Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him.

Changes. 

So we had changes last Wednesday. Elder Workman is gone and fulfilling that next part of his life back home. Like I've said like a thousand times, I've learn so much from him. But, now it's time to look forward and focus on the next 6 weeks.

My new companion is Elder Villanueva. He's from Nicaragua. He's a good Elder. He likes to serve and teach the people. His teaching style is very different that what I've adopted from Elder Workman, so it's been a little rough starting. He doesn't like me teaching too much, but that's probably just what he's used to. We'll be able to come together and teach well soon. 

So the title of this email is something that Elder Workman gave to me before he left. He explained that not everyone teaches the way he does. And even though in my eyes, that's the best way to teach, we always have something to learn from others. So that's my goal this next 6 weeks, to really find what my companion have to offer. I'm sure that in 2 or 3 weeks, we'll be working very very well together. 

So this week has been a little rough with the work. We were going to baptize Mayenci, but she didn't come to church again. So we really need to buckle down with her. She's on vacation right now too, so that's a little difficult.

Okay! One of our investigators is named Olga. She's the mom of two children, Cindy and Lucia. She makes us lunch every day. We had taught her the Book of Mormon and it just didn't click with her why we needed it. We explained that it really was another testament of Christ. And that this book, like the Bible, talked of Christ and no one else. She still had questions, so we decided to watch The Testaments with her. We watched it and in the end, she was crying pretty hard. I shared my testimony that Jesus really is our Savior. And that The Book of Mormon testifies of this as well. The spirit was so strong. We invited her to read 3 Nefi 11 and we still have to verify with her tomorrow. I'll keep you updated on how it is!! 

Thank you guys so much for the scriptures, I know they're going to help so much. I love you guys!

Love, Elder Carter

Hey everyone!

I hope everything's going great back in the good old States. Here in Honduras things are amazing!! 

Actually not too much happened this week. We went to our usual citas and taught our investigators. Nothing super amazing happened this week. We've actually started dropping some of our investigators that we've taught for a while, just because they really aren't progressing. We started teaching a kid named Ariel. He's 20 and he's really just a stud. He's got a good feeling about him. He's heard a few of the lessons before, but I don't think really participated in them. Just becuase his dad has received them and his dad kind of dominates the lessons when we're there. But this week we got there a little early and got to teach him solo. That was a really cool experience because he had a lot of questions! He seems pretty postive, but we'll still have to see with him. 

We have changes coming up this week. Elder Wor...... is finishing out his mission. So we'll see this Wednesday who my new companion will be! I'm really going to miss working with Elder Wor..... though. He's an absolute stud. I've learned not only how to teach from him, but also how to appreciate the things that we have. And that we should really always be happy. Because there is always someone that has it worse than us.

I hope everyone is doing great back home. One request. If you guys could send me some powerful scriptures in the Book of Mormon, that would be great. We have this plan that we're using for all the citas we have with members. We go in and read 5-10 verses with them. That would be really great! I love you all so much! Until next week!!

Love, Elder Carter

Always check the date on your bag of milk!

Well family and friends, I'm sure you're going to love this small story. 

Saturday night we went and bought stuff to make breakfast! We justt got some oatmeal, cookies, milk, and sugar. Everything's going good and fine. Next morning I go ahead and make my oatmeal. No big deal right? Crunch up the cookies in there and pour in the sugar and milk. microwave it. Bless it. Start eating it...tastes awful. Dumb Elder Carter just thinks "I just didn't put enough sugar in!" Well, that makes sense right? I pour more sugar in and it tastes terrible. And so I just thought I'd eat it because we didn't have any other food in the house. (We live day by day from the food we buy from the pulparias because we never have time to go to the supermarket.) Anyway. I scarf it down and my comp pours a glass and drinks it and almost pukes. He makes me taste it and it was soooo bad. We looked on the bag and it had expired 5 days earlier. Aaaand yesterday we had Stake Conference, which meant that we had to take a bus for about 10 minutes to the church. Well. I'll leave the story at that. You guys probably know what happens when bad milk gets in you system...

Besides that! Great week. The only pictures I have are of the baptism we were able to have Tuesday. We baptized Daniela who is 11 and Elmer who is 8. It was so amazing. Mayenci, our other investigator was able to make it to the baptism as well as all the mutual kids. There was a lot of support for these kids there. It was super amazing. Our other investigators are doing great. They're progressing pretty well. They're all at about the same pace. We have 4 fechas for the 4th of April.

We taught Hosny again. He's progressing right along. He still has problems with the Sabbath Day, but we haven't really talked much about it. We went to Stake Conference with him and it was really cool to have him there. Our Stake Pres got released after 11 years of service! He got called at age 24. And he's pretty much going to be in the 70 one day. He's an absolute stud. But anyway. The whole meeting was pretty much everyone bearing their testimonies. The spirit was so strong. Then Elder Alonso from the 70 was there and he talk about how we need to make changes in our lives. That if families don't read the libro de mormon together...(Almost yelling) THEY WILL GET LOST IN THIS WORLD. It was an amazing meeting. And it was great that he *And Mayenci Rosi) were able to see a little of the organization of the church in that meeting.

The week has been great! I can't believe that we are a week away from changes. I've been so blessed to be able to be my comps companion. He is such a great missionary and person. He's helped me understand what it means to be a missionary and to love every single moment of the day. I love you guys so much. 

Love, Elder Carter

Happy Valentines Day!

Well, Valentine's Day for missionaries just means that we can't teach after 6 pm... Our citas all fell through that night and we tried so hard to contact but nobody was answering their door! Like they had something better to do than listen to the gospel message. But anyway! 

Okay so the family we contacted last week came to church!! It was so cool to see them there and smiling and loving it. The parents are still struggling to get married, but the daughter, Mayenci, has her date for the 3rd of March!! After church she said that she loved it so much, she wants to start attending seminary today!! 

Fabricio, the soccer player, went to church too! He got home on Saturday night at 3 and still got up at 7 and went to church! it was great seeing him there. He couldn't stay for classes, but that's alright. He told us to come over tonight though. So we'll pass by there and talk to him some more about receiving his answer. He also promised he'll be at church next week! 

We haven't found any amazing new contacts this week. But I'm really stoked for the baptism tomorrow. Daniela is so ready! Nothing crazy has happened though. I fell down a hill and scraped up my arm though. Now everyone asks me what happened and it's pretty annoying. But thank you guys so much for all the love and letters and pictures I get! You are the best. 

Love, Elder Carter

So much has happened I don't know where to start!

Well another week has flashed past. So much has happened I don't know where to start! So that baptism that I said we were going to have got changed to next week. The family couldn't make it to church, so we want to wait. They live in a place called the Tablon. It's like a 5 mile bus ride to church. So they're super faithful. We asked the dad to do the baptizing and he was a little hesitant, but when the daughter said she wanted him to baptize her, he kind of shaped up and said he'll talk with the bishop! Other than them, we're working with about 30 investigators. All of them aren't progressing, but they're at least positive. We challenged Fabricio! He said he needs to pray about it. But he continues to read the BoM. We have a lesson with him today at 6. He is just a stud though. He's real with us. He never tries to lie or anything. 

We're also teaching this part member family that we contacted. The wife is a member but hasn't been to church in a long time. The husband is super positive. He really really wants to find out if this is true. He's another guy that doesn't lie or anything. We invited him to church last week and he said yes, then didn't show up. We visited him yesterday night and the first thing he said when we answered the door was "I'm sorry guys. We didn't wake up on time." We didn't make any wild excuse, he just told us the truth. I love when people do that. Because we can always work with the truth.

But anyway, we are working with a lot of our investigators and preparing them to get baptized in the end of March. Sorry this one is so short, we need to do a lot of things today!! I love you all so much. Thanks for the support and next week we'll have a lot to talk about! 

Love, Elder Carter

Pics of apartment

I have my first baptism!

Hey mom!!

So I don´t think I´ll be able to send a fam letter home this week. Sorry. This cyber is really crappy. The keyboard barely works...

Ok! So I have my first baptism this week, but I don´t count it. She´s 11 and she had most of the lessons taught to her in Danli by other missionaries. But it goes on my record as my first. She´s a doll though. Her dad reminds me of Wyatt Argyle, my roommate from Dixie. But anyway. Other than her, we challenged two people this week, one said yes and one said no. So we´ll see how this plays out. We´re teaching this guy in 10 minutes named Fabricio. He´s super positive and he plays for the soccer team Olympia! That´s bigger than the NFL here! He also played for a Major League Soccer team in the States for a while too.

So really quick I´ll give you an update on the living quarters. We live on the second floor of a little apartment. We wash all our clothes by hand in something called a pila. We don´t have hot water in the shower, we actually have extremely cold water. So showering isn´t too fun. We have fleas in our beds and we get bit like crazy at night. But we stripped our beds and sprayed them down pretty good. We have a roof and can see the temple across the valle from it! I´ll try to take all those pictures next week. So tell Scott this part. He wanted to know about the food and I forgot to send it to him. Every morning we eat beans and eggs in a roll with mantequilla. But tell him mantequilla isn´t butter. It´s almost like sour cream. It´s a Honduran thing. And then we usually eat beans, eggs, and fried platanos for dinner. And if we´re lucky, some kind of meat.But anyway! We have to leave now! I love you so much and I´m so sorry for not writing earlier!!

Love, Elder Carter