More miracles and progress

this week has been going amazing. Denny told us he remembered what we

mentioned about the word of wisdom and has been living it for 2 weeks

now, he gave us his cigarrettes the beginning of this week, he says

his body is miserable but he knows its the will of God, I have 2 of

them taped in my journal to remember that visit, the spirit is so

strong when we teach him, ha I didnt even know he smoked. He is the

most prepared person I have ever met,  We went to teach him tithing

and he told us he already learned about it and accepted to live the

law of tithing, we changed his baptismal date to 19 of april we might

even change it to 12. He was recieved amazingly by all members and we

have a family night with the president of the branch wed, he has read

up to alma 6 in the last 3 weeks, I tear up when we teach him because

Its such a testimony that the lord truly prepares people,

 As well the divisions with the priesthood continue to work amazingly

this divisions we left with the quorum and the 8 elders, some of which

that had to stay at our house for the night before they went to puerto

aysen. Other family came to the church for the first time and are

excited to get activated, so far I have seen 3 families and 1 member

get activated since ive been here and its so amazing to see the work

being done by the members and us together. We are excited for this

month. We have a lot of prepared people in our zone ready to get

baptized.

My comp is sweet, he is from cordoba, argentina, he is super spiritual

and a hard worker, we had the privelage to find a mother and her

daughter this week, as we taught them the restauration briefly, we

explained that the spirit brings us peace and helped them know what

they were feeling was the spirit, we asked if they would like to feel

what they were feeling forever, they agreed and accepted to get

baptized the end of april as they get to know our message more and

come to church.

We had to spend a day in aysen helping the elders move to their new

house (since their owner was having them leave and we are opening a

new sector there) but found out that the house they found wouldnt be

appropriate place to have the house so we spent the day looking for a

house as well ate lunch with the branch president there. We werent

able to find them a house but are praying they will be able to soon.

The zone had a baptizm this saturday, not going to lie it wasnt very

organized by the missionaries and we had to do help calm the nerves,

we prayed that the spirit could be there during the service and I can

tell you that each time I have seen someone get baptized the spirit

fills every part of my body, the spirit confirms to me each ordinance

that this is the way that god has revealed to have salvation.

We also are seeing more in our english class, as well we found out

that dennys sons birthday was this week so we made him no bake cookies

and he loved them! haha denny said he ate them all, thanks for the

recipe mom:)

Something really touched me this week was the prayer denny said as we

left our last visit, he said "help the missionarys have hope that in

coyhaique there will be more people that search for the truth"

This is going to be a great upcoming month, I pray each day that god

can lead us to these prepared people. Love you guys a ton,

Elder Carter

Came to church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well this week was Awesome,

Denny and other investigator finally came to church!!! and he is

progressing immensely, he is the most prepared person I have ever

taught . We really put focus on our baptismal plan with him really

letting him know what he has to do before his baptism. We have been

teaching him so much this week, he has been super busy and he has

really wanted to have time to share with us. so we had lunch with him

thursday and we talked about some commandments and as well he had so

many questions. He is already in 2 nefi 31, and told us he loved it,

he already has the strongest testimony of the book of mormon, he

wanted to talk more that day but didnt have time so he said to come by

at 9 the next night, that night we shared the plan of salvation in a

short time and he understood it all, the spirit was so strong, he

loved it, his eyes were opened to the truth and he wanted to know

more, that night we wanted to stay there longer but we had to go home,

he was bummed as well, the best part was to end he gave the prayer as

we all knelt together with his son as well, as denny began to pray his

son repeated each word, I cant lie the spirit was incredible, there

was no doubt he felt the confirmation that this is whats best for his

son. We all were teary eyed. As he dropped us off he just looked at us

so happy. The next day we had our english class which he also came to

with other investigators. It was way good, im getting better at

teaching english from all the experience of doing it over my mission

As well the divisions with priesthood have been working amazingly,

last week the president of the quorum had the idea of assigning them

to go friday and see the president of the branch in an interview,

interesting idea and it worked, as of now in just this cambio 2

families have reactivated themselves and one hermano that hadnt

assisted for 15 years is now assiting regularly, We are for sure

seeing progress here. We are excited to keep this animo going and we

are liking the excitement we see in the zone. Alto just had a baptism

and we are looking good for the next month,

We sang brillan rayos de clemencia as a priestdhood for a special

number in church and the spirit was so strong, it was cool to have 4

investigators there to feel the power of the spirit as priesthood

quorum came together, our investigators loved it. I love ending the

week dead tired, we worked hard this week. We are making home made

tortillas today for tacos with some investigators, sorry if that makes

you hungry :)

Well we found out our cambio, my comp is leaving, we worked great and

had fun together, now its time to work with my next companion from

argentina, Elder Delgado, I heard he is super awesome so im excited to

keep this momentum and bring people unto christ.In our zone they

opened a sector so we are having to buy all the supplies to put into a

house in aysen (1 hour away from our city) as well we are having 3

missionaries that are going to train in our zone so we will have some

fresh animo.

the picture ill forward you are of denny and his son.

something interesting this week was a dead dog in the street but

instead of clearing it up they just but leaves over it, as well Im not

sure if i ever told u but chile is super nuts about using oil, they

have a whole aisle in the supermercado of oil.... and i took a picture

with the guy that has his dolls in front of his house on his barbed

wire house but ill send it next week,

the gospel is true and i know it, the spirit always testifies to me.

strive to have the spirit in your lives its one of the best blessing

that god can give to us.

love you guys

Elder Carter

Awesome Week

This week ive had a small cold but I didnt let that get in the way of

the work, saturday it was pouring rain and I felt a little sick but

still left and we were able to teach a great amount as well find some

amazing people, really want to take advantage of the time we have to

get people to church and baptized and living the gospel

At the beginning of this week we had our zone capicitation, last week

was the the leadership council with president but since we are so far

away we just receive a paper of what was talked about and make due

with that haha. here in coyhaique and punta arenas are the 2 places

that dont participate. but this zone capicitation was sweet because

half of it was the training for the program of rescuiing the less

actives and finding these members. A missionary couple created it and

he was going to capicitate us via skype. so thats why I was on skype

that one night preparing it ;) haha you guys called like 10 times! ha

im sure it was mom;) but yeah that went well, the program is going to

work awesome, as we gave our capicitaion, we are stoked, we put

emphasis on using the book of mormon and with help from our zone we

created a list of questions that the book of mormon answers with quick

short answers found in the book of mormon with page numbers. as well

we made sure all our ideas come from the missionaries, and they did,

its sweet, im learning a ton of leading skills, one of the best things

ive learned is things get done and people are way more down to do

things when the ideas come from them, and Ive learned how we can

direct the discussions so that their ideas are the same desires of us

and presidents. Our zone is showing a ton of excitement we are stoked.

We had intercambios this week, I went with our district leader, Elder

Sanchez, he is from columbia, and oh we did work that day, we talked

to everyone EVERYONE (we want our district leaders to take the council

of Elder Ballard and talk to EVERYONE, if we want to teach more we

need to talk more, and you guys knowing me I love to talk to people,

in that short day we probably talked to about 50 people, as well

teaching about 6 lessons. They have some awesome people in their

sector, we taught one man that is at home in bed for a month due to an

accident, he understood the restauration perfectly, as we bore

testimony to the first vision the spirit filled the room and as we

invited this man to baptism, at first being very denying and hard

hearted, said he would as he got to know more, he told us he was

committed to listening to us, we knew he felt the spirit and we told

him that this was a commitment to god and that he must continue

studying and asking god if its true.

, the divisions with the members are being implemented in all the

branches in our district as well this week. WE also are loving the new

program  of the directions of the members combined with the list from

chiles list, we have already found so many people from it, some that

havent talked to missionaries for 15 years its incredible and we are

finding people to teach from it, it really is too easy and simple. I

love it. we are so excited to keep working with it. We will be sure to

tell you more.

This week we found a man that we taught a month ago, he is a

helicopter pilot and has lived in many parts. He speaks english

perfectly and we taught him in english, we left him with a book of

mormon, it is very very hard for him to believe that there are chosen

men from god as well as if god is loving why do people suffer. We

asked if we could show him the video "mountains to climb" by elder

henry b erying. We were praying so hard that the spirit could fill

that room, and as it ended he was speechless, the spirit was in the

room he had tears in his eyes and said "wow, last time we just talked

but this time you guys brought the presense of god this time", we

testified that that was the spirit and as we share more he would feel

that more as well take those feelings as his answer that God loves him

and has called chosen men worthy to teach us his will. He gladly

accepted our invitation to come back tomorrow.

  

We have struggled to have people in church but we continue to work

hard and know he will help these people come.

The spirit testifies of truth for sure, take care this week love you

Love you all

Elder Carter

"Weak to confound the wise"

This week was good! A little slower then normal, but we are still

finding some good people, we were happy to see that our branch is

getting excited to do divisions each week wednesdays, so we are

excited for that, it will be perfect to get the members involved with

the new program of MLS (There is a new program here in chile where

they are putting the names of MLS and putting them in a filter of the

public records that tells us where these people really live and its

way awesome! ha MLS is super disorganized here so it will be a huge

tool). We are going to try to get the rest of the branches excited to

do it as well, its amazing how putting a time set each week gets

everyone acting. In our zone our branches have so many great members

excited to help and doing things like these will be a great way to get

to know the members each week as well as a great time to have the

members invite other inactive or less active members to a family home

evening, to get the branch stronger. All members love and are always

willing to open their houses to investigators and other members so we

are excited to use the members even more. But All is well, continuing

to find and work hard. Feeling the spirit guide us, its the best.

This monday as we came back to our house a member that lives nearby

was looking for us telling us our neighbor below us was having water

falll from her roof, we got to her and she just started to freak our

on us, we were able to calm her, we went to our apt, opened the door

and the floor was full of water, luckily we just have tile so it was

easy to clean up. It was just a broken pipe in the bathroom. We were

able to fix it easy and we helped the lady dry up her house, at the

end she was very greatful for helping her. Ha maybe it happened so we

could have a chance to soften her heart with service;) I Feel bad its

so hard to write in my journal each day, Im like 2 weeks behind, I try

to write a summary in my agenda and then try to get something down,

all my mission ive been good at it til the last couple months. but

still trying to get each day something written, I love going back and

reading of what happened, ha luckily my blog can help be another

journal with some details i wouldve missed in my journal. We dont have

to much time when we have free time its pretty short.

We had some pretty sweet experiences this week, some funny as well.

I saw this one house that was super weird, it was a house completely

surrounded by bushes, like a wall of green, and it had a barbed wire

fence in the front like touching the bushes, in the barbed wire fence

it just had a ton of dolls, toys, broken keyboard, and other weird

things attached to the fence just hanging there. A guy was in the

front and I laughed and said to my companion, we so have to talk to

him, As we talked to him it was a huge suprise that he was a very

strange man;) We asked why he had all that stuff there and he told us

if kids every come by he lets them play with the toys, he thought it

was easier then to leave them in the house,  I so have to get a photo

of the house. We just started to talk to him and I new my companion

had to go to the bathroom so I thought it would be funny to enter the

guys house and try to teach him, I tolde the guy we were far from home

and my comp would love it if he could us the bathrrom, he let us in

and it was a super scary entrance, since it was covered in bushes it

was like a tunnel entering his door, then we had to walk down a long

hallway to the back where it was SUPER hot and his girlfriend was

there. We tried teaching him but he would just say inappropriate jokes

(40 year old guy) and started to smoke which in a boiling lava hot

room that made us so dizzy, so we didnt stay very long. But at least

we tried to invite him to learn more:)

We finally had the chance to meet a good amount of less active member

this week which was nice, everyone has been on vacation, the summer

weather is leaving now, ha and like all parts of chile there are 2

seasons, Summer (which lasts 1 month) and winter, so its starting to

get cold again, but just gotta put a jacket on and soon ill get

accostomed again. Everyone says coyhaique is the coldest place in all

our mission, We are in the mountains so it makes sense. But I dont

think Ill be here for winter. Maybe.

But yep, we have been using the book of mormon so much in our

conversations, the book of mormon truly can be brought up in every

conversation and the best and funnest thing to do as a missionary is

to call the attention of the people and then give them something to

test, The book of mormon is the best test we got, I still remember

when I was little I was reading 1 nephi with kristy and she explained

the stories with tons of excitement, she then told me that the truth

of these stories can be tested, after reading moroni 10:3-5 I asked

with tons of excitement of these stories that called my attention were

true. And the spirit testified that night and has ever since as I

testify of this book in chile.

God has given us something so incredible, something so convincing, and

powerful, so that we can call the attention of the world. I know

without a doubt that the book of mormon is one of the greatest tools

to fulfil what paul talked of in 1 corinthians saying

"27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound

the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound

the things which are mighty;"

Love you guys a ton, take care this week

Elder Carter

Spirit truly guides us

Hey family! wow this week went fast, even this month, Its crazy. We are always busy enjoying the mission so that must be why

Well there are tons of things that happened this week but I guess I can try to sum it up,

To start after pday monday we had to do some informes :( but then when we went to work we saw some people in the park doing slack lineing and we thought we would talk to them, when we got there we realized they were all teenagers about our age and super of the world, it was super awkward ha, my comp was going to do the slack line and did for a bit but fell bad doing it because it was such a awkward atmospher. it was just to weird the girls started like kissing their boyfriends and stuff and other girls started dancing inapprotiatley, and the guys didnt talk to us, haha so we felt super awkward and just left, then we were shocked at their behavior and we just wanted to bring the spirit haha, so we just happened to walk by the church and entered and sang a hymn  haha oh man you really dont notice the difference from worldly people and us til you get thrown into a situation uncomfortable.super greatful for the gospel. ha nothing like a hymn to get your animo going;)

We have been finding a ton of people this week! for the second time, which Is the hardest part, 2nd lessons are so much harder then firsts, because they already have a piece and its their chance to decide if they want to commit themselves more to what we offered. Taught Denny and went awesome, he got super excited about 3 nefi 11, I loved his summary of it, "Its so clear! Follow Christ, Get baptized with the authority, live it, and you got eternal life" haha he is awesome. He said without a doubt he would come to church , but unfortunately didnt come and still hasnt responded to our calls telling us why but its all good patience:).

We had some cool experiences with president rappleye this week, he got here friday and we had to coordinate a meeting at the hospital because the doctor for all of chile was here and wanted to see how the health was here, so we coordinated it, when they got here we helped them with their bags to their hotel, it was such a beautiful hotel and room, then we showed them where the hospital was, they had us go in with them and i t was so cool walking around the hospital with president, he just looks important cause he is a tall man and just looks like he has authority, ha everyone was confused to see grown men as missionaries, we entered the meeting for health and it was a cool experience to be there. Lots of stuff that goes behind mission work, im sure grandma understands thats after working for the church. As well president sent us to go buy him some soda, ha never thought i would have to call president to tell him that they didnt have his favorite soda but theres a first for everything.

The conference went really well, we did lots of practices, and repased the conference, president shared his notes, He really focused on acting, I loved it we really just need to act, we created plans of how we could get the great knowledge that we got from the conference with elder ballard and put it into action.

I loved the teachings of ballard, I just finished reading the book "Our search for happiness" written by ballard, it is a book written towards someone that wouldnt be of our faith, his insights and simple teachings are incredible, it really wants me to strive to continue to internalize the simple truths of the restored gospel.

Lastly I know that the spirit is here with us, in all aspects of the work I have felt it,

Just the other day we were knocking doors and a man let us in immediately, he was a mecanic and they told us to pass another day, the day we passed by for the second time (Sunday) he explained to us that he has never ever EVER let someone like us in before, even his wife was confused, he didnt know why he let us in, he wasnt very religions (like barely believe in god) but said he just felt like he needed to let us in, he told us he is passing for a lot of trials and he just felt that we the mormons had what he needed to find peace. He surely wasnt the type that let us in, and he even told he never would have before, but the spirit told him that we had what he needed, nothing more. Im so greatful that I can be a representative of Christs church. And I will talk to all people I pass by so that each person has the chance to feel the spirit of christ.

haha well take care love you tons, I pray always and work always so that I can make the most of the time that god has given me to do his work,

Elder Carter

PS that shark is sweet blake!!!!! where was that at? did you eat it? shark is good I hear