Work ends, week ends

Well, my good people, this week was quite the experience. Lets begin:

Investigators:

None. That´s right. I´m on nill right now. We ran out. We gotta find this week to get some work done.

Experiences:

1.) BAPTISM! The guy's name is Brother M. He's really cool. We found him through his girlfriend (the one with glasses) who brought him to church. We had contacted him before (Elder C and I) but he didn't want anything. He told us he was okay. However, when he went again, i was determined to help him. Well, as it turns out, he had QUESTIONS! So we answered them and talked about the Restoration. He agreed to do everything and we left.

He prayed THE VERY NIGHT WE TALKED TO HIM and received an answer. He said that he felt sad at first, and then asked if God was waiting a long time for him to ask, and he said he felt so happy he couldn't explain it.

I had the privlege to baptize him, and it was a great moment. He left the water and just stood in the font, smiling. We left the font, and as we were changing, he asked me, "Will I feel this clean when I get the Holy Ghost?" I told him he would, and he just seemed so content.

It was an awesome experience.

Outside of that, it was a really rough week. No news, (we actually had to drop a couple) and absolutely no progress. We´re punching a brick wall.

Sorry this is so short, but there´s really not much more that I can talk about right now. Pretty boring week this week.

Thanks for the help and support and prayers. I try to keep you all in my prayers too.

Okay, well, see you later everyone.

Elder Carter

2 weeks ago

Sorry I didn't write this week! It took a very long time to write last week because my computer was slow. THis week I've got a bunch to say, so lets see if I can do it.

INvestigators:

Brother M: He's going to be baptized in 3 days. Wednesday. He's super cool. I'll talk about his experience in a bit.

We're out of them outside of Brother M, so we've got to start looking for more again.

Stuff that happened!

1.) We had a miracle with Brother M! We told him he needed to pray and ask God if everything was true. So he did it that night. He said he felt sad when he first asked. After that, we were like, crud. He's going to say it's not true because of that.

Then he said he asked: Were you waiting a long time for me to ask?

He then said he felt so peaceful that he knew it came from God.

He received his answer.

Coolest thing I've seen for a while on my mission.

2.) I heard from my trainer that the trainees that arrived were all saying that their trainers were terrible and they didn't like them at all. My trainee told me then:

I was the only one that didn't complain about my trainer, so I'm really glad I got to have you as my trainer.

So, apparently I'm the bees knees. Pretty cool huh?

3.) I need a new backpack. This one is dead. I sent a picture of the hole it's got. I'll be fine using it for a little while, but the bags here are just outrageously expensive and they don't last long enough. Can you send me another one please?

4.) I had a scary experience a week ago:

It was really hot one night, so I left my bed to go sleep in the big room, which was slightly cooler, and I grabbed two chairs and got to sleep. I woke up at around 2 in the morning because I suddenly couldn't breath. My nose was stuffed. So I was like, aw man. Stuffy noses are the worst.

I sat up, and immediately the fluid that was in my nose gushed out. I was like AW GROSS. LIQUID SNOT. EWW.

I went to the bathroom to see what was going on, and as I flicked on the light,

My whole hand was covered in Blood.

My nose was bleeding.

It was bleeding so much that I had to just sit there for a while with toilet paper in my nose because I would have let it drip on my clothes.

I sat for about 15 minutes in the bathroom and I about threw up. I started feeling symptoms of shock and I got up to look in the mirror and I was completely and totally pale. I woke my companion up and told him that he had to call the doctors. They called and I laid down and put my feet on the door handle to keep from passing out.

Long story short, it scared me.

I didn't have any problems after that, but it scared me. I don't know what happened or anything, but all I know is that there was something wrong with me that night. Who knows.

5.) WE SLEPT ON THE ROOF OF OUR APARTMENT! I found a hole in the ceiling and so we shoved our stuff on the roof and took a bunch of pictures. It's awesome. It was the nicest sleep I've had in a while. Nice and cool. HOwever, it was kinda humid, so everything was damp in the morning. Oh well. Worth it.

Here's a bunch of pictures to enjoy. Have fun people.

DON'T DIE ANYONE. PLEASE.

Elder Carter

I love you all too. Sometimes. Just when I think about you I guess.

Bai.

2 weeks for a reason

So, really quickly:

I didn't write much last week because we were in a meeting until around 4, and then by the time we got back, it was around 4:30, and we had an appointment at 6. We just bought food, wrote for about 30 minutes, and then we had to go. So there you go. That's why I didn't write. I know. Elder Carter is such a terrible guy. Never sends pictures or writes us or anything. Grab the pitchforks.

Investigators:

Brother K: Friend of a less active that we found when we just pulled out the list of less actives. The less active is called J C, and he reminds me A LOT of Landon. He acts roughly the same way, but he's Mexican. It's pretty cool. Anyway, we showed up to his house and found Brother K, and then later when we went back, we found another guy that's less active, and then we went by again and found another one. We took them all to church on Sunday. It was boss.

He's really the only stable one we have right now. I just don't know how to find very well, sorry. I'm trying my best though. I just don't know how to do it that well.

Cool stuff:

1.) I am training again! My companion is called Elder T that's from Oaxaca (pronounced Wo-ha-cka) and he's a total boss! He's SUPER personable and he and I are really similar in terms of how we teach and act and everything. He's willing to listen and learn and I'm basically just loving it. I'm definitely giong to have a good two transfers with this guy. Super great. Picture enclosed (taken today, but still, IT'S A PICTURE!)

To talk a little about him:

He's an only child who converted at 11 years. He and his mom are the only active members in his family, and his parents separated at age 3. He studied English since Elementary School, and lived in Boston for around a month and a half. He speaks nearly fluent English. It's so AWESOME. He's the first companion I've had that I can speak English to and then just enjoy talking about stuff with him in English. He actually speaks English better than Elder Morales! Pretty nuts. Anyway, he's super awesome, and very very personable. We're basically going to rock the world.

2.) WE HAD A PARTY. It was to celebrate our birthdays. Elder T completed on the 23rd and I completed the 29th, so we had a total boss party with the Cabrera family to celebrate it. They wanted to shove my face in the cake and almost did it. It would have made a good picture, but I can't stand being embarrassed like that. Dunno why.

3.) Baptism of Brother J G! I don't know if I sent these pictures or not, but I took them anyway! They are amazing people. We just gotta start working on the Mom and the Sister and we've got a family set to be sealed. They're just awesome. Oh, and his son, Brother L, baptized him. Super awesome moment. I didn't get to actually watch it, because I was in the back with the towels and stuff, but I'm so happy that he's finally a member.

4.) Fast Sunday was really hard this week. I don't know exactly why, but it was super hard. I think it was mainly because I forgot to drink a lot of water before it started, and so I was just super thirsty the whole time.

5.) I'm starting to understand why I was so frustrated as a trainee. When I trained the first time, I still had no idea what was going on. However, I am training again, and I totally see now why I was so frustrated, and why my trainer was the way he was. I'm starting to understand that I have to be more patient than normal. I mean, with other Elders I have had to have patience, but one thing that I have noticed is that patience isn't just waiting or not getting angry. You have to not get frustrated or anything while just being patient. It's a hard process to follow.

6.) I'M GIONG TO BE IN MATAMOROS FOR 6 MONTHS. 1 year in 2 sectors. pretty cool right?

7.) This week was really tiring and wore me down a bunch. On Sunday everyone commented that I looked really tired. Even though I was smiling and stuff, they still said that I looked tired. I think I was just stressed more than anything else for a bunch of reasons. Needless to say, we're going to sleep today for a while.

That's all for this week. There might have been a bit more, but I'm still a little pressed for time. I'm over by 2 minutes right now.

Take care everyone, and I'll see you all next week. Talk to my secretary if you have any questions. Thanks.

Elder Carter

I LOVE YOU ALL MORE THAN I LOVE MOLE. And I love me some good Mole.

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