More baptisms!

Well...we had three more baptisms this week! 3 jovenes! Olvin, Ronal, and Juan David. They were so excited to get baptized. Juan David is 10 and he was going to get batptized two weeks ago, but his dad wasn't ready to baptize him. We decided to wait a week and it all turned out great. Olvin is 15. His brother Mario got baptized about two months ago. He's super pilas. He answers all the questions we ask and has memorized 4 scripture masteries. Ronal was an antiguo investigator. He was taught all the lessons about 3 months ago. He moved pretty far away and then just moved back last week. We just picked him up and reminded him of everything. Ronal almost didn't get baptized! We gave him his clothes in the church to go and change, then he left outside and didn't come back for a while. We went out to check on him and he said that he was too nervous and he didn't want to get baptized anymore! We started freaking out a little inside and talked to him about it. In the end we said that if he really didn't want to get baptized, it was fine. We didn't want to force him to do anything. But when he saw Olvin dressed in white, he wanted to do it. That day, the three of them were baptized and on Sunday they were confirmed. It was an amazing experience.

Well mom. My apartment is pretty trashy right? There's just a bunch of scorpions. That's the worst part. The AC does work, but it's so expensive to run! We only use it for an hour a day. We were going to clean it today, but we stayed in San Marcos de Colon too long. 

This Wednesday we have Zone Conference with Elder Alonzo and I will be conducting the meeting! I'm not going to lie, I'm nervous. I've only conducted the sacrament meeting in Langue and that day 15 people showed up. haha  But I'm also excited for the opportunity. 

Mom, you asked about the ward building we attend. It's bigger here because it's a stake center. We have a basketball court inside. But we haven't even played yet. 

Well, I love you all so much. Thank you for everything!! :)

Love, Elder Carter

familia Tilguant

Apartment in Choluteca

Miracles

Holy wow. Much happened this week. I'll try my best to get it all in.

FIRST. We had a meeting in Tegus on Tuesday with President and the APs. That was great. They told us a little bit about how we should be teaching and also talked about a few new rules. It was all really small changes. President really stressed that we are representatives of Jesus Christ, and as that, we should look like it. He really just shaved all of us for not ironing every day and not shining our shoes. He especially made that out to us in the south. It's so dusty here, most of us don't even bother shining our shoes or really doing much for our appearance. 

After that, we stayed in Tegus for the night. We did divisions with the APs. I went with Elder Padilla and we worked in my first area. It was super cool to see a few members of my first ward and to actually be able to talk to them. haha I got to see my first ward mission leader who was super surprised to see how fat I've gotten and how well I speak. It was a great time working with Elder Padilla too. He's a super chill guy that really knows how to find people's problems in a loving way. We'll be going on divisions again with them sometime in March I think. 

On Thursday we had our District Meeting and Elder Geronimo, Forsyth, Rincon, Lozano, and I were able to teach little classes. They were about what president had told us in the meeting. I really think that we helped a lot. We talked a lot on how we can make the District Meeting more of a spiritual experience. I pretty much just gave my class on our purpose as missionaries and why we came out here in the first place. I honestly love teaching. It gets me pretty pumped to go out and work after. 

We also started divisions with Elder Lozano and Elder Salinas. That was super fun. I went out on Thursday with Elder Salinas. He's from Nicaragua and he's super super smart. He's a little too smart for these people. Well, he's a little too smart for me. Haha we were teaching and he used words that I didn't even hear in the capital. Elder Geronimo and I were trying to get him to understand that teaching should be really simple. He's struggling a little bit right now because not a lot of people understand what he's trying to say. But that's alright. When he gets called to the city, he is just going to echar fuego. On Friday I did divisions with Elder Lozano. This guy's just a riot. It was a lot of fun working with him. He really knows how to teach to understand the message. I love the way he teaches because he doesn't just teach the lesson in order. He helps them understand. Anyway, on Friday, Elder Lozano did the interviews of our two investigators and they passed. 

We had the baptisms set up for Saturday at 3. On Friday night we got Nathaly's mom's signature because she's only 15 and we were supposed to get Yoselin's, but her mom wasn't there. We made an appointment for 12 pm at Yoselin's house to get the signature...we show up and she wasn't there. She had just gone to the house of a member. So we ran to the member's house on the other side of the area. She wasn't there either!! Her job is selling clothes door to door, so the member told us that she had left ot go sell about 15 minutes before. We ran in the direction that she went but could not find her. We were looking and looking an nothing. By then, it was 2 pm and the baptism was in an hour. We had heard that the mom of Yoselin had given permission for her friend to sign the baptism record because the mom can't write, so we called president to ask him if that was fine and he told us straight up no. So, we were super bummed. Then, we received a call from president and all he said was "Pray for guidance Elders." and hung up. So we walked over to a corner and prayed. All of a sudden we felt the impression to walk to the other side of our area. As we were walking way out there, we found Yoselin eating at this small baleada stand. We asked her if her mom had a phone and she said yes. He called her mom, found out where she was, ran to go find her, and got the signature. An hour and a half later, Yoselin, Nathaly, Elder Geronimo and I were posing in white for a picture. I honestly consider this a miracle. I know that miracles happen today. I know that this is the true church, and I know that baptism is a commandment. I love this gospel so much.

I love you all for all the support you send my way. Thank you all.

Love, Elder Carter

Good night it's hot here.

Well, I've been here in Cholu for 6 days now and I have sweat so much. So the house is pretty big, but pretty 

dirty. I've been trying my best to clean it. So far we've only found one scorpion, which isn't too bad. We have 

AC, but we only can use it for about 30 minutes to chill the room out. The bathroom doesn't have a door, or 

lights. We hang up a sheet and do all out bathroom stuff in pitch black. I just hope that there won't be any

scorpions hanging out in there any time soon.

The area is great. It's really big. It's pretty poor down here though. The members always give us food, but 

usually it's just a plate with 5 tortillas and a hand full of beans. That's alright though, ]I need to lose some weight! 

We have a ton of investigators. We usually don't have time to contact because we're rushing to citas. 

This saturday we have 3 baptisms planned. One kid that 9 years old and two jovenes that are 14 and 15. They're

the best. I love going over to the 9 year old's house. That family is insane and they love the missionaries so 

much. They were inactive up until about 5 weeks ago when Elder Geronimo and his last companion started 

visiting them. Now they go to church every week and are all dressed up and everything.

The bishop is pretty...I don't really know how to describe him. He really wants to work with us, but never shows 

any emotion. When I met him, he just asked me how long I've been here and then said "Good. I don't want to 

work with new missionaries." Then started talking about some references he had for us. 

But hey! That's alright. Straight to the work. I'm in a ward right now. This sunday 130 people came. 

They say it gets up to 180 sometimes. The bishop wants to do everything, so he speaks every sunday and 

teaches both classes. He's a new bishop and I'm sure he's going to get burned out soon.

Today for PDay, we went to this place called La Peña in San Marcos de Colon. It was super nice because 

it was pretty cold. It's the top of this mountain. The only problem is that it was super windy. We tried to play 

football (Futbol americano) but it didn't go down too well. Every throw got taken by the wind. We've got some 

really great missionaries in the zone. There are 28 of us here. When I came on the mission, this zone was two. 

They took out the Zona Monjaras and put it together with Zona Porvenir, which is great honestly. 

The Monjaras missionaries are really cool.

Well, Thank you all for the letters and love you send. I'll check in next week with better news!!!

Love, Elder Carter

Porvenir

Hey Friends and Family!!!

How are you all doing? I really hope you're doing great. Wow. What a week we've had. So much has happened.

Well, for starters, I'm officially a resident of Honduras. I went on Tuesday to Migracion. That was interesting. I was getting interviews by this lady and she asked me my eye color and before I said anything, she said, "verde!" I just stared at her because no one has ever told me I had green eyes. I guess she thought I didn't understand because then she yelled, "Green!" I kind of laughed and just sai, "I think they're more blue." She looked again and said, "Oh, yes. it's because they change." So, that was a pretty funny experience. After that we got to go to Denny's! It was so nice to be able to eat a good ole American dish. 

So remember the Familia Tilguant? We found them a while ago and taught the parents and their three daughters? Anyway. We had talked to them 2 weeks ago and they told us they were just too busy to meet with us again. I was pretty bummed because the mom at first had recognized us as an answer to her prayers, but then sent us away. Anyway, on Saturday, my companion had a feeling that we should pass by their house, so we did. We just went in and chatted for a few minutes and invited them to church. They promised that they would get up and go! So the next day we were waiting at the church early and they showed up!!! Only the dad didn't make it. We showed them into the chapel and sat them up on the first row. Before they could sit down, the bishop got down from the stand and introduced himself to them, then called a couple members over to sit with them. After that, they were not alone for one second. I love this ward. After church, we talked to them and the 3 little girls told us that they had loved the classes and had made new friends. They also said that they were super excited to return next week!! We're going by their house tomorrow to talk to them about baptism and how they feel now that they've attended church.

Well, we have changes on Wednesday and they're sending me to the south. I am so excited. I've been wanting to go back to the south for a while. I'm going to Choluteca in the Zona Porvenir. My companion will be Elder Geronimo. The funny part though is that my companion, Elder Madero is staying here and Elder Marin will be his new companion. Does that name sound familiar? It should, because he was my trainer. I am really excited for Wednesday! I'll keep you guys updated with everything.

Love, Elder Carter