This week in Venado Tuerto...

                                                                                                                    November 24, 2014

Dear Family:

It is getting pretty hot here!! By the time I take off my white shirt at night, it is not white anymore. I get sweaty then the dirt gets on it and it does not stay white. We moved our beds around in the pension to the coolest part which was a good idea!

This week was good!!  It was hot, but we worked hard.  None of our investigators came to church this Sunday which was super super disappointing!! I don’t know how to get them to church. We even walked like 30 minutes before church to pick them up, but they were sleeping!! It’s pretty frustrating, but it’s okay. One of these days!

We dropped a few of our investigators this week because they weren’t progressing. It was hard but we can’t waste our time.  We have a couple new ones that seem really good! Next week, one of our investigator families is feeding us “asado” which is flipping awesome!! It’s like a barbecue, but better! This family seems pretty interested, the only problem is that they LOVE tattoos!!! They spent like 30 minutes showing us different drawings, but I think it will be okay! Anything is possible!!

We did service this week for a “menos active” (less active) family. We helped them build part of their house. They asked us to be at their house by 5:30 am but, as you probably would have guessed, we didn’t start until like 8! I could have got so much more sleep!!! Ha-ha, but its okay. We worked all morning mixing cement and stuff.  It was good!! I actually enjoyed it!! Afterwards, they fed us “churry pan” which is like sausages but better! Ha-ha, it was really good!!  We got back to the pension and we super tired! But it felt great!!

The family that is super poor, that need to take out” turno” in order to be married, fed us this week! I felt very humbled because it’s hard for them to feed their family, let alone us. But they made a really yummy meal! It was meat and empanadas. I really liked it and was grateful for their sacrifice. The only hard part was that since they don’t live in the city, the water they gave us made me want to throw up! It was so gross! Ha-ha, but it’s okay!!

Nothing super cool happened this week.  Hopefully this next week we will have more investigators at church. We are running super low on money, so this week we will probably be eating cereal all week. Hopefully lots of members feed us!! Ha-ha!!  We have like 100 pesos left which is equivalent to 10 dollars! Ha-ha, we will see how it goes!!! But, all in all, it’s been great!!

I love you guys! Thanks for everything!!

 

Elder Carter

We found this cool train track surrounded by trees

Looks so cool!

 

Building part of a house

Great food after our service project

Enjoying ice cream for lunch!!

I made this backpack myself! Good thing Bita taught me how to sew!

Nice and hot here!!

 

Working hard!

 

McDonald's, a new schedule, and a new investigator!!

                                                      November 18, 2014                                                                             

 

Hi guys!

 

No transfer for me or my companion this month!! I just found out I get to Skype with you on Christmas!!!! So that will be fun!

 

Mom asked for something in Spanish. Here goes:

 

Nosotros tienemos mucho investigatores, pero la problema es que nunca quieren asiste la iglesia! mi districto tenine 6 missionarios y 2 se va este translado. no conozco ellos muy bien perro el nuevo missionaries van a ser muy bien. ellos van a tranier. (they are being trained so I won’t speak the worst Spanish in the district anymore!! )

 

Translation: We have lots of investigators, but the problem is that they have not been to church yet. My district has 6 missionaries and 2 are being transferred this week. I don’t know the m very well. We are getting new missionaries to be trained. That will be great!! Then I won’t speak the worst Spanish.

 

Miss you guys tons too! But the time is going by surprisingly fast!! Mom asked me about some of our mission purchases. All the music stuff is very very helpful!! It’s super nice!! I like it! That was a really good purchase. The worst purchase was probably the rain boots... ha-ha! My self-confidence kicked in and there is no way I am going outside wearing those things unless there is a flood, but even then I don’t know. Ha-ha, but I thought I would use them, but I guess not!

 

Well I was going to write my whole email about my experience at McDonalds this week, but I decided that you would probably not like that a ton. But we went there after” tramites” in Rosario. Ha-ha, it was very yummy! It was a nice taste of home, but all in all, it is not the same as in Canada!!! 

 

I am still working on getting used to some things that are very different from home. Sometimes, the sanitary conditions I find myself in are not the most desirable ones! I just close my eyes and muster it out or drink up!. I have a feeling Heavenly Father is protecting me from all the crazy diseases I should be getting!! Ha-ha, so watch out when I come home I probably won’t want to clean anything because I won’t even notice it anymore!! Haha!!

 

Okay, this week we received a schedule change!! We now wake up at 7 and are in bed at 11! It’s pretty awesome!! Cause everyone is out way late in the summers!! Ha-ha I sure like sleeping in until 7 though!!!

 

This Sunday we only had one investigator at church and we went and picked her up. But it is frustrating cause we have 10 with baptism dates but we need them to come to church first!! They all say that they just sleep in and forget or something. It’s awful here!! Church starts on time but nobody shows up till later anyway!! 

 

We are teaching one guy, Gabriel is his name, and he lives in a room about 8 ft. long and 6 ft. wide. It is just barely big enough to fit a bed and a chair. So when we teach him me and my companion sit on the bed and he sits on the chair! But he is super excited so it’s awesome!! He is supposed to get baptized on Dec 6!!

 

C and V,  the people that are giving up the salary are kind of putting off going to get married. I am not sure why, but it is tough. I think they really are worried about their money. But they want to get baptized it is just hard for them!!

 

Daniel and Vanessa are doing okay. Vanessa’s mom is an evangelic and she saw us one day at their house and talked to Vanessa so she was not present at our last lesson. But he works on Sundays, which sucks, but it’s all good!! 

 

Those are some of the investigators I have shared with you before.  Some of the people we are talking to are “if-y” so I don’t want to write about them just yet! But we should have lots of baptisms this transfer!!

 

Love all you guys!!!!

 

Love,

 Elder Carter

 

Loving it here!!

November 10, 2014

Hey guys!!

 

I love you guys! Thanks for all the letters and stuff! Thanks for everything!! All of those funny sacrament meeting clips you sent me mom were super funny!!! I look forward to Mondays to hear from you guys! All the other days’ just seem the same. Every week I look forward to receiving and writing letters! I also have to write the president every week in Spanish. I don’t need to pre-write it in Spanish anymore!!  I can just do it as I’m sitting in front of the computer. We usually get an hour and a half to write, so I usually have enough time.

 

 I am really enjoying it here!! I am getting used to the life style and everything! I love it here! Next week is transfers, so I won’t be writing you guys until Tuesday. So, I didn’t die if you don’t hear from me Monday, Mom. I don’t think me or my comp will get transferred!

 

Elder Stanworth and I are working pretty hard... Or at least I think so! No baptisms yet, but we have 9 committed for December, it’s just a matter of them attending church and following through! Okay so that guy we found at like 8:45 last Sunday, yeah he’s actually crazy so we could not teach him. He does not know what we are talking about! Ha-ha lol! But Daniel and Vanessa, the family that we found last week, are doing awesome! We left them with a Book of Mormon and told them to pray about it. So, we will call tonight to see how that went. The family that is committed to getting married and will lose the salary as a result, have been putting if off forever! They finally went this week which was super good! So good!!

 

This week the AP’s came down and did splits with my companion and I. I went with Elder Muniz, from Brazil! He is a super good missionary!!! Elder Muniz and I did a really good job! He’s and awesome elder!

 

The next day we did divisions within our district!  I went to the other Elder’s pension and was there for the night. Man, our pension was about 100 times better than theirs!! They (and me for the night I stayed) have to take bucket showers! Ha-ha, it was freezing, lol!! But it’s okay! We taught a bunch of lessons and I did a lot of teaching that day! So that was good! I can teach all the lessons and kind of say what I want now, but other than lessons, Spanish is still a little challenging!

 

The biggest challenge here is that nobody likes to keep commitments. They say they are going to come to church, “si, si”, but they never end up showing up. It sucks. Ha-ha, but that’s something we will have to work on! That’s the problem with investigators here. Some of the challenges with the “menos activos” (less actives) is that they are casual in their church attendance. They wear the garments and keep the commandments, but they just don’t go to church because they sleep in or are running late…

 

We had zone conference this week with the president which was good, from what I was able to understand!! It was good to have him talk to us! Oh, and the food here is super yummy! I still think I am losing a little bit of weight, but man I eat a lot at lunch appointments!!! They can cook some good food!! They always have the best fresh bread sitting out! So, it’s really hard not to eat that!! lol!! But yeah, when we do have lunch appointments it’s delicious!

 

Tonight my companion and I have to go to Rosario (the mission home) for some visa stuff for me, so we will be sleeping there tonight! It should be good! Last night it rained again, which sucked, but we found 4 new investigators in the last 10 minutes! It always happens at the end of the night!! Every time!!!

 

Things are really good with Elder Stanworth!! We get along super awesome!! When we went on divisions this week, I was with  another missionary and man,  was I glad to get back to Elder Stanworth!! It wasn’t that bad, but i just like Elder Stanworth a lot better! lol!!

 

 

I love you guys!!

Elder Carter

 

 

This picture was taken at the MTC. Argentina and Paraguay have 13 missions!!!

Multitasking - studying while cooking (what's with the head lamp, Elder Carter?)

Having me some yummy chunky Argentine pudding :)

 

Rainy Day Blessings

November 3, 2014

Hey!

 

 I just sent a ton of pictures! I hope you like them all! Ha-ha, I love you!! It was actually pretty rainy here this week, so you guys weren’t suffering in the cold alone! Yes mom, the ¨We can do it!” theme is a big thing in our mission because I guess a lot of missionaries think that this mission can’t baptize very well. Our investigators are good. We have got a few who have committed to a baptismal date later in the month, but the problem with people here is they never follow through... with anything,  like sometimes it is hard to find them when we book appointments cause they just are not home!  The members are pretty good to us. We only have about 5 families on our side of the boundary, and the other elders have a ton, but the families are awesome!! We have lunch with them only three days a week and all the meals I have eaten have been super good! They love having bbqs with tons and tons of meat. We went to one of those, and man it was yummy! They had like ribs and sausages and all sorts of meat! They also make this pizza with eggs and bacon on it, it is pretty good! So the members on our side are treating us pretty good. It is a little hard to communicate with them though for me cause I don’t know a ton of Spanish.

 

Okay, for the weekly update! It was a normal week and everything was good! I am liking it here more every day! I am just getting more comfortable with the language and the culture and all! So, on Thursday this week, it started raining! It has been raining every day since, which has been super annoying! Argentines are funny with the rain. They don’t do anything when it rains. It’s like there is a blizzard and they can’t get out of their house. It makes missionary work pretty hard! But, also when it rains, they make this good scone thing, called “torta fritas.”  On Saturday we knocked on a door in the freezing cold rain and some guys gave us one! It was so good and warm!! Ha-ha, it was soo nice! Anyway, after we had been working all day in the freezing cold rain, it was like 7:00 pm and most of our appointments had fallen through so we went contacting. About an hour into it, we were walking down the street and we were turning into an alley where the really poor people live. I told my companion that we should knock on the door across the street.  I only suggested that because I didn’t want to walk down the scary alley. Plus there looked like there was a ton of scary looking guys there. Ha-ha! Anyway, there was this family that let us in and we taught the whole first lesson with them!! They let us in with our muddy shoes and everything. They were super receptive and think that they will get baptized!!! Awesome, huh! Ha-ha- my companion thought I was awesome since he thought I felt that we should go to this house, but the truth was that I just didn’t want to walk down the other road( lol).  Maybe that’s how the spirit works sometimes. Their names are Daniel and Vanessa  and we have another appointment next Sunday. I hope it goes well. When we were leaving she said that it wasn’t by chance we stopped by, at least that’s what my companion said, ha-ha, because I didn’t understand it!

 

So, that was a rainy story. I have another one. Oh, but first let me tell you that when it rains here, not even the members go to church. I guess I can see why. You have to walk through mud to get there and most people don’t have cars. The church was in low attendance last Sunday which was kind of a bummer and we had no investigators there!! Oh, well! Anyway, later that night when it was time to go out and work we wanted to reach our goal of teaching 40 lessons for the week. We had 35 and like 3 hours to get 5 more in. We went out and all of our appointments cancelled on us. Oh, and it was freezing and pouring rain that day!!! So, we contacted for the last three hours. It was 8:30 pm and we were just finishing up the fourth lesson! We were freezing!! At the end of the lesson, this guy gave us a nice warm “torta frita!” It was God sent! It was warm and everything!! Man, it was soo good!! Anyway, it takes about 30 minutes to walk back to the pension, but we really wanted to get another lesson in. We could have gone back to the pension right then, but we decided to keep working, except we had to be back in the pensions at 9:30 pm. Well, it was like 8:45 and we knocked on this door. I don’t know why, but we did. An old man answered the door and I guess he has read the Book of Mormon and has a burning testimony but just hasn’t had to opportunity to get baptized!! So, we got him a baptismal date!! It was crazy!!! Because we put the extra effort into finding that fifth lesson, we were blessed with finding someone ready for baptism!! If we had gone back to the pension, that would not have happened!! Ha-ha, we got rewarded for working in the pouring rain!!  It was sweet!!! It wasn’t by chance that we found that guy, that’s for sure. It’s because we were willing to work hard. Pretty good feeling!! We are meeting with him tomorrow.

 

Well, my time is almost out, but this week we did have lunch at a member’s house and they made a big meat thing- it was soo good!! I was so full at the end but it was pretty awesome!! Ha-ha- I am liking it more and more here every day! Thanks for everything! Keep me posted on what’s going on at home!

 

I love you guys!

 

Elder Carter

 

 

On the bridge we cross everyday

Off to teach, with Elder Stanworth!

Our yummy Thursday sandwiches!!

Feeling happy!

A little wet!

Getting warm with hot chocolate!

My new $11 "toms" made in Argentina