Welcome HOME!

Elder Ty Carter made it home safely today, Thursday May 15, 2008. Local neices & nephews were on hand to greet him at the airport. The proud parents couldn't stop smiling.

LAST Phone Call Home

As you know, missionaries are allowed to call home on Mother's Day & Christmas...so yesterday was Elder Carter's LAST phone call home...here are some highlights:

Business first, flight info? I won't know until I get to the Mission Home in Londrina on Tuesday. It's probably a Delta flight. All I know is we leave for Sao Paulo Wednesday morning & sit in the airport all day long. Then we take the "red eye" into Miami, it's about a 9-10 hr flight. From there we will probably go through Dallas or Denver. I do know that I'm the first one in my group to actually get home. I'm scheduled to arrive in Sacramento at 1:25 PM Thursday, May 15th.

What is your schedule like these next few days? I'm pretty much done - today was my last appointment. I said goodbye to the members. I got a nice thank you letter from Annie. Tomorrow (Monday) I will do my laundry & pack, then we leave for Londrina Tuesday. I have my interview with President Leal & he will give me my temple recommend before I leave. I'll get to see all the elders I came out with, that will be cool. We will be on the same flight home then we will probably go our seperate ways in Miami. Elder Riley (my roomie at BYU-I) is Assistant to the President right now. He's a good guy. I'm looking forward to seeing him & Elder Thomason & Pack. They are both from Rexburg. When Pack was younger, his home teaching companion was David A. Bednar. How many people can say they were home teaching companions with an apostle?

What do you want to eat when you get home? 7 layer dip - I've been thinking about it for weeks now. Other than that, whatever...

Are you nervous about coming home? No, I'm ready. It's gone by fast - actually the days go by slow, but before you know it, it's Sunday again - so in that case it's gone by fast.

Have you grown at all? I don't know if I've grown any taller...at one point I had gained 25# but it went straight to my stomach. Didn't get much chance to work out except with my one companion that was a fitness nut. I played basketball the other day & I dunked it...of course the rim was only about 8 1/2 feet...Brazilians are short.

What are you looking forward to most? Warmer weather. It's really starting to get cold here...it's almost winter.

What area will you miss the most? Arapangas. All the members are really nice there. Some areas are kinda snobby. Southern Brazil has bigger cities & the people are more educated & worldly. We don't baptize as many people as they do in Northern Brazil. Number wise, my mission is average, but they baptize way more in the North. Did you hear that they are building a temple in Manoas? It's right on the river. People don't take buses in the Amazon, they travel by boats everywhere. The Manoas temple will be the only temple in the world with a "port!" I had a companion from Northern Brazil & he said that it took you a day to travel downstream & 2 days to travel upstream.

What do you hear from your friends? I hear from the Maughan twins a lot. They have been out about a year now - so has Danny Beesley. Nick Ferguson comes home at the end of May, Nate Smith comes home in July, Langloy comes home in August. I haven't heard from Ricky Messman since he's been home.

Ty had a few questions for us, too. "What's the price of gas there?" Just under $4/gal, unless you drive the Infiniti - super unleaded is about $4.19-4.20/gal. (He was surprised & said it wasn't that bad in Brazil but food prices have shot up in the past few months. He says they export way more than they have to go around & the prices have gone up a lot.) He wanted to know "what cars we still had around the house?" Dad told him that we still have all the same cars around but he will have the Geo cleaned & gassed up waiting for him. He asked Terri "if there are any hot girls in our new ward?" (He said he'd already asked Mom, but didn't trust her answer.) She told him that they were all 16, too young for him. He wanted to know "what the schedule would be like when he got home?" We will have a little "greeting party" waiting for him at the airport Thursday, a family dinner Friday, leave for San Jose Saturday for his interview with President Hunter, attend Jon Hall's reception, high council report & speaking in the old home ward Sunday AM, a family luncheon at G'ma & G'pa's afterwards, dentist appointment that next week. (He said that dentist appointment was not going to be a good meeting. What he really wanted to know was if he'd have some time to hang with Steven Jensen while he was there - of course!)

Only 3 more days...yes, we're counting!!!

My LAST Zone Conference!

Elder Henrique & Me -

"The 2 'famous' Elders from Cambe that baptized the 'hottest' girl in the stake!"



Well I'm writing to you on a Tuesday because tomorrow we will have
our zone conference. So our preparation day has been moved from
tomorrow to today. Tomorrow shall be my last zone conference!!!!!
That's crazy!!!

So this last sunday Ane was confirmed and given the Holy Ghost. Everything ran smoothly. She's excited and liking everything. I heard a rumor that the bishop might give her a calling in the nursery. This worries me but I'm not the bishop here right? I just think that if you throw her in the nursery already she won't learn anything and she may feel like she goes to church to watch other peoples' kids while everyone else is learning.

We also aren't allowed back at her house. Her dad has told her that he does not wish that we return to his house. He doesn't like us at all. It's pretty sad but Ane's still hanging in there strong. I don't know if you guys over there in the states heard about this, but here they keep showing a television report that some pastor from "The Church of Jesus Christ of the latter days" (they left out saints)
had been caught for having 10 wives. (I think they've got us confused with some other church.) Then they talked a whole bunch of crap about the church. So a bunch of people have been rather rude to us and haven't been very open to our message. This report had a big part of Ane's dad not liking us. I think that he thinks that
we're here to get us a couple of wives....Satan works really hard doesn't he?

On Sunday, a lady in the ward gave a 5 minute talk. It was one of the most uncomfortable things I have ever witnessed in any sacrament meeting (except of course the time in my first area where a lady was breast feeding her kid during the sacrament.....). She gave her talk on the word of wisdom. She got up there, told the congregation about how much she hates giving talks, then she read straight up from the "gospel principles" book about the word of wisdom. It turns out that she doesn't read very well and it was sad because nobody was paying attention to her. Then after she read extremely slow, she told the congregation that she smoked for 20 years and how she used to have yellow teeth (they're still yellow by the way). Then she got down. I understand that some people are uncomfortable when it comes to public speaking, but it's not supposed to be that hard when you just read from a book. I felt bad for her.

Well that's about it. Hope everyone is good...Kaden and the Middletons and Carson and the Petersens.

laters -
Elder Carter

This Week from Cambe

I'm not gonna lie, I don't feel like writing today. This morning I wrote a few letters to mission friends. I'm pretty tired of writing letters today.

We baptized ane after church on Sunday. The bishop was the one who did it. My batteries ran out so I didn't get a picture of her in white. But she took a picture that I'll get from her on her camera. It was a very spiritual baptism. There were a ton of people there including the stake "vultures". Elder Henrique and I have become famous. "The 2 Elders from Cambé that baptized the 'hottest' girl in the stake!" There were 5 young adults from Londrina at her baptism. All this time I didn't tell you but Ane is a very good looking person. Henrique and I felt like worried parents as the stake "vultures" were surrounding her and hugging her and stuff.

I really don't want to write anymore. Next week will be a good email, I promise.

Hangin' with Mr. Cooper

This last week got really cold - stormy weather with a wind chill.
I'm not liking it but I prefer the cold than the heat. I'm using a
sweater over my white shirt. I think I'm getting a little too used to
the hot Brazilian sun that I think normal weather is cold.

Yesterday President Leal talked to us in a zone meeting. The mission
is baptizing very few people in these last couple of weeks. I feel
bad for him. He tries so hard to lead the mission but just some
missionares don't do what he says. Sometimes we think he gets a
little hard on us and he naggs on us a lot but for sure the area
president gives Pres. Leal some heat once and a while, too.

That zone meeting was in the morning. I went back to Cambe with my
zone leader Elder Cooper...he's from El Dorado Hills - CA. I'll
definately see him after the mission, but he's not going home till next
February. But he's a good guy.

That's about it for this week. Nothing much going on. Anne's getting
baptized this Sunday after church. She's perfect.

Elder Carter


Me and my mission buddy Elder Riley from AZ. He'll be my roomy this Fall at BYU-Idaho.


At the zone meeting, rocking the new suit that I bought. (Dont worry, I saved up 50 reais every month, plus the birthday money I got. It (the suit) ended up being 150 reais which is about 75 dollars.) And the sweater underneath.


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Conference

We taught Ani last Thursday, the 3rd lesson (The Principles and
Ordinances of the Gospel). It went very well. It was a very
spiritual lesson. She cried...that's good. Then we invited her to go
to conference with us on Saturday.

At conference, between the sessions, Ani went with some girls from
the stake to eat ice cream. It was cool, only they didn't come back!
Nor did Ani go to conference on Sunday. But we'll go to Ani's
house tomorrow to teach her some more. She's going to get baptized
next Saturday.

Conference was awesome! I love conference. It was cool when David A
Bednar said that missionaries aren't full-time seekers. They're
full-time teachers. The members are the seekers. I'm gonna get the
members on that one. But it's so true. I thought about it, and I've
only baptized 3 people on my whole mission through my own efforts.
ALL the rest were friends and family of the members.

I also liked Elder Holland's talk. Here in Brasil there are sooooo
many different religions and a lot of the time people stop us in the
street or let us in to their houses to "debate and argue" about stuff.
Many of them really think that the last verse in Revelations that
Elder Holland mentioned refers to the whole Bible. But Holland
explained, just as we explain, that Revelations was not the last book
written in the Bible. Many of the other books and epistles in the
Bible were written after Revelations. I've argued and discussed
other religions with other people sooo many times. I've got some
cool stories, too.

I think the coolest part of conference, for me, was when a blonde girl
randomly walked into the room where us Americans were watching
conference in English. At the end, we asked her where she was from
and she said that she's from Birmingham, England!!!!! She had a crazy
accent and didn't speak a word of Portuguese. She was visiting Brasil
with a Brazilian friend of hers who is studying in England. The
coolest part was when I asked her to say "Harry Potter." She said it
just like they do in the movies! Hahaha!

Have a good one!!
Elder Carter

My LAST Companion

Elder Evangelista was transferred to Agudos-SP. My new and LAST
companion is Elder Henrique. He's from Sao Luiz which is the capitol
of Maranhao. He's a good friend of mine. He came with me from the
MTC to the mission field. He'll go home one transfer after I do. I
attached the picture of the 2 of us that we took this morning. I
was sorry to see Elder Evangelista go. He's one of my favorite
companions.

So Ani went to church with us this Sunday. She actually ended up
going to institute Saturday night in Londrina!!! We took an 18 year
old girl from the ward with us Saturday afternoon to teach her one of
our lessons. The member asked Ani if she wanted to go with her to
lLondrina to go to institute and Ani went!!! That's the importance of
members!! Then Ani went to church with us on Sunday. She liked
church and participated and everything. She did however tell us that
her dad doesn't like the fact that we're going to their house so much she
said it'd be best for us to go just once a week. That's fine with
me. It takes us an hour to walk to her house. We're going to try to
schedule her baptism on the 19th of April. She's going to go with us
to Londrina this Saturday and Sunday to watch general conference. I
hope she likes it. A lot of people think it's weird to have living
prophets. They basically think that everything that we believe in is
weird. But Ani will see how big the church is on conference.
Correct me if i'm wrong but I believe this conference they will
announce how many people were baptized in 2007 and the current amount
of members in the world?

Other than Ani, there aren't too many interesting things going on at
the moment. It's gettin colder and colder these days. It looks like
it's gonna rain today. I think my days of walking in the Brazilian
heat are over.

I'm out -
Elder Carter

PS - I just started my last transfer....... that's so weird!


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