´s doing well, but we haven´t had that many visits with her. I can´t tell how well she´s progressing until later. We´ll see what happens this week.

Okay, that´s all for now. On to good stuff.

Okay family, I dunno if you remember, but there was a video on AFV about that cat that said OH LONG JOHN. OOOOOOHHHHHHH LONG JOHNSON. OOOOOHHHHH DON PIAAAANO. WHYYYYY I EYES YAH. ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY! OOOOHHH THAT LONG LONG JOHNSON.

that video was hilarious. Anyway, I heard that a couple days ago. It was like, at 7 that night, and we walked by this place where we heard two cats going on about this Long John guy. Man, this Johnson must be super long, because all the cats are talking about it.

Anyway, we determined that because there was one that was moreno (tan) and one huerito (white) they had to be missionaries, because that´s how all the missionaries are here to normal people. And we determined that they were performing a blessing or something. We even threw rocks at them and they just talked on about John and how he´s so long.

I also have two pictures! One is of the unity of Elder S and Elder M in the morning, and the other is of a teddy bear a little girl gave me.

Anyway, I gotta go.

Sorry this is short, but I´ll send more next week I think!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Elder Carter