Hotter than Hades

My goodness its hot here. Like it has been right around 100, 102 this week. And its starting to get humid too. So life has been quite spicy. But we livin.

Anyways this week has some quite funny things happen. So we were knocking on this door and a little girl opens the door and with the most excited voice of a young child yelled "MOMMY!!!" until she realized it was two random dudes in white shirts at which point she sadly sighs "oh...." and shuts the door. We just started laughing super hard haha.

Then we had this one lady weirdly reject us. Elder Finicum like knocked on the door and asked if we could share a message with her and she was like (semi rudely) "oh honey i dont need it. I go to church" then I was like ok well is there anyone around here that could use an uplifting message about Jesus Christ? She looks at me straight in the eyes and slowly shuts the door. Like.... Exaggeratedly slow. It was weird and funny.

 

One other funny thing happens in relation to the next thing that was big news:

Two convicts of a federal prison escaped and were running around Lincoln... in sort of our area. Apparently they had assaulted some lady after their escape and were still running from the cops. So like there was search helicopters flying all around looking for them and such and a bunch of roads were closed... it was a fun time. But anyways we were out visiting people, like usual, and we knocked on one of our investigators doors. They came out and were like man we thought you guys were gunna be the fugitives... we ain't takin any company right now... its too dangerous you guys should go home.

But other than that it has been a pretty good week for us. We have been able to teach quite a few lessons and got some sweet new investigators that could possibly be baptized in the next few weeks more to come on them probably in the next few weeks. UNLESS I get transferred. Transfers are this Wednesday so I could be in some random place in Nebraska/Iowa/Kansas/South Dakota/Minnesota. EXCITING!!!

This pday we went bowling!!! We did some sweet trick shots... One of them was reading the Book of Mormon while bowling. Just so everyone knows I got a strike on the one you see of me. Scripture power is real man.

Also the other picture is with a SWEET penguin wind chime. I creepily took a picture on someone's front porch because I love penguins so much. Hopefully no one saw that.

Welp that's pretty much it. Next time you hear from me i could be somewhere else! Who knows!

Sunshine Blessed Sunshine

Well hello there everyone! Hope everyone had as splendid a week as I did.

First of all congratz to my cousin Bryce again for going through the temple and taking out his endowments! Super cool that he has made that choice in his life to follow Christ more fully and take that step. I'm excited to hear about his mission experiences because he will probably be the best in the west. Obviously I'm the best in the mid-west... ok ok maybe not.... but hopefully one of the top 200 missionaries in the Nebraska Omaha Mission.

Anyways This week has been quite interesting. Good ol' satan is attempting to bring me down. Not a lot of success has happened. But some of the bad success has been quite funny. So we were trying to go see this less active member of our ward that we had never met and we went and set up an appointment for quote "around 10" on Friday morning. So we roll up to the house its 9:45. We knock on the door. Dude opens the door and is like... "when I said 10:30 I meant 1030. You interrupted a match, in the middle of a stream (my family knows he was probably playing league...) do not come back" and slammed the door. My theory was he had just died and so he was a little EXTRA mad. But we just laughed and walked away.

But amidst the terrible success we have had there has been some shining moments. The lord works in very mysterious ways... Elder Finicum had to go to the bathroom. so I was driving to go somewhere that had a bathroom, and the closest one was a burger king. So I pull into the parking lot and Finicum is like "not not burger king!!" so I was like whatevs. I just drove a little down the road to a gas station... and lo and behold one of our investigators that we have been trying to get ahold of for WEEKS just happened to drive up at the same time... coincidence... I think NOT! pretty cool.

Also I have been praying just to find people that we can teach. I really don't care who or what I just want to teach people. anyways we pray about our tracting and one day I saw this street called... ponderosa. Definitely a sign because that was where Grandpa Wardle took us to go golfing. So we went. And The last house on the street was a super super nice family. They let us in and we had a great lesson. Unfortunately they weren't interested in reading the Book of Mormon but that's alright. I was grateful for the blessing of being able to teach.

I love reading the book of Mormon. Its literally the greatest book on earth. If any of you haven't read It, read it for me. I promise it will make your life better if you live its principles. Having read it 3 times since I got here, my faith in Christ has grown more than ever and I KNOW it will do the same for you!

I love you all!

Elder Carter

Here are some new pictures of Andy from his mission.  This week his area got the chance to go to the temple so the mission president's wife took some pictures.

Memorial Day!

Hello everyone! Sorry I'm late, the libraries were all closed yesterday for memorial day.
I hope the holidays have been good for everyone! Thank you to all the veterans that served in the armed forces! and thank you to the wonderful ancestors of mine that have helped bring me to the spot I am in now!

So this week was pretty good. We have finally started to see more success with tracting and such. For some reason we had had really bad luck with trying to find more people to teach in the last few weeks. But that's alright it happens. So this last week we actually got a decent amount of people to let us talk to them. Not sure how many of them will actually progress but its always good to be able to teach.

Other than that though its been SUPER rainy. So on Thursday we were attempting to go tracting but literally it was insane amounts of rain. From the time we got out of the car and RAN to the door we were completely soaked. Like it was seriously a matter of 5-10 seconds and we got drenched. So that makes tracting quite rough haha. But hey its all part of the experience:P It's atleast a good story to tell. We have had flash flood warnings for the last like 3 days because of the rain. But I believe its going to calm down over the next few weeks. fun times!

I got to give a training in district meeting! It was about hope and how hope helps us find people to teach (ironic because that's something we need help with) and so I gave about a 20 minute training with scriptures and quotes and whatnot. Hopefully it was not bad! I don't really know haha. But I definitely learned a lot of things from it.

So for P-day yesterday we Didn't do the normal thing! Surprise! no ball... Because a lot of the other missionaries were not going to come. So instead we were invited over to play board games at a member family's house. I love me some good board games! My dad will be happy to know that we played quite a bit of "mission" Uno. They liked it a lot. But they didn't like the fact that I gave out random amounts of cards haha. they didn't quite get that it really didn't matter. It was a relaxing day for sure.

Well that's probably about it for me! Hope all is going well for everyone!

Love ya!

Elder Carter

Traveling

So as the title states... this week was full of traveling. Tuesday we had zone conference which was in Grand Island (about an hour and a half away). It was pretty good. Lots of good instruction from the mission president and AP's. We also had Zone Olympic Finals. I won the Free Throw competition from our zone so I competed in the finals.... and I got dang 2nd place. Made me mad. 10 free throws in a row didn't win it. and it was jypt too because the person that won got 3 free ones because he missed them all... but whatever... not even mad. And then I also was in the finals for sprints... and I got dang 2nd place again. Just barely not good enough. But I wasn't so mad about the sprints.

But yeah then on Friday we went to the temple as a zone! its was super sweet. Loved going to the Omaha temple. Its small but its nice inside. It reminds me a lot of the provo temple too. So yeah 2 days out of the week we were gone.

Then on Wednesday I was super sick and couldn't go out... so there was another day gone. Needless to say our numbers for this week looked pretty bad. But we worked hard when we were able to!

As far as investigators go, I think ive mentioned before that we are in the process of dropping a lot of them. They aren't progressing and keeping commitments so there isn't much we can do. They have to want it and we can't keep trying to push them if they don't want it. So yeah we are still trying to find more people to teach. I believe this transfer will be dry (baptism-less). But that's alright. We are still working hard and I know we will be blessed for it.

Anyways I love you all!

Elder Carter

Survived the tornado

Surprise!!! not dead! I kinda left my last email in a cliff hanger. Hopefully you weren't too worried about me:P

So yes we did indeed have a tornado. I touched down pretty close to where were email at actually. Now I don't know if you know this but when there is a tornado, the sky turns like a gross green color. The hail was pretty large, some of it was like golf ball sized where we were. we saw pictures of softball sized hail about 2 miles away from us... I'm glad we weren't in that. but yeah we had to chill in the shelter for like 2 hours. then we were able to leave while it settled down a little so we drove back to the zone leaders apartment. I bought pizzas for us and we had a nice pizza party. It was quite a good time.

But yeah other than that I mean this week has been a little bit more boring. We are in a phase where we are dropping a lot of our investigators... so we are spending a lot of time trying to find some new ones. But that's alright, it definitely happens especially when a new missionary comes in and after a baptism.

So I had my first talk on the mission! We were called like on Thursday afternoon and apparently the other speakers had to back out... so we were asked to give talks. My talk was on the talk by Mervyn B. Arnold, "to the rescue" which was quite appropriate for a missionary. Gave me plenty of time to tell the ward to help us out with missionary work haha. But yeah I think I did alright. it was like 18 minutes-ish so I believe I took enough time. 

Hope it was good.

Guys this church, this gospel we all live is so true. I hope you know that! I have had the opportunity to teach a lot of people from other faiths and learn about the other faiths and their doctrine and I'm so grateful that we have the fullness of the gospel because it's complete! No guessing games needed! Unfortunately I have gotten into a couple bashes with other people and just things in this gospel are so clear and its great. Often times it's taken for granted, I know I did back in the day because I really didn't know much else. but its all true.

Yes I brought my camera this time... I win this round.

Life is grand guys! Keep livin the dream!

Love you all!

Elder Carter

Baptism

Baptism

All of the Elders in the tornado shelter at the library.

Baptism

Black squirrls

Mother's Day

Hello everyone!

Happy mothers day to all the females in the world! Although not everyone has children of the own, we all have a mother! Hope it was a great day!

Ok so I realized last time that I didn't attach the pictures to the email last time... and great news! I didn't bring my camera with me today... I failed you all. next week! (if I remember)

So this week was transfers! I was not transferred! so I'm staying in Lincoln for at least another 6 weeks. Which is good cause I like Lincoln. But my companion did get transferred. Elder Karl got sent to Omaha. My new companion is Elder Finicum. He's pretty sweet. We get along well so far! but time will tell I guess.

Things are different now because like half our ward is moving out, they just graduated dental school so they are getting real jobs now.  We got a new ward mission leader and new elders quorum president and like a ton of other things too. But its all good.

We have zone training coming up this Wednesday so that should be pretty fun. We have to redo the zone Olympics because half our zone is gonezo now. But basically zone Olympics is like a free-throw competition, sprint contest and some other things too but its kinda fun. Then Zone conference is next week so youll probably see a lot of pictures posted on the facebook page. I know my mother enjoys all of those cause I don't. pictures... not my thing

So my family knows that I am quite a small kid. Before I came out here, I was able to fit inside one of my own suitcases. My companion had a duffle bag and I said I could easy fit inside. He didn't believe me. The proof is in the pictures. Good to know im not too fat yet.

Well theres not too much to report on as far as the work goes. except the first day that Finicum was here we taught like 5 lessons which is pretty sweet. But other than that its been a decently slow week. But that's alright, I'm sure it will pick up.

Well hey good news we just got a tornado warning and now we have to go into the tornado shelter. But I love you all! Be careful!

Elder Carter

Slightly Less Green

Well its official. I am done being trained! I'm no longer a greenie even though I still feel like I'm as green as the cornfields of Nebraska in the summer. But hey I'll learn someday... maybe.

But yeah transfers are this Wednesday! There is a fairly decent chance that I'll end up with a new companion. I most likely will stay in Lincoln but you never really know. I'd prefer to stay here for a couple more But I'm down to go where ever.

So great news!!! Thu and MJ got baptized!!! It was a sweet day for them and us too. Its really great that we got to see fruits of our labors because there is plenty of missionaries that work hard and don't see the success we have. I'm glad that we got to end the transfer on that high note! (pictures included)

To all the millions of people that read my emails that I don't know, Jive will be having a performance this weekend so everyone should go! The Headline soloist is Savanna Carter and as a professional show choir critic, I can promise that it will be high quality. Good luck to you Savanna!

Follow up from last week, so that dude that randomly showed up to church on Sunday, we have taught him a couple of times. He's super solid. He will be baptized I'm sure of it. But unfortunately he got an apartment outside our boundaries. but yeah he knows like everything. He's read the book of Mormon and already claims to be a Mormon, just hasn't been baptized yet.

My Dad asked some more questions that I'll answer here again:

How often do you do service for people? We typically do some scheduled service every Wednesday and Friday for some local places that take volunteers, but we don't have much more opportunities outside planned service. We would like to do more if it came up.

What is you most common service project? We go to this place called Restore which like takes in donations and restores them and sells them to raise money to build houses for the poor. We go about once a week.

Do your wild socks get you in trouble with the mission president? Um I don't know. I doubt it.

Do they let you listen to music? Yes as long as we follow what it says in the white handbook. "Music should invite the spirit , help you focus on the work and direct your thoughts and feelings to the Savior."

How many BofM's do you hand out every week? Probably like between 5 and 10.

How big are the ward boundaries in Lincoln?  Are they like Twin's boundaries? The boundaries are bigger. There the smallest in the mission but they are decently bigger than the one's in twin. There is not as many members. Twin is like 30% members and we are like 2%.

How much pocket money do you get each month to spend? We get 145 a month.

Do you normally have extra money at the end of the month or is it all gone? I typically have like 20 bucks left when we get down to the end but I usually take the other missionaries out for shakes or something. So yeah I use it all usually.

Well Hope all is going well for everyone! If there are any more questions I'd be happy to answer!

Love you all!

Elder Andy Carter