New year new schedule!

Big news for this year! On Wednesday we had a worldwide missionary broadcast where they announced 2 pretty big changes. They changed the missionary schedule quite a bit. Now instead of planning at night, we plan in the morning, and companion study was moved to the afternoon. I think they mostly changed the schedule to allow for more personal time to make it less stressful for missionaries. Also it will make the adjustment to coming home better because it has more flexibility.

The other change was to the "key Indicators" and if you don't know what that is thats fine, we just don't report basically anything except baptisms, investigators with a baptismal date, investigators that attended sacrament meeting, and new investigators.

I'm excited to compare this schedule to the last one, since i basically have equal time with both.

We also had interview this week with President Gardner! He and I talked quite a bit about what i would like to do with the last half of my mission. He helped me set some goals and gave me some ideas for what i should do to accomplish them. Hopefully i can continue to progress in my skills and effectiveness!

Other News, It snowed 7 inches on tuesday, it was pretty crazy. There were so many cars that got stuck, so many accidents, everything. Our car is one of the worst in the mission as far as driving in the snow goes. Its light weight, and two wheel drive, so we didnt even drive until wednesday night because we couldn't get out of the parking lot. so thats kinda fun!

Overall it has been a really strange week. Seems like a lot of things got in the way of procelyting. but hey thats how it goes sometimes. This week is supposed to be pretty warm, so the snow will probably be gone.

Well love you all!

Elder Carter

Below are some pictures from the mission facebook page.

Snickerdoodles

Shout out to my favorite youngest sister! She turns the ripe old age of 15 this day. Holy guacamole what a crazy time. half way to 30!

Well this week has been quite interesting. We had Exchanges this week! I went with Elder Connolly and it went really well. We ran around and taught a bunch of people and it was quite a blast. Hes a good guy!

We also had to do an exchange with the Other Elders in our ward because they had too many appointments and they needed help. Little did they know that we actually had the same problem. It all worked out in the end. That day was so crazy. We Were teaching like madmen. Good times though.

This upcoming week is going to be great! On tuesday we are having Interviews with our mission president! Its going to be great; president Gardner is the best. Then on Wednesday we have a worldwide missionary broadcast that is going to be great. If its anything like the one last year, its going to be fantastic.

Yes yes, a year has gone by. Its crazy how fast time really does go while i'm here. I have loved every second of being here and am excited to continue to work for another year. I hope that i will be able to do what the Lord expects of me.

Love you all!

ELder Carter

I had a dream

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

You know the weirdest thing about missionary work is definitely the dreams. There's so many times when I have dreams that I'm doing something but I'm still a missionary and I start freaking out because I don't have a companion or I'm not doing something productive. It's pretty funny! 

This week was transfers! And nope I didn't get transferred! Still here in Sioux falls. I'm excited! We have a lot of good stuff going so I didn't want to get transferred.

I guess today it's supposed to heavy ice rain. Like the whole mission is shut down right now because the weather is too bad. Ironically we haven't had it happen yet... typically we are the first ones. But I'll take it!

It's interesting that the Lord wants to make sure that we are busy. We have had to "drop" some investigators this week but we have been able to find quite a few more. Equal if not more than we had before. I'm so grateful for that because I really don't want to be outside in the -10 degree weather. And I guess Heavenly Father doesn't want that either!

This week we have exchanges coming up again! I'm excited, it will be with our new district leader! His name is Elder Connolly, and I don't know him that well so I'm excited to get to know him.

Well talk to you next week!

Love you so much!

ELder Carter

This week was super weird

My goodness this week was super weird. We had a lot of things going on. We had less time to proselyte this week than normal but that's alright.

I got to go to the temple!! It was seriously the best! There was so much that i was able to learn! and on top of that a ton of my mission friends were there and i was able to reunite with them! huzzah! Also I drove down from Sioux city to Omaha with Elder Kimzey and Elder Jones and we had such a good time. I'm so glad that i was able to go!

We also had the opportunity to participate in someone else's baptism. The ward I am serving in has 2 sets of missionaries, and the other set also had a baptism. Her name is Sister Berg. She is great! I was glad that we were able to do what we can! The missionary work in this ward is going pretty well! many of the members are helping us out quite a bit. i'm grateful for that!:)

I have another awesome story to tell. So we have this family that we had been trying to see for like the last 3 months but could never get an appointment set up with them. Then like last Thursday they called us up out of the blue and asked us to come over and teach one of their friends! So we went over there and met a girl named Keelee, she's 18 and wanted to learn more about the church. we were able to testify of the restoration and the spirit was strong. She said she wanted to be baptized as soon as possible. She doesn't live in our area which is totally fine but when she went back home she started teaching her Family the things we taught her. CRAZY. No one does that.  Talk about 1 Nephi 8:12. She came to church yesterday and she said that she wanted to serve a mission haha. It's crazy how much the gospel changes people in short amounts of time.

This week is transfers again... I don't know what happened to the last 6 weeks but i guess they are gone now... I don't expect to be transferred but you never know! I'm sure you'll  find out next week... or not and I'll just keep you all in the dark. That might be more fun.

Love you all so much!!!

Elder Andy Carter

Memorized 68 scriptures

Andy had a special temple trip with this group today. They've memorized 68 scriptures from Preach My Gospel. The entire mission is working hard to achieve this goal and we are proud of all their efforts!  Great Job Andy!!!

Happy new year!!!!!!!!!

Happy new year!!!!!!!!!!

What a wonderful time! Yay everyone can make new years resolutions and only do them for like 2 weeks. Huzzah.

This week has been so awesome! Anthony Was baptized on wednesday! It was such a good service! He is very committed and excited to progress. Hopefully He will be able to continue in the gospel and make it to the temple!

We have been runnin around teaching people again. I think this is the busiest area i have been in! Its been lots of work but lots of fun as well! We have some promising investigators that will probably be baptized in the coming weeks. More to come on them in future weeks. 

This upcoming week is exciting! So our mission is doing a scripture memorizing initiative, and you get a prize for memorizing a certain amount of scriptures and one of the prizes is going to the temple! I'm going on a super secret temple trip this week on Friday. I'm excited about it! 

I hope this  year is a great one! see you all in 2018.

I love you!

Elder Carter