Monday, February 29, 2016

Leap Day

Hi guys! what a glorious week its been!

You probably saw a ton of pictures from trainer/trainee meeting last week. That was a good meeting. We basically talked about how to get used to mission life in its various forms including getting along with your companions and learning to be outgoing etc. It was nice for us to be able to ask them questions about what to do and how to work things out. President and Sister Gardner care for us a lot. They are willing to do anything for us.

Another fun thing about Nebraska:  The stoplights are horizontal instead of vertical like in Idaho. Its pretty weird.

As far as investigators go we have one that im quite excited about. His names Edward. He's a super chill black guy that loves talking. Like.. LOVES talking. We will say like 4 things and he will go on for a good 10 minutes about it and what not. We've asked him to be baptized and he said he wants to be married to his girlfriend first which is AWESOME because now we don't have to tell him to do that (they live together). He came to church and was a little freaked out by a few things like sustaining new callings and passing the sacrament haha. But elder karl was able to explain what was going on so he was more comfortable.

You'll be happy to know that i've passed or blessed the sacrament EVERY week that I've been here. The ward I'm in is a lot like the ward at home. In the words of my bishop, its got only newly weds and newly dead's haha. Theres like 5 youth. so I have quite a bit of experience with this kind of ward to say the least.

My wonderful father asked a bunch of questions so I will include them in this email.

Do you eat dinners with members? Yes we eat with members all the time. We have only had like 1 or so days that we haven't had a member sign up for dinner. Everyone love feeding the missionaries, and they are all super chill people too. Most of them are in dental/law school.

What kind of foods do you eat? We eat normal food haha I don't know what else to say about it other than its normal. Not a lot of corn yet.

What is the crazyest thing you were offered? As far as craziest thing ive been offered... uh not much really. But when I was on exchanges we did get this super weird like bean patty. I should have taken a picture of it because I don't know how to describe it but basically it was a hamburger sized patty of black beans? it had something else in it too but I don't know what it was. It was... interesting. not good not bad just weird.

How far away are you from Omaha? We are about 45 minutes away from Omaha.

Do you walk very much or do you drive everywhere? So far we have driven everywhere mostly because its cold. But if we run out of miles (every area has a set amount of miles for a 3 week period, ours is 700 miles) then we will have to walk everywhere. But when it gets warmer, that wont be a big deal.

What do you do on PDay?On Pday, ball is life. We play basketball every pday. Other than that we just email wash clothes and go to like the mall occasionally. We are always with the other missionaries in our zone though it makes it a party.

Do you have a washer and dryer in your apertment? No. We use a washing machine in a members house. I don't know why but I guess they let us use it so we do. Its pretty nice.

What do you eat for breakfast and lunch? Breakfast I eat some cereal and oatmeal and bagles a lot. For lunch we eat out quite a bit actually. But if we don't I usually make sandwiches.

do you get to go to the temple often? No. We don't go to the temple unless we are assigned to Omaha. Then it'd be once a quarter.

Is the University in your area? ummm... Its not im my area but its in my zone. we are actually taking a tour of the football stadium today. The zone leaders are over the YSA ward and the campus of the university. So they are on campus a lot.

How many spanish speakers are you finding? We run into lots of Spanish speakers. we have a more "ghetto" area that has more Spanish speakers.

How big is the ward?  How many wards are you over? The ward is like I said about the same as the ward at home. We are just over the one ward. There are a lot of areas that do take more than one ward though.

that's all the questions! IF you have more then send em through id be glad to answer them

Mission life is great!
Love you all!
Elder Andy Carter