Merry Christmas!!!

Hey everyone!! How`s it going?? I had a wonderful Christmas. it was a little hectic, but it all came together! I hope you all had a great Christmas too! Christmas here is a little different. People Stay up till midnight on Christmas Eve and light a ton a fireworks that are really just bombs. They leave craters in the dirt. hahaha But it was all good. I couldn`t sleep anyway, so the noise didn`t bother me too much. I got to Skype with my fam for 45 mintues! That went by way too fast! it was so nice though. Everyone`s doing good!! I don`t have much news for you guys this week. I can`t believe how fast Christmas came and went, but it`s all good. I love you guys so much!! Until next week! I hope I have more for you!!

Love, Elder Carter

Christmas Day Skype Photos

CAMBIOS

Hey Everyone! So we had Changes last Wednesday! I stayed here in Girasoles,

but My comp got sent to the south! But my new comp and I are going to work super

hard. I can feel it. Well, we did work hard this week. We have 6 new investigators!! 

It´s been such a good week. Anyway. So my comp is from Mexico. So he doesn´t speak

any English either, that´s a little struggle. But he let´s me take the lead in the lessons! And 

we pretty much split the time evenly! AND our lessons are all under 45 minutes. So the 

spirit is so strong during our lessons!! If you guys remember Shirley, we taught her and

her family this week. She lives with like 10 of her cousins and her mom. And so far, Only

Shirley has received all the lessons and her mom has received 2. But we taught The Plan

of Salvation this week and towards the end, Olga (the mom) Asked "So what are the 

requirements for baptism in your church?" We were so stoked when she said that! We 

told her, then she said she wasn´t ready yet, but we can tell she´ll feel ready soon. And at

the end of the lesson, Her cousin that was sitting in (Her name´s Paula. This was her first

lesson.) asked us about her church and her baptism. So we made a cita with her for today

at 5! 

The work is rolling. I can´t wait for this week!! We will definitely have a lot of stories for you

guys next week! And a lot of pictures. I have about 10 I need to send, but I forgot my

camera!!! Sorry mom! So until next week...much love

Love, Elder Carter.

And this was in my (mom) letter...

I´m with an elder named Elder .... He´s from Mexico, Merida! Crazy huh! And an elder in 

my ward just got back from Mexico and he said he knew Quinn! (Quinn is McKay's cousin

serving a mission in the Mexico Merida Mission!)

That IS crazy!

Feliz Navidad from the Hondureños!!

Miracles happened this week!

Okay! So on Thursday, we had a cita with a girl named Shirley. She's 20 and she's almost golden. She’s more of a bronze investigator. Anyway, she made it out to church last week. And we went to her house Thursday and challenged her to baptism! She accepted!! She's excited to get baptized, but mission rules say she has to go to 3 sacrament meetings and a ward activity before baptism. And she's going on vacation this week to San Pedro for two weeks. And here, that usually means they'll forget almost everything we taught them. So we'll be praying super hard for them the next couple weeks. But okay so the miracle this week. Yesterday we went to three of our investigators houses to pick them up before church and none of them answered! So we were super bummed. Then on the way to church, we see one of our investigators, Elsy, walking towards the church from the other way! We've taught her every lesson and invited her to church for the past three weeks, but she never really wanted to progress. So we asked where she was going and she said to church with us!! She's Catholic too, so she's got some deep religious roots. Anyway, she stayed for Sacrament (And it was Fast and Testimony meeting! perfect!) and then left for her church. After correlation, we went caroling with some members and the Hermanas in our ward. We'd sing a song then give them a pass-along card about El es la Dadiva. It's “He is the Gift” in English, I don't know if you've seen that video, but it's amazing. So we stopped by Elsy's house to carol and she was so stoked to see us!! She asked if she could join us! (Before she said she couldn't come to the Christmas Devotional) And then she said she wanted to go to the devotional!! So we all went and the spirit was so strong!! It's been such a great week. My comp and I really stepped up our game and have been super pilas. It has brought so many blessings to our investigators. 

But anyway I love this gospel! We get a lot of questions from people we contact if we celebrate Christmas because some church is spreading rumors that we don't. So I carry around a candy cane in my pocket. It's something small, but people notice. I love being a missionary!

Dad's beard is back!!!

You guys have to realize how stoked I was to see dad's beard. I'm his biggest fan. Anyway! Thanksgiving. Super super cool. But first. Elder Smith and I went on divisions on Wednesday. It was great because I don't often participate in lessons with my companion, but Elder Smith had me participate a bunch! And I know my spanish still needs a lot of work, but I felt that I finally got to get my point across! And I had a bunch of scriptures that I remembered from personal study. But that was super cool, he's a really chill guy. The next day, Thanksgiving, we went to lunch at Chili's. We met Elder Tausinga and Elder Gunnell there. We were your typical knucklehead American boys spending Thanksgiving in Honduras. We even recited the Pledge of Allegiance! Hahaha but that was way fun. And then divisions ended...But that night my comp and I didn't have an appointment for dinner! So we went to the Virgilio's house for a normal retention appointment. Hermana Virgilio asked if we had plans for dinner and we said no! Then she asked if we wanted dinner and we said heck yeah!! So she told us to come back in an hour. So we went out and taught a lesson and came back. She served us a typical super small Honduran dinner and after dinner I just stared at my plate. I kind of started to tear up and they asked what was wrong. I explained to them how much Thanksgiving meant to me. And then I told them the story of the pilgrims! It was super cool. But anyway not much else happened! But I'm so thankful for all of you in my life! You guys are all amazing and have blessed me so much!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 Wow. I can´t believe it´s already Thanksgiving. Time is not even a real thing to me anymore. Like I´ve said to a few of you, time as a missionary is not the same as it is back home. Our days are much much shorter! Every time I look at my watch, 2 or 3 hours have gone by. It´s so crazy. But it´s a blessing. Because some days I can´t wait to end. Hahaha anyway. Like I said last week, our bishop is a gringo and we´re headed to his house for Thanksgiving next sunday!! And we have divisions on thursday, so Elder Smith and I will be heading to Chili´s for Thanksgiving lunch!! There will not be a Honduran Turkey Bowl though. I know. It´s shocking. No football, but yes. There will be fútbol. (Ughhh...) Haha it´s all good though. I´ve been getting a little better!! I can kick the ball while it moves now. I don´t completely whiff. Hahaha you should´ve seen my first game. I brought dishonor on my family. But the work´s good!! We are challenging (for sure) 4 people this week. And they really are progressing, so keep them in your prayers!! We had one guy accept baptism this week!!! Buuuuut he´s not married and has a family of 4...So we will see if he can get married by Dec. 13th! That´s his date! Thank you everyone for all the letters! This one´s short because I´m going to try and send a bunch of pictures!! I love you all.

Hard days and harder nights!

Wow. This has been a rough week. I've been sick for a little under a week. Not much. I think it'll pass. I haven't eaten anything for a while, so I've gotten a little skinnier! I haven't gotten sleep either! Haha it's a little rough. But I think we don't have water from thursday to Saturday every week, because we didn't have it again this week. But besides that, we have no stories! I know. I'm sorry guys! But there are definitely weeks like this in the mish. Investigators aren't progressing, people are going inactive, people are being nice to dogs. It's been really weird. But it's all good! next week will be better! I hope everything is going well back home! I hope I have a better letter next week! Oh and our bishop is a gringo, so he invited us to his house for Thanksgiving!!! We're super blessed and I'm so excited to eat a good American dinner!!

Love you all so much, Elder Carter.

Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share.

Wow. So this week was kind of rough. Technical stuff first, we didn't have running water for 4 days this week. So we took bucket showers! That honestly sucked. Then I found out on Tuesday that two elders in our zone went home. They were a companionship and so that area had to be closed. They had 2 baptismal dates set too! They both were just really homesick and President Bowler isn't going to hold our hands. He means business and I love it. There are no jokes with him. 

So the Spanish. It's really bad. I'm understanding a little more, but this is such a hard language and people speak so fast. The worst part is...they always ask me to say the prayer in the lesson, then at the end grumble because they didn't understand me. Haha but it's alright. So we have two solid investigators!! The mother's name is Olga and the daughter's name is Shirley. We've only taught them one lesson, but they were so open to our message! We're going to challenge them to baptism this week on Thursday! So yesterday we started talking to this guy named Carlos. He's an Evangelical preacher and he did not want us to talk about our religion at all. Which was kind of dumb. He wanted to only talk about the bible, but then kept asking us what we believed. So we'd read a verse out of the BoM and he'd ask where it said that in the Bible...Then we'd say it wasn't in the Bible, but in the BoM! Then he'd scream at us saying that we were liars and needed to only read the Bible. That went on for like 2 hours. My comp loooves to argue and it's a little rough. I could pick up kind of what they were saying, but there's no way I could be a part of that conversation. but it's alright. It was nice walking away from that discussion. haha 

So the big story from today! All our plans for P day got canceled because the Zone Leaders had to take an elder to the mission home this morning. He's headed back to the states for surgery. So my comp and I decided to head to Centro. (Where all the shops are. And I'm here right now.) We get on the bus and the bus doesn't stop at our stop, so we were a little confused. Then the driver's assistant yelled out that the bus wasn't going to stop until Guaymuras. And that's in a different zone, so we were kind of freaking out. So we get there and get off and look around. It was suuuper sketchy and we were completely lost. We walked around for like 10 minutes until we found a taxi that could take us back. So that was our crazy bus adventure. We had Wendy's for lunch too. I love serving in the city. But that's all for this week!! I hope everyone is doing great back in the good ole USA. 

I feel like Brick from Anchorman, I have no idea what's going on, but I'm ha....

 Hello everyone!!

Wow. Life in Central America. It is different...

Haha I love this country so much. The people are amazing. So my comp is from Nicaragua and does not speak a lick of English. It's been super hard, but I know it'll work out! So here's the first Honduran story I have for everyone. So there's just a bunch of dogs everywhere. They're just wild. And dogs here are nothing like they are in the states. They're the worst. So we left to our first appointment with this guy named Jose Angel. He works for the police and has this outside office on the street somewhere. So we were teaching him, he was sitting on a stool. In the middle of our lesson a dog walks up to me and he picks up his stool, yells at the dogs, then nails the dog in the face with the stool. The only thing I could think was..."Welcome to Honduras Elder Carter...." 

Alright, so I live in the city of Tegucigalpa, which is awesome because we can have burgers on pdays!! We have a supermarket here too, but most of what we get are from street shops called Pulparias. These are heaven. I had my first bag of water! yeah. bag. You bite off the corner, spit the plastic on the ground and just start drinking. It's super cool. We get semitas sometimes too. Semitas are kind of like pandulce, but not as good. Honduran food is alright. Mostly and egg, beans with this super salty cheese, a tostada like thing, and platanos fritas. I like those a loooot. It doesn't get too hot here. The rain get's to us though. There are sometimes just rivers of rain water going down the street. Today was pretty chilly. I went on divisions my second day here. And that was cool. It was with my Zone Leader. He's from San Clemente and he's a carbon copy of me. We had a good time and he taught me a lot! Thank you everyone for sending me letters!! I'm sorry if I didn't respond, I love you all! Cheke! ( In Honduras, cheke is like the thing to say. It means like good, great, that's all, and legit. And everyone uses it. Little kids and super old ladies.)

P.S. So we just got back from a Military museum. That was suuuper rad.  

E-mail from Hermana Bowler

 Hello from Tegucigalpa!

We want to let you know that Elder Carter has arrived safely in Honduras. After spending a night with us in the mission home he is now in his new area with his trainer.

I have attached several pictures. It won´t surprise you to know that he spent several hours helping in the kitchen on his first night in Honduras. He is going to be a great missionary.

Sincerely,

President and Hna Bowler

He's on his way in a few short hours!

MOM! Hey I have a little bit to be on here right now. So as you know I leave tonight at 2:30. We depart for El Salvador at 5:20. Out flight number is AV433 and we're flying Avianca. Then When we get to El Salvador, we're departing at 8:45. flight number AV454 to Tegucigalpa!! It's finally here!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

I'm leaving on a jet plane....on Tuesday!

Okay so I guess there was a tiny mix up. Haha totally my bad. So I leave the CCM on Tuesday morning at 2:30. I love it here but I cannot wait to leave!! We fly to El Salvador and then have to hustle to our terminal and board like 20 minutes after we land. It will be an adventure!! So this week has been really weird. It's gone by super fast and I haven't been able to retain much. We've worked so hard on spanish and I've learned a lot, but I'm so tired by the end of the day. Best part of the week. one of my teacher Hmna. Vanderas brought a guitar!! So I tuned it up and played it for 2 days straight. Oh it was so nice to play again....Yesterday we had the opportunity to introduce some new Elders into the CCM. That was a really cool experience. It's so wild that 6 weeks has already passed by. They thought my Spanish was excellent, but they were as green as green gets. We also taught a couple "Investigators" yesterday. haha it was soooo awkward. First off. One was named Cassandra and she was 21 and the other was Abish and she was 16. The whole lesson they were giggling and staring at Elder Quick. Then they said they were both member. (Totally knew that...Abish....) and then everytime we brought up a principle, they explained it to us. So...bad teaching experience! But for class we started working on street contacting. When we started that, it felt like I had learned nothing here. It's so hard to express to someone in 3 minutes a message that is going to change their life for the eternities! But Elder Quick and I practice with the construction workers here when we can. It's all becoming so real! I can't wait to get to Honduras and just baptize and baptize! Thanks for all that you've done for me! the prayers help so much!!! And the pictures were so nice to receive! So I totally lost my camera cord. This is so weird. I thought I brought it in here, but maybe not! I'll try and send pictures as soon as I find it!

One more week until I'm a real missionary!

Hello everyone! How are all you doing? So this week has been 10000x times better than last week. Remember how I said my comp was struggling a little bit? Well he's making a complete turn around and he's really showing his love for the gospel! He started reading the Book of Mormon I think last week and he's already at 3 Nefi!! He's such a stud. Thank you for evreyone that has prayed for us. So Not much happened this week. Yesterday we taught a 16 year old named Gustavo. He has a friend that is a member and he wanted to know more about what we believed in. We shared with him our testimonies on the BofM and he was really excited. He read parts of the introduction, then Moroni's promise. We challenged him to read it and he accepted! Buuuut we didn't have a copy prepared to give to him. So I looked down at my personal copy and decided I could get another set. So I gave him my leather bound BofM and told him to take care of them and keep them forever. Then today, I bought a new set from the Tienda. Today we also got to finally leave the walls!! The city was so busy and kind of sketchy. But it was so cool. it got me so excited to be a real missionary!! The temple is actually under renovation right now, which sucks because we didn't get to do a session. We just took a tour of the Visitor's Center. That was amazing! I love the culture here. Well, as much of the culture that I'm exposed to. But we took a lot of pictures! (Mom you're going to love me this week.) I absolutely love it here! Oh and I don't know if you guys want to know like the not so spiritual stuff that happens, but here's a few things. The food is completely hit or miss. Usually breakfast is awful and lunch isn't better. The food has been better since my first week though. The shower is probably the worst. The temperature isn't steady at all, so it'll feel nice for like 15 seconds, then burn you for 3. Then freeze you for 3! Haha. The sink and shower water is pretty gross. It's light brown, but they say it's completely clean. Elder Johnson and I usually play ping pong for gym time. But I don't think there's much else we're doing besides studying every second of the day. OH Elder Anderson is coming on Saturday. That's going to be a really cool experience!! I love this gospel and everything that we're doing here! Thank you everyone for your love!

Oh PS! So it would be super cool if everyone could send me a bunch of pictures of whatever you're doing! I want to stay caught up with your lives!

Estoy Muy Feliz Hoy!

GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! Wow. That was such a powerful session. I can't believe how many apostles testified that Thomas S Monson is the living prophet. I can't wait to share this gospel. Honestly the talk that hit me the hardest was Tad R. Callister's. That was such a powerful testimony of the divine calling of parents. I love my mom and my dad so much!! So this week has been a little rough. My companion has been struggling a little bit. But on Monday I fasted for him and get this. Breakfast is usually awful. They served French Toast. So I was pretty bummed about that. THEN for lunch they served burgers and curly fries. Like what's going on?? Then the whole time he was telling how delicious the food was. I wanted to put him in his place, but esta bien! I definitely felt very blessed after my fast. So, Uncle Jerry, I shined my companions shoes this week. hahaha But all in all, it was a good week. The time seems to be going by so fast. Crazy to think I'm halfway done with the CCM. Everything is kind of just a blur! But yesterday we got to teach an actual investigator. She has had no experience with the church and she was just curious what the CCM was. So she asked for a tour and got lessons! We taught her about prayer and how she can feel the spirit and the Lord's love as she prays. She kind of brushed it off and I stopped her and testified to her right there, and promised that if she prayed with faith in God, and with sincere intent, she would feel the spirit. That kind of stopped her in her tracks. (She's probably around dad's age) Then we challenged her to say the pray at the end of the lesson. She said maybe. So we taught her how to pray, what to say. The end of the lesson came and we asked her again and she said yes. Her prayer was very simple, but when she finished she said she felt something in her heart. She felt joy. We told her it was the spirit. She said she hasn't felt the spirit this much in her life. It was the most spiritual moment yet. I absolutely love this gospel and can't wait to share my testimony with the people of Honduras!!

Love you all. and thank you for your prayer.

P.S. So a district in our zone left on tuesday and it was pretty rough. We had all become such good friends. Here are some pictures with them! The guy with the red hair is Elder Garbero and he sings just like an angel. He has a scholarship to sing at BYU. They are all serving in Fresno!

Mas Pictures

So the first one is Elder Quick y yo getting caught hard in our first mexico rain storm. 

Then the next is my conference snack pile (Hermana Morgan y yo stocked up and had two bags full for conference. They lasted only through Saturday.)

The last one is our district picture this week. We tried to make a rainbow with all our colors.

I can't complain, but sometimes I do. Lifes been good to me so far.

Hola Familia!! So this week has been immensely better than last week!!! Not too much has happened, but I feel the spirit so much more in my life. The end of last week I was pulling out my hair. It was so rough. But on Sunday, we had a devotional and Elder Bednar talked. THE GREATEST TALK I'VE EVER HEARD. And then after the devo, we watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration. (Not going to lie, that actually was really hard to write in english.) But I was soooo stoked to watch it!!! I love that movie so much. After we had a little district meeting. it was definitely the most spiritual meeting we've had. We actually came up with 3 themes for our district. 1) Take it Easy. 2) Life is Good. 3) What Would Donny And Marie Osmond Do? I think these are going to really help us out for the last 4 weeks. I'm already a third of the way done!! WHAT!?! aha but I am so so soooo excited for general conference. Like this is probably going to be the greatest general conference of my life. on tuesday, we watched another Devotional by Elder Bedner (He's the greatest apostle, just to let you all know) and he laid out a loose blueprint of how to take notes for general conference and I can't wait to use this method. Also as a district, we decided to come up with one question for the district and it's "How can we help unify our district?" so we'll all be writing our thoughts down and after, in our district meeting, we're going to have 12 different views! I'm so excited. It's going to be so spiritual. So This week has been so much less stressful. I can teach the lessons in spanish now. It's seriously the biggest miracle. I'm far from fluent because small  talk kills me. I can talk about the gospel all day, but other than that, I'm screwed. hahah but esta bien. My spanglish is spot on by the way. Umm non gospel stuff.....our district was playing ultimate frisbee and my companion ran into a fence. He busted his chin open and needed it glued shut. It was pretty gnarly, but he took it like a champ. hahah Thank you everyone for your support! i love you guys, but I love this gospel more!! 

Elder Carter and Elder Quick-MTC companions

If I have to sing "Called to Serve" in Spanish one more time...

Hola familia!! This has been such a stressful week!! So we started out by going to a bunch of new missionary meetings and those were a complete waste of time. They just told us to follow all the rules and stay with your companion like 50 times. Anyway. The language is coming along. My companion is Elder Quick from Washington State and he´s pretty chill. We started teaching an investigator (Pedro) on the 19th and it was and still is so rough. I know a little bit more Spanish than Elder Quick, so i kind of have to take lead in the lessons. We don´t always understand each other, but we do feel the spirit. I pretty much get one good, spiritual sentence out each lesson. haha but everything is going well! I´m super stressed out all the time, but it’s okay. I´m a missionary and I can handle it. So my district is amazing. Everyone gets along and loves each other. In my apartment, there´s 6 of us. Two native elders that aren´t in our district and 2 that are. The two that are, are Elder Scott from Salem Hills, UT and Elder Cabanatan from Fresno. The two other elders in my district are Elder Johnson from Mesa and Elder Howlett from Alaska. Then we have 3 sets of hermanas. Hermana Dean is from Clearfield and her companion is Hermana Singer. She´s from Houston. They´re both going state side. Hermana Cook is from Orange County and Hermana Hogge is from Kaysville. They´re both going to Tegucigalpa. And the Hermana Morgan and Hermana Walker. Hermana Morgan is going to Tegucigalpa and Hermana Walker is going to Nicaragua. We´re all so tight and district meeting was the best. So every Sunday and Tuesday we get to hear a devotional. Of course they´re streamed live From Provo, but it´s still cool. On Sunday we heard from Elder Bednar and his talk was the BEST. My favorite quote from his talk is ¨Proclaiming the Gospel is missionary WORK.¨ haha I love it. And then on Tuesday we listened to Elder Ballard give a talk. His was very personal. He said he didn´t want to talk as an apostle, but as a grandfather to his grandchildren. So Elder Scott came to me one night and asked if I could give him a blessing of comfort. It was so amazing. The Lord promised him so many things. I feel just as blessed as he was. This Gospel is so amazing and I hate being trapped here in this prison for 5 more weeks!! haha No, the CCM is actually teaching me so much. Not only the language, but also about planning out everything we do. (Even though 90%of what we plan gets changed.) Well I love you guys so much! Everyone has been such an inspiration for me to keep moving forward.

P.S. There´s a lot of tan suits and nice watches here.